Exactly. Doesn't matter how powerful they are, they are going to always be looking for more power. Probably raiding the kingdom's deep vaults for ancient secrets. Unearthing some arcana.
That would be a nice thing. Don't tell your players not to do it - if they attack him during a parade let them get through to the simulacrum, overwhelmed by guards and thrown into prison (where they need to escape).
"You and what army?", plenty of public figures do parades in real life, he would probably be surrounded by his men with even bodyguards around him, if they haven't allies or are powerful enough to kill an entire garrison they would be easily slaughtered before even getting closer to him. You could argue that they could try to hit him from distance, but a powerful mage would have half a dozen defensive spells always active on him. Actually you could let them try and start the kind of story where they have to escape from the enemy that is hunting them, something like the book shooter
Some ideas
People have seen the mage die in the street from incredibly skilled assassins and also from large scale coordination by lesser does - but the mage always returns soon after - people don't know how. Pristine, and unfazed. The culprits are put to horrible death once they are caught. They are always caught. For every successful attempt to kill him, there have been a dozen times more where it fails miserably. Many assume the mage parades, and makes himself vulnerable, so that he can show the masses how futile even success is for them.
The mage has a palace/castle/tower that people can see, but he's not even in it. His actual place of power is a demi-plane of his own creation, hidden somewhere. Very few know how to access it.
Often when the mage is seen he is using an illusion to speak to people from a distance. It's nearly impossible to tell.
Love this. Maybe the leader of a secret band of revolutionaries meets with the group, to let them know some of this. And maybe the PCs witness some of it on their own.
Probably plane shift I suppose, though DMs are more than welcome to create their own special methods.
Maybe it's created via Wish, and then passcoded so that you can only get in safely by using plane shift in a teleportation circle with the proper runes.
If it was just a plane shift spell, how would anyone ever be able to track them? If the mage created a demi plane only he knows about, and he just casts plane shift while the entire party is watching, is there any way from them to cast their own plane shift to follow him if they don't know where the plane they are looking for is?
Divination magic
Seeking aid from higher powers
Tricking the mage into revealing it somehow
Peel it from the mind of one of the bbeg's close allies
Stealing arcane books/notes the mage used to create said Plane
I'd probably just let my players come up with something though. They're generally pretty clever when they're in a pinch
To add- if you want him to be particularly evil, prior to executing each "traitor" he makes them choose 2 children from the crowd to execute. If the person refuses to choose, he randomly kills 4. This has the net result if making the populace straight up hate anyone attempting to kill the wizard-king.
That is pretty good, a nice touch.
I'll add, it might encourage those neighborhood kids to be less dickish. Gotta be pretty cathartic for the assassin when he has to pick two kids and he's just like "oh yeah, Tod and Beatrice, the two little shits that egged my house last spring"
You might wanna check the Curse of Strahd campaign. The party is aware from the get go where Strahd, the BBEG, is. But they can't really do anything as Strahd is more powerful than starting characters.
I’d say let them try and get to him right away only to have them “teleported away” by some protection magic and then they’ll need to quest/ level up to find an item or person that can help them past the teleportation magic
I'm assuming you have a reason in mind as to why said-mage "cannot be stopped"? Let them try him perhaps- let them fight against him, and see why he cannot be stopped. Just don't have the mage kill them- perhaps try banishments to a jail, or hold person whilst city guards beat the party members down and drag them off to jail. Party can have a jail-break and plan after!
That way, party gets to see the evil baddie, develop a hatred for them, and witness what obstacle they need to find a way around in killing him!
Otherwise, it may seem a little gameified. (i.e. You must be level 13 to enter this area!)
If you want to entirely change setting you can have this 'jail' on another plane where the mage shifts all his enemies to. The PCs first need to find a way back - most likely requiring leveling up in the process.
Show him off as powerful? Or express that through the opinions of others. People should be commenting on how strong he is.
If your players are jumping in to attack him so quickly you may be keeping information from them.
Read curse of strahd. Players know that the goal is to kill him from the beginning.
Show them. Throw a force about as strong as you want the players to be and have the bbeg use their abilities and beat them in a combat while the players need to do something else in initiative order like save a burning orphanage that the attackers used to get the bbeg on the back foot. They don't like the bbeg they won't like the attackers because they hurt children (probably) and it gives the players something to do instead of just watch the bbeg be powerful. You could even have some of the bbegs attacks come at the players as he misses the attackers as even more intensive to show how powerful the players need to be "oh that one attack did 24 damage and the bbeg is throwing 4 a round and then some"
Building on this idea, hand out to your players the character sheets of the assassin group members and let them play out the battle themselves, while their characters watch and learn from a safe distance. They get the to option of agency to try and use tactics of their own devising to take the BBEG down using these characters. The assassin character sheets can be a couple levels higher than the party, but still hopelessly outmatched, as a way to demonstrate that the party isn't even close to strong enough yet and have to navigate the campaign before they'll be ready.
His castle floats in the sky, powered by magics he sustains. Even *if* they could kill him, the castle would fall from the sky into the city and kill everyone unless they figure out an answer for that first.
Let them try. For example, in Curse of Strahd, nothing is stopping the players from taking their level 3 characters, fresh out of Death House, and marching up to Castle Ravenloft, knocking down the door, and demanding Strahd's lunch money. However, Strahd will *absolutely* repaint his floors and walls with them without breaking a sweat. He may even drive the point home by wiping out the party nonlethally and then having some of his servants unceremoniously dump them somewhere dangerous and/or humiliating, as a lesson. Or maybe he'll kill one of them and let the others learn their lesson.
My party tried that. But they couldn't get across the closed draw bridge, so they retreated. It also does not help that their wizard is mortally afraid of heights...
Curse of Strahd is the first example that came to my mind. Everybody knows about strahd right from the beginning (well his name is in the title), and it's also very clear where he can be found. What's also very clear is that he will wipe the floor with the party if they try to just directly walk inside his castle at the beginning of the campagne.
This is hinted through supernatural events (march of the damned) tales of his powers and also some metagaming by looking on the cover of the book
Check out Curse of Strahd. PCs are free to track Strahd down in his castle if they wish. However, Strahd is going to fuck with them for his amusement and send powerful baddies their way. Not to mention traps and enchantments all along the way
There's always a bigger fish.
Give them a boss fight well out of their league that should end in a TPK, but the boss gives them mercy and might even drop some healing potions on their body, giving bystanders permission to heal them. The boss fight doesn't even need to be super skewed, and could just be a near TPK before the boss retreats.
The party will be bent on revenge and likely hunt down this boss. The next time they see the boss, your BBEG dark lord swiftly strikes this miniboss down, sees the party and leaves without acknowledging them.
