Learning higher-tier game - Archmage

[HoboKnight]

Hey guys,
I'm for the first time dm-ing a higher level campaign and I am struggling to play some more complex enemies competently. Disclaimer: I do not want to make a COMPLETELLY anti-party opponents, but I do want to make opponents competent. Currently, I am prepping an encounter, where my party will meet an archmage(and a few mooks).

Archmage has spell slots at his disposal as in official statblock, but has an option to learny any other spell. Party has been scryed upon and archmage has a pretty good idea on what he will be facing. Starting at the top, Wish is an option, but is extremelly taxing spell for an archmage. Still, archmage has 2 days to prepare for this and has pre-cast some insurance in life prior to this. So I thought, in the past, Archmage has cast Clone to make sure his death is just an inconvenience.

What does the archmage know about the party: 4 paladins and one optimised Ranger meaning brutal melee options(radiant dmg) and divine smites can't be counterspelled. Party regualrly casts Fly, which also affects their summoned mounts, so flying paladins. Optimised ranger is a brutal turret with 4+ attacks per round and 10+ to-hit. Paladins like to use Dispel magic, so they easily strip mages of most defences plus Flight buff if they have it active.

My question: could archmage preventively cast more stuff like Clone as a part of his existence in a dangerous world? What more insurances could he make?
What spells could he use to actually affect the party? Forcecage is an option, but spells with saves are a bad option, as well as damage-dealing spells(paladins have brutal saves as well as aura that halves the spell damage). There is also a limit of concentration(1/spell), so ... this.

Any advice welcome!

[Dualight]

Minions. Glyphs of warding, Contingencies. Minions both summoned and hired. Teleport and related effects. The archmage knows their enemies are coming, and that those enemies are highly likely to get the kill if the fight starts, so running away should be seriously considered. All this is assuming the archmage is a BBEG type of foe. The minion bit is critical regardless, if only to keep the party from having a massive action-economy advantage.

Other than that, what kind of environment is the encounter in, and why are the party and the archmage in conflict? Motivation affects the approach to the encounter.

[Unoriginal]

The important question is: what is motivating the Archmage to stay there?

Even with Clone, the Archmage still doesn't want to die if it can be avoided.

Is there anything stopping the Archmage from emptying their base of operation of everything valuable and go take an holiday somewhere the PCs wouldn't be able to track them easily?

Like, a different plane of existence?

[HoboKnight]

Archmage is a mercenary. He was given a task to steal a massive chest(15x15x15ft) party is transporting on a cart. Party had already nuked 2 strike teams:
1x adult dragon, 1x vampire, 1x mage
1x adult dragon, 3x vampire warrior, 4x mage

So mage is in more for the test of his skills, he will fall onto Teleport/Clone if things go really south. He does not expect to kill the party. Minions at his disposal are 3x vampire warrior and 4x Mage, but given lack of sucess in the past, these mercenaries intend to summon Children of the night, carpet bomb the party with Synaptic Static and just pull back. Archmage plans to Forcecage 1 or 2 enemies if close enough, then see what happens. He expects to be Dispel Magic-ed 1st turn, so... eeh.

[Jerrykhor]

I wouldn't cast Wish if i were you. Its going to feel a lot like masturbation (The Archmage casts Wish and since I'm the DM, I rule that it succeeds)

I have run a high level wizard before. My 9th level spell of choice was Time Stop. I use the extra rounds to cast a ton of buffs and summons. Depends on how powerful the party is, Simulacrum is an option. You can then end the Time Stop with a Sunbeam or Maddening Darkness. If they use Dispel Magic you can just Counterspell it.

[Dualight]

Archmage is a mercenary. He was given a task to steal a massive chest(15x15x15ft) party is transporting on a cart. Party had already nuked 2 strike teams:
1x adult dragon, 1x vampire, 1x mage
1x adult dragon, 3x vampire warrior, 4x mage

So mage is in more for the test of his skills, he will fall onto Teleport/Clone if things go really south. He does not expect to kill the party. Minions at his disposal are 3x vampire warrior and 4x Mage, but given lack of sucess in the past, these mercenaries intend to summon Children of the night, carpet bomb the party with Synaptic Static and just pull back. Archmage plans to Forcecage 1 or 2 enemies if close enough, then see what happens. He expects to be Dispel Magic-ed 1st turn, so... eeh.

A possible back-up plan the archmage might have is, when it is clear the fight is lost/unwinnable, to cast time stop and then a teleportation spell to abscond with the chest while the party is frozen in time.

[Unoriginal]

Archmage is a mercenary. He was given a task to steal a massive chest(15x15x15ft) party is transporting on a cart. Party had already nuked 2 strike teams:
1x adult dragon, 1x vampire, 1x mage
1x adult dragon, 3x vampire warrior, 4x mage

So mage is in more for the test of his skills, he will fall onto Teleport/Clone if things go really south. He does not expect to kill the party. Minions at his disposal are 3x vampire warrior and 4x Mage, but given lack of sucess in the past, these mercenaries intend to summon Children of the night, carpet bomb the party with Synaptic Static and just pull back. Archmage plans to Forcecage 1 or 2 enemies if close enough, then see what happens. He expects to be Dispel Magic-ed 1st turn, so... eeh.

Oh, in that case, it's pretty easy.

The Archmage knows brute force won't work. What is needed is subtlety.

I suppose the cart is being pulled by animals, right? Using Charm Monster, the Archmage can make the animals leave the battlefield while the Paladins are distracted by the minions doing hit-and-run.

That's just one example. The point is that the Archmage should *not* plan on facing the group directly, because if they can kill an adult dragon they can kill him too.

Even just destroying the cart would make the PCs unable to transport such a massive object, which gives the Archmage plenty of time to try again.

Or the Archmage could wait for the cart to be on a bridge, destroy the bridge/push the cart off the bridge, and have significantly more means to recover the chest from the river than the Paladin team.

A good way to diminish the threat level of the Paladins is to create an emergency slightly off-course that *some* of the group has to deal with. Ex: send a couple of the minions to attack a traveling group or a caravane. It's likely that some of the Paladins will want to help the people getting attacked, so it'll dramatically weaken the chest's defenses.

[GeneralVryth]

If the goal is to get the chest, why fight the party at all? Why not just take your magi friends, everyone casts invisibility, sneaks up, picks up the chest and then Teleport out? Or perhaps better following of the rules, one of the magi casts reduce on the chest, and the archmage just teleports out with it (as it appears the chest is too big currently to be teleported)?

