Stats for Jon Irenicus needed

[Braininthejar]

As some of you may remember, I have been making a campaign based on Baldur's Gate series and it looks like the party can actually make it to part 2.

So, I will need Jon Irenicus and my search of the web didn't bring anything satysfying. Would anyone feel like trying to tackle this one?

A quick refresh of what is needed (for those who played it years ago, and those too young to have played it).

1 Male wizard or sorcerer (see below) of epic levels

2 human - no human bonuses ( he was born an elf, but after he tried to abuse the spiritual link elves have to their gods to become a god himself, he was "dis-elved" as a punishment. The inability to feel emotions like elves do is doing wonders to his sanity...) - however, at his level he may have used magic to give himself some serious bonuses. He looks quite buff for an arcane caster.

3 either a sorcerer or some variation of a wizard independent from spellbook/components - at one point in the story he busts out of a high security wizard prison and he is instantly able to fight at full power. Prestige classes - whatever fits logically.

4 Skills-abilities needed: spells and skills useful for torture/unethical experiments (he has a huge necromantic lab dedicated to golem making, cloning and similar stuff, up to and including splicing souls, which is key to his plan. He also needs some item creation feats as he likely built the equipment himself, including the golems and a couple of permanent portals)

5 Plot important spells: something to take characters out without killing them (something that can make a 12 level party shut up and sit down while stuff happens - almost everything else may be bypassed but two important scenes must happen as written)  a custom-made improved geas, a teleport spell, enough defences that he can keep monologuing without being interrupted by grapples, etc (my players' default strategy for bosses is spam summons at them until they have enough and it tends to disable wizards very quickly) some attack spells to messily kill NPCs but preferrably not the players, as long as they prepare.

6 Meetings with the party (as happened in the game - I expect the actual sessions to go somewhere unexpected half way through)
- beginning of the campaign: captures the party (around level 12) as test subjects. (he has some high level vampires to help him)
- the party escapes the lab during an attack byanother group. Irenicus kills the attackers and disables the party again but then lets  himself be arrested and teleported away (his secret lab is no longer secret so he needs a new spot anyway) - the party will have personal reasons to go after him but lots of stuff happens to delay them.
- Around level 16 the party finds the wizard prison/asylum where Irenicus was taken, only to find that he took over... aand they are just in time for him to finish his experiment. He takes them down without a fight through betrayal - an NPC spikes their food with a spell component, causing the disabling spell to work from the inside and deny them the save (that will probably have to be custom-made)
- The party escapes again and finally gets to fight the guy, possibly with an entire ward of crazy wizard inmates helping them. After a tough battle, Irenicus teleports away.
- The final battle happens around early epics. Irenicus is too close to his goal to think of escaping, so the party can fight him again (this time with no support in sight while he has a bunch of demons at his side.) and kill him.

[Garryl]

The Mother Cyst feat can help with the betrayal bit. Rather than spiking with some random spell component, make it potions of Necrotic Cyst. Once the party has said cysts inside of them, the various cyst spells granted by Mother Cyst can be rather more effective than some of the normal spell options.

There's an ACF for Wizards in one of the Dragon Magazines called Eidetic Knowledge (or something like that). Basically, you trade your familiar and the 1st level Scribe Scroll feat for the ability to learn spells and prepare them without a spellbook. Alternatively, you could take Spell Mastery a lot, which works well with Uncanny Forethought (spontaneously cast any spell you have Spell Mastery for a few times per day; can also spontaneously cast spells from your spellbook instead, but it's weaker that way).

[sirpercival]

Torture & experimentation = Fleshwarper.

[Maat Mons]

There's an ACF for Wizards in one of the Dragon Magazines called Eidetic Knowledge (or something like that).

Eidetic spellcaster (Dragon 357, p89). 

I'd go with eidetic spellcaster and eschew materials on a wizard.  Since he's epic, you can add on the ignore material components feat.  You might also want to throw in the still spell and silent spell feats, in case he's bound and gagged. 

If you want to ban epic spellcasting and still explain his escape, the invoke magic spell (Lords of Madness, p212) combined with ignore material components allows him to cast spells of up to fourth level in an antimagic field.  It's reasonable that jailers unfamiliar with epic characters wouldn't see this coming. 

[sirpercival]

There's a homebrew epic spellcasting variant that does epic metamagic feats instead.  Much less abuseable.  It's posten on gitp somewhere.

[Rebel7284]

NO way he's a sorcerer,  he's 100% a wizard, constantly researching new spells.  He also takes a part of your divine soul.  What exactly does divine rank give in 3.5 again?

[Braininthejar]

Fleshwarper

? Ah, a prestige class. For a moment I thought you meant that freaky scepter made of tongues.

No familiar for this guy though.

