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Dark Herald
2009-07-20, 02:09 PM
I (the DM) accidentally started a communist revolution, and the next natural step is to have a nuclear war. My campaign is high fantasy, with flying castles and a complex magical banking system. But:

I need something that destroys cities and devastates the population. My original though would be multipule deployed launch tarasques, but I think there is some less permanent way to level cities. This "Technology", whatever it is, has just recently been discovered, or just recently become affordable, justified, available. What I need from you is some mechanical way to do lots of destruction.


Needs to level cities and kill people, obviously.
Should cost about 10 million gold
If any magic is involved, it should be practical, not humerous or convoluted.
Does not need to leave radiation, but it could
I'd prefer nothing too bizarre


I don't want a spell that summons a billion chickens into the city square. I do want something that explodes once, has devastating consequences, and is relatively simple, but still hard to produce.

Thanks to those that help

Mongoose87
2009-07-20, 02:11 PM
They're called Arcane Spellcasters.

Random832
2009-07-20, 02:11 PM
Locate City. :smallcool:

Pharaoh's Fist
2009-07-20, 02:13 PM
Summon a giant worm and use it to sink the city.

Prime32
2009-07-20, 02:14 PM
For 10 million gold, you'd probably be looking into some custom effect anyway. Do you want an exact damage figure? :smallconfused: Because if it's high enough to kill everything anway, there's not much point.

Just give the item the effect of "destroys everything within a few miles". Everything other than that is just fluff - maybe it pulls a large amount of energy from the Negative Energy Plane into a "capacitor" then releases it in a massive burst. Maybe everyone within the area is affected by flesh to stone. Maybe it drives everyone within the area insane so that they kill each other.


If you wanted something significantly cheaper, you could use a metamagicked locate city spell, or put two ring gates which have been modified for unlimited use in a vacuum to accelerate an obdurium rod to relativistic speeds before firing it at the target.

hamishspence
2009-07-20, 02:15 PM
Apocalypse from the Sky as written is a bit like a low-powered nuke- it requires an artifact as a focus (or component, sources are divided on the subject) but has a radius of 10 miles per caster level and does 10d6 damage to everything (buildings, objects, ground, creatures- everything) within the area.

Damage is fire, sonic, or acid- your choice.

Casting it is very bad for the caster though- massive corruption damage.

Aside from rules-bending like the Locate City bomb, this is one of the largest area damage spells.

Reptilius
2009-07-20, 02:17 PM
Are we talking about something on the scale of The Mourning, or just destroying a city?

Mongoose87
2009-07-20, 02:19 PM
Are we talking about something on the scale of The Mourning, or just destroying a city?

In my group, we caused the Mourning.

Oslecamo
2009-07-20, 02:19 PM
Catapults that fire balls miniaturized by magic(there's a spell for it, cant remember the name), and then return to normal in midair., crushing everything below.

Just imagine, you're happily living your life, when you see some dust falling in the sky, and then it expands to hundreds or even thousands of building-sized rocks wich pllumet to the ground.

Not exactly an explosion, but it will leave big craters.

ZeroNumerous
2009-07-20, 02:19 PM
You really only need three things to make a WMD.

1) Locate City Bomb magic item that casts the spell when a specific phrase is spoken. Add Heighten to the Locate City Bomb and try to raise it as high as possible.

2) Someone capable of casting Magic Mouth, Animate Object and Rary's Telepathic Bond. Cast it on the magic item then encase the magic item in a box of steel or something similar. Tell the mouth to say the phrase when it seems the ground come within five feet(remember to keep it 15 feet in the air at all time at this point). Cast Telepathic bond on the animated rug.

3) A colossal animated flying rug.

The rug flies over whatever area you want to devastate with the item on it's back. When the rug is over the target you tell it to drop the item. Item drops, magic mouth goes off, item casts Locate City Bomb. 10 miles/CL is now utterly devoid of civilian life.

RTGoodman
2009-07-20, 02:27 PM
With that much gold, you could basically just create an epic spell that eradicates all life in a sufficiently-big radius and leaves "radiation" that lasts for a year and a day or somesuch. Take a look at some of the examples, and then figure out what seeds you need and go to town.

PairO'Dice Lost
2009-07-20, 02:27 PM
Item drops, magic mouth goes off, item casts Locate City Bomb.

I think that would break the "magic mouths can't use command words or trigger magic" rule, but you could turn the rug into an animated item and have it just use the bomb itself.

BigPapaSmurf
2009-07-20, 02:29 PM
How about a magical material which when burned in a particular way gives off a vapor which has an exteme corrosive effect on metal/stone.

Wizards towers exploding should always cause epic disasters for the surrounding area. A city sized stone to mud spell, if its raining you get a bonus lahar for extra damage.

Open a portal to a massive planet/object and have the gravity start pulling everything in.

Open a portal to a plane and have an army of rust monsters flow out of it.

Theres always new ways to combine portable holes with bags of holding.

Or you could just go with one of the ten thousand natural ways a city could be destroyed, a thousand yard sinkhole for example, opening previously unknown underdark areas...pyroclastic flow/tsunami

Or a good old fashioned house-sized meteor

If the city was built on sandy/moist soil, an earthquake could cause liqufaction on a large scale causeing every building to sink into the ground and vanish...

Or there is the always reliable, piss off a really powerful NPC/monster method.

How about invasive species, anyone from the SW USA can tell you how the kudzu vine is slowly covering the entire region threatening to kill/cover everything in it's path, fantasy plants can be much more destructive/speedy. Vines and roots can tear down buildings like nothing.

there you go..

Dark Herald
2009-07-20, 02:33 PM
Edit That ^ is what i'm talking about. thanks.


thanks for the replies. I was hoping, though, for something besides "magic explosion". But that type of effect may be part of the whole.

