Best spell loadout for an Archmage if I wanna TPK my party?

[Eldariel]

So Archmage is criminally under-CR'd: I bet we can pretty much all agree on this. If it prepared literally any other 9th level spell, it could well be a TPK in the making even in a 1v4 as a CR = CL fight. Archmage casts as a Wizard so it can change its spells prepared and we can infer that it probably has no real limitations on its spells known. Strictly as written it can't change its Spell Mastery but it's always Invisibility and Disguise Self. Fair enough. However, its actual spell loadout should be something they can change with little issue.

Quick analysis, out of its spell selection:
- Mind Blank is largely fine. However, there are probably better ways to use its Concentration than Stoneskin. Hell, even on the list Globe of Invulnerability is something I'd generally prefer to Stoneskin.
- The complete and utter lack of minions of any kind is kind of strange: it's completely free to use Wish for a mount or a simulacrum, to have a couple of Tiny Servants or undead up or whatever. Tiny Servant from a 5th level slot lets you control 5 Tiny Animated Objects for 8 hours at no Concentration for instance. Of course, Zombies and Skeletons are even stronger on a slot-per-slot basis. And then there are Concentration minions.
- Out of all the 9th level spells, Time Stop is the most "careful not to kill the party" I can imagine. Ergo pretty bad. The optimal choice is actually kinda interesting: the obvious layer zero option of Meteor Swarm is nice but it doesn't grant long term benefits. Meanwhile, Shapechange could be really good...but since it works based off CR, the Archmage is actually limited to CR 12 forms, which makes it significantly less amazing. True Polymorph and Wish are big ticket spells but without good high CR underlings True Polymorph gets much less amazing and if we only consider safe Wishes, it might actually not be better as a combat spell than many alternatives.
- There are pretty glaring omissions in the spell loadout. They have Counterspell but neither Absorb Elements nor Shield. Instead they've prepared...Identify and Detect Magic that they could Ritual just as well? Okay.
- The AOE Save-or-X front leaves a lot to be desired. Out of the big ones, there's basically nothing: no Hypnotic Pattern, no Slow, no Fear, no Watery Sphere, no Web, etc. Wall of Force is the only one: admittedly a good one but still.
- At-will Invisibility means they have a decent shot at starting a fight at advantage.


With that, I think the most obvious alterations are:
- Remove Identify and probably Detect Magic (a reasonable spell, granted)
- Remove Fire Shield (it just doesn't feel worth casting: I guess it could be cast in Time Stop, but eh...)
- Remove Stoneskin (better uses for Concentration)
- Remove Time Stop
- Add Shield and Absorb Elements
- Add Crown of Stars? Good alternative for Teleport when fighting instead of Scry'n'Dieing. Forcecage also seems like a reasonable alternative. The 7th level slot seems like the there's a lot of mixed pressure on it.
- Add either Tiny Servant or Animate Dead.
- What's the 9th level spell? That's the big ticket question and also determines what to use Concentration on.

Other spells I can see being reasonable. Then add some decent Contingency, a Simulacrum, a Greater Steed and it begins to resemble an actual caster using its spells instead of a random guy who pops into existence 1 minute before the fight.

[TheMango55]

Prismatic Wall at 9th level. It’s not concentration so he can use telekinesis or bigby’s hand to fling people into the wall.

[JNAProductions]

Is this just a hypothetical, how can we beef up the archmage?

Or are you actually trying to TPK your party?

[stoutstien]

I personally hate treating archmages like the caster equivalent of western gun slingers. Under no foreseeable circumstance can I see them exchanging blows in the traditional sense unless there is a strong narrative reason like defending a chair on some council.

With the new summoning spells and wish I could see an archmages spending his free time cycling planar binding until they have sizable and flexible force of minions. Constructs, undead, and elemental stand out as being immune to exhaustion. Toss in a few other for speed reduction and blocked healing you have a nice army of risk free and disposable bodies.

[Eldariel]

Is this just a hypothetical, how can we beef up the archmage?

Or are you actually trying to TPK your party?

Just having fun figuring out better optimised spell loadouts. If I wanted to actually TPK my party, I can just drop a rock on them.


I personally hate treating archmages like the caster equivalent of western gun slingers. Under no foreseeable circumstance can I see them exchanging blows in the traditional sense unless there is a strong narrative reason like defending a chair on some council.