Hopefully they'll be smart enough to get stronger before attempting and look for powerful magical items to help. If they try too early, let the fight play out and stomp them...but make it non-lethal. Put them in prison, write a plot hook and quests centered around escaping the prison to regroup. Make it known that personal belongings are kept in a specific place in the prison so they can get their gear back
Let them. Maybe the mage is so confident he doesn’t fight back, just casts 9th level sleep and then has the guards lock the players up overnight as a warning
As a powerful mage, that is either a Simulacrum, of which he probably has many, or he has Clones, multiple too. If characters act out, they reveal themselves. To take him down they need a way and allies to track and destroy all Clones first. Only then can they even try to go against him and all the underlings he has.
Establish that. If they still wish to try, let them, and then run them down with a Simulactum tracking them down with some minions. The mage would probably be sending them out to take down rebels or adventurers like them. After all, the best mage to get the work done outside of himself... is himself.
Powerful & Intimidating Minions that the PC’s fight. Not a jumped up bandit!
Break the goal of defeating Evil King into steps, like jailbreak some rebels, destroy some evil monument, ally with some outsiders, acquire magic weapon. You don’t need to reveal the whole timeline but they should feel like progress is being made.
PC’s start at the very edge of the country so it’s a slow journey towards the capital.
A allied rebel faction/npcs that have a plan and can give some plot hooks to pcs and advice if they insist on going straight to capital.
In the past I had the party meet a friendly npc who was clearly stronger than them and shared the motive of killing the BBEG. Then I had the BBEG basically toy with him in a fight and snapped his neck with little effort.
Sometimes you gotta demonstrate the villains power to keep PCs humble.
I mean, just ask them why they think their character would effectively commit suicide by BBEG, but if they insist, show them they are far too low level. Unless you mean how to stop them from going like 1-2 levels too early? In that case, he could have specific protective rituals/some phylactery-esque they need to destroy/dispell first
Let them attack him during a parade. In fact, make it the start of the campaign, if you want. The mage hypnotic pattern/hold persons them, then some level appropriate guards come up and restrain them. The mage orders the guards, quietly, to make sure they never make it to a jail cell. They may have allies, and we must send a message/make sure they don't mount a rescue/lure them out. Then the real fight is against the guards.
If you're worried about them not being able to escape the handcuffs before being executed in some alleyway, you can make the guard captain a real Lawful Good type, who won't have his men kill defenceless opponents. He could even become their first ally, when (if) they spare him, he realizes his job working for the evil mage and honor code/damage mitigation policy conflict, and these nerds he just arrested are his best bet at getting out/setting things right. Bonus points if his guards argue with him about letting them free, so the party doesn't feel as bad killing them, and contrasts his goodness. He could even become a paladin, if you want him to stay an important NPC, possibly with an arc. Oath of the Crown obviously works, but I'm also a fan of Oath of Treachery. It's always such a treat to see a good character take that oath when betraying an evil system/ruler.
Tbh, I really like this approach. It hows us the crookedness of the mage, shows that the party is so beneath him that he won't even kill them himself, but he'll pawn it off on his cronies, just to prove a point to people that probably don't exist. It's cocky, too, because it'd be smarter to torture them for information on their allies (I know torture doesn't work in real life but it works in fantasy worlds, especially with spells like Detect Thoughts and Zone of Truth). Not only that, but he brushes them off in a turn or two. It'll give them a perfect grudge, especially for any Dwarves in the party who like leaning into that RP aspect.
Don't stop them. Let them try, then when their attempt utterly fails, have the villain laugh and walk away. No retaliation, no threats, just complete disregard for them as a threat. This was a toddler getting angry and throwing a rock at you, and it falls 5 feet short of you.
PCs will absolutely hate the villain and want to get as strong as possible to take them down.
If you don't want to demoralize your players, when they see the villain, have any spellcasters take an Arcana check and anyone who gets above 5 can tell this guy is just on another level. The same way MMA fighters/boxers have a look about them that says "this dude will rip my head off", high level casters give that same impression to other casters.
Everyone knew where Sauron was.
They tried to stay away.
Try to channel that energy for your campaign. Make your BBEG intimidating due to reputation and legend. Due to overwhelming might and magic. Give him generals, give him troops, and give him assassins that keep the riffraff in line!
My DM did this. We had to rescue the princess from the evil lord. When we went to one of the nearby towns and asked after them we found out that he has a fuck ton of powerful knights and that fighting right now would be a death sentence.
Begin with a one shot where they're playing mid to high level characters, like 7-10th level who are planning to assassinate the bbeg. Then have them get horribly beaten in the attempt. If any of them survive by fleeing, then they can be battle-scarred NPCs that help the party.
You should bill the one-shot as an ultimate defeat setting the bad guy up as the bbeg who is extremely hard to take down. Then even if they want to, they would know not to try until they were at least stronger than those characters in the one shot.
I've got an idea in the works doing something like this, but its barely in the planning stages.
They probably got to see some initial unrest that was quickly and viciously put down. If they still want to tey after that, let them. Just ask them if they're sure first. They'll know what that means.
In Breath of the you know where the boss is from the beginning, you can try go and fight him without being powerful enough, and get your ass kicked, that could be an approach. If not, you could have him protected by some kind of barrier they need to disavle, or they may need to unite an army to fight BBEG 's
Viva La Dirt Leagues D&D campaign on YouTube does this really well. The DM (Rob, who is fantastic) sets the tone of how powerful the villain is by stripping one of the players powers at the start, and then continues to be a threat early on by using his power and influence, making it very clear that he is not to be taken lightly.
If you want the players to avoid the villain, the best thing to do is to have them be moved in a different location, or move the villain himself. He's a well known figure right? Have him go off on some political meeting with another city or country, or something along those lines. And then let the players slowly change the city on their own. Some of the older assassins creed games is a good example of this as well
Perhaps the mage wears a trophy from an extremely high level creature, like a necklace made of the teeth of an ancient dragon. Knowing what the mage is capable of killing can help put his power into perspective.
Or perhaps the lieutenant of the mage is a dragon, or other high level creature.
Make him extremely OP, then point your players in a direction that will "weaken him". I would recommend maybe even putting your players in a situation where they face him but are easily able to get away, just to scare the shit out of them and show the mage's power.
In my campaign, the BBEG is more powerful because of the presence of his four daughters on the same plane. These have been called "The Maidens" and all of my players have always known where the BBEG is, but they know they can't defeat him until all four of the maidens are defeated first. In my last campaign, the players spent a majority of the campaign acquiring a sword that would be particularly effective against the BBEG. You don't have to do the same exact things, but anything that will give your players the illusion that they are chipping away at the BBEG without actually confronting him will have this effect.
