How to create strong spellcasting NPCs that are fun to battle
Updated: Sep 2, 2024
So you are planning a battle with the BBEG and you want them to have cool spells that challenge your players—but nobody wants to have their turn skipped from being incapacitated the whole fight. At your average-sized table, it could take twenty minutes during a busy fight to get through one round of combat. Multiply that by the number of rounds skipped because a player is paralyzed, and suddenly people aren't having fun at the table anymore. So how do you create a strong spellcaster that challenges your players but allows them to continue playing the game on their turns?
In this blog you will:
Understand Status Conditions and How they Affect Gameplay
Conditions that don't (always) skip a player's turn:
Blinded
Naturally, blinded creatures fail ability checks that require them to be able to see. Attacking a blinded creature gives the attacker advantage, while a blinded creature trying to attack has disadvantage.
Blindness is strong against spellcasters relying on sight to cast their spells. It is also good against martial classes and doesn't completely take them out of the game, as they are still able to fight at a disadvantage.
Most players do not have blindsight and this can be extra powerful when being used with an enemy who does and can continue to battle without a disadvantage.
Charmed
A charmed player may not attack their charmer physically or with magic. The character casting the charm has advantage on social skill checks with the charmed creature.
Charming can be a really fun tool to use if you have a group of players who are into roleplaying at the table as this could create an interesting narrative between the player and the NPC as well as the player and their interactions with their party members.
Keep in mind that some racial traits grant characters immunity to charm, like with elves. If you are going to plan an encounter using charms, it would be good to consider ahead of time who in the party is immune to these effects and if this is something your spellcaster is going to know or not.
Deafened
A creature who is deafened is unable to pass an ability check that requires them to hear.
While these types of ability checks do not come up as often as some others, it is a great opportunity to force your players to think on their toes. This can be another fun condition to play around for players that enjoy roleplaying their character's limitations, if they can't hear then the party may need to get creative to communicate. If they are in a deafened space, they cannot cast a spell requiring sound and they cannot communicate with each other. If one player is deafened but the rest can hear, this creates a challenging dynamic where one player is unable to communicate with the rest and may not be able to stay on the same page with the group's plans.
This also means characters in a deafened zone cannot be affected by spells that require that they hear a sound or that a sound happens in their space like thaumaturgy, shatter, and charms.
Frightened
A frightened character cannot choose to move closer to the thing it is afraid of and has disadvantage on ability checks and attack rolls while it can see the thing it is afraid of.
This is a good status condition to use against players because it forces them to think strategically and with a little bit of a roleplay mindset. What would their character do in the face of such intense, crippling fear? Would they turn and run from the fight or would they try and battle it out even with a disadvantage?
Grappled
A grappled creature is unable to move with a walking speed of 0, but is still able to keep fighting. A grappled creature may use its action to try and fight off the grappling effect in some cases or the condition can be removed because the grappler is incapacitated, the grappling effect times out, or another effect separates the grappled creature from the thing holding it down.
Using grapple effects gives your player choices and limitations. They are unable to get away from attacks and damage being dealt by a creature that is grappling them, but they can keep fighting or try and break free. Grappling alone will not usually inconvenience a player much, especially if they weren't planning on moving. Consider pairing this condition with an enemy that wants to reposition a player: perhaps a flying monster that carries them into the air for a devastating drop later on, or an enemy which pulls a player behind cover to separate them from their allies.
Invisible
A creature that is invisible cannot be seen without special abilities or magical items that can see through invisibility but the creature's location can still be perceived from noises, tracks, and other traces that might give a character away. Attacks made against an invisible creature are done with disadvantage and the invisible creatures gains advantage when attacking creatures that cannot see it.
Invisibility is a fun twist to throw at players when you character may try and make an expeditious retreat. It raises the stakes for them, and they still have things they can do to potentially intervene with the NPCs plans to escape. Keep in mind that unless an invisible creature hides everyone in the battle still knows approximately where they are, they do not need to guess where to attack.
Petrified
Petrified in a D&D setting is a physical transformation for a character (not just a state of fear). A creature and its non-magical items turn into a solid substance (like a Medusa may do when turning someone to stone). This process changes the state of one's character to be heavier and essentially frozen in time. They gain the incapacitated condition, cannot move or speak, and are unaware of what's going on around them. Creatures attacking a petrified character have advantage and a petrified character automatically fails strength and dexterity saving throws, however, they do become resistant to all damage types and are immune to being poisoned and diseased.
Most abilities and spells that inflict petrified do not take effect immediately and usually give a player at least one turn to react. This can create tension and force the party to start thinking about their next move tactically. Can they cure the afflicted player? Or end the fight before the petrification process is completed? Maybe they'll need to grab their friend and run for now, so they can come back prepared later. Remember that if you're going to use petrification on a player you need to make sure your party has access to means of undoing it in a timely manner, otherwise you've essentially ejected a player from the table.