With the new summoning spells and wish I could see an archmages spending his free time cycling planar binding until they have sizable and flexible force of minions. Constructs, undead, and elemental stand out as being immune to exhaustion. Toss in a few other for speed reduction and blocked healing you have a nice army of risk free and disposable bodies.

Of course that's not plan A, but this is specifically for scenarios where an Archmage must, for whatever reason, engage in direct combat (while not specifically prepared for it but with a generalist loadout).

[JackPhoenix]

So Archmage is criminally under-CR'd: I bet we can pretty much all agree on this. If it prepared literally any other 9th level spell, it could well be a TPK in the making even in a 1v4 as a CR = CL fight.

So.... what are you saying is it *isn't* underCR'd due to its default spell selection.


- The complete and utter lack of minions of any kind is kind of strange: it's completely free to use Wish for a mount or a simulacrum, to have a couple of Tiny Servants or undead up or whatever. Tiny Servant from a 5th level slot lets you control 5 Tiny Animated Objects for 8 hours at no Concentration for instance. Of course, Zombies and Skeletons are even stronger on a slot-per-slot basis. And then there are Concentration minions.

It's an NPC. Any minions would be part of the encounter building, not stat block. And could hardly have Tiny Servants when it was released years before the spell was created.


- There are pretty glaring omissions in the spell loadout. They have Counterspell but neither Absorb Elements nor Shield. Instead they've prepared...Identify and Detect Magic that they could Ritual just as well? Okay.

Absorb Elements was not a thing when MM was released. And archmage can't cast rituals, much less rituals it doesn't have prepared. It's not actually a wizard. For the same reason, nothing suggests it can change it's spell selection daily.

[loki_ragnarock]

If you change the spell load, you have to change the CR.

The CR was set with that specific spell load in mind. If you want to change the spell load, you've gotten into tinkering and custom monster creation. Adjust accordingly.

[Eldariel]

If you change the spell load, you have to change the CR.

The CR was set with that specific spell load in mind. If you want to change the spell load, you've gotten into tinkering and custom monster creation. Adjust accordingly.

So what you're telling me is that an Archmage can turbocharge their Shapechange by preparing different spells next day? That's brilliant!

What spells would you say would suffice for turning into a Marilith assuming 9th level slot is taken?


So.... what are you saying is it *isn't* underCR'd due to its default spell selection.



It's an NPC. Any minions would be part of the encounter building, not stat block. And could hardly have Tiny Servants when it was released years before the spell was created.



Absorb Elements was not a thing when MM was released. And archmage can't cast rituals, much less rituals it doesn't have prepared. It's not actually a wizard. For the same reason, nothing suggests it can change it's spell selection daily.

It casts Wizard spells though so I would expect rules governing those would apply where not explicitly overwritten. In any case, irrelevant. Please help me with the actual inquiry. We can discuss this surprising sidetrack in a separate thread.

[Corran]

Well, the main problem is how quickly they can be taken out by pc's who are just adequate in dealing burst damage and in mobility if necessary. There are options in the wizard's list to make the mage stand longer, and more importantly to reduce the chance of losing a good concentration effect that is ongoing. But apart from a few exceptions, such spells tend to suffer from bad action economy. Which reminds me of one recent thread/video by Bilbron, where he discussed stone shape, and how it could be used to give you total cover (and the implication is that it may last for a few rounds). Hence, if something like that can work decently (haven't looked at the hp of the stone block or of how we could use it more like a few extra turns where we are just buffing ourselves), or alternatively if the archmage is able to prepare for a few seconds for the encounter, then I'd say that spells like mirror image, blink, fire shield (possibly more, but that's all I've got now) would work fine (fire shield in particular could even free up a few reactions from absorb elements). So, these kind of buffs, and something like stone shape or dimension door (as reactive measures; though you could go proactive with stuff like scrying and arcane eye, etc) to ensure the necessary time for pre buffing (cause using our 9th level slot with time stop for something like that is meh).

Another idea (stealing stuff I read from LudicSavant and Greywander now), is maddening darkness combined with mind blank (counterspell at the ready), and then you need either truesight or an inconspicuous familiar and the metamagic feat for quicken (truesight is smoother, and I guess it works better within the limits of this thought exercise). The problem here being that it wont last long enough to kill pc's who charge in there to hurt you (unless you are crazy lucky with blink -though that makes the whole thing even more vulnerable to dispel magic and antimagic field, cause you'll not be there to have a chance to counterspell; I wish distant could work with CS), and if they stay out you probably wont have the offnsive non-concentration output to take them down either. With allies in play it might be better, but you can end up screwing your allies too (notable exception anything with blindsight/tremorsense/truesight that is also immune to psychic damage).

