Making a Wizard fun to fight against.

[NOhara24]

Dax. Turn back now.

Hello All,

I've run into a bit of a conundrum. As this Friday coming is supposed to be something of a boss fight for my players. They're going to be fighting an evil wizard , and I realized something as I was building this Wizard - he wasn't going to be fun to play against. Picking the best spells I could lead to a lot of save-or-suck scenarios and having a fight that is contingent on players failing saves is less than fun for them. That being said, they're used to taking damage and I do want to add a little something-something to obviously make things difficult and make it clear that this is a boss-caliber fight. The simple scenario would be to pick a good blend of spells, but it all leads to the same conclusion - failing a save potentially totally disables party members and that's not fun.

Any thoughts here?

[heavyfuel]

Conjurers can be pretty fun to go against.

Their summons can balance the action the action economy, which is a big problem in D&D. Have him (pre?)cast some self buffs so he becomes a bit tanky and doesnt fall in the first round.

Just dont make him (contingency) teleport at the end unless the players have some counter play to it, even if this counterplay means casting dimension anchor beforehand. Teleporting wizards are annoying and, frankly, kind of dickish

[Eldariel]

Certainly a party can equip themselves to remove the debuffs with their actions making the suck-part of a failed save less permanent. Things like Glitterdust, Web, Grease, etc. can be fought through but it still buys the Wizard time. I'd make use of things that have innate counterplay; illusions, summons, movement modes, the like. Those tend to be the most interactive things in a Wizard's toolbox.

However, this betrays the rather more mundane and important question: what do your players find fun?

Are they strategically minded? Do they relish in overcoming tactical and strategic challenges? If so, you can play up the Wizard's arsenal deep down and watch them get excited as they strive to rise up to the challenge. Stuff like contingent teleports, battlefield control, using e.g. Polymorph to move through terrain, attacking without giving line of effect back, trap books, etc. work. This is the kind of stuff you have to prepare and think through. Thus players with such aptitude will relish in such a challenge.

Are they more interested in simple fighting and smashing their heads against the problems until either their head or the problem cracks? If they are, I do recommend stuff like summons (could even make the Wizard a Malconvoker or something and have 'em summon up a storm), buffing (Polymorph being the big one) and so on. It's stuff they can beat up and stuff their normal strategy works against but still stuff that keeps the fight from being one roll either way and stuff that makes it hard to actually fight the Wizard.

Are they more interested in the narrative and the social interaction than actual fighting or such? Let them talk and enter social encounters with the target and bargain and such keep the fight itself, should it come down to it, relatively simple.

Or other types? There are plenty of course but for the sake of brevity I won't extrapolate here. You know them the best.

[daremetoidareyo]

Suboptimal spells with optimal environmental hazards that work to the wizards' benefit.

Tell us about your wizard's personality and we'll put together a spell list that fits his personality rather than make him a minmaxzard. Then we'll brainstorm how that wizard could use his suboptimal spell list.

[NOhara24]

Certainly a party can equip themselves to remove the debuffs with their actions making the suck-part of a failed save less permanent. Things like Glitterdust, Web, Grease, etc. can be fought through but it still buys the Wizard time. I'd make use of things that have innate counterplay; illusions, summons, movement modes, the like. Those tend to be the most interactive things in a Wizard's toolbox.

However, this betrays the rather more mundane and important question: what do your players find fun?

Are they strategically minded? Do they relish in overcoming tactical and strategic challenges? If so, you can play up the Wizard's arsenal deep down and watch them get excited as they strive to rise up to the challenge. Stuff like contingent teleports, battlefield control, using e.g. Polymorph to move through terrain, attacking without giving line of effect back, trap books, etc. work. This is the kind of stuff you have to prepare and think through. Thus players with such aptitude will relish in such a challenge.

Are they more interested in simple fighting and smashing their heads against the problems until either their head or the problem cracks? If they are, I do recommend stuff like summons (could even make the Wizard a Malconvoker or something and have 'em summon up a storm), buffing (Polymorph being the big one) and so on. It's stuff they can beat up and stuff their normal strategy works against but still stuff that keeps the fight from being one roll either way and stuff that makes it hard to actually fight the Wizard.

