The Gaming Den

The warlock is pretty much the class to use as an enemy caster minion because it does not require a lot of thought to set. However I was looking for tips on building enemy sorcerers with unique spell lists as to make fights for the PCs more interesting.

Depends on what you want in a "sorcerer". If you're willing to not use the default sorcerer you have a couple of fun options. First off would be the Trollman/Sulin sorcerer. It fails your unique spell list bit, but would still likely be a unique encounter simply by virtue of having access to every spell in the game and being "right tool, right time" pain in the ass. If you wanted to stay a bit more with the standards, Quantumboost is resurrecting Frank's Pathfailure alpha playtest sorcerer suggestion. That's still in progress, but it gives themed listed sorcerers with odd abilites out of the box. And if you wanted to basic sorcerer for some reason, you can at least steal spell lists from there pretty easily.

Tarkis, the T/S sorc is just about the worst thing imaginable as an NPC. Not to exaggerate, but the 3.5 sorc is about a million times easier to use. Qb's FPAP sorc looks pretty cool too, thanks for the link.

Then there's the beguiler, necromancer thingie, elementalist, and so forth.

You might also want to take a look at spells that fucking kill people and similar lists.

Enemy spellcasters actually should be really simple and spam their abilities over and over again. Otherwise there is no learning curve when fighting them.

So actually, you're probably better off with something really simple like Fire Mage or even Adept.

http://dungeons.wikia.com/wiki/Adept_(3.5e_NPC_Class)

-Username17

Also, enemy casters should shy away from those spells the fuckin' kill you, because getting hit with one of them generally ends the fight for a character. There's no ramping up of tension or anything. It's generally just a binary Alive/Dead toggle.

That's lame and makes for less dramatic fights than when the PCs get hit with HP damage. If you take 50% of your HP in damage right off the bat, suddenly you're worried. The you take another 40%. Suddenly you actually have tension: Am I better off trying to kill the enemy right now, or should I use that full-heal potion I've been saving?

It makes for a more entertaining game.

The list contains more than SoDs.

NineInchNall wrote:That's lame and makes for less dramatic fights than when the PCs get hit with HP damage. If you take 50% of your HP in damage right off the bat, suddenly you're worried. The you take another 40%. Suddenly you actually have tension: Am I better off trying to kill the enemy right now, or should I use that full-heal potion I've been saving?

It makes for a more entertaining game.

I agree, but even if you take SoDs out of 3E you are still in the same situation. Save-or-lose spells and battlefield control are just as deadly, even if they don't kill you immediately. So are stuns, Maze, triplocks and straight damage for that matter.

The T/S sorcerer really isn't too bad for an NPC caster, only because he's easy to create. You don't really have to prepare spell lists ahead of time, which is huge for an NPC. You do need to know the spell lists, but it's 3.5 so most of them are garbage, you honestly only need to know the big spells.

Color spray, Glitterdust, stinking cloud, slow, black tentacles, enervation, etc.

Murtak wrote:I agree, but even if you take SoDs out of 3E you are still in the same situation. Save-or-lose spells and battlefield control are just as deadly, even if they don't kill you immediately. So are stuns, Maze, triplocks and straight damage for that matter.

That's why I don't have my NPC casters use things like solid fog on the party, except when I know that said party won't flat out lose because of it. I made the mistake of using solid fog + black tentacles on a party once. It was completely anticlimactic.

Never again. From now on only spells that deal damage or cause minor penalties.

NineInchNall wrote:That's why I don't have my NPC casters use things like solid fog on the party, except when I know that said party won't flat out lose because of it.

Solid Fog by itself is one of the best battlefield control spells. Just make sure you only catch half the party in it. If the encounter was challenging before it is brutal now. The fact that it combos nicely with next to every other battlefield control spell is just icing on the cake.

NineInchNall wrote:Also, enemy casters should shy away from those spells the fuckin' kill you, because getting hit with one of them generally ends the fight for a character. There's no ramping up of tension or anything. It's generally just a binary Alive/Dead toggle.

That's lame and makes for less dramatic fights than when the PCs get hit with HP damage. If you take 50% of your HP in damage right off the bat, suddenly you're worried. The you take another 40%. Suddenly you actually have tension: Am I better off trying to kill the enemy right now, or should I use that full-heal potion I've been saving?

It makes for a more entertaining game.

Yes, a 'you lose' move is quite sudden. That's the point. But how exactly is a waste of turn action any better?

What actually happens is like this:

You get hit with a Fireball or whatever. It probably does far less than 50%, because Fireball is gimp.

You turn to your buddy.

"Hey, did he really just cast Fireball?"

"Yes, yes he did."

Everyone laughs, and enjoys their free XP all the way to the bank.

The basic idea is that you should get a chance to recover from your mistakes and to adapt to enemy tactics. In DnD that pretty much means "flee and regroup". Most successful attacks will kill or disable someone and even combat resurrection (if available) can not keep up with that kind of pace, much less healing. Basically there should be something in between "you win" and "you wasted a turn".

I like using enemies that have a "Holy shit!" burst in the first round, then can't repeat it. So a breath weapon that smacks people for 3d6 Dex damage (Frank's example of a good Assassin monster) or something that can run up and do something like a crazy pounce rend thing (or a Channel Spell + Spellstoring Weapon + Leap Attack Power Attack) to one guy, possibly even exploding the PC (we can assume revival is no big deal at the point where this happens), then is surrounded and clubbed to death.

It gives everyone a scare, and they're left thinking "Good thing _____, or we would have been wiped out!"