Wizard seeking advice on securing a tower, properly

[INDYSTAR188]

Greetings! I am the great and powerful Marvolo McNair - mystic, sage, investigator and inventor. I recently (13 years ago) acquired a tall, beautiful tower; its complete with two levels of dungeons, an escape tunnel, a scrying room, a summoning room, a library, a large garden - its amazing! It was formerly owned by a colleague of mine but he went missing (15 years ago). The Giant of the Playground granted me the tower after a period of being vacant. There are two perpetual problems with this tower however; level 13 and adventurers:

Level 13 is locked. It is the only level of the tower that does not have some form of window, port hole or arrow slit. The door is made out of a metal I've never seen before. It is warded with magic I cannot understand. Most frustrating of all, it interferes with my studies! At least 59 times since I have owned this tower I have witnessed a pulse of wild magic, originating at or behind the door on level 13. These occurances have included greatly increasing the effects of a spell (and now I have no eyebrows), greatly changing the effects of a spell (and now I have no assistant) and once cancelling a spell altogether (and now I still have no assistant).

Adventurers can be quite a nuisance. Just last week I had a group of them completely ignore my sign. When I ventured out onto the 10th level balcony to yell, "Get off my perfectly manicured lawn you bums!", one of them had the temerity to tell me to "Hand over the treasure." And that's just the latest headache! Two years ago a colleague of mine teleported into the tower, stole a staff and a journal - both of which are vital to my research, and teleported away!

So I ask you fellow frustrated colleagues, how can I solve my two problems? What do you think is on level 13 and what should I do to get in there and neutralize the threat to my all-important noble work? What do I need to do to be able to defend the tower against wandering murderhobos, jealous colleagues, and other threats in a generally brutal world?

Marvolo is the BBEG in an upcoming campaign. He is bitter with what he views as 'restrictive and close-minded' societal norms towards his magical research. He is a powerful transmuter who strives to 'perfect all of the intelligent races' by forcing them to undergo magical means. I'm envisioning some kind of experiment gone horribly wrong as a result of his exposure to level 13 of the tower, warping him into some kind of weird abomination (the fly?!). He'll want all peoples to embrace their true 'perfect' form - or something crazy like that (I'm definitely open to suggestions).

*What I really want out of this thread is interesting thoughts on level 13 and how I could use that in an epic BBEG showdown as well as how to PC-proof this guys home base (I imagine it'll be full of flesh-golems/lycanthrope/chimera-type monsters).*

[Tanarii]

How PC proof? What level should they feasibly have a chance of dealing with this BBEG?

[INDYSTAR188]

How PC proof? What level should they feasibly have a chance of dealing with this BBEG?

I was thinking PC level 10 (although there is generally a nice bump at 11, yes?). I think it should be very frustrating but not quite "I quit, I'm taking my dice home".

[RickAllison]

Private Sanctum. Protects against scrying and teleporting that you can make permanent after a year.

Guards and Wards keeps the intrepid adventurers disoriented and distracted if they infiltrate your tower somehow.

Glyphs of Warding are always fun.

Find some way to combat Tiny Hut and populate your tower with bound outsiders and you will be good!

[Tanarii]

If you design him (for combat purposes) as somewhere between the Mage (CR 6, 5th level spell slots) and Archmage (CR12, 9th level spell slots), that'd put him about CR 9 with 7th level spell slots. That'd be for what he could use in the final show, his combat spell load, as opposed to having to mock up a full PC stat bad guy. Which are kinda hard to judge difficulty of.

But what's important there is it means you know what non-combat spec spells he might have access up to, including rituals. 7th level spells. That includes some really fun ones. Like Simulacrum, for the old 'you thought that was the real me you killed? mwahahahah' *cough*. Mirage Arcane. Symbol. Sequester, which makes a fun trap if it was a powerful (and angry) creature, and the trigger is set up so adventurers will break it,

6th level has Programmed Illusion, Guards and Wards, and Create Undead. With a dungeon, he may not care about maintaining control.

If he knows a powerful enough cleric, and can afford to pay for it, maybe he can get a permanent Forbiddance.

Just remember whatever spells you use, if the players can find his spellbooks they'll get access to them too.