The other part of the bargain is that it can't just be something that anyone high enough level could produce. The locate city bomb, in addition to being questionably legal, has no significant costs or time requirements. These need to be something that only the major powers can get a hold of, because the players using these would probably not work out well, for several reasons.

I imagined something besides epic spell with XDX damage and a 10 mile range. Something to really fit the fantasy nuke theme instead of emulating a modern nuke. Whatever. Don't look a gift post in the mouth. It's not like the LCB is completely useless.

aivanther
2009-07-20, 02:48 PM
Decanter of Endless Water Acid. ;)

Bag of Holding/Portable Hole thrown together in center of town, especially next to a central keep or something

Staff of Power retributive strike cluster bomb

I'm sure there's a few other ways you could get creative

MickJay
2009-07-20, 02:52 PM
I thought it was finally established that Locate City would, at best, make people jump a few feet up (or drop them on their knees)? It's not "rule bending", it's outright misinterpreting them.

hamishspence
2009-07-20, 02:56 PM
I imagined something besides epic spell with XDX damage and a 10 mile range. Something to really fit the fantasy nuke theme instead of emulating a modern nuke. Whatever. Don't look a gift post in the mouth. It's not like the LCB is completely useless.

Apocalyse isn't technically epic.

Erupt from Serpent Kingdoms is shorter ranged, but also pretty nasty- 9th level cleric spell, 10 fire damage per caster level (summons up lava from underground), 100 ft radius per caster level, sets things on fire, and:

"leaves the area a blackened ruin upon which nothing will grow for a full year"

On minus side, 0 ft range- you cast it at your feet.

Random832
2009-07-20, 02:57 PM
I imagined something besides epic spell with XDX damage and a 10 mile range. Something to really fit the fantasy nuke theme instead of emulating a modern nuke. Whatever. Don't look a gift post in the mouth. It's not like the LCB is completely useless.

To fit the fantasy nuke theme - I've always liked the idea of a spell that leaves a neat spherical hole in the terrain.

Maybe an Epic Plane Shift to some hostile environment?

[This is my first time designing an epic spell]
Transport Seed (27 base)
Interplanar: +4
Change from personal to Area: +15
Area: 20 foot radius: +2
Area incr. 100%: +4
Area incr. 100%: +4
Area incr. 100%: +4 (40 foot radius*)
Repeat 10 more times : +120 (40960 ft ~= 7 miles**)
Total Spellcraft DC: 176


(Incidentally, why is there no Mitigating Factor for expensive material components?)

* I interpret this as taking three applications of this factor to double a radius
**From the movement tables, a mile in the D&D world is 6000 feet.

This relies on two questionable rule interpretations - allowing the "area increase" factor to stack exponentially (without which the DC would be in the millions), and allowing changing from target to area to make it ignore the weight limit (without which the DC would be in the [i]trillions) - it could be made more manageable by not shifting a ridiculous amount of worthless underground stone, but then the crater wouldn't look as cool.

Asbestos
2009-07-20, 02:59 PM
Catapults that fire balls miniaturized by magic(there's a spell for it, cant remember the name), and then return to normal in midair., crushing everything below.

Just imagine, you're happily living your life, when you see some dust falling in the sky, and then it expands to hundreds or even thousands of building-sized rocks wich pllumet to the ground.

Not exactly an explosion, but it will leave big craters.

Are you perhaps talking of Shrink Item?

hamishspence
2009-07-20, 03:03 PM
(Incidentally, why is there no Mitigating Factor for expensive material components?)



Mythals can have some form of exotic mitigating factor.

For example:
Lost Empires of Faerun
You die with no ressurrection possible: -50 DC. (this can be taken for all the casters in the epic spell).

Champions of Ruin
Destroy minor artifact: -50 DC.
So, if an artifact is your spell component, DC drops quite a lot.

subject42
2009-07-20, 03:07 PM
How advanced are your cities?

Given epic level casting and standard fantasy construction, Warp Wood + Stone to Flesh could be pretty devastating.

Any wooden structure or support member would immediately break down or collapse as the weight of the structure above it was suddenly transmitted in odd directions. Any stone would collapse into a pile of lean meat, taking down buildings and destroying flagstone roads. If water is transferred through aqueducts, it would trash infrastructure pretty badly, too. Once it started to rot, it would attract vermin that would then spread disease and generally skeeve out the population.

Is utter destruction, disease, and rotten meat enough?

Fostire
2009-07-20, 03:08 PM
Apocalyse isn't technically epic.

Erupt from Serpent Kingdoms is shorter ranged, but also pretty nasty- 9th level cleric spell, 10 fire damage per caster level (summons up lava from underground), 100 ft radius per caster level, sets things on fire, and:

"leaves the area a blackened ruin upon which nothing will grow for a full year"

On minus side, 0 ft range- you cast it at your feet.

Well, he has 10 million gold to spend, so maybe he can craft a custom magic item that can cast it at a higher range.

Another nasty one is the anti-osmium bomb (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2010735&postcount=38)

Elderac
2009-07-20, 03:11 PM
A massive Fuel Air Explosive might work. It might require some magic to get a significant quantity of something like methane pressurized and sealed in a jar and then a delayed fireball to act as a trigger when the jar is broken and mixes with the local air. Dropping alchemist fire might work as well.

For delivery, you could very well have the jar rolled into the city on a wagon and left somewhere an agent could shatter the jar (more like huge vase) toss the alchemist fire and get out of Dodge.

Magic might be required for the agent to reach minimum safe distance.

I don't know if this would level a large city, but should be devastating to most smaller settlements and the resulting fires should destroy what the initial concussion does not. The city walls might remain, but not much else.

Just quick thought on something not entirely magical.

Indon
2009-07-20, 03:12 PM
Custom-created Wights to be much higher-HD, allowing for a super-power Wightocalypse?

