Our Town is Under Attack!

[Allisade]

For those who don't like to read:

How can a high level group permanently protect a town from attack from bad guy high level casters? Our Dm is trying to kill our town.


For those who like to know more:
Our group has been playing for a couple of years and recently created a town in game. We've been spending a lot of time (in game and out) trying to make it nice and many of the group are using it as a great excuse for character growth as their characters become emotionally invested in something for the first times in their lives beyond their equipment or next spell they want to learn.(*how so included below for those who really like to read...*)

We still go adventuring and we're away from the town a lot (we haven't turned into bureaucracy and dragons), but we've invested game time setting up trade routes and negotiating with the local council of cities and such - so it's an important part of our game line at this point.

I guess predictably (it was a surprise to us) - The DM had a wizard who escaped us a few levels back during an adventure seek revenge on us by attacking our town while we were out doing adventure-y things - delayed blast maximized fireballs for an opening salvo, flying with superior (greater?) invisibility over the town to watch the carnage, opening a gate to some nether realm in the middle of town to let demons run free through it ... we had set up a message item so we could be called if we were needed, and we teleported in almost immediately to help (we were luckily not in the middle of something at the time) which at least stopped the demons, and we even killed the wizard... but over half the town was dead from the initial surprise fireballs.

We don't expect any more attacks immediately... but I would like to protect the town from future attacks as best as I can. We have large amounts of gold, the ability to craft most types of items, and the party level is about 16 (but going up somewhat rapidly ... due to demonic invasion and such)

I would really love to hear ideas about how to make a whole town immune to attack - ideally permanently - but even for just a short while (so that they could call us and we'd have time to teleport in ...without anyone dying along the way.)

Thoughts?



* If you want to know about the group and how the town's affecting them just for kicks: 
The group rogue has become the town sheriff (figuring she knew the most about crime...) and raised a small militia / cop force to protect the place, she's suddenly getting to show serious leadership qualities, caring about "her people" - and dealing with crime from the other side of the fence.
The Paladin has started a brewery and is spreading his god's name through new routes and merchantile approaches.
The sleep-around-druid has brought his children (from all over the country) to one location and is now caring about being a father instead of just sending money...
The Dwarf Cleric has started using his skills on things like masonry, carpentry, and architecture and engineering ... and is exploring his dwarven heritage (for the first time) by contacting other dwarves and bringing them in to work on an undercity...
The Soulknife took a leadership feat so he could start looking for other psionics and train them ... into his own personal xmen (he..makes possibly the least sense of anyone in the group... but still - this *is* progress for him =))
And the barbarian, well he still just hits things with his axe, but well, that's the character.

[Halinn]

Start with simple defenses. Walls and a moat. Wall of Stone and either commoner labor or Move Earth does that. Fill the moat with a decanter of endless water. A couple of archers on such a wall will keep simple raids out.
A few ballistae would be able to cover the airspace enough for support to arrive. Special ammunition for them can be found in Stronghold Builder's Guidebook and Heroes of Battle. A demonic invasion could be handled by making some traps of Dismissal, that you have NPCs point at the target and trigger. Other threats might be handled similarly with Antimagic Ray (SpC) traps. Anticipate Teleportation (SpC) could also be useful, but it would have to be recast every 24 hours, and since it's a sor/wiz spell, you probably do not have access to that

[phaedrusxy]

There is almost no way to protect the entire town from high level spellcasters short of moving it into a demiplane. I'd suggest:

1) Create one really strong, magically enhanced stronghold/keep that the citizens can flee into.
2) Blanket this thing with Forbiddance (and Private Sanctum) spells and the like. That will prevent anyone from teleporting in (and scrying, if you can do the Private Sanctum).
3) Fortify the heck out of the walls as you can afford, also. Maybe have one (or more) bards with Lyres of Building to keep it from being destroyed.
4) You could try to hand out a few things the townsfolk could use, like catapults loaded with Torchbug Paste and loads of crossbows, but realistically, you guys are going to be the main defense. The best you can hope for is giving the townsfolk a place to hide while you fight off the bad guys.

This is in addition to what Halinn suggests.

[SolEiji]

Besides the basic defenses like walls and such, I imagine early warning systems are the best.  I don't know how, but I imagine it's possible to make some sort of proximity light which would pop up when a creature of sufficent size passes by.  Like a spell trap with dancing lights.  You set up this "radar field" around (and maybe above) town and any people approaching are well illuminated.  Traders appreciate it for the light, bandits are discouraged by it, and approaching enemy forces can't come without setting off their presence.