[Unoriginal]

If the goal is to get the chest, why fight the party at all? Why not just take your magi friends, everyone casts invisibility, sneaks up, picks up the chest and then Teleport out? Or perhaps better following of the rules, one of the magi casts reduce on the chest, and the archmage just teleports out with it (as it appears the chest is too big currently to be teleported)?

Invisibility isn't guaranteed stealth success, but you're right overall.

Get as many Paladins as far from the chest as possible, sneak around, reduce the chest and get out ASAP is the best way to handle this.

Maybe leave an illusion of the chest behind so that the Paladins don't immediately notice it's gone, if possible.

[Hal]

Alternative consideration: How evil is this Archmage?

If he has 9th level spells, he could/would know Meteor Swarm, which has a range of 1 mile.

He could flat out drop that on the party from well outside their ability to respond and then retreat (assuming the chest can survive that).

Or, if he's a more evil sort, he could send a message to the party: "Hey, drop off that chest at Location X, or I'm gonna drop meteors on that town you really like. And just to show you I'm serious, I'm going to drop meteors on a farm outside that town you really like."

[Unoriginal]

Alternative consideration: How evil is this Archmage?

If he has 9th level spells, he could/would know Meteor Swarm, which has a range of 1 mile.

He could flat out drop that on the party from well outside their ability to respond and then retreat (assuming the chest can survive that).

Or, if he's a more evil sort, he could send a message to the party: "Hey, drop off that chest at Location X, or I'm gonna drop meteors on that town you really like. And just to show you I'm serious, I'm going to drop meteors on a farm outside that town you really like."

A Meteor Swarm on its own is unlikely to be able to take out or even tenderize significantly a group of mid-high level Paladins.

As for targetting the town, well, the Archmage would get on top of the "must kill" lists of anyone who has any interest in the town. Maybe the Archmage doesn't care, but it's still a lot of troubles for a job he's doing for money and test his skills.

With two days to prepare, the Archmage could use the Dream spell to make all of the Paladins unable to rest, and then do the "Meteor Swarm from long distance" move you're suggesting. Thst would hurt them significantly.

[RSP]

A Meteor Swarm on its own is unlikely to be able to take out or even tenderize significantly a group of mid-high level Paladins.

As for targetting the town, well, the Archmage would get on top of the "must kill" lists of anyone who has any interest in the town. Maybe the Archmage doesn't care, but it's still a lot of troubles for a job he's doing for money and test his skills.

With two days to prepare, the Archmage could use the Dream spell to make all of the Paladins unable to rest, and then do the "Meteor Swarm from long distance" move you're suggesting. Thst would hurt them significantly.

MS would definitely down the cart, and should take out any mounts and/or minions. PCs might survive, but are they really constantly traveling within 10’ of each other (or all they all Ancients?).

If the PCs have a preferred tactic, and you’ve decided or established the PCs have been scryed so the tactic(s) is known, use it against them.

Could start with a MS to disable the cart and take out mounts, then use an illusion of the Archmage to draw the PCs off to engage the illusion, then just have the Archmage, or their minion, step up and teleport the chest out.

[tieren]

cast Animate Objects on the chest and make it fight the paladins.

[KorvinStarmast]

Or, if he's a more evil sort, he could send a message to the party: "Hey, drop off that chest at Location X, or I'm gonna drop meteors on that town you really like. And just to show you I'm serious, I'm going to drop meteors on a farm outside that town you really like." While that is the kind of thinking an evil archmage / BBEG might engage in, with three paladins in the group I doubt this threat would be credible.

cast Animate Objects on the chest and make it fight the paladins.
And then dimension door away on the next round: concentration stays up, you are 400' away ...

For the OP: the archmage needs to orchestrate a series of encounters such that when the party finally runs into the archmage, they have a good portion of their resources depleted.

I like the idea of the Dream spell being used. Also a few illusion spells so that the party first engages with an illusion.

And time stop.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

Getting the party to blow off some resources against a decent illusion before the Archmage actually arrives in person is a go-to strategy of mine. Ideally this would be after the party has already run into some other encounter... whatever other issue the party is currently dealing with.

Then divide and conquer. Forcecage is a good option for this, maybe the best as you note with saving throws being likely made. Try to kill 1 or 2 of the party then get out of dodge.

The archmage is a genius, and as others have said, won't win a stand up fight and knows it. Some of the tactics mentioned in the thread, including mine, seem dirty. That's the point; the archmage isn't going to fight fair or take on battles that don't have a high chance of success.

[Nagog]

Anti-magic will be his best friend against the Paladins. If he can find ways to provide that without actually casting the spell himself, that would be ideal (such as a petrified Beholder, or a homebrewed magical item). While he's in the Anti-Magic, the Paladins will be unable to smite, unable to Fly, and unable to ride their mounts. At that point, minions that don't rely on magic would be ideal.

For the Ranger, Wind Wall makes arrows and conventional projectiles automatically miss. Fire Bolts and Scorching Rays are not conventional projectiles.

SO

If the archmage has his way, here's how the battle will go:
1st: Lure the Paladins into the Antimagic area. If possible, lure them in while they're flying on their mounts (Fall damage is a nice boon, and un-summoning their steeds will keep them out of the fight permanently. Also a wasted spell slot on flight is icing on the cake). Once there, release minions to keep them busy/wear them down. This should all occur (preferably) before your first turn. If necessary, use yourself as bait with the Held Action to dash out of the Anti-magic and out of reach of the Paladins.

2nd: Cast Wind Wall. He will need a magic item or spell scroll to do so, as it is not innately a Wizard spell, but with time and resources it should not be hard (even using Wish beforehand to replicate that spell and storing it in a Spell Gem would work). Once the wall is up, the Ranger will need to get creative if they want to be relevant in the fight.

3rd: Take out the Ranger. Now that the Paladins cannot fly and have no mounts, even if they escape the anti-magic they can be kited with your own mobility options (Having Far Step, Fly, or other mobility spells on-hand is a must). The Ranger will be susceptible to things like Finger of Death, Cone of Cold, or anything that isn't a Dex save (perhaps Wis as well, but it's not a proficiency so you're good to at least try).

4th: Once the Ranger is down, you can drop concentration on Wind Wall and focus down the Paladins. If your minion(s) are still alive, congratulations! You've found excellent minions. In either case, get the Paladins out of the field (Downing the Ranger may lure them out already depending on how altruistic they are) and either lay into them with good AoEs or collapse a building on them from afar. The latter is more effective, but may be harder to set up.

