Needing help for Gestalt Lv 20 NPCs.

[A_bad_DM]

First: All books are allowed except for Dragon Magazines and Psionics related material(If there's psionic stuff in a book, these parts are ignored. If the book has psionic in its name, the book is completely ignored.)

This game is held in a world of my creation where there are floating islands a bit everywhere. They don't usually move but if someone pushes them hard enough, they could. Of course, there are big space where you can't see or find anything for miles around, as you would in the center of an ocean. Most of the planet disappeared a millenia ago when Kobolds failed a ritual to get rid of the other races. The Kobold are still the strongest being in this world but they are mainly at war with each others due to different views from the kobold factions. If the characters try to interfere, those NPCs are planned out already. Otherwise, the PCs' goal seems to be to go back to their own worlds.

Here is a list of possible BB[E]Gs the characters of my game might face. The thing is, I would like them to be optimized in a way that would allow them to not be steamrolled by a group of 4 Gestalt PCs of level 20*. I'm not asking you to make all of the characters' stats but if you could at the very least propose interesting classes for the characters from which I could try and build up, it would be nice of you. Of course, if you want to put more time into it and actually stats them out, I'm not against this either.

Consider that they do not really have a money limit have twice as much money as a character of their level and so, all of them likely will have items of +6 to all stats and 5 stat points from wishes also(The wishes are free though).

All must be human, they can have template.

Chaotic Good:
Lv 20 Gestalt rogue-ish character(Based on Quiet Murder from WotC boards)
Lv 15 Gestalt Musician character. Should be able, if it's possible within the rules, to play the violin non-stop for three days in the middle of a village well enough so that most of the population would be around her on the third day, just to listen to the finale.

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Silverbrow Human Bard 10/Seeker of the Song 5||Fighter 4/War Chanter 10/Fighter 1
STR: 8/-1 || 11/+0
DEX: 14/+2 || 20/+5
CON: 10/+0 || 13/+1
INT: 16/+3 || 19/+4
WIS: 10/+0 || 13/+1
CHA: 21/+5 || 32/+5

Feats:
Lv.1 Skill Focus(Perform(Singing))
Lv. [H] Weapon Focus(Rapier)(Might be wrong, it's "Rapière" in French)
Lv. [F1]Combat Expertise
Flaw#1 Nymph's Kiss
Flaw#2 Word of Creation
Lv. [F2]Weapon Finesse
Lv. 3 Dragonsong
Lv. [F4] Improved Initiative
Lv. 6 Dragonfire Inspiration
Lv. 9 Melodic Casting
Lv. 12 Lingering Song
Lv. 15 [Needing one more feat here OR could remove a flaw]

Vest of Legends(DMGII p. 272): Bardic Music is treated as five levels higher
Badges of Valor (MIC p.208): +1 on Inspire Courage Bonus
Custom Item: +30 to perform(Singing)
Eager Rapier of Warning +5

Flaws could be:
Noncombatant
Slow
Vulnerable

Lawful Good:
Lv 20 Gestalt Paladin of bahamut, must be good at reading people's emotions, fight with a hammer-like weapon(As big as possible) and not really use a mount. He's good at jumping(Well, landing anyways). He should also be in full plate or something close to it. Would be nice if he could have a strenght of 32 or higher.

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Human
Sorceror[20]||Paladin[20]

Lv 15 Gestalt king. This character is old and he has an excellent memory. He knows every member of his army by heart, as well as all traditions of his country.

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Quorbred Human
Rogue 8/Jordain Vizier 5||Factotum 15

Chaotic Evil:
Lv 20 Gestalt mounted character. This is kind of hard to explain... He has a special mount(DM creation, it's actually easy to get this in this world) that allows him to fly really fast and not need to care about air friction against himself. It's sort of like a bicycle that can fly not yet at sound speed but for the sake of rules, let's say it's as fast as a Phantom Steed casted by a level 20 spellcaster. Of course, since it's actually a machine, it doesn't ever disappear. Other than that, he should be quite cunning and have good charisma
Lv 15 Gestalt king, unlike the other one, this king is just a brute used as a puppet by the other CE character.

