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Lysander
2006-03-12, 11:54 PM
People have been making up apocalypse spells for the "How To Destroy a Moon" thread and I decided this is a subject worthy of it's own thread. So come up with your most clever and creative cantrips to trigger the apocalypse! I'll start us off with one:

Universal Eulogy
Universal
Level: Sor/Wiz
Components: V, S, M
Casting time: Varies
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Fortitude Negates
Spell Resistance: Yes

After beginning the spell the caster must drink a pint of blood of their own species each day of their entire lives. Each day they must drink a pint from a different person. If they ever miss a day the spell is broken and cannot be cast again. Once a year upon their birthday they may ritualistically raise a single 20ft high obelisk inscribed with their own name a thousand times. The obelisk is carved beforehand, and is made out of onyx costing 50,000gp and taking a team of skilled artisans 6 months to create. They need not be raised each year but if an obelisk is not erected on the caster's date of birth another cannot be placed until their next birthday. The obelisks may be placed anywhere. Upon the death of the caster each obelisk that still stands casts a powerful spell with a 25-mile radius. The spell instantly slays every person of the same species as the caster. Every affected person in the range of an obelisk makes a seperate spell resistance and fortitude roll to survive. If an obelisk topples and is raised again it no longer functions unless raised rituallistically again.

Amotis
2006-03-12, 11:55 PM
What's the creation DC?

Lysander
2006-03-13, 12:01 AM
For the Obelisk? I'd say 15. If you try constructing it in less than six months you'd have to drastically increase the DC. You can have multiple obelisks built at once too, the obelisk isn't part of the spell until you perform the ritual to raise it. You can have back-up obelisks constructed as well and just raise one of them and save the others for next year.

Catch
2006-03-13, 12:04 AM
Good idea, but I'm not sure how it would work. Epic spells are done through spellcraft checks, not spell levels. (No slots above 9th) The other thing I would change is


After beginning the spell the caster must drink a pint of blood of their own species each day of their entire lives.
to


After beginning the spell the caster must drink a pint of blood of their own species each day of the rest of thier lives.

Otherwise, they'd have to cast the spell at birth...

Lysander
2006-03-13, 12:10 AM
Well, it's after they begin the spell. Once they drink the first pint of blood in the process of casting this spell then they have to drink every day. But the spell can be started at any point in their lives. Just if they ever stop the spell loses its power and they cannot cast it again.

Dhavaer
2006-03-13, 12:12 AM
Amotis meant creation DC of the spell. Epic spells have a DC, not a slot.

Lysander
2006-03-13, 12:15 AM
Hmm, I don't know. It isn't an easy spell but it isn't the hardest spell in existence either. Most of the diifficulty lies in comissioning the obelisks, raising them and ensuring they stay up, and gathering a continuous supply of blood. It's mainly designed for insane wizard-kings that want their kingdom to die with them. What do you think would be an approrpiate DC?

Amotis
2006-03-13, 12:17 AM
Well you would have to find which spell seeds would fit into it, etc.

NEO|Phyte
2006-03-13, 12:22 AM
Ok, the epic spell stuff makes my brain hurt, how hard is it to create a spell that makes the entire world invisible, as well as difficult to magically detect?

Nolfar
2006-03-13, 12:38 AM
The seeds would be Slay and Foresee, and would require an exponental DC without some serous ritual aid because of the sheer number of targets involved.

Ironically, it'd be easier to cast a series of area effect Slay spells and kill EVERYTHING rather than only one race.

Lysander
2006-03-13, 12:57 AM
Hah, that's interesting. Anyway anyone else have some world busting spells?

Jothki
2006-03-13, 01:32 AM
One obvious idea is making a moon crash into the planet. A powerful gravity source between the two should do the trick.

If you stop time for an entire planet, wouldn't the light from the sun build up at the edge of the spell? As soon as the spell is released, everything on the surface would get fried.

Munchy
2006-03-13, 02:03 AM
I'm gonna try for a plane busting spell. I'll probably need a day or two though.

