I was milling through the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook when I came
across this interestiong tidbit about the Lyre of Building:
Stronghold Builder's Guidebook, 45 wrote:
... Strumming the lyre makes your stronghold (or at least all of it with 300 feet) immune to damage from any source-including attacks, spells, magic items, or anything else that might damage or destroy it-for 30 minutes.
Interesting, but it doesn't protect you specifically. However, the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook (SBG) also includes pricing for giving a stronghold movement. The max movement speed that can be given to a Stronghold is 10 miles-per-hour, which converts to 88 ft/round.
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(10 mi/hr*5280 ft/mi)/3600 sec/hr= 14.67 ft/sec
14.67 ft/sec*6 sec/round= 88 ft/round
Now we have a mobile, temporarily indestructible box with a frail, fleshy creature inside. This box blocks line-of-sight/line-of-effect and makes it rather difficult to attack you. However, you can't physically harm anyone through the walls without opening yourself to attack, right?
Wrong!
Enter the Spell Turret (DMG 2). The Spell Turret can be programmed to recognize (and thus ignore) targets by: creature type, creature race, or by specific individual. In addition, the recognition protocols can be reconfigured in 8hrs by someone with Craft Wonderous Item (you). It can be mounted on the outside of your box and is technically a form of trap. This gives our mobile box the ability to hurt people outside without exposing yourself to attack. The trap, unfortunantly, can be attacked and has 200 hp and hardness equal to that of the material that it is mounted in. Assuming that the wall was made of Obdurium and had an augment object spell cast on it (SBG 41), the hardness should be 60 (30*2). Now, some Spell Turret spell suggestions
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Level 1 Spell Turret, exterior (cost 1000gp)
Magic Missile (Evocation)
Power Word, Pain (Enchantment)
Ray of Enfeeblement (Necromancy)
Lesser Orb of Acid (Conjuration)
And some higher level suggestions (thanks to questbreaker for the list)
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lv2-
ice knife (conj)
ray of stupidity (ench)
rainbow beam (evoc)
ironthunder horn? (tran)
lv3-
ice lance (conj)
ray of dizziness (ench)
sound lance (evoc)
spell vulnerability (trans)
lv4-
orb of ____ (conj)
thunderlance (evoc)
enervation (necr)
rainbow pattern (illu)
lv5-
vitrolic sphere (conj)
cyclonic blast (evoc)
miasma of entropy (necr)
earth reaver (tran)
lv6-
acid storm (conj)
chain lightning (evoc)
ray of entropy (necr)
extract water elemental (trans)
lv7-
antimagic ray (abju)
stun ray (conj)
radiant assault (evoc)
glass strike (tran)
lv8-
field of icy razors (evoc)
incendiary cloud (conj)
power word stun (ench)
polymorph any object (tran)
Also, the creation of construct shock troopers will be useful, and is being integrated into the build. The Helmed/Battle Horror has an intellignece score so it can handle more complex combat situations.
Now, the cost for the box. Note that this is before any discounts due to do-it-yourself spellcasting or similar or increases due to further wall augmentation. Also, it seems that your ss has to be a component, so I chose the basic magic lab (flavor).
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Basics:
Exterior Walls: Obdurium= 60,000gp*1ss (stronghold space)*80%=48,000gp
Interior Walls: Wood= No extra cost
Lead-lining: 1000gp
Component: Basic magic lab= 500gp
Locomotion: Incredible= 25,000gp
Mobility Forms:
Flying= 15,000gp
Burrowing= 10,000gp
Submersing= 7,500gp
Crawling= 1,000
Airtight= 7,500gp
Total: 115,500gp
Now obviously you're going to do some redecorating inside your box, since you really don't care what's in it. Getting rid of the doors and windows might be a good idea once you have access to teleportation effects. Currently working on anti-teleport tactics. If you take the Landlord feat (SBG 10), you can aquire this with the funds from that feat at level 13.
