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View Full Version : item/device creation help [3.5]



xPANCAKEx
2009-08-24, 10:18 AM
ok - evil super villain scheme here

Say some sort of BBEG wanted to have a certain number of devices that would poison a city's underground water reservoirs.
Say these devices was remote activated - magic or technology - but capable of being activated at the same time as all the other devices in the set
Say the poison/contaminant had to be lethal/harmful enough to wipe out a good 60% of the city population who drink the water, or at least make life so bad that the rest would abandon the city.
Say the damage done would/could not easily be undone
Say the BBEG wanted the device set up ahead of time, but make it hard to find (magical invisibility, temporarily shifted to another plane, disguised as something else - whatever you like) for anyone bellow level 10 and specific knowledge of what they were looking for

what sort of spells/tech would be involved? and what sort of price tag would it run per device?

and would the poison/contiminant have to be homebrew

Whammydill
2009-08-24, 10:34 AM
What level/class is the BBEG, or is he able to hire/force someone to do this nefarious deed for him?

xPANCAKEx
2009-08-24, 10:54 AM
call it level 12

and they'd certainly be in a position where they could manipulate/obtain a degree of funds to their own usage - im leaving it pretty open ended to see what ideas people chuck out from it

of course if anyone wants to chuck more low budget ideas around then i won't sniff at them either

Doc Roc
2009-08-24, 11:02 AM
Are they full casters?

xPANCAKEx
2009-08-24, 11:16 AM
for the basis of this, lets say yes

Doc Roc
2009-08-24, 11:27 AM
There are a variety of ways to taint the water, but I vote for gutworms, the fiendish symbiote from Fiend Folio once you've gotten it polluted enough to serve as their habitat. Go give them a read, they're in the back of the book, basically.

xPANCAKEx
2009-08-24, 11:42 AM
it would more kinda have to be a all-in-one thing than a gradual process

Doc Roc
2009-08-24, 11:49 AM
Gutworms breed at an apparently monstrous speed. Just load them up in livestock and slaughter the bunch of cows up stream or in the reservoir.

ericgrau
2009-08-24, 12:26 PM
Non-magical poison tends to be expensive, though disease might work. I don't know any magic way to poison water. Real world poison tends to be too weak to actually kill large scale, except in extremely large amounts. I think this idea comes from cartoon and video game villains. Maybe you could invent your own poison rules though.

As for hiding magic auras, that's what nystul's magic aura is for.

Whammydill
2009-08-24, 01:07 PM
Craft Magical Traps that cast Plague of Rats (Spell Compendium p157.) Place these traps at logical amounts and spacing. These traps will be set to trigger when something moves off of them. Animate skeletons to stand or lie on the traps and they will stay there untill you command them to come to you. I'm not sure at what range you can command an undead follower, but It should be no task to beef up the range. Make the traps reset and just keep commanding your skeletons to re-activate them as much as you want, whenever you want. Place the traps deep so its tough to find.

These ticking bombs of Plague of Rats will work as follows:

It will summon one swarm of rats per two levels into the immediate and contiguous area. The swarms will attack the nearest target, without a target they attack the nearest creature....each other. These rats carry filth-fever. Which is bad-news for most of a city's general population. The mass diseased rat bloody frenzy will ruin the water supply for months as hundres of diseased rat corpses pollute the water. Modify the Conjuration(Summoning) to Calling and they will be sticking around instead of disappearing. With no potable water, its leave or die.