Lysander
2006-03-13, 03:48 PM
Here's another

Rune of Immortality
Universal
Level: Sor/Wiz
Components: V, S, M
Casting time: 1 day

The rune is made of thousands of diamonds placed onto a perfectly flat surface and spans 100 feet. The caster places the diamonds as they perform the spell. The rune once completed has the following effects: For 1 day death no longer exists on that world. Any who die are instantly resurrected without penalty. The next day the bodies of those killed before the rune's completion are resurrected as well assuming their bodies are intact. Starting the third day the spell starts transforming soil back into the creatures it rotted from as well. The fourth day it begins randomly dissasembling living creatures to revive ones that once had that material in their own bodies: (for instance if a bear died, rotted, some of the soil was absorbed by an apple tree, you ate an apple, it'd take away part of your body to revive the bear). The fifth day all organic matter on the planet enters an eternal state of constant flux as creatures are perpetually torn apart and reconstituted by the spell as it attempts to keep all living things that have ever existed alive at the same time. The surface of the world becomes a gelatinous plane strewn with shifting body parts. The spell effects the entire planet with the exception of the area the rune is on itself. It will not destroy itself and any creatures standing inside the area of the rune are not affected by its magic. The only way to end the spell is to disturb the arrangements of diamonds. If even one is moved slightly out of place all the diamonds instantly turn to ash. This instantly reverses everything the spell has done, restoring all plants and creatures that were originally alive back to normal and leaving those it revived from the dead to their original decomposed form.

Materials: Diamonds costing 100,000,000gp. A gold ring. A pinecone.

OzymandiasVolt
2006-03-13, 04:42 PM
Here's a fun idea (he said in a sarcastic manner): instead of arbitrarily throwing out numbers and effects, try actually using the epic spell rules (found here (http://www.d20srd.org/indexes/epicSpells.htm)).

Otherwise you're just throwing out ideas for Deus Ex Machina and eldritch machines.

Corestimah
2006-03-13, 09:27 PM
I agree with OzymandiasVolt. However, there are some spell effects that would take a while to figure out, like that below:

Ok, the epic spell stuff makes my brain hurt, how hard is it to create a spell that makes the entire world invisible, as well as difficult to magically detect?
I would use the Mythal seed form PGtF and make it encompass the surface of the planet (but not the core).The base DC is 25 for a 100 foot radius and, you add +4 to the DC for every 100% increase (that's for every extra 100 feet added to the radius).


I managed to find this site (http://www.hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/DanielChen.shtml), which lists several estimates of the total surface area of the earth. If you say that the surface area is 196,935,000 sq miles, and one square mile is 27878400 square feet, then that would be 5490232704000000 square feet. That's 55 quintillion square feet!

Beyond these figures, I don’t trust my ability to do the math properly, being a high school student and all ;)

The Glyphstone
2006-03-13, 09:48 PM
Well, according to my calculator, that's a base DC of 219,609,308,160,021. :o

(your number/100ft = # of DC increases...x4 = total DC increase, -4+25 to take in original DC of 100ft.)

EDIT: Let's give the primary mage a Spellcraft DC of 100...probably the best any mortal could manage. He spends 20,000XP, takes 100d6 backlash damage, that cuts the DC by 300. He's a lich, so he doesn't need to sleep - now he can extend the casting time to 100 days for a -220 DC. Finally, he just needs 11,558,384,640,001, or 11 TRILLION other lich-mages capable of contributing an Epic spell slot - tack on a few more Trillion if you downgrade the requirement to 9th level slots.

See, a piece of cake. ;D

Amotis
2006-03-13, 10:42 PM
Well, according to my calculator, that's a base DC of 219,609,308,160,021. :o

(your number/100ft = # of DC increases...x4 = total DC increase, -4+25 to take in original DC of 100ft.)

EDIT: Let's give the primary mage a Spellcraft DC of 100...probably the best any mortal could manage. He spends 20,000XP, takes 100d6 backlash damage, that cuts the DC by 300. He's a lich, so he doesn't need to sleep - now he can extend the casting time to 100 days for a -220 DC. Finally, he just needs 11,558,384,640,001, or 11 TRILLION other lich-mages capable of contributing an Epic spell slot - tack on a few more Trillion if you downgrade the requirement to 9th level slots.

See, a piece of cake. ;D

You rock Glyphstone.

Behold_the_Void
2006-03-13, 11:32 PM
I really can't resist.

Friggus IX (http://www.nuklearpower.com/daily.php?date=041125)
School: Evocation
Components: Total disregard for life and/or morals
Range: Not applicable
Targets: The Universe
Duration: Eternity
Saving Throw: Reflex save for Wish
Spell Resistance: Not a chance
Description: Halt all thermo-dynamic activity of a target, resulting in a chain reaction that robs the universe of all energy and kills everything, the caster included.

Rei_Jin
2006-03-14, 12:54 AM
I think the easiest way to destroy the world is with a Hulking Hurler.

