Shhh! No verbal spells aloud.

[Pielorinho]

If there are runes, what if the chanting raven were able to activate some of the runes in order to summon lesser blighted fey to help? This might keep the scene going on for awhile longer.

(I had something like this happen IMC awhile ago: a climactic fight against a wizard was cut abruptly short when, during the first round, a cleric with invisibility purge guessed where the wizard was, flew up to him, and whacked him with a mace coated in paralytic poison. In order to keep the battle from being lame and anticlimactic, I allowed his raven familiar to fly up to him, snatch the ring of summoning an arcane angel from his finger, and activate it, giving the PCs something meaty to fight. They all told me afterwards that they were glad I did so; otherwise, the adventure would've ended on a lame note).

Alternately, you say that this guy is known to be infected with some terrible blight, right? What if he's been trying to hold it in all this time, and when he sees that his circle is destroyed, he gives up? When he gives up, his body bursts open in classic anime fashion, revealing a nasty blight demon.

Daniel

 

[Xarlen]

I know what I'm going to do.

Here's the situation. There is the summoning circle. I told the PCs if they distort or destroy 3 of the five glyphs making up the circle, that the summoning spell will be disrupted.

At the moment there's an invisible, hasted, GMF'd rogue, and an invisble, buffed Druid, a familiar with a type of animal growth on it, and a Mord's Faithful Hound.

Two glyphs have been destroyed.

The circle is going to start repairing itself. There's going to be a magical whiplash, an Implosion, where the magic around the circle gets *sucked* in, as it begins to repair itself, then Explode back out, knocking everyone in the circle away.

There are two wizards in the air, and a ring of fire trapping the cleric and fighter.

The secound round (No doubt the druid and rogue are going to scramble for the symbols and nail them again), it's going to implode again. This time sucking in the Wall of Fire and the many-layered bouts of magic on the wizards (By this point, the BBEG should be flying back toward the circle).

This not only will make it a scramble to destroy the circle, but also to stop the BBEG from casting spells to feed the repairing.

 

[Xarlen]

If there are runes, what if the chanting raven were able to activate some of the runes in order to summon lesser blighted fey to help? This might keep the scene going on for awhile longer.

(I had something like this happen IMC awhile ago: a climactic fight against a wizard was cut abruptly short when, during the first round, a cleric with invisibility purge guessed where the wizard was, flew up to him, and whacked him with a mace coated in paralytic poison. In order to keep the battle from being lame and anticlimactic, I allowed his raven familiar to fly up to him, snatch the ring of summoning an arcane angel from his finger, and activate it, giving the PCs something meaty to fight. They all told me afterwards that they were glad I did so; otherwise, the adventure would've ended on a lame note).

Alternately, you say that this guy is known to be infected with some terrible blight, right? What if he's been trying to hold it in all this time, and when he sees that his circle is destroyed, he gives up? When he gives up, his body bursts open in classic anime fashion, revealing a nasty blight demon.

Daniel

That's really cool. I don't think my PCs are prepared (or strong enough) to deal with that. What I plan on happening is if they don't kill him (They don't Plan to), and disrupt the circle, a member of the Unseelie Court will come, angry with the uneffective summons. She will then not only drain the blight of the wizard (What he was wanting to do), but suck out his ability to use magic at all.

The PCs are trying to prevent him from releasing an Unseelie Fey into the world. Which they will be by screwing up the glyphs on the circle. If they do this, the Fey cannot be set free, but they'll definetly send someone to collect a price for teasing them like that.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I think a general rule that it would be helpful for *anyone* to consider for that BBEG is "what are his contingency plans"?

Many BBEGs are wizards, and they just HAVE to have prepared for silence spells, since it is the number one tactic that people think of against wizards! It would be imbecilic folly for them not to have considered counter-strategies!

Silent spell (not for dispel magic but for a range of other spells) is an excellent choice, as are magic items which don't require sound, or contingency spells... Did you say that you are prepared to change his spell list, but not his feats? what spells does he have, what level wizard is he?

Cheers

 

[Xarlen]

Well, does it help to say that the Blight made him insane? Then again, he's an insane war wizard, so...

I just don't want to trump the PCs first usage of different tactics, and a really cool move by the PC. And, suffice to say, I hadn't *Chosen* his spells going into the combat. I had a rough outnline, but I hadn't written anything Down. So I'm more willing to change the spell-list a little to reflect a little preperation then his Feats, which changing seems more underhanded?

A feat suggests he would have delt with this a lot, whereas a spell suggests he just has a backup.

And his origional plan was to stay in the Wall of Force.

He's 14th level, at the moment.

 

[Hypersmurf]

There's always the Contingency option - the wizard has a Contingency to trigger off a Silence Spell, to cast Tenser's Transformation.

That way, the party still has the advantages of having nerfed the wizard's spells... but you get a (potentially) exciting melee out of it...

(Admittedly, it relies on the wizard being 18th level to be perfectly legal, but you could make it a one-shot wondrous item or something similar to get around that.)

-Hyp.

 

[Xarlen]

Actually, I used the Contingency option for an Extended Haste at the beginning of combat.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Ah.

Okay, here's something that is highly, highly suspect rules-wise, but hey - you're the DM

A potion of Ventriloquism. The spell causes his voice to issue from 30 feet away - which is outside the radius of Silence. Depending on how you interpret Ventriloquism, this may or may not mean he can speak. And then you have to decide whether he can use the words issuing from thirty feet away as the verbal component of a spell.

It's not a perfect anti-Silence solution - he's still treated as deafened and has a 20% chance to miscast and lose any spell. But it's only a 50gp item.

Strictly speaking, Ventriloquism doesn't target a creature, so it's not eligible to be a potion... but it's a small stretch.

-Hyp.

 

[Xarlen]

Sorry, I think my players would kick me in the monkey for that. It reeks of cheddar.

Good thought, though. How does my above thought look?

 

[Hypersmurf]

What did they use to dispel the Wall of Force?

-Hyp.