Power word kill and hold person (upcast) can both be nasty against pc's, but I'd expect to have better stuff we could do with our 9th level slots and concentration respectively.

Shapechange was my first thought, but you are right that it takes a hit given that it's limited by CR in this case. It since we are talking about an unexpected encounter were your minion army wont be able to help you, then I guess that true polymorph is rightfully out as well. So I am thinking wish or prismatic wall for the 9th level slot. For wish I'd go with one of MaxWilson's ideas, that of one action cast of symbol (insanity option).
Obligatory reference: https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0448.html

[loki_ragnarock]

So what you're telling me is that an Archmage can turbocharge their Shapechange by preparing different spells next day? That's brilliant!
Where did I say that?

I said if you're going to change the spell load, you have to change the CR.

At that point it's a custom monster; a peculiar kind of headache that some DMs enjoy inducing.



What spells would you say would suffice for turning into a Marilith assuming 9th level slot is taken?

I think you're overthinking it at that point. If the expectation is that they're fighting a Marilith that can cast spells like an archmage, then just adjust the CR for a marilith that can cast spells.

With the spells indicated for an Archmage, it probably wouldn't meaningfully impact the CR of a Marilith much. If your intention is that they turn into an Archmage after the Marilith's hp is depleted, then you have an encounter consisting of (1) Marilith and (1) Archmage. Though letting the archmage in this instance cast counterspell an infinite number of times per round is a pretty funny consequence, I might be inclined to eyeball an increase to total XP bonuses as a result... or to keep it simple, just not let that happen.

KISS

Archmage isn't under CR; it's basically fine.

Custom Creature with alternative spell list is whatever CR the calculator would put it at.


It casts Wizard spells though so I would expect rules governing those would apply where not explicitly overwritten. In any case, irrelevant. Please help me with the actual inquiry. We can discuss this surprising sidetrack in a separate thread.
Why would you expect that?

I wouldn't expect the Berserker to be able to take half damage from bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage for a minute as a bonus action just because it shares surface features with a Barbarian.

The Archmage CR is based on the creature with the spell list in question. Change the spell list and you've got a different CR.

NPCs and PCs don't follow the same creation rules. This isn't Pathfinder.

[Unoriginal]

If you change the spell load, you have to change the CR.

The CR was set with that specific spell load in mind. If you want to change the spell load, you've gotten into tinkering and custom monster creation. Adjust accordingly.

This is correct.

Also worth noting that a lvl 12 party can survive Meteor Swarm and still be in good enough shape to kill the Archmage, so even if it's a much rougher fight it's not half-god vs a bunch of lvl 1 PCs.

[Yakk]

A champion is clearly inspured by a fighter but is not one.

An archmage is clearly inspured by a wizard but is not one.

A 17th level wizard could be specced out, but I doubt it would make a great fight. One side or the other would instantgib. At the level where the PCs couldn't instant kill an unprepared wizard, a wizard prepared could instant kill the entire party.

That puts pretty specific constraints on encounter building, which makes it a poor monster for general use.

A wizard who starts combat as a spellcasting demon, then contingencies into a giant ape and finally a warded spellcaster? Awedome fight, could easily be CR 20+.

"Build me a CR20+ level 17 wizard inspired monster encounter" is a good plan.

[sithlordnergal]

I fully agree with you that an Archmage is well below its CR. Its not a real challenge for a party of level 12's, its somewhat of a challenge for a party of level 7's when you don't change their spells. As for changing the Archmage's spells:

- Get rid of Time Stop, and snag Wish, True Polymorph, or Prismatic Wall. Prismatic Wall alone can provide a nearly impenetrable barrier for some amazing control.

- Replace Lightning Bolt with Fireball. Why? Fireball is just better.

- Replace Fire Shield with Confusion, Resilient Sphere, or Polymorph.

- Replace Detect Thoughts with Hold Person, Scorching Ray, Acid Arrow, Flaming Sphere, or Web

- Replace Identify with Shield

- Replace Firebolt with Chill Touch

Boom, now you have an Archmage who still has their utility spells, but can actually hold their own in a fight. You should assume that the archmage has precast spells like Mage Armor, Mind Blank, and Stoneskin, which help with defenses. But those small changes will make them an actual threat.

