The Gaming Den

Not having a campaign going and having access to obsidian portal is giving me a lot of time to prepare things I wouldn't have been able to before.

So, here's the hypothetical:

The players piss off a very high level CE bardic lich (13-16ish, not sure where I want to put her).

Said lich has a few unique quirks that I want to keep in mind:

1. Anything she does to the PCs has to be as funny as possible. Potentially fatal, but hilarious if it was happening to anyone else. Bonus if it leaves their corpses in a fashion that makes the PCs a mockery after death.

2. The bard has some standards: She will completely and utterly refuse to do anything that could potentially harm children. In fact, to children she's a harmless prankster/mentor. Some of the things she teaches might not be quite what most parents want their children to learn (she considers herself the High Priestess of the Laughing God who Has No Temples). Also, she doesn't quite "get" society in general so even though with her magic and diplomancy it would be very easy for her to get the PC's wrongfully imprisoned, she's only really able to do that if it makes the authority figures look ridiculous.

I haven't used a bard as a long-term villain, so I'm not quite used to what a high level bard can do. I pretty much use every non campaign specific splat, and I don't use tome (so don't suggest it).

I sort of like your idea but you're oddly limiting yourself to A) the really silly 9-point alignment system and B) to D&D in general. For one, a Bard in 3E, even after Lichdom, is going to be a complete pushover to any full caster, for two, Bards as NPCs lack the real cheese that makes a Bard insane in 3E. Namely social skill cheese.

Why does she need to be a bard, outside of thematics? What does 'chaotic evil' add, especially since you've already stated that she's not actually chaotic evil in all situations? Wouldn't that make her Lawful Evil if you're using 9-point, since she has a set of morals that she won't cross? (This highlights the silliness of 9-point assuming people conform to one definition of 'alignment')

Give her doomspeak. Fluff it as cursing their mothers.

So, basically undead Joker, with boobs, and with some actual standards about targets?

Oh, and your notations about leaving PC corpses as mockeries is sort of weird. What kind of players do you have that would laugh at the situations of other corpses but wouldn't laugh at their own in the same situations?

versi:

I am using the 9 point alignment because it's part of the game. I am saying that she is "chaotic" because I want her to shrug off word of chaos and chaos hammer, and be vulnerable to dictum and the other one.

I consider "because the DM said so" to be good enough, since law and chaos basically don't mean anything (or a bunch of contradictory things at the same time, depending on what definitions you use).

Capn: What's doomspeak?

Oh man, various versions of Joker serum/gas? That could definitely result in some crazy.

Prak_Anima wrote:So, basically undead Joker, with boobs, and with some actual standards about targets?

That's pretty close to what I was thinking.

Do anything that Bugs Bunny would do, but apply D&D physics.


drop anvils and have barrels filled with explosives and so on.

Why a bard instead of a Tome Jester?

Game On,
fbmf

Some ideas for random curses to throw at the players: http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=51478

Doomspeak: http://dndtools.eu/feats/champions-of-r ... peak--686/

Not that great. But easily fluffed.