Lunchtime discussion here, friend brought up the difficulty at higher levels of a lower magic group (say 1/3 and 1/2 casters like Rangers, Paladins, Magus, Inquisitors at best, but no more than 1/2 the group has spells, and NO full 9 spell level classes) pinning down and eliminating a high level (say level 13+ at least, 15+ really) enemy caster who has access to even a decent spell set and had some forethought defensively.
So that got me thinking...
1) What do you consider the most effective and common defenses high level casters use personally when confronted, especially by a group lacking full casters (example: spells that make them hard to hit, spells that simply teleport them out of harms way, etc)
2) What do you consider the most effective and common defenses high level casters use in defensive of their [fortress/tower/abode/cave/etc]
And 3 and 4
3) How do you counter 3, using the resources commonly at a caster-light groups disposal (assuming normal WBL, group is 2-4 levels below the enemy caster).
4) How do you counter 4, using the resources commonly at a caster-light groups disposal (assuming normal WBL, group is 2-4 levels below the enemy caster).
Note: For the sake of this discussion, getting a high level caster of your own is NOT an option.
(That's taking the easy way out ;) , no deus ex machina npcs or mercenaries)
If you're in Galorian, kidnap on of his friends or relatives, then take them to the Mana Wastes and send the spellcaster a note saying, "We've kidnapped your sister. If you want her back, come to the Mana Wastes." Then destroy him while his magic either fails or fluxes unpredictably.
If you're in the Planescape world, do the same thing, but take the victim to the base of the Spire, where spells don't work.
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High-level self-defense:
Long-duration low-level spells, with extend spell if necessary to get the duration to full-day (or at least full-waking). Have 'em up.
Mind blank. Overland flight. An effective contingency that either nerfs your current foe's favorite first attack or gets you a long way out of the way if you are surprised or utter a command word.
Ring of spell turning and ring of free movement take care of a lot of the ambush issues. You need to either get out of there or survive the first blow so you can strike back.
Conjured bodyguards of one sort or another. Note: smart malicious bodyguards (devils, demons, efreeti, philosophically opposed outsiders) open a hole that can be exploited; dumb loyal bodyguards (elementals, undead) open a different sort of holes, so don't depend on them much. Permanent major bodyguards probably have a telepathic bond or similar setup so you can communicate undetected by outsiders; if they're really permanent you may have a teamwork feat.
Your familiar has a defensive wand of some sort -- invisibility, wind wall, some kind of basic illusion or disguise or LOS-blocking spell, maybe even a wand of d-door that it can use to get you and it out of there. It also has a scroll of teleport so if you die it can take your body back home to your chapel where the family priest or other 9th-level servitor is waiting with the means to raise you from the dead. (Or maybe you have a clone in temporal stasis with an expiration date. Whatever.)
Illusion and misdirection. Have simulacra handle your daily business, have illusions up, disguise self as a flunky and have the flunky disguise othered as you -- only works with loyal flunkies.
Generally: Act first (warning spells, initiative boosts, high Perception for you and your familiar, alert guards), keep yourself from getting killed by the first strike, rapidly relocate if you survive the first round and can't handle a whole group of enemies, and HAVE A BACKUP PLAN in case you get killed -- at this level, death is a trivial inconvenience, make enemies work to keep you down.
Stronghold self-defense:
Mage's sanctum (no scrying, etc.)
Dimensional lock on at least some parts so you have zones into which, and out of which, you can teleport and your foes cannot.
Screen so that scriers see what you want them to see. In particular, the bedroom showing you sound asleep which, if they try to teleport into, will reveal itself as an illusion not-really-covering the pit of boiling hydroflouric acid laced with arsenic. Other amusing diversions or misinformation may be conveyed this way also.
Guards and wards -- perhaps widened or multi-cast to cover your whole stronghold.
Permanent alarm spells, some audible, others not. The audible ones alert guardians; the inaudible ones alert you while letting intruders think they're getting away with something. Look at other permanent area or barrier spells in various places.