And there it is! One dead party of Holy Rollers, a la carte.

[GeneralVryth]

Getting the party to blow off some resources against a decent illusion before the Archmage actually arrives in person is a go-to strategy of mine. Ideally this would be after the party has already run into some other encounter... whatever other issue the party is currently dealing with.

Then divide and conquer. Forcecage is a good option for this, maybe the best as you note with saving throws being likely made. Try to kill 1 or 2 of the party then get out of dodge.

The archmage is a genius, and as others have said, won't win a stand up fight and knows it. Some of the tactics mentioned in the thread, including mine, seem dirty. That's the point; the archmage isn't going to fight fair or take on battles that don't have a high chance of success.

A similar thought on this front would be several waves of illusions. Waiting for the party to just assume everything coming their way is an illusion then approach them as something powerful that isn't an illusion via Shapechange. By that point they hopefully have burnt a lot of resources and will assume the thing isn't real until it's to late to avoid getting hit hard.

[da newt]

Firstly - the wizard will know what the objective is and will not be foolhardy enough to turn this into open combat - he's no idiot. The objective is the chest or more specifically whatever is in the chest. This is all that matters. Fighting is for dumb thugs. This is a heist - but maybe an attack would make a good distraction. The Wiz should never engage - they are the mastermind and have many tools to do their dirty work.





Paladins tend to need to be in melee to be effective - kite them (dispell their mounts - great if they are flying at the time, and vampires are great at kiting w/ LA dashes) and attack from several different directions at range. You have a bunch of mages for plenty of dispells and counterspells and plenty of precast summons.

Animate the chest or wagon - have it run away or etherealness into it and teleport off with the mcguffin inside (which I assume must be smaller than the box it's in).

Maze is a fun spell for taking folks out of play without a saving throw (DC 20 ability check) - maybe target the ranger so you reduce the party to just palies.

[sithlordnergal]

So...it will eat up your 9th level spell and Concentration...but I enjoy giving NPCs Invulnerability. Makes them immune to all damage.

[Corran]

Hey guys,
I'm for the first time dm-ing a higher level campaign and I am struggling to play some more complex enemies competently. Disclaimer: I do not want to make a COMPLETELLY anti-party opponents, but I do want to make opponents competent. Currently, I am prepping an encounter, where my party will meet an archmage(and a few mooks).

Archmage has spell slots at his disposal as in official statblock, but has an option to learny any other spell. Party has been scryed upon and archmage has a pretty good idea on what he will be facing. Starting at the top, Wish is an option, but is extremelly taxing spell for an archmage. Still, archmage has 2 days to prepare for this and has pre-cast some insurance in life prior to this. So I thought, in the past, Archmage has cast Clone to make sure his death is just an inconvenience.

What does the archmage know about the party: 4 paladins and one optimised Ranger meaning brutal melee options(radiant dmg) and divine smites can't be counterspelled. Party regualrly casts Fly, which also affects their summoned mounts, so flying paladins. Optimised ranger is a brutal turret with 4+ attacks per round and 10+ to-hit. Paladins like to use Dispel magic, so they easily strip mages of most defences plus Flight buff if they have it active.

My question: could archmage preventively cast more stuff like Clone as a part of his existence in a dangerous world? What more insurances could he make?
What spells could he use to actually affect the party? Forcecage is an option, but spells with saves are a bad option, as well as damage-dealing spells(paladins have brutal saves as well as aura that halves the spell damage). There is also a limit of concentration(1/spell), so ... this.

Any advice welcome!
Ooof. Lots of spam power for the party.

Ok. First things first. If this party gets a chance to hit the archmage, then the archmage is toast. Mage armor, shield, mirror image, blink, resilient sphere, teleports, etc, all these things have to be the archmage's last line of defense and not the first.

What level is the party btw???

To beat such party, you dont want to throw bodies at them. You either want to kill them when they are weak (and not by you, because why weaken them by throwing your minions a few at a time at them?), or you need to strike at them so hard that you shut down the chances of them striking back (and with that many smites and emergency heals this wont be easy, not to mention that their mobility and saves make this even harder to do).

Anyway, if you mean to stand and fight, at least you've got one advantage. That is that they are coming to you. Set up the final boss room in such a way, that it will be almost impossible for the pc's to get to the mage during the first X rounds of combat. You heard me. You dont want 50-50 chances there. You want to stack the odds in favor of the archmage, because in that extremelly disadvantageous scenario (ie direct confrontation) that's their only chance of putting up a fight and also because they are smart enough to justify taking advantage of having the pc's coming at them.

Illusions can help here. With seeming you can diguise minions as the archmage. This might make the pc's prioritize wrong targets. Also, did you play Zelda in N64 and if so do you remember the fight against the ghost of Ganondorf? You could do something similar. Put a major image in 20 or so paintings spread across the room, each painting showing the archmage casting spells. Hidden magic mouths loudly echoing the archmage's real spellcasting (enough to mask the source, ie no check). This might also win the archmage some turns. Make the paintings enhanced in some way so they are not terribly easy to destroy if you want to push the time limit here. All the while, the archmage is above them, hiding (not only) behind that illusion of a ceiling and casting spells at them (spells that dont betray their position by having a distinguisable line of sight; if you need such spells use glyphs of warding). With all the non concentration buffs already on them. I always wanted to try my hand at spamming summons, particularly from the summon greater demon spell which allows the summons a few rounds once concentration breaks. Beware of the party's mobility, have the room be small enough for the summons to be able to engage even flying pc's, though some anti-air defenses (eg restraining effects) would be nice anyway. I doubt this will win you the fight (especially if you dont have many minions to start with, cause otherwise the party would just spend one round to kill what it takes you one round to summon, so you need enough starting minions to give you a breathing room). But you can do that to burn the pcs' resources and to give them a fight. Elementals could be useful. A few invisible stalkers or air elementals could be used to take down the ranger if you can draw the paladins away (which I dont imagine it would be that hard; invisible stalkers and to a lesser extent fire elemental could be good for taking out the mounts, which could be useful if fly is cast on them; recasting fly afterwards might be tricky because they will all need to gather close once more). Earth elementals engaging with your paladins in melee combat inside a heavily obscured area (ideally some poison cloud). Fire elementals if you can set presumably desirable terrain on fire. At some point you could always empty a demiplane worth of trapped summons at them to further spice up the odds. Back such things up with spells like (despite the good saves) disintegrate, finger of death, power word kill or plane shift, depending on how nasty/petty/long-term the archmage's goals are.