Curmudgeon
2009-07-20, 03:19 PM
Pay the list prices for flasks of acid, and drop them from flying carpets using the volley rules in Heroes of Battle. 10 million gp should buy quite a bit of acid damage.

Erts
2009-07-20, 03:25 PM
How about a massive transmutation spell that shrinks a city so it can fit in a hand, and then the wizard crushes it in his hand?

Mongoose87
2009-07-20, 03:26 PM
How about a massive transmutation spell that shrinks a city so it can fit in a hand, and then the wizard crushes it in his hand?

This one would probably be worth the most Cool Points.

VirOath
2009-07-20, 03:27 PM
Custom made, giant sized Portable Hole, then put it in a Bag of Holding.

The depth of a Portable Hole is 10 feet, which is the dimension of the space around it that is sucked out of the plane. Increasing that depth should increase the blast radius.

Or you can see SCS's Campaign Archive. Lots of ideas there.


Custom-created Wights to be much higher-HD, allowing for a super-power Wightocalypse?

Standard Wrights can do this. Basic numbers in Spawn Rules, let them loose in a city. 90% of the commoners will fall, and the higher level NPCs will get overrun. You just need a lot of Wrights to start with.

Erts
2009-07-20, 03:29 PM
Hmmmmm..... The problem with this is that you need a solution which destroys souls, as a powerful enough being could undo all the damage.

Yora
2009-07-20, 03:31 PM
Custom-created Wights to be much higher-HD, allowing for a super-power Wightocalypse?

Win, I'd say. ^^

hamishspence
2009-07-20, 03:31 PM
the cloak used by the founder of the epic assassin's guild, in Epic Handbook, puts the corpse covered "Beyond resurrection even by greater deities"

In general though, its hard to destroy souls entirely using powers normally available to PCs.

VirOath
2009-07-20, 03:32 PM
Hmmmmm..... The problem with this is that you need a solution which destroys souls, as a powerful enough being could undo all the damage.

Campaign hook, PCs have to plane hop to find the lost cities and deal with out issues that have arisen from being on another plane, then get the city back to it's proper place. And find out who set off the bombs. Have fun!

Erts
2009-07-20, 03:36 PM
A massively powerful "Negative Energy and Soul Stealing runes!"

You transmute to the size of a pin, inscribe ten of them on a rock, put a timer on it, and send the rock to the city you want to destroy.

Fixer
2009-07-20, 03:45 PM
Depends on the effect you want to create.

You can try spellstitched undead (MM2). They tend to be prohibitively expensive for PC use, but can be given many powers usable a limited number of times, a horde of zombies with burning hands can cause quite a lot of mischief. Find a way of boosting their wisdom and you can give them each fireballs.

Your best bet, however, is a custom-built epic-level magic item. It meets your requirements of cost and rarity. Then it is only a matter of determining what to base it on. For Core, try Meteor Swarm with a LOT of metamagic effects to boost area of effect and damage (add sonic, cold, acid, and electrical damage for fun). That should bring the cost of even a single-use epic-level item into the million gp range and affect everything.

Tiki Snakes
2009-07-20, 04:07 PM
The following is not what you are after. However, when I originally began putting together a campaign setting (still haven't finished. I kind of got distracted) I hashed together my own dwarven culture.
The idea was that it would exist in the world alongside a more traditional dwarven monarchy, probably located a little further from the 'hub'.

The Dwarven Republic.

Their society is post-monarchy, thousands of years so. They have long since switched to a progressive, forward facing meritocracy. The best rise to the top, their leadership is largely answerable to the people. Like early communist russia, they are essentially pragmatic and dynamic, and very ambitious.

Alone in the setting, they have mastered skyship technology. Their Airborn Navy is fearsome, and a large part of their military might.
In general, they are also the opposite of the LOTR 'fading race'. Their numbers grow, year on year. Their empire slowly expands, and flourishes through trade with those it trusts.

And when it doesn't trust a neighbor, their 'Flagship' comes into play.

They have used the same mixture of magic and technology to quite simply cut the top off a mountain and turn it into a collosal flying fortress. (I had just read 'Gardens of the Moon' by steven erikson at the time. It's that kind of concept, size-wise at the very least.)

When they go to war, they lead with their navy. When they engage in total war, they do one of two things, depending on if the enemy knows that they are at war or not, or is expecting an attack.

Total War City-Killer 1;
They park the Fortress above the city. It pretty much blots out the sun, after all.
Then they begin the orbital bombardment. Huge rock orbs, like great stone tears, dropped/fired directly downwards at great speed. Vast collatoral damage. Thing is, being Dwarves, there is a suprise.
Each 'Tear' is also a drop-ship. It's enchanted to cussion the dwarf/dwarves inside. When it lands, it destroys everything around it from the shear force of the impact. Then it cracks open, and heavily armoured dwarven berserker/s break out, and begin basically smashing the crap out of everything in sight.
(They'd be basically twinked out with the wealth of the empire, high level magic items and be suitably imposing battle-monsters reguardless. If the obliteration of infrastructure, direct application of crack(ed) troops and so on isn't enough to force surrender or simply depopulate the city, then maybe they'd actually bother to, ya know. Begin an actual attack.

City Killer 2; Embrace of the Earth!

Essentially, possibly aided by artifact-machines, they tunnel their way to the city they want to not be there anymore, miles beneath, riddle it with tunnels and caverns. Fill every fissure they can find with black-powder charges, and undermine the entire city, ideally dropping the entire area into the cold, dark earth/underdark. Needless to say, not much would survive such an artificial uber-earthquake, and anyone who did would not be in a happy place.
Given the possible timescales involved, it would work best 'pre-emptively', of course.

Random832
2009-07-20, 04:17 PM
[snip]

That's very... uh... dwarfy.

Have you ever played Dwarf Fortress?

You can't actually do that in it, but the sort of thing you're talking about definitely fits with the attitude that the fan community has projected onto the dwarfs. Needz moar lava.

