Building Enemy Mages

[Geiger Counter]

I think the warlock has pretty much come to be the class to pick for generic magical opponents, but I'm looking for tips on building big bad and miniboss sorcerers. How should I build these? Most importantly what spells do I pick? What spells provide an interesting challenge but don't piss off the PCs.

[Lysander]

avoid SoD, but have plenty of SoL and offensive spells. Make them employ a strategy that keeps the whole party busy.

For example, if they're flying overhead make them summon a land monster so the guy with a sword has something to fight.

[absolmorph]

avoid SoD, but have plenty of SoL and offensive spells. Make them employ a strategy that keeps the whole party busy.

For example, if they're flying overhead make them summon a land monster so the guy with a sword has something to fight.
Avoid SoD and SoL. Stick to Save or Sucks.

[Lysander]

Avoid SoD and SoL. Stick to Save or Sucks.

I think SoL can be used wisely in ways that make the party help each other. For example, the enemy mage casts dominate person, so next round the cleric has to use protection from evil or dispel magic to free their friend. Etc.

[Geiger Counter]

what does SoL mean?

[pffh]

Save or lose.

[AslanCross]

Do NOT use Solid Fog. It's pretty much the most boring tactic an enemy caster could use, and if you use it too much the PCs catch on and adapt anyway. I've had encounters slow to a crawl because all of the PCs were stuck inside. Unless you're planning to capture them, do not use this spell.

[abandon hope]

Don't avoid anything. Party's should be mortally afraid of an enemy caster. I make spell blocks for enemy sorcs that lend themselves to a particular tactic. My players figure it out and approach from an area of weakness. Sometimes PCs die. Sometimes worse things happen. We spent one session with a dominated player facing off against the other party members in running combat. Turned out to be a fun session. Same for web, glitterdust, and many more of the really annoying SoLs. SoDs usually aren't memorable, because someone saves.. or dies... and the session continues. But as efficient segways to mortal danger, they can be invaluable.

[Runestar]

Warlocks can make good low-lv minions. Give them mortalbane and they are doing 3d6 with their eldritch blast, which is fairly substantial at lv1. Throw in eldritch spear and they are doing it from 250ft away.

From an optimization standpoint, my first recommendation is to stay away from the sorc class. The spellcasting monsters in the MMs are much better. For example, at cr10, you can either have a human sorc10 or a spellweaver (MM2, casts as sorc12). Or simply by using the non-associated class rules, you can come up with fairly resilient spellcasters (take a storm giant sorc20 with practiced spellcaster, that is caster lv24 at cr24, similar to a human sorc24).

I do feel that you really need to rely on save-or-suck/debuffs to break down the party into bite-sized chunks, otherwise your casters will lose to the action economy every time (as they only have 1 action to the party's 4-5). For instance, summon a huge centipede as a blocker and grapple an annoying PC, split them up with wall of force, stymie them with sculpted glitterdusts, forcecage the fighter together with a foe or two so he doesn't get bored etc.

Of course, this assumes you are supported with tanks. I am not certain how well the solo mage BBEG works (I have never really had any positive experiences with solo foes), but I guess in that aspect, you really need to work on your defenses.

This also means having a fair selection of standard and swift/immediate action spells so you can consistently fire off 2 spells/round.

This probably sounds like power-gaming, but I assure you it is not. It is really the bare minimum you need to do to ensure your spellcaster npc actually lives long enough to pose a credible threat to the PCs, IMO.

[Evard]

Use lots of walls :D Customize some that have added effects... like wall of stone causing a petrify that lasts 1d6 rounds if a player stands next to it on a failed fort save. Wall of iron has a spike attack vs ac every time a character moves into/out of a square adjacent to it. :D stuff like that to annoy your characters :D

[Yuki Akuma]

Use lots of walls :D Customize some that have added effects... like wall of stone causing a petrify that lasts 1d6 rounds if a player stands next to it on a failed fort save. Wall of iron has a spike attack vs ac every time a character moves into/out of a square adjacent to it. :D stuff like that to annoy your characters :D

If you're going to homebrew spells for a Wizard, be prepared for the party's Wizard to learn it.