Since you are thinking of the clone spell already, I'd say make the archmage in the fight to be a clone (ie simmulacrum). While you were too busy dealing with the clone, the archmage was elsewhere doing more evil (and think about what that might be). The cheap excuse of both doing justice to the villain and keeping your party alive. Cause as villains, they are less good at putting them in the same room to fight adventurers than using them to kill adventurers, either by exploiting an opportunity or by creating impossible odds. Getting into striking distance of an archmage should imo be the difficult part.

Clone or not though, I'd still for for a gate and a teleport as my farewell move, pressuming the fight allows for that. It might not be the strongest or the smartest, but there's just some weird appeal to it.



As for targetting the town, well, the Archmage would get on top of the "must kill" lists of anyone who has any interest in the town. Maybe the Archmage doesn't care, but it's still a lot of troubles for a job he's doing for money and test his skills.
Meteor swarm might be problematic if the impact of the spell can be easily recognized, but doing it more subtly and then modifying the memories of survivors could be fun. I dont suppose it would stick, but it could still be trouble while it lasts. Plus, there's always the possibility for the players to escalate a relatively easily solvable problem to a very big one if they handle it poorly.


While that is the kind of thinking an evil archmage / BBEG might engage in, with three paladins in the group I doubt this threat would be credible.
Yep. There's no chance that a classic LG paladin will let such an evil individual escape. For all their heroic demeanor, the classic paladin is surprisingly wise when it comes to letting evil uncontested. It'd still be one heck of a scenario to rp through though, and with many paladins in the party there might be a need for players to differentiate their pc's (chance of causing some kind of division). Also, players rarely fail to surprise. As a DM I'd go for it, since I dont see what the archmage would have to lose (as it's not like that the paladins will smite you less hard if you dont threaten innocents) by putting that choice on them (even if it's only a bluff it could still win you some time, to eg put more minions into some demiplane or plan for more traps and defenses).

[Unoriginal]

Alternatively, the Archmage could simply approsch the group non-hostily and lie to them.

Even without modifying the statblock, Archmages have good CHA and plenty of arcane and historical knowledge upon which to build a falsehood.

Sowing the seeds of doubts about the quest the PCs are doing can work very well. Mybe make them believe the chest contains something that will be used for evil, or that it's something that could help thousands but that the owner is abusing for their personal whims, or that it's actually a much bigger threat than the quest giver thought of and they're unwittingly endangering the whole country/continent/world.

Detect Thought lets someone read surface thoughts withput save, and the Archmage likely know stuff about the group already. So that knowledge can be used against them to see what kind of story they're receptive to.

The lie doesn't have to give immediate result, but anything getting the group to slow or change course is good for the Archmage.

And if it plainly doesn't work there are the other meand people have proposed in this thread.

[1Pirate]

Anti-magic will be his best friend against the Paladins.

If the archmage has his way, here's how the battle will go:
1st: Lure the Paladins into the Antimagic area. If possible, lure them in while they're flying on their mounts (Fall permanently. Also a wasted spell slot on flight is icing on the cake).

Per Sage Advice (https://media.wizards.com/2020/dnd/downloads/SA-Compendium.pdf)(page 17)this doesn’t work. Creatures from Instantaneous duration spells are not affected by Dispel Magic or Antimagic Fields. DM can rule otherwise of course.

[KorvinStarmast]

Alternatively, the Archmage could simply approsch the group non-hostily and lie to them.

Even without modifying the statblock, Archmages have good CHA and plenty of arcane and historical knowledge upon which to build a falsehood.

Sowing the seeds of doubts about the quest the PCs are doing can work very well. Mybe make them believe the chest contains something that will be used for evil, or that it's something that could help thousands but that the owner is abusing for their personal whims, or that it's actually a much bigger threat than the quest giver thought of and they're unwittingly endangering the whole country/continent/world.

Detect Thought lets someone read surface thoughts withput save, and the Archmage likely know stuff about the group already. So that knowledge can be used against them to see what kind of story they're receptive to.

The lie doesn't have to give immediate result, but anything getting the group to slow or change course is good for the Archmage.

And if it plainly doesn't work there are the other meand people have proposed in this thread. heh. A role playing approach.
Plus Many.

[follacchioso]

Many excellent ideas so far in this thread.

Here a few more suggestions:

- Wall of Stone since this is the Archmage's lair, they will have time to model it as they wish. They could have spammed Wall of Stone to create a labyrinthic lair, full of traps and illusions. Combine this with Mirage Arcane to further confuse them.
- Programmed Illusion Make an illusionary copy of the archmage appear at every corner, distracting them and making them waste time and resources. Add Magic Mouths and Glyphs of Warding.
- No open spaces Wizards are notoriously weak against ranged fighters. They prefer enclosed spaces where they can fireball crowds of people more effectively. There is no way an Archmage's lair would have open spaces.
- Areas of Water, and other hazards The most sensitive areas of the dungeon should only be accessible through magic, or by going through dangerous hazards. For example, an area filled with water that can be traversed with Alter Self. Or one filled with Necromantic energies, that can only be traversed using Tasha's otherworldly guise or immunity to necrotic damage.
- Spies Make sure the Wizard has plenty of way to detect the party, when they approach
- Private Sanctum and Forbiddance The lair will be protected by these two spells (plus Guards and Wards, if you want). The first one will block divination and teleports, the second one will destroy all celestials and feys, including the paladins' mounts.
- Seeming Make the Archmage cast Seeming on all the minions, so they all look like him, making it more difficult for the party to decide who to smite first.

[RSP]

- Areas of Water, and other hazards The most sensitive areas of the dungeon should only be accessible through magic, or by going through dangerous hazards. For example, an area filled with water that can be traversed with Alter Self. Or one filled with Necromantic energies, that can only be traversed using Tasha's otherworldly guise or immunity to necrotic damage.

Just to follow on this, why have doorways? Any higher level arcane caster like this will have Misty Step and/or Dimension Door. Passwall and Stone Shape can do similar.

Want to keep peons out of areas or trap people in? Don’t have entrances or exits.

[Willowhelm]

this is the Archmage's lair, they will have time to model it as they wish.


When did the fight shift to the archmage’s lair? I thought this was a heist to get a chest of a cart the party is transporting?