Poisoned
Poisoned creatures have disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks.
The poisoned condition is most useful against martial characters as they are most likely to be making physical attack rolls. This is a common condition almost any enemy could have access to, and if your party includes a dwarf or stout halfing you can even throw it in every now and then just to let their character decision shine.
Prone
A prone creature is flat on the ground and can choose to stand up (as long as there is not something acting to keep them prone) at the cost of half their movement. A prone creature is able to crawl and has disadvantage on attack rolls. Attackers within 5 ft of them have advantage to hit, but atackers farther away have disadvantage to hit.
Knocking a player prone is a minor inconvenience and a good way to disrupt someone who might be relying on movement to navigate the fight. This allows a player to continue to play but forces them to shift their mindset and come up with a new strategy, or delay their current one. Prone is especially useful when your encounter has several melee creatures that want to attack as a unit, such as those with pack tactics.
Restrained
Restrained characters cannot move with a speed of 0 and they have disadvantage on dexterity saving throws. Being restrained does not stop a character from being able to take actions or make attacks, though these attacks are done with disadvantage. An attacker has advantage when going after a restrained creature.
This is a great condition to use against a player to raise the stakes while also giving them options. Some players may want to fight to get out of their restrained situation quickly, while others may choose to stay locked down and fight.
Exhaustion
Exhaustion generally comes from enemies with special abilities or from a character's physical and mental state from the environment or traveling conditions they are in. There are 6 different levels of exhaustion that range from disadvantage on ability checks to death. See the table in the PHB or online for a breakdown of this ability.
This is a great narrative, high-stakes tool to challenge your players with. It allows you to coax them into skipping long rests if they are in a time crunch and almost works like a negotiation tool for the DM. "You can keep pushing on, but you will get this disadvantage (a point in exhaustion) in return." A single point of exhaustion isn't particularly scary, but it really starts to shine in situations where players are at risk of stacking several levels in a short time frame.
Sickening Radiance is the only spell that can cause exhaustion in an un-homebrewed 5e setting.
Conditions that will likely skip a player's turn:
Incapacitated
Creatures who are incapacitated cannot take actions or reactions, which is a lot like the unconscious status, but not as elaborate. Essentially, a creature can be incapacitated but still completely aware of its surroundings. Examples of this include but are not limited to banishment spells and reverting one's self out of a windwalk spell.
This is a tricky one to use on your players. It's best to use it sparingly and wisely because it can take a player out of playing the game.
Paralyzed
A paralyzed creature is considered incapacitated, listed above, and cannot speak or move. Additionally, they automatically fail any strength or dexterity saving throw they have to make, attacks against them have advantage, and any attack that does hit the paralyzed character is an automatic crit if the attacker is within 5ft of them.
Like incapacitated, this will drive the stakes up really high for your players, but if you use this too much or at the wrong time it can really frustrate and immoralize your players because it can take them out of the action and out of the fun of playing the game.
Stunned
A stunned creature cannot move and is considered incapacitated but they are able to udder stunted speech. A stunned creature automatically fails strength and dexterity saving throws and attack rolls made towards them are done so with advantage.
Unconscious
Unconscious creatures are incapacitated, prone, cannot move, and cannot speak. They automatically fail strength and dexterity saving throws, attack rolls against them have advantage, and any attack that lands is automatically a crit if the attacker is within 5 feet of them.
This is an unavoidable condition sometimes, as players who drop to 0 hit points will fall unconscious. This is a very fearful position to be put in as a player and generally, most groups will shift their attention towards helping an unconscious player if the fight allows for it.
Choose Your Spells to Create Strong Spellcasting NPCs
Now that you know what all the status conditions are, it's time to break them up into a few different categories that we are going to focus on and give some examples. In these examples, we focus more on spells that have a lower level as they are disruptive without causing deadly amounts of damage. You have:
Sensory deprivation spells
Spells that restrict movement
Spells that cause disadvantage or change the difficulty class of certain checks
Spells that take players out of the game
Sensory Deprivation Spells
These are spells that prevent characters from being able to use certain senses. A few of our favorites include:
Blindness/Deafness - a level 2 spell that causes one creature to become either the blinded or deafened effect
Darkness - Like blindness/deafness, this is a level 2 spell that causes creatures to become blind. Unlike blindness/deafness, this targets a location, and all creatures while in that specific location are unable to see. Since this is magical darkness, players with darkvision will not be able to see, only those with blindsense.
Warding Wind - a level 2 spell with a variety of effects within a 10-foot radius of the caster that can deafen everyone, put out flames, disperse gasses and wind, create difficult terrain, and gives disadvantage to ranged attacks.
Hunger of Hadar - a 3rd level spell that causes blindness in a 20 ft radius centered on a certain point and causes damage to those who start and end their turn in that location.