Tiki Snakes
2009-07-20, 04:25 PM
That's very... uh... dwarfy.

Have you ever played Dwarf Fortress?

You can't actually do that in it, but the sort of thing you're talking about definitely fits with the attitude that the fan community has projected onto the dwarfs. Needz moar lava.

That was the idea. Being as they are Dwarves. Yes. >_>

I didn't even hear of the existence of Dwarf Fortress till about a year after devising the above. I Love the idea of Dwarf Fortress, but unfortunately lack the attention span to wrestle my way into it.
I satisfy myself with merely approving of DF's existence from a polite and uninvolved distance. :)

Zen Master
2009-07-20, 04:28 PM
On the one hand, I consider large explosions to be decidedly un-fantasy-esque. On the other, fantasy worlds are so full of stuff that will destroy cities - or worlds - that it's quite the miracle it's yet to happen (well - in most of them).

Undead and lycantropes are one option. Even the judicious use of Contagion could get out of hand and destroy the world.

Another is gates - just open a gate in every major city of the enemy, and hope the demons streaming through don't come your way (kinda like fallout).

I suppose it depends on the ambitions of the mage doing it. Could magic call down asteroids from the skies? Could it open black holes? Could it create a plague of homicidal mania?

Yora
2009-07-20, 04:31 PM
City Killer 2; Embrace of the Earth!

Essentially, possibly aided by artifact-machines, they tunnel their way to the city they want to not be there anymore, miles beneath, riddle it with tunnels and caverns. Fill every fissure they can find with black-powder charges, and undermine the entire city, ideally dropping the entire area into the cold, dark earth/underdark. Needless to say, not much would survive such an artificial uber-earthquake, and anyone who did would not be in a happy place.
Given the possible timescales involved, it would work best 'pre-emptively', of course.
A beautiful combinations of two of the many meanings of the word 'mine'. ^^

quick_comment
2009-07-20, 04:31 PM
Precipitate Planar Breach: Negative energy plane


Heroes of Horror (I think) also has an ultra-flame strike epic spell that deals like 500d6 damage out to a mile.

hamishspence
2009-07-20, 04:37 PM
Don't think so (it doesn't have any epic spells)

rain of fire in Epic handbook (one mile radius, 1 point of damage pe round- for 20 hours) sounds closer- total damage if anything stays in there is 12000 points of damage.

Poil
2009-07-20, 04:40 PM
Another is gates - just open a gate in every major city of the enemy, and hope the demons streaming through don't come your way (kinda like fallout).

There is an easy solution to this. Simply open a portal to the hells as well as the abyss. A little blood war action through the streets with a whole city full of juicy souls to fuel it would do nicely. :smallamused:

Opening portals to the elemental plane of gasoline above the city would be fun. Apply fire elemental. Might not work if your dm isn't very liberal when it comes to elemental planes though.

9mm
2009-07-20, 05:07 PM
CometFall, damage is based on how far it falls, get high enough, and your coping sepy's metro from FF7.

that or venomfire.

Indon
2009-07-20, 05:07 PM
Opening portals to the elemental plane of gasoline above the city would be fun. Apply fire elemental. Might not work if your dm isn't very liberal when it comes to elemental planes though.

I should say not!

Gasoline is a compound, not an element.

You'll want to open gates to three elemental planes: Oxygen, Hydrogen, Fire. Need to represent all three points of the fire triangle.

Maerok
2009-07-20, 05:10 PM
Ancient ___ Dragon.

EmperorSarda
2009-07-20, 05:19 PM
Why not an epic sorceror/archamage dude who casts time stop and then 3-4 maximized meteor swarms, with their blast radius enlarged?

Or some super psionic artifact that forces anyone within a mile radius to make a dc 20 will save or their brains get fried. Add secondary damage for those who make the save. That would make most towns full of vegetables, with some survivors.

erikun
2009-07-20, 05:29 PM
Right off hand? Make a powerful zombie with a direct connection to the Negative Energy Plane. Actually killing it rips open a hole in the plane, effectively animating any corpses hearby and dealing Inflict damage to any living creature.

Perhaps I missed it, but what do you actually need to do? Simply killing can be accomplished with catapults and large enough quantities of Alchemist Fire, after all. Barrels of blackpowder no doubt go boom upon inpact, and there are plenty of arcane means to wipe out civilization.

quick_comment
2009-07-20, 05:46 PM
Don't think so (it doesn't have any epic spells)


Champions of Ruin then maybe. One of the evil supplements.

Poil
2009-07-20, 05:50 PM
I should say not!

Gasoline is a compound, not an element.

You'll want to open gates to three elemental planes: Oxygen, Hydrogen, Fire. Need to represent all three points of the fire triangle.

Doh! I stand corrected.

Oslecamo
2009-07-20, 05:53 PM
Win, I'd say. ^^

For who? The undead society? Because every living animal will die:smalltongue:

Tyrael
2009-07-20, 05:59 PM
Summon a giant worm and use it to sink the city.

THEY'RE SINKING CITIES WITH A GIANT WORM! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xz3nWY_fegw)

Oracle_Hunter
2009-07-20, 06:04 PM
So, the easy one is the Colony Drop attack.
For 10 million gold you can outfit a flying fortress sturdy enough to drop onto a land-based target and crush it into dust. The "recently discovered" bits can be some sort of Magitek furnace that can provide enough lift to get this superheavy object moving.

A more entertaining one is of the Suitcase Nuke variety, but with a nice dose of Nightmare.
A portable and concealable artifact that forms a link with the Negative Energy Plane when spiked into the ground. Over the course of days, the artifact slowly converts every living thing within a large radius into a twisted half-alive version of its former self.

Hey, you get mutating radiation!