[Ionathus]

Everyone has given you a lot of great ideas for encounter design and how to make this attempted chest theft memorable. I'd like to instead address another part of your original post: advice for a first-time DM on how to run high-level (especially spellcasting) enemies.

5e gives next to no advice for running enemies with lots of options, and spellcaster enemies are notoriously tough to juggle. I have a few bits of high-level advice that you can keep in mind as you run the encounter, sort of "guiding principles" to help you think about your approach. This is my own experience for running two level 14+ campaigns, but as always your mileage may vary.

1. Your Archmage will cast 3, maybe 4 spells total. Make peace with that now.

The RAW 5e Archmage has no special mechanics for spellcasting, which means the number of turns it gets is going to equal the number of spells it casts.1 Most fights, even if they feel longer, last 3-5 rounds. So plan for that as the baseline. What 3-5 spells can the archmage cast to maximize the impact on the battlefield and make for a cool, memorable encounter? Time Stop is iconic. Wall of Force can split the party and create tactical challenges. Cone of Cold does a big nasty blast of damage for maximum impact. Fly can be the difference between your archmage dropping spells from the sky with impunity versus standing there like a shmuck while the party dogpiles them in one turn. Banishment can negate a single PC if they're somehow way more impactful than the rest of the party.

Any one of these spells can shift the balance of the fight in ways that aren't possible with other things on the archmage's spell list like Fire Bolt, Magic Missile, Stoneskin, or even really Globe of Invulnerability. A little bit of damage (or damage mitigation) is much less valuable than spending your limited casting times on something big that shows off the archmage's power and makes the fight feel dynamic and fun.

Pick your 3-4 "must-cast" spells and build a strategy around them. You'll probably have to adapt it on the fly, but just having a heuristic for "if X then cast Y" can be a huge help in simplifying the spellcasting calculus mid-fight.

2. Archmages are crazy-prepared.

No wizard gets to 9th level spell slots without amassing a vast wealth of both time and resources. The Archmage behaves like someone with unlimited access to both: that means as many pre-cast defensive spells as possible, a small fortune in magical items that improve defense and versatility, multiple escape routes & intrigues & maybe political alliances, and more minions than you think you'll ever need. You don't roll an Archmage on a random encounter table and fight one solo in the middle of an empty field: you get drawn into their web of conspiracies and contingencies as they work from the shadows as much as possible. Build up the social and noncombat elements of the archmage at least a little: their actual combat stats should be the last resort, not their opening salvo.

This leads into #3...

3. Use more minions than you think you need.

I can't stress this one enough. I know you mentioned having "a few mooks" in your post, but really invest in the parts of combat that aren't the archmage. An archmage, solo, does not have both the tankiness and the damage output to take on any reasonably-matched party. As you get to higher and higher level play, it becomes more and more important to get away from "single monster out in the open", because monsters get easier for the party to lock down and you can't count on any single effect/obstacle to stop them. Come up with a few different options for minions, and have them each do something different: hired thugs to be dumb muscle, an assassin or two sniping from the shadows, maybe some conjured help like skeletons or elementals or fiends for extra flavor and a few effects like smokescreen/poison/mind control to complicate the fight. Throw in an apprentice mage who's literally just there to counterspell the PCs' counterspell attempts and try breaking the PCs' spell Concentration with Magic Missile.

As you get into higher level combats, it becomes more and more important to have multiple things happening each turn that the PCs have to deal with. Do they go for all the thugs on the front lines, or do they try to track down that sniper, or do they bum-rush the Big Bad Archmage? That makes for a much more dynamic and fun fight than "archmage casts 1 spell, 5 PCs make attacks, 1 cluster of low-CR mooks attack to no effect, lather, rinse, repeat." It also gives you more leeway to adjust a too-easy or too-hard combat on the fly, because "more minions show up" or "some minions run for backup" is an easy enough emergency button you can hit if you miscalculated one way or the other.

--------

Good luck with the fight! High-level play in 5e is a whole other beast and it takes a ton of rethinking the conventions of encounter design to keep things interesting. If you didn't know about it already, I think Keith Amman ("The Monsters Know What They're Doing") is the best contemporary source for learning to think about D&D enemy tactics. His blog is a fantastic resource; I particularly love how he doesn't just give advice and suggestions, but his articles were what taught me how to use every monster's unique statblock elements, no matter how seemingly insignificant, to make their fights feel unique and "alive." He also shares (or influenced) my opinions about how giving monsters big fat spell lists creates analysis paralysis in already-overworked DMs.

His article on running the Monster Manual Archmage: https://www.themonstersknow.com/npc-tactics-archmages/

In addition, if you want a specific combat to carry a little more weight and keep things interesting, I highly highly recommend some of Matt Colville's videos. Especially his video about Action-Oriented Monsters, which explores how you can take something like an Archmage that has an unintuitive spell list and a very boring playstyle (e.g. stand there casting 1 spell per turn, eventually die from swords) and tweak the game mechanics to give the monster a bit more to do. This is getting much further into the realm of "Homebrew", but in this case I think it would help you to think about all the different mechanics and opportunities you have in a "setpiece battle", and how you can add a few flavorful twists to the Monster Manual entry without throwing things totally out of whack.

Matt Colville's video on Action-Oriented Monsters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_zl8WWaSyI
A fan-made homebrew to the Archmage statblock based on his video: https://www.reddit.com/r/mattcolville/comments/dmgiwq/ideas_for_actionoriented_archmage/

1. Not counting reaction spells like Counterspell (or Shield/Absorb Elements, if you tweak their spell list), since these aren't active spells -- they're defensive spells trying to negate something the PCs do and don't factor into the archmage's offensive strategy. Also keep in mind that if they're forced into Misty Step, they've wasted the chance to cast a spell as an Action that turn.

[HoboKnight]

A lot of great advice from everyone, I'll give a summary of my plan.

These are grassy flatlands and there is a small river, running from north to south, crossed by a wooden bridge. On the other side of a bridge is a small town, about 100 houses, protected by a pallisade and a few watchtowers. A few taverns, a blacksmith, three shops and a place for small caravans to rest for the night. Party is to bring the chest to this town.

