ok so a little bit of background one of my players is moving away a bit out of the blue so we're benching his character luckily we're at a point in the story where it can be made to make sense, so background information the player that is leaving is a wizard, part of his backstory that we had written up together was that he had stolen the grimoire infinitus from his teacher edivaras kane who is the world's greatest chronurgist, so to feed into this backstory I'd had edivaras' son and a bunch of his other students come looking for the book recently, the party of course slaughter them and the wizard claimed edivaras' staff of power off his son's corpse this was of course the last straw, so we finished the session just before we went on hiatus so I could focus on uni, with edivaras rocking up giving a little bit of a speech about how he hated to waste the potential of such a promising wizard but that they had crossed the line by stealing his staff and cast time ravage on the wizard, which he failed the save on, so we ended the session with the wizard being turned into an old man, the next session will start with the party most likely having to roll initiative, my problem is that I haven't actually finished building the legendary archmage.
I was thinking he would be equivilant to a level 20 chronurgist wizard with a fe additions and legendary actions and stuff what I've thought of so far is:
I was thinking he would have an extra action or bonus action each turn as well as 2 reactions per round, then I was thinking of giving him the ability to cast two spells per turn and maybe the quicken spell sorcery ability or something like that, and then I was thinking of giving him some custom rings of temporal salvation that heal him up when he hits zero hit points if the party creams through his hitpoints too fast to essentially make him like a multiphase boss
then I was thinking the standard 3 legendary actions per turn and legendary resistances and for legendary actions I was thinking:
1 legendary action cast misty step
1 or 2 legendary actions (I'm not sure what would be balanced) regain a reaction
then 1 or 2 legendary reactions to cast a spell or cantrip or something like that.
so does anybody have any suggestions for spells, tweaks to the legendary actions any balancing issues and stuff like that it would be a great help, if it helps the party are a strong level 13 all with high stats (cuz I let them re-roll 1s when rolling stats) each of them have picked a feat or two to strengthen them and the party is pretty balanced with a duel wielding profane soul bloodhunter, a moon druid, a lore bard, an echo knight fighter and a graviturgist wizard and a ****ton of powerful magic items because I have been rather liberal with them over the 13 levels of the campaign over the last couple years, but the wizard has disadvantage on everything because of time ravage, and the druid has disadvantage on everything because when they were recently fighting a dragon he tried to use luba's tarrokka of souls on the dragon only to have it backfire and release one of the monsters trapped inside, and the party hasn't dealt with that yet
Without knowing the specifics of your party I can't really gauge what would or would not be appropriate for the creature to have. If this is a pure combat encounter I see this going one of two ways: Either your players absolutely destroy this mage, or the mage kills the party. That is the unfortunate thing about high-level spell casters, they are designed to be big on dealing damage, not so much on taking it.
I would recommend making it about more than just combat. Perhaps the Arch-Mage is content with the results of their time ravage and now wants to leave but the party won't let them. The Arch-Mage doesn't necessarily want to kill anyone so holds back a bit, but still flexes the powers they have and declare something like "This is what you could have had if you had studied and not resorted to petty theft to improve your magic!" Eventually, they get tired of fighting the group and leave via a teleport or something, or if the party proves too much for the wizard they flee and swear revenge before self-destructing so their equipment doesn't fall into the hands of the party, only to be revived in a clone jar some other place.
I guess just having a win condition that doesn't require the party to kill the guy and a loss condition that doesn't mean a TPK. Then you can do whatever you want with the guy, if he is too easy you can make him harder for the next time, and if he is too difficult then you can wait to introduce him until later. Doing this could affect the story going forward, but that might be a good thing.
