Dear all, playing Second Darkness - Armageddon Echo [spoiler adead].
The final boss is a illusionist Wizard and I need some effective and fun tactics for the fight against him.
All spells are viable. He is a 10th level Drow Wizard Illusionist. Special feature is, that the fight takes place on a demiplane of shadows, where shadow magic ist 40% more real.
Still my players have protection from evil up almost all of the time, so shadow conjuration for Summon Monsters is quite useless.
The battle ground is an observatory in a tower with a model of the planetary system in the middle, so rather little space. The wizard knows that the players are coming and can prepare.
The players need the keystone for the portal back to the material plane. I was thinking about luring them with an illusion of the stone.
Thanks in advance.
Of course we play a conversion to PF1.
true seeing if you can get it, it make you immune to so many illusions... this faq even mention that it also make u immune to phantasmal killer!
true seeing if you can get it, it make you immune to so many illusions... this faq even mention that it also make u immune to phantasmal killer!
I think the request is for which tactics the Wizard should use against the party... not which tactics the party should use against the Wizard.
However, that is good information to have... as an Illusionist, you will probably want to make sure you have minions that can Dispel the party's True Seeing... or find another way to counter it.
I have never trusted the Illusion school enough to actually try weaponize it... so I can offer very little help for actual tactics the Wizard should use.
The protection from evil only works if the monsters are evil. Elementals are a good option.
Actually I think you are mistaken about Shadow Conjuration. First of all despite its name it is not a summoning spell, it creates an illusion of whatever is summoned. Second that aspect of protection from evil only works on Evil summoned creatures. Since a Wizard unlike a Cleric does not have any restrictions on casting spells of an opposing alignment the Wizard could summon a good or neutral creature. This would also be a good way for the illusionist to fool the party if he can pull it off. Think how terrifying it would be if a wizard can summon up evil creatures that ignore protection from good.
In any case Shadow Evocation does not have to worry about that and at 10th level your illusionist can cast it. This spell will be boosted by being on the plane of shadow. Being able to use any 4th level evocation spell is too good to pass up.
It’s not an illusion but the spell Shadow Projection could be useful. It gives the Illusionist a way to attack the party without having to put his physical body in danger. Since it last an hour per level the Illusionist can cast it early and attack the party before they get to him. Have a minion with his body that has some healing for when he is defeated so that the minion can cure him and bring him back up.
Lesser Simulacrum is an Illusion spell and can also be used. Have the Illusionist create a few of 5th level versions of himself for the party to encounter first. When they easily defeat it, it will give them a false sense of security. When they encounter the real illusionist (or his Shadow Projection) they will be in for a nasty surprise.
Haunting Mists would be a good spell to use to soften up the party. Have the Simulacrum’s cast this on the party a couple of times. Its only 1d2 Wisdom damage, but you may end up reducing a few will saves. A penalty to will save is a boost to the illusionists spells.
Oneiric Horror is a great way to take out anything will a low will save out of the combat.
Last but not least don’t rely totally on illusions. Throw in some spells from other schools to mix things up. Necromancy has a lot of spells with the Shadow descriptor so that seems appropriate.
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I'd use the tactics as written:
During Combat On the first round, Nolveniss casts greater invisibility on himself before unleashing his more destructive spells against the characters, starting with his empowered fireball and following it up with extended shadow conjuration to summon 1d3 Medium fiendish monstrous spiders.
Nolveniss is extremely intelligent and he uses his spells appropriately, responding to threats and attacking whenever possible. While flying and invisible, he is very difficult to pinpoint, especially since Nolveniss always takes his move action to shift position after he has cast his spell.
Even if the summons can't attack them, they can still block squares and the players might still spend actions to get rid of them.
The PCs should be level 9, so a cleric could have true seeing. However, the others don't, so they would have to rely on the cleric's lead.
At the end, it's a fragile caster, and the familiar doesn't help much. Maybe it's ok if the invisible fireball throwing caster makes the players sweat a bit, but goes down soon afterwards. Not every encounter must span many rounds, it's also about new situations, hence new challenges.
What are the prohibited schools. The illusionist doesn’t have to be constrained to just illusion spells.
Nothing stops most of this advice from being rolled right into the tactics posted in SheepishEidolon's spoiler.
You could still have a few Lesser Simulacrum soften up the party with Haunting Mists right before the main battle. And the Illusionist could still use Shadow Projection for a small safety buffer.
But, ultimately, unless you specifically design the encounter to kill the party, chances are, no matter what you put in front of them is getting rolled over. Every time I would flinch a little bit, thinking that I might have overdone it this time, I would simply see some new trick the party has up their sleeves. APL+4, APL+5, APL+6... they just kept putting new tricks on display.
And I knew their character builds, I knew what the classes/feats each of them had offered, I knew what gear each of them had... they would still surprise me, breezing through encounters that should have been deadly. Granted, I am not an experienced GM, so it is probably pretty easy to surprise me.
If the illusionist knows the party is coming he can precast some spells. Symbol spells are great for this because the duration is long enough that they can be the previous day so they don’t count against the spells used that day. A Symbol of Striking and A Symbol of Mirroring would be highly appropriate in this case.
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Double layer illusions. Players are dumb. When they see through the first illusion then they believe the one underneath.
And i love invisible locked doors in a chase with monsters behind the party.
Or a “secret” door in the tower leading in to a small stashroom with lots of bokses/crates, which is actually an open window 100 ft up.
idk if it's the same in pathfinder, but back in 3.5 if some1 run over a pit covered with an illusion of a floor. he didn't even get a save.
i used it with an acid pit spell and a 'victim' being attacked on the other side who was yelling for help. the party's ranger would have died if he wasn't rescued. since taking damage while climbing add half of said damage to the climb check. acid pit was 10d6 in 3.5...
In Kingmaker, I combined Ilthuliak [the Black Dragon] and the Jabbawock... had her 22D6 Acid Pool covered with hallucinatory terrain... I didn't give them a save. The Illusion just went away and the person that went first was simply waste deep in a bog filled with acid. Reflex save for half.
I really, REALLY like the idea of an Illusion casted of a small room filled with boxes and chests... but it's actually a window 100 feet off the ground... the idea of that made me laugh until I stopped.
Thanks a lot for all the good advice. I will use some of these.
The AP has a great story over all but is lacking a lot in details, so i tend to modify some things but thought it would be fun to stick with the drow illusionist, as unlikely as drow would study this weak kind of magic.
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The most nasty way to screw players with illusions or polymorph effects is to use the players as scrapegoats for the illusionist plots.
Soon they will be hunted by authorities and revengeful nobles or bountyhunters for all their misdeeds.
And not only do they need to stop the illusionist, they need to find evidens to clear their names.