PDA

View Full Version : Alternative ways to destroy cities



Czin
2011-02-03, 06:53 PM
We all know of things like the locate city bomb as well as spells that were designed for the sole purpose of destroying/depopulating cities like Dire Winter or Apocalypse from the sky. But this thread is for creative or at least clever ways to use official spells or simple clever tactics to destroy or depopulate a city.

The first two things that most anyone can come up with that come to mind are things like using disintegrate to remove a large chunk out a dam, resulting in it's failure and releasing a massive deluge upon the inhabitants below. Another would be using earthquake at a fault line, thus causing an full scale earthquake that makes the one created by the spell look downright pitiful.

To keep things simple, try to keep metamagic down to a minimum and no epic spells. The cities in question are Waterdeep, Sharn, and the Free City of Greyhawk. If the spell/tactic can best all three (the reason for three cities is for repeated trials) cities then it gets a pass. All of these cities have their normal defenses, so adventurers will try and stop you if you get caught. Sharn and Waterdeep have their practical magic defenses and famous defenders, while the Free City has just said defenders, but of course; these defenders include the Circle of Eight (if they aren't busy) and perhaps Zagyg if his chaotic stupidity spurs him to the defense of his home city.

To meet the win condition you must survive your conquest.

Derjuin
2011-02-03, 06:58 PM
Set wights and/or shadows loose in an area filled with low-level people, and within a week or so the whole city should be wiped clean of living things, granted there aren't things in the city that can actually pose a threat to a large amount of shadows/wights.

I guess this isn't so much as using spells, because Shadowdancers can gain Shadows as minion-types.

Czin
2011-02-03, 07:01 PM
Set wights and/or shadows loose in an area filled with low-level people, and within a week or so the whole city should be wiped clean of living things, granted there aren't things in the city that can actually pose a threat to a large amount of shadows/wights.

By D&D terms something large enough to be classified as a small city as per the DMG would have many adventurers of a high enough level to mop the floor with wights. Sure this would work on a village or small town, but practically every villain worth his salt can eliminate those. What I'm talking about is something like bringing down a city the size of Waterdeep, Sharn, or the Free city of Greyhawk.

Amnestic
2011-02-03, 07:02 PM
Greater Consumptive Field (Cleric 7, Libris Mortis)...or so I thought. I'm confused about the size of the spell. The list gives it 10ft/Level sphere around you (thus a minimum of 130ft), but the description just gives it a range of 30ft, fixed. Incredible how it manages to contradict itself entirely in just three pages. Couple Consumptive Field with Field of Ghouls (Hunger Domain 7) to transform all the recently dead into Ghouls to then go murder more people. Activate during a town festival or something similar->Enjoy?

Gorgondantess
2011-02-03, 07:02 PM
By D&D terms something large enough to be classified as a small city as per the DMG would have many adventurers of a high enough level to mop the floor with wights. Sure this would work on a village or small town, but practically every villain worth his salt can eliminate those. What I'm talking about is something like bringing down a city the size of Waterdeep, Sharn, or the Free city of Greyhawk.

Nevertheless, so long as they have randomized attack patterns and are always active you should be able to kill thousands of people.

Czin
2011-02-03, 07:07 PM
Greater Consumptive Field (Cleric 7, Libris Mortis)...or so I thought. I'm confused about the size of the spell. The list gives it 10ft/Level sphere around you (thus a minimum of 130ft), but the description just gives it a range of 30ft, fixed. Incredible how it manages to contradict itself entirely in just three pages. Couple Consumptive Field with Field of Ghouls (Hunger Domain 7) to transform all the recently dead into Ghouls to then go murder more people. Activate during a town festival or something similar->Enjoy?

I can see this taking out a district or two before the adventurer and high level civil servant members of the hypothetical Metropolis's population get into gear and make ghoul kebab. Maybe more if you can back them up with more powerful undead like Devourers.