[Unoriginal]

I fully agree with you that an Archmage is well below its CR. Its not a real challenge for a party of level 12's

A CR 12 NPC is no real challenge to a party of lvl 12 PCs. A CR 12 NPC is a Medium encounter for four lvl 12 PCs, and an Easy encounter for five PCs of said level.

In other word by lvl 12 the group should have the strength and ressources to fight more than half a dozen Archmages in a day, in a 1 vs the whole group scenario. If they spend those ressources.

[Zuras]

Your best chance for a TPK is easily Psychic Scream. I’ve seen parties almost wiped by it even when the DM wasn’t trying for a super deadly encounter, just bad rolls.

The problem is anything that could work would require immediately killing or incapacitating a large fraction of the party to control their massive action economy advantage, which isn’t that much fun for anyone.

[sithlordnergal]

A CR 12 NPC is no real challenge to a party of lvl 12 PCs. A CR 12 NPC is a Medium encounter for four lvl 12 PCs, and an Easy encounter for five PCs of said level.

In other word by lvl 12 the group should have the strength and ressources to fight more than half a dozen Archmages in a day, in a 1 vs the whole group scenario. If they spend those ressources.

Well, the main issue is that its not even something that I'd consider to be a Medium Encounter. An Archmage has 99 hp, 15 AC at best, only a +2 initiative, and a poor spell loadout. The only spells that directly damage enemies are Magic Missile, Lightning Bolt, and Cone of Cold, with the only control spell being Banishment. At level 12 a party should have access to magical forms of weapons, either with spells or actual magical weapons, which bypasses stoneskin. Assuming a somewhat average party with maxed out primary skills, they should kill the archmage in 1 to 2 rounds without expending any resources.

And that's a party where the Fighter uses a d8 weapon, the Rogue uses a d6 weapon, and the Wizard and Cleric use cantrips. They'll do an average of about 84 damage per round, assuming they all hit which is a good assumption to make since they'd have a +9 to hit at a minimum.

[loki_ragnarock]

with the only control spell being Banishment.

Which is surprisingly effective for sequestering a large portion of the party when cast using higher level spell slots... which they have access to. The ability to potentially banish a five man party at the drop of a hat isn't anything to sneeze at in terms of control.

Even so, at level 12 a CR 12 encounter shouldn't be anything more than a speedbump, the absolute bare minimum floor for a medium encounter... which is basically an easy encounter, really. And that's basically what you've described; an easy speedbump.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Well, the main issue is that its not even something that I'd consider to be a Medium Encounter. An Archmage has 99 hp, 15 AC at best, only a +2 initiative, and a poor spell loadout. The only spells that directly damage enemies are Magic Missile, Lightning Bolt, and Cone of Cold, with the only control spell being Banishment. At level 12 a party should have access to magical forms of weapons, either with spells or actual magical weapons, which bypasses stoneskin. Assuming a somewhat average party with maxed out primary skills, they should kill the archmage in 1 to 2 rounds without expending any resources.

And that's a party where the Fighter uses a d8 weapon, the Rogue uses a d6 weapon, and the Wizard and Cleric use cantrips. They'll do an average of about 84 damage per round, assuming they all hit which is a good assumption to make since they'd have a +9 to hit at a minimum.

First, you're looking at a solo encounter. That's always a bad idea, especially for non-legendary monsters. Archmages want minions.

Second, the archmage stat block is a defensive CR 4. So yes, a level 12 party should be able to drop it in a round or two, max. That's as designed. It's also, as built, only an offensive Cr 9. So yes, it's not a super-bad threat. For a party of level 9s, it's a more significant threat. Their spellcasters can't do much and it can lay down hurt enough in that one round (assuming it's got minions to keep the bruisers away for a round or so).

The reason it's CR 12 is globe of invulnerability. That can't be bypassed by any spell below 6th level, so level 11 minimum. This is the same thing with the rakshassa, whose calculated CR clocks in at a whopping...5 (vs book CR of 13).

A stock archmage is going to frustrate any spellcasting parties, while not posing a particular threat. Solo, at least. However, put him with some minions (preferably beefy walls of meat) and it's a different story. I also calculated the CR with a pure offensive loadout. Came in like offensive CR 20 or so. And that, I'd say, is an even worse glass cannon. It dies when something sneezes at it, but it also obliterates a couple party members before they can act. Pure alpha strike. And IMO that's not tons of fun.