A more deluxe version:
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Basics:
Exterior Walls: Obdurium= 60,000gp*1ss (stronghold space)*80%=48,000gp
Interior Walls: Obdurium= 12,000gp
Lead-lining: 1000gp
Component: basic office+Guard Post= 500gp
Locomotion: Incredible= 25,000gp
Mobility Forms:
Flying= 15,000gp
Burrowing= 10,000gp
Submersing= 7,500gp
Crawling= 1,000
Plane-shifting= 25,000gp
Wall Augmentations:
Airtight= 7,500gp
Ethereal Solid= 12,000gp
Magically Treated= 12,000gp
Wonderous Architecture:
Greater Platform of Jaunting= 76,500gp
Hole of Hiding= 3,000gp
Secure Chamber= 60,000gp
Tornado's Eye= 90,000gp
Chamber of Comfort= 7,500gp
Total: 413,500gp
Further useful magic items include
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Eternal Wand of Explosive Runes 10,900gp
1/day Item of Magnificent Mansion (CL 13) 32,760gp
At-will Lyre of Building 65,000gp
Total: 108,660gp market value
The Deluxe version features a two-component design. One component functions as the cabin (cockpit) and the other serves to function as a lauching bay for Battle Horror constructs via the Greater Platform of Jaunting (reenter via dimension door SLA). The interior of the bay will feature a beautiful, runic wallpaper of explosive runes along with a dispel magic trap to detonate them when the bay is breached by enemies. To prevent any Battle Horrors from being destroyed, set their Spell Immunity ability to cover explosive runes. In addition, further Spell Turrets provide a further deterrent against intrusion. A few Spell Turrets in the bay should be dedicated to construct-buffing spells (Repair Damage, etc). The Hole of Hiding and the Secure Chamber wonderous architecture should be installed in in the cabin rather than the bay.
The Stronghold should have a Hallow/Unhallow with Dimensional Anchor as a defense against Teleportation effects (only creatures that worship you may enter). The Hole of Hiding and the Secure Chamber wonderous architecture should be installed in in the cabin rather than the bay. Against line of effect spell , such as Mage's Disjunction, the box can be protected by a cohort arcane caster readying an action to cast Teleport Object to deposit a tarp or inch-thick drywall box around the offending caster (blocking LoE, Anti-MDJ tactics discussed further on pages 3-5 of this thread). Against the annoying Sphere of Annihilation, have a bat effigy with a Rod of Cancellation glued to its back with Sovereign Glue (discussed on page 6).
The Tornado's Eye allows for the destruction of buildings (something that Spell Turrets can't do).
Now on to possible discounts
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Free labor: 30% off
Location: -12% off (Lawless area in vunerable terrian)
Self-Item Creation:62.5% ((100-25)/2)off on Mobility forms and Wall augmentations
The current recommendation is to be a Psion with Leadership and Landlord feats so that the main character can use the old Mindswitch+Polymorph any Object trick to make yourself your stronghold. An artificer cohort is reccomended for Magic Item Creation.
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Name: Lazy Gear
Race: Warforged
Build: Artificer 20
Feats:
1. (Scribe Scroll), Extend Spell
2. (Brew Potion)
3. (Craft Wonderous Item), Persistant Spell
4.(Extraordinary Artisan)
5. (Craft Magic Arms and Armor)
6. free
7. (Craft Wand)
8.( Carft Construct)
9. (Craft Rod), Landlord
12. (Craft Staff), (Legendary Artisan), free
14. (Forge Ring)
15.free
16.(Extra Rings)
Racial Sub levels:
1. Warforged Artificer
4. Warforged Artificer
The Hardening Infusion/spell will help protect you Spell Turrets (cheesing UMD and a Staff of Hardening for CL increases is ideal, but not essential). Also, the artificer can create constructs to supplement the Spell Turret defenses. NEVER use golems for this purpose due to the difficulties presented by their Immunity to Magic (its more of a curse than a blessing, especially when you want to buff them with a fly spell or similar).
Construct-wise:The Helmed/Battle Horror (LEoF) is a good choice. Inteligence, Immunity to three spells of your choice upon creation, air walk, and SLA's for the Battle Horror (MM at will, blink, and DD).
Comments/suggestions for improvement welcome.
