Challange: Prove me wrong. Show me how wizards can conquer kingdoms with crunch..

[Maho-Tsukai]

An earler thread of mine quickly devolved into a rather stiring debate about the whether or not, using crunch alone, a wizard has any way to take over a kingdom(and eventually the world) the way a Necro cleric can with his undead and with no extra effort that the Necro cleric has to give to take over a kingdom..(and eventually the world.) Thus, I am sending a call out for the most diabolic evil geniuses of the playground to produce ways a wizard can conquer a kingdom/empire(and eventually the world) using PURELY CRUNCH.(So no saying "kill the goblin leader and make all the dumb orcs into your army' since there is absolutly no crunch which allows this and thus is PURELY Rp meaning no crunch gose into this sans killing their leader) A few ground rules are as follows..

Rule 1) The method must require NO MORE EFFORT AND/OR WORK then the effort a Necromancer cleric has to give to make an army of undead and conquer a kingdom with it. Thus the whole "dominate the king/shadow puppet master" idea is out since I clearly stated and showed that the "dominate the king/shadow leader/puppetmaster" method takes FAR more effort and work then the horde of undead in the old thread.

The reason? Simple, getting bodies, onyx and casting animate dead and having your zombies snack on a bunch of NPC class mooks is a FAR easier task then trying to keep up an elaborate ruse that you don't have the charisma to really keep up without LOTS of magical help(Unless your a sorcerer, had a generous point buy or got super good rolls.)and removing the threat of MULTIBLE enemy spellcasters who can easily see what your up to and thus stop it with a simple dispell magic. Oh, and there is the whole fact that if the king your dominating actually makes his save once your out of luck and most likely going to be dead very soon unless your high enough level for that spell that erases memories...and if your at that high a level you don't even need to dominate the king in the first place since by then your powerful enough to solo an army.

Rule #2) The method you propose MUST be built on crunch. If your idea rellies HEAVILY on RP then it dose not qualify. Any methods you mention here MUST have a strong basis in the rules/crunch and you can't just say "Do what X famous dictator did and go get a bunch of like-minded people to make an army' since there is no actual crunch for such actions and thus that method is dependent ENTIRELY on RP. While RP is great, your idea must be able to be achieved with some kind of crunch, or at the least crunch/text that says you can do X through RP.

Rule #3) It must be achievable by a normal-ish PC wizard(So if something can only be used for BBEGs/NPCs leave it out.) without specific items. If your idea hinges on said wizard having mega ability scores, paticular items, or sone kind of werid, optimized character build that uses like 5 different PrCs and some cheesy race/feat/whatever from an obscure sourcebook then don't bother with it. Everything you propose here must be achievable by a normal wizard who's not going to be able to get all the items he wants and has stats drawn from a standard 32 point buy.

Rule #4) The idea must be logical. Sure, a wizard COULD build an army by using an infinent money loop and hiring an army of mooks, but that won't work logically. Why? Well, where are you going to find all those hirelings? Surely the population of a whole city or whole kingdom would not just agree to be your evil army for some lousy silver. So yeah, getting lots of hirelings is viable by crunch but logically you won't get the numbers you want. Thus, whilc your idea must be rooted in crunch it must also possess at least a sliver of logic, or, at the least a logical justification for it's illogical nature.

Rule #5) It must be achievable at a level which is not epic. at epic levels a wizard is so strong he can do anything he wants and therefore at that point there is no need for any big plan when all you have to do is make an epic spell and call it a day...say, perhaps..to be like Uchiha Madara..make a "Charm Person, Global", cast it and make everybody love you so much they name you king of the world. At epic level it's just that easy.

Rule #6) NO LEADERSHIP...UNLESS you can prove that, without cheese like chaining leadership, the feat can provide numbers that are at the absolute least equal to the size of an undead horde owned by a Necro Cleric of your same character level. The Reason? That feat, despite getting you some mooks, HARDLY gives you enough to conquer a kingdom. AT BEST without leadership chain cheese that feat gives you forces that would be suitable for protecting the manor of a minor lord. Kingdom conquering size it is not. Heck, your numbers with leadership are even too anemic to wage a proper gurella war let alone fight against a whole kingdom in a steroyptical LOTRs style epic battle. Unless you can prove that leadership can give you numbers equal to the size of a Necro Cleric fully optimized to be an animator and commander of an undead legion leadership can't be used as a method to obtain an army WITHOUT chaining it, and everybody knows you will never be allowed to do that in any real game of D&D without a VERY good excuse.


So, yeah, I know this is a werid thread and may seem like I am just repeating my older thread but this thread is not looking do do what the older thread did. In this one I am, more or less, proposing a challange to all of you
So, with the rules in place, hit me with your most evil, vile, villainous ways for a wizard to take over a kingdom....with actual hard crunch to back it up.

As far for the winner of this challange, thats not for me to decide alone. Rather, when everybody feels enough ideas are presented, everybody(myself included) that did not produce an idea that is going to be judged will judge it and assigen it a number of points no smaller then 0 and no larger then 5. Whichever idea overall recieves the most points from everybody who paticapated wins the best prize...shutting me up. Seirously. If any of you can prove me wrong and show me there is an actual mechanical way that dose not require more work/effort then a necro cleric's undead army for conquering a kingdom as a wizard I will stop talking about this debate AND will get one of the avatar makers here to make me a temporary sig with a quote somehow related to me being wrong about wizards being able to use crunch to conquer stuff that I will have to have that sig for a number of days equal to the number of votes the winning entry got.

So, anybody want to try and win this challange?

(Also, just in case you have not realized I am actually LOOKING to be proven wrong here, not trying to show how I am right since despite the last thread I WANT to know a way for this but can't think of one which follows all the rules I need the idea to follow(shadow leader/dominate the king is more work then an undead army, tons and tons of hirelings is too illogical to work, leadership lacks the numbers needed for this ect...)

[Yora]

Get some corpses, onyx, and cast create undead?

[Maho-Tsukai]

Yeah, I also edited the rules a bit...may just want to mention that...Leadership is now exceptable so long as you can find some way to make it produce the same numbers a Necro Cleric can with his undead animation.

Also, wizard necromancy sucks for getting minions(Great at debuffing and save-or-dies, but those don't conquer stuff now do they?). Your 'horde" will be so small it can't do anything conquest wise and in fact a Necro Wizard will get more mooks from leadership then he will animation....but I want to get more ideas here before I make any more judgements.

[Starbuck_II]

Yeah, I also edited the rules a bit...may just want to mention that...Leadership is now exceptable so long as you can find some way to make it produce the same numbers a Necro Cleric can with his undead animation.

Also, wizard necromancy sucks for getting minions(Great at debuffing and save-or-dies, but those don't conquer stuff now do they?). Your 'horde" will be so small it can't do anything conquest wise and in fact a Necro Wizard will get more mooks from leadership then he will animation....but I want to get more ideas here before I make any more judgements.

What about enervation and making a wight army? You can control undead with a second level spell.

[Ernir]

Questions on them rules:

On rule one: How do you define "effort" for this purpose? And how do you define "ruling" the kingdom? If this is to be done with crunch, the goals need to be crunch-based.

On rule three: Subjectively "weird" builds are not OK, but PrCs in general are OK? Could I, say, make a Wizard 5/Incantatrix 10/Archmage 5?

[Yora]

I don't think enervation can create wights. Wights are only created from corpses that have been slain by a wights energy drain ability, not simply by any kind of negative energy.

[Sillycomic]

How is dominate person more effort than an undead army?

A level 10 wizard can dominate a person for 10 days. They cast 1 spell every 10 days and they've conquered the kingdom.

Just dominate the current king and tell him to do anything you want (tell your army to go conquer that other kingdom over there...)

All you have to do is cast the spell on day 1, and then spend 6 seconds concentrating on it every other day. And when you need the king to actually do anything, just concentrate on that as well.

I'm not sure how easy it is creating an undead army... but I doubt it is easier than casting a single 5th level spell once every 10 days.

[Starbuck_II]

I don't think enervation can create wights. Wights are only created from corpses that have been slain by a wights energy drain ability, not simply by any kind of negative energy.

No, Wights are created by creatures killed by negative levels not negative energy. I said Evervation not Chill touch.
SRD says:
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.

Once you have a wight, you are in the clear because your minion with make more to follow you. Over a week, you'll have a small army. Over a month you'll have a large army. Over a year and the kingdom is full of wights.

[Maho-Tsukai]

The cleric still gets more mooks. Simply put, if you can't match the size of a cleric's army, it's not good enough for me. Othert people? Maybe, and thats why this is going to a vote eventually because if enough people say a wizard's DISGUTSINGLY small undead horde is enough to conquer a powerful kingdom then I may have a change of opinion. However, before the vote I will still assume wizard necromancy is not enough to conquer a kingdom since a wizard won't have a horde like a cleric(Or Dread Necro...but thats a whole different story since the only reason that class is good is simply because it can have lots of undead....) will.

Also, dominating the king in and of itself is not hard work. The actual act of controling the king is EASY. the difficult part is KEEPING THE RUSE UP and having to deal with court mages, high priests and anybody else with detect magic, dispell magic and ranks in spellcraft. Unless all the spellcasters in the kingdom are really low level they will EASILY be able to tell what your doing and I find that killing a bunch of NPC class nobodies is WAY easier then dealing with a small group of enemy spellcasters that are close to or of your level....and thats what makes dominating so difficult...the fact it requires fighting casters and being a good liar...and the second is hard for a 32 point buy wizard since cha is almost always a dumb stat....A Sorcerer, however, could get away with it a lot easier seeing as they have cha as their casting stat and bluff as a clas skill but a wizard has neither of those.

[TheCIASentMe]

I'm sorry but I have to call into question the idea that raising an undead army would take less work than teleporting into the king's bedroom and casting dominate on him. There's no ruse if no one knows you're even in a position to use a king that way. Hell, dominate the king, make him declare you his heir and then kill him.

But other than that.... Gate in a very powerful demon/devil/outsider and make a deal? 20th level caster could easily perform such a task and the spells involved have the rules for it. It would be costly but not any more costly than raising an undead army in secret.

I'd also like to point out that an undead army isn't likely to conquer a country anyways. Sure you could raise it to the ground but how are you supposed to hold power over people with an undead army?

