Amusing vault ideas

[Hirax]

We're dealing with a particularly paranoid dragon, as far as lair design, and I idly got off to dreaming up silly vaults. I came up with the idea of having a layered wall made of blue ice, force, adamantine, wood, and stone for the novelty of foiling as many abilities as possible (stone foils rusting attacks, adamantine foils stoneshape, etc). The entrance would be a layered portcullis of the said materials that would lift into a phase door. The phase door would close once the portcullis shut, making it impossible to lift. Totally ludicrous, but I can't help but want to make one now. :smallbiggrin:

[Andion Isurand]

Wouldn't Disintigrate bust through all of those... or a Sphere of Ultimate Destruction?

Anyways, I would recommend the following Permanent spells to protect the vault


Forbiddance (clr 6, PHB)
Halaster's Teleport Cage (sor/wiz 9, City of Splendors: Waterdeep, pg. 155)
Genius Loci (sor/wiz 9, Complete Mage, pg. 105)
Energy Transformation Field (sor/wiz 7, Spell Compendium pg 80 )
Hardening (sor/wiz 6)

although, I hope it has the Ignore Material Components feat for them

I would also recommend the dragon pick up practiced Spellcaster as a feat, since its HD probably outnumber its caster level

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I would also recommend Dragon Magazine 308 for dragon spells used for protecting their lairs and hoards.... one of them teleports an intruder out, but leaves their possessions behind.... which are then swept into the hoard by the dragon.

[super dark33]

an intillagent prismatic wall. (it draws its own face and tells them to leave, and dodges the spells for disabing!

a vault,which is a big maw,that closes once thay are inside and spills acid on them

a fake door that actually leads to somwhere (outside the cave)

[herrhauptmann]

Can divert teleport be cast to automatically redirect people to say, a lava pit? Or into the circle of a permanent portal (which activates when someone teleports/DimDoor into the circle), one which goes to say, the far realms?

edit: Oh yeah, and lots of Symbols on the inside.

[iDM]

Adamantite walls (with a Permanent Antipathy cast upon them, maybe Forbiddance as well) where the door is stone coated with adamantite and with a Permanent Arcane Lock on it. The treasure inside is suspended 50 feet above the floor in globes of pure mithral covered in as many abjurations as possible.

[Yorrin]

A false vault made of all the above ideas, with the real one being a large lead box underneath the first. Lead is impervious to divination, so when your adventurers figure out how to get into the prismatic adamantine antipathy chamber with teleporting wards and and acid pit they find: a note that says "haha-suckers" in explosive runes.

[No Idea]

Maybe not the best idea for your dragon but something along the lines of an ice cavern, into which the only entrance is by swimming through an icy underground river and down a frozen waterfall. Perhaps a thick coating of ice to further protect your sleeping dragon from intruders. Don't forget the aesthetically pleasing giant stalagtite hanging from the ceiling in order to provide that key finishing touch to bring the room together.

Edit: on a more helpful note, I like the idea of a false vault as well. Maybe even with the skeletal remnant of one of your dragon's less successful suitor's to through the party further off its trail?

[iDM]

Maybe not the best idea for your dragon but something along the lines of an ice cavern, into which the only entrance is by swimming through an icy underground river and down a frozen waterfall. Perhaps a thick coating of ice to further protect your sleeping dragon from intruders. Don't forget the aesthetically pleasing giant stalagtite hanging from the ceiling in order to provide that key finishing touch to bring the room together.

Edit: on a more helpful note, I like the idea of a false vault as well. Maybe even with the skeletal remnant of one of your dragon's less successful suitor's to through the party further off its trail?

Hey, have you ever read The Crystal Shard?:smallwink:

Let me guess: "yes".

[Xefas]

A false vault made of all the above ideas, with the real one being a large lead box underneath the first. Lead is impervious to divination, so when your adventurers figure out how to get into the prismatic adamantine antipathy chamber with teleporting wards and and acid pit they find: a note that says "haha-suckers" in explosive runes.

They then turn around to realize that the inside door to the vault was, in fact, a planar gate, the inside of the vault is actually located in Baator, and the dragon is waving at them while he closes the door behind them.

[super dark33]

a pit, that has a portal at the bottom, which teleports to above the pit!

[aivanther]

A massive adamantine and then stone wall in the midst of an anti-magic field.

[No Idea]

I like the anti magic field too. Traps are too easy to disable in my opinion although I guess they should be included to keep the riff raff out. What about a village of trolls or something more icky hiding the entrance? Not sure how a green dragon would feel about making its lair in the cesspools below a settlement like that but if it was paranoid enough, that would be a good deterrant not to mention a possible source of income from raiding parties and such.

[Hirax]

Hm, perhaps said walls that were then anti magicked? The would mean the wall of force was indestructible until someone got rid of the AMF, right? And multiple AMFs would mean each would need to be hit with mage's disjunction individually (that's the only spell that can destroy them right?)? Are there any psionic abilities that would make it worth putting up null psionic fields as well?

[Octopus Jack]

a pit, that has a portal at the bottom, which teleports to above the pit!


Now you're thinking with Portals :smallbiggrin:

[Andion Isurand]

Weirdstone ( Player's Guide to Faerûn, pg. 124 )

[Marnath]

a pit, that has a portal at the bottom, which teleports to above the pit!


I like this idea! Have the one at the bottom keyed to turn off when the victim has achieved terminal velocity for max falling damage, even in a ten foot space :smalltongue:

[super dark33]

after a few minuets the portal at the top moves a little so the charecter will get hit by the side of the pit! then falling again and again....

[Gavinfoxx]

I'd say, you want something as STRONG as adamantine, but not as obviously VALUABLE ITSELF.

It's certainly possible to get, uh, cheaper, less OBVIOUSLY MADE OF AWESOME AND MONEY materials as strong or stronger than adamantine!

Gotta remember the whole, "Woah an adamantine DOOR that weighs like eight tons? We're rich!" moment...

[Heliomance]

I had an idea once for a lair in the middle of a mountain with no actual entrance, and most of the mountain overlaid with walls of stone on the ethereal plane. This more or less forces anyone coming in to use the relatively obscure Xorn Movement spell, which my dragon just happened to know.

[chiasaur11]

Simple.

Decoy vaults.

Lots of monsters. Lots of cheap deathtraps.

Absolutely nothing of any cash value.

[iDM]

A magical lock on the door that, when touched by anything besides the dragon, causes the treasure to be teleported to a completely separate vault. Meanwhile, the vault's floor and the floor around the outside of the door are transmuted to mud, and then back to stone. After the PCs are stuck in the mud, of course. Then the ceiling grows spikes (as in spike stones) and then the ceiling starts growing slowly (as in stone growth) so that the PCs are eventually crushed by a spiked ceiling.