Hi I'm new to DMing and I was planning a campaign for my group of friends, I'll skip the whole "setting & lore" explanation for clarity sake. The main point is that I think of adding a powerful spellcaster antagonist plotting in the shadows, problem is that I have no idea how to make it a threat for a party of 5 (possibly level 15 to 20) playable characters, I would prefer avoiding to add "minions" or other creatures since it's meant to be the final showdown between just the party and the villain.
Maybe it's too convoluted of an idea and I should rethink the whole "main villain" thing? I just really liked the idea, but I'm open to suggestions! Thanks in advance!
If you are up for the challenge of getting a party to level 15+ then I'd probably use Fraz-Urb'luu the Demon Lord of Deception and Illusion (see Mordenkainens Tome of Foes). He's got spell casting and could easily masquarade as a sorcerer NPC thoughout the party's adventuring career so you could have him helping the group at various points, acting as a mentor and friend and then have some grand reveal at a suitable level. Two of his main abilities that would aid this subterfuge would be his ability to cast Alter Self at will and he's also immune to all divination magic so the party shouldn't be able to stumble upon his true nature until you want them too.
I think the trick to a Spellcaster enemy is that you can take advantage of a lot of those spells that seem useful but are really hard to actually use... like Glyph of Warding. Players are usually out and about int he world, and a Glyph of Warding can't easily be used, since once it's cast you can't move it and it costs a good chunk of gold each time. But an NPC has infinite time and resources depending on what you, as the DM, want them to have, so you could have a fight in their stronghold where, even if they don't have any minions popping in to help, they could instead have a dozen trapped tiles that cast hold person if anyone gets too close to them, or just drops a fireball.
Just think about every time you've seen a spell and thought, "That looks cool, but when will I ever be able to use that?". Well, this is the chance to use it.
The big problem will likely be action economy. The villain will try to cast, get counterspelled by the party, then the good guys wail on the villian. So villian will need some lair and/or legendary actions to even things out.
Maybe throw in some kind of damage aura, using some element the villian is immune to, so you can be wittling away at the PCs hit point every turn. That can help distract them. Like an item or artifact or pillar that does constant damage (start of their turn kind of thing), so the party can decide to just eat the damage, or spend some actions destroying the item. Give them good reasons to attack things other than the villian.
You have to think of survivability as the caster. Pay attention to buffs that don't have concentration requirements. Look at races that can wear armor, like Githyanki as your caster. If you want to play by the rules, wizards are destroyed by a party very very very quickly if they have nothing around them. For what you want to do for a party of levels 15-20, you will have to give them a very large hit point buffer or creative terrain to limit movement to him. Any paladin worth their salt, would drop 2 spell slot 5 and 1 spell slot 4 smites on your wizard doing about 80 damage a round if they all hit. Realistically a well played party would kill your wizard in 1 rd if you build them buy the rules at level 20 and they don't roll well on initiative. And then you have to deal with Wish, because that wizard would wish them to the middle of the ocean.
Melee Survivability:
-Mirror Image + Blink is on at start of the fight. This gives a clothy a good chance at living. They would cast blur next, which requires concentration, a thinking party will cast counter magic to stop the cast.
Party Separation:
-Wall of force or Wall of fire. Wall of Force is best for non-casters and wall of fire can be exceedingly nasty, just read the description of how it works. There are various spells wizards have to move players, including back into the fire to take the damage.
Friends:
-Summon Demon, let them go wild.
Final Resort:
-Contingency with teleport. Bye fella's, I'll be back. Magic Jar in a one of the jars, and ask the players what they loot. Have all the jars have a minor trap, but put good loot in it. Eventually the party's lock picker will go in, and he'll most likely have a low CHA save. Congrats, now you have a rogue that will kill players during the rest or sneak away to get the wizards body back up.
Since spellcasters are generally pretty squishy, buff, debuff, and movement spells are going to be your best friends here. First off, make sure they have access to the shield spell. It's absolutely necessary for any spellcaster with low armor class, especially a main villain. Second, give them misty step, to let them stay out of range of the melee characters while still being able to deal damage. Third, try give them some fun debuff spells, like slow, to really mess with your players. And fourth, give them legendary actions. This is absolutely vital to making sure they're a challenging foe. With legendary actions, they'll be able to do much more before they're brought down, possibly even taking a PC or two with them.