1. 5x5 Carpet of Flying 20,000gold (DMG)
2. put an Enveloping Pit on top of it (Magic Item Compendium, 3,500gold)
3. flying 50 foot hole! (Priceless)
the hole is extra dimensional so the carpet's 200lb weight limit is bypassed
So I'm trying to compare and contrast the many many many many options for making a flying ship in D&D. Could you all read this little quick guide I wrote up, and add any comments as to the pros and cons of each method? Also, have I missed anything?
Getting it Aloft Options:
Option 1:
That Flying Ship in the Forgotten Realms book "Shining South"
Pros: Traditional to FR. Looks like a ship -- A Wondrous Item
Cons: Needs a Huge Crew. Wooden, and normal wood even. Expensive. Slow. Looks like a ship... uses Wind Power to move. Utterly vulnerable to natural antimagic area.
Option 2:
Eberron Style Flying Ships -- a Wondrous Item, uses alchemically treated "Soarwood", and a bound elemental in a ring
Pros: Fast. Traditional to Eberron. Relatively Inexpensive. Lighter than Air -- will float, even in an antimagic area.
Cons: That type of elemental binding likely isn't ethical. Soarwood isn't too terribly durable. Locomotion doesn't work in a natural antimagic area, just the floating. Probably needs a crew too (will have to check)
Option 3: Enchanting a Stronghold Space using the Stronghold Builder's Guide rules
Pros: Can be made of lots of interesting materials--not necessarily wood! Gives movement for interplanar options. Can be quite fast. Gives swimming/earthgliding/etc options
Cons: If you use these rules for the main way of doing locomotion, then the price starts adding up real quick. Very vulnerable to a natural antimagic area.
Option 4: Making the ship an Effigy
Pros: Self Locomotion! Can follow orders! Can look like an animal or wyvern with added hit dice (and thus size) or whatever! Can fly on it's own power! It can fly and move about in antimagic area!
Cons: Has a low number of hit points, so it can be 'killed' with direct hit point damage. Arguably not a con -- most of the rules for vehicles have them with low hit points anyway for some reason. It's not necessarily a smart ship at this point. Will need to flap it's wings to stay aloft. Might need some house rules to get the right form of an effigy. Will need silly template stacking to not be too vulnerable. Might be targeted by intimidated people.
Option 5: Using the actual spell in Shining South that is the basis of their ships, maybe in a Spell Clock or something
Pros: Really, Really cheap. I mean, a schema or wand or whatever of this would be REDICULOUSLY cheap. Can get very large amounts of weight aloft. Did I mention cheap?
Cons: Suppressed in an area of natural antimagic. It requires spells to be actively cast, either by a person activating a wondrous item, or casting the spell from their list, or a Spell Clock automatically casting it, which removes lots of the 'really cheap' benefit.
Locomotion Options not part of the above:
Option 1: Get some tireless flying creature to pull it
Pro: You get a few flying effigies to pull your swank flying boat! Awesome! They can keep it moving in an antimagic field, cool!
Con: They can be targeted, and are vulnerable. Also the cables or ropes connecting them to the ship can be targeted. Also, having separate creatures from the ship providing movement to it gives miscellaneous problems of their own.
Option 2: Decanter of Endless Water + Riverine Nozzle + Maybe something to heat it to steam or something
Pro: THRUST. LOTS AND LOTS of thrust. Like, if you do things right, maybe Space Shuttle level of thrust (really!)
Con: You are spewing lots of water (or steam, if you added some bits to it to heat it) behind you. This might upset people / the weather / the Druid / certain creatures. Suppressed in Antimagic area. Also, someone generally has to interact with this item to get it to do stuff. Also, problems with aiming the thrust.
Getting it Intelligence
Option 1: Haunt Shift
Pro: An easy way to get it intelligence.
Con: Evil, uses negative energy. Makes it, you know, haunted. Might not always let the inhabiting spirit have full control over everything. Requires some intelligent undead to start with. To bypass these issues (ie, get a Deathless / positive energy version), will need LOTS of DM Fiat / Custom spell research / questing. Probably supressed in antimagic.
Option 2: Embedding a Sentient Magic Item in the structure/workings somewhere
Pro: Fairly easy to accomplish. Gives it Sentience.