[Yuki Akuma]

A wizard can get an arbitrarily large undead horde with Command Undead.

Command an undead that creates spawn under its control. Get it to make spawn. Order it to order them to obey you. Repeat.

There. You just beat the Cleric.

Of course you're going to completely ignore this, because why let someone prove you wrong?

[Jair Barik]

courtesy of the srd...



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.


Are locate city shenanigans ruled out here?

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Important Fact #1: Necro Clerics are limited to something like four times their HD in undead servants (if I recall correctly). That's 80 zombies at 20th level...80 zombies with only 1 HD each. Enjoy your army.

Important Fact #2: A 1st level Cleric can turn several 1 HD zombies. A 2nd level Cleric can destroy several 1 HD zombies. Kingdoms without a couple of Clerics who will oppose you are likely non-existant.

Important Fact #3: While you're killing all the people required for your big army, someone is going to stand in your way. If I can't use a big money-making method to raise an army, or some sort of build to vastly improve my conjuring of minions, I'm curious to know where you're getting all these corpses fresh enough to raise without someone noticing and doing something to stop you.

This indicates that your proposed method is pretty terrible, as a handful of level 2 Clerics can destroy your entire army. Either that, or your army is actually just 2-3 big monsters, which the Wizard (and his conjuration) can do better.

Anyway, on to some methods.

Method 1: Cast Mindrape on someone important. Cast Mindrape on someone else important. Continue until every major power in the world is entirely under your dominion, or at least enough of them that you basically run things (i.e. get a kingdom, declare war, then proceed to follow the Necro Cleric's path only with living soldiers. Amount of necessary RP: practically 0). Bonus points for fewer corpses necessary, less tendency for level 1 Clerics to turn half your army, and less gold spent on onyx. Additionally, it's all but undetectable, requires no more than a few rounds per day maximum, has a very high save, and is permanent (i.e. no ongoing saves for your poor victim). One failed save, and the target has your interests placed above all others, and, further, will be forever inclined to respect and obey your point of view. That or whatever you want it to think, actually.

Bear in mind that Mindrape is instantaneous, permanent, and, again, almost undetectable. It requires much less effort and time to set this up than it does to raise an army of enough size to menace more than a small town. It's also much harder for someone else to notice and stop.

Further, this is what the crunch says. You completely re-write your victim's values, thoughts, memories...everything.

Yes, it requires being level 17...but so does getting an undead army big enough to conquer more than a village. If you don't think this is the case, kindly show me how a mid-level cleric could possibly take on, say, a fully equipped army and the adventurers that any kingdom you're taking over could reasonably hire.


Method #2: Say you're in charge. Kill anyone who opposes you. Kill anyone who refuses to listen. Rule through obvious fear. You're a wizard: this is easy stuff. Knowing what threats are coming requires what...1-2 Divination spells prior to preparing your spells for the day? Amount of time required: a couple of minutes per day, maximum. Ease: incredibly easy for a high-level Wizard. Amount of RP required: again, minimal.


In Conclusion: I don't see the point to this challenge. You're basically arguing that a Cleric can field a bigger army...which isn't true, since a Wizard can also raise the dead. Then, you decide to remove a bunch of the tricks that the Wizard can do...and have no proof here as to why they're any less viable than your method. I haven't seen your last thread, but I'm not willing to accept your statements on the validity or ease of a method as iron-clad without seeing the reasoning behind them.

Regardless, above are two perfectly functional and honestly pretty easy ways of taking over. As an added bonus, both give you something other than an empty kingdom occupied by the mindless bodies of your slain enemies, which is far more valuable than endless lands of animated flesh.

[Sillycomic]

Once you've dominated the king, let him write a royal decree saying you are his new trusted advisor, and that he's grown sick. He's reclusive and will no longer be seeing any of his advisors.

And then just fire anyone who has lots of ranks in spellcraft and might be able to see through your disguise.

Again, dominate the king to write a royal letter with his seal.

I don't see how that's all that difficult.

The fact that you build an undead army and just assume it will win is the same as me dominating the king and assuming that my dominate will stand up.

Unless you provide harder crunch on this kingdom and its capabilities, I can say my system is just as valid as yours.


I find that killing a bunch of NPC class nobodies is WAY easier then dealing with a small group of enemy spellcasters that are close to or of your level

I think there's a double standard here that you need to address. So, if my wizard goes and dominates the king, there are enemy spellcasters close to or of my level that will try and stop me...

But IF AN UNDEAD ARMY IS TRYING TO CONQUER THE KINGDOM, the only people stopping them are npc class nobodies? I'm sorry, what?

So, all of these close to my level spellcasters just disappeared the moment undead mooks showed up? How does that work?

High level clerics and wizards will be able to stop the undead army, realize it's an undead army and then come after you. These high leveled wizards and clerics in this kingdom work against your necromancer just as much as they work against anything my wizard can come up with.

[Havelock]

Define how a cleric builds his undead horde so that we have a reference.

Anyways, there is one trick:
1. Have the ability to maintain an alternate form for a long period of time (changeling, for example), at least more than 8h.
2. Have good bluff and disguise skills, ACF or prestige classes can do that.
3. Mind Rape the king so that you know everything he knows.
4. Petrify or soul bind the king or whatever so that he's out of the picture. Arranging for his soul to be utterly consumed is your best bet, though.
5. Mind blank on you.
6. Pose as the king, use cloak of khyber (stormreach) every other week or something.

Assuming your bluff and disguise checks holds, disguise check, really. There is no way of telling that you are not the king.

Alternatively, you can just mind rape him into firmly believing that your suggested course of action always is the best option.

[TheCIASentMe]

Is it within the rules to use one of the other arcane casters? Because a dread necromancer does the cleric undead army thing even better.

[Czin]

Get to the epic levels (say, level 30), get epic leadership and legendary commander. Pump your leadership score to 40 (pitifully easy to do, with 30 levels you only need 10 more Cha bonuses or 30 charisma and with 5 wishes, 3 spent points, and a +12 cloak of charisma you can reach that goal), you now have an army over ten thousand strong, ten thousand level one followers, a thousand level twos, five hundred level threes, two hundred fifty level fours, one hundred twenty five level fives, sixty two level sixes, thirty one level sevens, fifteen level eights, seven level nines, three level tens, and one level eleven follower. In addition, you'll also have a level twenty five cohort. Now add in the one hundred and twenty hit dice worth of undead you can command from just plague of undead or create undead (and the hundred hit dice worth that your cohort can command), the goodly amount of creatures you (and your cohort) can summon/call and whatever your higher level followers can also command and summon/call and you have a bonafide small to midsize nation conquering army without needing to use magic cheese.

An cleric of the same level with the feat that let's him command up to 10 times his hit dice worth of undead hit dice would only have 300 hit dice worth of undead to command. Sure he can use leadership as well, but your summons will be a match for the extra 550 hit dice worh of extra undead (assuming his cohort is also a necrocleric, and none of the undead he can command can have more than 20 hit dice and none of the undead his cohort can command can have more than 15 hit dice) he can command with rebuke undead.

I'll be taking my free internets now.

[Volos]

Get to the epic levels (say, level 30), get epic leadership and legendary commander. Pump your leadership score to 40 (pitifully easy to do, with 30 levels you only need 10 more Cha bonuses or 30 charisma and with 5 wishes, 3 spent points, and a +12 cloak of charisma you can reach that goal), you now have an army over ten thousand strong, ten thousand level one followers, a thousand level twos, five hundred level threes, two hundred fifty level fours, one hundred twenty five level fives, sixty two level sixes, thirty one level sevens, fifteen level eights, seven level nines, three level tens, and one level eleven follower. In addition, you'll also have a level twenty five cohort. Now add in the one hundred and twenty hit dice worth of undead you can command from just plague of undead or create undead (and the hundred hit dice worth that your cohort can command), the goodly amount of creatures you (and your cohort) can summon/call and whatever your higher level followers can also command and summon/call and you have a bonafide small to midsize nation conquering army without needing to use magic cheese.

An cleric of the same level with the feat that let's him command up to 10 times his hit dice worth of undead hit dice would only have 300 hit dice worth of undead to command. Sure he can use leadership as well, but your summons will be a match for the extra 550 hit dice worh of extra undead (assuming his cohort is also a necrocleric, and none of the undead he can command can have more than 20 hit dice and none of the undead his cohort can command can have more than 15 hit dice) he can command with rebuke undead.

I'll be taking my free internets now.

Follow said steps, but take Undead Leadership from LM. Now all of your followers are undead. Pure crunch. Enjoy.

[Sillycomic]

Aside from one of the rules being that it has to be a wizard before he takes epic levels... then yes, you win with that build. Free internets for both of you.

[Coidzor]

So, why, exactly, is diplomacy not crunch?

Or Forgery, for that matter. Edit: Or dominate person/monster. Or Charm.

Method 1 1. Eliminate everyone who knows your genesis

2. Pump knowledge: history and knowledge: nobility to figure out the best period of time for which a trail of falsfied documents would best show a branch of the royal family splitting off or otherwise produce a lost or hidden heir. Possibly co-opt a bard to aid with the whole story to captivate the imagination of the public.

3. Falsify all of the necessary documents using pumped forgery

4. Eliminate all heirs save for one member of the appropriate sex who would have a strong but not unassailable claim to the throne. Knowledge History and Knowledge Nobility as appropriate

5. Mindrape+Marry the greatest potential rival you left alive in order to co-opt them and strengthen your claim to the throne. Alternatively diploromance and marry him/her.

6. Off the guy actually sitting on the throne or wait.

Steps 4 & 5 can be switched between.

And during one's time in the limelight, one can also build up PR and support amongst the people/various nobles in the usual way that adventurers do.

Why, one can even engineer such situations by using Planar binding. Or Dominate Person on a half-fey and use its charm person spam to agitate.

Level 17 wizard can do it.

Method 2: Mind Rape on the crown prince, or heir/claimant of one's choice, Polymorph Any Object into them, and then eliminating them completely. Possibly having the appropriate tomes and, of course, stat-boosting items on hand, depending upon how strict the DM's reading was. Again, 17th level wizard.

I'm sure a more clever poster than myself could devise a way to test the intelligence of the various claimants in order to get the one that least inconvenienced oneself if there's no simple way of knowing (for instance, by mind raping each one and picking the smartest one) or direct way of gauging a creature's ability scores.