Thanks that's some good advice luckily I have some deus ex machine built in because my volstruckers party members sent a letter to their boss Trent letting him know that they just killed a dragon and there's a ton of loot here if he wants it, so if it looks like they're gonna tpk then Trent ikithon can rock up with some volstruckers to save their ass (or **** them over more because they're currently trying to lie to him about still being loyal to the cause)
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ok so a little bit of background one of my players is moving away a bit out of the blue so we're benching his character luckily we're at a point in the story where it can be made to make sense, so background information the player that is leaving is a wizard, part of his backstory that we had written up together was that he had stolen the grimoire infinitus from his teacher edivaras kane who is the world's greatest chronurgist, so to feed into this backstory I'd had edivaras' son and a bunch of his other students come looking for the book recently, the party of course slaughter them and the wizard claimed edivaras' staff of power off his son's corpse this was of course the last straw, so we finished the session just before we went on hiatus so I could focus on uni, with edivaras rocking up giving a little bit of a speech about how he hated to waste the potential of such a promising wizard but that they had crossed the line by stealing his staff and cast time ravage on the wizard, which he failed the save on, so we ended the session with the wizard being turned into an old man, the next session will start with the party most likely having to roll initiative, my problem is that I haven't actually finished building the legendary archmage.
I was thinking he would be equivilant to a level 20 chronurgist wizard with a fe additions and legendary actions and stuff what I've thought of so far is:
I was thinking he would have an extra action or bonus action each turn as well as 2 reactions per round, then I was thinking of giving him the ability to cast two spells per turn and maybe the quicken spell sorcery ability or something like that, and then I was thinking of giving him some custom rings of temporal salvation that heal him up when he hits zero hit points if the party creams through his hitpoints too fast to essentially make him like a multiphase boss
then I was thinking the standard 3 legendary actions per turn and legendary resistances and for legendary actions I was thinking:
1 legendary action cast misty step
1 or 2 legendary actions (I'm not sure what would be balanced) regain a reaction
then 1 or 2 legendary reactions to cast a spell or cantrip or something like that.
so does anybody have any suggestions for spells, tweaks to the legendary actions any balancing issues and stuff like that it would be a great help, if it helps the party are a strong level 13 all with high stats (cuz I let them re-roll 1s when rolling stats) each of them have picked a feat or two to strengthen them and the party is pretty balanced with a duel wielding profane soul bloodhunter, a moon druid, a lore bard, an echo knight fighter and a graviturgist wizard and a ****ton of powerful magic items because I have been rather liberal with them over the 13 levels of the campaign over the last couple years, but the wizard has disadvantage on everything because of time ravage, and the druid has disadvantage on everything because when they were recently fighting a dragon he tried to use luba's tarrokka of souls on the dragon only to have it backfire and release one of the monsters trapped inside, and the party hasn't dealt with that yet
Without knowing the specifics of your party I can't really gauge what would or would not be appropriate for the creature to have. If this is a pure combat encounter I see this going one of two ways: Either your players absolutely destroy this mage, or the mage kills the party. That is the unfortunate thing about high-level spell casters, they are designed to be big on dealing damage, not so much on taking it.
I would recommend making it about more than just combat. Perhaps the Arch-Mage is content with the results of their time ravage and now wants to leave but the party won't let them. The Arch-Mage doesn't necessarily want to kill anyone so holds back a bit, but still flexes the powers they have and declare something like "This is what you could have had if you had studied and not resorted to petty theft to improve your magic!" Eventually, they get tired of fighting the group and leave via a teleport or something, or if the party proves too much for the wizard they flee and swear revenge before self-destructing so their equipment doesn't fall into the hands of the party, only to be revived in a clone jar some other place.
I guess just having a win condition that doesn't require the party to kill the guy and a loss condition that doesn't mean a TPK. Then you can do whatever you want with the guy, if he is too easy you can make him harder for the next time, and if he is too difficult then you can wait to introduce him until later. Doing this could affect the story going forward, but that might be a good thing.
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Thanks that's some good advice luckily I have some deus ex machine built in because my volstruckers party members sent a letter to their boss Trent letting him know that they just killed a dragon and there's a ton of loot here if he wants it, so if it looks like they're gonna tpk then Trent ikithon can rock up with some volstruckers to save their ass (or **** them over more because they're currently trying to lie to him about still being loyal to the cause)