Need help making a Wizard boss fight for 8th level party of five

[Salgood]

Im making a boss fight for a Victorian London campaign with some Lovecraft roots and the group just leveled up to eight level. The parties made up of a warlock, rogue, sorcerer, spirit shaman, and fighter and i wanna make a two phase encounter. I planned on making them fight a 9th level wizard with some Lovecraftian type enemies and then have a ritual happen where the main wizard boss becomes a lich i wanna know how high i should level up the dude as a live from a level 9 wizard like should he go up to 11th or what? appreciate all suggestions :)

[RNightstalker]

Use a choke point for CC and to pick people off as they are approaching. Once the wizard is reborn as a lich, exploit the immunities.

[Anthrowhale]

You might go with a tentacles theme. A charmed Darktentacles (CR 7) ally with the wizard backlining Daltim's Fiery Tentacles / Evard's Black Tentacles / Evard's Menacing Tentacles / Dispel Magic.

[ciopo]

This is tricky, as increasing the wizard level gives him access to higher spell levels which could fairly overpower the party, I would go no higher than 10th level, because 11th level means 6th level spells, and your party of 8th level characters are one circle of death cast away from being deathed to death.

BUT the other side of the coin is that wizards are squishousaurus with thier d4 hit dice. They are generally one full attack to kill.

That's a tricky thing to solve, what I usually do is secretly gestalting the wizard with something simple, just to give it a better HP pool in a somewhat structured manner


P.s. havve you seen cataclysm mage? 3 levels ;)

[Anthrowhale]

BUT the other side of the coin is that wizards are squishousaurus with thier d4 hit dice. They are generally one full attack to kill.

Faerie Mysteries Initiate my be inappropriate but d4+7 hp significantly reduces squishiness.

[Crake]

Faerie Mysteries Initiate my be inappropriate but d4+7 hp significantly reduces squishiness.

Lich already increases HD to d12s, not to mention, I feel like fmi probably isnt even remotely appropriate thematically

[JNAProductions]

How much would your players object to you just making the NPC with whatever stats you need for a good fight?

I’m more a 5E DM, and that’s the normal way to do it in that edition. You don’t need to jump through hoops to find the right combo to make it work-you just assign the needed stats.
But I do get it if you or your players find that unsatisfying.

[Kol Korran]

Creating a Phylactery requires the live caster to already be 11th level by the rules (Look under the lich template, scroll down to "creating the phylactery" part), but you are the DM, so you can justify this working however you wish.

But if I may suggest a different idea?
How about the Forsaken Lich template instead? (Link at the bottom of this post). It fits perfectly into the "messing with power you don't understand"/ "Mad mage unleashing powers he can't control".

Once the ritual completes, the wizard suddenly realizes it goes wrong, but the magical energies envelope him, and transform him to a Forsaken Lich. Same casting abilities, but lots of other special defenses and attacks.

The delusory aura can significantly "alter" the battlefield, and give a terrifying insight to the wizard's corrupted mind, and possibly to those he worshiped...

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/forsaken-lich-cr-2/

[RNightstalker]

BUT the other side of the coin is that wizards are squishousaurus with thier d4 hit dice. They are generally one full attack to kill.


Stoneskin, improved toughness, con booster, cloak of displacement/rogue blade for miss chance...those could be a good start.

[Darg]

How much would your players object to you just making the NPC with whatever stats you need for a good fight?

I’m more a 5E DM, and that’s the normal way to do it in that edition. You don’t need to jump through hoops to find the right combo to make it work-you just assign the needed stats.
But I do get it if you or your players find that unsatisfying.

That's the way you do it in 3.5 if you want. Action economy is the largest limitation so beefing things up may not be the best choice because higher stats and spell levels can make it more likely the party gets steam rolled if given a good opportunity. If I want a boss fight to be impactful, I can load up more on the creatures and actions instead of direct power. A very difficult encounter can go up to EL 12 with PL 8 party. With EL 12 I can have 2 level 10 creatures or 1 level 10, 1 level 8, and 2 level 6s for example.1 level 11 and a level 9 or 1 level 11 and 3 level 6s are options too. Another option is to increase the difficulty by giving and taking advantages like the party starting the fight entangled or half gets temporarily separated or the guy you don't notice behind the pillar summons creatures as the dialogue ends. Though, with a wizard main bad guy I tend to lower the difficulty slightly so EL 10 or 11 would be appropriate depending on how I set it up. You can always have fun making it seem overpowering, but set up advantages the players can make use of to lean the favor to their side

[SirNibbles]

Victorian London? You definitely need some rat swarms in the fight, just to be a little bit of a distraction and help with action economy. Underdark Hazards (Underdark, page 110) could easily be applied to the setting. Cave Creeper is especially fitting for a Lovecraftian story and Scaleflake works well a grimy city setting.

[Salgood]

This is tricky, as increasing the wizard level gives him access to higher spell levels which could fairly overpower the party, I would go no higher than 10th level, because 11th level means 6th level spells, and your party of 8th level characters are one circle of death cast away from being deathed to death.

BUT the other side of the coin is that wizards are squishousaurus with thier d4 hit dice. They are generally one full attack to kill.

That's a tricky thing to solve, what I usually do is secretly gestalting the wizard with something simple, just to give it a better HP pool in a somewhat structured manner


P.s. havve you seen cataclysm mage? 3 levels ;)

appreciate this i changed his hp pool up real high using the fact he has elder gods blood inside of him as a good excuse to toughen his con and in there first encounter with him in combat he did really good damage as well a sholding his own giving the party a challenge definetly appreciate the advice :)

[Salgood]

How much would your players object to you just making the NPC with whatever stats you need for a good fight?

I’m more a 5E DM, and that’s the normal way to do it in that edition. You don’t need to jump through hoops to find the right combo to make it work-you just assign the needed stats.
But I do get it if you or your players find that unsatisfying.

Definity using the same base rules with 3.5 wanna make sure that the party has a challenge but if hes insanely overpowered in this next combat encounter ill beef him down or up depending on the way the fight goes :)

[Salgood]

[QUOTE=Kol Korran;25773997]Creating a Phylactery requires the live caster to already be 11th level by the rules (Look under the lich template, scroll down to "creating the phylactery" part), but you are the DM, so you can justify this working however you wish.

But if I may suggest a different idea?
How about the Forsaken Lich template instead? (Link at the bottom of this post). It fits perfectly into the "messing with power you don't understand"/ "Mad mage unleashing powers he can't control".

Once the ritual completes, the wizard suddenly realizes it goes wrong, but the magical energies envelope him, and transform him to a Forsaken Lich. Same casting abilities, but lots of other special defenses and attacks.

The delusory aura can significantly "alter" the battlefield, and give a terrifying insight to the wizard's corrupted mind, and possibly to those he worshiped...

thank you so much I've never heard of this before and this sounds perfect for the character there up against and the fact that hes messing with elder god type magic fits even better this is probably the best advice ive heard from this thread thank you so much i think the encounter will be much more interesting with this template :)