Con: Will probably only work well with the Effigy version, and only if there's some way to link the commands of the magic item to what the Effigy does. Might not give it control over all the ancillary aspects of the ship, unless it has access to lots of unseen servants / mage hand / etc. sorts of things. Probably supressed in Antimagic.
For a solo campaign
So my psion is a level 20 egoist (still not completely sure on the build)
She was a human, who then got transformed into an Elan, and she wants a place to live and find her peace without being disturbed when she is not on adventure. She likes her solitude and wants her stronghold well protected from intruders.
I am able to take the Landlord feat and build stronghold and then later reform all 20 levels again. However Leadership, and Thrallherd are not allowed.
Around level 9 she hired a psion shaper to manifest Genesis for her which costed her 6530 gold. Then she spent many days planeshift back and forth between her demiplane and the material plane transferring trees, plants, and grass. Her demiplane is a temperate climate and it has has a lake. (She has Knowledge nature and so studied on how to dig up trees and plants without killing them) Then planeshift, psionic a hired druid to cast plant growth 8 times so that all the plants on her plane would flourish (150gold per casting for 1200 total)
She also hired a wizard to cast a permanent leomond's lasting shelter for 14000gold. She will stay in the shelter until close to 20th level when she has more gold to fund the rest of her stronghold.
When ready to continue her stronghold she will invest in a lyre of building 13000gold take enough cross class preform ranks to be able to play it. She will also pick up fabricate psionic.
Her stronghold design is pretty simply a Cube of Obdurium (the stuff worth double of adamantite) which are augmented to be lead lined, air tight, transparent, ethereal solid, magically treated, and have elemental resistance 60 (to all)
Then there are wooden walls on the inside that make up the rooms and holes in them create windows.
There are 2 rooms, one fancy library worth 2 ss, and a fancy bathroom. Since She is using fabricate and also took craft skills she gets a 20% discount on these components.
The entire stronghold is built on the material plane but is augmented to fly, planeshift, burrow, and submerge at a slow speed. Each room is augmented with a chamber of comfort (70F regardless of outside temperature) , an invisible servant, missing chamber (cannot be scryed on).
In the bathroom is a decanter of endless water for the sink and tub. And there is a bag of devouring for wastes. The library is stocked with master books on knowledge psionics. And there is a shield guardian inside to defend it.
The stronghold is being built in a lawless area and is mobile so 15% discount
leomond's lasting shelter 14000
Genesis 6530
Plant growthx8 1200
Components
Bath, fancy 952gp
library, fancyx2 2856gp
books, knowledge psionics 11900gp
Walls
Obdurium 107100gp
wood walls 1785gp
lead lined 1785gp
Wall augmentation
airtightx3 19125
transparentx3 7650
Ethereal Solidx3 30600
Magically treatedx3 30600
elemental protectionx15 95625
Locomotion x3
Flying 38250
Planeshifting 63750
slow 28050
burrowing 13500
submerging 20250
Spells
Continual flamex4 440gp
phase door 18250gp
Magic architecture
chamber of comfortx3 19125
Hole of hidingx1 2550
invisible helperx3 3825
Missing Chamberx3 19125
Golems
Shield Guardian 90000
Magic items
bag of devouring 15500
decanter of endless water 9000
lyre of building 13000
Total 682573gp
Landlord gives me 800k
so I have 117427 leftover
Ok, so the pit functions exactly like a Portable Hole, except it's 50ft deep. So unless a Portable Hole+Portable Hole triggers the extra-dimensional danger clause, it still works. If not, crap.
However, RAW says it only works with PH+BoH:
Quote
The only air in the hole is that which enters when the hole is opened. It contains enough air to supply one Medium creature or two Small creatures for 10 minutes. The cloth does not accumulate weight even if its hole is filled. Each portable hole opens on its own particular nondimensional space. If a bag of holding is placed within a portable hole, a rift to the Astral Plane is torn in that place. Both the bag and the cloth are sucked into the void and forever lost. If a portable hole is placed within a bag of holding, it opens a gate to the Astral Plane. The hole, the bag, and any creatures within a 10-foot radius are drawn there, the portable hole and bag of holding being destroyed in the process.