Lawful Evil:
Lv 20 Gestalt Drylich. This character has lived for over a thousand years, preparing itself to as many eventuality as possible, possesses its own demi-plane, to which there is a portal in the middle of a city. He's the judge and ruler of the city and uses convicted people as experiment materials to try and learn more. It's only real purpose in life is to learn as much as possible but he doesn't care about the means, so long as it's legal. He also tries to keep relations with the other cities as calm, because a war would only be a loss of ressources to him.

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Drylich
Cleric[2]/Walker in the Waste[10]/???[8]||Wizard[20]?
Maybe Archivist[1]/WitW[10]/Archivist[9]||Wizard[20]?

*Here are the characters approximative classes.
-Artificer/dread necromancer with 54 points buy equivalent stats.
-Paladin/warmage with 56 points buy equivalent stats.
-Dragon Shaman/Summoner(Yes, the class from Pathfinder. Spells are limited to 3.5 except for what doesn't exist in 3.5, like the actual Eidolon and Eidolon related Feats) with 56 points buy equivalent stats.
-Warblade/Crusader with 57 points buy equivalent stats.

I know you'll say this is ridiculous for stats, but all stats were rolled in front of me and I'm not the kind of DM to reduce the characters' strenghts if they were that lucky. No instead I make the NPCs stronger~

When I actually get to a point where the PCs could read it and it wouldn't change a thing, I'll post the game's summary in the right sections for it so look forward to it~

If you need anymore details, please ask me.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

Chaotic Evil:
Lv 20 Gestalt mounted character. This is kind of hard to explain... He has a special mount(DM creation, it's actually easy to get this in this world) that allows him to fly really fast and not need to care about air friction against himself. It's sort of like a bicycle that can fly not yet at sound speed but for the sake of rules, let's say it's as fast as a Phantom Steed casted by a level 20 spellcaster. Of course, since it's actually a machine, it doesn't ever disappear. Other than that, he should be quite cunning and have good charisma

Lv 15 Gestalt king, unlike the other one, this king is just a brute used as a puppet by the other CE character.

How kaboom do you wanna go?

Side A:  PLZbreakmycampaign has the Superest Super Mount build.  idk how well it works with CE, but Black Dragons are CE.

Side B:  iirc deathwishjoe back in the day has/had the Effigy Master semi-loop, which is still ridiculous without any looping.  Add in a Major Bloodline to gain the few feats, and a handwavey Wish merge between the Mount + Effigy; or a Fusion + PAO, and a custom item against those being dispelled.  Might then have a few feats leftover for flavor.

And then dial the whole thing back a bit, so the PCs don't auto-die on round 1.

Leadership gets the "king" (ho-hum).  Aristocrat 15 / Adept 15 with most of DavidWL's Commoner20 build tacked on.  I've got a flying castle because I'm the king.

[A_bad_DM]

Well, I just looked up those builds and ideas. I'm surprised to have received an answer so early by the way, thanks!

The problem with Side A is that the character's mount is actually already decided to be a flying machine that's original of this setting(My own setting). Having a Colossal+ Black Dragon could be interesting but I'm not sure I could do that... Maybe, but I'm not sure. I'll look it up again eventually. I would need to change the race though since it must be human and if that puts too big a dent in the build, then I would have to find some other solution.

Side B, well I wasn't able to find anything about a loop from deathwishjoe. I was able to find the stacking of template on an effigy though and I think I could work something out with this.

Thanks again!

As for the king... Hehehehe~

I guess I really am A_bad_DM for putting this in my game. Of course I'll tone it down first though, wouldn't want to just wipe the players off the table.

As for how "Kaboom" I want to go, I guess as Kaboom-ey as I can without making sure I get a party wipe event. The players are ingenuous and they have some crazy stats but they don't optimize nearly enough.

Thanks again for answering me! I should be back to look for answers by monday and then by next friday!