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All stars fade. Some stars forever fall. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Homebrew (Mostly Outdated):Magic Items,Monsters,Spells,Subclasses ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
-Contingency with teleport. Bye fella's, I'll be back. Magic Jar in a one of the jars, and ask the players what they loot. Have all the jars have a minor trap, but put good loot in it. Eventually the party's lock picker will go in, and he'll most likely have a low CHA save. Congrats, now you have a rogue that will kill players during the rest or sneak away to get the wizards body back up.
I wanna comment on this idea for the Magic Jar... something I think would be pretty cool is to make sure you know the Rogue's charisma save score on your own. Then each time the Rogue opens something have them roll a d20, and act like you're just using that number to determine what kind of treasure they find.... but really when it comes to the Magic Jar they're using that number to roll their CHA save. If they fail, end the session after the looting is complete and then take the Rogue (or whoever triggered the Magic Jar) off to the side and inform them they've been taken over by the Big Bad. Collaborate with them and let them play essentially as this character for a bit...at least until the Big Bad can get himself a new body. I'd say try not to leave your player stuck playing a different character for too long, but it would be pretty wild to see how something like that played out, and the important thing is that the player still got to roll his own Save against the Magic Jar spell, even if they didn't know it at the time (there's no worse feeling than failing a save because the DM rolled it on their own in secret... everyone wants at least that little bit of influence on their character's fate).
As mentioned above one big problem with 5e boss fights in general, but with spellcasters in particular, is they are over so fast... players go nova, it's really hard to let the fight last more than a couple rounds especially since spellcasters are glass cannons. Bosses need either minions or legendary actions (or both!) just to keep up with the action economy.
Tomb of Annihilation spoilers below:
One of the antagonists of Tomb of Annihilation (Ras Nsi) has the ability to speak a command word that causes five shields to fly off the walls and levitate around him. While they're active, Ras Nsi gains a +10 bonus to his AC. If an attack that would normally hit Ras Nsi is blocked by the shields, one of the shields is struck and disabled as it falls to the floor, reducing Ras Nsi's bonus to AC by 2. As written I believe this would not work against AoE effects like a fireball spell.
I like this solution because it provides some survivability to the boss while also giving the players a way to chip away at it. Would give you a chance to actually use some of those spells on the BBEG you spent so much time creating.
Also, make sure their HP is on the upper end of the range, and consider buffing CON which will both increase HP and help with concentration saves.
Think about things like Prismatic Wall to separate the party and/or make them takes some damage to get through. Try to have magical and non-magical traps that will also separate the party physically so your BBEG can pick them off one at a time. Power Word Heal could restore all the BBEG's HPs.
And I would definitely shape the terrain of the fight. Maybe it is the Wizard's Tower/Lair.
Look at a lich - they could be a deadly opponent.
Provide them with magical items that help preserve them. Also, as a nasty effect, let them have had influence on your PCs development. Maybe this BBEG gave them some seeming innocuous magical items that it secretly controls to it's advantage during the fight. Just one party member being turned against the others will be a big advantage, especially if a deadly rogue starts targeting party members. The big reveal could be that the actions the party has taken over the years, while they saved lives, protected towns, etc, have also helped the BBEG kill off competitors, gain power or riches or magical items, and have given the BBEG insight into how the party works together, so it knows how best to defeat them.
This is kinda what i am doing for my party - they have 3 main villains ( a vampire, a twisted druid and a Red Wizard) who they have made enemies of and who are (unknown to the party) all working for the BBEG. They will eventually kill off two of them, leaving the Red Wizard to be a tie-in to Tyranny of Dragons, then have to fight the BBEG who is a Vampire Wizard with a lot of minions, and who holds the King's son hostage...
What level is your Wizard BBEG? Think also of the magical items that he or she will have acquired during his career (and bonus points if you had the party gain some of the items for him as quests along the way...) A staff of power or rod of the magi could be useful, as well as a ring of spell storing, bracers of defense, robe of the magi. With combinations of these, you may be getting an AC of 20+, enough hopefully to save you from some attacks.