A simulacrum or two using disguise self to really look like you. With their bodies trapped so Bad Things happen if they die (release the demon, unload the 20d6 fireball, explode in a cloud of poison gas, whatever).
Sowing misdirected legends about (e.g., "my brother tried to rob the tower and was burned to death" when in fact you have no fire traps, they're all something else)
Guardians with scent and some kind of illusion-piercing ability. Most of these are just to raise the alarm. Other guardians will be unsubvertable (e.g., golems with very precise instructions -- they might be fooled or bypassed but not turned against you.), and usually invisible, perhaps with warding enchantments on them (look at all the uses of the permanency spell!). Similar guardians on the astral and ethereal planes. Some of them may be disguised or under illusions to look like something else, and maybe reinforced with other spells (e.g., the iron golem in the Room of Perpetual Fireballs -- make the environment really favorable for your guardians, not so much for enemies. Poison gas filled rooms with guardians immune to poison. A basilisk working with an angel immune to petrifaction.)
Be creative. I once had a wizard employ a friend who was a medusa with sorceror levels and the Transdimensional Spell feat (from 3.5) -- she was plane shifted to the ethereal, so anyone using see invisibility was also subject to her gaze attack and meanwhile anyone entering the place she could harass or kill with her spells while she was completely immune to anything that wasn't capable of going ethereal. Quite foxed the players for a while.
Symbols of various sorts under covers. If the place is attacked, your minions have orders to remove the curtains. These can be absolutely vicious, particularly when combined with incapacitating effects and slow-damage stuff (open box, expose symbol of sleep, release ooze!). Read the triggering conditions for symbols carefully.
Having extradimensional strongholds or refuges is highly recommended. Particularly if you can find some way to bar access to them. True, they're difficult for bat-wing salesmen to reach or if you want to have a social life, but at your level you send minions to fetch stuff from shops, you don't go yourself, and you can surely have a refuge or two that isn't your primary residence. How isolated depends on how sociable you want to be.
A few trap-zone areas in your house (an illusionary wall hiding a permanent prismatic wall, a one-way gate to a nasty planar destination, with a programmed illusion of you diving through it to lure attackers to their doom).
Generally: Prevent information-gathering, restrict access (you can't block it entirely), and have surprises and guardians ready. Some are just designed to waste enemy time or attract attention while other guardians gather or react, some are designed to gather information, some to strip the enemies of defenses for later encounters (the trap with greater dispel magic targeted on anyone without the password is a very good one.)
It will depend on the parameters of the encounter.
Do the players know what they are going up against?
If the mage has sufficient knowledge and time to prepare for the party you can pretty much kiss at least 1/2 of them goodbye before the mage simply leaves if not a TPK.
If they both (mage and party) just happen to walk into a room at the same exact time and decide to kill one another then it's going to come down to initiative and you can still pretty much bet on 2-3 players being horribly wounded/killed/turned into pumpkins. But don't underestimate grappling it can tie up a mage for just long enough for the rest of the party to a. flee b. get a plan of action together.
to answer your questions:
1. Flight, teleport, wall of force all work great against a non-magical party. But the number one spell is going to be contingency.
2, 3, 4. I think tonyz did a good job answering the questions.
That's what I get for just skimming. I thought it was "what can a low magic party do against a high magic enemy." Whoops.
Grappler monk.
You're going to need to make smart use of consumables.
Potions of invisibility, resist energy, fly are not nice perks after a certain point, they're the things that keep you alive.
Know when to retreat. A spellcaster who is ready for you is terrifying, and if you're caught off guard, it's best to pull back.
Think about purchases. If you're a terrifying melee beast, it's tempting to further enhance your attacks, to be a more terrifying melee beast. But it might be a better idea to reinforce the weak spots on your character instead, and buy the flying carpet, or whatever it is that keeps you in the game.
Ready an action...
Depending whether the wizard is buffed up or not.
If the players just walk into a room with an unpreprared wizard - his toast.
What ever player that wins initiative readies a ranged attack of some sort to disrupt the wizard - the others go in for the kill.