[awaken_D_M_golem]

Lawful Good King ... there's a few threads around here
with Jordan Vizier in it.  That's where the last batch of
memory based yack-fests happened.  The various things
a really good memory do, reach levels of Divinations.
Of course said King wouldn't be at Wizard tier, but
PCs and monsters wouldn't know wtf just happened.

[A_bad_DM]

I know I might be asking for much, but after looking around, I can't seem to find any member by the name of Jordan Vizier nor any other thread than this one with this name in it. I was wondering if you could help me locate the threads you were talking about.

EDIT: And~ nevermind... I just realized I had to be in the forum's main page to make a search that was effective. I was basically looking inside my thread.

EDIT 2: Well, looked it up and Jordain Vizier does seems like a truly interesting prestige class to give such a character.

For now, I was thinking of this for the build:
Quorbred Human[2 LA template](Simply ignoring all that have to do with Psionics on the template)
Rogue[8]/Jordain Vizier[5]||Factotum[15], Mostly upgrading his intelligence and knowledges while making sure to meet the prerequisites for Jordain Vizier(Except lore requirements, those can be ignored since this is a made up setting. The players are allowed the same thing too.)

[CaptRory]

There are some class combinations I've always wanted a chance to run as a gestalt or multiclassed, maybe something will give you a bit of inspiration.

Bard/Fighter or Bard/Ranger dual wielding war fans.

Sorceror/Favored Soul

Ranger/Rogue dual wielding Kukri or something equally awesome.

Barbarian/Cleric

Assassin/Bard (Either with the class or something thematic that fits/works better)

Paladin/Sorceror


Some of these wouldn't work very well, they wouldn't be very optimal, but they always looked really fun.

[A_bad_DM]

I like the idea of Paladin/Sorceror for the paladin of Bahamut, as long as he concentrates his spells on buffing/debuffing.
That would help with the idea of the crazy strenght and give him a reason for having more charisma, making him a better general.

Updated the first post with class ideas for now~

[nijineko]

First: All books are allowed except for Dragon Magazines and Psionics related material(If there's psionic stuff in a book, these parts are ignored. If the book has psionic in its name, the book is completely ignored.)

why?

[awaken_D_M_golem]

DavidWL has a Jordan Vizier build here:
http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=1581.msg14975#msg14975
... easily hackable for what you want.

[A_bad_DM]

First: All books are allowed except for Dragon Magazines and Psionics related material(If there's psionic stuff in a book, these parts are ignored. If the book has psionic in its name, the book is completely ignored.)

why?

Because I never saw psionics used in a game and I do not want to look through the whole book to understand how it's played. Most of my players who have seen psionics in games have had bad experiences from this and agree wholeheartedly anyway. As for the Dragon Magazines, it's because I do not want to have to look them up to find the exact wordings when a player come to me and ask me if he can take feat "x" but doesn't know the exact way it functions(It happens to me more often than you'd think.)

DavidWL has a Jordan Vizier build here:
http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=1581.msg14975#msg14975
... easily hackable for what you want.

This looks interesting. "Feat" rogue comes from UA, right?
So with Factotum on one side, Able learner can be replaced with Leadership by moving some feats around...(In case it wasn't obvious, I love the factotum class in Gestalt games)

It's JordaIn Vizier by the way

Thanks for the help!

[Nezkrul]

Chaotic Good Musician-

If you want him to stay awake and playing a violin for three days straight, it would either require crazy high fortitude saves or endurance checks to stay awake, immunity to fatigue/exhaustion, or a race other than human

So, I suggest the following-

Bard 6 / Lyric Thaumaturge 10 (complete mage) // Sorcerer 10 / Half-Elf Paragon 3 / Human Paragon 3 (paragons are in unearthed arcana and are not PrC's, but racial classes)

Race- Half-elf, wearing Armor of the Unending Hunt (Arms and Equipment Guide; gives immunity to fatigue and exhaustion); everything else as you want for the guy

Feats and Equipment suggestions- other than Melodic Casting-  Lingering Song, Skill Focus (perform stringed instruments), Versatile Performer (makes it so you only need to put ranks in ONE perform skill, and you never need ranks in Concentration due to melodic casting), Practiced Spellcaster (sorcerer) (sets CL to 16 since you only gave up 3 CL for paragons), Extra Music (if needed), Ring of Sustenance (so you don't need to stop to eat or drink or deficate during the performance), Clear Spindle Ioun Stone (so you don't need to breathe during the performance), Reserve feats of your choice, etc.

