Help wanted: Spellcaster Tactics (my players -- out!)

[Shadowdweller]

As has been said before, make sure he doesn't fight them all at once or all together. Set up Alarm spells throughout his lair, or use watch beasts whose main purpose is to alert him when and where danger approaches.

Use traps and spells to divide the party. If the necromancer can fight them in a long, narrow corridor, have him use something like Wall of Force or Prismatic Wall to cut off the first one or two party members. Have him finish these off while the others are blocked. Use minions to delay the party while he readies his attacks.

 

[Eloi]

Link some areas of the lair with underwater corridors (stairs down into water on one end, stairs up out of the water on the other end). Undead are not inconvenienced by getting wet, if they can walk out. Parties without Water Breathing available now need extra time to explore the complex- extra time to be ambushed.

Invest in Ghasts. Pits with Ghasts in them, silent, waiting. Pits with water in them, and a Ghast underwater at the bottom waiting to drag them under. Know what happens to paralyzed air-breathing creatures underwater?

Get a Ghost in behind the PCs while they are fighting, and panic them into fleeing into various unexplored areas in ones and twos. Bonus: the least armored PCs run the fastest, so they can easily become "the first ones to meet the enemy", a.k.a. ground chuck.

A Rust Monster with Invisibility cast on it can cause outright terror in the players, if not the characters. A Ghast with a Pebble of Silence can do fearsome damage if all the characters attempt to disbelieve rather than counter the Pebble. An Otyugh with an illusion on it (one favorite: the BBEG, pointing a wand at the party) can cause an extremely-poorly-thought-out grapple attempt by the players, as well as prep the characters to "disbelieve" future encounters.

Set up one room to be extra-spacious, with an underwater escape route and four small rooms that are Wizard Locked (which open to the larger room behind the side the party entered by. Get four relatively feral Dire Wolverines, one for each small enclosure, and make them ever-angry. When the BBEG says dramatically, "Release the Wolverines!" out come the wolverines.. (and the BBEG retreats in the confusion.) the party should immediately feel forced to respond to the new threat, allowing the BBEG to retreat.

Good luck!

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Good input, keep it coming -- there are exactly the sort of tactical ideas and suggestions I need. That magic jar/Finger of Death combo is nasty!

I was in a hurry to throw together some stats so I just whipped up and slightly tweaked a wizard on E-tools, which is why he's all core items and hasn't maximized the use of his feats. More tweaking is encouraged. The campaign is essentially core rules plus FR elements (FRCS, some items from Underdark & Silver Marches). I wouldn't be opposed to a prestige class, either.

The wizard will know the party is coming, though he also knows/believes they are not after him specifically, and they will not be encountering him the first time in his own lair.

I'd set Illusion up as a prohibited school, though many of the tactics involve illusion spells -- any alternate preferred schools?

 

[Bihor]

Someone should compile all the tactics on this board, and make a book.

The BBEG book of tactics. I'd buy that.

 

[Tiberius]

As less magical alternative would be using a coup de grace on the stolen body. This approach relies on treating possession as one of those situations mentioned under coup de grace where your foe is "otherwise at your mercy." It's not like the victim can struggle, after all.

True enough, but using death magic removes the possibility of bringing the character back with Raise Dead. A cleric of that level probably has Raise Dead on hand, just in case, but is less likely to have Resurrection's material components kicking around, thus forcing them to choose between going on with 87.5% of their party's starting resources or retreating to heal their friend.

 

[Tiberius]

Good input, keep it coming -- there are exactly the sort of tactical ideas and suggestions I need. That magic jar/Finger of Death combo is nasty!

I was in a hurry to throw together some stats so I just whipped up and slightly tweaked a wizard on E-tools, which is why he's all core items and hasn't maximized the use of his feats. More tweaking is encouraged. The campaign is essentially core rules plus FR elements (FRCS, some items from Underdark & Silver Marches). I wouldn't be opposed to a prestige class, either.

The wizard will know the party is coming, though he also knows/believes they are not after him specifically, and they will not be encountering him the first time in his own lair.

I'd set Illusion up as a prohibited school, though many of the tactics involve illusion spells -- any alternate preferred schools?

Well, there aren't a whole lot of good necromancer prestiege classes. Maybe Pale Master, but I recall that one to have less than full caster progression. Since you're playing in the Realms, Red Wizard is always a reasonable choice. You mention that Illusion is his banned school. Remember that if you're playing 3.5, all specialists have 2 banned schools. Unless they're Red Wizards, in which case they have 3, or diviners who have but 1. This can be mitigated by a 3-feat chain from Lost Empires of Faerun (Spell Easement, Item Easement, School Easement). Libris Mortis has some interesting things for necromancers, so if you have that handy you might want to check it out. Though now that I think about it, the Red Wizards don't take dwarves. Forgot he was a dwarf!

As for forbidden schools, that's a toughie. I note that you don't have a whole lot in the way of Evocation spells above 3rd level, if any, so that would be a good school to choose for your 3rd forbidden school if you took Red Wizard. I notice that you have a lot of points in stuff like Craft (Blacksmithing) and Craft (Stoneworking). While this is fitting for a dwarf, Use Magic Device is almost mandatory for a specialist wizard these days. I'd suggest tossing the nonessential Craft and Profession skills in favor of UMD. It's cross-class for a wizzie by default, but is a class skill for Wild Mages, if you went for that PrC. See Complete Arcane for its details. UMD would get you around the banned schools pretty well, as using wands and staves would only be a DC 20 roll. Also, you'd be able to use any fun divine spells you came across. A wand of Cure Critical Wounds or Rusting Grasp would make for a nice surprise, as would a scroll of Antilife Shell. Especially if it were combined with Protection from Arrows or Stoneskin.

This guy NEEDS False Life on his spell list. 1d10+10 temporary hit points? Sweet.

 

[Rev. Jesse]

Keep in min that horrid whilting has a Fort save, not Reflex, so the rogues and monk will take damage if hit from it.

 

[Luthien Greyspear]

I don't have my books with me, so correct me if this is wrong:

Since he knows that there are several sneaky-types gunning for him, he should probably protect himself from their greatest advantage: sneak attack. There's a spell in Magic of Faerun (and updated somewhere, I'm sure) called Kiss of the Vampire. It's a necromancy spell, so no problems casting it. It gives the caster the basic resistances and immunities of a vampire...including, IIRC, immunity to critical hits and sneak attacks. That's potentially several d6's of damage avoided with one spell. Against rogues, it's better than stoneskin.

 

[Kelvin L. Melton]

One spell idea that i used was force cage on myself then i would fire out of it. add a windwall and take the casters out as fast as possible.

 

[Wild Gazebo]

Walk up to the party and challenge the leader to honourable one-on-one combat.

Cake-walk.

Then demand reparations--50% of the party's resources should work.

I mean why do necromancers always have to be so sneaky?