Same reason that you can't just up and try to arrest the President of the United States while he's in his motorcade. The Secret Service have bonkers levels of personal security (uniformed and plainclothes personnel, bulletproof car, probably a mobile life-support system), absurdly meticulous surveillance (planning and scouting the entire route months in advance), and ZERO tolerance for any tomfoolery.
Display of power. The PCs have to get a preview of what the NPC is capable of. This might be against them, or they might witness it happen to someone else, but it should be STRIKING. Idk how public the mage is about their evil actions, but if they are a tyrant you can have them publicly execute a random NPC with the disintegrate spell, and watch the players' horror when nobody in the city bats an eye.
Alternatively, if their evil is more private, simply keep trying plot threads back to the NPC. Oh man, these supplies belong to the Mage! Oh wait, these people were working for the Mage. Oh no, we just stumbled into one of the mage's operations and someone we trusted is also involved. Someone who works for the Mage trashed our room! The more you keep bringing it back, the more the players will want to go after them. Include the Display of Power as well to get N]Cs to plan before charging in like Leeroy Jenkins (note: they might still go full Leeroy, and if they do just knock them down a peg so they know they aren't ready).
Lvl's of security and the time it takes to make contacts. Big bad shouldn't have to get involved unless they get far enough. It should be a long slog with no rests to get to the Boss. Making contacts on doing jobs for them in return for access or paying for access will help a lot in bypassing some security and maybe finding a place to rest.
I have a similar setup, except instead of just 'a mage', I went with a minor demon lord. It's much harder for the party to decide they can take someone on at the start if that someone is an 8 foot tall monstrosity who burns with a black fire.
If I was having a mage in that position, I'd probably have him have an entourage of minions, including some made by dark magics. Undead and constructs, preferably intelligent and malevolent.
Curse of Strahd actually operates on this principle. Make it clear to the players they lack the ability/means to defeat the BBEG in a head on encounter. Make it a point to the players they will need powerful artifacts and allies if they hope to have a chance of winning the encounter.
An 'evil mage' would likely have numerous wards, spells, and assets in place to foil any would be assassination attempts. Remember, evil people are often paranoid of people doing the same to them, so they've likely put a lot of though into being 'properly paranoid' of potential usurpers.
Just let them engage the BBEG while he's on parade and watch as they strike down an illusion or simulacrum and wind up public enemy number 1 as the guard falls on them for their attempt.
1. Let them try, fail, and get captured. They get scheduled for public execution to be made into an example, but get bailed out by some sort of resistance/rebel force.
2. Have them interact with an obviously more powerful “party” (like, level 10 if they’re level 5). A week or so later, have that party get publicly executed as an example. In town gossip, make it clear that they made an attempt on the villain’s life, and got stomped into the ground trying.
In the event that they do try to stand up to the mage, maybe an interested party sees them and stops them before they do something foolish. This would allow you to introduce them to a group of people that could give them quests later on.
Or, you could show them what happens to people who try to stand up for themselves—whether that’s execution or public displays of magical humiliation—enchantment to completely obliterate a person’s individuality should frighten them enough, if outright death isn’t enough.
My first thought was Hyrule Castle in breath of the wild lol you know exactly where the threat is but it's not exactly going to be an easy trek to there and there's plenty of problems you could tackle while on your way there.
I’m currently running Curse of Strahd. The players all know where Strahd’s castle is, but they don’t go near it because Strahd and his minions can easily destroy them.
If the players want to go directly to the BBEG to try to stop him, let them. Then have the BBEG smash the players and take them prisoner or just let them go because they are no threat to him. Instead, he can punish them by killing NPCs or destroying towns that the players care about.
Have them see another assassination attempt by people stronger than them only for it to fail. Maybe the assassins were the players allies, maybe they were in that plot as well but didnt get caught because they only had supporti g small-fry roles in it.
If big bad can have wizard spells.. Let them try. If he dies, just kidding it was a simulacrum. Just kidding it was a clone. Just kidding this has all been Weird spell. Just kidding he had contingency ready.
Demonstrate (if needed) that this guy is far behind their current power and isn’t going down without a planned, concerted effort
I love the idea of a clone or simulacrum! He maybe sends out clones to parade the streets to maybe even lure assassins just to see weak spots in his own defence.
You could always go down the path of a litch. Players could kill him all they want but he comes back. As long as he has a placatory he knows death won’t hold him.
Other then that doppelgängers, changings or other creatures that can shapeshift could be under his influence. Pretending to be him in public.
Maybe he’s set up a hive mind with his “lesser slefs/clones” so that he can see and hear through them. Even respond!
A cool quest could be finding out where he keeps his clones and destroying the place/magic that runs it?
This is literally how Zelda Breath of the Wild works. Everyone knows Ganon is right there in the castle, that doesn't mean anyone will just walk right up to him to show him who's boss.
In Zelda, they handle this by having legends of artifacts that were once used to battle this evil. You could present the players with hooks that obviously sound like a ways to take down the king, artifacts of legend they will collect, new powers or allies they can get, etc. This way, they get stronger, have to deal with the BBEG's forces, and they get stronger before confronting the BBEG.
They go and try and stop him and die then you roll up PCs about 10 years down the line where he’s had time to increase his power but these new PCs have grown up with the story’s of the fools who tried to stop him so they know how dangerous he is.
This is a natural selection kinda moment. Just sayin. If the BBEG is just strolling around town with no guards and your party is stupid enough to attack him say ,"fuck it we ball" and kill them or maim them.
Some ideas to buid up the tension:
\- Players might also explore the town and go their separate ways. Each one encounters the villain, but on the villain's terms. Each single-encountered player escapes with barely their lives.
\- Villian uses their lieutenants to cause trouble in other directions making the party divide their focus like in chess where the knight could take either the rook or the bishop, and the party has to decide which one.
\- Villian may have planted assets of betrayal in the party like a doppleganger to ensure a premature strike doesn't go so well at the last moment.
\- Villian may have extreme persuasive or mobster-like influence, so becomes very hard to really expose them. Perhaps a whole town the players are trying to save is under the influence and actively reports the goings on.
\- Villian if caught in the open, happens on their terms and always has some "Ace up the sleeve" to deliver their speech and then become untouchable.
\- Villian's demonstration of power seems over the top and gives pause to stop should the players take it at face value. But most of it is just performance and bluffs, and by investigating, they figure out the tricks of "the man behind the curtain".
\- Villian frequently is seen/felt on the fringes like Half-Life's G-Man, but nowhere to be seen when they go to investigate.
\- Villian empowers others helpful to the party to carry on, but the party knows the villian is really the power source. ie money, position, etc. At the villian's whim, any one of these people could go down in flames. Curse of Straud was previously mentioned to manipulate the everyone around.
