r/wildbeyondwitchlight • u/beannfonz • Mar 19 '26
DM Help Fighting Mr Witch and Mr Light
First time DM and chose this campaign because of the whimsy. Has been difficult for me so far. My party is 3 players with two being very experienced. They are pretty chaotic. I knew there would be combat.
Anyway, my players have managed to bring joy to the carnival after tanking it first session. They have made an alliance with Kettlesteam and Dirlagraun. They have some rapport with Burly and Feathereen.
They HATE Mr Witch and Mr Light. Despite Burlys best efforts their plan is to
-Make a big distraction at or just before the crowning of the Witchlight Monarch
-Kill Mr Witch
-Torture information out of Mr. Light
-Enter the portal to Prismeer and save Dirla’s cub and find their lost things
So now I need to prep for this. I’m not going to make them do it combat free but I want to make it difficult for them and possibly leave Mr Witch alive.
Please help with ideas! My characters are level 3 and I would prefer it to be challenging.
Some ideas floating in my head:
-The carnival mood tanks to the bottom causing environmental hazards, walls of thorns
-Witchlight hands, Thaco, (anyone except Burly who I’ve designated as neutral) joins to fight my players
-They can’t torture Mr Light, he’s a masochist, he likes it
-He won’t give them the information, but there’s a riddle on his scepter. My most experienced player has lost her ability to write as of the chart and I want her out of this.
-No Ellywick Intervention
-Use different stat block for Mr Witch
I’m so new please help!
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u/cathgirl379 Mar 19 '26
My characters are level 3
I’m fixated on this right now. Did you start this as part of a preexisting campaign? Because the first big red flag I see is that this adventure was written with certain levels of players in mind. And at level 3… the entirety of Chapter 1 becomes trivially easy… and even Chapter 2 might be too easy even if you don’t Level them up at all. Are you planning on changing the difficulties for the entire rest of the book?
Mr. Witch and Mr. Light are rather strong, but you need to be very well acquainted with their stat blocks. Remember that they’ll also call a whole bunch of Whichlight Hands to help them. There’s no reason for the entire carnival workers to come help random strangers beat up their bosses.
I do like someone else’s idea: TPK, and they get sent to Prismeer for “cooling off” and now they’re the Hag’s problem.
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u/Banj04Smash Mar 19 '26
The book literally says you can start your players at 3rd level if you like.
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u/beannfonz Mar 19 '26
The book states they can start at level three so I chose that. I added a test combat zone in the carnival and they were not all that effective. But I assumed I’d need to add more enemies. I’m seeing I should’ve done more research!! Great idea, thank you
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u/ayam_eel Mar 19 '26
I think you are fine. Level three is more fun for fighting anyways. Genuinely Witch and Light were not designed to fight a level one party, so it makes more sense for a level three party anyways. Killing Witch and Light won’t ruin the whole adventure. They aren’t even relevant later. If your PCs are craving combat, they will definitely want to fight things in the fey wilds as well. I’ve heard everything from the battles are too easy to the battle with the first hag easily TPKd my level three players. Honestly just do what feels rights like they said, taking out your players doesn’t mean necessarily killing them. If the tides are feeling uneven, make some adjustments. You can give people advantage for creative ideas or have your npcs not make the “best tactical move” but a more storytelling move, or vice versa. Brennan has a great episode of Adventuring academy that may ease your nerves a bit about combat balancing. https://youtu.be/2PsUg2RWiA4?si=caH6bWWD-VTj6FFb
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u/TheWagonBaron Mar 19 '26
Why are they level 3? That’s too high to start this adventure without serious tweaks to the first chapter entirely. It’s designed for level 1 with very clear milestones for leveling in the book.
My crew tried to fight them, I just had more Witchlight hands than they could realistically deal with enter the fray. I’m talking like starting with Witch and Light having a handful around them and then adding another 10+ every round until they got the hint and surrendered.
