I'm thinking about running a game that the players will have to invade the Whispering Tyrant tomb in order to kill him before the seal imprisoning him is destroyed. I know there is a stat block for him but it uses the mythic rules and I despise them with all my heart!
Because of that, I'm building the Whispering Tyrant as a level 20 necromancer with the dread lich template. He will be built with a 25 point buy and will have itens as if he was a PC so I think his CR should be around 24.
My problem is I'm not a "wizard player", so I'm in need of help to design the final encounter in a way that it will be challenging but not a TPK.
I don't think 'challenging but not a TPK' at very high levels can be done without some knowledge of your PCs tactics. And their builds to a lesser extent, but mainly their tactics. Do they cast 10 buff spells every morning and another spell each before their first offensive action in combat, or do they hoard their resources and only bring them out when they're in trouble already? Do they divide up roles in combat or is it all focus fire on the biggest bad until they're down? And anything similar you can think of.
Depending on your banned schools, a very powerful but overlooked spell is Project Image. Essentially, you can engage combat from 300' away with very little risk. It
I once used it to great effect as a GM with a Graveknight templated Marilith, since Mariliths have Project Image and Telekinesis at-will and are supposed to be played smart. Their brilliance as tacticians makes them most sought after as generals and commanders of armies.
You could sub in Sonic Thrust if you have Transmutation banned though its a bit harder to aim.
Marilith Story:
I did spring that(referring to throwing Colossal Longswords with Telekinesis)on a party once, though I merely used large longswords(ie, appropriately sized for the Marilith). The Marilith was also at the bottom of a 250' well (more like a vertical tunnel really, opened up into another room), using Project Image to engage the party at the top of the well. ...And I may have added the Graveknight template, and allowed Channel Destruction to apply to the TK'ed Swords since I considered them wielded.
They laughed off the Marilith, at first, when the barbarian charged through the image "Oh, its just an illusion" they said, "Its harmless!".
"Harmless?" she hissed at them and made a waving motion at one of the racks of large longswords in the room. I made a very deliberate motion marking off the rack from the room. There were 5 remaining racks.
15 attacks at +25 to hit for 2d6 +4d6 fire latter, the Wizard started slamming it with Resilient Spheres, Telekinetic Spheres, or something similar to block line of effect of Project Image.
Oh, and there were 2-3 blade barriers down the well(radius 5' 20 high, 10'x10' well). It had intended to teleport up back up to the top and play cat-and-mouse after the party got to the bottom, but rolled a nat 1 on a dazing metamagicked spell, acid admixed fireball IIRC.
Ended somewhat anti-climatically, but I definitely had their attention after the opening volley.
We don't know your players, PCs' levels (though I assume it will be 17+), builds, tactics or abilities, so we can't help you make 'difficult but not TPK'. Encounters I've made of that difficulty for my players would annihilate some groups I've read about on various fora, or be at best a speedbump for others. The best we can do is recommend how we'd do it and you can decide how much you want to use.
With that said:
Remember, as a wizard TWT thinks and plans ahead. He's had a long time to figure out how he will defend his stronghold if anyone makes their way in and a long time to think through all possibilities of opposition tactics and how to counter them.
Do the same.
Imagine you are a party of adventurers. What sort of gear and spells would they have available and be likely to use if they are going after a superlich? TWT is prepared for this. The PCs will have made their way through the dungeon to get to him, and he has spies reporting on their advance and party composition and tactics. By the time the PCs have gotten to TWT, unless they have been very fast and stealthy, he will have prepared the battlefield specifically against them. Lots of obstructions if there are melee characters trying to close with him, obscuring obstructions (in additional to personal effects) so ranged characters can't see or target him, traps, pits, magical walls to push people through (or put horizontally halfway down a normal pit trap)
For starters, I'd adjust his spell list for less direct damage/debuff and more utility/control/other.
Blasting: I like blasting but TWT should have a ton of minions to do the actual damage dealing. A couple of spells in reserve, maybe a scroll or two, but no need to waste a 9th level slot on Meteor Swarm unless you're playing BECMI.