So, the way I see it, diversion is needed. We have an archmage, with a semi-limited array of spells:


Cantrips (at will): fire bolt, light, mage hand, prestidigitation, shocking grasp
1st level (4 slots): detect magic, identify, mage armor*, magic missile
2nd level (3 slots): enlarge/reduce, mirror image, misty step
3rd level (3 slots): counterspell,fly, fireball
4th level (3 slots): banishment, black tentacles, greater invisibility
5th level (3 slots): cone of cold, scrying, wall of force
6th level (1 slot): planar ally
7th level (1 slot): teleport
8th level (1 slot): earthquake
9th level (1 slot): Wish(used for Clone and Simulacrum in the past)
* The archmage casts these spells on itself before combat.

Since Simulacrum costs money(powdered ruby worth 1,500 gp), he will use just 1 Sumulacrum to let him try to get the chest. (I'm not sure how can the Archmage produce infinite amounts of crushed rubyes and snow, maybe someone knows).

Archmage Scryes the chest. Waits until night, sends Simulacrum into the town. Simulacrum casts Earthquake at the edge of town from a distance of 500 ft, wrecking it badly. After a minute, he casts Planar Ally, ordering him(balor?) to make way for Simulacrum into the town. Then, balor can have his own fun.

Both earthquake and balor are to keep party busy, meanwhile Simulacrum casts Greater invisibility on himself and moves in half-speed(uses actions to stealth). As he reaches the chest, he casts Reduce and teleports to his master with the chest. If attacked, he can use Forcecage(Wish) and try to get to the chest.

Or, well, just Scry the cube, cast Earthquake, summon balor, teleport to cube, cast Reduce, teleport out(second teleport cast as wish).

Additional criticism of THE PLAN :D is welcome.

[Willowhelm]

A lot of great advice from everyone, I'll give a summary of my plan.

These are grassy flatlands and there is a small river, running from north to south, crossed by a wooden bridge. On the other side of a bridge is a small town, about 100 houses, protected by a pallisade and a few watchtowers. A few taverns, a blacksmith, three shops and a place for small caravans to rest for the night. Party is to bring the chest to this town.

So, the way I see it, diversion is needed. We have an archmage, with a semi-limited array of spells:


Cantrips (at will): fire bolt, light, mage hand, prestidigitation, shocking grasp
1st level (4 slots): detect magic, identify, mage armor*, magic missile
2nd level (3 slots): enlarge/reduce, mirror image, misty step
3rd level (3 slots): counterspell,fly, fireball
4th level (3 slots): banishment, black tentacles, greater invisibility
5th level (3 slots): cone of cold, scrying, wall of force
6th level (1 slot): planar ally
7th level (1 slot): teleport
8th level (1 slot): earthquake
9th level (1 slot): Wish(used for Clone and Simulacrum in the past)
* The archmage casts these spells on itself before combat.

Since Simulacrum costs money(powdered ruby worth 1,500 gp), he will use just 1 Sumulacrum to let him try to get the chest. (I'm not sure how can the Archmage produce infinite amounts of crushed rubyes and snow, maybe someone knows).

Archmage Scryes the chest. Waits until night, sends Simulacrum into the town. Simulacrum casts Earthquake at the edge of town from a distance of 500 ft, wrecking it badly. After a minute, he casts Planar Ally, ordering him(balor?) to make way for Simulacrum into the town. Then, balor can have his own fun.

Both earthquake and balor are to keep party busy, meanwhile Simulacrum casts Greater invisibility on himself and moves in half-speed(uses actions to stealth). As he reaches the chest, he casts Reduce and teleports to his master with the chest. If attacked, he can use Forcecage(Wish) and try to get to the chest.

Or, well, just Scry the cube, cast Earthquake, summon balor, teleport to cube, cast Reduce, teleport out(second teleport cast as wish).

Additional criticism of THE PLAN :D is welcome.

With this spell list it seems like there are multiple options with varying degrees of automatic success and depending on the archmage’s personality.

As a player I would attempt the thing with the highest chances of success. Probably something like this:

Get simulacrum during prep day
Cast greater invisibility on self
Sim casts greater invisibility on self
Sim scry on chest
Mage readies enlarge/reduce
Sim teleports both to location
Readied action triggers.
ASAP whoever gets the chance teleports back out - depends on initiative etc.

Would the players have any counter to this? Would they notice invisible NPCs teleporting in?

If they do… ready wall of force or forcecage instead. Pop it around cart and mages to give them the additional round to do the reduce and teleport.

If scrying doesn’t get you good enough odds, have the Mage go to the route on the prep day and collect some rocks (associated object) to get a guaranteed teleport success.

If the chest is small enough (fits in a 10 ft cube) the mage can ready teleport instead and target the chest, (then teleport themselves out after) This has a few benefits - 1) the job is done 2) the party have an incentive not to kill the Mage if they want it back 3) they can monologue about how awesome they are to wind up the party after the chest is gone, before teleporting out. Really run salt in the wounds of their failure.

For a more evil plan… wipe out the village and wait there.

For a more dynamic and chaotic approach.. ambush at bridge. Enlarge reduce on a support/the whole bridge and drop the cart and chest into the water.

Or

Have the sim stay visible and teleport in just ahead/behind the party. Mage misty-steps to cart while sim is a distraction. Wall of force to split party or split cart from party etc. Mirror image beforehand if you want to make it look like there are a bunch of them instead of a lone Mage.

Or

Bring in an ally if you want. Again this would just be for added complications/chaos/distractions. An earth elemental can cause havoc underground as a distraction. Or a water elemental in the river.

Or

Wait in ambush and banish the horse pulling the cart… after it has rolled a bit you can drop concentration. Now the cart has nothing pulling it and they have a loose horse.

Or a combination of the above.

Remember the simulacrum is expendable. Use their slots in preference to the Mage in case something goes wrong, and don’t be afraid to leave them behind. If the party defeat the sim and it melts, and they turn to find out the chest is gone… great!

It really depends if you want the Mage to get the chest, maybe get the chest, or fail with a big fight… and whether they’re doing a surgical strike or having some “fun” with their task. Would this Mage be willing to wait under a bridge for hours or are they going to be sipping tea in their tower, do 30 seconds of work and be back at the tower before their tea gets cold?

[HoboKnight]

Thak you for your contribution, but I see several mechanical flaws in it.


With this spell list it seems like there are multiple options with varying degrees of automatic success and depending on the archmage’s personality.

As a player I would attempt the thing with the highest chances of success. Probably something like this:

Get simulacrum during prep day
Cast greater invisibility on self
Sim casts greater invisibility on self
Sim scry on chest
Mage readies enlarge/reduce

According to my knowledge, Ready action can not be used out of combat.



Sim teleports both to location
Readied action triggers.