Method 3: mind raping/dominating/charming/diplomancing enough of the main nobility/electors and changing the rules of inheritance via sheer brute force. Using a Bardic cohort if necessary. Engineer some kind of conflict to make this appear necessary to taste.

Edit: These have the benefit of causing only minimal damage to the value of one's new kingdom. Depending upon the level ranges of individuals in the world, the level required to do this can scale a bit as well, of course.

As has been stated, Mind Rape is a 9th level, permanent, and instantaneous spell that's pretty much an I win button in regards to this. As is a Bard Cohort with diplomancy and bluff+glibness.

Come to think of it, method 1 with a bard cohort who is also one's spouse would cut out the need to keep anyone from the ancien regime alive in order to appear legitimate without needing to replace the aristocracy entirely.

[Gnaeus]

Take Craft Wondrous Items as a free feat. Eagles Splendor, Disguise Self, PAO, Permanency, Enlarge person. Buy a ton of Donkeys (at 8 gp each, they should be easier than Onyx. If you run out of donkeys, Pigs, Sheep, or any other medium animal work fine.

Make a hat of disguise and a cloak of cha (best you can afford). Perma enlarge yourself. Disguise yourself as a giant goblin. Begin polymorphing your medium mammals into Bugbears (lasts forever). Explain to the bugbears that you are their creator and lord. Ask if they want to fight you to challenge your authority. Each bugbear costs 8 gp. A 3 HD zombie would be 75. Pigs and donkeys are probably easier to come by than are humanoid corpses. Bugbears are faster, stronger, more intelligent and cheaper than zombies, and there is no limit to how many you can control. After you have a core army of bugbears, you may wish to switch to hobgoblins (their Lawful nature means they work better in hordes). Once your army is big enough that you don't have to worry about them turning on you, buy some light horses and PAO them into Ogres, Giants, or other large flunkies. If you (their Creator) want to persuade them that you are a demigod, you might even leverage some free divine ranks out of it.

[Aidan305]

Two spells, one feat.

Craft Ring, Nystul's Magical Aura, Dominate. Ring is crafted to dominate anyone who wears it. Nystul's Magical Aura removes any sign of the effect.

It worked for Sauron. Why not let it work for you?

[Czin]

Follow said steps, but take Undead Leadership from LM. Now all of your followers are undead. Pure crunch. Enjoy.

Indeed, heck my steps are probably used by the most famous group of wizards in D&D fluff, the Circle of Eight (in 3.5 terms.) With the combined pool of followers they can command with leadership and the hirelings they could attract with their gigantic piles of money (not a single wizard in the circle of eight isn't high enough in level to cast level 9 spells, so just by the WBL tables as a group their personal wealth is immense) and the soldiers they can raise from their feudal lands (they all had pretty sizeable fiefdoms) made this little club of wizards the match for any of the major nations on the Flanaess. That's quite impressive.

The Ur example of wizards conquering nations in D&D is Vecna, who was a magic user with a level in the upper thirties in the old days and had no cleric levels, who forged the semi-unimaginatively named Occluded Empire of Vecna, then he became a demigod, and got trapped in ravenloft as a dark lord, then he did the impossible by giving the dark powers the finger and escaped Ravenloft, then he stole Iuz's power, became the mightiest greater deity ever, broke through reality and went to the Planescape setting, attacked the sigil itself (mind you, magic, supernatural abilities, psionics, and divine abilities aren't even supposed to work on the spire until you reach the sigil), gave the fabric of reality the single greatest @$$ kicking it ever got, and almost won until his plan was thwarted by some plucky adventurers. Now I ask you, what has any cleric in the five big settings (greyhawk, eberron, faerun, planescape, and ravenloft) ever done to match that?

[Yuki Akuma]

Fun fact: that ass-kicking Vecna gave reality?

It's what caused third edition.

[Coidzor]

The cleric still gets more mooks.

Once you've reached exponential growth bounded only by the population centers available, a buffer of ~80 HD of undead is a drop in the bucket. Or even a buffer of ~120 HD from a cleric with the domain that lets one get 3xCL from animate dead.

A wightocalypse is a wightocalypse, and so I really must protest how unreasonable you're being here.

[Czin]

Fun fact: that ass-kicking Vecna gave reality?

It's what caused third edition.

When the shining paragon of your class manages to break the game/reality so hard that the edition changes, you know you've got yourself the best class in the game.

[Czin]

Once you've reached exponential growth bounded only by the population centers available, a buffer of 80 HD of undead is a drop in the bucket.

A wightocalypse is a wightocalypse, and so I really must protest how unreasonable you're being here.

Yes, and 80 1 hit dice monsters would be cut down with ease by any standing army worth it's salt. 80 human skeletons? Meet a company of 75-200 men, of which 90% are level 1 fighters, and they're all equipped with chain mail armor and maces. 80 zombies? The above but with swords instead. You could have 8 10 hit dice undead, but most of the better undead with 10 hit dice have turn resistance, so you probably only have zombies and skeletons, who get mobbed and destroyed by a single military company.

If you're planning on conquering and occupying a nation, your army had better damned number in the tens of thousands, otherwise you might as well stay at home.

[Maho-Tsukai]

I have been proven wrong and I have both a confession and a formal stated apology, but first the confession: I have literally spend my entire D&D carrier playing almost exclusively Clerics, Sorcerer/Mahos, and Dread Necromancers. There, I admited it(though it should have been painfully obvious by now.)

I have actually never played a wizard in REAL D&D(I've played them in NWN, though...but their nowhere near the power of a real 3.5e wizard.). Most of what I know of wizards come from online handbooks, NWN and my old group. In fact, I have not actually played 3.5e in a long time. I still play with some people but I have become very rusty in certain areas due to having not played 3.5e for a long time. So, in all actuality I have no right to speak as if I know that a wizard can't do something a cleric can because I have never actually played a wizard outside of a 3.0 based videogame that dose a terrible job of modeling 3.5e.

Thus, I am sorry for getting frustrated and making all these threads and if you desire to know why I did it was because, despite my love of necro clerics I longed to see if there was another class that could play the kind of character who desires to take over things and I, due to seeing Necromancy as the easiest way for a character to do that back when I was a lot younger became set in the idea that "Necromancy is the best way to take over stuff. Therefore, if I want to make a take over the world evil character, he/she will be a necro cleric, DN or Sorcerer/Maho(in OA)."

However, part of me wanted to see that proven wrong, and thats part of why I made this thread and the other one. One part of me wants to find other classes that can fit the RP concepts I like, but the other half of me thats a stubborn *******(I know I am one and I don't deny this, even my girlfriend has told me this to my face several times.) kept shooting down all the advice I was given and I acted immature and foolish all because I had convinced myself that you need lots of minions or a high charisma score to take over things. I asked for tips only to then try and prove that what I was looking for in the first place. I acted like an idiot. I made two pointless threads that more or less turned into useless debates where I was trying to stubbornly defend a position that I formed in middle school and due to a lack of actual experience never gave up. I am sorry for what I did and even if you all think I am just full of **** and will just go and do this kind of thing again I know that I am, this time, being sincere

In fact, if you want proof I'm being honest here, I will give you all a choice. While I don't want to leave the site, I feel that for the way I have been acting as of late that I should receive some kind of punishment. If all of you here want me to I will delete my account and not return to the site until a date that you all feel is approprate for me to re-register...never being included as a possible date. So, if any of you want me to do this I will and I am not just saying that. I am sorry for acting this way for the past few days and if you want me to delete my account to make up for it I will.

[Chess435]

1. Locate City
2. Snowcasting
3. Flash Frost
4. Fell Drain
5. ??????
6. Profit!

I win!

[Zherog]

A wizard can get an arbitrarily large undead horde with Command Undead.

Command an undead that creates spawn under its control. Get it to make spawn. Order it to order them to obey you. Repeat.

There. You just beat the Cleric.

Of course you're going to completely ignore this, because why let someone prove you wrong?

This was exactly my first thought. Specifically, command a shadow. Within just a few hours, its incorporeal touch attack will have generated all sorts of underlings. Probably a dozen "generations" if not more. Congrats. You now have an army of shadows and didn't use any onyx at all to accomplish the task.

[Bobbis]

*scratches head*

So why doesn't "create greater undead + command undead" work? I thought the original scheme was make a shadow; have it under your control, have it make more shadows that are under it's control, etc.

Heck, that can be accomplished with just second level spells if you find a naturally occurring shadow.

I don't imagine you'll need an opposed charisma check for "help me do this and you'll have all the souls you want."

[Czin]

1. Locate City
2. Snowcasting
3. Flash Frost
4. Fell Drain
5. ??????
6. Profit!

I win!

Nitpick: If you just nuke a country into radioactive glass, you haven't actually conquered it. Instead, you get a bunch of unusable land and a potential hazard (radioactive fallout) to your own nation. The same applies to mass wightapocalypses, only the hazard is the wights coming to your side of the border.

To conquer and hold a nation, you must defeat their armies and have troops physically occupy their territory.

[Origomar]

Nitpick: If you just nuke a country into radioactive glass, you haven't actually conquered it.

i might make this my sig.

[Maho-Tsukai]

It appears that my earlier apology post has been ignored/ninjaed away so I will tell all of you to please re-read it and determine whether or not you want me to delete my account and re-register at a pre-set date as a form of punishment for how I have been acting as of late. Like I said, go read my previous post that I made to get my full apology and reasons for why I am asking you this(The deletion thing...as well as why I was acting the way I was in the first place...and it's not some justification...If I thought I was in the right I would not be asking you all if you want me to delete my account.). I don't want to repeat the whole post so I just wanted to draw attention to it.

[Jair Barik]

Nitpick: If you just nuke a country into radioactive glass, you haven't actually conquered it. Instead, you get a bunch of unusable land and a potential hazard (radioactive fallout) to your own nation. The same applies to mass wightapocalypses, only the hazard is the wights coming to your side of the border.

To conquer and hold a nation, you must defeat their armies and have troops physically occupy their territory.


Thats where you misunderstand though! You nuke one country into wightpocalypse and then control the wights to go conquer another country!

