Help with 17. level Wizard

[KarinsDad]

Neddam is a coward, he will flee if attacked.
Neddam has a contingency that teleports him to his bedroom if attacked, this is so he can prepare his retaliation.
Neddam plans tu use a quckned dimentional anchor, followed by Bigsbies Crusing hand on the highest ranking enemy wizzard
use time stop to cast haste, mass greater invisibility, mass endurance mass bull strenth, greater teleport in this order the teleport is to flee, and do another "Buff round" later
gate is used if the castle is about to be lost, and the general is already dead, in this dire scenarion Neddam uses gate to summon Ragnarok, he thinks he will be abled to controll this legendiry pitfiend, but will be devoured as soon as Ragnarock enters this world.
if you like the story hook of having a deamon of this magnitute in your world let ragnarock stay as long as all the PC's live, if you dislike the idea let ragnarock be returned to the Hell he came from in 1 round per caster level.

Why would a Wizard with a 33 Int do something so stupid?

We are not talking an 18 Int here (which is also very smart), we are talking 33.

A Greater Invisibility and Fly combined with a few Project Image spells allow a Wizard to attack a lot from range. In fact, Greater Invisibility and Fly are not really needed since he can see and hear from the image, you just have to keep line of effect to it.

If he keeps the image more than 120 feet away from the PCs, even True Seeing will not detect immediately that it is an image.

Why bother gating in dangerous creatures that he may not be able to control when he can just safely blast away with spells every round at the PCs?

 

[moritheil]

Why bother gating in dangerous creatures that he may not be able to control when he can just safely blast away with spells every round at the PCs?

The answer to your question is, sadly, the same as the answer to the question, "Why do 28 int beholders willingly expose their soft fleshy bodies to melee combat with hulking barbarians?" The design was not thought through.

On the other hand, I suppose a case could be made that whether or not it is a good idea to summon a demon is a wisdom-related decision, not an int-related decision.

 

[NimrodvanHall]

The origional poster asked for a suport wizzard, not for someone to Obliterate the party.

Why the Wizard casts the gate in the senario suggested by me?
He lost all he worked for in the last months/years, the offenders will pay for it. so the 1000 Xp is woth the vengeace. Its a Story hook.

If the Party was to be OBLITERATED
all the mage had to do was:
Day 1
cast mind blank: shapeshift in an incorporal undead get a mile or so into solid rock
cast a disintegrate to create a room. cast a permanent Mordekainens private sanctum
there cast a permanent mordekainens magnificent mansion in theer cast yet an other permanent mordekainens private sancum. wait 1 day. he now has a safe hide out.
Day 2 cast mindblank cast Astral projection. travel back to the Prime, teleport back to the Fortress of his lord. and Prepare for battle. summon loads of controllable demons to help the next day.
day 3 D-Day cast mind blank, and as many defnsive spells as desired 1st round of conflict quickend dispell on the clock of resistance of the character with presumably the best will save, followed by a mordekainens disdjunction. move a bit so only chars with see invisibility can find you. round 2 teleport away. Half the summoned demons now enter battle. if the demons start to lose. repeat the actions of round 1 teleport away let the rest of the demons enter the fray. kill anyone left standing, with your Glorious leader, if it fails drop the astral Projection, lick your wounds and repeat.
In case you might die anyway you had started some clones, as preparation, and kill some CR 9/10 cratures to get back to lvl 17 and start harrasing the players again.
since you operate from your hide out anyway, create some shadows in the PC's home town to keep them occupied, these citters date only 1d4 rounds to reproduce anyway. with your int 33 you can convince at least part of the population via dream spells that the shadow infestation is the fault of the PC's.

would this be efficient, yes, wothty of int 33, nope its not smart enough, i missed quite some loopholes with my normal lvl 1 commoner inteligence.
woould it be fun for the players?
HELL NO!

 

[KarinsDad]

The origional poster asked for a suport wizzard, not for someone to Obliterate the party.

Why the Wizard casts the gate in the senario suggested by me?
He lost all he worked for in the last months/years, the offenders will pay for it. so the 1000 Xp is woth the vengeace. Its a Story hook.

The point is consistency and believability.

You claimed the Wizard was intelligent (33) and a coward and then you have him do something stupid and risky.

So, no it is NOT fun to play in a game where the Intelligent 17th level enemy wizard self destructs.

It IS fun to play in a game where the Intelligent 17th level enemy wizard challenges the heck out of the PCs and threatens their very existence.

It's boring to play in a game where the DM spoon feeds the players and even worse, when he does it for a lame unbelievable story idea.

 

[Gulla]

It's boring to play in a game where the DM spoon feeds the players and even worse, when he does it for a lame unbelievable story idea.

Calm down, please?

Short synosis of what happened yeasterday with a little (rather a bit more than a little) background:

The setting is my own world which is a traditional D&D world. The twist is that Someone has made a metaphysical twist so that the conflict Law vs Chaos is dominant (instead of the normal Good vs Evil). The PCs are Chosen Heroes and are among the very few who still think the main conflict should be Good vs Evil. So they work hard to find a way to 'untwist' the world. (Quote: "We are six. The wolrd is only one. Six aginst one seems like we should take this easy")

Due to the Law vs Chaos fokus of the world some aspects of the Blood War has spilled all over the planes. This has given rise to a polarization. No neutral deities (except Boccob) have kept their power. Either they chose a side (almost all) or they are severely weakened (Obad Hai has chosen this). And some previously unthinkable alliances excists. All the lawful gods (+ Pelor who chose law) are allied. This includes the previously unthinkable alliance between Hieronious and Hextor.