For extra lulz, the plans for making this artifact were provided by a Mysterious Arcanist who is in fact a BBEG; any abominations created by a Spike can be directed under the mental control of the BBEG. Or, the Spike actually just slowly drains away their souls and feeds it into the BBEG's Ascension Device.
You'll note I don't provide any mechanics. Why? Because you are the DM and you can (and should) fiat items this powerful rather than use some convoluted munchkin trick (i.e. Locate City Bomb) to provide your apocalypse.

Sequinox
2009-07-20, 06:09 PM
In my group, we caused the Mourning.

That's nothing. My group survived the morning over fifteen times in one game!
Ba-dum-bump. CRASH.

mint
2009-07-20, 06:10 PM
When the power level is WMD, its basically an epic spell.
If its an epic spell the only thing that really matters is the flavor you like.
I would personally have communists use large scale brain washing.

For just wrecking stuff maybe one of these?
- Smash any/all moons into the planet.
- Epic necromancy could mesh with the concept of radiation favourably.
In my current campaign, there's only one city, it became the only city through an epic necromancy spell and then just waiting out the "negative energy winter".
- In standard D&D deities are anthropomorphic. Have them not be. Good clerics want to communicate with their god. They summon some aspect. It is super good but just the sound of its voice is death to mortals.
I find the image of a huge three headed lion with wings and golden fur making heads explode for no good reason to be really unpleasant and cool.

Milskidasith
2009-07-20, 06:17 PM
Magically enchanted super trebuchets. Combining the most advanced, efficient, and reliable clockwork technology with the most powerful magic possible, the *insert faction here* has developed a war machine the likes of which has never been seen. Thousands of cubic feet of wood, steel, and rope are combined in this massive structure, which stands over four hundred feet tall, able to launch castles miles into the air with ease. But rather than launch simple rocks, the mages launch elementals. They can use many setting, all of them equally deadly. Launching a single, massive earth elemental would create a shockwave on impact that could level anything besides a magically enhanced palace and strike underground targets up to a mile into the ground. They can also use fire elementals to destroy cities that are more spread out; the impact would create a burst of heat that would light everything on fire for miles. Another favorite setting is "grapeshot" bursts; the mages launch scores of single ton earth elementals, aiming for more important targets; this setting, while not as powerful, allows them to leave their targets with enough infrastructure to be worth capturing.

So, long story short, one of the empires built an absurdly large, absurdly long ranged, magical/clockwork trebuchet that bombards enemy cities with elementals from near orbit, and can pretty much level anything.

AslanCross
2009-07-20, 06:31 PM
BoVD's Apocalypse From the Sky has an incredible radius, but unfortunately its ground zero is the caster, among other crazy drawbacks. (Wis and Con damage just by preparing it + enough Wis and Con damage casting it to kill you + an artifact of good + likely lethal damage as it explodes all around you) It's likely to kill every single citizen within its area, since, come on. Commoner 1 vs 10d6 damage?

10d6 is also likely to set fire to buildings (if you use fire), but sonic damage is likely to pulverize them completely.

Something that continually emits a Mass Inflict Serious Wounds effect would probably be enough to depopulate a city, actually. It really depends how fond you are of high-level NPCs. However, the negative energy wouldn't really damage buildings, so it's a good variant on the Neutron Bomb.

Unless you're giving the PCs access to these things, honestly, you don't need to worry about the cost or logistics of making them.

You could always plunge a sphere of annihilation into a well of many worlds. The well costs 82000 GP. The sphere is an artifact.
According to Elder Evils, doing this will create a spiraling, growing vortex that will destroy the entire Material Plane in 1d12 + 6 minutes.

...of course, you might want something less drastic.

Yukitsu
2009-07-20, 06:33 PM
A bunch of earthquakes and tornadoes is simple, efficient, and far below budget.

Pie Guy
2009-07-20, 06:34 PM
Throw a ring gate (custom made to do away with that pesky 100 pound limit.) in the ocean and the other in the city. Repeat until out of ring gates.

Put a ring gate in a portable hole and stuff it in a bag of holding. Warning: may destroy causality.

Jack_Simth
2009-07-20, 06:36 PM
Let's see...

Delayed Blast Fireball (Core, Sor/Wiz 7) (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/delayedBlastFireball.htm): Gives you a little itty bitty bead that turns into a fireball a little while later.
Explosive Spell (Complete Arcane, Page 79); hand-wave it to affect small objects as well. +2 metamagic adjustment.
Quintessence (XPH) (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/quintessence.htm): Make a little dollop of time, and anything placed in there goes into stasis.

Combine them.
1) Make a drop of Quintessance
2) Cast an Explosive Spell Delayed Blast Fireball (9th level spell slot - less with Arcane Thesis or Practical Metamagic)
3) Put the bead inside the Quintessance
4) Drop the dollop of Quintessance with enclosed ESDBF inside a mundane barrel.
5) Regain spell slots and power points.
6) If Barrel has room remaining, GoTo 1
7) Place barrel somewhere inconspicuous in a city you wish demolished
8) Cast a Delayed Blast Fireball such that it will destroy the barrel and strip the Quintessance off the other DBF's.
9) Teleport away.

When your last DBF goes off, it scrapes away the quintessance on a bunch of the other DBF's. They then continue to count down, and blow up... scattering the other DBF beads (thanks to Explosive spell), which scatter more when they go off.

This technique:
1) Takes an age to put together
2) Isn't entirely predictable
3) Will fairly reliably destroy a city.

For bonus points, take Fell Animate, Practical Metamagic(Fell Animate), and Arcane Thesis(Delayed Blast Fireball). Between the three feats, you make a DBF into a 9th level spell slot (7th base, +1 Explosive Spell [+2, -1 Arcane Thesis], +1 Fell Animate [+3, -1 Arcane Thesis, -1 Practical Metamagic]), which is still doable pre-epic, and it turns everything killed by it into zombies. A few of the corpsecrafter feats, and maybe something to turn the fireballs into something the zombies will be inherently immune to, and you've got a city that's suddenly a zombie wasteland (until something kills all the non-replicating zombies, anyway).