[lokoone]

relax man, you just underestimated the power of a wizard.. lots of ppl do the same....
and the result its always the same too

[Coidzor]

To conquer and hold a nation, you must defeat their armies and have troops physically occupy their territory.

Hmm... This makes me wonder how small of a group one can do the mongol trick with.

Sure, one could depopulate villages then towns with shadows and then completely destroy any location that resisted after the initial declaration of intent via massive kill count (making the horde grow each time it's used), but it seems like something is missing....


Thats where you misunderstand though! You nuke one country into wightpocalypse and then control the wights to go conquer another country!

Part of the problem there is in establishing a useful chain of command/finding the progenitor wights.

Maho-Tsukai: Chill, man.

[Yuki Akuma]

It appears that my earlier apology post has been ignored/ninjaed away so I will tell all of you to please re-read it and determine whether or not you want me to delete my account and re-register at a pre-set date as a form of punishment for how I have been acting as of late. Like I said, go read my previous post that I made to get my full apology and reasons for why I am asking you this(The deletion thing...as well as why I was acting the way I was in the first place...and it's not some justification...If I thought I was in the right I would not be asking you all if you want me to delete my account.). I don't want to repeat the whole post so I just wanted to draw attention to it.

What?

That's stupid.

[Kaww]

Would this work?

It's a sorcerer, not a wizard. A dwarven sorcerer at that, with the 9th level substitution and shapechange.

1) Become a shambling mound via shapechange
2) Hit yourself with lightning
3) Remember to rest on earth and meditate 15 minutes
4) See your HP and spells per day grow at an alarming rate
5) Repeat 1-4 till you get bored
6) When you think you can outtank an army fry the army

Does this work?

[Maho-Tsukai]

So the fact that I acted the way I did is no big deal? In that case I feel foolish. I guess that's what I get for replacing D&D with freeform online anime RP sites which where filled with so much drama that any time you did some little thing wrong you where put on RP probation.(XD)

Also, Command Undead KINDA works on a shadow....because, again, you need charisma to get it to do what you want. Last time I checked a shadow has an intelligence score of 6, meaning that it's an intelligent undead which means you need to make a charisma check to get it to do anything....good luck getting enough charisma.

However, the general idea is still valid, you just have to find another means to control the shadow that dose not force you to make a cha check. While I am not sure as far as I know Dominate Monster can work on intelligent undead and that's a pretty good way to keep hold of a shadow if it dose.

If Dominate Monster doesn't work then shapechange dose almost the same job and dose not rely on you actually finding/creating a shadow. Instead you make yourself the shadow and go around making your own spawn, which in turn make more spawn for you since YOU are their master due to being the one who created them as appose to the shadow you enslaved being the one that made them.

There are also lots and lots of 3rd party and homebrew material(Tome of Necromancy)that make Necromancy better, including some which can give Wizards Rebuking that can match that of a cleric.

[Yuki Akuma]

Undead are immune to mind-affecting effects, which Dominate Monster is. It doesn't work on undead, intelligent or no.

[Maho-Tsukai]

So I guess the only way for a wizard to ever do the spawn trick without third party/homebrew to get rebuke is the shapechange trick since the wizard is not going to have charisma unless there is a generous point buy, good rolls or a DM who's generous with magic items. A sorcerer, however, is a different story annd despite not being a great necromancer on it's own can be a wonderful Necro if he takes the class that is my namesake, the Maho. They get command undead too, after all, and also get Desecrate....which makes them better then the wizard right there. Mahos make sick necromancers. Likewise, the Dread Necromancer is a great class for command undead as well, and they also get rebuke....but the DN is made to have the most undead ever so it's rather easy to build an army with a DN.

[The Glyphstone]

So the fact that I acted the way I did is no big deal? In that case I feel foolish. I guess that's what I get for replacing D&D with freeform online anime RP sites which where filled with so much drama that any time you did some little thing wrong you where put on RP probation.(XD)


Luckily for you, membership here is not decided democratically. All you have to do is avoid violating these rules (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/announcement.php?f=30&a=1), and you can post or say almost anything you want.:smallbiggrin:

[Endarire]

1: Cast simulacrum of your favorite powerful creature. I prefer Solars.

2: Have it do its thing; that is, be powerful.

[Yuki Akuma]

Getting good Charisma is easy. Eagle's Splendor is on your spell list. Craft a Cloak of Charisma +6 and a Headband of Charisma Competence/Insight/Whatever Bonus +6 and you're golden.

(Expensive? Yes. Doable? Yes.)

[Yukitsu]

Step 1:

Create an empty kingdom/world via genesis. Build a nice shiny castle within which you can reside.

Use true creation to true create a corpse. Corpses are a dime a dozen, and ergo, you can true create a mass grave for about 1 EXP.

Polymorph any object all of the corpses into living people. Then stab them all to death.

Dispel the polymorph any object, and then bring them all back to life with raise dead via arcane disciple and miracle.

You now have a bunch of confused people who you have created. Bring them back to life with various bits of paraphanelia, and have yourself in the castle throne. Now you're the king of a kingdom/world.

[Czin]

Hmm... This makes me wonder how small of a group one can do the mongol trick with.

Sure, one could depopulate villages then towns with shadows and then completely destroy any location that resisted after the initial declaration of intent via massive kill count (making the horde grow each time it's used), but it seems like something is missing....



Part of the problem there is in establishing a useful chain of command/finding the progenitor wights.

Maho-Tsukai: Chill, man.

Even the Mongols had to have some troops to guard their territory, the thing is; they just got the locals into doing the job (a job made much easier since they were very good at cowing said locals) while the core of their army, the Turko-Mongol-Iranian-Urgic steppe nomads and whatever auxillaries they deemed were necessary did the conquering.

[Darrin]

Conquer a kingdom? Easier to just buy it:

1. Perform (Pantomime) or use the ladder/pole trick to get 1010 GP. (Cheaper alternative might be wall of salt, which can be purchased for 280 GP and produce 36750 GP of salt as a trade good, in which case you can skip the Chaos Flask and just buy the Black Lotus Extract directly).
2. Buy a Chaos Flask (100 GP, Planar Handbook p. 76).
3. Find a 13th level spellcaster, pay him 910 GP to cast summon monster VII, summon a djinn.
4. With a Wisdom check DC 13, turn the Chaos Flask into a vial of Black Lotus Extract (4500 GP, DMG p. 297).
5. Direct the djinn to cast major creation (CL = 20) with Black Lotus Extract as the material component (per the djinn's description, created vegetable matter has a permanent duration). This creates 20 cubic feet of Black Lotus Extract. Assuming a vial of poison is about an ounce and 1 cubic foot = 957 fluid ounces, 20 x 957 = 19140 vials of Black Lotus Extract with a market value of 86,130,000 GP.
6. Sell off the Black Lotus Extract. Even if you can only get 50% of the market value, that's still 43,065,000 GP.
7. Buy kingdom. If price is above 43 million GP, rinse & repeat as necessary.

[quiet1mi]

Secret Societies that plan to take over the kingdom are the reason why Wizards do not randomly take over kingdoms...

In addition, the cost vs. Benefit ratio of taking a kingdom and holding it, along with logistics leaves them to wonder, "Why Bother?"

[Czin]

Conquer a kingdom? Easier to just buy it:

1. Perform (Pantomime) or use the ladder/pole trick to get 1010 GP. (Cheaper alternative might be wall of salt, which can be purchased for 280 GP and produce 36750 GP of salt as a trade good, in which case you can skip the Chaos Flask and just buy the Black Lotus Extract directly).
2. Buy a Chaos Flask (100 GP, Planar Handbook p. 76).
3. Find a 13th level spellcaster, pay him 910 GP to cast summon monster VII, summon a djinn.
4. With a Wisdom check DC 13, turn the Chaos Flask into a vial of Black Lotus Extract (4500 GP, DMG p. 297).
5. Direct the djinn to cast major creation (CL = 20) with Black Lotus Extract as the material component (per the djinn's description, created vegetable matter has a permanent duration). This creates 20 cubic feet of Black Lotus Extract. Assuming a vial of poison is about an ounce and 1 cubic foot = 957 fluid ounces, 20 x 957 = 19140 vials of Black Lotus Extract with a market value of 86,130,000 GP.
6. Sell off the Black Lotus Extract. Even if you can only get 50% of the market value, that's still 43,065,000 GP.
7. Buy kingdom. If price is above 43 million GP, rinse & repeat as necessary.

I don't think there are many sovereign nations that have put so little value on their independence that they'd let anyone buy them out. You probably could however, use silly shenanigans to become ruler of a democracy by bluffa/diplo/intimancing the voters.

[Maho-Tsukai]

Yeah, also, I found another trick the wizard has and the cleric doesn't. Yeah, the cleric will get more HD of undead then you but you get stone to flesh. Strangely enough, a swarm can be made into a skeleton. Thus, you can pay a craftsman to make a stone statue of a hellwasp swarm, stone to flesh it and now you have obtained the corpse of an obscure "monster" that you would otherwise never get your hands on that, after being animated and awakened via awaken undead can break the control limit for you by making zombies...lots and lots of zombies...Oh, and it gets dominate monster too. Also, since your a wizard you don't need a domain to get revive undead so using revive undead over and over again on the hellwasp swarm can let you, eventually, make even more of the things, and all of this was done with a WIZARD EXCLUSIVE(sans ACFs and posibly a domain out there somewhere) spell, stone to flesh.

As for buying out a kingdom, not going to happen. However, if your in a FFVII-esc, corporate-run Tippyverse setting buying out a"Shin-Ra wanna be/evil megacorp" is not out of the question if your company/business gets to be bigger then theirs.

[Czin]

Secret Societies that plan to take over the kingdom are the reason why Wizards do not randomly take over kingdoms...

In addition, the cost vs. Benefit ratio of taking a kingdom and holding it, along with logistics leaves them to wonder, "Why Bother?"

But it's good to be the King. You can wear a ridiculously ostentatious crown and set of robes no one will look at you funny. :smallbiggrin:

But everyone knows that why settle for king when you can be...EMPEROR!!!111ONEONEONE

[VeisuItaTyhjyys]

I think it's pretty racist that some of you guys wouldn't even consider it a kingdom if it's only made of wight people. :smalltongue:

[Czin]

I think it's pretty racist that some of you guys wouldn't even consider it a kingdom if it's only made of wight people. :smalltongue:

http://i855.photobucket.com/albums/ab112/alllyfaith/Relevant/severalbadpunslater.jpg

That was just...horriterrible...and yes...I reused my invented word...ugh...just...ugh...