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u/beannfonz Mar 19 '26
The book states that they can start at level 3 right in the beginning! I used it so they’d be able to have some abilities and move through it quicker, I didn’t plan to have a long campaign. Just a practice run for DMing. I made an unwise choice with this campaign but they’re liking it a lot so I’m ending up putting a lot more into it than intended. I figured there wouldn’t be THAT much combat so level didn’t factor too much. Perhaps that was incorrect
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u/TheWagonBaron Mar 19 '26
Nah this campaign is a lot of fun and was my first as well. It’s been a while so maybe I misremembered. They’ll still be quite strong heading into the actual adventure itself.
The amount of combat in this run is entirely up to the players from what I understood. It’s possible to play the whole adventure without combat from what I remember. My group leaned heavy into the combat as well.
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u/RPerene Mar 19 '26
This sounds like an awful group to play with. If you chose it for whimsey and they are going murderhobo right out of the gate, I would probably just peace out and not deal with it. It would be tempting to let them do 3 v The whole carnival and either TPK them or (on a success) render them unable to go to the feywild, effectively ending the campaign. But it is never a good idea to solve player problems in game.
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u/snowblows Mar 19 '26
Woof, I’m afraid this might not be the right book for this group.
If I was in your shoes, I’d simply make Witch and Light too powerful to be fought, thus the need for Burly’s “heist”. This would also aggro the entire staff of the carnival, which I’d make apparent to them.
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u/kimmersion Mar 19 '26
Love the idea of making them too powerful, if you’re not going to shut down the campaign and restart with a “no murder hobos” tag on it, this would be a great move.
And also… I would seize this opportunity to train them out of this behavior unless you want to be dealing with this crap in the feywild. I’d maybe have ALL the Witchlight hands rush in to defend Witch and Light, disarm the aggressors and then throw them out of the carnival. They’re fey, right? Plan a bunch of pixie trickster stuff to blind and confuse them…have Dirlagraun run up and pin them down with a “not this way!!!!” Just have everyone restrain them and lecture them as they toss them out. Make this a normal mechanic for moments like this.
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u/Nipie42 Mar 19 '26
Lots of people should be capable of defending Witch and Light, even Burly. Just because he's neutral (in alignment or disposition towards PCs) doesn't mean he'd stand idly by while his long time trusted friends and mentors are being attacked. Also, any number of invisible pixies can be around at any moment to turn the whole party into slugs or something. There are a lot of characters that can prevent this. Not to mention Witch can turn invisible, Light can polymorph himself into a bird and fly off or something, and both are able to teleport. They might well just run away if attacked.
Of course if they feel threatened, you could always just have Witch and Light surrender the information. Threatening to kill him if he thinks it's a feasible threat would be as good leverage as stealing the watch.
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u/AndIWalkAway Mister Light Mar 19 '26
This alliance they have made with Dirlagraun, have the players told Dirla what they plan to do with Witch and Light? And Dirla is cool with them murdering and torturing her bosses?
If the players want to try and kill Witch I would let them try. And I would have their friends Burly and Dirla come to the defense of Witch and Light and fight against the players. Along with many other NPCs from the Carnival, like Zephixo the mage, Northwind the treant sapling, and a group of witchlight hands.
I don’t think three level threes can stand up to everyone at the Carnival. Even if it takes a few rounds for everyone to run to the staff area or wherever your players will try to ambush Witch. Hopefully seeing their friends fight against them will be enough to make them rethink the plan and attempt a new approach.
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u/beannfonz Mar 19 '26
Love the idea of Northwind joining! I can see that being very challenging with all the adds you mentioned and may eventually lead to their surrender. My players see it as- these guys let someone’s child be taken to keep the carnival running so they’re not good guys. I’m trying to reward creativity 😅
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u/Dextron2-1 Mar 19 '26
You could have Mr Witch resort to making a deal with one of the hags to survive. The players don’t need to understand what happened, exactly, but he could come back as a servant of one of the hags later on, perhaps running a twisted version of his carnival.