Here's a neat little trick with the Pit though:
Quote
An enveloping pit covers a 10-foot square
when opened fully, but the opening can
be as small as 1 foot in diameter if it is
laid upon the ground while still folded.
The pit opens fully only if it has enough
fl at space to do so; it stops opening when
an edge hits a wall or an obstruction of
similar size.
One pit is 10ft wide. That 10ft can hold 100 pits, each folded up. Each of those can hold 100 more pits. We could build a city inside magic items! And because they do everything better, Kobolds with Sleight Build can squeeze through 1ft wide openings no problem. My god, we could recreate Tucker's Kobolds inside a portable trap... The applications just keep growing! Or recreate Kurt's section of the Nine Hells, and make a demi-Kobold Afterlife.
The major problem is the air supply. Effectively, we've got enough for 50 minutes for two small creatures. There's no rules covering Photosynthesis, but there are items that provide air (relatively cheap ones for adventurers, not so cheap for everyone else). Stormwrack has a plant substance that acts as a breather mask. Savage Species and Sandstorm both have their own breather masks too. Bottles of air are expensive as balls though, and Ioun Stones are fairly pricey too. As long as the pits are open, the top layer can provide fresh air. The roof layer needs to be designed in such a way that the air is constantly being refreshed.
Good god, I wonder how far we can go with just 1/2 the WBL...
Someone grab the Stronghold Builder's Guide and let's get to work making a Kobold City.
Mostly copy-pasta'd from The Way of the Wizard OOC thread. I wanted to share it with the rest of the boards because I think it is a fun idea. It's not all that new, but is a bit of a new twist on old (ab)uses of an item. For those who don't know, the Enveloping Pit is a kobold relic from the Magic Item Compendium. It is basically a 50 foot deep Portable Hole, but only creatures whose alignment is within one step of LE can open or close it. It also has some other functions that we don't care about, because it's a 50 foot deep Portable Hole that only costs 3,600 gold.
I was thinking about how it is kind of a pain in the butt to use the Enveloping Pit as it is 50 feet deep. I love the item. There are so many uses for it, and it is so cheap, but every time you want to climb into or out of it, you need to be able to fly, etc. So I was thinking about ways to deal with that cheaply, and I thought... hmm... a rope works, but you have to throw it out with a grappling hook every time, or something... Then I thought... hmm... how about a ladder! You could just leave it in there, since the extradimensional space doesn't move or fold up when you close the pit. The opening just goes away.
I was also thinking about how our party needs a place to safely sleep while on missions (and no one can cast Rope Trick). And I thought... hmm... we could just sleep inside the Enveloping Pit. But being at the bottom of a 50 foot hole is a bad idea in more than one way... Some big freakin' animal could come along and fall into it, crushing us. Or enemies could just line up around the rim and shoot us, or pick it up and throw it into the river and reopen it so that it fills up with water, etc...
So then I thought maybe we could put some kind of "lid" on it... and then these ideas kind of came together and I realized that you could put a whole freakin' tower inside that thing! It would be 10 feet wide by 50 feet tall, so basically 5-6 "stories", with one small room on each level. It wouldn't really need to be all that well made even, except for the top, as the rest of it could just use the walls of the pit as the walls for each "room", and wouldn't need to be able to withstand bad weather, attacks, etc. So it would basically just be a scaffolding, with a fortified roof on the top with a trapdoor.
You could have our own little portable "base" to sleep in safely, with a fortified door on the "top" that you could conceal, and leave one guy on watch to guard. It shouldn't be tooooo expensive to just build a few floors into the thing, and put a ladder up one side, right?
It also has a lot of other benefits. This solves the problem of wanting to teleport around with big "pets". You could stick several freakin' large creatures in here with no problem. And it makes teleporting large groups of people much, much easier. You only need one guy who can teleport. Everyone else gets in the "base", and he picks it up and teleports to wherever they're going, and then opens it and they all climb out. Whenever they get ready to leave, he comes back and picks them up. Hell, one guy could go in covertly and sneak in a whole goddamned strike force! You could easily fit 100 people into one of these things, I think, or 50 people and several trolls and ogres, etc.
So... who else is going to have their own portable base in games they play in from now on? Big Grin