And I would suggest that you rethink the minions. Even if this is the final showdown, any wizard plotting the death of top tier characters would know that standing toe-to-toe with PCs this powerful is a losing proposition. Maybe you have Animated Armor or other nonliving defenders.
My main bit of advice is just that you shouldn't feel like you have to use spells available to the players or class rules. I find its a common mistake people make with caster enemies the complicates the play and limits creativity. You can come up with abilities like any monster and can ignore spell slots or class requirements if you want. You can also modify spells by removing concentration, changing their action economy, how they scale, their components or what ever. You can even mix spell casting into multi attacks giving them spell attack combos. For example maybe they can cast combos of vicious mockery and hideous laughter. Just slap the altered spell in the stat block as an ability.
As for single enemy fights there are a few challenges that need to be addressed.
Action economy particularly reactions. Players will have more reactions and at high levels reactions are powerful abilities like [Tooltip Not Found]. This means you need to either find a way to give it more uses of those abilities or plan for them losing the counter spell war.
Focus fire. Single enemies are easy to focus fire this is both boring and results in them dieing quicker. Add something to split players focus, illusions, environmental features any thing. A good example is a magic ritual that needs to be disrupted or stones of power making them stronger. Illusions like mislead can also break off the continuous pounding, casting mislead as a legendary action is an amazing move.
Lock down. Single enemies are more vulnerable to status effects by the nature of it being all or nothing for them. This is not just things like stunned but also things like a sentinels removal of movement speed. Consider things like an action to move without opportunity attacks or a teleport.
Finally as merigold says you can easily flavor minions as spells or magical constructs from the wizard. I mean if you want you can literally use a living spell
What level is your Wizard BBEG? Think also of the magical items that he or she will have acquired during his career (and bonus points if you had the party gain some of the items for him as quests along the way...) A staff of power or rod of the magi could be useful, as well as a ring of spell storing, bracers of defense, robe of the magi. With combinations of these, you may be getting an AC of 20+, enough hopefully to save you from some attacks.
And I would suggest that you rethink the minions. Even if this is the final showdown, any wizard plotting the death of top tier characters would know that standing toe-to-toe with PCs this powerful is a losing proposition. Maybe you have Animated Armor or other nonliving defenders.
If you really need it, there's always Invulnerability.
That is good. I might use Time Stop too. Stop everything for 1d4+1 rounds and setup a few things, like a delayed blast fireball. Maybe end the Time Stop with a Lightning Bolt or, if you're feeling cocky, slitting the throat of the most dangerous person. You could potentially do 16d6 damage with delayed blast fireball and I would think the DEX save would be an automatic fail since the players cannot move. You can set up something like Wall of Force to divide the party or to give you cover (or both depending on how you shape it). With Fire Shield (Chill) you can make sure you suffer less damage.
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Hi I'm new to DMing and I was planning a campaign for my group of friends, I'll skip the whole "setting & lore" explanation for clarity sake. The main point is that I think of adding a powerful spellcaster antagonist plotting in the shadows, problem is that I have no idea how to make it a threat for a party of 5 (possibly level 15 to 20) playable characters, I would prefer avoiding to add "minions" or other creatures since it's meant to be the final showdown between just the party and the villain.
Maybe it's too convoluted of an idea and I should rethink the whole "main villain" thing? I just really liked the idea, but I'm open to suggestions! Thanks in advance!
If you are up for the challenge of getting a party to level 15+ then I'd probably use Fraz-Urb'luu the Demon Lord of Deception and Illusion (see Mordenkainens Tome of Foes). He's got spell casting and could easily masquarade as a sorcerer NPC thoughout the party's adventuring career so you could have him helping the group at various points, acting as a mentor and friend and then have some grand reveal at a suitable level. Two of his main abilities that would aid this subterfuge would be his ability to cast Alter Self at will and he's also immune to all divination magic so the party shouldn't be able to stumble upon his true nature until you want them too.
Thank you I'll definitely look into it!