Dyllan
2011-02-03, 07:09 PM
Head to the city sewers with a Decanter of Endless Water. Use Stoneshape to completely surround it in rock, except for the top (so it won't move), open it and set it to gush 30 gallons a round. Get out quickly (teleport, or just run).

By the time anyone notices, the sewer will likely be completely flooded. By the time they figure out what's causing it, we'll be looking at serious city damage. Then they have to find the thing somewhere under the city.

Takes a level 3 cleric spell and a 9000 GP magic item. I suppose some craft skills could find a way to manage it without the cleric spell even.

Aemoh87
2011-02-03, 07:09 PM
There are several ways to change the temperature of an area, which would kill of or cause many of the citizens to flee.

Czin
2011-02-03, 07:11 PM
Head to the city sewers with a Decanter of Endless Water. Use Stoneshape to completely surround it in rock, except for the top (so it won't move), open it and set it to gush 30 gallons a round. Get out quickly (teleport, or just run).

By the time anyone notices, the sewer will likely be completely flooded. By the time they figure out what's causing it, we'll be looking at serious city damage. Then they have to find the thing somewhere under the city.

Takes a level 3 cleric spell and a 9000 GP magic item. I suppose some craft skills could find a way to manage it without the cleric spell even.
Or better yet, perhaps we could use say; ten or even a hundred or a thousand if you got a lot of money/lowish level followers.

Re'ozul
2011-02-03, 07:20 PM
Fimbulwinter (create famine due to conditions, One spell can kill a good chunk of people. Even better if you wander through the kingdom casting it everywhere)

Dyllan
2011-02-03, 07:21 PM
Portable Hole, pour in molten lead until it fills, let cool. Cast Fly, teleport as high as possible, drop over city. The impact should be the equivalent of a fairly powerful bomb, I'd think.

For the record, a 10' tall 6' diameter cylander of lead would weigh about 200 tons.

Derjuin
2011-02-03, 07:24 PM
Major creation (at level 17) to create the Anti-osmium bomb (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2010735&postcount=38)? :smalltongue: Even if it doesn't work, it's still fun to think about how much damage it could do if it worked.

J.Gellert
2011-02-03, 07:27 PM
Do something fancy, like opening a few Gates to the Abyss, then while all the high-level adventurers are busy (slay the Demons! This is obviously and important quest! For the glory and xp!) do the wight trick.

Really, the wight trick is so awesome because there's no stopping it after it gets to a certain point. And it's easy to give it a serious head start by starting with 10 wights, in 10 different locations, and aim for sleeping level 1 commoners.

If you are killed by a spirit in your sleep, do you scream? This might even go undetected until half the commoners are wights. And at that point, you just need one more round to kill the other half of commoners.

Czin
2011-02-03, 07:32 PM
Portable Hole, pour in molten lead until it fills, let cool. Cast Fly, teleport as high as possible, drop over city. The impact should be the equivalent of a fairly powerful bomb, I'd think.

For the record, a 10' tall 6' diameter cylander of lead would weigh about 200 tons.
Let's see.


The most described system is "an orbiting tungsten telephone pole with small fins and a computer in the back for guidance". The weapon can be down-scaled, an orbiting "crowbar" rather than a pole.[citation needed] The system described in the 2003 United States Air Force (USAF) report was that of 20-foot-long (6.1 m), 1-foot-diameter (0.30 m) tungsten rods, that are satellite controlled, and have global strike capability, with impact speeds of Mach 10, and strike 25-foot accuracy.

If I remember correctly this system would strike with the force of a small tactical nuke, so it would be in the very low kilotons (>10kt) and it would certainly be able to kill a hell of a lot of people with just one usage. Since Waterdeep has a population of 1.3 million (somewhat ridiculous, but Faerun is more idealistic than Greyhawk so practcial magic is more common), you'd probably need to drop quite a lot of these, but Lead's kind of cheap. The Free City of Greyhawk at only 69,500 (which is realistic for the gritty kind of world Greyhawk is where magic isn't being used to really help people, so living conditions are generally not much better than those of the actual middle ages, indeed Constantinople had a population of a million at it's peak, which greatly dwarfs the Free City) people would only need three or so to more or less kill everyone. Sharn has a population of 2 million (rather sensible for the sheer amount of practical magic in the setting, putting even Faerun to shame) so you'd need even more of these to wipe it out, but still; it's much cheaper than raising an army large enough to do this kind of job.

