Spellcasting. The mage is a 9th-level spellcaster. Its spellcasting ability is Intelligence (spell save DC 14, +6 to hit with spell attacks). The mage has the following wizard spells prepared:
Cantrips (at will): fire bolt, light, mage hand, prestidigitation
1st level (4 slots): detect magic, mage armor, magic missile, shield
2nd level (3 slots): misty step, suggestion
3rd level (3 slots): counterspell, fireball, fly
4th level (3 slots): greater invisibility, ice storm
5th level (1 slot): cone of cold
Dagger. Melee or Ranged Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft. or range 20/60 ft., one target. Hit: 4 (1d4 + 2) piercing damage.
Description
Mages spend their lives in the study and practice of magic. Good-aligned mages offer counsel to nobles and others in power, while evil mages dwell in isolated sites to perform unspeakable experiments without interference.
But a cult devotes a god.
mages are arcane spellcasters, they usaully don’t devote there lives to gods they devote themselves to arcane Spellcasting.
mechanically yes there a good leader of a cult but there not good leaders in the slightest in the lore because Usually they care more about arcane Spellcasting then a god.
Party of mixed 4th to 6th level characters, gather faction agents and mercenaries to go fight a demon in the hills. Among the mercenaries is this guy, who the players jokingly name "Ed the Wizard." Ed is actually a spy from a faction that really wants the party dead, but wants the demon dead more. So he travels with them for four days across country, and down into a drowned grotto to fight the demon in the ancestral crypt of the Baron's family--being very careful never to spend higher than a 3rd level spell slot.
Ed hangs back, he's a squishy wizard after all, and is very polite and helpful the entire time.
The group of players and NPCs beat the demon after a hard fought and double boss fight against two legendary creatures at the same time. They make their way to the boat to escape the grotto, grouped up on the now-broken cult's makeshift dock.
"Oh look! Ed loaded up the boat for us...Ed?"
Cone of Cold. NPCs dead, all but one of the party making Death Saves. Ed makes an ultimatum to the last character standing: Fight me or stabilize your friends. Player chooses to make sure everyone lives, Ed escapes with the loot. And now the party has a rival they really really hate.
Look at a Wizard's level progression (The Wizard Table). At level 9 they gain their first 5th level spell slot. Spellcasters (with the exception of warlocks) gain more slots as they level in class before they are able to cast the next level in spells. Class level and spell progression don't scale at the same rate.
Mages are indeed arcane spellcasters, but they do revere deities -usually those whose portfolios include knowledge or magic. Regardless, cults aren't exclusively devoted to deities. Some are devoted to devils, or demons, or eldritch beings who reward their followers with power or knowledge that they can't attain through study alone. Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes (RIP) had sample templates which could be applied to NPC statblocks granting them additional spells, ASIs, and unique features related to whichever demon or devil they worshipped, illustrating how veneration of these other worldly beings could grant cult leaders and devoted followers abilities beyond a typical NPC. It makes perfect sense that evil aligned wizards would be found among a cult's leadership. And even if they weren't devoted to an extraplanar being, a cunning mage could amass a following to further their own pursuits (power, wealth, etc.).
How? with just a fireball they should have died easily
Are the spells the mage uses required to be as they are or can they be switched with other spells? Also, what is the exact difference between mages and wizards in DnD?
You can switch them out any spell listed here for one of equal level, without changing the Challenge Rating (this is standard practice).
“Mage” is a generic term for several kinds of magic-user. The one in this casts spells like a Wizard, because that is the most common in many settings.
If I wanted a PC who is a classic wizard's apprentice, would this be an appropriate stat block for their mentor, or do you think the archmage stat block is more suitable?
I'm crossing this stat block with the young blue dragon to create the BBEG for my low/mid level campaign.
Whenever I read comments like this I imagine that the monsters were used horribly or the rules were used horribly, or both.
In truth, it's possible for the players to do this, when a lot of things allign to them. But unless you know exactly why they were strong against that encounter, it's advised to not overkill encounters as much otherwise you'll icur a TPK.
For instance if you have a party made up mostly holy enhanced, heavily armoured dwarves then undead, fiends and green dragons are kind of a pushover.
But a single one of these guys gave them more trouble at lvl7 than 50 or so low level fiends.
In fact a single cone of cold would likely wipe a party of lvl2 adventurers. In case the spellcaster cannot hit enough members they would cast greater invisibility, use shield/coutnerspell to survive until next round and then use cone of cold or fireball. After which if the party is still alive, use misty step to throw pursuers off-guard and use magic missille to pick off stragglers.
The issue is that cone of cold deals an average of 36 damage, which means even on a succesful save of 14, players take avg 18 dmg. And seldom will a cleric have more than 19 health on lvl 2 nor magic items to grant frost resistance.
My guess if that, assuming that everything was used finely, the players surprised or rolled remarkably well on initiative. Then the cleric used channel divinity to frighten the undead while the rest of the party ganked up on the mage. It's still an AC of 17-20, but when all players take turns before the mage takes one, I can see how they could have won.
But my point is, that a DM should not take lucky rolls as granted and take unlucky rolls into consideration.
Nothing more painful than scrapping your entire campaign because nobody succeeded on that saving throw or because your monster dealt 2 crits in a row.
If this "mage's spell casting ability is intelligence, he is a wizard, but he has a "d8" for health. That doesn't make sense. Why would WOTC create an NPC that doesn't follow the rules?
Because monsters have different rules as they are not PC. It’s the size that determine the hit dice of a monster. Tiny size monsters uses d4 hit dice, d6 for Small, d8 for Medium, d10 for Large, d12 for Huge and d20 for Gargantuan. You can also see that the Mage proficiency bonus is a +3 instead of +4 for a lv 9 character, it’s because that proficiency bonus of a monster is determined by their challenge rating, not class level: +2 pb for Cr 1-4, +3 pb for Cr 5-8, +4 pb for Cr 9-12 and so on.
cool
my level 5 fighter/barbarian (4 lv in figheter 1 in barbarian) got a crit hit and then bonus action 2 weapon fighting and killed him in one turn
it means he is like a lvl 9 wizard. when they mention an X-level spellcaster, they don't mean the level of spells they mean the level of a spellcasting class like wizard or sorcerer. If you look at the table of when those classes unlock certain spell slots you'll see 9th level spellcasters have up to 5th level spell slots
The important thing is the PC's are the ones doing the hero stuff and figuring out the puzzles that kind of stuff. Casting buff spells on a PC is fine. Now the fighter is hasted thanks to the mage. Now the ranger is flying after the manticore after it grabbed the gnome barbarian. Now the monk just stunned the dragon because she snuck up with greater invisibility.