Maybe alarm traps too.  Have a lookout tower which checks for pings going off, and then they go scanning the sky for danger.

[X-Codes]

As above, start with the mundane threats.

For protecting the town from spells, that's more difficult.  You could attach Invisibility Purge and Insignia of Alarm effects to a Mythal, but doing that pre-epic is totally subject to DM Fiat.

[kitep]

How about some divinations - "Will the town be attacked tomorrow?"  Get a dozen low-level hirings to cast it everyday, and let you know if something's coming.

[skydragonknight]

Before leaving town to adventure:

1. Get Lesser Metamagic Rods of Reach Spell and Chain Spell for Druid.
2. Find a living oak tree on the battlefields of Ysgard. Use a Feather Token (Tree) to make one if you have to - they're only 400 gold.
3. Have Druid cast Reach Chain Acorn of Far Travel. You now have CL+1 Acorns of far travel from a single casting (spell disallows multiple castings). If possible, get NPC Druids/Rangers to get more castings.
4. Hand out acorns to people in your militia. Should they be slain in battle, they will be True Resurrected in the morning, since they count as being on the battlefields of Ysgard. Also, nifty Fast Healing 2. They are thus protected for CL days while you go out and kill stuff.
5. ???
6. Profit

[Allisade]

Excellent suggestions - and thank you all for replying. I did not mention (and should have) that the town - being isolated near the top of a mountain and only accessible by portal and cliff side roads (which we built with defense in mind) - is already somewhat protected from mundane attacks. It is mainly just magical / special attacks I'm worried about. Still... walls and a moat won't hurt and I really like the idea of a safe retreat fortress or the like - thank you Halinn! for the suggestion. I also hadn't known of the anti magic ray - a wondrous item or two of that would certainly balance the scales for the townspeople / militia against casters.

We have a town bard who specialize in lore / is our librarian - she's getting a lyre of building for xmas, Thank you Phaedrusxy! - I hadn't known that item could negate attacks as well as build. That's an easy addition that will help in any attack.

While I can't create a mythal (I mean I'll ask the DM but... we're very pre-epic) I can put some continuous purge invis items at the (very few) entrances to the town. It won't prevent someone from just flying in but it should add some security. We have a nearby group of Gargoyles that we negotiated a truce with (we bring gems, they patrol the air for us) - if I give them see invis items to wear... that should help a lot as well. Thanks X-Codes!

I love the idea of having the local clerics (we have temples to waukeem and vergadain now...) do divination routinely to help prevent surprise attacks - simple and brilliant at the same time - I was looking into building a wondrous item with Foresight (the ninth level spell that gives "sixth sense")  as a continuous effect but it would have cost a zillion times more and given a lot less warning (and less information.) - divination is the way to go! Thank you Kitep!

And the warning lights ... that's low cost, easy to make and will help in non-battle times as well - they're going on the cliff side roads and all through out the valley... my main worry will be keeping caravans from stealing them =) Add in an eagle eye (or chain or eyes or whatever spell) view of the valley from above and you get a map that tells you where your enemies are (until they use darkness or start stealing them to cancel it .. but we can put them high up (60' illumination) to prevent easy mundane access... =))

As to the Acorns Skydragonknight... I'll run it by the DM, but I think he'll nix it - still - makes perfect sense to me and I love it =)

Thanks guys - this really helps - I haven't slept in a few days (baby boy with a fever keeping me up in real life) and this helps kick start my brain - maybe I can even come up with some nice addition myself now =)

THANKS =)

-Allisade

[Halinn]

Oh, and you might want some stuff to improve the quality of life in the village:
Lantern Archons can be summoned by SM4, and can cast continual flames. That means street lights and house lighting throughout the night, which should help to reduce crime (and allow people to work during nights, if they want to)
Auto-reset spell traps of beneficial spells is a really big one. Cure Minor Wounds, Create Food and Water, Prestidigitation (to make the food taste better), Remove Disease, Mending (or Make Whole), and stuff like that.
It is also possible to go all industrial revolution with DnD mechanics, although I won't go into details here. Infinite power is quite easy.

