If you had to make a Cliched as hell EVIL SORCERER, what spells would you give them?

[13ones]

So I've got this NPC for a game I'm running. He's the adviser to the king, a 18th level sorcerer. He wears dark flowing robes, has a long beard and mustache and the party has already stumbled across him skulking several times.

He's a giant red herring. He is the least Evil guy in the king's inner circle but the party is super convinced that he's the big bad guy.

The king is sending him to a neighboring kingdom and the party is to escort him there and back safely.

I want to give him some spells that just scream "I AM AN EVIL WIZARD". What do you all suggest?

[Flickerdart]

"Screaming skulls" is explicitly one of the options for Spell Thematics. Make any spell into a screaming skulls spell!

[Douglas]

Just look through the list of necromancy debuff/damage/killing spells, really. Necromancy has a strong association with evil, in the minds of the writers as well as many players - it's practically the default school for anything that seems even superficially evil.

[NomGarret]

I'd load up on enchantment spells as well. Clearly he's gotten this far in his diabolical schemes by charm/hypnotize/dominating anything in his way. If members of the party don't realize this, it's because he's already gotten to them. Now they're another of his unconscious puppets.

[Aldrakan]

"Screaming skulls" is explicitly one of the options for Spell Thematics. Make any spell into a screaming skulls spell!

This is a Pathfinder thread, don't think Spell Thematics exists there. Easily ported of course.


Animate dead, bloody skeletons. Nothing says evil like gore-drenched skeleton warriors. (An Evil spell if that's an issue, but depending on your world's lore maybe not actually that evil an act?)
Wall of Corpses
Explode Head instead of Disintegrate, less effective but so much more brutal.
Mass Suffocation is just a horrifying effect if he can use it on a sizable group.
Black Tentacles is perhaps too classic, if they're familiar with the spell as a staple it loses impact
Undead Anatomy if the situation calls for it
Hellfire Ray damns the target to Hell, but maybe that's too heavy on the actually evil front. Hungry Earth gives a similar impression without actually doing it

[Sagetim]

So I've got this NPC for a game I'm running. He's the adviser to the king, a 18th level sorcerer. He wears dark flowing robes, has a long beard and mustache and the party has already stumbled across him skulking several times.

He's a giant red herring. He is the least Evil guy in the king's inner circle but the party is super convinced that he's the big bad guy.

The king is sending him to a neighboring kingdom and the party is to escort him there and back safely.

I want to give him some spells that just scream "I AM AN EVIL WIZARD". What do you all suggest?

Fabricate, Wish, Finger of Death, Cloud Kill, Teleport, something for scrying, Dominate Person, Charm Monster.

Fabricate because, as far as I can tell, it's just as breakable in Pathfinder as it is in 3.5. Wish because it costs money now instead of xp, which means you can use Fabricate to fuel your 3 wishes per day. He'll also need mad ranks in craft (jeweler) to pull that off well, but the dividends would be...well, basically infinite. As long as he doesn't flood the market by selling any of the diamond he is making, the market value on it remains the same and he can just keep Fabricating up more for any kind of shenanigans he might need Wish for.

Finger of Death is the quintissential 'Eat it' spell. I mean, I'd get it on any wizard I play, regardless of alignment, because quite frankly sometimes you just need a target to die in a dnd game. Cloudkill is for dealing with locations infested with annoying enemies, like goblins and kobolds. Just cast Cloudkill overhead and let it rain down and murder large masses of them. For greater effect, Fly and Gust of Wind (or Control Wind/Control Air) could help you move it around. Boots of Levitation might be more useful than locking out one of your spells as Fly though.

Teleport and Scrying for, not only spying on people as every evil master mind should be able to...but so that you can scry and die targets that need to be ended. "Oh, plotting rebellion eh?, Stone Skin, Teleport, Cloudkill, Finger of Death, Finger of Death, Finger of Death, Teleport."