Illusions are an excellent way to mess with players. Project Image is a good choice. Simulacrum is another. Lots of Simulacra, possibly of himself and possibly of some big nasty monster he once encountered, like the tarrasque - even at 1/2 normal HD it should give your PCs pause.
Lack of reliable summons in Gallowspire means he won't be relying on that, but will be ready to take advantage of invaders who do. If someone is so foolish as to summon a devil to fight him, might as well just dispel the summon and have a temporary ally against the invaders.
Minions. minions minions minions. While the PCs are almost certainly well-prepared against undead, what happens if their defenses are stripped? Mordenkainen's Disjunction to remove spells, powerful melee types or very good Sleight of Hand types to steal or forcibly remove protective items. Lots of incorporeals to drain levels and ability scores when the protections are gone.
Antimagic Field is a nice spell. Keep a few big brutes around you and if forced into melee, debuff your attacker by removing all magic and let the brutes handle him. Even better if you use this offensively against casters, particularly arcane casters.
Thanks for the answers guys! I'll explain a bit more of my little project so all future answers are more in line with what I need.
This is still in the theory craft space. I have the players but since it will take a while for me to figure out all the variables, there are no characters so far so even I don't know the party composition and tactics. I know it is impossible to reach the "challenging but not TPK" with so vague assumptions, so lets imagine the following scenario:
Party will be certainly level 20 by the time they reach the Whispering Tyrant with certainly a ton of itens since they will be looting his mooks since they entered the dungeon. Lets assume 4 players with reasonable experience and a balanced party, since they won't be able to reach the Tyrant without a good team.
Now lets define the Whispering Tyrant
Despite being incredibly intelligent, my personal take on his is that he is also enormously arrogant and even if he ended up imprisoned by this very same flaw, he hasn't changed. His prison will yes be filled with traps, but these are old ones, from the time when he was free and considered the possibility someone would enter his lair. Nowadays, locked for almost 1000 years, he doesn't think those outside would be foolish enough to send someone in and even so, he would not even consider that such fools would be able to defeat him. His minions outside his dungeon are working on freeing him and the appearance of these fools to destroy him is 'certainly and act of desperation'.
No matter how sneaky the PCs are, however, it will be impossible for them to completely surprise the Tyrant to the point of them jumping him without him even realizing they entered in the first place. He will be for sure aware of the PCs presence in his dungeon. That being said, he will also await for them to come to him, for even if he longs to escape, he knows they are coming for him and since he is a necromancer, he will eventually discover all they have to tell him, so he will let his mooks to try to stop them. IF they manage to reach him, he will be 'slightly impressed'.
With practically unlimited resources and minions inside his dungeon, if he was truly worried the PCs could defeat him, he would be able to mount such an offensive that they would not have a chance. Because of that, during the final confrontation, he will have a couple mooks with him for sure, but will probably pull his punches for a while, once more because of being such an arrogant creature.
This all I have figured out.
What I really need to know are the following:
-In terms of CR, how high would a normal party of level 20 be able to beat? This will tell me how strong the mooks can be.
-How high can the Tyrant's spell DCs go? I generally dislike "death spells" but since he is a necromancer, I won't be able to avoid them... however I don't want to instantly kill all PCs with a DC so high none of them will be able to resist.
-Are there any type of spells I should avoid? What common problematic spells the PCs are probably to use against a high level 20 necro?
Do the players know what they have to do in advance, and if so how much warning will they have? If this is something the entire campaign has been building towards it should be incredibly tough because the player will have a chance to prepare for it. If on the other hand if they learn who the final foe is just before going in you should scale it back a little. If the players have a lot of advance warning and do not do everything they can to prepare it is their own fault if it ends up a TPK. If this is going to be the campaign finale there should be a chance of a TPK.
As others have said it is impossible to give and specific meaningful advice without knowing the party’s builds. If the party is optimized to fighting undead TWT is going to have to be incredibly tough. For example if the party has a paladin and a ranger with maxed out favored enemy undead they will be able to dish out an absurd amount of damage to the TWT. The paladin can use Aura of Justice to allow the ranger to get his smite evil on all his attacks. Throw in a few buffs from other party members and these two characters alone could be dealing thousands of HP per turn. If on the other hand the paladin is replaced by a fighter and instead of the ranger you have a slayer their damage is going to be much lower.