[Yuki Akuma]

The only place I can think of made up almost entirely of wight people isn't a country - it's just an (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isle_of_Wight)isle (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IncrediblyLamePun).

[Maho-Tsukai]

Because doing your own work is for the good guys and crazy psycopaths who don't care about rueling the world and just are out to murder people and cause chaos. Everybody knows a TRUE evil overlord, for whatever reason, wants to rule the world. The reason can be whatever. Power-lust, making it a better place in your eyes, to obtain resources and a position of power to make your massive, long-term, convoluted ploy to achieve godhood and control all of space and time easier or even just to have a bunch of people to call you master, clean your house for you, make your food and go around being all tyrannical so you can laugh at all the people who happen to be unlucky enough to only have levels in NPC classes.

In the end though, it's all about being what everybody expects from a villain. Because, lets face it, baring the occasional redshirt army, it's a time tested cliche' that other then morality, minions are what separate heroes from villains. I mean, yeah, a hero may have summons and in some cases work for La Resistance and thus have some redshirts to back him up, but in the end, 9 times out of 10 it's the small, rag-tag band of heroes out to fight the evil , tyrannical emperor and all of his countless minions of darkness. I mean, seriously, when's the last time you saw a story in which a small, rag-tag bad of villains was out to topple the benevolent, kind-hearted emperor and his countless soldiers of light? A D&D evil campaign? Maybe, but even then I bet the PCs are all out to rule/take over something(or destroy it if they like being all staby staby, blasty blasty kill kill kill!!! we are CHAOTIC stui....I mean evil!!!!*Insert lame evil laugh here*) and are off adventuring so they can eventually become the guys with all the mooks.

Yeah, I know, I know, evil has far more depth then that...but I grew up with the cliche' stuff and thus RPing evil characters who want to rule stuff has always been something I enjoy. I grew up on DBZ and Pokemon, deep and well written plots be ******!(Just kidding here...but everybody wants to be cliche at least once and a while, no? XD)

[Analytica]

Maho-Tsukai: I just want to tell you that you just rose enormously in respect with me. Very, very few people on the internet are actually able to admit it if they are wrong about something, and to be able to be stronger than your own pride is the strongest anyone can aspire to be. :smallredface:

As for undead armies - consider using Mother Cyst and cyst spells to make people into your minions. Not quite undead, but anyone who knows that you can, whenever you feel like it, kill them and devour their soul to prevent resurrection (and who doesn't know enough about how it can be treated) are likely to remain loyal. Hmmm... though it doesn't seem to work at vast ranges. Too bad.

Also note the Song of the Dead metamagic feat that allows your mind-affecting spells to work on undead. If you can get 10th-level spells, maybe through Versatile Spellcaster, or you can metamagic reduce it, you can do Song of the Dead Mindrape on intelligent undead, who will then be your loyal lieutenants. These will then make spawn that serve you, who will also do the same, and so forth.

EDIT: Or Mindrape them first to make them willing to undergo the Necropolitan Ritual of Crucimigration into a form better able to serve you forever. The nice temple sends exorcist clerics your way. Some crucifixions later, you have a squad of undead clerics worshipping you.

[Maho-Tsukai]

Thank you for the compliment....and as for metamagic reduction, there is a reason the Incantatrix is so feared and held up as a paragon of broken PrCs. The only issue is getting your DM to allow you to take it.

Also, your right about the Necrotic Cyst spells but your using them the wrong way. You don't want to encyst people to make them your minion. Instead you want to wait until you get 4th level spells, slap on an invisibility/do whatever you need to do to get to a king without being noticed, give him a cyst and cast necrotic domination on him. You now have yourself an entire kingdoms's worth of solders and minions.

[Analytica]

There are other metamagic reducers, though most only take it down to +1. One from Dragon (Easy Metamagic) can reduce to +0, as can Metaphysical Spellshaper from BoEF. Not sure if there are any others from reputable sources though... Anima Mage can, I think.

EDIT: Or go Arcane Thesis: Mindrape.

[JaronK]

First, our Wizard turns himself into a Necropolitan (because it's easy). Then he spell stitches himself (any arcane caster can do this) with Animate Dead, Awaken Undead, and Animate Dread Warrior. He can have other nifty spells too this way (Craft Magical Tatoo is fun) but that doesn't really matter... those three are all he'll need. Next, he teleports to various graveyards where even moderately powerful humanoids have been buried (reasonable level Clerics and such). He casts Animate Dread Warrior twice per day, raising these minions with full class abilities, and animates some other minions too with Animate Dead when he finds good ones. He has no limit on the number of Dread Warriors he can have. Store them all up somewhere until you're ready to attack. Swarm over enemies with your useful casting minions. Since you've got a bunch of Clerics (probably) this is better than doing it as a Cleric.

This can all be done starting as soon as you can get yourself a wisdom of 19 and have enough Exp to do the spell stitching.

If you're willing to wait until level 17, just cast Genesis and make whatever you want, and rule that. It's better anyway.

JaronK

[Czin]

Thats where you misunderstand though! You nuke one country into wightpocalypse and then control the wights to go conquer another country!

Yes, but now you would have no one to work the farms or fields. And now every high level adventuring party would be out to kill you. I don't think a wizard could take on a full standard party with an level equal to his own. You'd have a CoDzilla, a Batman Wizard, a big stabby piece of dead weight, and a little sneaky piece of dead weight.

[Maho-Tsukai]

Why do you need wisdom 19 to do that? I know there is an explanation, but I am just wondering what the rules need wisdom for since I am not all that familiar with spellstitching...

Likewise, can a cleric pull that trick as well or dose spellstitching require you to be an arcane caster/use arcane magic?

[Czin]

Why do you need wisdom 19 to do that? I know there is an explanation, but I am just wondering what the rules need wisdom for since I am not all that familiar with spellstitching...

Likewise, can a cleric pull that trick as well or dose spellstitching require you be arcane?

The spells per day and number of known spells for a spellstitched undead are dependent upon it's wisdom score. So a Spellstitched zombie isn't terribly useful, while a Spellstitched Night Walker is something that inhabits an adventuring party's nightmares.

...so much...magic item crushing...why godhead pickle inspector...why?!? shivers

[Origomar]

im curious if theres a way for a kingdom to prevent a wizard from taking them over

[arguskos]

Luckily for you, membership here is not decided democratically. All you have to do is avoid violating these rules (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/announcement.php?f=30&a=1), and you can post or say almost anything you want.:smallbiggrin:
You know, sometimes I wonder what the Playground would look like if voting was utilized to determine who got to stick around. The "island" method, if you will. Be curious, it would be. And quite probably hazardous.

[JaronK]

Why do you need wisdom 19 to do that? I know there is an explanation, but I am just wondering what the rules need wisdom for since I am not all that familiar with spellstitching...

How good the spell like abilities you get with spell stitching are is based on your wisdom score, and at 19 wis you get the best ones. Also, the exp cost is based on wis, so you don't want to go over that.


Likewise, can a cleric pull that trick as well or dose spellstitching require you to be an arcane caster/use arcane magic?

An arcane caster has to spell stitch you, so the Cleric would need an arcane buddy to help. The Wizard can just do it to himself.

JaronK

[Coidzor]

You know, sometimes I wonder what the Playground would look like if voting was utilized to determine who got to stick around. The "island" method, if you will. Be curious, it would be. And quite probably hazardous.

12 gods.... Any time an argument broke out. :smalleek:

[gbprime]

im curious if theres a way for a kingdom to prevent a wizard from taking them over

Honestly... state religions. Changing the nobility or a select few of them is easy. Assassinate and replace is easy. But subverting a whole religion is tough. They have established practices and someone will raise an alarm eventually if things go awry or they start dying. And if it's serious enough, outsiders will be brought in. It could escalate from there.

One wizard can do a HECK of a lot, but if they incur the wrath of a heavenly or infernal host, they better have a backup plan!

[Zherog]

So the fact that I acted the way I did is no big deal? In that case I feel foolish. I guess that's what I get for replacing D&D with freeform online anime RP sites which where filled with so much drama that any time you did some little thing wrong you where put on RP probation.(XD)

Apology accepted, though I'm really not seeing a need for one. :)


Also, Command Undead KINDA works on a shadow....because, again, you need charisma to get it to do what you want. Last time I checked a shadow has an intelligence score of 6, meaning that it's an intelligent undead which means you need to make a charisma check to get it to do anything....good luck getting enough charisma.

I'm not so sure the wizard would need to make the Charisma check in this case.


You can try to give the subject orders, but you must win an opposed Charisma check to convince it to do anything it wouldn’t ordinarily do. (Retries are not allowed.) An intelligent commanded undead never obeys suicidal or obviously harmful orders, but it might be convinced that something very dangerous is worth doing.

(emphasis mine)

All you're asking the shadow to do is feed on the Strength of others. I'm not convinced this is not something it wouldn't ordinarily do.

In addition, while I'm not entirely sure what the DC of the Charisma check would be, I'm pretty confident in thinking it wouldn't be all that high. And as was pointed out, it's not terribly difficult to boost Charisma, even if it's only temporary (such as with eagle's splendor).

[Enterti]

I believe this thread an best be broken down in song.

"Anything you can do wizards can do better,
Wizards can do anything better than you"

That said +1 balls to OP for admitting he was wrong

[The Glyphstone]

In addition, while I'm not entirely sure what the DC of the Charisma check would be, I'm pretty confident in thinking it wouldn't be all that high. And as was pointed out, it's not terribly difficult to boost Charisma, even if it's only temporary (such as with eagle's splendor).

It's an opposed Cha test. There's no DC, you just have to beat the other guy's total with your total.

[druid91]

Nitpick: If you just nuke a country into radioactive glass, you haven't actually conquered it. Instead, you get a bunch of unusable land and a potential hazard (radioactive fallout) to your own nation. The same applies to mass wightapocalypses, only the hazard is the wights coming to your side of the border.

To conquer and hold a nation, you must defeat their armies and have troops physically occupy their territory.

No to conquer a nation you must defeat it's people. Which is why the solution to this problem is mass application of fire.