Honestly, I think the archmage (and many of the NPC stat blocks) are poorly designed as enemies. And none of them are solo fights. Interpreting them as solo fights, even hypothetically, produces all sorts of warping effects on the calculations.

IMO, creatures of CR 10 and below are your go-tos. They start appearing in larger and larger amounts--what were mini-bosses are now mooks. Creatures of CR 11+ are leader-types. For a T2 party, they're bosses. For a T3+ party, they're used in conjunction with lesser monsters as a squad leader of sorts. And CR 17+ monsters are "true" BBEG types for T3 parties and come with CR 8-12 minions for T4 parties.

[Kane0]

Prismatic Wall at 9th level. It’s not concentration so he can use telekinesis or bigby’s hand to fling people into the wall.

The made me evil-DM laugh and thus gets my vote.

[Eldariel]

First, you're looking at a solo encounter. That's always a bad idea, especially for non-legendary monsters. Archmages want minions.

Second, the archmage stat block is a defensive CR 4. So yes, a level 12 party should be able to drop it in a round or two, max. That's as designed. It's also, as built, only an offensive Cr 9. So yes, it's not a super-bad threat. For a party of level 9s, it's a more significant threat. Their spellcasters can't do much and it can lay down hurt enough in that one round (assuming it's got minions to keep the bruisers away for a round or so).

The reason it's CR 12 is globe of invulnerability. That can't be bypassed by any spell below 6th level, so level 11 minimum. This is the same thing with the rakshassa, whose calculated CR clocks in at a whopping...5 (vs book CR of 13).

A stock archmage is going to frustrate any spellcasting parties, while not posing a particular threat. Solo, at least. However, put him with some minions (preferably beefy walls of meat) and it's a different story. I also calculated the CR with a pure offensive loadout. Came in like offensive CR 20 or so. And that, I'd say, is an even worse glass cannon. It dies when something sneezes at it, but it also obliterates a couple party members before they can act. Pure alpha strike. And IMO that's not tons of fun.

Honestly, I think the archmage (and many of the NPC stat blocks) are poorly designed as enemies. And none of them are solo fights. Interpreting them as solo fights, even hypothetically, produces all sorts of warping effects on the calculations.

IMO, creatures of CR 10 and below are your go-tos. They start appearing in larger and larger amounts--what were mini-bosses are now mooks. Creatures of CR 11+ are leader-types. For a T2 party, they're bosses. For a T3+ party, they're used in conjunction with lesser monsters as a squad leader of sorts. And CR 17+ monsters are "true" BBEG types for T3 parties and come with CR 8-12 minions for T4 parties.

Luckily it's trivial to give caster enemies spells that give it minions as a part of its statblock so they basically should never occur alone as that just means they aren't using their spells; it can expend some 3rd/4th level slots to have N Tiny Servants and Zombies and Skeletons around, which can do some facetanking, item use and even damage if lucky. I've actually run a level 8 Conjurer (self-built) vs. a level 5 party and it was a real close fight. The party did win by the skin of their teeth but more due to luck than anything else; the Conjurer summoned a Barlgura at the start of the fight (without the party Wizard having line of effect) and had the party Rev. Ranger not made their save vs. Phantasmal Force (at -1 Int no less) they wouldn't have had the damage to win the fight.

He had 3 Zombies and 7 Skeletons with some equipment from its two level 3 slot and one level 4 slots (though it had used another two slots to raise two of them that same day so he was low on high level slots) plus a familiar. He had Arcane Recoveried a 4th level slot so in the fight he had one 4th level slot, zero 3rd level slot and all the 1st and 2nd level ones aside from the one used for Mage Armor (the fight also enabled him to cast Mirror Image while the party was digging their way in; they decided to attack the cave from a tunnel). Had he had those slots available he would've certainly won (one-two Fireballs more would've been more than enough to finish the party off). I counted that as a single enemy since all those minions were produced by his spell slots.

[loki_ragnarock]

I counted that as a single enemy since all those minions were produced by his spell slots.

...

...

Hookay.

I mean, it's your table. You do you. It sort of violates the spirit of the game, but if everyone's having fun then all I can do is shrug and hope I never see an official adventure that runs along that line of reasoning.

