how should Thay Zulkir fight?

[da newt]

Tier 4 boss fight. Party of level 18/20 Barbarian, bow Rogue, Wizard, and 2 Paladin find 2 Thay Zakir (lvl 18 legendary wizards) w/ 6 knights and 2 stone golem guardians in a very large cavern (300') with a ziggurat in the middle. The Thayans have defeated the YuanTi and are about to grab the McGuffin and teleport out, but they have to magically render it transportable first (a couple rounds).

The Zakir have precast mindblank, trueseeing, and mage armor. They have spell absorbing tats, the knights protect them too (share damage), they have legendary resistance and ADV on saves, and legendary actions to cast low level spells/cantrips. They have counterspell, fireball, lightning bolt, banishment, fire shield, ice storm, cone of cold, dominate person, wall of force, and meteor storm. These guys are the VPs of the Thayan Red Wizards - cruel and very smart. How do they start this fight / what is their best opening combo / strategy?

Also they can change damage types on spells, and the McGuffin makes everyone vulnerable to necrotic (they would know this and take adv of it). They would know of these PCs and know the WIZ is the primary threat, the Pali's are secondary.

Thoughts?

[herrhauptmann]

As a lower level option, banishment on the wizard.

Summon more monsters with a variety of types for different resistances.

Also have one save his actions to counterspell the wizard. Even if the wizard can counter your counter, another zulkir could counter THAT counter. It eats your reactions up, but completely invalidating the wizard for a round is nice. Especially since he now loses his reaction until his next turn.

[JackPhoenix]

Their goal is to get away with the McGuffin, not to have a showdown with the PCs. They need to stall, block the PCs with Wall of Force to give themselves the time they need, and then GTFO when they can. If they can identify the paladin as a paladin, they wouldn't bother to cast save spells on them, or on anyone too close, but anyone out of position is a good target for Banishment, and the barbarian could be dominated. The wizard is the biggest threat due to the ability to get through WoF, the knights and golems are expendable if necessary. Blasting is a fool's game, but Ice Storm can create difficult terrain and slow the enemy approach, and Meteor Swarm could possibly be used to collapse the cavern, if needed.

[Eldariel]

I mean they'd want to just double Necrotic Meteor Swarm: even with saves made, that will kill and you can't Absorb Elements that. However, there is a bit of value to holding the spell. While they could try to upcast Banishment to split the PCs, their AOE should be strong enough to punch through PC HP anyways and Banishment is only ever an option if the PCs are not huddling the Pally. If they are, damage is the way to go and Necrotic is the natural way to bypass typical resistances and abuse the McGuffin.

They could open with Cone of Colds at range (it's huge, it'll hit) to soften the PCs up, WoF lock out the Pally and then try to Banishment as many of the PCs as possible. Use Counterspell superiority to try and restrict the Wizard's options if they make their save (Meteor Swarm for if PCs become vulnerable to Necrotic; an excellent Concentration dropper and kill that can't be Absorb Elementsed)

[da newt]

Yeah - double necrotic meteor storm to start things off is the nuke option (plenty of range so no counterspell issues), but it feels a little too heavy handed (although probably on theme for these jerks). They can't actually just bypass the party and deal w/ the McGuffin because the 300+' long Dednar Construct will activate once they get too close (but they don't know that).

The real downside to this encounter is that their other spells are either weak damage or just 'It sucks to be that Player 'cause you are sealed in a wall of force bubble for most of this encounter.' I was hoping there was something clever / tactical that would be plenty impactful but didn't just remove Player agency.

The Wiz have one 9th lvl slot, they've used their 8th and 6th already on mind blank / trueseeing and need their 7th for Teleport to get the McGuffin out of here so they'll only use that one in an emergency ... So it's really just 5th lvl and down slots + Meteor Swarm ... so wall of force seems the best option for control and use of concentration (10' radius sphere or 20x20 box if there is a wall/floor to use), and then just blasting w/ cone o' necro, necroball, necrobolt with a bit of counterspell, and off turn MM ...

They can cast invisibility at will, so maybe one of them starts unseen.

[animewatcha]

When it comes to this fight, are the thayans 'supposed' to get away? If so, are the players okay with a nearly rigged fight for story purposes?

[da newt]

This mod leaves the outcome open ended - it could go either way (or TPK), but the gargantuan Dednar Construct will do all it can to prevent anyone from taking the McGuffin, and (of course) the whole place is falling to pieces and will fill with lava ...

There is no plot armor I know of.

[herrhauptmann]

So this will be a 3 way fight? Or the guardian will ignore the PCs until they try for the maguffin? (Or attack it of course)

[da newt]

Once anyone approaches the McGuffin the giant snake construct will activate and attack everyone starting with the closest.



We ran the combat tonight. Turns out the LONG ranges were the biggest factor of the whole encounter. One Thay Wiz opened w/ meteor storm (necrotic), the other hid while invisible. Starting ~ 300' apart really changes the casting. Some of the combatants got into melee range - the party Wiz went with whirlwind for some annoyance. Eventually the second Thay Wiz popped up to meteorstorm #2, then mostly trading melee attacks for a bit, until Thay Wiz #1 decides to ignore the party and go get the McGuffin only to awaken the Dednar guardian and got promptly swallowed.

But they had the McGuffin so F-it - teleport home with the prize. Thay Wiz #2 decides to teleport home too with some of their protectors, and leave the party and a few meat sticks to deal with the gargantuan construct. It ends up being a bit of a slog with lava on the floor, and a WISH for Mass Heal, and a MAZE spell for a breather / get a swallowed friend out of the construct's belly - but eventually they take out the 500 hp+ legendary guardian and live to tell the tale of their mostly failure ...

I never got a good chance to wall of force or counterspell, but I did get one good banish ...

TLDR - everyone lived, but the bad guys got away w/ the McGuffin.