Technically you have conquered them if none of them are left alive.:smallbiggrin:

[The Big Dice]

No to conquer a nation you must defeat it's people. Which is why the solution to this problem is mass application of fire.

Technically you have conquered them if none of them are left alive.:smallbiggrin:

Fire and explosions are similar in their ability to solve problems.

But the real problem with using nothing but crunch to conquer a kingdom is, kingdoms aren't defined by crunch and nor is conquest. Which kind of makes things tricky.

That said, there's been some good ideas put forwards. But I can't help thinking that if I was a high enough level caster to be able to pull off the stunts described, I wouldn't be interested in ruling a kingdom. Instead, I'd let my mundane buddy thk he ruled the place, while I enjoyed my tax exempt status, free to do whatever I wanted without having the responsibility of ruling.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Mindrape (instant, permanent effect) the king into *wanting* to abdictate to you.

You are not a shadow king, you *ARE* the king. Have a nice day.

[Maho-Tsukai]

But that dose not mean an evil, power-hungry wizard who wanted to rule the world(and possibly more then that, with achieving godhood thrown in the mix, for that matter) would not want that responsibility. Different strokes for different folks, as they say, and thus while some spellcasters may not ever want to be in charge of anything others may seek it. I mean, I personally see the wizardly arts as a profession that would attract many ambitions, power hunrgy, dominant personality types who would love to rule over a bunch of flunkies since, lets face it, wizardry and clerichood(and druidhood if your the treehugger type who prefers environmentalism over religion)are, sans pun-pun, the best and most direct paths to lots of power in D&D. Thus wizardry is VERY likely to attract the dominant personality, ambitions, power hungry types who would jump at the chance to rule people since such people would want power beyond a political position.(Though the latter would certainly be something they would love to have and actively seek if it furthered their plans for godhood, global(or universal..or multiversal and perhaps even domination of reality and existence itself) domination ect...)

[Czin]

Mindrape (instant, permanent effect) the king into *wanting* to abdictate to you.

You are not a shadow king, you *ARE* the king. Have a nice day.

A king who is even moderately interested in staying in power probably has defenses against mind rape and other similar spells.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

A king who is even moderately interested in staying in power probably has defenses against mind rape and other similar spells.

How? Seriously, any half-wit wizard of even moderate level can strip defenses before his first standard action. If nothing else, spam Dispel Magic (or Greater) via both himself and his companion until everything drops.

[Czin]

How? Seriously, any half-wit wizard of even moderate level can strip defenses before his first standard action. If nothing else, spam Dispel Magic (or Greater) via both himself and his companion until everything drops.

Wizard, meet Abjurer of your level who is fanatically nationalistic who would rather die then let you take the free will of his genuinely adored sovereign; oh and the whole of X nation's mage guild is here to stop you too.

[druid91]

How? Seriously, any half-wit wizard of even moderate level can strip defenses before his first standard action. If nothing else, spam Dispel Magic (or Greater) via both himself and his companion until everything drops.

Well, A simple antimagic field over the whole throne room would probably work.

[Coidzor]

Well, A simple antimagic field over the whole throne room would probably work.

Against a 17+ level wizard? No, they're not going to play that game with you.


No to conquer a nation you must defeat it's people. Which is why the solution to this problem is mass application of fire.

Close, it's making the people unwilling or unable to resist. (http://www.erfworld.com/book-1-archive/?px=%2F124.jpg) Coupled with making the people willingly obey.


Technically you have conquered them if none of them are left alive.:smallbiggrin:

Killing everyone in a nation is not conquering it, it is destroying said nation and lording it over a tract of emptiness and ruins.

[2xMachina]

Wizard, meet Abjurer of your level who is fanatically nationalistic who would rather die then let you take the free will of his genuinely adored sovereign; oh and the whole of X nation's mage guild is here to stop you too.

Yeah, but now you're depending on Wizards. I'd say the Mage's guild is effectively ruling.

[Czin]

Yeah, but now you're depending on Wizards. I'd say the Mage's guild is effectively ruling.

Not if the King has a higher Charisma score, or if the mage's guild just obeys the King without questioning it because he's royalty like the peasantry and nobility does.

[2xMachina]

The King has to watch his step with the guild though. He can't risk even a strike by the guild. And actually making an enemy of them...

[Tyndmyr]

The reason? Simple, getting bodies, onyx and casting animate dead and having your zombies snack on a bunch of NPC class mooks is a FAR easier task then trying to keep up an elaborate ruse that you don't have the charisma to really keep up without LOTS of magical help(Unless your a sorcerer, had a generous point buy or got super good rolls.)and removing the threat of MULTIBLE enemy spellcasters who can easily see what your up to and thus stop it with a simple dispell magic. Oh, and there is the whole fact that if the king your dominating actually makes his save once your out of luck and most likely going to be dead very soon unless your high enough level for that spell that erases memories...and if your at that high a level you don't even need to dominate the king in the first place since by then your powerful enough to solo an army.

If there are multiple enemy spellcasters in target kingdom, then creating swarms of undead is not going to be successful.

When comparing unsuccessful plans, the easiest one is to do nothing.

Actual plans?

#1: Take a few GP, buy a dark cloak, and sit in a corner of the seediest bar around until a suspiciously disparate group of violent people somehow meets up. Offer them money for things. Sure, it's lots of work for THEM, but good odds of success, and jack all work for you.

#2: Mindrape. Lots and lots of mindrape.

#3: Defensively based caster. You know what can kill a Incantatrix/IoT7V? Neither do I. Incidentally, this same caster will also be capable of killing off the horde of undead on his way to obliterating the leadership of the kingdom. Subtlety is not required.

#4: Diplomacy. Lots and lots of diplomacy. Note how many magical buffs are available for skills. Bards in your new kingdom will be killed as soon as they announce taking up the profession.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Well, A simple antimagic field over the whole throne room would probably work.

So you are voluntarily dropping all your defenses so that my Instant effect can land unimpeded? Thank you!

Do keep in mind, Mindrape is not a Dominate. It is an instantaneous effect which permanently alters the target. You don't have to keep manipulating him. He simply begs you, down to the last fiber of his being, to take over the heavy burden he simply doesn't want anymore.

[Vizzerdrix]

Constructs maybe? Make flea effigy creatures, have them jump in some poison for a bit, then go bite the hostile spell caster in the midst of combat? Use the same fleas on dignitaries to deliver cha draining poisons to help swing negotiations your way.


Oooh! I also remember seeing poisons for undead someplace too. I see bees! effigy bees swarming over the wights. stinging and infecting them with... whatever undead infecting poisons do... I guess. :smallfrown:

Sigh. I wanna play an effigy master/poison maker now

[Acanous]

Mindrape (instant, permanent effect) the king into *wanting* to abdictate to you.

You are not a shadow king, you *ARE* the king. Have a nice day.

This was my first thought.

[TheCIASentMe]

Actually there is a REALLY easy way for a king to defend himself against a wizard. Diplomacy check. King takes wizard.

(Assuming the Wizard doesn't have a diplomancer build.)

[Czin]

Actually there is a REALLY easy way for a king to defend himself against a wizard. Diplomacy check. King takes wizard.

(Assuming the Wizard doesn't have a diplomancer build.)

Or if the King rolled 18s for his Charisma and Intelligence and maxed out his Diplomacy, Bluff, Sense motive, and Intimidate checks. With those four maxed out as long as he is able to talk he can't be touched. :smallbiggrin:

[Tyndmyr]

Yes, but now you would have no one to work the farms or fields.

You are a high level wizard. Not only is this problem completely solvable, but you don't even really NEED to work the farms or fields.


And now every high level adventuring party would be out to kill you. I don't think a wizard could take on a full standard party with an level equal to his own. You'd have a CoDzilla, a Batman Wizard, a big stabby piece of dead weight, and a little sneaky piece of dead weight.

Sooo, you have a wizard duel, and if you win, you get to kill several walking bags of xp as a bonus.

Plus, you can always use the wights. Giant piles of wights can certainly skew the battlefield. TBH, this downside isn't any different than what the necromancer would face anyway. The wizard is just better able to cope with it.

[TheCIASentMe]

Of course if the wizard casts silence on himself before teleporting... Then the King will take a penalty to his diplomacy roll as he has to resort to charades. What would that penalty be? (Probably not enough to affect the outcome is my guess.)

[Tyndmyr]

Or if the King rolled 18s for his Charisma and Intelligence and maxed out his Diplomacy, Bluff, Sense motive, and Intimidate checks. With those four maxed out as long as he is able to talk he can't be touched. :smallbiggrin:

He doesn't have spellcasting that can provide massive boosts to skill checks, can he?

Also, does he also have maxed Forgery?

Is all of the above true for all of his heirs?

[Czin]

Of course if the wizard casts silence on himself before teleporting... Then the King will take a penalty to his diplomacy roll as he has to resort to charades. What would that penalty be? (Probably not enough to affect the outcome is my guess.)

Mordenkainen's disjunction/Level 20 greater dispelling trap/Counterspelling activates upon detection of the silence spell, allowing the highly charismatic king to pour the honey into the Wizard's ears long enough for backup to arrive, or perhaps long enough to make him into a loyal subject.

[Czin]

He doesn't have spellcasting that can provide massive boosts to skill checks, can he?

Also, does he also have maxed Forgery?

Is all of the above true for all of his heirs?

I'm sure that the Feudal/Absolute/Constitutional Monarch of a major nation would be wealthy enough to buy magic items. After all, before the concept of a national debt came to be in the early modern era, Kings had to pay for most things out of their own pockets.

[Tyndmyr]

Mordenkainen's disjunction/Level 20 greater dispelling trap/Counterspelling activates upon detection of the silence spell, allowing the highly charismatic king to pour the honey into the Wizard's ears long enough for backup to arrive, or perhaps long enough to make him into a loyal subject.

I love the idea that the most dangerous thing a wizard can do is talk to you.

Magical Items are inherently inferior to having built in magic. After all, high level wizards also can afford piles of magic items.

More importantly, while you posit perfect Schrodinger's defenses for the king...note that his defenses have to work all the time, for every attackers method. An attacking wizard only has to find one way that works. Divination is pretty good at that.

Eventually you pretty much have to fall back on the only real defense being more/better wizards for the defending team.