Divine Word - a level 7 spell that can be used on a number of creatures to cause blindness, deafness, stunned, or all of the above, depending on the target's hit points. This spell also has the ability to instantly kill someone, but that is not one of the uses we want to focus on here. It can still be a powerful spell without killing any players.
Spells That Restrict Movement
These spells slow a character, knock them prone, or prevent them from moving all-together.
Hideous Laughter - a 1st level spell that causes a person to go into a fight of laughter that knocks them prone and incapacitates them.
Web - a 2nd level spell that can restrain characters in an area.
Phantasmal Killer - a 4th level spell that causes the frightened condition and also deals damage to the target. The target has a chance to save from taking damage at the end of each of their turns until the spell runs out or the caster loses concentration.
Otto's Irresistible Dance - a 6th level spell that automatically affects one creature of choice who isn't immune to charm and uses all of their movement to dance. They can make wisdom saves as an action to quit dancing or make an attack roll with disadvantage. They also have disadvantage on dexterity saving throws and attacks against them have advantage.
Spells That Cause Disadvantage or Change the Difficulty Class of Certain Checks
Bane - a level 1 spell that causes baned targets to have to subtract a 1d4 from their attack rolls and saving throws. This spell can be upcast to hit additional targets.
Warding Wind - as listed above, warding wind is a level 2 spell with a variety of effects within a 10-foot radius of the caster. It causes disadvantage to all ranged attacks and causes chaos for a lot of players.
The consideration here is to use the spell when you can block an important walking path, have ranged players, or cause deafness from the wind and blindness from a lack of torchlight. Just know all these effects on the player will also affect your caster if they don't have resistance to these conditions.
Slow - a level 3 spell that can target up to 6 creatures who take a -2 penalty to their AC and dexterity saving throws, can't use reactions, and have to choose between using an action or bonus action and cannot do both. There is also a chance that a spellcaster affected by slow who casts a spell may not see the results of that spell until their following turn at the cost of that turn's action.
This can be a frustrating spell, but it has the potential to stir things up in battle without dealing damage to the players and since it requires concentration, a party may be able to break and restore regular gameplay fairly quickly.
Otto's Irresistible Dance - as explained above, this 6th level spell reduces movement and gives disadvantage to dexterity saves and advantage to attacks against the dancing character. This is strong because it takes effect for at least one turn on a character that can be charmed.
Charm Spells That Don't Take Away Player Agency
Charm Person - Charm person is a first-level spell that targets one character, but can target more with upcasting. Great against low-wisdom characters, the charmed person sees the caster as a friend for a period of time, and may not want to attack their friend during battle and may choose to aid them.
This is a direction to consider if you have players that like to roleplay and won't metagame the outcome of this too hard.
Crown of Madness - a 2nd-level spell targeting one creature whom your antagonist can use to make a player attack another player. This can encourage positional awareness from your players, as a charmed character does not lose their action if they have no targets to attack.
Dominate Person - a 5th-level spell that is a stronger version of Charm Person and allows you to mind control a character for the duration of the spell, which can be extended by casting this at a higher level. Like Charm Person, this spell does not take a player's turn away from them (though the caster can use an action to directly take control of the target). Players are able to choose, in good faith, how their character would follow whatever command they're given.
Make Your Players Think Outside the Box
Now that you understand all the conditions and have a few spells to pick from in the list above (and more you can study on your own in the different rule books!) it's time to plan an encounter. Consider what type of characters your players have, what their strengths are, and what their weaknesses can be. If you have a Cleric that relies on Call Lightning too much, set up your next battle in a cave with low ceilings. If you have a Wizard who likes to battle from the backline, throw a Darkness cloud over them and force them to reconsider how they are going to continue to support the battle. Is your barbarian taking out your adversaries too quickly? Cast bane on them and make it harder for them to land their hits, or send a bigger baddy after them that holds them in a grapple so they have to deal with their own situation before helping the other players.
Know Your Players
Regardless of everything we have covered in this post, at the end of the day, the greatest tool in your arsenal is going to be your knowledge of your own players and what their threshold is.
If your players are gaming because they want to have a fun time hanging out with friends every few weeks, then going the route explained above is a great way to create engaging content for your players without worrying about a TPK.
If your players are looking for a challenge and they are okay with losing a character for the story, go ahead and throw out some control spells that also deal damage. There is always going to be some threat of players going down, but it doesn't have to feel helpless. Let them go down fighting if that is the kind of story they want to tell.
Summary
The key to creating strong spellcasting NPCs that are fun to battle is to provide your adversary with spells that derail your players without taking them out of the game. It's helpful to know what the possible status conditions are, how they affect players, and what spells can cause these effects for you. You know your players best and can tailer the difficulty of the battle around the type of gameplay your table likes to engage with.
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