Dominate Person and Charm Monster are probably all he would really need for mind control. Which, while not strictly evil, can be incredibly abusable and lead to highly unethical behavior. Dominate Person for humanoid targets (such as people whom the king might want as prisoners) and Charm Monster so that rampaging beasts can be used against one another, or at least corraled to a degree.

This Evil Sorcerer should probably have a +3 inherent bonus to all of his stats, courtesy of Fabricate Abuse and Wish. Wish also opens up the ability to get some of the nicer Cleric spells, like Forbiddance. Similarly, it could allow for both Mage's Private Sanctum and Permanency without having to, you know, actually pick those spells up as spells known. Best of all, it can be used to reward the party or bribe them if they get him into an awkward position and he's trying to weasel his way out. In point of fact, he might not have a problem with just giving the players a pile of diamonds to leave him alone, even on a regular basis, because he can Fabricate more with potentially little to no issue. He doesn't have to pursue some kind of pride based 'oh, they have slighted me by forcing me to bribe them' agenda when, quite frankly, he can just spin more money out of some spellwork with ease.

Something else the Fabricate and Wish combo allows for is the Sorcerer to wrangle a variety of magical items into existence that go completely beyond the regular capabilities of arcane casters. Since Wish can fill in for any spell of 6th level or lower, it can allow that Evil Sorcerer to make, say...a Holy Avenger. Dedicated to Himself. Does it matter that he's not a good deity? no. Will it really mess with the players if he has one? could do.

Edit: As a reminder to others, the sorcerer in question is the Least Evil of the king's advisors. Which means he may well be Lawful Neutral. He could be using his Fabricate, Wish, and magic item creation shenanigans to stockpile mysterious magical items that nobody else is entirely sure what they do (but suspect it's evil, cuz he's so suspicious and evil seeming). The big reveal coming that he's been building decanter's of endless water and modified ever-full rice barrels*, and wagons with built in bags of holding to usher the kingdom into a new age of prosperity by allowing the farmers to live off the state-provided food and water, then selling their crops to nearby kingdoms by using the wagons to transport the food so that it won't rot in transit. And the crowning achievement would be a stone platform to be placed in the center of each town to allow people to use the command words to gain the benefits of heal and raise dead. This allows the 'Evil Sorcerer' to be an even bigger red herring than he might otherwise be, since his actions are good for the kingdom. As for why he's only neutral? Well, he might have a penchant for regular bouts of pragmatism and a few too many castings of Animate Dead for the universe to be okay with letting him be Good.

*modified with Prestidigitation to allow the resulting food to taste like anything, even good food.

[legomaster00156]

Just got to make sure everyone knows he's the Sorcerer King and no wizards can defeat his Tier 0 optimization.

[Bucky]

Conjuring darkness and summoning evil outsiders are pretty cliche and effective.

[ATHATH]

The Corrupt spells from the Book of Vile Darkness can be cast by Neutral characters.

[xyamius]

When i read Cliched as hell Evil Sorcerer all i think is someone who monologues a bunch and uses prestidigitation all the time.

I would write him up as Lawful Evil. Black robes uses a bunch of Divination, Transmutation and Necromancy but behind closed doors. High Charisma with lots of ranks in Bluff, Diplomacy and Knowledge skills. They prefer to use Baleful Polymorph on those that cross him and give them back as a present to their family telling them they found it wandering or just picked up this nice chicken/duck and stew would be great to have ready for their missing one when they return.

Uses Alter Self a bunch to do their dirty work and makes sure to block any divination using nondetection and has a secret lair loaded with glyph's of insanity and mindless undead. They are loved by the people since they think he/she is a saint but it's just to hide the monster that is hiding beneath the well groomed attire.

They use Misdirection to stop anyone from finding out their true alignment and hide their true spell casting. I would have them be the person whom may have even hired the pc's to find the root of who is plaguing the city/town etc etc etc and have the pc's report back their findings while tossing them red herring wins while setting up some lawful good person they want removed as the suspect.


The other options are just model them after heinz doofenshmirtz or watch a bunch of old scooby doo cartoons for inspiration.