I did something similar in 3.5 involving a Thrallherd/(Class I can't remember that gets a ton of animal companions) gestalt with the draconic leadership feat to get the party to fight what was basically an army with a piddling xp reward, but that was a game that thrived on stupid edge cases with a group that enjoyed stupid edge cases enough to laugh about it. It was a joke, ultimately.
But I wouldn't have pulled that on a random group and expected them to get the joke.

You know your audience.

And if you don't, shoot, maybe it'll inspire your players to actually run a game of their own instead of griping.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Luckily it's trivial to give caster enemies spells that give it minions as a part of its statblock so they basically should never occur alone as that just means they aren't using their spells; it can expend some 3rd/4th level slots to have N Tiny Servants and Zombies and Skeletons around, which can do some facetanking, item use and even damage if lucky. I've actually run a level 8 Conjurer (self-built) vs. a level 5 party and it was a real close fight. The party did win by the skin of their teeth but more due to luck than anything else; the Conjurer summoned a Barlgura at the start of the fight (without the party Wizard having line of effect) and had the party Rev. Ranger not made their save vs. Phantasmal Force (at -1 Int no less) they wouldn't have had the damage to win the fight.

He had 3 Zombies and 7 Skeletons with some equipment from its two level 3 slot and one level 4 slots (though it had used another two slots to raise two of them that same day so he was low on high level slots) plus a familiar. He had Arcane Recoveried a 4th level slot so in the fight he had one 4th level slot, zero 3rd level slot and all the 1st and 2nd level ones aside from the one used for Mage Armor (the fight also enabled him to cast Mirror Image while the party was digging their way in; they decided to attack the cave from a tunnel). Had he had those slots available he would've certainly won (one-two Fireballs more would've been more than enough to finish the party off). I counted that as a single enemy since all those minions were produced by his spell slots.

Much simpler to just, you know, add minions like normal. Where did they come from? The same bin that all minions come from. That way encounter design works properly, you can plan, and you don't have to worry about the whole cheese factor and properly accounting for spell slots (since there's no way a standard full-caster enemy will burn through all his slots in a combat).

And doing it this way (formally doing it) requires that you build them as PCs. Which makes things even worse. The stock archmage doesn't have Arcane Recovery, for one thing. Monsters do not have PC levels (as a general rule). They emulate certain features, but not the whole kit-and-kaboodle.

[MaxWilson]

And doing it this way (formally doing it) requires that you build them as PCs. Which makes things even worse. The stock archmage doesn't have Arcane Recovery, for one thing. Monsters do not have PC levels (as a general rule). They emulate certain features, but not the whole kit-and-kaboodle.

In Eldariel's story it wasn't an Archmage, it was an 8th level Conjuror, which is 100% fine. An archmage ought to have real narrative weight, not just be a 18-second speedbump, so whatever minor extra effort you have to invest in order to flesh him out as a 20th level wizard instead of a CR 12 Archmage (ASIs are easy so most of the extra complexity will be in choosing his 44+ spellbook spells) will still be swamped by the effort you invest in roleplaying complexity: connecting him to other NPCs, figuring out how goals and desires and relationships and shameful secrets and biases and alliances and how he is going to relate to the PCs.

If you're using a CR 12 Archmage straight out of the MM, think hard about why you are doing so and whether you ought to be using an actual 17th+ level Wizard instead.

[PhoenixPhyre]

In Eldariel's story it wasn't an Archmage, it was an 8th level Conjuror, which is 100% fine. An archmage ought to have real narrative weight, not just be a 18-second speedbump, so whatever minor extra effort you have to invest in order to flesh him out as a 20th level wizard instead of a CR 12 Archmage (ASIs are easy so most of the extra complexity will be in choosing his 44+ spellbook spells) will still be swamped by the effort you invest in roleplaying complexity: connecting him to other NPCs, figuring out how goals and desires and relationships and shameful secrets and biases and alliances and how he is going to relate to the PCs.

If you're using a CR 12 Archmage straight out of the MM, think hard about why you are doing so and whether you ought to be using an actual 17th+ level Wizard instead.

