I'm working on an adventure for my PKs, and considering involving a wizard who the PC will potentially do battle with. If this were many games, creating a wizard would be a simple matter of making a 10th level wizard with 300 character points or etc. However, this is Pendragon, and magic is different here. With magic much more... free in form, compared to other games it leaves me with a number of options on how to handle combat, almost too many, in fact.

I have some ideas on how to handle things, but I'd like to solicit ideas from others.

How would you handle combat between PKs and a magician?

Witches and Magicians never fight directly doing so for risk being hanged for witchcraft. Witches instead charm Knights or beasts with witchcraft and send them to fight for them. Pious Knights meeting the requirements for religious knights are immune and if they try to charm PK they're allowed a saving throw based on their Pious trait. Any Knight standing vigil for a night before an altar of his faith for one night is immune to charm by witches for a week if he makes his Pious roll (this applies only if he was specifically going to fight witches).

In rare cases where the witch is exposed or known they use witchcraft directly, they place any charmed creatures or Knights as a barrier between themselves and the party.
They then cast an Area Effect fear spell which if successful causes all the party's animals to flee from the area and on a Critical Success the party itself is affected and Knights and their retinue flee. Knights whose mounts are attempting to flee may stop them for one round and dismount if they make a horsemanship roll.

Witches try to knock out the remaining party with a Sleep Spell: Success the Knight is groggy and needs to rest for "just a moment" (Knights may save against this with an Energetic roll); if a Critical Success any Knight failing an Energetic roll is knocked unconscious and those making it are groggy and need to rest (after d6 rounds they can try an Energetic roll).

If all this fails they try to fight with witchcraft.

Effectiveness of the witch depends upon their Witchcraft Skill.

WITCHCRAFT SKILL (this is their attack roll)
10-14 = armor 10, damage 4d6
15-19 = armor 12, damage 5d6 . Witches this powerful have d3 companion Witches of skill 10.
20+ = armor 14, damage 6d6 . Witches this powerful have d3 companion Witches of skill 15.

The Witch if not directly threatened may use their witchcraft damage to attack a single character releasing an Elfshot.
Characters slain by witchcraft are not actually slain, instead they're knocked unconscious until a Priest prays over them and successfully (makes a Pious roll). Any damage caused by witchcraft does not heal unless a character goes to a Temple/Church of their religion and successfully prays (makes a Pious roll) at which time all the damage heals (it was not real to start with).

A witch who fumbles any spell or fumbles an attack when fighting with witchcraft immediately loses the ability to cast spell or fight with witchcraft. If this happens a male witch fights with normal weapons and a female witch either flees or drops to her knees and begs for mercy. Christian Knights fall for her piteous pleas if they they make a Merciful roll and fail a piety roll, the Worldly and Pagans are not allowed a Pious roll.

Depends on the power of the wizard. But generally speaking, I'd probably make it so that the PKs never has a chance to lay a glove on the magician. Either he would just intimidate them into not attacking (using lies, bluffs and theatrics), or he would cause them to not be able to see him — or maybe anything else — temporarily. Or he would summon darkness or enlist the trees to impede their ability to reach him. Or he'd make the PKs very weak, or sleepy, or slow. Maybe their weapons get stuck in their scabbards. Bowstrings snap. Or maybe the knights mistake their fellow knights for the magician and attack each other! Or maybe he causes all their horses to rear up and throw them from the saddle, (for 1d6 damage, natch). The magician might have to be taken unawares to be physically engaged at all. He'd have to be out-tricked or rendered harmless in some way. Then you'd better kill him, for an angry or desperate magician is far too dangerous to be left alive.

At any rate, I might make knights have to make a Valour roll to attack at all. Magic is scary stuff! You never know when you might get turned into a jackass, or made to grow a monkey's tail, or have your harvests cursed for a decade, or have your wife made barren. Anything can happen!


T.

