[RPG] Survivalist NPC build

character-creationdnd-3.5enpcoptimization

How can I best optimize an NPC so that instead of having perfect power attack or sneak attack, they're just really hard to kill? I can think of thief acrobat and perhaps exemplar or dungeon delver, but not too many others. Strangely. I never really looked for ways to make a non- or minimal-combat NPC just for the sake of surviving to either torment or simply antagonize the PCs.

I've read about ghosts and the jester taunt whatchamacallit, but I'm curious if anyone has or would know how to best make a living humanoid nigh-impossible-to-destroy creature?

PC levels, I'd like them to not be able to be rid of this creature until epic level but at the least eighteenth level. I'd like this creature to be between thirteenth and sixteenth level but will fold for as high as eighteen. No specific setting in play currently, just my homebrew which has severe restrictions on interplanar travel but that's about it. Allowed books are all core, Complete Warrior, Complete Adventurer, Book of Vile Darkness, Complete Arcane, and all open source stuff from Unearthed Arcana and the Psionics Handbook. Any race from core or open source books, ideally a low level adjustment (less than four with HD included). Human, elf, gnome, goblin, bugbear, halfling, troglodyte, lizardfolk — you get the idea, something semi-common and not very powerful at base.

Noted exception – if one can make this with a lycan build, then that would be allowable as there's a big focus on lycanthropy in the campaign world.

Alignment isn't a constraint, because even a lawful good NPC can become a thorn in the PCs side through the course of this campaign. I don't have a role cut out for them, wanted to make them before I decided how they affect plot.

So far the party comprises of a prestige bard/dual wielding specialist, a mounted combat focused scout/prestige paladin, a ranged-and-spell specialist prestige ranger/druid, and some sort of roguey good guy will join them down the line (as-of-yet unfleshed NPC). However, another character is running an information guild (think COINTELPRO from the late sixties) and is a ninja type with an emphasis on disguise and roleplaying elements, along with surprise combat. I'd like for the classes to do the job the best, but I know I'll need to put in some magic items to supplement them. Just want to be minimal on the latter.

Best Answer

13th level Humanoid that's able to evade a 18th level party? That's a decent CR gulf to span. Classes alone probably won't do it, since classing something to level 13 means it should be balanced against other 13th level creatures, though min/maxing with an emphasis on evasion might slant that.

As a magic item suggestion, give the NPC a unique Artifact of your own creation that gives them additional evasive powers; probably something that locks to their person so high level PCs can't just snatch it from them to make them powerless. If you want them to just be hard to nail down, have it grant etherealness or earth glide (if underground a lot). If you don't want the Artifact to be a loot item the PCs get afterward, you might try something from the Weapons of Legacy supplement, where the item in question is an item that has quests/requirements to use it to its full potential, and the NPC has done the quest(s) but the PCs haven't/can't.

For the Lycanthrope aspect, normally a Lycanthrope build has to use an "animal" as the base creature type. Can you have this NPC through some means be a non-animal lycan with additional abilities? Create a Lyncanthrope build for a Displacer Beast or similar hard-to-nail-down beast; then the NPCs evasive abilities are intrinsic.

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