[phaedrusxy]

Before leaving town to adventure:

1. Get Lesser Metamagic Rods of Reach Spell and Chain Spell for Druid.
2. Find a living oak tree on the battlefields of Ysgard. Use a Feather Token (Tree) to make one if you have to - they're only 400 gold.
3. Have Druid cast Reach Chain Acorn of Far Travel. You now have CL+1 Acorns of far travel from a single casting (spell disallows multiple castings). If possible, get NPC Druids/Rangers to get more castings.
4. Hand out acorns to people in your militia. Should they be slain in battle, they will be True Resurrected in the morning, since they count as being on the battlefields of Ysgard. Also, nifty Fast Healing 2. They are thus protected for CL days while you go out and kill stuff.
5. ???
6. Profit

What a neat trick. Going to have to file this away for later...

[sirpercival]

When PCs invest in real estate, Tippyverse happens.

But... here's my 2cp.  Use Phae's ideas for mundane defenses.  Hit the entire town within the walls/moat with a permanent Forbiddance.  Then, build a subterranean chamber with controllable access to the Forbiddance'd surface.  Get a permanent Private Sanctum on the underground chamber.

Now: Only people who have an actual image of the underground chamber (read: you PCs) can teleport there.  Enemies can't scry it to get a targeting location.... and if they do, you can trap them in there.  Everyone else has to go through your mundane defenses.

[Unbeliever]

When PCs invest in real estate, Tippyverse happens.

This is kind of my feeling.  Also, if the DM is out to get you, well, he can b/c if all else fails 88 Xixecals show up ... or something.  I'd probably talk to the DM about what you both consider (a) reasonable and (b) interesting.  It sounds like you guys want to play out some town defense type of adventures, maybe with some leader aspects thrown in.  If the town is impregnable, then you can't do that.  Likewise, if the town gets Locate City bombed, you can't either. 

[X-Codes]

Before leaving town to adventure:

1. Get Lesser Metamagic Rods of Reach Spell and Chain Spell for Druid.
2. Find a living oak tree on the battlefields of Ysgard. Use a Feather Token (Tree) to make one if you have to - they're only 400 gold.
3. Have Druid cast Reach Chain Acorn of Far Travel. You now have CL+1 Acorns of far travel from a single casting (spell disallows multiple castings). If possible, get NPC Druids/Rangers to get more castings.
4. Hand out acorns to people in your militia. Should they be slain in battle, they will be True Resurrected in the morning, since they count as being on the battlefields of Ysgard. Also, nifty Fast Healing 2. They are thus protected for CL days while you go out and kill stuff.
5. ???
6. Profit

What a neat trick. Going to have to file this away for later...

It's neat up to the point where, IIRC, you can only apply 1 metamagic via rod for a given spell.  As such, you'll need either a normal Chain rod, or a lesser Chain rod and a level of Hierophant to put some distance on your acorn.

[Allisade]

The dm is pretty reasonable - and honestly I don't think he plans to attack the town again (maybe some orcs coming from the mountains - which I didn't think of before but lends good value to the more mundane defense ideas) but I doubt we'll have a wizard fly in for bombing runs anytime soon (though the party *is* talking about attacking Thay and the red wizards... soooo... we may be doomed on a lot of levels =))

This is all really more of a roleplay reaction - we've been attacked, my character (who cares very deeply for this town) would want to protect it - I (the player) would like to do so in an intelligent and at least somewhat useful fashion (despite my current lack of sleep and personal brilliance...) - and I am willing to invest time and money (in and out of game) to do it... though all the work and defense will probably mostly happen in web-documents and offline stuff rather than in actual sessions. It may never matter (depending on how the story goes) - but I'll feel better for having a well designed town that's safe anyway.

The rest of the group ... might... maybe.... read the docs I'll write about this... maybe...

=)

I've never read about Spell Traps - I've been setting up wondrous items with continuous effects or the like to do what you were talking about Halinn (and I've been working on the quality of life a lot - my "PrestoStones" to use prestidigitation to clean their area, freshen the air (flavor it - just like you were saying with food) and provide heat or cooling are my company's newest item being sold to faerun - I'm hoping the cheaper versions will save some lives this winter keeping homes warm, and the expensive ones can let the nobles molest their maids more since dusting won't be taking up all their time...

I'm assuming spell traps would be the process one uses to make a magical trap (like on a chest or something) just transferred over to a non standard setting and with positive spells ... I like the idea and I bet it's way cheaper than what I've been doing. Where would I read up on that - dmg?

Thanks again - I'm really appreciating all the input! =)

[Noliar]

You already have temples, that's good. Sponsoring a mages' college will also add to the town's ability to defend itself. Set aside land for a nature preserve and Druid's grove and get a mutual defense agreement with an NPC druid - druids are the kings of strategic scale magic.