Are they more interested in the narrative and the social interaction than actual fighting or such? Let them talk and enter social encounters with the target and bargain and such keep the fight itself, should it come down to it, relatively simple.

Or other types? There are plenty of course but for the sake of brevity I won't extrapolate here. You know them the best.

As much as I want to believe that my party is sharp enough to rise to the challenge of a complicated boss - we've got two noobs and the other two aren't wise in the ways of the arcane. I think they prefer to bash their heads against a problem...but that doesn't make for a good or different encounter, unfortunately. I'm thinking about some fairly mundane damage spells but with one big save or suck as a nuclear option toward the end of the fight.

[NOhara24]

Suboptimal spells with optimal environmental hazards that work to the wizards' benefit.

Tell us about your wizard's personality and we'll put together a spell list that fits his personality rather than make him a minmaxzard. Then we'll brainstorm how that wizard could use his suboptimal spell list.

So this Wizard's name is "Oleg the Red", and he bills himself as the master of time and space...despite the fact that he's level 4. But based on that description alone is why I'm struggling to avoid a lot of the save or suck. What if we had some pretty mundane damaging spells/minor inconveniences and then some kind of nuclear option that results in a party-wide save?

[NOhara24]

Just dont make him (contingency) teleport at the end unless the players have some counter play to it, even if this counterplay means casting dimension anchor beforehand. Teleporting wizards are annoying and, frankly, kind of dickish

Oh no. This is a fight that will result in the death of the NPC Wizard or the death of the PCs. He's not meant to be a recurring villain.

[daremetoidareyo]

baleful transportation. Now all you need is a minion in a damaging environment in your final showdown room. Swap the charging fighter with an ally in a hidden trap. Maybe a lava mephit hanging out in a pool of magic lava on the other side of some difficult terrain. Or maybe it'll be a hairy spider in a web one square away from a pit and poison gas trap.

Abrupt jaunt ACF homeboy!!! That'll keep you alive to throw some shade and pain at the PCs.

give him some ranks in animal handling and you can use benign transposition to move around the board as you swap places with trained mice/hummingbirds/whatever. A few ranks of bluff and you can pretend that you're casting dimension door.

He sounds like a showboat, so maybe he fights until PCs are in submission. If he wins, he strips them of their gear, brands one of them, and takes off.

[Deeds]

As the adventurers enter the expansive cathedral, a set of stairs leads to a man dressed in flamboyant scarlet robes. He stands behind an altar and pulls a rope tied to the ceiling.

"Mwahahaha! You'll never stop me now PCs! Get them my minions!"

Gobs and gobs of large worm-like insects splat to the ground. Several of them even survive the fall to attack the intruders. The robed man begins chanting and waving his arms around in an obnoxious way (Spellcraft 17: Summon Monster II)

How to stop your spellcaster from getting killed in the first round

Spellcaster, check
Terrain, check
In-the-way minions, check

[J-H]

Swift Expeditious retreat for mobility (master of time).
Some of the Dimension Hop type spells... Closed in on the wizard? Oops, he just swapped places with the ogre! Now you're close to an ogre, and he's safe!
Some Phantom Traps (2nd level SRD spell) might help.
Slide, Greater, to move his minions around into blocking/attacking positions.
Swift Fly for a panic button (note that the fly movement still provokes AOOs).

[Particle_Man]

In general, evocation is the weakest school of magic in d20 games. So load up on those?

[J-H]

Evocation's uselessness is far over-rated for low-level combat, especially if the rest of the party has problems dealing damage quickly.

[daremetoidareyo]

Evocation's uselessness is far over-rated for low-level combat, especially if the rest of the party has problems dealing damage quickly.

J-h is correct. Evocation sucks on a pc because it limits their options to hp damage. Evocation on a bad guy also suck for pc's because they can do lots of hp damage to multiple opponents.

[Eldariel]

Evocation's uselessness is far over-rated for low-level combat, especially if the rest of the party has problems dealing damage quickly.