His experiments seemed to involve:

1 necromancy (one of his jars contains a servant who was dying and I think he was trying to ressurect him with arcane means - but got a more important project before he finished and left him there, forgotten and semi-undead)

2 trying to clone his ex. This fails since she hates what he has become as much as the original did, and worse, seems to have the memory of all the previous versions he made and killed when they refused to love him.

3 trying to become a god. He still wants to do it as he initially planned, but his soul has been damaged specifically to prevent that. So he wants to find a mortal destined for godhood (long story) rip out a part of his soul and splice it to restore his own, increasing his chances with his original plan as he does so.

So, we have a way to bust out of prison, bypass the need for books and components. What about disabling the party? I was initially thinking whelm but all that metamagic could be applied to damaging spells and at his levels that might be too much. Perhaps chained wrack? Whatever it is, it needs to be pretty foolproof around level 12 but no longer useful next time they meet him.

[littha]

NO way he's a sorcerer,  he's 100% a wizard, constantly researching new spells.  He also takes a part of your divine soul.  What exactly does divine rank give in 3.5 again?

Depends on how many you have but anywhere between immortality and absolute cosmic power over the forces of the universe...

[Nanshork]

Divine Rank rules

[Empirate]

For race, I'd go with Sun Elf Necropolitan, should nicely cover the RP and mechanical sides of things. For class, I'd say Necromancer 3/Master Specialist 2/Incantatrix 10/Archmage 5, then going into epic however you want: Irenicus obviously is a master of necromancy and of metamagic.

[Braininthejar]

I am not sure about starting with a necromancer, he wasn't always an evil wizard, but the rest more or less fits.

Now I must say my GMing experience so far has been up to about level 9. How to avoid totally pwning the party with an epic incantatrix? (and on the flipside, how to avoid things like being grappled by a summoned grizzly bear?)

[geniussavant]

Necromancy doesn't necessarily mean evil, although it does a majority of the time. Necromancy is also the study of raw life forces. So it is perfectly acceptable to have even a good wizard specialize in necromancy. The raw life altering power just tends to corrupt good into evil.

[Endarire]

Mass hold person or some means of paralyzing the party for monologing purposes can work.

[Braininthejar]

oh, my first idea was chained wrack. but mass hold gets around the problem of easier saves for secondary targets

[Rebel7284]

Some tips for playing:

Being immune to grappling/weak summons is fairly easy,
 - Heart of Water can be discharged for a freedom of movement effect AND having all the Heart Spells pre-cast gives immunity to sneak attack.  Discharging Heart of Earth may be good too to gain DR to ignore small pesky things.
 - Ring of Freedom of Movement is in the SRD....
 - Protection from X hedges out creatures with alignment not opposite of X.  Two different castings of it should make you immune to all summons.
 - Cloak in the Underdark that allows you to teleport away as an immediate action 3x a day when subject to an attack.
 - Greater Mirror Image
 - Using spells to get high AC, Saves, and perhaps DR and miss chance helps.
 - Irenicus seems like he has multispell, as he casts a lot of spells very fast.
 - Irenicus seems to have a few weak damaging spells at will, perhaps the reserve feat fire burst?

[Braininthejar]

For race, I'd go with Sun Elf Necropolitan, should nicely cover the RP and mechanical sides of things. For class, I'd say Necromancer 3/Master Specialist 2/Incantatrix 10/Archmage 5, then going into epic however you want: Irenicus obviously is a master of necromancy and of metamagic.

There is a problem with this build - forbidden schools. With so many talents Irenicus displays, what schools would he dump?

[Braininthejar]

I seem to have hit another problem - feats.

If I want to meet the prerequisites of Incantatrix and archmage, and have some metamagic feats for him to use his incantatrix features on, I won't fit in any item creation feats pre-epic...

[Endarire]

What about the Dark Chaos Feat Shuffle?  Be an elf, swap this for that, and get feats!

That or/and psychic reformation or the equivalent.

[Braininthejar]

Assuming I don't do anything weird, he would have to be near level 30 (which I think is around how he was statted in the computer version. A 30 level PC wizard would be untouchable but an NPCs don't use some of the typical powergamer hax, so he should be beatable.

The first draft turned out something like this:
Wizard 7/Incantatrix 10/Archmage 3/Incantatrix 9

Eidetic Spellcaster

Feats:
1 Extend spell
3 Eschew Material Components
5 Iron Will
6 Spell Focus: Necromancy
9 Quickened spell
12 Spell Focus: Transmutation
15 Skill Focus: Spellcraft
18 Persist spell
21 Create Wonderous Item
23 Craft Magical Weapons and Armour
24 Craft Construct
26 Epic Spellcasting
27 Ignore Material Components
29 Improved Spell Capacity

I think it covers all he should have.

EDIT: Facepalm. I forgot Incantatrix gets bonus metamagic feats at pre-epics. I am going to sleep now and will edit this tomorrow

[Rebel7284]

why wizard 7?