ZeroNumerous
2009-07-20, 06:42 PM
I think that would break the "magic mouths can't use command words or trigger magic" rule, but you could turn the rug into an animated item and have it just use the bomb itself.

Bah. If you want to be silly, just make the Locate City Bomb item a trap and tie it's activation trigger to a specific phrase. A magic mouth can't use a command word, but it can say any phrase that could trigger the trap. Same result, same cost and the only difference is semantics.

Knaight
2009-07-20, 06:44 PM
I thought it was finally established that Locate City would, at best, make people jump a few feet up (or drop them on their knees)? It's not "rule bending", it's outright misinterpreting them.

The only dubious part of the spell is the explosion. Dealing 4 damage in an area with a radius of 10 miles per caster level is guaranteed. Standard array commoners have 3 hit points with high constitution. Standard array aristocrats have 4 hit points with high constitution. Standard array warriors have 5 hit points with high constitution. Cast it twice and you kill almost everyone within a 10 mile per caster level radius circle. Or rather, they all bleed to death, except for a few people manage to recover on their own. Even before you put in the throw its a genocide spell. Plus it feels like a fantasy nuke, it kills everything, but leaves buildings standing. Its like the bio-bomb from Artemis Fowl, which is magic.

Jothki
2009-07-20, 06:47 PM
How about a spell that temporarily merges an area with an Elemental Plane? This would cause the plane's effects on the surrounding environment (which with Fire or Negative could be very nasty), spew a bunch of confused and pissed off elementals into the city, and leave permanent residual effects even after the effect wears off, like the ground being constantly warmed or everything that dies turning into a shade.

Jack_Simth
2009-07-20, 07:45 PM
The only dubious part of the spell is the explosion. Dealing 4 damage in an area with a radius of 10 miles per caster level is guaranteed. Standard array commoners have 3 hit points with high constitution. Standard array aristocrats have 4 hit points with high constitution. Standard array warriors have 5 hit points with high constitution. Cast it twice and you kill almost everyone within a 10 mile per caster level radius circle. Or rather, they all bleed to death, except for a few people manage to recover on their own. Even before you put in the throw its a genocide spell. Plus it feels like a fantasy nuke, it kills everything, but leaves buildings standing. Its like the bio-bomb from Artemis Fowl, which is magic.

Combine with Fell Animate for residual uncontrolled zombie goodness evilness.

Random NPC
2009-07-20, 08:25 PM
How about an Explosive Empowered Energy Substituted Born of the Three Thunders Apocalypse from the Sky?


If I got my rulings correctly, that will level everything in a 200 mile radius

Set
2009-07-20, 08:33 PM
A portal to elemental plane of fire or water would mess up the surrounding area, or the para-elemental/quasi-elemental planes of ooze or magma or whatever.

Conjuring up any sort of creatures that can create spawn, such as shadows, wights, wraiths, spectres, vampires, etc. and sending them on a spawn-creating rampage could work (and leave the area uninhabitable afterwards, swarming with undead).

Control Weather to summon up storm clouds. Use Polymorph Any Object high up in the sky to turn the clouds above the city into green slime or russet mold or yellow mold or whatever. Russet Mold and Olive Slime are coolest, because those slain become monsters that continue threatening the survivors.

Major Creation or Polymorph Any Object to create a cool spring rain of Black Lotus Extract to gently sprinkle down onto the unsuspecting population.

Planar Bind some Thoqqua and set them to work undermining the bedrock beneath the city, causing buildings to sink into pools of magma formed under the city. That's the slow version. The sudden death option would be for a 20th level Druid with a 25 Wisdom, Extend Spell, Maximize Spell and Twin Spell to use Summon Nature's Ally III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII and IX to summon up about 120.5 Thoqqua (17.5 of them Extended to a 40 round duration, the rest remaining only 20 rounds). Having each of them move as fast as they can under the city (burrow speed 20 ft., no charging or running option), they should be able to cause incredible devastation in a relatively short time.

Pick any monster that could destroy a city. Have a 15th level Wizard make a hundred Simulacra of that monster, and set them loose. Ooh, that Red Dragon is only half-strength! Too bad it brought ninety-nine friends. Hopefully every living thing in the city adds up to enough exp to get the 100,000 exp he expended on that dragon army...

Use Polymorph Any Object to turn some common material either already present in the city, or that you plan on dropping into the city, into dangerous exotic material, like soul-absorbing Thinaun or ghoul-creating Lazurite or one of those deadly radioactive underdark materials popular in Greyhawk, the Realms and Golarion. What's a little fallout between friends?

Knaight
2009-07-20, 08:37 PM
Combine with Fell Animate for residual uncontrolled zombie goodness evilness.

I like the way you think.

Arakune
2009-07-20, 08:43 PM
A big mean spell in the form of a bomb that does what this thing do (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorine_trifluoride). Hilarity ensues. :smallredface:

Jack_Simth
2009-07-20, 08:53 PM
I like the way you think.
Oh, if I REALLY wanted to be evil, I'd use Fell Drain instead of Fell Animate.

See, Fell Animate simply reanimates them as zombies immediately.

Fell Drain would cause all affected critters to soak a negative level. And the next day, all those commoner-1's? Well, they'd trip a particular clause about negative levels:


A character with negative levels at least equal to her current level, or drained below 1st level, is instantly slain. Depending on the creature that killed her, she may rise the next night as a monster of that kind. If not, she rises as a wight.(Specific Text Source (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#energyDrainAndNegativeLevels) ; Emphasis added).

Instead of turning everyone without evasion in the area into zombies, it instead turns everyone without evasion, and only one hit die, in the area into wights. Or you can do both, just to be really evil.