Claudius Maximus
2011-02-03, 07:34 PM
Widened Extended Blizzard. CL x2 FEET of snow. I'm sure those of you in the American Midwest right now can attest to how bad that would be.

With the right CL boosts and techniques you can make it nearly impossible to dispel. Add Invisible Spell to terrify the populace even more, while still blinding the only people strong enough to stop you.

Actually, Blizzard can cause damage... Throw on Fell Drain too if you want to get really ridiculous.

Due to the preposterous area just throw down three or four of these and you can blanket all of the most populated sections of the city. Even if they have mages to Disjoin it (because dispels shouldn't work) they will run out of Disjunctions before you run out of these, since it's only a 7th level slot and honestly, how many Disjunctions did they prepare, compared to an attacker who likely has a full set of these.

Amnestic
2011-02-03, 07:42 PM
I can see this taking out a district or two before the adventurer and high level civil servant members of the hypothetical Metropolis's population get into gear and make ghoul kebab. Maybe more if you can back them up with more powerful undead like Devourers.

M'okay. Tack on the Leadership feat to grab a 14th Level Cleric Cohort (will likely require a few more levels on your part) and simultaneously cast it on opposite sides of the city. There's a good chance that doubling up and splitting the attention to both sides could cause enough chaos to wipe out a great number of people. A spell/ability which grants flight (since Greater Consumptive Field affects a spherical shape) could help to spread the carnage.

You're not after the adventurers - just distracting them long enough to damage/kill enough of the city to have the civilian populace abandon it and consider it dead.

If you've got a Stronghold/Base and a Charisma modifier of +2 or higher, you can grab your wingman at 16, which should be easily manageable.

I am curious about plagues though. One of the magical variety - perhaps in the same vein as the one used by the Cult of the Damned in Warcraft 3 to raise the infected as zombies - could devestate an entire country and beyond if it wasn't nipped in the bud.

Biffoniacus_Furiou
2011-02-03, 07:49 PM
After this blizzard just hit the midwest, I'm going to go with a Druid 20, Wis 30 (18 base, +5 levels, +1 age, +6 enhancement is easy enough), Widen Spell, 6x Metamagic Rod of Widen Spell, and enough Wilding Clasps to go around.

Spells prepared: Call Avalanche x18 (all 5th-7th level slots), Widened Call Avalanche x10 (all 8th and 9th level slots) (Frostburn)
Wild Shape: any flying form will do, whether an air elemental or a legendary hawk or even a quetzalcoatlus.

Fly in circles above the city casting Widened Call Avalanche 28 times. You could be flying high enough that nobody would be able to make the Spot/Listen check to Spellcraft your casts within the 28 rounds it takes you to completely blanket the city in hundreds of feet of snow. The 10 ft. radius/level spread would be a 400 ft. radius per spell. 400^2 x 3.14 = 502,400 square feet, or 100,480 five foot squares, x28 = 2,813,440 five foot squares covered by these spells. "The amount of tightly packed snow that fills a 5-foot-by-5-foot area weighs 500 pounds." You could completely blanket a city twice, dropping tons of snow onto every building in less than three minutes.

Everything would be completely buried. Buildings would be crushed beneath the weight. There would be very few survivors of the initial impact, and most who weren't lucky enough to die immediately would slowly suffocate beneath the snow. If performed during the summertime the rapidly melting snow would wash away any remnants of the city and cause severe flooding in a huge area around the ruins. In three days this character could completely return all three of those cities to nature.