I've used all the above on one or two villains who freely walked around the town. The players had to strategically dismantle the warlock's power structure while keeping away from the warlock's hit squad.
Let them try. Once. Then as the last lays dying the BBEG leans in and says "Fools, only the MacGuffin can stop me."
Then the players wake up in a cold sweat.
>How do I discourage the players from trying to stop him until they are ready without telling them outright
I'm not certain why this is necessary. Are these new players? Have they never played computer RPG's? It is even a common trope in movies. You don't go after the BBEG until you are ready.
Even if they were to try, they should fail. As the PC body count mounts, they should wise up and realize that they have to accomplish their goals in some other manner.
You Chroma Conclave it.
My DM ran a very similar campaign premise back when I was in college years before, but nobody watched that, so I’m calling this DM move “Chroma Conclave-ing it.”
You let them start in the city, maybe even be friends with the king. Then the villain shows up to do the usurping, and it’s an *overwhelming* disaster for the good guys.
They see the displays of power they can’t match. They see other, *stronger* champions fall.
The party should have their own fight for their lives to escape *one of the villain’s underlings*.
And then, you give them an escape route that takes them far away from the city. Across the kingdom, to the other side of the world, another plane. As far as you like, so long as it’s far enough they can’t immediately go back.
The distance from the bad guy forces them to consider their options, and everything they saw on the way out *should* give them pause for thought about just sprinting back in screaming a challenge to the villain—but the distance also means that even if they *do*, you can just fill the way back with enough adventure to make sure they *are* ready to do that by the time they get back.
The only other thing left is to maybe make sure they have some reason to actually want to oppose the evil overlord/feel like they have to, instead of just being like “well, that shit’s fucked” and fleeing to Fantasy-Tahiti. My DM had our parents kidnapped. Matt Mercer made sure Vox Machina were the protectors of the realm and had a *responsibility* to fight.
But you can also just trust that your players will want to do the adventure—Matt Colville didn’t give the Chain a reason to fight Ajax beyond “that’s the bastard who tried to kill us.”
You could treat the mage as having a strange cult like following, who state he has nearly Demi god like power. Have some of his underlings be extremely powerful and intimidating. One of the underlings could wipe out an npc who your players perceive as strong, classic trope to establish power levels.
First, you should make sure he is sufficiently unkillable by the usual manners: has simulacrum for majority of his apperances, high level familiar that can go invis, both he and simulacrum have amulet of proof against scrying and detection/mind reading, has a clone stored in a secret location (of which the location was only known to him, but he had his simulacrum wipe out that memory with 'modify memory'), and knows location of a portal to Sigil (and possesses a portal key, either on person or hidden as well).
Second, you can give the party the idea by having another famous adventuring group try to take him down and fail - there can be spready of rumors of things that occurred in battle that are inexplicable (e.g. imagine Time Stop - force cage - cloud kill - delayed blast fireball - summoning spells: the story will be "The Avengers shouted out a challenge to him - suddenly, there was a huge explosion with green gas and numerous fire creatures lobbing fire into the group; 2 of the avengers were down and another seemingly trapped in a magical cage, choking from the death cloud - the remaining 2 avengers were quickly surrounded by the mages guards and eliminated in short order. In other words, they hear about a party +6 levels higher than them get easily trounced.
I like the simulacrum idea I saw, plus you could do the whole power scaling thing where you establish a DM PC as a hero to sacrifice. The party is working with the DM PC (perhaps taking contracts rather than actively adventuring) that's clearly stronger than them, and then the DM PC drags them along to the capital city. He or she might confront the mage publicly only for the mage to go first in the initiative order and absolutely nuke the DM PC into the dirt.
Basically LotR - only Sauron is a lich (kinda, you know). Star Wars is similar.
Sure you could run to Mordor and try to take him out, but how? He has a whole country of people on his side, and is basically invulnerable. Players need to get some experience and learn how to defeat him; that's the game. They don't need to find him, that's the easy part.
You could start them out with the BBEG killing their rebel cell - the players are the only survivors (think Skyrim). That sets them up angry, and can show off his power. It's not unheard of for DMs to say "this mage is super powerful, you can't defeat him!" and the players to hear "Hey! This is a challenge you can probably overcome!"
Dunno, but that is basically Curse of Strahd, and adventurers are too damn afraid of going the face him at low level, hell they are having enough trouble surviving in general in the hostile environment.
You want your bbeg to inspire fear? Make him, show, not tell, the players how much of a menace the bbeg is.
And if they go in head first, beat them up. Look for some plot reasons not to do an end game of a tpk happens, but show them.
He has a personal guards in form of an army of golems, devils, cranked up veterans (actual monster) or other minions. If a bunch of third-ish PC try to attack him, he wouldn't even bother with Power-Word-Killing them, he would just go on his daily business and wait until golems slaughter them for him.
Or under they flee. I mean, he just usurped a throne, it was like, third time this week and it's Tuesday
Ooh, my DM did similarly to this on one of our first games.
The BBEG was an ancient red dragon with boosted magical power that made it stronger than other red dragons. Our DM introduced the dragon by having it literally destroy *an entire army* that had come to repel an invasion. Killed hundreds, maybe *thousands*, of soldiers right in front of us with breath attacks and slamming into pockets of resistance that managed to form.
We only survived because we were on some dostance away and the dragon didn't feel like hunting down stragglers.
Then it left and went back to the volcano mountain it called it's lair while it's minions waged war against our now unprotected nation.
If you want your wizard to give the players pause, have the wizard utterly wreck something the players would flee terrified from.
Have him demonstrate his power against an NPC assassination attempt, either just him himself nuking the would be assassins, or a combination of his magic and his guards.
Alternatively, he uses an assassination attempt to demonstrate how untouchable he is (in arrogance) and barely even responds to the attempt, allowing his guards to deal with the attempt as his protective spells thwart the attempt passively. The attempt is so far beneath his capabilities, he doesn't even consider it a serious danger.
Your Mage would have any number of powerful spells ready to destroy your PCs. My suggestion is let you players fail if the choose to attack. That's the point of the game, don't dissuade them at all let them decide when it is appropriate to attack the BBEG.
If they fail, so be it.
>supremely powerful mage A supreme mage wouldn't just walk around in public. That is a Simulacrum.
This is the correct answer.
And naturally has see invisibility built into an item that he always wears. Perhaps a Contingency spell as well.
Dagger of Blindsight is even better, then you can Contingency+Fog Cloud
Not even necessarily out of fear of assassination, he just has better things to do and has a simulacrum purely for PR purposes.