Maerok
2009-07-20, 09:00 PM
Well if you break/ignore relativity and can eliminate terminal velocity (evacuate the air from a chamber, which could be done with a spell), use Circle of Teleportation on the floor of a tower such that it transports something dropped through it up to the ceiling.

I'm thinking kinetic energy bomb, something like a terrestrial asteroid strike.

----

Let's say a one kilogram book.

Let your one kilogram book fall for 1 week through the portal loop... Using Science! (v = v0 + at), after 7 days it'll be falling at 5931062 m/s. The speed of light is 299,792,458 m/s, so it's around 2% SoL. Which may start to get weird relativity stuff (there's probably a 3rd level spell to counteract that...)...

Kinetic Energy = 1/2mv^2 = 1/2 * 1 * 5931062^2...

That's 1.76*10^13 Joules.

8*10^12 J is on par with Trinity tested in 1945, so the book is at 220% of that. Hiroshima was at 6.4*10^12 and Nagasaki was 8.4*10^12.

Now if you throw the 80kg mage in there as well...

The velocity will be the same! (Of course...) But now the kinetic energy is 80x higher. 1.4*10^15 Joules of kinetic energy (1750% of Trinity).

To "fire it", you'd just need to redirect the teleportation circle or just scuff it away.

Dropping in a huge iron rod crafted from Wall of Iron might get the trick done even faster, but I can't seem to find out how much that would weigh.

----

Factoring in Relativity:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/math/c/0/9/c0968bfdb72bbbd68aa09fd36851344b.png

V = 5931062 m/s (~2% light speed)
C = 299,792,458

Energy = mass in kg * 1.76*10^13

Hmm. Not fast enough for the light-speed 'corrected' equation to really affect the outcome...

Still more than enough to kill enough catgirls than it already has.


----

Failing that, use a Commoner - or, for the enterprising necromancer, a Skeleton - rail gun.


I dunno if all my stuff is right, but this sort of situation is one of my favorite thinking experiments.

Yukitsu
2009-07-20, 09:03 PM
This is doubly effective on villages of cat girls.

Jack_Simth
2009-07-20, 09:16 PM
Dropping in a huge iron rod crafted from Wall of Iron might get the trick done even faster, but I can't seem to find out how much that would weigh.
Density of Iron (http://www.allmeasures.com/formulae/static/materials/18/density.htm), although that *particular* page of that site uses cast iron, and the specific type of iron used in a Wall of Iron is unspecified.

The Wall of Iron spell gives you the volume of Iron based on it's caster level; at, say, caster level 12, you've got 12 five-foot squares at three inches thick. As there's 144 square inches per square foot, and we've got 25 square feet per five-foot square, there's 648,000 cubic inches of iron in that caster level 12 wall. Plugging the numbers in, we get approximately 74,000 kg (numbers actually said 74331.88560000001, but I'll assume 1% rounding errors in the volume).

EmperorSarda
2009-07-20, 09:24 PM
Well if you break/ignore relativity and can eliminate terminal velocity (evacuate the air from a chamber, which could be done with a spell), use Circle of Teleportation on the floor of a tower such that it transports something dropped through it up to the ceiling.
...


So Maerok, factoring in relativity, if we have a 20 kg object falling like that, then once the Teleportation Circle ends, it will have enough energy to crash into the ground, causing a massive earth quake from that point that would destroy everything for miles?

Harperfan7
2009-07-20, 10:57 PM
I actually used nukes in my homebrew campaign's history. A corrupt race of elves with insane arcane magic power literally summoned/teleported pieces of the sun into the atmosphere above their enemies cities.

trajan
2009-07-20, 11:33 PM
Personally I'd just go for an Iron Colossus (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/colossus.htm#ironColossus).
It only costs 1,000,000 GP to make, but requires 50,000 XP from a Epic caster, so there won't be many around.

As a bonus the PCs can try and stop it before it makes it to the city. Of course with DR 20/epic mid range PCs don't have much hope of succeeding, but it should add to the tragedy when the city gets flattened.

Maerok
2009-07-21, 02:07 AM
So Maerok, factoring in relativity, if we have a 20 kg object falling like that, then once the Teleportation Circle ends, it will have enough energy to crash into the ground, causing a massive earth quake from that point that would destroy everything for miles?

That seems like a reasonable benchmark for success in any situation.


---

If you could someone make a claymore mine out of a Sphere of Annihilation...

elliott20
2009-07-21, 02:37 AM
Find a cheese use of a magic item like the candle of invocation cheese, something that you normally would never allow to work in game.

the WMD is a McGuffin that now explicitly allows this cheese to work. Price tag? 10 million.

though, I fail to see a point in putting a price tag on it.

aivanther
2009-07-21, 09:04 AM
Ooh more non-epic ideas (assuming normal sort of NPC town for most of these to work very well):

Take a cue of OotS, bunch o' small rocks with symbol spells. Death and Insanity being best choices IMO. Catapult those into the city, yay for death and mayhem.

Raise a zombie horde, outfit them all with acid flasks or alchemists fire and do a very no politically correct thing...suicide bombers!

Elemental swarm in of itself is a WMD against a bunch of commoners and buildings

The control air power could potentially do some damage...can you say tornado?

Telonius
2009-07-21, 09:40 AM
Book of Vile Darkness has a couple you might be interested in.

Despoil. 9th-level Cleric spell, does exactly what it sounds like. All plant life dies, animals are weakened, structures are damaged, and nothing can grow there ever again.

Befoul. 8th-level Cleric spell, renders bodies of water poisonous (permanently if small enough).

Just in Core, the Unhallow spell, cast enough times, could gloom up a city forever (until dispelled).

eepop
2009-07-21, 11:55 AM
Do you want city destruction, or something that can give rise to fears of Mutually Assured Destruction?