[nijineko]

First: All books are allowed except for Dragon Magazines and Psionics related material(If there's psionic stuff in a book, these parts are ignored. If the book has psionic in its name, the book is completely ignored.)

why?

Because I never saw psionics used in a game and I do not want to look through the whole book to understand how it's played. Most of my players who have seen psionics in games have had bad experiences from this and agree wholeheartedly anyway. As for the Dragon Magazines, it's because I do not want to have to look them up to find the exact wordings when a player come to me and ask me if he can take feat "x" but doesn't know the exact way it functions(It happens to me more often than you'd think.)

psionics - fair enough for the first part. too bad about those who have had bad experiences. as for myself, i rarely play anything but psionics in d&d. it's basically modeled on the spell point system from unearthed arcana. then again, i'm used to being the dm's reference book for psionics in any group i play in.

i have a long standing rule that they are allowed to use anything that they are willing to buy me the source of. if it is free (such as dragon mags being released to the internet archive a while back) they provide me a copy of the source, or a copy of the page. once i have a legal copy in my hand, i'll rule on it, as i typically allow anything offical except for "excessively aligned" material. and that is also the only way to get third party stuff into my games.

if you ever reconsider on the psionics, let me know. i've had practice explaining it and breaking it down for ease of understanding.

[A_bad_DM]

Chaotic Good Musician-

If you want him to stay awake and playing a violin for three days straight, it would either require crazy high fortitude saves or endurance checks to stay awake, immunity to fatigue/exhaustion, or a race other than human

So, I suggest the following-

Bard 6 / Lyric Thaumaturge 10 (complete mage) // Sorcerer 10 / Half-Elf Paragon 3 / Human Paragon 3 (paragons are in unearthed arcana and are not PrC's, but racial classes)

Race- Half-elf, wearing Armor of the Unending Hunt (Arms and Equipment Guide; gives immunity to fatigue and exhaustion); everything else as you want for the guy

Feats and Equipment suggestions- other than Melodic Casting-  Lingering Song, Skill Focus (perform stringed instruments), Versatile Performer (makes it so you only need to put ranks in ONE perform skill, and you never need ranks in Concentration due to melodic casting), Practiced Spellcaster (sorcerer) (sets CL to 16 since you only gave up 3 CL for paragons), Extra Music (if needed), Ring of Sustenance (so you don't need to stop to eat or drink or deficate during the performance), Clear Spindle Ioun Stone (so you don't need to breathe during the performance), Reserve feats of your choice, etc.

Well, it really has to be human as the character already appeared in front of the players, and recently too, but other than that I'll look this up. Thank you for the feats, I've never had much experience with musical characters so that will definitely help.

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First: All books are allowed except for Dragon Magazines and Psionics related material(If there's psionic stuff in a book, these parts are ignored. If the book has psionic in its name, the book is completely ignored.)

why?

Because I never saw psionics used in a game and I do not want to look through the whole book to understand how it's played. Most of my players who have seen psionics in games have had bad experiences from this and agree wholeheartedly anyway. As for the Dragon Magazines, it's because I do not want to have to look them up to find the exact wordings when a player come to me and ask me if he can take feat "x" but doesn't know the exact way it functions(It happens to me more often than you'd think.)

psionics - fair enough for the first part. too bad about those who have had bad experiences. as for myself, i rarely play anything but psionics in d&d. it's basically modeled on the spell point system from unearthed arcana. then again, i'm used to being the dm's reference book for psionics in any group i play in.

i have a long standing rule that they are allowed to use anything that they are willing to buy me the source of. if it is free (such as dragon mags being released to the internet archive a while back) they provide me a copy of the source, or a copy of the page. once i have a legal copy in my hand, i'll rule on it, as i typically allow anything offical except for "excessively aligned" material. and that is also the only way to get third party stuff into my games.

if you ever reconsider on the psionics, let me know. i've had practice explaining it and breaking it down for ease of understanding.