If you are making items for the defenders of the town, See Invisibility is low level and has no range limit unlike True Seeing.

[Allisade]

When PCs invest in real estate, Tippyverse happens.

This is kind of my feeling.  Also, if the DM is out to get you, well, he can b/c if all else fails 88 Xixecals show up ... or something.  I'd probably talk to the DM about what you both consider (a) reasonable and (b) interesting.  It sounds like you guys want to play out some town defense type of adventures, maybe with some leader aspects thrown in.  If the town is impregnable, then you can't do that.  Likewise, if the town gets Locate City bombed, you can't either.

Of course, if the DM says "rocks fall" - then that's that. But we have a good DM, he enjoys this as much as we do and doesn't get ego-invested in "winning" against us - he just enjoys the game as much as we do. A while back I learned (largely after the fact) that he had a whole story planned around a 3000 year old half elven half demon wizard princess who was bringing over demons to return her to her lost rule - with a whole over land battle and country affecting set up... which we all screwed up majorly by some creative scrying / investigating / teleporting and a surprise disintegrate that rolled just about max damage... poof - princess turned to dust and he never said a word about the rest of the "plan" till weeks later when I was talking to him about something else and I mentioned we'd never even learned that one woman's name...

He's a good guy - and rolls with the punches really well. Some of the group actually have complained that they're not getting railroaded *enough* since he won't force us to stay on one story line if we decide (for instance) to see what it'd be like to have a war with a thousand goblins and orcs, or decide to experiment with assassination... (someone mentioned that Entrerii - Drizzt's evil nemesis - was alive and working as an assassin in that town we just left... cue the Rogue "ooooh I bet he has nice items...")

=)

[Allisade]

You already have temples, that's good. Sponsoring a mages' college will also add to the town's ability to defend itself. Set aside land for a nature preserve and Druid's grove and get a mutual defense agreement with an NPC druid - druids are the kings of strategic scale magic.

If you are making items for the defenders of the town, See Invisibility is low level and has no range limit unlike True Seeing.

I didn't know that about the range limit Noliar, Thanks - it's good to know. Our pc druid has created his own grove but I don't know much about his abilities, I may try to corned him and see what he comes up with for defenses (he's crafty... it'll be interesting to hear his thoughts, and possibly a little scary =))

I've been wanting to set up a mage's college for a while... but our arcane caster's band is taking off and so she's been occupied for the last few months of sessions (check out "Since Antartica" if you're ever in the northern virignia area...) ... so I was waiting for her - but maybe I'll talk with the DM to move it ahead a bit =))

Thanks!

[Mooncrow]

You already have temples, that's good. Sponsoring a mages' college will also add to the town's ability to defend itself. Set aside land for a nature preserve and Druid's grove and get a mutual defense agreement with an NPC druid - druids are the kings of strategic scale magic.

If you are making items for the defenders of the town, See Invisibility is low level and has no range limit unlike True Seeing.

I didn't know that about the range limit Noliar, Thanks - it's good to know. Our pc druid has created his own grove but I don't know much about his abilities, I may try to corned him and see what he comes up with for defenses (he's crafty... it'll be interesting to hear his thoughts, and possibly a little scary =))

I've been wanting to set up a mage's college for a while... but our arcane caster's band is taking off and so she's been occupied for the last few months of sessions (check out "Since Antartica" if you're ever in the northern virignia area...) ... so I was waiting for her - but maybe I'll talk with the DM to move it ahead a bit =))

Thanks!

(A very off topic comment, but thanks for the tip - Shannon's voice reminds me very much of Johnette Napolitano of Concrete Blond - good stuff)

[Allisade]

(A very off topic comment, but thanks for the tip - Shannon's voice reminds me very much of Johnette Napolitano of Concrete Blond - good stuff)

And she roleplays an amazing sorceress, throws a great party - and can stick a d4 to her forehead to become a magical unicorn =) She's good people =)

[Halinn]

I'm assuming spell traps would be the process one uses to make a magical trap (like on a chest or something) just transferred over to a non standard setting and with positive spells ... I like the idea and I bet it's way cheaper than what I've been doing. Where would I read up on that - dmg?

There are more explicit rules for positive magical traps in Dungeonscape, but it is pretty much just a trap that casts a positive spell (costs as per DMG). In Dungeonscape the boon traps work by only casting their spells on targets with a specific arcane mark (at a fairly minor extra cost for them also doing Read Magic)