Shadowcraft Mage, Chosen of Cyric

[ImmortalSoul]

Okay, so I need a main villain to challenge my players. The rules:

• Level 20
• PB 32
• LA +1 for free
• All books allowed
• Up to two flaws
• Alignment Restrictions are mostly out
• Not using early entry into SCM via Heighten Spell
• Instead using Cloistered Cleric with Initiate of Cyric to get Skull of Secrets for SCM

Most of the stuff up to now is shamelessly stolen from PhaedrusXY's build compilation, here to me more precise.

The idea behind is the following:
Right now I'm trying to DM a especially challenging campaign for two of my players, the ones who actually enjoy optimization and agreed to try a more high powered campaign. They are infiltrators and assassins of their church (right now it looks like one is going for the actual assassin PrC and the other one for a summoning druid, both fairly optimized - though, not surprisingly, the druid looks way tougher atm) and I decided a good BBEG would be the Chosen of Cyric. And what would be better suited than a Shadowcraft Mage?

So, this is what I have:

Dark Whisper Gnome Cloistered Cleric 5/Shadowcrafter 2/Shadowcraft Mage 5/Prestige Paladin of Tyranny 3/Divine Oracle 2/Contemplative 2/Shadow Adept 1
Domains: Trickery, Illusion, dunno (Contemplative); Knowledge Devotion
ACF: Domain Spontaneity (Illusion)
1   Spell Focus (Illusion), Heighten Spell, DMM: Heighten
3   Greater Spell Focus (Illusion)
6   Initiate of Cyric   
9   Earth Sense
12    Earth Spell
15   (Skill Focus(Knowledge: Religion) if I want to go Divine Oracle for Evasion)
18   Shadow Weave Magic
(20: 3 Shadow Adept Bonus Feats)

Starting Stats (middle aged): Str 5(8-2-1), Dex 14 (13+2-1), Con 16 (15+2-1), Int 10 (9+1), Wis 17 (16+1), Cha 14 (15+1-2)
Increases into Cha (2) and Wis (3).

Equipment:

Code:

Nightstick 10.000
Reliquary Holy Symbol 1.000
Mithral Full Plate of Heavy Fortification and Soulfire +1 101.500
Animated Tower Shield +3 25.000
Eager Warning Dagger +1 18.000
Belt of Magnificence +6 200.000
Gloves of Resistance +5 (like Cloak of Resistance) 37.500
Amulet of Second Chances 40.000
Starmantle Cloak 130.000
Headband of Conscious Effort 2.000
Horizon Googles 5.000
Tome of Understanding +5 137.500
Ring of Nine Lives 45.000
Item of Battle (like Belt of Battle) 24.000
Ring of Greater Counterspells (Greater Dispel Magic) 16.000
Item of Darkhidden 4.000
Boccob's Blessed Book 12.500
Tooth of Savnok 2.000
Ion Stone (Orange) 30.000
Heward's Fortifying Bedroll 3.000
Metamagic Rod of Extend, Lesser 4.000
Boots of Shadow (like Shadow Cloak) 7.750

(855.750)

He has a total of 860k to spend because being the main villain must be good for something, after all. Btw, is there any cheaper way than heavy fortification to become immun to sneak attack? I?ll need it.

There's quite a lot undecided, though and everything here can yet be changed.

The game started on level 10 and this guy is the one the players are supposed to encounter in a final fight at level 20, so we have some time to approach the higher levels cautiously, as we don't have much experience with playing beyond level 15. Therefore I'd greatly appreciate any help with spell selection and equipment.

So please, help me build a strong (as in: optimized, not as in: utterly reality crushing; even though a lot of cheese will be allowed due to the nature of this special campaign) and thematically fitting Chosen of Cyric.

Thanks in advance!

[Rebel7284]

There is that feat that allows you to apply metamagic for free if you cast the same spell two rounds in a row.

[Havok4]

That feat is from complete mage and is called residual metamagic. A good option might be to take a level of shadow adapt, the first level feats give you a lot of nice benefits when using illusions spells.

[ImmortalSoul]

Thanks. I updated my first post, including a list of equipment now. Any help and critique is still welcome!

[Havok4]

Have him store some spells on a shadowcrafted delicate disk spell, as was seen in the recent cookie based build thread. Store a few heal spells on a few discs for when the battle gets tough.

[ImmortalSoul]

Thanks, did that. Right now I'm thinking about using Time Stop to Gate in an Old Prismatic Dragon with Death Knell/Consumptive Field, then using Forcecage/Solid Fog and Energy Drain/Blasphemy, in between summoning an Elemental Monolith (Air) to maybe grapple one or at least distract them. I'm really curious to see how this works out in play, never had access to 9th level spells before. Seems pretty ridiculous

[PhaedrusXY]

At level 20, this guy will be good, but not much better than any other 17+ level casters. Especially as an NPC, the flexibility he has from Shadow Illusion probably won't really make a big difference, as NPC BBEGs tend to know what's coming more than PCs do, at least IMX. So a high level caster BBEG could have just prepped the spells he'd need to start with, rather than having to emulate them. There are of course a few somewhat abusive things he can do, like those shadowcraft cookies, and bypassing the long casting times and other drawbacks of certain spells. But overall, I don't think he'll play that differently from most other high level caster BBEGs. Even gaining early access to high level spells won't matter, as he'd have had access to 9th levels by now, anyway.

Against a party of two, he will certainly be a possible TPK if he casts Time Stop and starts summoning a bunch of crap. But again... that's the same with any caster at this level.

[ImmortalSoul]

Well yes, you're correct of course. But then, a "normal" caster (straight wizard, say) would have neither made me think so hard about it nor consider so many options and look up so many things, so it was a really valuable thought exercise, too.
In the end, it shouldn't really matter. I never created a level 20 caster in detail before and, even after what I read everywhere, was surprised at how very devastating they look even without trying too hard.
I'm interested to see how my players perform against him. The assassin won't stand a chance, but the druid is certainly the more innovative player and might just come up with something.