I strongly disagree. For one thing, a level 20 wizard would be even more of a glass cannon (d6 HD vs d8). And building him as a PC means you're spending buckets of extra time (I make NPCs all the time, and doing so with class levels sucks, badly) for things that just don't matter. All the mechanical details beyond what's in a stat block? Don't matter one whit when you're doing all the roleplaying stuff. They're 100% irrelevant. They can be anything that the NPC's place in the established fiction requires. And doesn't restrict you to PC-available tools, which makes worldbuilding actually possible, instead of either silly-broken (CF 3e) or highly restrictive (CF 3e when you didn't do all the stupid things).

Separating the mechanical implementation of NPCs from their fictional roles is absolutely the best thing 5e did. Grab the stat block off the shelf, maybe change a spell or two. Done. Compared to building characters from scratch for every important person. Especially since the two times are additive (shades of Stormwind)--you don't save any time by making it custom over grabbing a pre-made one and tweaking, so it doesn't actually matter that you're also spending time setting up the roleplay part. The two are independent. So instead of spending X + Y, you're spending X + (y << Y) for a better result. Without having to take all the compromises which come from sticking to PC-build sources.

[MaxWilson]

I strongly disagree. For one thing, a level 20 wizard would be even more of a glass cannon (d6 HD vs d8).

That doesn't follow. A Con 12 20th level wizard will have 2 + 20 * 5 = 102 HP. A CR 12 Archmage has... 99 HP. No significant difference except w/rt Power Word Kill (where CR 12 Archmage is worse), or True Polymorph/Shapechange (where CR 12 Archmage is again worse). Can you make a Con 10 or Con 8 Archmage? Sure, if you want to, but you don't have to.


And building him as a PC means you're spending buckets of extra time (I make NPCs all the time, and doing so with class levels sucks, badly) for things that just don't matter.

I do it all the time, and yet somehow for me it's quick and easy. Whatever you're doing to make it hard for yourself is clearly optional.

[PhoenixPhyre]

That doesn't follow. A Con 12 20th level wizard will have 2 + 20 * 5 = 102 HP. A CR 12 Archmage has... 99 HP. No significant difference except w/rt Power Word Kill (where CR 12 Archmage is worse), or True Polymorph/Shapechange (where CR 12 Archmage is again worse). Can you make a Con 10 or Con 8 Archmage? Sure, if you want to, but you don't have to.



I do it all the time, and yet somehow for me it's quick and easy. Whatever you're doing to make it hard for yourself is clearly optional.

For one thing, the CR 12 archmage casts an 18th level wizard, not a 20th level one. So you're giving that one a bunch of extra levels. At d6 HD, 18*(3.5+1) comes out to 81 HP (remember, non-PC's don't get full HP for their first HD, even when built using PC standards!, but even relaxing that only bumps it up to 84). So yeah. That's another CR lower on the defensive chart (each CR ~ 15 HP).

And as for time, just picking 44 known spells (minimum, not including cantrips!) plus 25 prepared spells, plus cantrips, plus figuring out what he'd have cast that day (to deal with spell slots + Arcane Recovery) takes ~30 minutes. In 30 minutes, I can do the roleplay setup for four or five significant NPCs. And that's not including the rest of the stat block prep or encounter prep. Whereas pulling the stat block and tweaking the loadout takes...30 seconds? a minute?

And 90+% of that time figuring out spells is utterly wasted--he's unlikely to cast more than 2 or 3 of those total on camera if it comes to a fight. And if it doesn't come to a fight...I didn't need a stat block at all.

[JackPhoenix]

That doesn't follow. A Con 12 20th level wizard will have 2 + 20 * 5 = 102 HP. A CR 12 Archmage has... 99 HP. No significant difference except w/rt Power Word Kill (where CR 12 Archmage is worse), or True Polymorph/Shapechange (where CR 12 Archmage is again worse). Can you make a Con 10 or Con 8 Archmage? Sure, if you want to, but you don't have to.

That's because a) archmage has 18 HD, not 20, and b) uses proper average instead of rounding up.

Level 18 wizard has 81 HP on average.

[noob]

So Archmage is criminally under-CR'd: I bet we can pretty much all agree on this. If it prepared literally any other 9th level spell, it could well be a TPK in the making even in a 1v4


False.
They could pick weird which is awesomely bad.

[MaxWilson]

False.
They could pick weird which is awesomely bad.

I'll see your Weird and raise: Imprisonment. 1 minute casting time, 30' range, Wis save, must be customized to the target.

[JackPhoenix]

False.
They could pick weird which is awesomely bad.

At least Weird would do *something*, even though the damage sucks even assuming it works. Imagine having Astral Projection instead....