Take a Titon. Give him levels in Fighter, then in War Hulk, then in Hulking Hurler. Continue until he can throw the moon. Get an Improved Floating Disk, and send him on it (with a Bottle of Air and a Ring of Universal Elemental Immunity) up to the moon. He grabs said moon, and hurls it at the Earth.

Bye Bye Earth.

Sadly, this would work

St._jimmy
2006-03-14, 12:26 PM
Not really a spell, but in a D20 future game a friend is making, i'm trying to convince him to let me have the MD Device from Ender's Game. To use on other planets of course...

Sir_Ophiuchus
2006-03-14, 12:34 PM
Hmm, where have I heard the phrase "Strong brokenation" before...

For anyone who doesn't know what the MD Device is, it's a planet-destroying missile. Inexpensive, no miss chance, no save.

With that, you could hold the universe to ransom. No DM with an ounce of sense would EVER allow it.

Winged One
2006-03-14, 12:53 PM
It's not just planet destroying, it can also kill a fleet of ships if they're too close together. And it's cheap enough to be a standard weapon on the fighter-ships of an Earth that is just about to start it's interstellar colonization. So yeah, it's wombating broken.

Lapak
2006-03-14, 01:55 PM
Well, according to my calculator, that's a base DC of 219,609,308,160,021. :o

(your number/100ft = # of DC increases...x4 = total DC increase, -4+25 to take in original DC of 100ft.)

EDIT: Let's give the primary mage a Spellcraft DC of 100...probably the best any mortal could manage. He spends 20,000XP, takes 100d6 backlash damage, that cuts the DC by 300. He's a lich, so he doesn't need to sleep - now he can extend the casting time to 100 days for a -220 DC. Finally, he just needs 11,558,384,640,001, or 11 TRILLION other lich-mages capable of contributing an Epic spell slot - tack on a few more Trillion if you downgrade the requirement to 9th level slots.

See, a piece of cake. ;DIf we're going to do the math, I think it would actually be less. You're not adding 100 sq. ft., you're adding 100 ft or radius. Since the area of a circle is pi * radius squared, we need to figure out X for (pi * (X*X)) = 5490232704000000.

Which is to say, the square root of 1748481752866242 (sq. ft. area of planet divided by pi.)

Which would be 41814850. Divide THAT by 100 to get our number of increases: 418148.5, meaning we need 418148 increases over our base. 1,672,592 + the original 25 = 1672617 DC!

Not quite as hard, but still pretty tough.

(All this was a gut response, and I might have made an incorrect assumption.)

The Glyphstone
2006-03-14, 04:10 PM
Hmm, where have I heard the phrase "Strong brokenation" before...

For anyone who doesn't know what the MD Device is, it's a planet-destroying missile. Inexpensive, no miss chance, no save.

With that, you could hold the universe to ransom. No DM with an ounce of sense would EVER allow it.

Funny, the books are kinda contradictory on that. Graff describes it as two beams, and when they cross, it sets up the chain reaction of ultimate doom. But at the end of the book, the fighters "launch" their MD devices...

Jarl
2006-03-14, 07:49 PM
No they don't.

The missile is developed later in the series. I never read that particular book, but apparently, yes, you can hold the universe hostage with it.

-Like the Galaxy Gun, really. Except for the whole "Ineptidude of Imperial Engineers" thing.

NEO|Phyte
2006-03-14, 07:54 PM
No they don't.

The missile is developed later in the series. I never read that particular book, but apparently, yes, you can hold the universe hostage with it.

There is also a force screen thing that does essentially the same thing, just with no planet-consuming chain reaction, just the "stuff that passes through here falls apart on the molecular level" effect

Munchy
2006-03-14, 08:12 PM
If we're going to do the math, I think it would actually be less. You're not adding 100 sq. ft., you're adding 100 ft or radius. Since the area of a circle is pi * radius squared, we need to figure out X for (pi * (X*X)) = 5490232704000000.

Which is to say, the square root of 1748481752866242 (sq. ft. area of planet divided by pi.)

Which would be 41814850. Divide THAT by 100 to get our number of increases: 418148.5, meaning we need 418148 increases over our base. 1,672,592 + the original 25 = 1672617 DC!

Not quite as hard, but still pretty tough.

(All this was a gut response, and I might have made an incorrect assumption.)