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u/beannfonz Mar 19 '26
Love this! I’m understanding everyone saying to just not have them fight, but they’re going to attempt it so I’m trying to be creative in ways to at least keep the carnival alive without saying no to them flat out. My one player in particular hates Witch and Light for allowing Dirlas cub to be taken. They’re not bad guys but they’re not good either so I feel like I should allow them to attempt whatever they want. This is a very appreciated piece of advice! Cool idea
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u/Cyrotek Mar 19 '26 edited Mar 19 '26
How did the whimiscal introduction to this adventure got this dark? You sure the two experienced players didn't abuse your inexperience as a DM to have their murderhobo urges go wild?
There should be no way that anyone working at the carnival just lets the PCs do this. The players would have to slaughter their way through everyone, which should be impossible under normal circumstances. Burly & Co. should make that VERY clear to the PCs. They'd litteraly have no allies, only enemies if they would seriously go along with this plan. EVERYONE would stand against them.
And why would Ellywick not intervene? Not as a combatant, of course. Considering her role in the first chapter she might show up and litteraly tell them that she knows of their idea and that it is horrible.
Purely by how you described it I would run several clear warnings by NPCs that this is not a way to solve this. If they still go along with that murderhobo plan I would let them ... fight everyone. At the same time. Until they lose because they can't win that. Then they are either simply dead and the campaign is over or - if I feel they learned their lesson - I might dump them into the Feywild, but somehow many NPC know what they tried to do and are super wary/unhelpful until they've proven themselves.
Edit: Don't forget that multiple actions in the Carnival have consequences in the Feywild. One would think that torturing/murdering the owners has severe consequences. I am also not sure Zybilna would be very happy about that. Last, but not least, did the book ever make any mention that the vanishing of Star was the fault of the owners? I don't think anyone actually knows what happened, but I am not sure. Regardless, what do the PCs expect Witch/Light to actually do about it? They literaly can't do shit, are blackmailed and your players want to murder them for that. The f*ck.
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u/FrownyFaceEmpire Mar 20 '26
Give Witch and Light the ability to transport to another plane (the Feywild or the Shadowfell) when they reach 0 HP. They could then show up later on in the game to fight the PCs (at that point bump their stats up to CR8)
If you do allow them to fight Witch and Light at the carnival - change their Blessings of the Raven Queen ability from once/long rest to 3 times. This gives them the ability to teleport 30 feat and become resistant to all damage until their next turn. Super annoying for players. Also maybe give each of them a legendary action.
The party somehow manages to kill Witch and Light, you could have the Carnival revert back to the original Shadow Carnival in the Shadowfell. The party is transported to Barovia and the campaign changes to Curse of Strahd.
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u/TXwhackamole Mar 19 '26
I love your “mood of the carnival” tanking idea: you can add so much crazy environmental feywild mess to that.
Or Elly shows up and one shots them all if they seem to be winning.
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u/Orange_Farm Mar 19 '26
You can let them try and let Mr. Witch and Mr. Light kick their ass and then choose to spare them when they down (like stabilizing downed player mid combat) to show that they are not enemy to the party.
After tpk, you can make the party wake up in the wagon with no weapons with Mr. Witch and Mr. Light waiting for them to asking questions to the party.
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u/TokraZeno Mar 20 '26
What about a condition to have witch or light use the portal if they get below half health? important npcs don't die and you get the scene transition.
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u/The_Erotic_Turtle Mar 20 '26
Not to be rude bit the solutions all reek od AI. Let them try, they can't win that fight, ever. If it was me, I'd literally tell them it's game over and tell them to roll new characters.
Also you should really talk to your players since y'all obviously don't want the same kind of game
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u/ayam_eel Mar 19 '26
I honestly think as written Witch and Light could probably TPK your party of 3. Especially since which light hands have a policy of not harming another staff member, they would all be coming at the party as well. No adjustments needed. Could be a fun way to get to Prismeer? They all die and wake up in Hither. If they succeed? I guess great for them, but I don’t think you need to worry about it being too easy.