Buffed up wizard.. Well harder - but if no shield/no inv- a single magic missle can really destroy a wizards day
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Now, how does a party without high-level magic of their own defeat a high-level wizard?
Your own low-level spells can provide some basic effects (lots of resist energy and/or protection from energy). Boosting saves is crucial, as most high-level wizards have read Machiavelli Carnegie's How to Dominate Enemies and Charm People -- protection from (alignment) is very handy. See invisibility is a must.
You need some way to pierce illusions, some way to dispel magic, and some way to keep the wizard from teleporting away and returning later for Round 2. Scrolls and wands can provide some of this ability (see invisibility, true seeing, and dimensional anchor), or perhaps you can purchase or bargain for the services of outsiders with the appropriate abilities to join you, or bestow them on you. Getting someone to make one or two useful spells permanent on you can be handy and should be possible for WBL once you're above 10th level.
If you know that the wizard has favorite tactics, make yourself immune to them. He uses fireball a lot? Have resist energy up. He always casts Spell X -- find a cleric to cast spell immunity to Spell X on you. Does he like summoned creatures -- make sure you have magic circle against (alignment) up before going in (it's only a 3rd level spell).
Secondly, your tactics need to emphasize speed and surprise. Ready actions to attack the wizard when he starts spellcasting, as several people suggested above. Boost initiative (potions of cat's grace, if you can't think of anything else). Think about the wizard's weak points (low hit points, probably low AC, need for spellbooks and spell component pouches, vulnerability of familiar or arcane bond item, need to speak/gesture to cast most spells).
Have backup plans. Someone (even a relatively weak summoned or bound outsider) can try to grapple in case he forgot the freedom of movement, someone else can shoot arrows or use other weapons, try multiple energy types at him and see which one penetrates, and ABOVE ALL dimensionally anchor him as fast as you can -- there are too many ways for him to escape and come back later if you don't. If you can predict his actions, anticipate them; if you can predict his defenses, try something else. Gathering information will be critical -- but beware of defensive deception attempts.
See if you can subvert a minion or two. Maybe you can bribe someone for information. Maybe you can spy on them. Maybe you can have one of them sneak a spying sensor, or an invisible thief or spy, into the wizard's keep. A wizard that gets caught without -- or during! -- his daily spell prep is a dead wizard.
Casting silence on a fighter (or other grappler) and having him approach the wizard and grapple him (or fly up to him and ditto) is an old but useful trick. A high-speed flying familiar or animal companion could do the same (move action to get near wizard, ready an action to follow him if he moves).
Antimagic shell is probably not within your reach without a full 9th-level caster, but maybe you could buy a scroll of it and use it at the right moment. Wizards without magic are oommoners with good Will saves. (Rogue, stealth up to wizard, UMD the scroll during the surprise round, win initiative, two-weapon sneak attack. Dead wizard.)
Spam incapacitating spells at him -- even low-level ones like sound burst. Enough spells and he might roll a '1' on his save.
Fighters with the right critical feats can try to trigger stun/sicken/whatever hits against him -- but, really, just try to reduce his hit points to sub-zero as quickly as possible. It's not like he has lots and lots of them (well, except necromancers with certain spells).
Block line-of-sight if you can. The wizard will probably still have other spells to use (area-effect, escape, buffing) but it's hard for him to target you if he can't see you.
Be able to fly and teleport. This is just a must. Otherwise the wizard laughs in your general direction.
Penetrating walls of force and other high-level force effects may be the hardest thing to manage without full casters -- you don't have disintegrate -- but maybe you can teleport around them or get around them some other way.
Wizards often dump one or more stats. Often Strength -- does your rogue have the advanced rogue talent that inflicts 2 Strength damage every time a sneak attack lands? Can you hit his stats other ways?
Debuff him and then hit him with Fort saves. Or flood the area with energy types he's not resistant to -- wizards also have poor Reflex saves. Don't try to hit him with Will-save stuff, though a scroll of feeblemind might be worth trying.
Find other enemies of the wizard and convince them to join up with you to take him out.