The one bit of advice I can give without knowing the party is make sure to drain away a lot of the party’s resources before they get to the final fight. This is pretty standard and most GM’s already do this. Just through in a bunch of encounters earlier that the party has to spend resources to overcome. In all honesty this is the hardest part of planning out an adventure. Most TPK I have seen are usually because the players used too many resources early in the adventure and did not have enough resources when the final battle came. If the paladin in my earlier example does not have the two smite evils to activate the Aura of Justice the Rangers damage output is severely reduced. Try to avoid allowing the players to rest and regain their resources.
-In terms of CR, how high would a normal party of level 20 be able to beat? This will tell me how strong the mooks can be.
This is kind of like asking strangers to help plan a party for your kid without the strangers knowing anything about how old the kid is, what things they like, allergies, religious/cultural issues you may have, etc. etc.
We can give 'average' advice but that is likely to be of at best limited use.
We don't know your players. We don't know their common tactics, what they like and dislike, how 'good' they are at the game, if they know how to play high level D&D, etc.
The game assumes that party of 4 facing a CR equal to Average Party Level spends about 20-25% of the party's resources, and a CR of APL+4/5 (IIRC) is about the limit for how powerful an encounter a group of 'average' PCs.
But, not all CRs are created equal. A CR 20 brute with no magic but a lot of HP,AC and damage is a lot less dangerous than a CR 20 creature with 9th level spells.
The bottom line is you need to know what your players are capable of, in terms of build and tactics, because we don't know and running things by the book will probably not work quite as you wish because high-level play allows for such a wide range of actions.
GM Thing wrote:
-How high can the Tyrant's spell DCs go? I generally dislike "death spells" but since he is a necromancer, I won't be able to avoid them... however I don't want to instantly kill all PCs with a DC so high none of them will be able to resist.
Just calculate the DCs normally. That should answer that.
You don't need to use Save or Suck spells if you don't want to, though I feel they fit the character. Remember that most Necromancy instakill spells will be stopped by a Death Ward spell, and unless your players are complete noobs or complete idiots, they should have DW active with several in reserve. Necromancy is full of spells that don't simply kill people. Necromancy is life force and soul manipulation and snuffing life out is merely one aspect. Curses, for instance, are a part of Necromancy. Enervation and Energy Drain are nasty debuffs but won't generally outright kill targets.
I've spent way too much time converting previous edition spells to PF1 to rely entirely on memory for what the School has available (much of the really fun stuff never made it past 2e) but just look at the Necromancy spell lists and see what you can find.
GM Thing wrote:
-Are there any type of spells I should avoid? What common problematic spells the PCs are probably to use against a high level 20 necro?
Spells you should avoid? I'd use them all. He's evil, old, experienced and meant to be a threat. He doesn't play fair so will use anything he can to win. But you've already said you don't like SoD, so you don't have to use them. You can rationalize it with them being the type of spell that are of limited use for him to have prepared: when was the last time he had need of spells that specifically target living creatures? he probably has better things to use those slots for on a daily basis.
Again, we don't know your players. I'm sure some people might just try throwing Fireballs or Magic Missiles at anything they see and not bother to cast protective spells in advance.
My players would be buffed to the gills with anything they can think of and have several scrolls/potions/staves/ etc. of important spells in reserve.
Then the sorc would start with a Time Stop for short term buffs, the cleric would probably start with a Destruction, the paladins would get in there and start smiting anything they see. Then the casters would start debuffing. Mord's Disjunction, GDM, etc. Probably a Wish and Miracle or two to pull off stuff beyond normal spells.
Mind Blank to prevent Divinations (Mind Blank + Greater Invisibility = very nice). True Seeing to see through illusions. Forcecage to prevent physical movement. Dimensional Anchor/Dimensional Lock to prevent teleport. Maze to put nasties on ice for a few rounds (no save). Death Ward because undead and Necromancy.
Blur/Displacement and Mirror Image to deter physical attacks.