There have been a lot of fun ideas here, and they all are quite adept at destroying cities, but only some of them qualify for foreshadowing MAD.


Also, you can use the ideas that effectively kill the caster. The huge cost is for the government to pay one of its citizens that is powerful enough money so that they are willing to sacrifice themselves. The fact that the caster dies should be enough to keep your players from wanting to do it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And one suggestion from me:

A spell that tears the city up from the ground and makes it float about 1000 feet off of the ground. Then makes it spin at super fast speeds: making people and objects fly off of the sides to their deaths or be crushed against the walls of buildings if they try to stay inside.

EmperorSarda
2009-07-21, 12:55 PM
Going off of Exalted here... There is a spell, the Rain of Doom that essentially rains acid. Cast it over a city and all the wood burns, metal melts, nothing will grow and all living creatures suffer burns, most die from the wounds.

That would kill most people and destroy most towns.

Admiral Squish
2009-07-21, 01:22 PM
Realistically, in a world where the average city is all lv. 1-2 commoners with maybe a few lv. 5 elite dudes, just drop come bignasty construct and watch the fireworks. Anything CR 10 or up should have little trouble leveling a city given enough time. If you don't want to risk your resources, hire a war troll and hive him acid-resistant armor. He'll clear a city in no time flat for a nominal fee.

Telonius
2009-07-21, 01:34 PM
If we're going with the C of the ABC weapons, spamming enough Cloudkills will leave most cities desolate except for the captain of the guard, the mayor, the owner of Ye Olde Magic Shoppe, and the epic-level bouncer at the tavern.

woodenbandman
2009-07-21, 06:12 PM
I say create a spell that creates a major negative energy dominant area on the plane you're currently on. Every round, creatures in the area make a DC 25 fortitude save or are subject to a negative level, not to mention 1d6 damage, no save. Creatures slain arise as wights in 1d4 rounds (or 24 hours).

EDIT: RE: Iron Colossus: Eventually a resistance movement squad of 100 6th level Elan Fighters would be outfitted with +5 Construct Bane Greatswords and invisibly sneak up on, surround, and kill the Iron Colossus with Deep Impact.

Oslecamo
2009-07-21, 07:13 PM
If we're going with the C of the ABC weapons, spamming enough Cloudkills will leave most cities desolate except for the captain of the guard, the mayor, the owner of Ye Olde Magic Shoppe, and the epic-level bouncer at the tavern.

Now that you mention it, messing with the shopkeepers can have quite nasty results, since everybody knows you should never provoke retired epic adventurers.:smalltongue:

Dervag
2009-07-21, 08:18 PM
A big mean spell in the form of a bomb that does what this thing do (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorine_trifluoride). Hilarity ensues. :smallredface:That... that is not hilarious.

Khanderas
2009-07-22, 02:50 AM
Just plant a wraith in town. When the night is over everyone is dead and an army of wraiths are on their way to the next town.

Talic
2009-07-22, 04:19 AM
This will be less than 10 million gold. I apologize for that. Let's begin.

Adamantine Quarterstaff +5 Lawful Outsider Bane /+5 Chaotic Outsider Bane

Adamantine: +6000 gp (3000 per head)
+6/+6: 144,000gp

Total thus Far: 150,000 gp

Each end is intelligent.

Each end has a 100 result on the intelligence. They each have Int 19, Cha 19, Wis 10.
They each have speech, telepathy, and can read and understand all languages.
They each have Darkvision 120 foot, Blindsense 120 foot, and Hearing.
They each have 4 lesser and 3 greater powers.

Cost? +30,000 gp.

Total Cost thus far: 180,000 gp.

Lawful Bane Side:
Item casts Detect Magic at will.
Item casts Major Image once each day.
Item has 10 ranks in Spellcraft.
Item has 10 ranks in Bluff.
Item casts Lesser Globe of Invulnerability 1/day
Item creates Magic Circle Against Law at will
Item can Detect Thoughts at will

Special Purpose: Defeat/Slay Devils
Special Purpose Power: Item can create a Gate, once per month, to the Abyss.

Chaotic Bane Side:
Item casts Minor Image once each day.
Item casts Locate Object 3/day
Item has 10 ranks in Spot.
Item has 10 ranks in listen.
Item can Detect Chaos at will.
Item can Cause Fear in an enemy at will.
Item creates Wall of Fire, in a ring, with wielder at its center 1/day.

Special Purpose: Defeat/Slay Chaos.
Special Purpose Power: Item can create a Gate, once per month, to the Hells.

Special Purpose costs: 400,000 gp.

Total Cost: 580,000 gp.

For an item that you need to keep in an AMF.
Why? Cause when it's not, one side will see the opposed alignment of the other, and open a Gate to the hells.

The other will see the devils, and open a Gate to the Abyss.

Those two portals should ensure that everything within a couple miles is cratered.

Downside? The item will almost certainly be destroyed in the resulting conflict. But then, if it were reusable (such as by a craft contingent teleport), it'd be way too nasty.

xPANCAKEx
2009-07-22, 10:31 AM
have you ever thought of theming each city-state/floating castle so they each have a unique WMD?

some nations would go for all out destruction, where as some would go for something akin to a massive area holy-word-on-crack kinda deal

EmperorSarda
2009-07-22, 10:49 AM
Downside? The item will almost certainly be destroyed in the resulting conflict. But then, if it were reusable (such as by a craft contingent teleport), it'd be way too nasty.

How much would it cost to add a contingent teleport ability to automatically occur when when both gate abilities have been used?

Bailey
2009-07-22, 11:27 AM
If your looking for epic spells that would do it there is one in Champions of Ruin

Necromantic Singularity

It has a area of a mile, a range of 300ft, and It slays up to 1000HD of creatures in order of proximity to the singularity and such an evil act would leave the land badly tainted as a version of evil radiation