[Spore]

Arrogance and little concern for the everyman goes a long way, aside from spell selection.

"Why should I care about the fate of this lowly commoner?" (if the fate of the realm is in peril)
"I have to torture this prisoner with vile magic!" (because he knows vital information that could be our country's downfall)
"I use these undead to carry out heavy burdens and protect the castle that stands in a perpetual thunderstorm. (we build it on a leyline and a portal to the elemental plane of wind, and we use undead volunteers because otherwise we would kill a lot of slaves in the process)

[Zaq]

Is Baleful Polymorph still a thing in PF? Because that really feels like a thing that a super cliché evil Sorc should be able to do.

Also, you'll need at least a token amount of mind control. Suggestion at a minimum. Maybe even a nice Dominate. (Heavy use of mind control, in my book, actually DOES pretty much peg you as capital-E Evil, so if you want him to just be a red herring and not really very Evil, maybe go easy on it. But I'm basically picturing this guy as Jafar, so . . .)

[Spore]

Maybe even a nice Dominate. (Heavy use of mind control, in my book, actually DOES pretty much peg you as capital-E Evil, so if you want him to just be a red herring and not really very Evil, maybe go easy on it. But I'm basically picturing this guy as Jafar, so . . .)

Even if you control the subtly evil King to do good deeds? :smallwink:

My lord! You can't burn down the orphanages to make way for a gambling brothel bathing house. *casts Suggestion* And you won't.

[Inevitability]

Arcane fusion and Greater Arcane fusion:
The best spell offensive and versatility spell.
You attack has no defense.

Arcane Spellsurge:
Sorcerer can abuse with it. Better action than Wizard.

Wings of Cover
Its can be a really amazing defensive spells! it can be shared by your allys. level 2 spell.
"Trick", your familiar can share wings of cover with you.

Wings of Flurry
Unlimited damage, area spell, force damage and still can be dazed

Ruin Delver's Fortune
Char for all saves. It can be persisted. Evasion, hp and other buff.

Primal Instinct
Iniciative wins

[VoxRationis]

Look for spells that are particularly vicious or painful in how they kill or incapacitate: Cloudkill, Evard's Black Tentacles, Vampiric Touch, Summon Swarm. There's a spell in the Spell Compendium that rips someone's blood vessels out of their body and turns it into an entangling effect. I think it's called Avasculate or something like that. Extract Water Elemental, which turns all the water in the victim's body into a water elemental under your control, has a similar tendency. Of course, Animate Dead and most kinds of necromancy work as well, and demon summoning will set off people's senses of evil sorcerer.

[Amphetryon]

Simply cribbing all his Spell choices from the Dread Necromancer Spell List would be a good start.

[JustIgnoreMe]

For reasons I will not mention, I am a fan of the bluetext posts above my own. I came to this thread wondering if I would see something similar.

[Kirgoth]

At 18th would suggest hiding her body in a lead lined "hidden vault" <spell> which after a few years is now lost in the astral.
Each morning cast:
1) Lesser astral projection to copy her items so nothing can be lost.
2) Shadow projection and equip with copied (ghost touch) items
3) Plane shift
4) Possession ( advisable to have feat Hidden Presence)
5) Normal Daily Buffs.
6) Renew mind control spells.

This would make her effectively un-killable, If possessed victim was destroyed her shadow could then leak creepily out of the body and continue fighting as a shadow with shadow touch armor and weapons (strength = charisma YAY); if killed again, no problem back tomorrow possessing a different advisor or even someone unexpected like some unremarkable noble child or baby.

Enjoy

[IZ42]

So, @Sagetim and @Kirgoth, I don't think amazeballs Tier 1 Optimization was OP's point here. He wanted thematically appropriate spells for an evil looking sorcerer, and is more concerned about flavor than crunch. That being said, evil domination spells seem to be the way to go, as well as some more flashy stuff like Fire Snake (fluffed to be a cobra created entirely out of hellfire), Black Spot, Blood boil, Ghoul Army, perhaps Symbol of Pain on his personal belongings so no one (especially pesky PCs) goes snooping around his stuff. Summoning evil things (or evil just macabre things) like Psychopomps or Kytons goes over well.