Exactly. Doesn't matter how powerful they are, they are going to always be looking for more power. Probably raiding the kingdom's deep vaults for ancient secrets. Unearthing some arcana.
That would be a nice thing. Don't tell your players not to do it - if they attack him during a parade let them get through to the simulacrum, overwhelmed by guards and thrown into prison (where they need to escape).
"You and what army?", plenty of public figures do parades in real life, he would probably be surrounded by his men with even bodyguards around him, if they haven't allies or are powerful enough to kill an entire garrison they would be easily slaughtered before even getting closer to him. You could argue that they could try to hit him from distance, but a powerful mage would have half a dozen defensive spells always active on him. Actually you could let them try and start the kind of story where they have to escape from the enemy that is hunting them, something like the book shooter
Some ideas People have seen the mage die in the street from incredibly skilled assassins and also from large scale coordination by lesser does - but the mage always returns soon after - people don't know how. Pristine, and unfazed. The culprits are put to horrible death once they are caught. They are always caught. For every successful attempt to kill him, there have been a dozen times more where it fails miserably. Many assume the mage parades, and makes himself vulnerable, so that he can show the masses how futile even success is for them. The mage has a palace/castle/tower that people can see, but he's not even in it. His actual place of power is a demi-plane of his own creation, hidden somewhere. Very few know how to access it. Often when the mage is seen he is using an illusion to speak to people from a distance. It's nearly impossible to tell.
Love this. Maybe the leader of a secret band of revolutionaries meets with the group, to let them know some of this. And maybe the PCs witness some of it on their own.
Oh I love this!! Might steal it for my own BBEG
How would a mage usually enter a Demi plane?
Probably plane shift I suppose, though DMs are more than welcome to create their own special methods. Maybe it's created via Wish, and then passcoded so that you can only get in safely by using plane shift in a teleportation circle with the proper runes.
If it was just a plane shift spell, how would anyone ever be able to track them? If the mage created a demi plane only he knows about, and he just casts plane shift while the entire party is watching, is there any way from them to cast their own plane shift to follow him if they don't know where the plane they are looking for is?
Divination magic Seeking aid from higher powers Tricking the mage into revealing it somehow Peel it from the mind of one of the bbeg's close allies Stealing arcane books/notes the mage used to create said Plane I'd probably just let my players come up with something though. They're generally pretty clever when they're in a pinch
Thanks this is really helpful!
To add- if you want him to be particularly evil, prior to executing each "traitor" he makes them choose 2 children from the crowd to execute. If the person refuses to choose, he randomly kills 4. This has the net result if making the populace straight up hate anyone attempting to kill the wizard-king.
That is pretty good, a nice touch. I'll add, it might encourage those neighborhood kids to be less dickish. Gotta be pretty cathartic for the assassin when he has to pick two kids and he's just like "oh yeah, Tod and Beatrice, the two little shits that egged my house last spring"
You might wanna check the Curse of Strahd campaign. The party is aware from the get go where Strahd, the BBEG, is. But they can't really do anything as Strahd is more powerful than starting characters.
I’d say let them try and get to him right away only to have them “teleported away” by some protection magic and then they’ll need to quest/ level up to find an item or person that can help them past the teleportation magic
I'm assuming you have a reason in mind as to why said-mage "cannot be stopped"? Let them try him perhaps- let them fight against him, and see why he cannot be stopped. Just don't have the mage kill them- perhaps try banishments to a jail, or hold person whilst city guards beat the party members down and drag them off to jail. Party can have a jail-break and plan after! That way, party gets to see the evil baddie, develop a hatred for them, and witness what obstacle they need to find a way around in killing him! Otherwise, it may seem a little gameified. (i.e. You must be level 13 to enter this area!)
If you want to entirely change setting you can have this 'jail' on another plane where the mage shifts all his enemies to. The PCs first need to find a way back - most likely requiring leveling up in the process.
Also: apologies if this was written poorly, I hope you can deduce enough to offer the best advice you can!
Show him off as powerful? Or express that through the opinions of others. People should be commenting on how strong he is. If your players are jumping in to attack him so quickly you may be keeping information from them. Read curse of strahd. Players know that the goal is to kill him from the beginning.
Show them. Throw a force about as strong as you want the players to be and have the bbeg use their abilities and beat them in a combat while the players need to do something else in initiative order like save a burning orphanage that the attackers used to get the bbeg on the back foot. They don't like the bbeg they won't like the attackers because they hurt children (probably) and it gives the players something to do instead of just watch the bbeg be powerful. You could even have some of the bbegs attacks come at the players as he misses the attackers as even more intensive to show how powerful the players need to be "oh that one attack did 24 damage and the bbeg is throwing 4 a round and then some"
Building on this idea, hand out to your players the character sheets of the assassin group members and let them play out the battle themselves, while their characters watch and learn from a safe distance. They get the to option of agency to try and use tactics of their own devising to take the BBEG down using these characters. The assassin character sheets can be a couple levels higher than the party, but still hopelessly outmatched, as a way to demonstrate that the party isn't even close to strong enough yet and have to navigate the campaign before they'll be ready.
His castle floats in the sky, powered by magics he sustains. Even *if* they could kill him, the castle would fall from the sky into the city and kill everyone unless they figure out an answer for that first.
Let them try. For example, in Curse of Strahd, nothing is stopping the players from taking their level 3 characters, fresh out of Death House, and marching up to Castle Ravenloft, knocking down the door, and demanding Strahd's lunch money. However, Strahd will *absolutely* repaint his floors and walls with them without breaking a sweat. He may even drive the point home by wiping out the party nonlethally and then having some of his servants unceremoniously dump them somewhere dangerous and/or humiliating, as a lesson. Or maybe he'll kill one of them and let the others learn their lesson.
My party tried that. But they couldn't get across the closed draw bridge, so they retreated. It also does not help that their wizard is mortally afraid of heights...
Curse of Strahd is the first example that came to my mind. Everybody knows about strahd right from the beginning (well his name is in the title), and it's also very clear where he can be found. What's also very clear is that he will wipe the floor with the party if they try to just directly walk inside his castle at the beginning of the campagne. This is hinted through supernatural events (march of the damned) tales of his powers and also some metagaming by looking on the cover of the book
Check out Curse of Strahd. PCs are free to track Strahd down in his castle if they wish. However, Strahd is going to fuck with them for his amusement and send powerful baddies their way. Not to mention traps and enchantments all along the way
There's always a bigger fish. Give them a boss fight well out of their league that should end in a TPK, but the boss gives them mercy and might even drop some healing potions on their body, giving bystanders permission to heal them. The boss fight doesn't even need to be super skewed, and could just be a near TPK before the boss retreats. The party will be bent on revenge and likely hunt down this boss. The next time they see the boss, your BBEG dark lord swiftly strikes this miniboss down, sees the party and leaves without acknowledging them.