[Czin]

I love the idea that the most dangerous thing a wizard can do is talk to you.

Magical Items are inherently inferior to having built in magic. After all, high level wizards also can afford piles of magic items.

More importantly, while you posit perfect Schrodinger's defenses for the king...note that his defenses have to work all the time, for every attackers method. An attacking wizard only has to find one way that works. Divination is pretty good at that.

Eventually you pretty much have to fall back on the only real defense being more/better wizards for the defending team.

I wouldn't say wizards so much as any tier 1 class.

Or a Beholder mage, but if the King has a pet beholder mage; he really should be Emperor of the world by now...

<.<...>.>...unless of course, every king has a pet beholder mage...

[Tyndmyr]

I wouldn't say wizards so much as any tier 1 class.

Or a Beholder mage, but if the King has a pet beholder mage; he really should be Emperor of the world by now...

<.<...>.>...unless of course, every king has a pet beholder mage...

Fair enough.

And as for the last bit, this campaign sounds better and better.

[Maho-Tsukai]

Campign? As in the conquest sense or actually turning this into a game of D&D? i ask because this thread has gotten a lot of intrest and even spawned a second thread for the "other side" trying to figure out how a mundane king could stop a wizard from taking over his kingdom so if anybody wants to start a PbP game on the playground to test out all these theroies their appears to be enough intrest. However, the fact that it's only one high level wizard vs. the kingdom dose not leave room for lots of players....Perhaps instead it's an all tier 1 party vs. the kingdom? Say a Druid, Cleric. Wizard and Artificer...or...if we want to prove the power of wizards an all wizard party vs. the kingdom, each wizard focused on a different thing.(So you could have a gishy-wizard, a necro wizard focused on getting lots of undead and debuffing and killing people with save or dies, an enchanter/deciever/face type-wizard for dominating, a summoner type, an illusion-using trickster and MAYBE even a blasty-mage...all with the tradional batman/do anything generalist as the leader of the whole group.(Though they others will have MANY spells outside their specalty too, of course.))

[TheCIASentMe]

This is also assuming that the King is a 20th level aristocrat. Why? 20th level anything would work as a king technically. A 20th level expert or adept would make a better king and that's only if we're keeping to NPC classes.

Truly I think a better challenge for this thread isn't to make a wizard that can conquer a country. Instead the more challenging thing would be to make a level 20 king that could run and defend a country while also defending his person, privilege and position from rivals including 20th level wizards.

Edit: Wait, what other thread? Could you post a link or the title of it?

[Maho-Tsukai]

Actually, somebody already made a thread after reading this one that dose just that, but they limited the king to non-spellcasting classes. So if anybody is interested in that debate there is no need to make a new thread unless you want to add the posibility of the king being a fullcaster of some kind(other then a wizard, obviously) to said debate.

[TheCIASentMe]

Do you have the thread title or a link? I can't seem to find it.

[Trixie]

Eh, to be honest, I find most methods described here... brutish, to say the least. Killing so many important people will tip observers something is wrong. Kings/Princes will likely have some immunity to mind affecting effects. Kingdoms might rebel if someone who was never heard off before pulls such documents out of his behind, especially if local high priest asks the heavens to confirm them (which they won't).

God help you if any of the above attracts the attention of the adventurers. You're pretty much dead then.

[Tyndmyr]

Eh, to be honest, I find most methods described here... brutish, to say the least. Killing so many important people will tip observers something is wrong. Kings/Princes will likely have some immunity to mind affecting effects. Kingdoms might rebel if someone who was never heard off before pulls such documents out of his behind, especially if local high priest asks the heavens to confirm them (which they won't).

God help you if any of the above attracts the attention of the adventurers. You're pretty much dead then.

Quickened Greater Dispel, Mindrape.

Sure, I may have to mindrape a lot of people to GET to the king, but that's still fairly easy. Easier than rooting around in some dirty cemetery then actually fielding an army for battle? Hell yea. Stay in civilization and get to know a few people and cast a few spells.

[Trixie]

Quickened Greater Dispel, Mindrape.

Except that requires 10th level spell slots, allows will save (best one of experts/aristocrats) + SR, combats buffs or items, not both, requires you to somehow appear next to the target, and, IIRC, taints you with evil energies.


Sure, I may have to mindrape a lot of people to GET to the king, but that's still fairly easy. Easier than rooting around in some dirty cemetery then actually fielding an army for battle? Hell yea. Stay in civilization and get to know a few people and cast a few spells.

Once someone notices something is wrong (and they will given the subtlety of most approaches ''name me heir then jump on the sword'') and divinations are cast, the game is over, pretty much.

Even if you do that as subtle as possible, you'd need to control everyone to stop rebellions and you cast that far too slowly to get even big part of the nobility, much less commoners, on your side.

My group tried to do something like this a few times, but it always comically failed, due to some outside factor they missed (you simply aren't the biggest fish in a pond, and if you are, there is no point to bother with Mindrapes, as no one can stop you anyway). Though, they enjoyed playing damage control more than casting spells, up to the point they were clearly losing anyway.

[onthetown]

I'd like to go back to Dominate Person for a moment...

You don't necessarily have to put up any ruse or do any politics.

Step 1) Be a relatively unknown and normal person in the kingdom who doesn't seem like they're interested in power and whatnot.
Step 2) Teleport/Greater Teleport into the king's bedroom and cast Dominate Person for him to carry out whatever your whims are.
Step 3) Continue to live your life normally for x number of days, with the satisfaction of knowing that the kingdom is changing to your plans.
Step 4) After x number of days, repeat.

This could literally go on for years as long as you aren't rousing suspicion -- but if you don't have a spouse or family, who's going to notice you disappearing from your own home, without actually opening the door and sneaking around the streets, in the middle of the night for a few minutes? People will be wary of the king, not you, because you're a totally ordinary person who is also shocked and awed at the king's recent decisions.

The downside to this is that you don't actually get to sit on the throne and proclaim your power, but it's nice for a quiet LE sort of chap.

Edit: The night when you first try to Dominate the king, you should have done your research beforehand to find out if he has any charms on him that protect him from mind-affecting spells. If so, ditch this plan and take one of the others that are suggested. If you can't find any information on that, make sure to wear a disguise that first night so that you can just Teleport back out and he'll never know who it was, and then you can go to another plan.

[Trixie]

Eh, that assumes the castle isn't warded so that anyone trying to teleport in doesn't land in anti-magic cell, or that the king have no defenses. Remember what happened to V after the teleport?

Anyway, why exactly the wizard would want to become king? To add extra burden to himself, and to be a poor ruler without skills necessary for the job? For giggles?

[Tyndmyr]

Except that requires 10th level spell slots, allows will save (best one of experts/aristocrats) + SR, combats buffs or items, not both, requires you to somehow appear next to the target, and, IIRC, taints you with evil energies.

See also, standard mitigation tricks. Any one of them will reduce that to 9th. Done deal.

Permanencied Detect Magic solves a great many things. It can be assumed that not all people will at all times be immune to mindrape. So, you just start nailing those that are not. As for magical buffs, a greater dispel from a 17th level caster, even without optimization, pretty much guts them all.

SR from items sucks terribly. It's not a significant threat.

Will saves from a high level caster on a 9th level spell are going to be pretty steep. Sure, they can roll a 1. Then, if you were so unsubtle as to cast in a public place, you have to deal with a single round of reactions before repeating. Once successful, you can have the target explain away his action however you chose.

The spell has an evil tag. It does not taint you or the target it any detectable way permanently. If tainted rules are in play, tainted scholar just gets more hilarity for the wizard, including arbitrarily high DCs and ridiculous amounts of spells. Taint is a win for the wizard.


Once someone notices something is wrong (and they will given the subtlety of most approaches ''name me heir then jump on the sword'') and divinations are cast, the game is over, pretty much.

Really? Just what are a room full of aristocrats/experts, with a few guards going to do to you? Especially if you have half of them mindraped already?

I'll grant that subtlety has gone out the window at this point, but what do you expect them to do to stop it?


Even if you do that as subtle as possible, you'd need to control everyone to stop rebellions and you cast that far too slowly to get even big part of the nobility, much less commoners, on your side.

Nah. There's dominate as well. Dominate alone can control a ludicrously large number of people. However, it's detectable, so you use that on the less important fish to net the big ones. At level 18, a generalist wizard is going to be rocking about 4 level 9 spells a day. That's a fairly rapidly increasing pool of people.

A king's court just generally isn't that big. Even in a very large country, you could hang around for a coupla weeks and get the majority of the important folks. Everyone that mattered, anyhow, and certainly enough to get to the king.

You don't NEED commoners on your side. Ever. That's what the mindraped nobility is for. They handle that stuff.


My group tried to do something like this a few times, but it always comically failed, due to some outside factor they missed (you simply aren't the biggest fish in a pond, and if you are, there is no point to bother with Mindrapes, as no one can stop you anyway). Though, they enjoyed playing damage control more than casting spells, up to the point they were clearly losing anyway.

The obvious problem is other casters. Because without them....feh.

[Khatoblepas]

Truly I think a better challenge for this thread isn't to make a wizard that can conquer a country. Instead the more challenging thing would be to make a level 20 king that could run and defend a country while also defending his person, privilege and position from rivals including 20th level wizards.


The build of the current king doesn't really matter, but a 20th level retired adventurer would be the best bet. Set up a kingdom (even if it's a single city and the farmland around it) that has magical items everywhere. A fountain of infinite water and irrigation, constant prestidigitation, Gold Plated awakened skeleton guards (obviously with masks on) to protect the common folk from harm (volunteers, of course.) A council of archons, guardiniels, and eladrin to discuss matters of politics, with a Good, mortal king (to stop the immortals from going too far into theoretical philosophy and lose sight of the kingdom) guided by his convictions and a phylactery of faithfulness. All the magic in the Kingdom is keyed to the one on the throne, the one ruling the kingdom. If ever an individual ruled the kingdom that wasn't Good, the magic would shut down and the city stop functioning. Of course, this would be a good impetus for people to rise up against an evil wizard who wants to rule that kingdom. Naturally, there'd have to be defenses put into place by the court wizards, since no man can rule alone, but all of these wizards would have to be pure of heart and mind.