"This spell instantly transports you and up to eight willing creatures of your choice that you can see within range". SIM does not SEE mage, since under effect of Greater Invsiibility.

Enlarge/Reduce is Concentration spell, same as Greater invis., so Archmage must drop GI




Would the players have any counter to this? Would they notice invisible NPCs teleporting in?
If they do… ready wall of force or forcecage instead. Pop it around cart and mages to give them the additional round to do the reduce and teleport.



Wall of Force is also Concentration, meaning Greater Invis is dropped again. I think Mirror Image is a better buff here.(I hope you can Teleport a willing target with Mirror Image on - explanation of knowlegable folks would be great).


Perhaps this:
- wait at town
- cast Earthquake and Planar Ally(how do I specify what Great powers provide - what monster?) to lure PCs away from the chest
- Mirror image on both
- Teleport next to the chest
- Sim casts Reduce on cehst
- Mage is alert with Force cage and forcecages any interlopers
-Both Teleprot out with now small-enough chest

[Willowhelm]

With the prep time available you can easily store greater invisibility in a glyph of warding and trigger it the next day. This should alleviate your concerns about concentration… but it isn’t on you archmage’s prepared spells for the day.

Also you don’t even need it… it’s just a bonus to be unseen.

You also have enough slots that the Mage and the sim can teleport themselves separately.

Readying an action out of combat is fine as far as I’m aware. Either you need to specifically call it as readied or you just say what you’re doing and action economy doesn’t matter. “I’m going to stab whoever comes through this door” is something you can say out of combat, whether it’s a “readied action” or not.

Just like you can cast spells that are bonus actions and actions to cast even though you’re not in combat.

Happy to be proved wrong but that’s my experience?

My point was that there are a lot of ways to end up with the chest but the approach depends on the motivations of the npc.

I do not understand why an archmage would waste their time earthquaking a village and releasing a demon when they’re being paid(?) to get a chest.

[HoboKnight]

I checked and you can't ready action out of initiative. As someone exits the entry, you both roll Initiative and go. Character can get surprise round with decent enough rolled stealth.

As for earhquake and stuff... say paladins are standing on the chest. AM and SIM teleport in, initiative is rolled, say 3 paladins roll better then them, so it's dispel magic on AM and SIM, followed by +10 to-hits and potential 50 damage(most of it radiant) per hit.
Drawing paladins away seems important in this scenario, or this heist gets locked down before it even started.

[OptimizedAC]

The village is in a sense the perfect location – social environments are much trickier for a party of high level paladins and ranger to navigate than the open road. Use this to your advantage.

That being said, also use the open road to your advantage. Soften them up. Throw obstacles in their way as they travel – not to defeat them, but to expend their resources. Control Weather to make the road a sludge and the paladins melt in their armour – or block the path in a blizzard.
Illusory dragon harrasing them – mostly from a distance. Then «flying off» to harrass some innocents. Try to have some minor dragon nearby to trigger the ranger’s divination. Combines with major/silent image from your minions.
Reverse Gravity – the party will save. The wagon, and possible mounts, will go up, then crash down.

Mirrage arcana. Programmed illusion. Move earth. Hallucinatory terrain. Snare.

In the harrasment Project Image, Arcane Gate and Dream might be useful, but ymmv. Rope Trick is great for a brief hide away. (Consider how extradimensional space interacts with divination – can your undead be stored away while the party enters your place of ambush?)

Harry them especially during the night so that they cannot get a full rest. Make sure they arrive in town stingy with spell-slots.

Before they do - surveil the village. What options will the party have? What can you take advantage of? Importantly – where might a 15x15x15 end up stashed? Then start turning the village into a tool at your disposal. Manipulate the village – cast mass suggestion, disguise self/alter self, charm person. Cast gold coins. Directly mind-control some people, subtly influence others, pay liberally for tasks. Use your vampire minions. You know what is better than ambushing the party with your minions who all look like you? Or a sudden earthquake then ambush? A stream of goody-two-shoes with confused intentions approaching the box being guarded during the chaos of an earthquake. A couple of them not such goody two-shoes. All looking like you[s] the inn-keeper (as do you). Abuse the fact that they have moral inhibitions you don’t. Their apprehension about killing innocent villagers is your possibility for success.

Seeming. Geas. Danse Macabre. Animate Dead. Polymorph. Guards and wards. Contingency. These spells can help realize that possibility. Don't let the good guys win.

That being said - as a DM, not AM, make of this advice what you will. Harrying the PCs is all good - but should be done in a way that doesn't create too many mini-encounters. Make sure they face credible challenges reflecting a 20 int adversary - but make those challenges engaging.

[da newt]

You have vampires and a village ahead of the party. This means by the time the party gets there, you have a village suffering from a vampire infestation - damsels in distress, guards all turned into vamp spawn, a bunch of folks charmed by the vamps, and the vamps themselves (preferably hidden away a bit so the party has to search them out). This is something any paly party would need to get involved in rectifying - they honor their oaths, right?

Get them armpit deep in the mission to un-vampire the village (sounds and feel just like a regular side quest doesn't it?) - once the PCs are fully immersed in the vampire hunt (3 or 4 combat encounters deep and resource depleted) then have your smarty pants Wiz and his double start their heist.

[Willowhelm]

I checked and you can't ready action out of initiative. As someone exits the entry, you both roll Initiative and go. Character can get surprise round with decent enough rolled stealth.

As for earhquake and stuff... say paladins are standing on the chest. AM and SIM teleport in, initiative is rolled, say 3 paladins roll better then them, so it's dispel magic on AM and SIM, followed by +10 to-hits and potential 50 damage(most of it radiant) per hit.
Drawing paladins away seems important in this scenario, or this heist gets locked down before it even started.


“I checked” is not really solid ground. If you want to play silly games about needing to be in initiative, start a fight with a bug before you teleport. Initiative and actions etc are a mechanical artifact for the game, they don’t prevent you from stating your characters intentions and preparations outside of combat.

You may fail to successfully use your reaction if you are surprised of course…

If paladins are standing on the chest then go to plan B. This would be known ahead of time as you are scrying before teleporting.

[HoboKnight]

Given all the good-intended contributions, I feel obliged to anwer(also with a goal of perfecting this encouter) some more. :)

@OptimizedAC
Control Weather - does no damage, they can Long Rest under the cart, or, well... I'm pretty sure no drain of resources options here
Major Image - a single arrow reaveals it as an illusion. Also, caster must be within 120ft. Dangerous option.
Reverse Gravity - Indeed a brutal option. It must be cast from 100 ft, however, so a lot of options for paladins to ride there and SMASH!