I think the trick to a Spellcaster enemy is that you can take advantage of a lot of those spells that seem useful but are really hard to actually use... like Glyph of Warding. Players are usually out and about int he world, and a Glyph of Warding can't easily be used, since once it's cast you can't move it and it costs a good chunk of gold each time. But an NPC has infinite time and resources depending on what you, as the DM, want them to have, so you could have a fight in their stronghold where, even if they don't have any minions popping in to help, they could instead have a dozen trapped tiles that cast hold person if anyone gets too close to them, or just drops a fireball.
Just think about every time you've seen a spell and thought, "That looks cool, but when will I ever be able to use that?". Well, this is the chance to use it.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
That's really insightful thank you!
The big problem will likely be action economy. The villain will try to cast, get counterspelled by the party, then the good guys wail on the villian. So villian will need some lair and/or legendary actions to even things out.
Maybe throw in some kind of damage aura, using some element the villian is immune to, so you can be wittling away at the PCs hit point every turn. That can help distract them. Like an item or artifact or pillar that does constant damage (start of their turn kind of thing), so the party can decide to just eat the damage, or spend some actions destroying the item. Give them good reasons to attack things other than the villian.
The use of lair actions and legendary actions/resists are going to be necessary to make a spell caster a strong fight for a party of that level.
That's super helpful thank you so much!
You have to think of survivability as the caster. Pay attention to buffs that don't have concentration requirements. Look at races that can wear armor, like Githyanki as your caster. If you want to play by the rules, wizards are destroyed by a party very very very quickly if they have nothing around them. For what you want to do for a party of levels 15-20, you will have to give them a very large hit point buffer or creative terrain to limit movement to him. Any paladin worth their salt, would drop 2 spell slot 5 and 1 spell slot 4 smites on your wizard doing about 80 damage a round if they all hit. Realistically a well played party would kill your wizard in 1 rd if you build them buy the rules at level 20 and they don't roll well on initiative. And then you have to deal with Wish, because that wizard would wish them to the middle of the ocean.
Melee Survivability:
-Mirror Image + Blink is on at start of the fight. This gives a clothy a good chance at living. They would cast blur next, which requires concentration, a thinking party will cast counter magic to stop the cast.
Party Separation:
-Wall of force or Wall of fire. Wall of Force is best for non-casters and wall of fire can be exceedingly nasty, just read the description of how it works. There are various spells wizards have to move players, including back into the fire to take the damage.
Friends:
-Summon Demon, let them go wild.
Final Resort:
-Contingency with teleport. Bye fella's, I'll be back. Magic Jar in a one of the jars, and ask the players what they loot. Have all the jars have a minor trap, but put good loot in it. Eventually the party's lock picker will go in, and he'll most likely have a low CHA save. Congrats, now you have a rogue that will kill players during the rest or sneak away to get the wizards body back up.
Since spellcasters are generally pretty squishy, buff, debuff, and movement spells are going to be your best friends here. First off, make sure they have access to the shield spell. It's absolutely necessary for any spellcaster with low armor class, especially a main villain. Second, give them misty step, to let them stay out of range of the melee characters while still being able to deal damage. Third, try give them some fun debuff spells, like slow, to really mess with your players. And fourth, give them legendary actions. This is absolutely vital to making sure they're a challenging foe. With legendary actions, they'll be able to do much more before they're brought down, possibly even taking a PC or two with them.
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall.
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Homebrew (Mostly Outdated): Magic Items, Monsters, Spells, Subclasses
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If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
That's super helpful thanks a lot!
I wanna comment on this idea for the Magic Jar... something I think would be pretty cool is to make sure you know the Rogue's charisma save score on your own. Then each time the Rogue opens something have them roll a d20, and act like you're just using that number to determine what kind of treasure they find.... but really when it comes to the Magic Jar they're using that number to roll their CHA save. If they fail, end the session after the looting is complete and then take the Rogue (or whoever triggered the Magic Jar) off to the side and inform them they've been taken over by the Big Bad. Collaborate with them and let them play essentially as this character for a bit...at least until the Big Bad can get himself a new body. I'd say try not to leave your player stuck playing a different character for too long, but it would be pretty wild to see how something like that played out, and the important thing is that the player still got to roll his own Save against the Magic Jar spell, even if they didn't know it at the time (there's no worse feeling than failing a save because the DM rolled it on their own in secret... everyone wants at least that little bit of influence on their character's fate).