You are not taking into account that you are doing the calculations on the surface of a sphere. There are two ways I can see for adapting the rule to take this into account:

1. Determine how much of an area increase the n-th step would produce in a circle in RXR (Common X-Y plane) and then apply that area increase to the surface of the sphere. In that case you can just look at the surface of the earth and determine the number of range increments needed for a circle of n*100ft radius to match that area.

2. Treat each range increment as an extra 100ft on the surface of the earth. Ignore any area calculations. The number of range increments needed is then 1/2 the planet's circumference divided by 100 (The number needed to reach the opposite side of the planet).

Either metod is arguably valid, though I suspect that the second one will yield a higher number of range increments.

Eidt : I worked out the math. Approach 1 makes the number of 100ft range increments r/50 whereas approach 2 makes it Pi*r/100 (Where r is the radius of the earth).

Amotis
2006-03-14, 09:21 PM
Eidt : I worked out the math. Approach 1 makes the number of 100ft range increments r/50 whereas approach 2 makes it Pi*r/100 (Where r is the radius of the earth).
Radius? What the heck are you talking about?!?!
The world is flat. Duh.

Corestimah
2006-03-14, 10:34 PM
You are not taking into account that you are doing the calculations on the surface of a sphere. There are two ways I can see for adapting the rule to take this into account:

1. Determine how much of an area increase the n-th step would produce in a circle in RXR (Common X-Y plane) and then apply that area increase to the surface of the sphere. In that case you can just look at the surface of the earth and determine the number of range increments needed for a circle of n*100ft radius to match that area.

2. Treat each range increment as an extra 100ft on the surface of the earth. Ignore any area calculations. The number of range increments needed is then 1/2 the planet's circumference divided by 100 (The number needed to reach the opposite side of the planet).

Either metod is arguably valid, though I suspect that the second one will yield a higher number of range increments.

Eidt : I worked out the math. Approach 1 makes the number of 100ft range increments r/50 whereas approach 2 makes it Pi*r/100 (Where r is the radius of the earth).


So... What then would the DC be? (Not considering any spell effects you would use, like Superior Invisibility from Complete Arcane.)

BTW, I've had a couple of houserule ideas.

First is the idea of each secondary caster contributing multiple spellslots of different levels to an epic spell, i.e. Tim the generic wizard sacrifices one spellslot of each level 1st to 9th, and all of his 1,000,000 or more buddies do the same. Each reduces the DC by 81 (or 100 if you throw in an Epic slot apiece ;)). That's -81,000,000 to the DC right there.

Second is reducing the duration of a mythal to instantaneous, which I figure would be an Ad Hoc reduction of 100 or more, depending on the effects of the mythal.

These two combined with the standard mythal rules and epic spell rules can potentially allow you to make a spell that will affect the entire world, potentially killing all evil creatures, disjoining all evil magic items, purging all disease from the planet, or something else suitably epic 8)

EDIT: Grammar.

Reltzik
2006-03-15, 04:12 AM
You want a REALLY dangerous spell?

Summon Plot Device
Conjuration
Level: DM 1
Components: V, S, M, DF
Casting time: Varies.
Range: Short (5 ft), but extensible by the feat Internet Gaming.
Saving throw: Will to suspend disbelief
Spell Resistance: No, except on the internet, which inherently resists spelling.

The DM conjures a plot device. This plot device may range from the very minor (a dog barking) to the major (Deus ex Machina) to the obscenely extreme (the destruction of the multiverse). The DM must make a Craft: Game Session roll against the plot device's DC. If he fails, the plot device still appears, but the players receive a will save to supsend their suspension of disbelief. If they pass, they grow disgusted with the game and, grumbling, withdraw themselves with varying degrees of grace or lack thereof from the adventure, thereby destroying the multiverse far faster than the plot device could. Casting time can range from months to seconds and provides the normal bonuses and pnealties on the Craft: Game Session roll. The Divine Foci should include character sheets, notes, dice, pencils, maps, and optionally miniatures, a battle grid, and a screen. Material components include tortilla chips, salsa, and soda, or any other snack food worth 5 to 10$. Liquor may be substituted for the soda, but this is not recommended as it carries the normal side-effects for a Craft: Game session roll.

Altair_the_Vexed
2006-03-15, 05:18 AM
I used a simple set of spells to begin the destruction the Prime Material - or at least the heroes' planet...

(This used the Mystara setting - the outer planes are infinite in number, so anything is technically possible.)

Commune - to discover a plane of existence which is inherently toxic to the Prime. Further Commune spells can be used to find one that also has hostile entities living thereon...

Then simply open up a Gate or fifty to that plane and cast Permenancy on them.