[Celestia]

Does Pathfinder have Apocalypse from the Sky? That's sure to scream "evil."

[Arbane]

Conjuring darkness and summoning evil outsiders are pretty cliche and effective.

"Okay, if you're NOT evil, why do you keep summoning devils to do your bidding?"

"They're reliable, and I don't care if they get killed."

[afroakuma]

Here's a smattering of thematically useful spells for the cliché evil sorcerer. Most I wouldn't suggest using a known spell slot on, but it's worth knowing that there are some truly niche evil spells available. :smalltongue:

blood money for blood magic thematics
cause fear
discern next of kin - "Your feelings have now betrayed her too!"
hypnotism
ray of enfeeblement
ray of sickening
reduce person
windy escape for mocking enemies' ineffectual strikes
youthful appearance for vanity

aboleth's lung
blood armor if you're a blood kind of person, though ideally you don't want this spell to have a use...
bloodbath if you're a blood kind of person
blindness/deafness
boneshaker
burning gaze
contact entity if you're that sort of evil sorcerer
curse terrain if you like throwing down curses
dark whispers for excellent thematic conversations
detect thoughts
fleshcurdle
heckle
invisibility
mad hallucination
qualm
scare
sentry skull
steal breath
touch of bloodletting
whip of spiders


blood biography
call the void
deflect blame - just plain rude
detect anxieties if you're the tempter type
detect desires see above
excruciating deformation
fearsome duplicate
final sacrifice - for when you're both a summoner and a colossal jerk
find fault - versatile, covers many different types of jerk
gloomblind bolts
howling agony
magic circle against evil - odds are high you'll be summoning fiends
magic circle against good
ray of exhaustion
sands of time
spiked pits - because trapdoors are funny and fanged ones are funnier
suggestion - just too versatile not to have
swarm of fangs - because see above about fangs and humor
unadulterated loathing - sowing strife and turning heroes to the dark side
waves of blood
vision of hell

acid pit - fanged trapdoors are funny, digesting ones are hilarious
black tentacles - it's the answer to the question "why aren't my enemies struggling for their lives against a vast extradimensional squid,"
and the only time you shouldn't be asking that question is when you've already cast this spell
boneshatter
claim identity
confusion
conjure deadfall - THWOMP.
crushing despair - emotional THWOMP.
demanding message - nothing more evil than a telemarketer
dreadscape
enervation
fear
flesh puppet
fleshworm infestation - unpleasant and pervasive
horrific doubles
hunger for flesh - educate your foes in the joys of being a humanitarian
malicious spite - the enemy of my enemy is probably still my enemy...
masochistic shadow
phantasmal killer
scrying - villains are nosy

baleful polymorph - "She turned me into a newt!"
black spot - better than a Wanted poster
blood boil
charnel house
cloudkill
damnation stride - just because
dominate person
feast on fear
flesh puppet horde
hold monster
hungry pit - all the humor of before, now in actively malevolent form
mass pain strike - emphasize your point to a crowd
nightmare - because sleep is for those who have earned it
pessimism - everyone should join the dark side
vampiric shadow shield
vile dog transformation
waves of fatigue
whip of centipedes


banshee blast
circle of death
contingency
create undead
disintegrate
enemy hammer - I'm sorry but this is hilarious
eyebite
flesh to stone
greater illusion of treachery
hellfire ray
ice crystal teleport - if you need to imprison someone, this will help you put them there without needing proximity
night terrors
phobia
repulsion
tar pool
unconscious agenda - Manchurian yourself a candidate
unwilling shield
utter contempt
wither limb

crime wave
hungry darkness
insanity
lost legacy
mass hunger for flesh - because a party isn't a party until it's the Donner Party
power word blind
pox of rumors
plundered power
project image
reverse gravity
waves of exhaustion

curse of night
death clutch
frightful aspect
horrid wilting
life of crime
orb of the void
polymorph any object
prediction of failure
rift of ruin
screen
symbol of death
trap the soul

canopic conversion
crushing hand
cursed earth
dominate monster
energy drain
gate
mass suffocation
massacre
maze of madness and suffering
overwhelming presence
power word kill
scribe's binding
soul bind
transmute blood to acid
weird

[Mordaedil]

Check out bonefiddle, 2nd level spell.