Well, I would love an explanation on psionics if you can make it short and simple, but I still can't put it in this game as it has been forbidden to the players by the majority rule. If you could please send the explanations via private message to not clog up the thread, it would be appreciated!

PS: I should soon post in the first part of the summary in the appropriate section of the forum. When it's done, I'll put a link to it in the first post of this thread!

[Nezkrul]

charisma based character with max ranks in disguise, or a simple alter self spell can "appear" to be human despite being half-elf -- maybe he is uncomfortable with others knowing he isn't a "pure-blood"

[A_bad_DM]

Sorry for the "Necro", but here's a review of stuff that happened up until now.(I would have posted earlier, but my studies and the game prep took all of my time and attention.)

I have kept the bard human, but used your trick Nezkrul for another character in the same city(The players seem to be unwilling to go explore the evil continents and have nothing to do in the lawful good continent anymore.)

The new character is a level 10 swordsage|rokugan ninja(With some other stuff, I do not remember the build by heart) catfolk, disguised as a human.

Sadly enough, the players did not kill one of the NPCs they should have killed so I'll have to prepare a huge undead army for a necromancer :S

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Speaking of your undead minions, let’s go through your methods of control. You rebuke with a +16 check as a 24th level necromancer and an 18th level cleric. You animate as a 20th level necromancer with Undead Mastery and a 14th level cleric; both benefit from the Deathbound domain. You also have Bone March, which operates off of your 10 Bone Knight levels. Put it all together and you get, using the format of Total HD (most powerful single undead), you get necromancer rebuke 24 (12), necromancer magic 360 (60), cleric rebuke 18(9), cleric magic 56 (42), and Bone March 40 (10), for a grand total of 498 total HD under your control at once. Oh, and that’s without the Rod of Undead Mastery, which doesn’t care how you brought them under your control – this raises it up to 996 HD of undead at once, with some of them up to 60 HD if you try right (Naturally, you'll use your Deathbound spells on the highest HD undead you've got.) It’ll get expensive in terms of onyx though. (Hint: If you wind up zombifying a peasant to send a message to the others, don’t release the zombie – giving it basic orders of “Bring me onyx!” might not be a bad call. Your intelligent Karrnathi undead, if you choose to make them instead of just shunting other undead to Bone March, can also Aid with Craft or Profession checks 24/7 to start raking in cash for more onyx – though you probably want to set them up *behind* the factory’s closed doors to avoid scaring the customers.) http://community.wizards.com/content/forum-topic/3458061

If you have any idea on this, do not hesitate, I'll be glad to hear it.

Next... The players defeated a Titan sized Tarrasque(Immortal Handbook Bestiary gave the stats mods to make anything bigger) by requesting the help of the bard and the rogue-ish character. I may have made mistakes during that fight, but the bard had three songs going(Lingering songs) including one that added sonic damages to the players' attacks and one of the player had tons of attacks per round, so this made a huge difference. Since the rogue-ish character was there, the bard also used a song to give everyone her(The rogue) BaB(20/15/10/5).

I completely forgot to tell you that the paladin/warmage was replaced by an alchemist(Pathfinder)||Monk with vow of poverty, I've let him have his alchemist stuff with the vow, since it's not something anybody else can use and thus, it has no direct value. It'll only make him stronger and let him help people easier.(That's what the character believes anyway.)

I should post the Bard's build soon as I get back during the week-end.

EDIT:
There, Bard's build is up BUT:

I just noticed I crossed Prestige Classes for 4 levels, but I could have stopped War Chanter at level 5 and SotS at 2, then I would have to verify what this results in, but I don't have the time to do it right now. See you all next week-end!

[nijineko]

thanks for the update! =D look forward to hearing more.