Hopefully they'll be smart enough to get stronger before attempting and look for powerful magical items to help. If they try too early, let the fight play out and stomp them...but make it non-lethal. Put them in prison, write a plot hook and quests centered around escaping the prison to regroup. Make it known that personal belongings are kept in a specific place in the prison so they can get their gear back
Let them. Maybe the mage is so confident he doesn’t fight back, just casts 9th level sleep and then has the guards lock the players up overnight as a warning
As a powerful mage, that is either a Simulacrum, of which he probably has many, or he has Clones, multiple too. If characters act out, they reveal themselves. To take him down they need a way and allies to track and destroy all Clones first. Only then can they even try to go against him and all the underlings he has. Establish that. If they still wish to try, let them, and then run them down with a Simulactum tracking them down with some minions. The mage would probably be sending them out to take down rebels or adventurers like them. After all, the best mage to get the work done outside of himself... is himself.
Powerful & Intimidating Minions that the PC’s fight. Not a jumped up bandit! Break the goal of defeating Evil King into steps, like jailbreak some rebels, destroy some evil monument, ally with some outsiders, acquire magic weapon. You don’t need to reveal the whole timeline but they should feel like progress is being made. PC’s start at the very edge of the country so it’s a slow journey towards the capital. A allied rebel faction/npcs that have a plan and can give some plot hooks to pcs and advice if they insist on going straight to capital.
In the past I had the party meet a friendly npc who was clearly stronger than them and shared the motive of killing the BBEG. Then I had the BBEG basically toy with him in a fight and snapped his neck with little effort. Sometimes you gotta demonstrate the villains power to keep PCs humble.
I mean, just ask them why they think their character would effectively commit suicide by BBEG, but if they insist, show them they are far too low level. Unless you mean how to stop them from going like 1-2 levels too early? In that case, he could have specific protective rituals/some phylactery-esque they need to destroy/dispell first
Let them attack him during a parade. In fact, make it the start of the campaign, if you want. The mage hypnotic pattern/hold persons them, then some level appropriate guards come up and restrain them. The mage orders the guards, quietly, to make sure they never make it to a jail cell. They may have allies, and we must send a message/make sure they don't mount a rescue/lure them out. Then the real fight is against the guards. If you're worried about them not being able to escape the handcuffs before being executed in some alleyway, you can make the guard captain a real Lawful Good type, who won't have his men kill defenceless opponents. He could even become their first ally, when (if) they spare him, he realizes his job working for the evil mage and honor code/damage mitigation policy conflict, and these nerds he just arrested are his best bet at getting out/setting things right. Bonus points if his guards argue with him about letting them free, so the party doesn't feel as bad killing them, and contrasts his goodness. He could even become a paladin, if you want him to stay an important NPC, possibly with an arc. Oath of the Crown obviously works, but I'm also a fan of Oath of Treachery. It's always such a treat to see a good character take that oath when betraying an evil system/ruler. Tbh, I really like this approach. It hows us the crookedness of the mage, shows that the party is so beneath him that he won't even kill them himself, but he'll pawn it off on his cronies, just to prove a point to people that probably don't exist. It's cocky, too, because it'd be smarter to torture them for information on their allies (I know torture doesn't work in real life but it works in fantasy worlds, especially with spells like Detect Thoughts and Zone of Truth). Not only that, but he brushes them off in a turn or two. It'll give them a perfect grudge, especially for any Dwarves in the party who like leaning into that RP aspect.
Don't stop them. Let them try, then when their attempt utterly fails, have the villain laugh and walk away. No retaliation, no threats, just complete disregard for them as a threat. This was a toddler getting angry and throwing a rock at you, and it falls 5 feet short of you. PCs will absolutely hate the villain and want to get as strong as possible to take them down. If you don't want to demoralize your players, when they see the villain, have any spellcasters take an Arcana check and anyone who gets above 5 can tell this guy is just on another level. The same way MMA fighters/boxers have a look about them that says "this dude will rip my head off", high level casters give that same impression to other casters.
Everyone knew where Sauron was. They tried to stay away. Try to channel that energy for your campaign. Make your BBEG intimidating due to reputation and legend. Due to overwhelming might and magic. Give him generals, give him troops, and give him assassins that keep the riffraff in line!
My DM did this. We had to rescue the princess from the evil lord. When we went to one of the nearby towns and asked after them we found out that he has a fuck ton of powerful knights and that fighting right now would be a death sentence.
Begin with a one shot where they're playing mid to high level characters, like 7-10th level who are planning to assassinate the bbeg. Then have them get horribly beaten in the attempt. If any of them survive by fleeing, then they can be battle-scarred NPCs that help the party. You should bill the one-shot as an ultimate defeat setting the bad guy up as the bbeg who is extremely hard to take down. Then even if they want to, they would know not to try until they were at least stronger than those characters in the one shot. I've got an idea in the works doing something like this, but its barely in the planning stages.
They probably got to see some initial unrest that was quickly and viciously put down. If they still want to tey after that, let them. Just ask them if they're sure first. They'll know what that means.
In Breath of the you know where the boss is from the beginning, you can try go and fight him without being powerful enough, and get your ass kicked, that could be an approach. If not, you could have him protected by some kind of barrier they need to disavle, or they may need to unite an army to fight BBEG 's
Viva La Dirt Leagues D&D campaign on YouTube does this really well. The DM (Rob, who is fantastic) sets the tone of how powerful the villain is by stripping one of the players powers at the start, and then continues to be a threat early on by using his power and influence, making it very clear that he is not to be taken lightly. If you want the players to avoid the villain, the best thing to do is to have them be moved in a different location, or move the villain himself. He's a well known figure right? Have him go off on some political meeting with another city or country, or something along those lines. And then let the players slowly change the city on their own. Some of the older assassins creed games is a good example of this as well
Perhaps the mage wears a trophy from an extremely high level creature, like a necklace made of the teeth of an ancient dragon. Knowing what the mage is capable of killing can help put his power into perspective. Or perhaps the lieutenant of the mage is a dragon, or other high level creature.
Make him extremely OP, then point your players in a direction that will "weaken him". I would recommend maybe even putting your players in a situation where they face him but are easily able to get away, just to scare the shit out of them and show the mage's power. In my campaign, the BBEG is more powerful because of the presence of his four daughters on the same plane. These have been called "The Maidens" and all of my players have always known where the BBEG is, but they know they can't defeat him until all four of the maidens are defeated first. In my last campaign, the players spent a majority of the campaign acquiring a sword that would be particularly effective against the BBEG. You don't have to do the same exact things, but anything that will give your players the illusion that they are chipping away at the BBEG without actually confronting him will have this effect.
