Author Topic: E6 PrC / Recharge Magic / Tippyverse / Metropolis  (Read 3489 times)

Offline Nunkuruji

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E6 PrC / Recharge Magic / Tippyverse / Metropolis
« on: September 10, 2013, 03:28:42 PM »
I've been slowly working on E6 PrC and a primary path adventure for my PCs, but I've yet to resolve the complete state of Kingdoms and Metropolis cities. I'm primarily trying to consider what happens when you attempt to Tippyverse under these constraints.

Primary Variables
E6 PrC: Prestige Classes can be entered extremely early, or even essentially act as base classes
Recharge Magic and Recharge Psionics: Assume Specific Recharge triggers on casters and magic items.
Class spell lists limited to 3rd level spells
Metropolis Population: 200,000
1% Population 6th Level PC Classes: 2,000
99% Population 1st- level NPC Classes/Commoners
6th level npc wealth: 5600
1st level npc wealth: 900
1000 of the 6th level population are members of or sworn to nobility
1000 of the 6th level population are freelance: adventurers, clergy, thieves guild, assassins, artificers, sellswords, mage guilds, etc.


Consequences

Create Food & Water/Traps can not sustain the population, as the 24 hour recharge prevents individuals from providing limitless food, and the recharge and cost prevents traps from being economically viable. ~7500gp? (Prestidigitation could also make it not taste like crap, for the discerning)

Goodberry could provide (2d4 every 6 hours) ~20 meals/day at Trap price 500gp. Technically affordable with 900gp wealth, as 6 people could pool together to buy one. It would take a few years for a single crafter to make one for each group of citizens. Still requires berry farming to convert one into a full meal. However, this drastically cuts down on the need for large scale farming. (omg smurfs)

Create Water/Traps can provide enough clean drinking water for the population.

That said, Starvation is always nonlethal damage? Shenanigans.

Rulers would employ/train a small team of Trapsmiths for infrastructure: Wall of Stone and Fabricate. Recharge timer prevents overnight cities, but it is enough to maintain and construct over time, without an immense need for rock quarries. They would also likely have the Craft Portal feat. Druids for Soften Earth & Stone deconstruction, Stone Shape and Wood Shape.

However, iron and other precious minerals must still be manually mined. I don't believe there's a way to generate such materials with intrinsic values. Trapsmiths can use fabricate to work them quickly, but only at a few fabricate uses per day.

Rulers might invest in funding Traps for WoS and Fab, but traps of that level aren't economically viable to create massive numbers of.

Portals can be constructed at great cost. Gatekeepers might be employed. Thus, it is possible for multiple metropolises to be linked, but likely only with mutual agreement.

Teleportation Circles are out of reach. Teleportation is possible with DR330 Cerebrosis/Dimension Rift, however it is very dangerous and impractical for dropping a large army on someone.

Plane Shift is possible with Planar Shepherd 4th SLA, Astral Caravan, and possibly another class or two.

An elite protectorate for a ruler would likely include some of these candidates
Emissary of Barachiel or Goodfellow of Branchalla PrC: scrying, clairvoyance, lesser geas and a number of other court-useful spells
Spellguard of Silverymoon: Share personal-only abjurations
War Weaver: move action tapestry of spells
Anyone with Oracle Domain: Divination. Commune may also be available as a PrC SLA.

An elite anti-mage guard would likely exist of Halruaan Mage Hounds, Witch Slayers and Witchborn Binders for killing and capturing rogue mages. The Binders Mage Shackles are about the closest thing to an affordable AMF that is available.

City guard would probably be Warblades/Crusaders, with perhaps a few rooftop snipers.

On the flip-side, evil organizations would employ
Demonologists: sole access to Lesser Planar Binding, and the options that brings about
Mortal Hunters: Scrying
Necrotheurge of Chemosh: Su Free animating & superior undead minion control
Thayan Slavers: Dominate

Labor

Cheap mass labor is possible with animate dead and similar. A vanilla 6th level Necrotheurge could control 35 1HD human skeletons with animate dead, and another 6 with Rebuke/Command. Even more following handbook guidelines. Thus, an evil organization can accomplish larger mass labor tasks without necessarily having a large society of mortal followers or slaves.

A good/lawful leaning society is unlikely to commit to such a strategy, due to the general danger to the population should the undead become uncontrolled. Certainly there are a few classes that can spawn a few creatures to labor, but I doubt at anywhere near the 40+ minion : 1 NPC ratio that would relieve the labor required by commoners.

A caster with CL7 such as a Red Wizard can take Improved Familiar. This grants the ability to acquire a Mirror Mephit as a familiar to get access to free Simulacrum. However, to actually find one, it will require a Lesser Planar Binding (Demonologist), or traveling to the Plane of Mirrors which carries the heavy threat of being killed by ones mirror doppelganger. Of course, trusting said Mephit with control of a horde of simulacrum is also a bit insane. Once again, this is primarily a team evil option.
(Assume Supernatural Ability & Alter Self into a Mirror Mephit, can then summon a Mirror Mephit, any way to permanently steal the SLA from the summoned?)