Pull An awesome tactic that says mow you see me now you don't take this damage and become a goat and the knight is a goat lol

or once you were young and now your getting old and this dungeon is getting very cold, turns one knight old.

just make up little rhymes with the spells you want to use at the end when the magician escapes he knights the all realize they have been tricked in believing in the glamour magic of Faeries. And are all back to normal. Just doent abuse the pc's too much!

I think, the most important thing on Magicians ist NOT to view them like in D&D or other modern high fantasy games. Fireballs and flame-swords and spell-casting will not do anything good for the KAP feeling. Nearly all occurances of magic in arthurian literature ist time consuming and in most cases very indirect.
In an open combat, a wizzard would be like any normal person. Maybee he flees and uses magic to irritate and distract his pursuers. But in my way, the best "weapon" of a Magician is his intellect and wisdom. He may just talk himself out of situations. Or he might manipulate others to do the fighting for him.

In the previous campaign I ran this came up once or twice. I don't agree with the "a witch is automatically hanged if caught" line, many of the players were comfortable with their existence.
The society at the time (the fantastical fictional KAP one, not whatever the real world was at the time) didn't have a burning desire to torch magic users either, mostly.

For actual combat, it mostly came down to whether or not the magician had expected and planned for a combat encounter. If they had, then they brought along duped (magically or otherwise) warriors to protect them, trinkets or charms to protect them or hinder the warriors and most likely some kind of get-out clause spell such as shapeshifting into a bird.

If caught by surprise, they're probably a bit screwed. Some still have get-out clauses on stand by, shapeshifting, sudden localized clouds of fog or the like.
Powerful ones might have some kind of 'combat' power, but it's likely to be small, localized and not very flashy, even if it might be very powerful.

One player took on a very powerful spell caster, but he'd gone off and done alot of preparation (the player), acquiring favours and charms from other spellcasters opposed to his target.
When he finally fought him, it was like a game of rock paper scissors as he and the spellcaster pulled out tricks and tried to outdo one another, then the spellcaster got stabbed.

I would go with, if the Magician has gotten him/herself in the position where it is a direct confruntation with Knights, they are at the knights mercy.

The Magicians best weapon is distance. Curse the Knights from afar, blight their lands amd wives, ruin horses.
Enchant beats and weak will thugs to do their bidding. Send Spirits to torment the knights in thier sleep, spook horses and generally cause what could be seen as bad luck.

A knight Tormented by a spirit could have to make Passion rolls or have nightmares of love ones dying etc etc and become Melancholic.
Another Spirit could whisper in the ear of the knight giving a directed trait to lust and then the Wizards nublie followers could "disarm" the knights when they let their guard down if they are lustful.
Packs of wolves can be danagerous to Knight and horse if driven by a magical will.
The Magicans thugs may havepoor equipment but the woulds from them seem to fester badly.

The Knights may have Mundane enemies te Mage allies with to give them an unfair advantage.
Blessed swords and shields

The Knights friends and allies may be lead astray be a mysterious new advisor.

But
There is no "Mage Armour" or "Magic missile" no matter how powerful a Wiard, its Cloth and a Dagger.


IIRC Magic in 4th Edition took 1d3 hours of ritual, not counting any sleep owed.
Also remeber not all Wizards have to be Clearly Druids or Enchantresses.
The Humble Priest could have more to him than he seems.
Most of the grimoire seeem to be written by minor clerical persons

The most likely magician I've had to worry about the PCs attempting to stab has been Merlin. He's the most "accessible" magician around, the PCs don't particularly like him, and magic is my campaign is even more subtle than in the GPC.

Generally, he has lots of political support to discourage direct assaults. He also has the foresight to generally avoid placing himself in harms way / arms reach of someone who wants to kill him, and if he escapes he has enough skill and friends to keep him well hidden from a vengeful PC. Finally, he can generally manipulate personality traits and passions sufficiently to find someone to intervene, or to slow the PC long enough to get away (he'd always go defensive, and generally be inspired).

That said, if someone actually managed to lay a hand on Merlin out of the blue, he'd probably just get stabbed.

I figure lesser wizards are probably in the same general boat, but less effective at it. Sometimes, a wizard just runs out of excuses not to get stabbed.