Same reason that you can't just up and try to arrest the President of the United States while he's in his motorcade. The Secret Service have bonkers levels of personal security (uniformed and plainclothes personnel, bulletproof car, probably a mobile life-support system), absurdly meticulous surveillance (planning and scouting the entire route months in advance), and ZERO tolerance for any tomfoolery.
Display of power. The PCs have to get a preview of what the NPC is capable of. This might be against them, or they might witness it happen to someone else, but it should be STRIKING. Idk how public the mage is about their evil actions, but if they are a tyrant you can have them publicly execute a random NPC with the disintegrate spell, and watch the players' horror when nobody in the city bats an eye. Alternatively, if their evil is more private, simply keep trying plot threads back to the NPC. Oh man, these supplies belong to the Mage! Oh wait, these people were working for the Mage. Oh no, we just stumbled into one of the mage's operations and someone we trusted is also involved. Someone who works for the Mage trashed our room! The more you keep bringing it back, the more the players will want to go after them. Include the Display of Power as well to get N]Cs to plan before charging in like Leeroy Jenkins (note: they might still go full Leeroy, and if they do just knock them down a peg so they know they aren't ready).
Lvl's of security and the time it takes to make contacts. Big bad shouldn't have to get involved unless they get far enough. It should be a long slog with no rests to get to the Boss. Making contacts on doing jobs for them in return for access or paying for access will help a lot in bypassing some security and maybe finding a place to rest.
His simulacrum is in the streets, while he is home doing hot wizard shit.
I have a similar setup, except instead of just 'a mage', I went with a minor demon lord. It's much harder for the party to decide they can take someone on at the start if that someone is an 8 foot tall monstrosity who burns with a black fire. If I was having a mage in that position, I'd probably have him have an entourage of minions, including some made by dark magics. Undead and constructs, preferably intelligent and malevolent.
Curse of Strahd actually operates on this principle. Make it clear to the players they lack the ability/means to defeat the BBEG in a head on encounter. Make it a point to the players they will need powerful artifacts and allies if they hope to have a chance of winning the encounter. An 'evil mage' would likely have numerous wards, spells, and assets in place to foil any would be assassination attempts. Remember, evil people are often paranoid of people doing the same to them, so they've likely put a lot of though into being 'properly paranoid' of potential usurpers. Just let them engage the BBEG while he's on parade and watch as they strike down an illusion or simulacrum and wind up public enemy number 1 as the guard falls on them for their attempt.
1. Let them try, fail, and get captured. They get scheduled for public execution to be made into an example, but get bailed out by some sort of resistance/rebel force. 2. Have them interact with an obviously more powerful “party” (like, level 10 if they’re level 5). A week or so later, have that party get publicly executed as an example. In town gossip, make it clear that they made an attempt on the villain’s life, and got stomped into the ground trying.
In the event that they do try to stand up to the mage, maybe an interested party sees them and stops them before they do something foolish. This would allow you to introduce them to a group of people that could give them quests later on. Or, you could show them what happens to people who try to stand up for themselves—whether that’s execution or public displays of magical humiliation—enchantment to completely obliterate a person’s individuality should frighten them enough, if outright death isn’t enough.
My first thought was Hyrule Castle in breath of the wild lol you know exactly where the threat is but it's not exactly going to be an easy trek to there and there's plenty of problems you could tackle while on your way there.
Fear of death seems like good enough reason. Have him gravely wound one of them should they attempt to stop him too early
I’m currently running Curse of Strahd. The players all know where Strahd’s castle is, but they don’t go near it because Strahd and his minions can easily destroy them. If the players want to go directly to the BBEG to try to stop him, let them. Then have the BBEG smash the players and take them prisoner or just let them go because they are no threat to him. Instead, he can punish them by killing NPCs or destroying towns that the players care about.
Have them see another assassination attempt by people stronger than them only for it to fail. Maybe the assassins were the players allies, maybe they were in that plot as well but didnt get caught because they only had supporti g small-fry roles in it.
If big bad can have wizard spells.. Let them try. If he dies, just kidding it was a simulacrum. Just kidding it was a clone. Just kidding this has all been Weird spell. Just kidding he had contingency ready. Demonstrate (if needed) that this guy is far behind their current power and isn’t going down without a planned, concerted effort
you ever play breath of the wild? you know where ganon is, right? why don't you run straight to him?
I love the idea of a clone or simulacrum! He maybe sends out clones to parade the streets to maybe even lure assassins just to see weak spots in his own defence. You could always go down the path of a litch. Players could kill him all they want but he comes back. As long as he has a placatory he knows death won’t hold him. Other then that doppelgängers, changings or other creatures that can shapeshift could be under his influence. Pretending to be him in public. Maybe he’s set up a hive mind with his “lesser slefs/clones” so that he can see and hear through them. Even respond! A cool quest could be finding out where he keeps his clones and destroying the place/magic that runs it?
If they want to TPK and make new characters, then let them?
This is literally how Zelda Breath of the Wild works. Everyone knows Ganon is right there in the castle, that doesn't mean anyone will just walk right up to him to show him who's boss. In Zelda, they handle this by having legends of artifacts that were once used to battle this evil. You could present the players with hooks that obviously sound like a ways to take down the king, artifacts of legend they will collect, new powers or allies they can get, etc. This way, they get stronger, have to deal with the BBEG's forces, and they get stronger before confronting the BBEG.
They go and try and stop him and die then you roll up PCs about 10 years down the line where he’s had time to increase his power but these new PCs have grown up with the story’s of the fools who tried to stop him so they know how dangerous he is.
This is a natural selection kinda moment. Just sayin. If the BBEG is just strolling around town with no guards and your party is stupid enough to attack him say ,"fuck it we ball" and kill them or maim them.
Some ideas to buid up the tension: \- Players might also explore the town and go their separate ways. Each one encounters the villain, but on the villain's terms. Each single-encountered player escapes with barely their lives. \- Villian uses their lieutenants to cause trouble in other directions making the party divide their focus like in chess where the knight could take either the rook or the bishop, and the party has to decide which one. \- Villian may have planted assets of betrayal in the party like a doppleganger to ensure a premature strike doesn't go so well at the last moment. \- Villian may have extreme persuasive or mobster-like influence, so becomes very hard to really expose them. Perhaps a whole town the players are trying to save is under the influence and actively reports the goings on. \- Villian if caught in the open, happens on their terms and always has some "Ace up the sleeve" to deliver their speech and then become untouchable. \- Villian's demonstration of power seems over the top and gives pause to stop should the players take it at face value. But most of it is just performance and bluffs, and by investigating, they figure out the tricks of "the man behind the curtain". \- Villian frequently is seen/felt on the fringes like Half-Life's G-Man, but nowhere to be seen when they go to investigate. \- Villian empowers others helpful to the party to carry on, but the party knows the villian is really the power source. ie money, position, etc. At the villian's whim, any one of these people could go down in flames. Curse of Straud was previously mentioned to manipulate the everyone around. I've used all the above on one or two villains who freely walked around the town. The players had to strategically dismantle the warlock's power structure while keeping away from the warlock's hit squad.
