D&D 5E [5e] Need help with a 20th level wizard

[Blue_Shine12]

First, on the off chance that any of my players find this, if you are going to be playing in a 5e epilogue in southern Wisconsin, read no further for fear of spoilers.

I'm in the process of writing a dungeon for a party of 19th level characters. This dungeon is essentially a haunted mansion under the control of a 20th level Necromancer wizard. He has dealt with the party before, but managed to escape after being thoroughly humiliated. This wizard has had 3 years time to scry and prepare this mansion before luring the PCs to him.

And I suppose party make-up actually matters here

There is a Tiefling Paladin of the Ancients who will have just grown into her 30 foot auras of telling magic no. She was also given a re-skinned Holy Avenger, so the party is very resilient to magic. Her 30 foot auras grant a +4 on all saves, resistance to damage from magic, and advantage on saves against magic. She also has the mage slayer feat.

There is a half-orc Champion Fighter, who is really just an armored sack of hit points that can dominate in melee, but his saves are lacking.

There is a half-elf Wild Blooded Sorcerer who focuses on blast casting.

And a half-elf Tome Warlock of the Fiend, who largely fights at range.

So the wizard would know that straight up blast casting would not be very effective, so he tries to focus on indirect damage sources.

So what all would a well prepared wizard be able to do if he knows that he can't do very reliable damage with magic and that the party has higher than normal saves? I want to avoid effects like banishment that would cause a player to sit around for a while as that is less fun for the player.

So far I have:

Multiple castings of Guards and Wards to make traversing the mansion difficult

Multiple castings of Forbiddance to prevent teleportation

Multiple castings of snare for hidden magic traps

A simulacrum with Tenser's Transformation active and a fancy magic weapon

A few Clones in a basement that locks from the inside. (also warded with forbiddance)

Many castings of Symbol and Glyph of Warding for more fun magical traps

And of course some non-magical traps (that I haven't yet decided on). The party does not have anyone with proficiency with thieves' tools, so the traps should merely be inconvenient and avoidable.

And I know I want a contingency spell in place, but I'm not sure what it should be.

Any other suggestions?

 

[CTurbo]

That Ancients Pally is going to make life very difficult for that Wizard. Really a BBEG like a Wizard is possibly a poor villain choice for that party for that very reason. Do you plan on sending hoards of undead minions at them? I would maybe think about throwing a mid level Oath Breaker Paladin at the party to buff the undead army and cancel out some of the party's advantages. Keep the Fighter within 30ft of the Pally for saves. This almost sounds too easy for the party. High level Paladins really make things hard for a DM. If you could take out the Pally, the party will fall for sure though.

 

[mellored]

Feeblemind on the pally. Even with +4, his Int save will be pretty bad. And that will kill one of his auras. Also, synaptic shock.

Blind/deafness for your at-will level 2 spell. Followed by a bunch of skeleton with bows, who stay out of range.

A simple gate that comes down. Controlled by a skelton, who pulls it after one person walks though.

Illusions. Like a pit, covered by an illusion of a floor.

 

[Leatherhead]

A normal level 20 wizard is going to be smeared into paste in the first round.

Thankfully there is a new level 9 spell from XGtE that solves that problem: Invulnerability. All you need to do, is keep the thing from being dispelled somehow, which is what Counterspell and Similarcum are for.

You have 10 minutes to destroy a party, can you make it happen?

Now, as a necromancer, the obvious solution is to throw hordes of undead at the party to wear them down. This can be accomplished before hand via create undead spells, I guess. But NPCs shouldn't follow the rules for PC's, because those rules assume you have 3-5 other people of equivalent power helping you out. Give him a ritual to create the really cool undead, like ghosts and vampires and mummies. Secondly, not everything in the room should be an undead. VGtM in particular, has a few demons that synergize very well with undead hordes (like Devourers). Thirdly, the room needs passive threats like a complex trap (from XGtE, the Poisoned Tempest is a fun one to use or modify) or any such hazard that the undead and wizard will be able to ignore while the party slowly gets weaker. Like maybe a portal to the negative energy plane that just happens to be spilling into the house.

If you want to get really nasty, have the house itself become a creature that slowly tries to digest the living creatures inside of it.

Also, why isn't he a Lich at this point?

 

[Blue_Shine12]

These are all super helpful ideas. Thank you all.

That Ancients Pally is going to make life very difficult for that Wizard. Really a BBEG like a Wizard is possibly a poor villain choice for that party for that very reason.

Well, yes. But she joined the party long after this villain was written. It would be weird to change course now, but maybe that's just me making excuses. The Oathbreaker paladin is a good idea, though I'd probably go for something higher level seeing as the party turned two re-skinned Planetars into dust today.

Feeblemind on the pally. Even with +4, his Int save will be pretty bad. And that will kill one of his auras. Also, synaptic shock.