Others mentioned are good, but I see only 1 special - Dream(that affects only 1 tarrget - no long rest benefits).

Social manipulation of town are all good ideas. Generally, a lot of good ideas to build upon on.

@da newt
Good ideas, yet... vampires can only operate at night. They need to make pinpoint strikes in order to not alert the town to their presence. Vampire spawns are good, but... only at night again. During the day they just get slaughtered.

@ Willowhelm
Ready Action: "To do so, you can take the Ready action on your turn so that you can act later in the round using your reaction." I mean, it's under the heading of "Actions in Combat" and a "round" doesn't have meaning outside of combat. In particular, that bit about later in the round suggests to me that you don't get to ready an action and then keep doing other things in the meantime, which would be limiting, and in general... well, if you see someone and combat hasn't started and there's no initiative order, it doesn't need to be a ready action, you can just do it. If the arrival of that person starts a combat, then the first thing everybody's doing is reacting to the start of combat. Your trigger isn't going to prevent someone from ambushing you.

If you're doing something that really would let you act first, you should get surprise. Like, if you're not in combat but you've hidden behind a door with a plan to club the next person to come through the door over the head, then what you've done when they come in is surprise them with an attack.

Scrying is a must in this case and it will be greatly beneficial.

Thanks to all!

[Willowhelm]

.

If you're doing something that really would let you act first, you should get surprise. Like, if you're not in combat but you've hidden behind a door with a plan to club the next person to come through the door over the head, then what you've done when they come in is surprise them with an attack.

Scrying is a must in this case and it will be greatly beneficial.

Thanks to all!


The clubbing example refutes your earlier arguments (and I actually disagree that they’d be surprised by default). When you attempt to club them as they step through… you should roll initiative. Then you see if they’re surprised or if they go first or if you successfully club them (using your reaction?).

But it’s unlikely any DM would play it that way. Hence why readying a spell before teleport is unlikely to be played that way either. Out of combat action choices transitioning into combat can be murky. I’d just check with the DM before making the plan but… you’re the DM in this case.

[KorvinStarmast]

This has been a fun thread on "how to get more out of high CR NPC/Monster" so thanks to all and to the OP for bringing it up. :smallsmile:

[da newt]

"@da newt
Good ideas, yet... vampires can only operate at night. They need to make pinpoint strikes in order to not alert the town to their presence. Vampire spawns are good, but... only at night again. During the day they just get slaughtered."

Just to be clear, vampires and vampire spawn operate just fine during the day UNLESS they are stupid and go outside. You WANT the town to be alert to their presence otherwise who needs heroes to eradicate them? - the town should be in a state of panic with this vampire pandemic - a bunch of recently turned locals, daughters missing, and even more charmed townies sabotaging the party, offering distractions and red herrings. The point is to create a great need for the party to go off and do what adventurer paladins do - go hunt the bad guys in their lair. The Vamps don't need to win, they need to put up a good fight to keep the party busy (and burn resources because who doesn't wanna dump a bunch of smites on vampires) so that your crafty wizard can be busy stealing the McGuffin while the paladins are off fighting vampires (not something that is easily done while carrying a 15' cubed safe around down into the basement / catacombs etc).

At least that's my proposal - there are many. Pick the one that works best for you. :smalltongue:

[OptimizedAC]

Control Weather - does no damage, they can Long Rest under the cart, or, well... I'm pretty sure no drain of resources options hereThat's for you as a DM to decide (I didn't mean they'd literally melt). How would you as a DM run the fellowship of the ring traversing Calahadras? I know nothing about the environment the party is travelling through. But I can imagine how I would DM a group long-resting during the summer, when within barely an hour the temperatur turns "arctic" and a blizzard equal to torrential rain ravages the landscape. Awoken from their sleep, struggling to hold out the elements. The terrain turned from grassland to arctic. The vision so bad, and tracks so quickly masked by snow, that it's much easier for an enemy to sneak up into range for combat-spells. Knowing powerful foes are out to get them.
Maybe they'll avoid expending any resources or lose time - that's especially likely if you don't add any further pressure. But to do so, they'll have to engage with the challenge in a meaningful way. That's the best possible outcome - the party feels like they've faced the kind of challenge an archmage would impose, and bested it. The challenge imposed by a powerful spellcaster should be more than just the combat-encounters.

(Based on your description, they'll probably get rid of the blizzard within a couple of castings of Dispel magic. That's fine - those are spell-slots they shouldn't get back from that long rest, though.)

Re: Major image - if the illusion is of something partially insubstantial (like a dragons breath) or partially covered by a blizzard, that might be harder to tell. Up to you, though. Or just avoid it coming within shooting-range: Illusory dragon can give a decent impression of a real dragon. But only lasts one minute. Major image lets you replace that illusion once the party thinks it's real, with one that lasts long enough to fly away. Set up a false lair in the direction it flies off, with the charred remains of some farmers and sheep. Burn down a farm nearby (but out of the party's way), and let its smoke keep rising. Make them either waste time and effort, or abandon their oaths - or see through the trick. Of course the ranger might realize something's off with the dragon's den. Thats validating to their character fantasy, and foreshadows trickery to come.

(The party comes across more charred corpses on the farm. A paladin starts giving them their last rites - when the corpses attacks them. Sure, they take minimal damage. But it's vile, unsettling. The kind of thing some cunning evil with too much power and too few scruples might do. And that a paladin would want to smite them down for.)

Dream should honestly be one of the clever Archmage's lower priorities for spell-slot use the days before their arrival. It's great if it works, but it probably won't. Narratively, it's great, though, and you should totally make use of it. The mechanical effect is less important than the narrative one - the challenges the villain imposes on the party is your most efficient way of characterizing their foe. Just don't spend to much time resolving trivial challenges. Dream as such is great here - you can spend quite some time describing the nightmare imposed on the hero, but only need a single check for resolving the mechanical effect.

The party has already bested deadly challenges in direct combat. Let them discover how good they are at facing different kind of threats to their fetch-quest.

My previous post was more about pointing options an archmage might choose to make use of in the scenario you described. (Here I should have mentioned Phantom Steed, which one of the mobility spells the villains will probably use to set up shenanigans). My main point in this post is that with the ample options, there are rich choices a DM can make form the foundations for engaging storytelling with the party. Best of luck with how use those in the coming session(s).