I'm running a campaign where, in a few weeks, the party will be encountering a powerful wizard soon.
Boss wizard is level 15 with two level 9 adds assisting them.
Party is level 12 with...
A Giant Instinct Barbarian
A Wolf-Stance DEX Monk
A Storm Druid
A Redeemer Champion
An Imperial Sorcerer
The general plan is that the wizard starts the fight with a number of "fog" spells and using Walls and other CC spells to keep them in said fog spells as long as feasible, then taking the to the air and using offensive spells once it seems he can't keep the party away any longer.
So with all of that said, as I was reviewing the wizard I realized that at the Extreme spell DC and spell attack the Gamemastery Guide recommends for level 15+ wizards (DC 40) that he's likely to utterly DESTROY the PCs before they get close (their best saves in any given saving throw is 23). So I do feel the need to reign in the DC; but spellcasting NPCs are usually given those high-to-extreme spell DCs because once a party gets past that they have little-to-nothing else going for them. So I also feel that if I nerf the wizard's spell DC I need to give them something back for it.
Any suggestions? Better AC? Better hit points? Passable ability to fight in close quarters?
Hmm... Another CR+3 enemy used as a boss fight. This time with henchmen also.
Looking at the encounter building tables, you are right in line with a Severe level encounter. The one that mentions that if the player's tactics aren't on point, or if they just have bad luck, that they are going to need to disengage or risk getting wiped out.
However, it also looks like you haven't noted this line:
It’s best to use the XP increase from more characters to add more enemies or hazards, and the XP decrease from fewer characters to subtract enemies and hazards, rather than making one enemy tougher or weaker. Encounters are typically more satisfying if the number of enemy creatures is fairly close to the number of player characters.
I would drop the Wizard's level down to 13, add a third henchman, and increase the henchmen up to level 11. That would put it at a 5 vs 4 for combatant numbers.
level 13 => CR+1 => 60
level 11 => CR-1 => 30 x3
total 150 xp
So it is still the same Severe level encounter, but you are much less likely to TPK your party from a caster annihilating people from behind walls with spells that they have no reasonable chance to save against.
So yeah, if the party tactics are impeccable, the encounter plan as first presented will probably be fine. Otherwise, you might tone down the CR+3 enemy.
I did notice that line, and I tend to agree with it, but I thought I'd try to mix things up from how I'd been doing it; the boss was originally going to be a solo encounter vs. a party of 4 before the sorcerer joined the table. Because of that original plan I'm hesitant, though not entirely opposed, to your suggestion.
For that, it is a matter of knowing your players. It looks like you have a pretty good party of characters from just the choice and synergy of the class and subclass choices. So if they are also good at tactics and figuring out the right win conditions for the encounter, they could probably handle the CR+3 enemy.
From what I am seeing, the win condition is that the heavy damage dealers have to survive long enough and make it past the various obstacles in the way in order to reach the Wizard and drop him.
Getting into a spell-throwing contest between the Wizard and the Druid and Sorcerer will not end well.
Standing around duking it out with the minions while taking heavy fire from the Wizard will also not end well.
So it ends up being a very high risk battle. The players need to win and win quickly before they get destroyed. So because that is the win condition, I would not recommend adding more martial combat capability to the Wizard. If the players reach him, they have won and they should be allowed to win.
|
Getting spells thrown at you two levels above what you can cast yourself does give a very "boss wizard" vibe. And they'll hurt, with hefty base damage. But the real problem is the really high save DCs.
So why not go directly to the problem? Just... lower his spellcasting DC a bit to where it's scary but not devastating. You can probably go as low as 1 or 2 above the PC casters' DC; the higher spell levels will do the rest.
You can do this because the monster building guidelines are just that: guidelines for general design. But this is specific design for a specific situation.
Personally I'd also beef up the mooks a bit and make them the thing the wizard uses to delay the PCs while hammering them a bit with spells. The challenge for the PCs would then be to shake off the mooks to get to the wizard. I've never been a fan of casters that seem to just do lots of battlefield control to not lose fast, but with no plausible plan to actually win.
You could also try a two phase boss battle. That is to say once they drop the wizard, presumably from melee damage, replace him with a melee threat. In story terms you can have him cast a sort of polymorph spell (one that doesn't actually exist and is used just for story purposes) to transform into this second phase.
This can lead to a long fight, for better or worse, but they will remember the wizard who suddenly turned into a dragon or something.
It's not quite as dangerous as adding another creature to the encounter as the PCs can't be stuck fighting both at once, so maybe treat the second form as 1 level less for encounter building.
|
I'd lower the spell attack/dc by 3. Then, give the boss wizard a 50/50 up to 70/30 crowd control to damaging spells. Shutting out the PCs with massive amounts of damage doesn't really add overly much to the story. But some well placed crowd control. Or maybe even give him a summon to cast.
These spells could be fun spells for the non-damage.
Maze
Maze of Locked Doors
All is One, One is All
Duplicate Foe
Reverse Gravity
Time Beacon (if you are very clever)
Zero gravity
Chromatic Image
Mislead
Rewinding Step
I faced the same issue not so long ago. I have a big party (7 players) and it was time to fight the big evil vampire lady wich was a powerful wizard. The players were level 11 so the lady had the potential to DESTROY the team even if i made her lvl+2 since the guide suggests to give her an extreme DC. In the end i avoided giving her instawin spells like high level paralysis and slow, lowered her spell DC and just let her prebuff a bit to mantain the powerful wizard feel. In the end the result was OK (the team rolled exceptionally poorly and I as a Neutral Good master just played the boss a little sub-optimally to not murder everyone), I only killed a single pc that was knocked unconscious while flying way too high and the fight was allright.
If I had to do it now (and I will again eventually) i think i wont change anything, except maybe putting in less minions (6 was a bit much, the fight took forever).
Thanks for the input. So I'm bringing his spell DC and spell attack rolls down to 37 and 29 respectively. Still pretty high but not insurmountable, especially when I consider that their good saves tend to be the same saves that make it so a success = critical success.