The party includes a chaotic cleric of Pelor and a paladin of Hieronious. They hate the alliance intensely and have so far hoped to break it up, preferably by 'correcting' the world. They have been keeping out of the war and instead hunted for the 4-part McGuffin to untwist the world. Then they broke the Law

In a battle for part 3 of the McGuffin they killed Hextor's pet Dragon. Hextor warned them that this would invalidate the conditions of the peace between his church and them (as if they cared, it rather encouraged them). Unfortunately for Hextor he is still mostly bound by Law. He does have a champion to use, who on his side is none too happy to go one on one with the PCs.

So I had expected the PCs to jump in and attack as fast as possible, but they decided against it when Sontx (the Hextor Champion) declared them War. So the Hieronious paladin negotiated the therms of conflict and now they are running around gathering an army. They will probably not face off against the champion and wizard for another 6 weeks.

The idea with the uncontrollable entity _does_ work though, in my setting. The entity he wants to summon would either be Ragnarok, liuentenant of Hextor, who should normally be on their side. Dangerous, but doable in a desperate situation. The other alternative is that he will try to summon one of my BBEG who have spent the most part of the last 3 centuries trying to look smaller and more innocent. He _really_ wants to get to the Prime, but must be gated in by a mortal (That's the Law). And he will really hate it when/if he is gated in to one of the two areas he must leave in 1d6 rounds.

And having had a few years of prep-time of rivalry with the PCs both the Champ and Wizard have a clone. I like reccuring villains.

Anyhow by combining the ideas I now have a very competent and (un)likable wizard cohort for Sontx. And Thanee: most of my NPC follow the normal rules, but it is understood that BBEGs follow PC-rules, not NPC rules in the campaign. So to tell exactly what I did:

I took Thanee's wizard, added some spells and ideas from the other posts, gave him 200k of stuff (subtracted from his boss) and ended up with a nice cohort balanced by the rules of the campaign. In 30 minutes instead of 3-4 hours. Yet again thanks a lot.

Håkon
(and I could post a full campaign summary, but that would be in Norwegian...)

 

[Thanee]

And Thanee: most of my NPC follow the normal rules, but it is understood that BBEGs follow PC-rules, not NPC rules in the campaign.

Yep, I just wanted to make sure, that you know that, in case you want to stay within the boundaries of the rules (and cohorts usually should have elite array stats and NPC gear). Some DMs do, some don't, that's why I said, that I don't know how important that is for you.

So to tell exactly what I did:

I took Thanee's wizard, added some spells and ideas from the other posts, gave him 200k of stuff (subtracted from his boss) and ended up with a nice cohort balanced by the rules of the campaign. In 30 minutes instead of 3-4 hours.

Doh!

Look at the two posts below my first one... what do you think the stuff he had was worth before I edited?

Answer:

Spoiler

196k, I took out the metamagic rod of quicken and a wand.

Yet again thanks a lot.

No problem.

Bye
Thanee

 

[green slime]

The point is consistency and believability.

You claimed the Wizard was intelligent (33) and a coward and then you have him do something stupid and risky.

So, no it is NOT fun to play in a game where the Intelligent 17th level enemy wizard self destructs.

It IS fun to play in a game where the Intelligent 17th level enemy wizard challenges the heck out of the PCs and threatens their very existence.

It's boring to play in a game where the DM spoon feeds the players and even worse, when he does it for a lame unbelievable story idea.

I beg your pardon?!? Couldn't you phrase your opinion in a more condescending manner? We all have different ideas about what is "fun". Yours is no more valid than any other. IMO, some people think far too much about this game, and take it far too seriously. Does this preclude them from having "fun", where I would not?

 

[dungeon blaster]

Here's a favorite tactic of mine:

Round 1: Time Stop
Round 1 - 5 (of time stop): Delayed blast fireball, quickened improved invisibility
Last Round of Time Stop: Quickened dimension door

What it looks like to the PCs: BBEG wizard utters an incantation and disappears. Five glowing beads hover where he stood....they flicker briefly....and KA....BOOOOM!

That's a good 17d6 x5...so 85d6 damage (assuming your time stop lasts 5 rounds). If they have fire resistance, you can always energy substitute to sonic or what-have-you.

 

[KarinsDad]

I beg your pardon?!? Couldn't you phrase your opinion in a more condescending manner? We all have different ideas about what is "fun". Yours is no more valid than any other. IMO, some people think far too much about this game, and take it far too seriously. Does this preclude them from having "fun", where I would not?

I have no problem with people having different ideas of fun.

If you want to play poker where you see everyone else's cards the entire time, go for it.

But, if you are talking RPing, then yes, NPCs should be roleplayed in a reasonable manner based on their backgrounds and their abilities.

If a wizard is super-intelligent and a coward, he should not do stupid risky things.

That's bad DM roleplaying.

And a lot of times, people think of (what they consider) "cool ideas" (let's have him gate in a mega-monster that eats him) and then justify bad DM roleplaying with the concept that any roleplaying is good roleplaying just because the person had a weird random thought that he wanted to try. Nonsense.

Roleplaying is only good when the PCs and NPCs do things in character, not when they do things totally out of character.


Btw, I consider a cowardly intelligent wizard doing risky stupid things to be on par with a Paladin walking down the street and suddenly assassinating a child for no reason. Bad roleplaying is bad roleplaying, regardless of the "cool result' that would occur if it happened.

 

[Gulla]

Look at the two posts below my first one... what do you think the stuff he had was worth before I edited?

Answer:

Spoiler

196k, I took out the metamagic rod of quicken and a wand.

Seems we think much the same way

Must mean we're both great thinkers. (Or whatever the saying is in English. Here the idiom is big brains thinking alike, but I'm quite sure it is something else in English.)

Håkon