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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 2674192" data-attributes="member: 3146">A few things:1. The wizard doesn't know contingency. Why not? It's one of the best things that an NPC wizard can do to protect himself. A contingent fire shield (or greater blink if you allow your wizard non-core spells) will do a lot for when the PCs get up close and personal with him (and they inevitably will).2. The wizard has prismatic wall but no way to push someone through it. He should have Bigby's grasping hand or Bigby's forceful hand.3. Wail of the banshee is a lousy scroll to have. If he's going to have a 9th level scroll, it should be for a spell where the minimum DC doesn't matter. Time stop is a good one in this regard. (In the time stop, he could cast the prismatic wall and a couple of Hands  (or big elementals) and set them up to bull rush his enemies through the wall when the time stop ends).4. He's got the Quicken spell feat which is ideal for a high level caster, but he doesn't have any Quickened spells prepared. He should spend 1/5 to 1/2 of his high level slots on quickened spells so that he can unload more quickly on the party. Without quicken spell, the party has a 8 to 1 action advantage on him. If he uses Quicken Spell heavily, he can cut that down to 4 to 1 before adding minions.4.5 He also has circle of death prepared which will generally not do anything to PCs because most of the time their HD are too high to be affected.At level 5, lose the second Animate Dead in favor of a quickened magic missile. It's good free damage and he can use it to check for Spell Turning before he uses finger of death on a PC.At level 6, lose both circles of death. Put a quickened blindness/deafness or a maximized vampiric touch in the necromancy slot and a chain lightning, maximized fireball (not an ideal choice since a chain lightning will do nearly as much damage on average with a much higher DC but if you've got the feat you have to do something with it), quickened blindness/deafness, or Bigby's forceful hand in the other.At level 7, I'd drop the second finger of death for a quickened haste (in 3.0) or a quickened fireball, haste (if he has minions), or quickened ray of exhaustion in 3.5At level 8, I'd consider a quickened fear (unless the party always uses hero's feast), a quickened enervation, or a quickened Otiluke's resilient sphere (use on an obvious low-dex target)  in place of one of the horrid wilting spells. A quickened solid fog would also be a good choice.In the initial rounds of combat, he should aim to take control of the pace of combat by splitting the party up, or putting them on the defensive. If he can, he should mix some offense in as well. If he were to put the prismatic wall between him and five party members on round 1 as well as incapacitate one of the party members on his side of the wall (Otiluke's or fear) that would be a good start. If he could damage the entire party (horrid wilting+quickened fireball, for instance) enough that they could only think about healing themselves and splitting up to present a less attractive target, he stands a much better chance.</blockquote>

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