You call up a ghostly fiddle bow in the air above the targeted creature. This bow immediately descends into the target body and begins to saw back and forth against its skeleton. Although the music produced is eerily beautiful, it causes intense pain and anguish in the victim. Each round on its turn, the victim must make a Fortitude save or take 3d6 points of sonic damage and a --20 penalty on Move Silently checks. A successful save negates the damage and ends the spell. The spell's effects continue even if the subject moves so that you no longer have line of sight or line of effect to it.

[ATHATH]

There's a spell in the Spell Compendium that rips someone's blood vessels out of their body and turns it into an entangling effect. I think it's called Avasculate or something like that.
I thought that Avasculate was in the BoVD, not the Spell Compendium. Regardless, I think there's an AoE version of it as well.

Doesn't Pathfinder have a spell that lets you create a fire elemental from a corpse?

[Vinyadan]

A British accent. Also, he optimized the Kingdom's dungeons by casting a shrinking spell on the inmates, who now don't need to live in crowded, smelly cells any more, but also are only 5 cm tall.

He wears a python as a headscarf.

He has pointy teeth. The backs of his hands are completely covered with pins penetrating his flesh.

His voice is dry and coarse.

[Inevitability]

Check out bonefiddle, 2nd level spell.

You call up a ghostly fiddle bow in the air above the targeted creature. This bow immediately descends into the target body and begins to saw back and forth against its skeleton. Although the music produced is eerily beautiful, it causes intense pain and anguish in the victim. Each round on its turn, the victim must make a Fortitude save or take 3d6 points of sonic damage and a --20 penalty on Move Silently checks. A successful save negates the damage and ends the spell. The spell's effects continue even if the subject moves so that you no longer have line of sight or line of effect to it.

This is a nice one.

Hell, if you want to really emphasize the evil part, let him have a troll slave or something who's got a continuous item of the spell shackled to themselves. Why? Because he likes the music it makes.

[Flickerdart]

Y'all are kind of missing the point.


He's a giant red herring. He is the least Evil guy in the king's inner circle but the party is super convinced that he's the big bad guy.

He's not actually evil. He's not torturing trolls for fun, or mentally enslaving people, or raising the dead willy-nilly. He just likes the cloak-and-moustache style.

[Vinyadan]

He hates sand.

[legomaster00156]

He hates sand.
To be fair, he grew up in a desert. :smallsmile:

[Sagetim]

Y'all are kind of missing the point.



He's not actually evil. He's not torturing trolls for fun, or mentally enslaving people, or raising the dead willy-nilly. He just likes the cloak-and-moustache style.

I mean, that's why I made suggestions for ridiculous effectiveness. Because if you do your job too well, people are prone to make stuff up about you behind your back, if only to assuage their wounded pride. If you do your job Amazingly well, quite a few people are going to wind up suspicious of it, and start assuming you're dealing with devils or selling yours (or others) souls and so on, even if you aren't. And if you are, well, then they were right, now weren't they?

Anyway, Age Resistance Greater should be on that list as a maybe. If for no other reason than to keep himself and the king looking good into old age. After all, what's better than a cure for balding? making the king physically young again, even if it has to be recast each day.

Polymorph Any Object should probably be on his spell list as well, because it has the potential to be crazy useful and abusable. Especially if the king wants to punish someone in a cruel and unusual manner. Though with enough uses, it would just be cruel and expected.