Actually, on low levels in particular the uselessness becomes emphasized as the spell damage is reliant on caster level and without caster level, your Magic Missile does like 1d4+1 and your Scorching Ray 4d6 (average 14; a simple two-handing level 1 Barbarian can get similar average DPR without using daily abilities). Even when you first learn it, Fireball does measly 5d6 (average 17.5) to the whole enemy (with reflex ½). Spell damage scales and once you add metamagic, you can get rather decent at it on high levels but certainly on low levels, simple Alchemist's Fire tends to serve almost as well. They are certainly not unplayably bad and you can optimize a lot to this end though, but on higher levels they become innately much more efficient due to the inherent growth of quadratic proportions combined with item-based boosts.

EDIT: For actual numbers, level 1 Orc Barbarian with 22 Strength attacking with Greatsword is looking at 2d6+9 damage without Rage at +7 (19-20/x2). Power Attack for 1, +6 for 2d6+11. Level 3 Wizard with 16 Dex is using Scorcher for 4d6 at +4 vs. Touch (20/x2). Average CR 3 AC is 16.14 (rounded down to 16) and Touch AC is 11.51 (close enough, let's round down to 11 - one outlier with 18 Touch AC raises it significantly). This lets the Barbarian do average 10.89 damage, while the Wizard averages 10.29. Actually, even without Power Attack Barbie averages 10.55 damage. Level 1 18 Strength Human Barbarian without Rage would lose (with Rage he'd perform as well as the Orc here; with Whirling Frenzy he'd totally blow these numbers out of the water), but level 3 Human Barbarian with Mw. Greatsword would average 10.45 damage at Power Attack for 3 without Rage or any other feats.

[NOhara24]

I like the suggestion of Baleful Transportation and Slide spells - I think the immediate actions alone will be enough of a shock to the action economy and put my players on notice but without being as frustrating or un-fun as constant save or suck spells.

[Starbuck_II]

Spells that might help:
Kelgore's grave mist: damage and debuff with fatigue
bigby's Warding Hand- do otherwise while impeding their movement
bigby's Tripping hand- trip once then do other stuff
Blinding Color Surge (turns you invisible and possibly blind foe)
Cloud of Knives: throw knifes at foe while you do other stuff

A scroll of Prismatic Mist might be useful.

[J-H]

I'm well aware of the numbers, but I had a number of frustrating battles as a 4th level wizard with NO damage spells in a 4-5 man party against about 10 enemies. I webbed and glitterdusted and color sprayed, and the party could still only kill about one enemy every 1-2 turns due to positioning and distances. It could have been a TPK. My best damage option was throwing Alchemist's fire at the webbed guys :(

Most of my low-level casters (including a beguiler) now pick up the 1100 gauntlets from the MIC that let me spend a level 1 spell slot to cast magic missile at my CL 3/day, as well as giving Light at will. Sometimes direct damage is the way to go.

[Hiro Quester]

Minions plus BFC plus debuffs can be frustrating and fun to problem-solve your way around.

Give the wizard a few scrolls of spells he can't yet cast, to up the difficulty for the players.

You think you are about to attack him? No, now he's hiding behind a wall spell (give him a scroll of wall of fire), and now you have to deal with some summoned monsters. Give your wizard a scroll of Protection from Energy so he can ignore the wall's damaging effects while your players have to take damage from it.

How about if the room is lit up with dancing lights that the party does not notice are such, and in the middle of the fight they swoop down to illuminate the party mage, and all the minions are attacking the one who is lit up (others need to protect their friend right now).

And once the party is surrounded by minions and the mage is lit up with lights he casts a fog cloud making it hard for the party to see any other targets.

Or they are caught in a web with the minions in striking distance, and he's slinging acid arrows (or regular arrows) their way.

Hideous laughter can also be frustrating but fun for a player(with a low will save) to role play, and fairly debilitating to a key player for a few rounds. Bonus points if the verbal component the Wizard utters is "Wenn ist das Nunstück git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!"

[J-H]

Stay The Hand (Complete Scoundrel?) is a good spell, too. Immediate action "No, don't hurt me!" Will save or you fail to make your attack.