[Temperjoke]

So what if level 13 didn't actually exist in the tower? Say, you managed to get onto the level, only to discover several portals, which lead to other rooms and portals. The rooms could have puzzles, enemies, traps, etc., and doesn't exist in the same plane as the tower. It could be a giant maze in another dimension, which is why people can't access it normally from outside. The massive amount of magical energies involved could be affecting the reality in the regular tower.

[JeffreyGator]

I think that you might initially have Marco hire the adventurers to investigate room 13.

You don't care much if they die and gives them something to do. Perhaps later they can become adversaries. (not your intent)

You can send them off to investigate the originals owners of the tower perhaps. gets them out of the way and you might learn about level 13.

Level 13 might be the demiplane of a wizard from some other dimension interacting with our own in a limited way. It has forbiddance upon it.

[INDYSTAR188]

If you design him (for combat purposes) as somewhere between the Mage (CR 6, 5th level spell slots) and Archmage (CR12, 9th level spell slots), that'd put him about CR 9 with 7th level spell slots. That'd be for what he could use in the final show, his combat spell load, as opposed to having to mock up a full PC stat bad guy. Which are kinda hard to judge difficulty of.

But what's important there is it means you know what non-combat spec spells he might have access up to, including rituals. 7th level spells. That includes some really fun ones. Like Simulacrum, for the old 'you thought that was the real me you killed? mwahahahah' *cough*. Mirage Arcane. Symbol. Sequester, which makes a fun trap if it was a powerful (and angry) creature, and the trigger is set up so adventurers will break it,

6th level has Programmed Illusion, Guards and Wards, and Create Undead. With a dungeon, he may not care about maintaining control.

If he knows a powerful enough cleric, and can afford to pay for it, maybe he can get a permanent Forbiddance.

Just remember whatever spells you use, if the players can find his spellbooks they'll get access to them too.

I absolutely love the 'easy' approach to BBEG design. To my mind, the PCs probably don't care and would never know if he has full wizard levels or not. Does it matter if he can transcribe transmutation spells into his spellbook for half-cost? No, not at all.

Regarding the design though, I would like for him to have some kind of physical mutation that might add to his combat abilities (although when you can cast spells it's probably a waste of time to spit acid or whatever at your enemies). If this was 4E I would just pick a monster I liked and re-flavor it to fit my baddie. I can still do this in 5E right? So take the template for Archmage, limit as detailed above but add some weird arcane accident traits? What should he have selected for combat spells (given the general template of 'experiment gone wrong transforms weirdo into mad scientist')?


So what if level 13 didn't actually exist in the tower? Say, you managed to get onto the level, only to discover several portals, which lead to other rooms and portals. The rooms could have puzzles, enemies, traps, etc., and doesn't exist in the same plane as the tower. It could be a giant maze in another dimension, which is why people can't access it normally from outside. The massive amount of magical energies involved could be affecting the reality in the regular tower.

This is great! Perhaps the 59 times he's experienced wild magic surges are when the 'machinery' of level 13 have been working to allow someone to use the 'planar hub' behind the doors? I'm curious how I can incorporate something from this into a showdown with the BBEG?


I think that you might initially have Marco hire the adventurers to investigate room 13.

You don't care much if they die and gives them something to do. Perhaps later they can become adversaries. (not your intent)

You can send them off to investigate the originals owners of the tower perhaps. gets them out of the way and you might learn about level 13.

Level 13 might be the demiplane of a wizard from some other dimension interacting with our own in a limited way. It has forbiddance upon it.

This pairs well with what Temperjoke was saying above; Marvolo hires the PCs to investigate level 13, which it turns out is a planar hub leading to some of the multiverse's 'weirdest' places (Far Realm, Sigil, Pandemonium, the Feywild?). When they first meet him he's gregarious and passionate. Perhaps they come back after discovering level 13's secrets and are rewarded. Time goes by, the magical experient accident happens and then Marvolo is turned into the monster. He then is convinced he needs to start transforming the world to match his 'perfect' image. I like it!

Should he have the PCs come back and try to capture them for his pilot test? How should they stumble onto his new secret?