Wondrous Item crafting and selling would primarily be commissions or dead-recovered/resold. Not a lot of reason or wealth or safety keeping large stockpiles of magical items on hand.

Important healing services would be covered by the Healer class, Brew Potion/Restoration being their class monopoly cash crop. They probably simply have Traps available for nominal fee for the usual Lesser Restoration, Neutralize Poison, etc. Attempting to infect a city with a disease pandemic is unlikely, unless it forces a high CL check. Prostitutes are also clean.

Interplanar Message,  Speaking Stones and Aspect Mirrors remain an alternative to Sending for long distance communication.

Dungeon Lord gets Animate Objects SLA. Not available to most humanoids. Might open up a few construct possibilities. Effigies are always possible too, but I think both cases are too costly to provide mass labor.

« Last Edit: September 17, 2013, 11:42:54 AM by Nunkuruji »

Offline phaedrusxy

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Re: E6 PrC / Recharge Magic / Tippyverse / Metropolis
« Reply #1 on: September 10, 2013, 03:48:06 PM »
Plane Shift = 3rd level psionic power. No shenanigans needed. You only need a 5th level nomad (which might be extremely rare/non-existent, depending on the world). It's hardly risk-free, however, as traveling in this way is an adventure in itself. Craft a few dorjes of Astral Traveler, and you can take fairly large groups on these "excursions" (but an actual army would probably be cost prohibitive).

Binders can craft about anything an equal-level caster could via binding Astaroth (and without having to sink any permanent resources, like feats, into it).
« Last Edit: September 10, 2013, 04:30:35 PM by phaedrusxy »
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Offline Gazzien

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Re: E6 PrC / Recharge Magic / Tippyverse / Metropolis
« Reply #2 on: September 10, 2013, 04:18:05 PM »
Can I ask why you're using traps if the recharge is a problem, instead of pooling together for a single use-activated Wondrous Item [command word], which normally wouldn't have a daily limit?

(I'm unsure as to this whole recharge thing, and how it works)

Offline Nunkuruji

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Re: E6 PrC / Recharge Magic / Tippyverse / Metropolis
« Reply #3 on: September 10, 2013, 05:24:48 PM »
Yeah good catch on Astral Caravan, just slipped my mind as I was writing.

---

Astaroth is a 4th level vestige and would not be available. The floating crafting feat isn't particularly important when we're talking about NPC organizations, someone will cover it. Chameleon could do the floating feat thing. Access/capability is a more important consideration, as per Trapsmith.

---

Recharge Magic imposes a recharge of a few rounds, or a set Specific amount of time against a casters ability to cast the same spell again.
Charged Wands/Scrolls are noted to be the means to bypass this limit.
Use-activated or continuous items are not explicitly noted in the variant.

Let's assume it can be use activated every round.

3rd x CL5 x 2000gp x 1/2 24-hour x 2 no-slot
30000gp
Each use feeds 15 people for the day

3rd x CL6 x 2000gp x 1/2 24-hour x 2 no-slot
36000gp
Each use feeds 18 people for the day
259200 fed, activating it every round all day

Ok, so the city-kingdom can afford to provide a few of these devices to at least handle queueing, and everyone presumably lines up at the soup kitchens.


However, even what I'm assuming in the Trap example, is that the Specific Recharge wait is triggered by not just a caster, but also any magic item/device. If you don't come to that conclusion, then the intended limits of Recharge Magic are circumvented, and things break horribly in other undesirable ways.

It's good to point out, I need to wrap up some considerations of how to handle X/day and Use-activated or continuous items.
« Last Edit: September 10, 2013, 05:37:11 PM by Nunkuruji »

Offline phaedrusxy

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Re: E6 PrC / Recharge Magic / Tippyverse / Metropolis
« Reply #4 on: September 11, 2013, 09:52:24 AM »
Astaroth is a 4th level vestige and would not be available. The floating crafting feat isn't particularly important when we're talking about NPC organizations, someone will cover it. Chameleon could do the floating feat thing. Access/capability is a more important consideration, as per Trapsmith.
A 5th level binder can bind 4th level vestiges if he/she has the Improved Binding feat. I know it isn't really that important for NPC organizations. Just pointing it out for completeness/consideration.
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Offline Nunkuruji

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Re: E6 PrC / Recharge Magic / Tippyverse / Metropolis
« Reply #5 on: September 11, 2013, 07:51:29 PM »
Astaroth is a 4th level vestige and would not be available. The floating crafting feat isn't particularly important when we're talking about NPC organizations, someone will cover it. Chameleon could do the floating feat thing. Access/capability is a more important consideration, as per Trapsmith.
A 5th level binder can bind 4th level vestiges if he/she has the Improved Binding feat. I know it isn't really that important for NPC organizations. Just pointing it out for completeness/consideration.

It falls under the lists capped at 3rd, not so much the lack of the feat.