Making a strong sorcerer BBEG, while leaving a chance to win to the players.

[mykelyk]

The PC in my campaign at level 3 where victim of a plan of a sorcerer, and they saw her casting disintegration (and they rolled the right spellcraft check) so she must be of (at least) level 12.

The sorcerer let them live because she doesn't like to kill people and her plan was successful anyway.

At level 5 a NPC give them a chance to kill her in her sleep, and the party happily do it.

It was however know to them that she was able to move her essence among her bloodline, the only near relative she has now is her mother, that is dying.

The party is now at level 7, but could be at level 8 at the time of confrontation.

She is a venerable human son -6str, -6dex, -6con, +3int, +3wis, +3cha.

The party is damage heavy with an archer with dex to damage, a pouncing warforged juggernaut/crusader with shook trooper and a beguiler with mindsight.

How can I build a Sorcerer with 28pt-buy to be a very hard but beatable challenge?
She *must* know Dominate Person, Wall of Force and Disintegration.

I've found very hard to build her not to be outright immune to the party or pathetically weak.

The current build (immune to the party) can be found here (http://www.dndsheets.net/view.php?id=15338).

[Mystral]

She is Level 12.

The Party is Level 6.2 (3 Characters at Level 7). By RAW, she should be all but unbeatable.

If you really want to give the party a fighting chance, give her Spells a theme that give her a glaring weakness, like a favored element for damage spells. If the players can defend against her disintegration and confront her in a space where she can't fly away, they might be able to gank her.

[Runestar]

She has only 78 hp. That makes her quite fragile, so her cr of 12 is quite deceptive.

First, you want defense. I recommend greater mirror image + displacement, seeing how the party is based around melee attacks and no AoE damage. Forget about AC. Let the images be the number of "credits" she has. Once they chew through, she's history. Maybe false life for a little extra hp. When she's about to go down for the count, perhaps have her polymorph (via said spell, or trollshape from PHB2) for a last-ditch attack?

The thing I can think about is to let them have some defenses against disintegrate. Miss chances or mirror image work well, or boosting their fort save. MIC has a helm which lets you make a concentration check in place of a fort save 1/day. I see you are using tome of battle material, let the fighters get a iron heart vest granting wall of blades (effectively boosting their touch AC). Ray deflection works well as well, but it seems no one in your party can cast it.

[McSmack]

Has she cast these "must have" spells as the old lady?

In that case you'd be fine making the BBEG a few levels lower. Here's some ways to do it story wise:

It's entirely possible that not all of her essence made it to the mother's body, or that somehow her essence was damaged during the attack.

It's possible that the mother's body just isn't as magical as the previous one. Sorcerer's power comes from the blood, and it's possible that the mother's blood is 'weaker' than the daughter's.

Perhaps she has a sibling that no one knew about (except the mother) and so some of her power traveled to them. Now the weakened sorcerer is looking for the sibling so she can steal back her magic.

Maybe have the PC's find out that it takes a certain amount of time for the sorcerer to regain her full powers.

Or that she must drink a goblet full of dragon's blood in order to regain her full powers.

The essence transfer thing is cool, and since it's mysterious (i.e. not RAW) you've got some leeway to play with it a bit.

Or just nerf the encounter. Whichever floats your boat.

[mykelyk]

She has only 78 hp. That makes her quite fragile, so her cr of 12 is quite deceptive.

The party can dish I think twice her hp in damage the first round, so same defenses are in order.
She can deflect 4 arrow/round making her immune to the arrows (I have in mind a macguffin for the archer to work around this, but it is an expensive one).
She has fly and superior invisibility, so after a couple of round is unstoppable.
She has wings of cover for stopping dispel.
Her familiar give her blindsense 60ft, so an ambush it's hard.
To stop the charger she will always walk around with 4 dominated bodyguard (warrior 3).
I think her defenses are pretty good.



First, you want defense. I recommend greater mirror image + displacement, seeing how the party is based around melee attacks and no AoE damage. Forget about AC. Let the images be the number of "credits" she has. Once they chew through, she's history. Maybe false life for a little extra hp. When she's about to go down for the count, perhaps have her polymorph (via said spell, or trollshape from PHB2) for a last-ditch attack?


Mirror image doen't work because mindsight give you the real one.
Displacement sounds good, but ain't invisibility better? False life is good. Trollshape sound.. interesting.



The thing I can think about is to let them have some defenses against disintegrate. Miss chances or mirror image work well, or boosting their fort save. MIC has a helm which lets you make a concentration check in place of a fort save 1/day. I see you are using tome of battle material, let the fighters get a iron heart vest granting wall of blades (effectively boosting their touch AC). Ray deflection works well as well, but it seems no one in your party can cast it.

Disintegrate is dangerous, yes but wings of flurry is the real deal 12d6+daze effect reflex partial is gold. My party has a low will save and 3/4 casting means tpk.


Has she cast these "must have" spells as the old lady?

Yes they did.


Stuff about weakening her.

Yes I thought about making her same level lower, but:
* They don't have to fight her. I'm absolutely open to other way to solve the situation like found a compromise with her or running away until she die (she will die in weeks) or whatever else the player will want to do.
* They brought her to them when they killed her. They knew what were the risk and choose to proceed anyway. I would be cheapening the story, the setting and their actions if all the enemy and all the challenges were at CR = Party Level.

