I am looking for some decent spell strategies to use for my campaign that will prove challenging to overcome but are not an auto TPK. I also don't want them to be to weak as well.
I am trying to avoid effects that will feel to cheap such as high dc flesh to stone on casters, or solid fog on top of black tentacles. I am also trying to avoid tactics that are to easy to defeat such as direct damage spells like fireball and such.
Characters are currently 5th level. The party consists of a Two Handed Fighter, a cleric (healing/sun), A wizard (universal), and a rogue npc. The rogue is basically used to round out the party for combat purposes.
My current problem is that I don't really know of any "challenging but survivable" tactics. Direct damage tends to be very limited in usefulness against a party while many other tactics will basically result in a TPK.
The players really wanted to face off against a mad sorcerer and his underlings as the main story line. So I am open to ideas for tactics of all levels as they will have to face several casters during each chapter. The game will last until about 14th level or until they are ready to choose between Serpent's Skull or Carrion Crown AP in a few months.
Thanks,
Rzach
Have the enemy sorcerer cast wall of fire or even wall of stone to split up the party. This can get dicy when the wizard has nobody to protect him or the rogue has nobody to flank with.
If your party wizard has a tendency to cast fireball, then have the enemy sorcerer prepare an action to create the wall (or even just a summoned creature) in the path of the projectile, thereby having it explode in their faces.
Have a bunch of the sorcerer's mooks all grapple the same target (probably the fighter), dragging him down and tying him up -- or if it feels appropriate, make it clear that they intend to coup de grace him so the others must rush to save him. Imagine the classic zombie horror scene where one guy gets surrounded by a swarm of zombies; he takes a few down, but eventually they swarm him and eat him alive.
Make the encounter more interesting by including some interesting terrain. Maybe the fight takes place in some crumbling ruins, and the sorcerer sends his minions after the players while he collapses passages behind him in his escape and tries to bring the roof down on their heads.
Have the fight take place on moving platforms. Perhaps the platforms move to a pattern, but only the sorcerer knows it at the beginning of the fight. This would keep the positions of all the combatants constantly changing and give the sorcerer a slight advantage. I'm imagining the platforms sliding right past each other so that characters can get some melee in, then slipping away so the characters are constantly on their toes. Meanwhile, the sorcerer is playing keep-away and his minions are jumping from platform to platform and trying to bull rush PCs into the pit of snakes/spikes/fire below.
Make one of the sorcerer's minions a shambling mold. It's healed by lightning damage, so have the sorcerer throw down lots of area-of-effect lightning spells.
Give some of the party members something to do during the combat that ISN'T fighting. For instance, you can have the rogue trying to disable a deadly machine. Or have the room slowly flood with water so they have to take time away from the fight to figure out the puzzle. Or have the fighter struggle to hold a door shut so whatever's on the other side doesn't break through. Or have the wizard try to disrupt a ritual. You get the idea.
The sorcerer is secretly a vampire. Go all Ravenloft on their asses -- have him avoid damage by turning into gaseous form, harass PCs with level draining effects, and try to isolate the injured PCs so he can take them out one at a time.
Start the fight off with a really great chase scene. However, don't play it off like the sorcerer is trying to escape. Maybe one of his minions is running to go get reinforcements, or perhaps the sorcerer is racing to a "place of power" where his spells become much more deadly. Maybe he has a demon bound in his basement, I don't know. Ratchet up the tension by making it clear that if they fail, the upcoming fight will be much more difficult.