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
As mentioned above one big problem with 5e boss fights in general, but with spellcasters in particular, is they are over so fast... players go nova, it's really hard to let the fight last more than a couple rounds especially since spellcasters are glass cannons. Bosses need either minions or legendary actions (or both!) just to keep up with the action economy.
Tomb of Annihilation spoilers below:
One of the antagonists of Tomb of Annihilation (Ras Nsi) has the ability to speak a command word that causes five shields to fly off the walls and levitate around him. While they're active, Ras Nsi gains a +10 bonus to his AC. If an attack that would normally hit Ras Nsi is blocked by the shields, one of the shields is struck and disabled as it falls to the floor, reducing Ras Nsi's bonus to AC by 2. As written I believe this would not work against AoE effects like a fireball spell.
I like this solution because it provides some survivability to the boss while also giving the players a way to chip away at it. Would give you a chance to actually use some of those spells on the BBEG you spent so much time creating.
Also, make sure their HP is on the upper end of the range, and consider buffing CON which will both increase HP and help with concentration saves.
Think about things like Prismatic Wall to separate the party and/or make them takes some damage to get through. Try to have magical and non-magical traps that will also separate the party physically so your BBEG can pick them off one at a time. Power Word Heal could restore all the BBEG's HPs.
And I would definitely shape the terrain of the fight. Maybe it is the Wizard's Tower/Lair.
Look at a lich - they could be a deadly opponent.
Provide them with magical items that help preserve them. Also, as a nasty effect, let them have had influence on your PCs development. Maybe this BBEG gave them some seeming innocuous magical items that it secretly controls to it's advantage during the fight. Just one party member being turned against the others will be a big advantage, especially if a deadly rogue starts targeting party members. The big reveal could be that the actions the party has taken over the years, while they saved lives, protected towns, etc, have also helped the BBEG kill off competitors, gain power or riches or magical items, and have given the BBEG insight into how the party works together, so it knows how best to defeat them.
This is kinda what i am doing for my party - they have 3 main villains ( a vampire, a twisted druid and a Red Wizard) who they have made enemies of and who are (unknown to the party) all working for the BBEG. They will eventually kill off two of them, leaving the Red Wizard to be a tie-in to Tyranny of Dragons, then have to fight the BBEG who is a Vampire Wizard with a lot of minions, and who holds the King's son hostage...
What level is your Wizard BBEG? Think also of the magical items that he or she will have acquired during his career (and bonus points if you had the party gain some of the items for him as quests along the way...) A staff of power or rod of the magi could be useful, as well as a ring of spell storing, bracers of defense, robe of the magi. With combinations of these, you may be getting an AC of 20+, enough hopefully to save you from some attacks.
And I would suggest that you rethink the minions. Even if this is the final showdown, any wizard plotting the death of top tier characters would know that standing toe-to-toe with PCs this powerful is a losing proposition. Maybe you have Animated Armor or other nonliving defenders.
My main bit of advice is just that you shouldn't feel like you have to use spells available to the players or class rules. I find its a common mistake people make with caster enemies the complicates the play and limits creativity. You can come up with abilities like any monster and can ignore spell slots or class requirements if you want. You can also modify spells by removing concentration, changing their action economy, how they scale, their components or what ever. You can even mix spell casting into multi attacks giving them spell attack combos. For example maybe they can cast combos of vicious mockery and hideous laughter. Just slap the altered spell in the stat block as an ability.
As for single enemy fights there are a few challenges that need to be addressed.
Finally as merigold says you can easily flavor minions as spells or magical constructs from the wizard. I mean if you want you can literally use a living spell
If you really need it, there's always Invulnerability.
That is good. I might use Time Stop too. Stop everything for 1d4+1 rounds and setup a few things, like a delayed blast fireball. Maybe end the Time Stop with a Lightning Bolt or, if you're feeling cocky, slitting the throat of the most dangerous person. You could potentially do 16d6 damage with delayed blast fireball and I would think the DEX save would be an automatic fail since the players cannot move. You can set up something like Wall of Force to divide the party or to give you cover (or both depending on how you shape it). With Fire Shield (Chill) you can make sure you suffer less damage.