[Evard]

only if they don't blow the mages up (and destroy the spell book):p

[absolmorph]

only if they don't blow the mages up (and destroy the spell book):p
... Unless someone TARGETS the spell book, or it's sitting around and there's a fireball, it survives.
Unless you're being a jerk DM and handwaving it. 'cause, y'know, if all their stuff were destroyed, you could toss them a +6 headband of intelligence and not worry about the PCs getting it.

[Irreverent Fool]

If you're going to homebrew spells for a Wizard, be prepared for the party's Wizard to learn it.

Or develop his own version.


... Unless someone TARGETS the spell book, or it's sitting around and there's a fireball, it survives.
Unless you're being a jerk DM and handwaving it. 'cause, y'know, if all their stuff were destroyed, you could toss them a +6 headband of intelligence and not worry about the PCs getting it.

What NPC wizard is going to carry around a copy of his spellbook, anyway? Maybe a scroll or twenty...

This actually becomes a problem with my players as their characters tend to do such things as throw enemy wizards into lava after successfully hitting them with an earthbind spell.

I can't tell you how much magic loot they've lost this way.

obnoxious
sig

[SSGoW]

Actually one way of keeping PC wizard/sorcerers from being to broken is to make them think about their actions.

Wizard: Hmm I could kill everything with a maximized fireball but it might destroy the enemy's scrolls/spellbook/other items .... Should I still use it?

Every once in a while I would throw in a spell book that had upgrades on it but most enemy spell books where basic and easily destroyed as collateral damage. People playing under those rules saw nothing wrong with it since it does make sense. This applies to area spells not rays or touch spells (generally at least)

[Irreverent Fool]

Actually one way of keeping PC wizard/sorcerers from being to broken is to make them think about their actions.

Wizard: Hmm I could kill everything with a maximized fireball but it might destroy the enemy's scrolls/spellbook/other items .... Should I still use it?

Every once in a while I would throw in a spell book that had upgrades on it but most enemy spell books where basic and easily destroyed as collateral damage. People playing under those rules saw nothing wrong with it since it does make sense. This applies to area spells not rays or touch spells (generally at least)

When you play by that kind of rule, though, what about other items? Potions made to boil from heat, hair, magical clothing consumed in the flames, people being lit on fire in each and every fireball. I think it hurts verisimilitude to do this. More importantly, it makes blasters suck even more, and there's no reason to do that.

But if everyone in your group is cool with it, by all means use it. I don't think the OP needs to consider it in the construction of NPC antagonist/random enemy magic-users, however.

obnoxious
sig

[Emmerask]

Do NOT use Solid Fog. It's pretty much the most boring tactic an enemy caster could use, and if you use it too much the PCs catch on and adapt anyway. I've had encounters slow to a crawl because all of the PCs were stuck inside. Unless you're planning to capture them, do not use this spell.

gust of wind? If the party wizard has not memorized it they deserve to die anyway :smallwink:

Dispel magic is always nice to have to deal with the defenses the players might have.
A spell that gives your caster concealment so that he can´t be charged.
If you want to deal area damage use horrid wilting, mettle is quite rare and it has 20d6 cap much better then a <metamagic> fireball I think ^^

And don´t forget to give him some minions, action economy is very important if you don´t want the fight to be over in 2 rounds ^^

[Volkov]

Give the enemy mage his own party which is the foil of the PCs in every way imaginable. Frustrate your PC's with devious usage of spells they barely thought was imaginable, and for the extra lulz, use Zagyg's spell of gender change as one last trick to pull.

[Tinydwarfman]

Actually one way of keeping PC wizard/sorcerers from being to broken is to make them think about their actions.

Wizard: Hmm I could kill everything with a maximized fireball but it might destroy the enemy's scrolls/spellbook/other items .... Should I still use it?

Every once in a while I would throw in a spell book that had upgrades on it but most enemy spell books where basic and easily destroyed as collateral damage. People playing under those rules saw nothing wrong with it since it does make sense. This applies to area spells not rays or touch spells (generally at least)

This also suggests that wizards using a maximized fireball is broken or even bad. If you don't want wizards to be broken, encourage them to use fireball with crappy metamagics. Just don't give them truckloads of free spells with every caster that they face.