Blind/deafness for your at-will level 2 spell. Followed by a bunch of skeleton with bows, who stay out of range.

A simple gate that comes down. Controlled by a skelton, who pulls it after one person walks though.

Illusions. Like a pit, covered by an illusion of a floor.

I did learn about the beauty that is synaptic shock. Regular zombies and skeletons are laughably easy for a 19th level party though. But for some reason I forgot simple illusions exist.

Give him a ritual to create the really cool undead, like ghosts and vampires and mummies. Secondly, not everything in the room should be an undead. VGtM in particular, has a few demons that synergize very well with undead hordes (like Devourers). Thirdly, the room needs passive threats like a complex trap (from XGtE, the Poisoned Tempest is a fun one to use or modify) or any such hazard that the undead and wizard will be able to ignore while the party slowly gets weaker. Like maybe a portal to the negative energy plane that just happens to be spilling into the house.

I suppose I should clarify that I'm not just looking for one encounter. This is intended to be a multi-room, multi-combat dungeon. I also want to fill this place with stronger undead like death tyrants, vampires, alhoons, and the like. I'll definitely have to look into the things in Volo's though. And I love the idea of complex traps. I'll just have to beef them up a little.

Also, why isn't he a Lich at this point?

That is a good point.

 

[CTurbo]

Maybe the party could be trying to stop him from becoming a Lich?

You could have a high level Oathbreaker in control over a Death Knight or Demilich. That may be a little tough though.

Zombies and Skellys are going to be easy, but if they're made by the Necromancer, and buffed by an Oathbreaker, they'll be much tougher, and you can always use hoards of them.

I've always liked creating NPC baddies, like the Oathbreaker idea, but you could also create an evil Orc or Minotaur level 20 Barbarian for them to fight.

 

[Simonb1]

Simple, give the Wizard some items that boosts his save DC.
Anti magic aura halves incoming damage.
Paladin Aura boosts saves by Cha mod, min of +1.

I would feeblemind the paladin to weaken the party's save boost, and then play it by ear, but a banishment would be effective in removing his auras from play.

Simon

 

[Simonb1]

Also consider non-direct damage, eg levitate or animate objects. I do not think that the anti magic aura affects this.

Also consider the elemental mastery x feat which removes resistance against that element.

Simon

 

[CTurbo]

Getting rid of the Pally completely would be too brutal for the party to be able to handle IMO.

Maybe find some fun no save spells? Heat Metal would be great. I don't think the Pally could dispel that easily right?

Simons ideas to boost the spell DC and elemental feats are great

 

[Blue_Shine12]

Maybe the party could be trying to stop him from becoming a Lich?

Eh, he has had 3 years. If he wants to become a lich he has had plenty of time. Also I think I can turn destroying the phylactery into a good 20th level mission/capstone.

You could have a high level Oathbreaker in control over a Death Knight or Demilich. That may be a little tough though.

Zombies and Skellys are going to be easy, but if they're made by the Necromancer, and buffed by an Oathbreaker, they'll be much tougher, and you can always use hoards of them.

My players are smart and fairly optimized and it turns out high level play is ridiculous. They managed to bring an ancient black dragon (CR 21) down to less than 50 hit points in about a round and a half. They can handle pretty much anything.

And as far as zombies and skellies go, the buffs aren't that significant. A skeleton for example, would get 33 HP (which any member of the party could easily do in a single round), still have a +4 to hit (it will never hit the fighter or paladin, whose ACs are 25 and 26 respectively) and get around a +10 to damage. Sure this is just a standard skeleton and unfortunately 5e doesn't have an easy template built in (that I know of). And at 19th level, zombies and skeletons are pretty boring options. Also I don't really want to have to control 20+ weak creatures when I cold just control less than 10 strong ones.

I would feeblemind the paladin to weaken the party's save boost, and then play it by ear, but a banishment would be effective in removing his auras from play.

Feeblemind is definitely on his spells prepared for that very reason. The Sorcerer can fix it with Wish, but that is a 9th table spell he'd have to spend. Banishment is certainly a possibility too.

Also consider the elemental mastery x feat which removes resistance against that element.

Well I think the problem with that is Aura of Warding allows players to resist damage from spells, which is not resistance to any particular element. So elemental mastery shouldn't remove these resistances.

Getting rid of the Pally completely would be too brutal for the party to be able to handle IMO.

Maybe find some fun no save spells? Heat Metal would be great. I don't think the Pally could dispel that easily right?

Getting rid of the paladin may actually be my best bet to get some damage in until she comes back. The party can handle it.

The 14th level ability of a Paladin is cleansing touch, which is CHA mod number of uses to end a spell affecting a willing creature by touching them. This would include heat metal, so she would be able to dispel it very easily.