Last shot: make friends with him instead of trying this attack stuff ;)
The important thing is to try multiple tactics. Wizards can prepare for anything, but they can't prepare for everything at the same time, unless they cast the Spell of GM Fiat Foreknowledge. Don't depend on one foolproof plan, because the wizard is probably smarter than you and thought of it too, then made himself immune to it. I had one set of players who were going up against a high-level wizard, got in close, and pulled their One Big Trick -- using a rod of maximize to max out the level check on a greater dispel magic. (Wouldn't work RAW, but none of us knew that at the time.)
When I handed them her character sheet (written months ago) and pointed to the ring of spell turning, a lot of faces went ashen...
Build a mage-killer barbarian. Spellsunder, Superstition, Eater of Magic, etc. If you do it right you can stand toe-to-toe with any caster and come out ahead.
The last thing about wizards, and this is mostly for the GM: They may have a lot of precautionary spells up, and written quite a few scrolls for emergencies, but at some point you run out of spell slots. Take care to give them a few utility spells, and a few spells to reflect what they're doing that day. Unless they specifically know these PCs will be attacking them that day, they probably have a few other things to do (create items, amuse their wife, fabricate something to make money to balance their budget with, scry their minions/victims for evil plotting).
If they survive and come back, THEN you can pull out all the stops and pick the spells that neutralize/TPK the party. Even wizards aren't omniscient.
Though I have occasionally been known to leave a couple of low-level spell slots blank with "this wizard is smarter than me, the GM, so these are slots _he_ has a spell in that might surprise me but won't surprise him."
Distract the caster while he's casting the spell
"Distracting Spellcasters
You can ready an attack against a spellcaster with the trigger "if she starts casting a spell." If you damage the spellcaster, she may lose the spell she was trying to cast."
"Injury
If you take damage while trying to cast a spell, you must make a concentration check with a DC equal to 10 + the damage taken + the level of the spell you're casting. If you fail the check, you lose the spell without effect. The interrupting event strikes during spellcasting if it comes between the time you started and the time you complete a spell (for a spell with a casting time of 1 full round or more) or if it comes in response to your casting the spell (such as an attack of opportunity provoked by the spell or a contingent attack, such as a readied action)."
If it's 4-on-1 and the group is even close to the Wizard in level, it won't be a fair fight. The Wizard won't be able to cast spells if he's being hit for 30 damage and has to make a DC 48 concentration check to not lose the spell.
If the Wizard uses silent and still spell metamagic feats, it could prevent the readied attacks, but then the Wizard would be using spells 2 levels lower.
Don't forget Emergency Force Sphere. That really ticks melees off. ^_^
PS: Here's something I posted recently that covered what my own Wizard tended to have in place
If by "Emergency Force Sphere" you mean Resilient Sphere then yes it tended to make my daily memorized spells. The spells I listed above, however, are long term defensive spells of the kind Tonyz is talking about in his last post, if or when, you'd catch my wizard 'putzing about the groups tower doing research, amusing his wife, or otherwise just hanging out'. [Force] spells in general tended to make my list because for an extended period of time the group was facing many undead foes including incorporeal ones, nevermind how useful in general they can be. Outside of the Prying Eyes and Mind Blank everything on the first listed portion would be active typically even if I was mid bubble bath inside my tower/fortress. They also assume he's more towards the 20+ end of 'high level' not 13th.
nOObxqb also elaborates a good point made by Bigtuna upthread, ready an action by at least one of the group to force that concentration check/interrupt spell casting. It also points out why Tonyz keeps saying have a back up plan (or three). If you caught my wizard coming back from the bar several things would be true. First is that Telepathic Bond, it's a mental link to my wife who is also a high level eldritch knight - expect her imminent arrival (and she's likely been taking half of my damage to boot - Ring of Friend Shield). Second is Moment of Prescience, my AC, save or skill check will jump if I'm thinking it'll help avoid getting interrupted. And 'last' I'm likely to use a Staff, Wand or other magic item rather than trying to cast right away just because I'm relatively alone (and trying to mess with my casting is a rather obviously good tactical choice). I'll save the spells for when help arrives and when I've a better idea just how far up the creek I might be and what my...