You cannot take this city by force unless you carpet bombed it, and you can't sneak in because of the detect evil constantly up by the wardings and celestials. Surely someone who wanted to destroy the lives of the people of the city and take the throne for themselves would be evil. But then... undetectable alignment? Require all court wizards to take the Sacred Vow and one other vow. Vow of Peace would be a good bet, since these are court wizards, not adventurers. Someone who doesn't have VoP would be disqualified from becoming the court wizard. Easy test: Greater Dispel magic until all buffs are gone, then strike them with a quarterstaff. Does it break? If so, they do have it.

Mindrape is right out. To ensure this, all wizards must submit their spells to the Great Library, and only prepare their spells from there. This is checked over daily by Bookworms (for this purpose, a construct with Scholar's Touch at will) and an immortal, undead librarian (A good lich, maybe, and their phylactery is a book. Woohoo.) If any evil spells are cast, then the court wizards will identify it, or the Celestials will.

Sure, a 20th level wizard could call down fire and brimstone to destroy the city, but an entire court of 10th level Wizards and Clerics, an experienced King and some ounce of common sense (and the Good Alignment) will stop most attempts. Being empathically powered stops the wizard taking the throne, or any evildoers taking it. By the time the wizard actually, you know, gets in there, he's already become Good. And if not?

Well, the wizard just destroyed a bastion of Goodness. He's going to recieve a lot of guests from the upper planes, if you know what I mean.

Basically, what I'm saying is: If he's a Good King, Good's got his back. Neutral or evil kings don't have that luxury. Exalted Good Kings and their Exalted Good courts will curry more favor with Solars if a 20th level Wizard comes a knocking, even if they can't Gate them themselves. And once that Wizard is defeated (by 9th level spells cast by Clerics CL17 at least) Sanctify the Wicked will make him a valuable ally again.

Then again, what would a 20th level wizard do with a 1st, 5th, or even 10th level city? Wouldn't he want a planar metropolis, not some dirt farming slum in Nowheresvilles, Outlands? Think bigger, little wizard!

[Soren Hero]

1: Cast simulacrum of your favorite powerful creature. I prefer Solars.

2: Have it do its thing; that is, be powerful.

tl;dr everything

this one caught my eye and an idea sparked..so my plan involves 3 things: greater planar binding, simulacrum, and a spell clock

1st step: Greater planar bind something you want copies of
2nd step: Acquire the piece of them necessary to copy
3rd step: Create a spell clock casting simulacrum using that piece
4th step: Build an army of simulacrums with numerous SLA's and powers completely under your control

alternate version:
1: replace Greater Planar Binding by using Wish:Simulacrum (powerful outsider) within the spellclock itself

[Tyndmyr]

Let's not bring up spell clocks. If you have one of those, mere kingdom overthrowing is aiming far, far too low. You should be creating your own reality at that point.

[Aharon]

Required: Level 18, Extra Spell Feat (Complete Arcane)
Extra Spell: Greater Spirit Binding (also Complete Arcane)
Bind Spirits of the Land (found in the MMII). They have Earthquake at-will (not a useful combat spell, but great for annihilating cities). Get a small army of them using the usual Planar Binding shenanigans.

Let them destroy a city in the kingdom, take down high-level guys who attack it with your magic.
Announce you wish the Kingdom to surrender to you.
If they don't, continue with the next city. If they do: you got your kingdom.

Books used: 3 (PHB, CA, MMII).

[Trixie]

Required: Level 18, Extra Spell Feat (Complete Arcane)
Extra Spell: Greater Spirit Binding (also Complete Arcane)
Bind that fey creature from the MMII (?) that has Earthquake at-will (not a useful combat spell, but great for annihilating cities). Get a small army of them using the usual Planar Binding shenanigans.

Let them destroy a city in the kingdom, take down high-level guys who attack it with your magic.
Announce you wish the Kingdom to surrender to you.
If they don't, continue with the next city. If they do: you got your kingdom.

Books used: 3 (PHB, CA, MMII).

And this stops them from posting reward for your head in all taverns and watching you die how exactly? :smallwink:

After all, they only need to succeed once.

[Aharon]

@Trixie
You could order your army to go on a rampage should you die. Your magic doesn't cease just because you do.

Basically, Spirit Binding is like Planar Binding, just better because it has higher HD limits and some really awesome callable creatures. I chose this way because I was sure somebody else already brought up the usual stuff (Simulacra etc.).

(Assuming for the moment that you are not the hyper-prepared unkillable wizard that frequently pops up in that kind of scenarios. If you are, you don't have to worry about that - but you would also lack the motivation to take over a kingdom, as you genesis'ed your own :smallwink:)

Going for a lower-level version, with one more book required:
Level 12
Extra Spell: Lesser Spirit Binding
There's a fey creature in Oriental Adventures that has Shapechange 1/day at CL 20, but HD low enough to get them via Lesser Spirit Binding.

[druid91]

Eh, just taking over the kingdom isn't much, I would conquer the multiverse.

I would assemble a cult of aberration worshiping followers using this as an incentive gather several mind-flayers as lieutenants under me. I would then slowly foster bad relations between arcane and divine magic users, I would assassinate any who showed signs of having the potential to become a threat leaving the world with a relatively low magic baseline.

Then I would exterminate the arcane users, then I would embroil the world in a second war between law and chaos, shortly followed by good vs evil, splitting the multiverse into as many factions as their are alignments, I would achieve this by scry and die along with a few other methods, from my magically shielded base in the far realms. the mindflayers and my cult in the meanwhile would be producing the emerald legion as fast as possible.

When the time was ripe we would charge in on the side of lawful evil, a massive host of nigh indestructible trolls bursting into Ysgard and storming the plane, killing all and dumping the bodies through to the elemental plane of fire Ysgard would then be annexed by hell becoming my new domain as an Archduke. I would then use my army to overcome and slay the weakened forces of the rest of the multiverse, and as the devils were in the fighting as well strong arm them into accepting my position as new king of hell and thus the multiverse after all opposition is destroyed.
The mind flayers would have long since been bound to me in such a way that they must obey, likely liberal application of monstrous thrall.

Then I would sit down on my throne look out upon the suffering, bloodshed and destruction I caused with my meddling and start laughing maniacally.....

he.. ha ha ha.. HA. HA. HAHA.. AHAHAHA.. HA.. HA!!!

*Camera slowly moves backwards while I laugh to show my awesome tower made of lava and volcanic rock jutting unnaturally from the ruins of the greatest stronghold ysgard had to offer, with my throne sitting on top as mutant trolls fly by and the Ysgardian landscape for miles around is blackened and scorched, with parts still burning sending flames and smoke to cover huge swaths of the sky*

Here is my old plan from another thread if you need to cannibalize it for wizard armies crunch.

[Czin]

1: Cast simulacrum of your favorite powerful creature. I prefer Solars.

2: Have it do its thing; that is, be powerful.

Bah, Solars are overused and boring, now a simulacrum of a max hit dice spellstitched, evolved (12 times), vecna-blooded, swarm-shifter, paragon, phantom night walker on the other hand, now that's something that hasn't been done to death.

[Analytica]

Bah, Solars are overused and boring, now a simulacrum of a max hit dice spellstitched, evolved (12 times), vecna-blooded, swarm-shifter, paragon, phantom night walker on the other hand, now that's something that hasn't been done to death.

But the night walker is ALREADY dead. :smallbiggrin:

[Soren Hero]

Let's not bring up spell clocks. If you have one of those, mere kingdom overthrowing is aiming far, far too low. You should be creating your own reality at that point.

very true, but i was responding to the op's original challenge in a way that hasn't been brought up yet as far as crunch goes

[Ormur]

This is the reason I wouldn't make a setting where the king isn't a high level spellcaster or at least where high level spellcasters aren't supporters of the kingdom. I don't think it's enough to have wizards as disinterested outsiders they must be brought into the fold lest the occasional ambitious wizard take what's his due. Even then there must be a few outsiders that make the history books by toppling a regime, or not because they just did it very quietly.

Even so maybe an absolutist kingdom simply isn't a robust enough institution to survive D&D. A more decentralized system with a strong bureaucracy founded on some kind of popular legitimacy and checks and balances might be harder for a lone wizard to run. He could mindrape people or take their place but he'd have to do an awful lot of it to make any significant changes (if that's not the goal why bother in the first place) and if all the mid-level characters don't like them they'll revolt or leave or ignore the government.

[Soren Hero]

This is the reason I wouldn't make a setting where the king isn't a high level spellcaster or at least where high level spellcasters aren't supporters of the kingdom. I don't think it's enough to have wizards as disinterested outsiders they must be brought into the fold lest the occasional ambitious wizard take what's his due. Even then there must be a few outsiders that make the history books by toppling a regime, or not because they just did it very quietly.

Even so maybe an absolutist kingdom simply isn't a robust enough institution to survive D&D. A more decentralized system with a strong bureaucracy founded on some kind of popular legitimacy and checks and balances might be harder for a lone wizard to run. He could mindrape people or take their place but he'd have to do an awful lot of it to make any significant changes (if that's not the goal why bother in the first place) and if all the mid-level characters don't like them they'll revolt or leave or ignore the government.

i think this is why the tippyverse scenario exists...one powerful wizard can conceivable rule everything but most choose not too

[ffone]

Ed Greenwood's Forgotten Realms novels sort of address this issue. Throughout most of the Spellfire trilogy and Swords of... trilogy, you have the royal family of Cormyr whom, while high level and well-magic-item-equipped by everyday standards, are most lower-level and -power than certain good and evil wizards such as Elminster and Manshoon.

El and Mans mostly act by proxy, goading lower level allies into questing about, and on a few occasions they mention (with each other in one occasion) their reasons for not nuking each other or kingdoms directly, which boil down to something analogous to Cold War nuclear detente. Each side is afraid of pushing the other side too far, and things escalating into mutually assured destruction. Manshoon wants to control everything, but not destroy it. And he's extremely patient. Also, the big evil wizards in Faerun (Zhentarim, Red Wizards) spend most of their energy fighting each other, b/c after all they are each other's biggest threats.

Whether the rules support this I couldn't say. Magic in the novels is portrayed as slightly more defensive, not a 'go first or die' thing, in that high level wizards have many "mantles" or shields which you have to wear down with attack spells before getting through, rather than having an independent d20 chance (natural 1s etc.) on each try.