Czin
2011-02-03, 07:50 PM
M'okay. Tack on the Leadership feat to grab a 14th Level Cleric Cohort (will likely require a few more levels on your part) and simultaneously cast it on opposite sides of the city. There's a good chance that doubling up and splitting the attention to both sides could cause enough chaos to wipe out a great number of people. A spell/ability which grants flight (since Greater Consumptive Field affects a spherical shape) could help to spread the carnage.

You're not after the adventurers - just distracting them long enough to damage/kill enough of the city to have the civilian populace abandon it and consider it dead.

If you've got a Stronghold/Base and a Charisma modifier of +2 or higher, you can grab your wingman at 16, which should be easily manageable.

I am curious about plagues though. One of the magical variety - perhaps in the same vein as the one used by the Cult of the Damned in Warcraft 3 to raise the infected as zombies - could devestate an entire country and beyond if it wasn't nipped in the bud.
Perhaps one could make an air transmittable version of ghoul fever. That should make an ghoulapocalypse very quickly and minimize the amount of time you have to spend in the city and thus minimize the risk of adventurering parties or military strike teams discovering and killing you before you're finished.

Chilingsworth
2011-02-03, 07:53 PM
Idea #1:

Use Major Creation to produce massive amounts of Black Lotus Poison (or whichever posion you prefer,) Place all of this toxin into the city's water supply. The posion is permentant because it's organic material, so it'll stay in the system.
EDIT: Maybe you could also use the spell to make the posion appear in a cloud-like form?

Idea #2:

Set up a large number of stategically placed permenant teleportation circles in busy throughfares all over town. Set the circles to send the victims to some place really deadly (the Mournland/Demon Wastes, the bottom of a particularly nasty ocean, whatever,) Watch as people disapear.
Edit: You may be able to use a Greater Metamagic Rod of Widen to make the teleportation circles bigger so you'd need slightly fewer of them.

Amnestic
2011-02-03, 08:08 PM
*snip for length*

I think Fimbulwinter (Druid 8, Cleric 9, Frostburn) would make a fine addition to your icy apocalypse.


Perhaps one could make an air transmittable version of ghoul fever. That should make an ghoulapocalypse very quickly and minimize the amount of time you have to spend in the city and thus minimize the risk of adventurering parties or military strike teams discovering and killing you before you're finished.

Could work. Another option: Befoul (Cleric 8, Corruption 8, BoVD). Turns water 100ft/levelx100ft/levelx10ft/level poisonous permanently. 1500x1500x150 (minimum) feet of water...all poisoned and basically undrinkable. Bonus points if the body of water includes a swimming area, as anything with 1HD or less in the water at the time of casting dies immediately. You could drop a few of them in any and all water sources in a city and have the entire city in anarchy within a day.

I would recommend decent scrying protection though.

Edit: While we're on the topic of poisoning the land, Despoil (Cleric 9, BoVD) can starve a city to its knees with judicial application. It's Instantaneous, but its effects are permanent barring Wish/Miracle reversal. Drop a few of these in farmland and watch as suddenly the city can't feed its people anymore. They'll tear each other apart. Rumours of the land being blighted and poisoned will help keep away trade caravans, meaning supplies from other cities will be short. Find a disease which stays dormant for x weeks, stick it in a bunch of refugees fleeing the city and watch as your devestation crosses country borders and begins to envelop the world.

Except for thrice-damned Madagascar, of course.

Tokuhara
2011-02-03, 08:09 PM
My 2 copper:

Be an evil bard, use mindrape on several street gangs so they want to work together to usurp the government, then mindrape the officials to have them fight the gang legion by recruiting villagers. Works for any sized city.

(By the way, I prefer nonviolent destruction. This is my way to do it. it works wonders and makes you not a criminal, unlike every other way stated)

Chilingsworth
2011-02-03, 08:10 PM
I would recommend decent scrying protection though.

Yeah, that would probably be a good idea with any of these plans, or even if you're just serriously contemplating these plans, for that matter!