Okay, in 3rd Ed you can't use Permenancy on Gate. So for D&D3, here's the spell in Epic format.
Apocalypse Gate
DC: 135
To Develop: 1 215 000 gp, 24 days, 48600 XP
Seeds: Transport
Range: 100ft
Effect: Opens gate to plane of caster's choice through which planar material flows
Duration: Permenant
Save: none
SR: N/A

The Apocalypse Gate opens to an outer plane, and material is exchanged between the now connected planes. The material exchange contaminates both planes - if the planar material is toxic, creatures exposed to the contamination must make a DC35 Fort save or take 2d6 damage to all stats, HP and levels, with a new save required every 4 hours (DC increasing by 1 each time). The contamination process is accelerative - each day that the gate is open, the volume contaminated increases by 100 yards + 50 yards per day since casting (e.g. on the first day, the area is 100 yards, second day, increases by 100 + 50 yards = 250 yards... third day, 100 + 100 + 250 = 450 yards...).
The Apocalypse Gate cannot be opened at random, a specific outer plane must be selected, which must be known to the caster, by scrying or personal experience, not mere library research.

Jothki
2006-03-15, 06:03 AM
Apocalypse Gate

If you opened a portal to the elemental plane of water underwater in the middle of an ocean, how long would it take for anyone to notice?

Altair_the_Vexed
2006-03-15, 06:42 AM
If you opened a portal to the elemental plane of water underwater in the middle of an ocean, how long would it take for anyone to notice?

Ah, yes... fish stocks dying... the sea air becoming toxic so that ships are lost...

Underwater civilisations would be first to spot it - Stormwrack campaigns would effectively react the same as if the spell had been cast in the countryside of a standard campaign.

It makes a nice, world-dooming high level threat, as only the toughest characters could survive the effected area to get close enough to close the Gate.

By the way, I've edited it to add in the save frequency requirement...

TimB
2006-03-15, 09:14 AM
If you opened a portal to the elemental plane of water underwater in the middle of an ocean, how long would it take for anyone to notice?

Why would anyone ever notice? It's not like the plane of water is toxic.

Unless you are ruling that it would somehow spill water into the prime plane continuously, and then it'd depend entirely on how quickly.

A complete and utter bad person might rule that as the elemental plane of water is infinite, it must have an infinite mass. Therefore, as soon as the gate is opened it forces an infinite amount of water through it with infinite pressure behind it.

Save for half.

Altair_the_Vexed
2006-03-15, 09:20 AM
Yeah... in the Mystara world setting, the elemental planes were infinite, and entirely full of their elemental matter.

That's why I just changed the Apocalypse Gate spell to only connect to Outer Planes.

Lysander
2006-03-17, 01:23 AM
Of course if the plane is truly infinite then there would not be any pressure at all since with an infinite plane there'd be no outer boundry to compress the water. But if you have infinite water then maybe you'd have pressure. Ack, brain.

raven-gm
2006-03-17, 01:59 AM
No, not neccessarily...

Pressure requires gravity.

Reltzik
2006-03-17, 03:06 AM
Not at all. Pressure can be accomplished in zero-gravity (well, free-fall) very easilly. How else would they be able to maintain an atmosphere of pressure on the various spaceships/stations they've put up over the years? The trick there is to contain it with something solid... ice would work beautifully for that on the EP of Water.

The connection between pressure and gravity on Earth is that the deeper under the surface you go, the more pressure is on you. Sure. And yes, that's because of gravity. But that's not the only way to get pressure.

If you had infinite volume (or hyper-volume if you don't want to conform to 3-dimensional geometry, and it makes for a truly freakish outer-plane experience if you don't) filled with a (somewhat distributed) infinite mass of water, it would depend on whether they were the same order of inifinity. Enough water to fill a channel 10 ft deep, 10 ft wide, and an infinite length long is a lesser order of infinity than a three-dimensionally infinite plane. If the water is of a higher order of infinity... well, real-world physics would call that entire plane a black hole. If it was the same order of infinity, you could have an entire plane filled with water, or you could have not enough water to fill it up but have a bunch of "drops" (which might be very big) scattered around with a fairly consistent frequency.

That's another question: Would the water remain as a medium, or would it consolidate? With real world physics, consolidation would happen. You'd get "planets" of water (more likely nebulas) and vacuum in between. Real universe has suns, of course... what keeps the plane of water lit/warm? Of course, that's based on real-world physics... who knows what a fantasy setting's like there.