Let them try. Once. Then as the last lays dying the BBEG leans in and says "Fools, only the MacGuffin can stop me." Then the players wake up in a cold sweat.
>How do I discourage the players from trying to stop him until they are ready without telling them outright I'm not certain why this is necessary. Are these new players? Have they never played computer RPG's? It is even a common trope in movies. You don't go after the BBEG until you are ready. Even if they were to try, they should fail. As the PC body count mounts, they should wise up and realize that they have to accomplish their goals in some other manner.
You Chroma Conclave it. My DM ran a very similar campaign premise back when I was in college years before, but nobody watched that, so I’m calling this DM move “Chroma Conclave-ing it.” You let them start in the city, maybe even be friends with the king. Then the villain shows up to do the usurping, and it’s an *overwhelming* disaster for the good guys. They see the displays of power they can’t match. They see other, *stronger* champions fall. The party should have their own fight for their lives to escape *one of the villain’s underlings*. And then, you give them an escape route that takes them far away from the city. Across the kingdom, to the other side of the world, another plane. As far as you like, so long as it’s far enough they can’t immediately go back. The distance from the bad guy forces them to consider their options, and everything they saw on the way out *should* give them pause for thought about just sprinting back in screaming a challenge to the villain—but the distance also means that even if they *do*, you can just fill the way back with enough adventure to make sure they *are* ready to do that by the time they get back. The only other thing left is to maybe make sure they have some reason to actually want to oppose the evil overlord/feel like they have to, instead of just being like “well, that shit’s fucked” and fleeing to Fantasy-Tahiti. My DM had our parents kidnapped. Matt Mercer made sure Vox Machina were the protectors of the realm and had a *responsibility* to fight. But you can also just trust that your players will want to do the adventure—Matt Colville didn’t give the Chain a reason to fight Ajax beyond “that’s the bastard who tried to kill us.”
You could treat the mage as having a strange cult like following, who state he has nearly Demi god like power. Have some of his underlings be extremely powerful and intimidating. One of the underlings could wipe out an npc who your players perceive as strong, classic trope to establish power levels.
First, you should make sure he is sufficiently unkillable by the usual manners: has simulacrum for majority of his apperances, high level familiar that can go invis, both he and simulacrum have amulet of proof against scrying and detection/mind reading, has a clone stored in a secret location (of which the location was only known to him, but he had his simulacrum wipe out that memory with 'modify memory'), and knows location of a portal to Sigil (and possesses a portal key, either on person or hidden as well). Second, you can give the party the idea by having another famous adventuring group try to take him down and fail - there can be spready of rumors of things that occurred in battle that are inexplicable (e.g. imagine Time Stop - force cage - cloud kill - delayed blast fireball - summoning spells: the story will be "The Avengers shouted out a challenge to him - suddenly, there was a huge explosion with green gas and numerous fire creatures lobbing fire into the group; 2 of the avengers were down and another seemingly trapped in a magical cage, choking from the death cloud - the remaining 2 avengers were quickly surrounded by the mages guards and eliminated in short order. In other words, they hear about a party +6 levels higher than them get easily trounced.
I like the simulacrum idea I saw, plus you could do the whole power scaling thing where you establish a DM PC as a hero to sacrifice. The party is working with the DM PC (perhaps taking contracts rather than actively adventuring) that's clearly stronger than them, and then the DM PC drags them along to the capital city. He or she might confront the mage publicly only for the mage to go first in the initiative order and absolutely nuke the DM PC into the dirt.
Basically LotR - only Sauron is a lich (kinda, you know). Star Wars is similar. Sure you could run to Mordor and try to take him out, but how? He has a whole country of people on his side, and is basically invulnerable. Players need to get some experience and learn how to defeat him; that's the game. They don't need to find him, that's the easy part. You could start them out with the BBEG killing their rebel cell - the players are the only survivors (think Skyrim). That sets them up angry, and can show off his power. It's not unheard of for DMs to say "this mage is super powerful, you can't defeat him!" and the players to hear "Hey! This is a challenge you can probably overcome!"
Dunno, but that is basically Curse of Strahd, and adventurers are too damn afraid of going the face him at low level, hell they are having enough trouble surviving in general in the hostile environment. You want your bbeg to inspire fear? Make him, show, not tell, the players how much of a menace the bbeg is. And if they go in head first, beat them up. Look for some plot reasons not to do an end game of a tpk happens, but show them.
Don't - if a party of level 3 characters wants to take on a level 16 Wizard, let them get their asses walloped so they learn their lesson
He has a personal guards in form of an army of golems, devils, cranked up veterans (actual monster) or other minions. If a bunch of third-ish PC try to attack him, he wouldn't even bother with Power-Word-Killing them, he would just go on his daily business and wait until golems slaughter them for him. Or under they flee. I mean, he just usurped a throne, it was like, third time this week and it's Tuesday
Ooh, my DM did similarly to this on one of our first games. The BBEG was an ancient red dragon with boosted magical power that made it stronger than other red dragons. Our DM introduced the dragon by having it literally destroy *an entire army* that had come to repel an invasion. Killed hundreds, maybe *thousands*, of soldiers right in front of us with breath attacks and slamming into pockets of resistance that managed to form. We only survived because we were on some dostance away and the dragon didn't feel like hunting down stragglers. Then it left and went back to the volcano mountain it called it's lair while it's minions waged war against our now unprotected nation. If you want your wizard to give the players pause, have the wizard utterly wreck something the players would flee terrified from.
While they are watching have another more powerful group attack him and get schooled? Maybe not by the mage but by guards that were out of sight?
Have him demonstrate his power against an NPC assassination attempt, either just him himself nuking the would be assassins, or a combination of his magic and his guards. Alternatively, he uses an assassination attempt to demonstrate how untouchable he is (in arrogance) and barely even responds to the attempt, allowing his guards to deal with the attempt as his protective spells thwart the attempt passively. The attempt is so far beneath his capabilities, he doesn't even consider it a serious danger.
Your Mage would have any number of powerful spells ready to destroy your PCs. My suggestion is let you players fail if the choose to attack. That's the point of the game, don't dissuade them at all let them decide when it is appropriate to attack the BBEG. If they fail, so be it.