What I'm trying to do is a sorcerer that they can beat with preparation, planning, luck and maybe even losing someone in the party.

This is however my first campaign as DM so I'm kind of a noob, critics are welcome!

[Morghen]

*They don't have to fight her. I'm absolutely open to other way to solve the situation like found a compromise with her or running away until she die (she will die in weeks) or whatever else the player will want to do.

*They brought her to them when they killed her. They knew what were the risk and choose to proceed anyway. I would be cheapening the story, the setting and their actions if all the enemy and all the challenges were at CR = Party Level.

What I'm trying to do is a sorcerer that they can beat with preparation, planning, luck and maybe even losing someone in the party.

This is however my first campaign as DM so I'm kind of a noob, critics are welcome!I underlined a couple of key things. If the party is... we'll say "morally flexible", then that opens a TON of options to them. If they proceed in trying to kill this thing that is overpowering when they know it's overpowering, then you kind of have to let it ride.

If they know they're facing an avoidable meat-grinder and walk in anyway, then you owe it to them to grind them up.

You said above that you'd be cheapening the story to have a world where everything they face is magically at the appropriate CR for the party. Good. You sound like you're on your way to dropping that "noob" label.

[Tael]

The PC's sound smart and well-built, and the sorcerer has a good spell selection. Sounds good to me.

My only advice would be to not use Wings of Cover. It's a stupidly powerful spell that can basically give her immunity from the party's attacks. Use some kind of counterspell magic item instead to deal with dispel. Like a Ring of Spellbattle or Counterspells.

How does she have Superior Invis by the way? And the 4 arrows/round deflection?

[mykelyk]

I underlined a couple of key things. If the party is... we'll say "morally flexible", then that opens a TON of options to them. If they proceed in trying to kill this thing that is overpowering when they know it's overpowering, then you kind of have to let it ride.

If they know they're facing an avoidable meat-grinder and walk in anyway, then you owe it to them to grind them up.

You said above that you'd be cheapening the story to have a world where everything they face is magically at the appropriate CR for the party. Good. You sound like you're on your way to dropping that "noob" label.

We just had a session. A NPC asked them what they want to do and told them that him (the NPC) prefer her to be killed. The party had decided to trick her in thinking they want a pacific solution, than discover her powers and do same quest to be better prepared (they are getting some splitting arrow to get around the ability to deviate some of them).
So I'm happy with the solution right now.


The PC's sound smart and well-built, and the sorcerer has a good spell selection. Sounds good to me.

My only advice would be to not use Wings of Cover. It's a stupidly powerful spell that can basically give her immunity from the party's attacks. Use some kind of counterspell magic item instead to deal with dispel. Like a Ring of Spellbattle or Counterspells.
I agree, I will look into dropping it.


How does she have Superior Invis by the way? And the 4 arrows/round deflection?
My bad, I meant Greater Invisibility.
Azurin and Bonus Essentia give her 3 point essentia, Shape Soulmeld (Wind Cloak) and Open Lesser Chakra (Shoulder) give her the ability to bind Wind Cloack to the Shoulder allowing her to deflect 1+essentia invested=4 arrow/round.

[true_shinken]

My only advice would be to not use Wings of Cover. It's a stupidly powerful spell that can basically give her immunity from the party's attacks.

Yeah. Once a round. Just once a round.

[Tael]

Yeah. Once a round. Just once a round.

But she gets to choose which ones to completely shut down. By which I mean the only attack that gets past her other numerous defenses.

[Albonor]

Disintegrate has three possibilities in terms of player perspective:

- Miss
- Hits and saves (minor damage)
- Hits and "kills" (unless lucky rolls. 24d6 is scary at 84 on average)

Using it is a good way to scare them but a bad choice if you outright kil a PC and prevents him/her from participating in the fight. Solution? Multiclassing.

Adding levels of barbarian will net mommy a LOT of hits points (even with -6 CON), a good BAB (which you will choose to not use too much by using Reflex saves spells until the big Trollshape final. A Hagshape variant might be better) and nice things like uncanny defence.

Does it change the CR much? Not really, since the real threat is still the spells. Just give her a Str of under 13 to justify the absence of Power attack and the like and you should be good.

So I would say Barb 3-5/Sorc 13. Why? You know what's better to use against PC than Disintegrate? Chain lightning, that's what. Damage on everyone and it can be Energy protected and saved for half against. Better for a final fight than "missed you save? aaaah, you get to sit by and watch the end of the campaign..."

Other defenses to put there? Other thant the extra 50 hps? Blink, fly, stoneskin and bear's endurance. Don't go with too complicated!

[ILM]

Mirror image doen't work because mindsight give you the real one.
True, but unless she's been gathering some serious info on your party she wouldn't know that. Mirror image is kinda one of the stable defenses for mages so it'd make sense for her to try it. Sure, as it turns out it'd be completely ineffective, but I think it'd have two positive results:
a) show your players that you aren't designing enemies specifically tailored to their weaknesses - or at least conveniently immune to their strengths
b) make the beguiler feel awesome for cheap, which is always cool.

For disintegrate, if you're feeling charitable (in a way) you can have her try and disintegrate somebody's weapon (or other conspicuous item). If she doesn't like killing people she might try to intimidate them into realizing that attacking her wouldn't be such a good idea (at level 7 I assume the best they have is a +1/+2 weapon; make sure whoever gets hit has a masterwork backup or something, or he'll get pissed).