If you want to get silly with Blood Money, have the sorcerer also have moderate to high strength, and a belt to give him even more strength. The idea being to get the most use of that level 1 spell. After all, if you can take 20 strength damage to cover a 10k material cost on a spell, that's going to cover a Lot of higher level spells. Depending on GM ruling, it might even cover using Blood Money to make Diamond Dust to Fabricate into a diamond object, then have a resulting permanent diamond object that can be fabricated into yet more Diamond Dust.

I have to strongly second Burning Gaze though (or whatever the second level spell is that sets people on fire). It's thematically wonderful and at least mildly effective for a spell of that level. Sure, it's not as amazingly damaging as Scorching Ray will be for a sorcerer of that calibur, but from an 'inciting fear in your enemies' factor, it's got Scorching Ray beat, hands down. After all, 3 beams that you might be able to dodge, or only take out up to 3 people are one thing...but when the person can set you on fire by looking at you funny, you have a whole new kind of problem.

[ATHATH]

"Okay, if you're NOT evil, why do you keep summoning devils to do your bidding?"

"They're reliable, and I don't care if they get killed."
Ooh! Make him a Malconvoker!

[Svata]

I thought that Avasculate was in the BoVD, not the Spell Compendium. Regardless, I think there's an AoE version of it as well.

Doesn't Pathfinder have a spell that lets you create a fire elemental from a corpse?

It's in both. There's also a Mass version, IIRC


Also, there's Flensing, which does CHA and CON damage, and peels your enemy's skin off like an onion.

[denthor]

Necromancy spells scream evil but most of them do not kill.

Waves of exhaustion waves of fatigue. Nothing visible

Many of the ray spells have a black ray . 4th level spell that takes away levels.

You can have ray of clumsiness takes away dex 1d6+5 saving throw for half yellow ray. Ray of exhaustion. This screams evil but in reality does not kill

[Sagetim]

Necromancy spells scream evil but most of them do not kill.

Waves of exhaustion waves of fatigue. Nothing visible

Many of the ray spells have a black ray . 4th level spell that takes away levels.

You can have ray of clumsiness takes away dex 1d6+5 saving throw for half yellow ray. Ray of exhaustion. This screams evil but in reality does not kill

Negative Energy Ray (1st level spell from 3.5, not sure if it was transitioned to pathfinder) which deals negative energy damage, and I think the missing word there for the 4th level spell is Enervation. Which, because it applies negative levels to the target, can kill them if they are low enough level or already have enough negative levels.

[Calthropstu]

Just got to make sure everyone knows he's the Sorcerer King and no wizards can defeat his Tier 0 optimization.

That's not evil, that's chaotic stupid.
On topic: trap the soul. Have him suggest it as a possible solution to a problem.

[Afgncaap5]

If he's truly the least evil person around, but the goal is to make him appear as much like the stereotypical evil sorcerer as possible, then you might also get some mileage with spells that have melodramatic effects. And remember that some spells are more awesome in story than they are in terms of game effect.

Case in point, my go to for this would be Mirror Image. However, it needs to paired with a line along the lines of "But WHICH me is the REEEEAL me?!" Similarly, Pyrotechnics is not only flashy and traditional for mages, but it's also good at masking something that might really be going on.

Also, maybe the spells he knows are mechanically identical to the regular D&D spells, but with entirely different names. "Inescapable Fangs of the Fel Viper" is one of the less common variants of Magic Missile, but certainly notable. He's literally biting his enemies with the inescapable fangs of hell snakes, after all. Maybe not evil, but definitely suspect.

[Demonique]

A few spells my Sorcerer loves using:
Admonishing Ray. Don't laugh - instead of a corpse, you get an unconscious 'bad' guy for torturing later.
Excrutiating Deformation. Because, pain. lots of it, over multiple rounds.
Boneshatter. I love the description of this one. hurting something with it's own body.
Animate Dead. Especially evil of you kill someone in front of their friends, then turn them into a Bloody Skeleton.

Generally, it's not the tools that make someone evil, it's how they use it. Ray of Frost can be thoroughly evil if you wander into the local orphanage, because in Pathfinder you can do it all day...