Coidzor
2011-02-03, 08:15 PM
(By the way, I prefer nonviolent destruction. This is my way to do it. it works wonders and makes you not a criminal, unlike every other way stated)

Aside from the mindraping and inciting street gangs to violence. :smallconfused: Certainly doesn't sound nonviolent.

Tokuhara
2011-02-03, 08:24 PM
Aside from the mindraping and inciting street gangs to violence. :smallconfused: Certainly doesn't sound nonviolent.

I'm not directly killing people. I'm just making people kill each other. Falls under "nonviolent" in my eyes. Subterfuge vs. Wanton Destruction

Jarian
2011-02-03, 08:36 PM
So a general that orders his armies to slaughter a city full of civilians is a pacifist?

That's some interesting logic.

arguskos
2011-02-03, 08:40 PM
So a general that orders his armies to slaughter a city full of civilians is a pacifist?

That's some interesting logic.
Best kind of general: the self-delusional one!

Also, there's a factor that's not being accounted for here: the inhabitants of the cities and the mythals that protect them. Sharn and Waterdeep both have nets of permanent, overlapping, powerful magical wards that defend them against many effects such as this, and they both have extraordinarily powerful inhabitants who would resent this sort of behavior. It's still possible, of course, but it takes a lot more effort than something cheap such as the "fly above it, drop avalanches on it" methods.

Any assault like this much take into account the cities defenses. All I'm sayin'.

Czin
2011-02-03, 08:57 PM
Best kind of general: the self-delusional one!

Also, there's a factor that's not being accounted for here: the inhabitants of the cities and the mythals that protect them. Sharn and Waterdeep both have nets of permanent, overlapping, powerful magical wards that defend them against many effects such as this, and they both have extraordinarily powerful inhabitants who would resent this sort of behavior. It's still possible, of course, but it takes a lot more effort than something cheap such as the "fly above it, drop avalanches on it" methods.

Any assault like this much take into account the cities defenses. All I'm sayin'.
Doesn't The Free city of Greyhawk have Zagyg's "protection." And since Zagyg is an epic level archmage demi-god, doesn't that make any assault's chances of success completely dependent upon Zagyg's mood (thankfully for invaders, Zagyg Yragerne makes Halaster Blackcloak look positively sane by comparison.) And not only that, it has the defense of the Circle of Eight. So even though Greyhawk is much smaller than Sharn or Waterdeep, it's defenses are nothing to sneeze at.



Except for thrice-damned Madagascar, of course.

Not even an horde of epic level full spellcasters can bring thrice damned Madagascar down. Once President Madagascar has made up his mind to shut down everything (and he's awfully quick about making up his mind too, and he's damned paranoid to boot), nothing can hope to affect that accursed little island and it's devil-lemurs. Even now I can hear King Julian mocking me with his bizarre accent, mocking my inability to infect it no matter how cleverly I hide my diseases.

Coidzor
2011-02-03, 08:59 PM
Also, there's a factor that's not being accounted for here: the inhabitants of the cities and the mythals that protect them. Sharn and Waterdeep both have nets of permanent, overlapping, powerful magical wards that defend them against many effects such as this, and they both have extraordinarily powerful inhabitants who would resent this sort of behavior. It's still possible, of course, but it takes a lot more effort than something cheap such as the "fly above it, drop avalanches on it" methods.

Any assault like this much take into account the cities defenses. All I'm sayin'.

Kinda need to have some standards to go on for that, but, yeah I agree.

Eberron doesn't generally have high level NPCs at least, so one could potentially brute force Sharn simply by being high enough in level that there's no real threat from the populace itself. Though one's own existence as a high-level character would be a bit iffy as a result.

Unless Sharn's defensive magics protect against it, several of the tower-burroughs of Sharn could perhaps be targeted by Rockburst or disintegrate and similar spells, to cause them to lose structural cohesion and rain debris on lower levels of the city.

IIRC, Sharn is part towers, floating and non-floating, part ground-based city, and part underground city on top of further underground ruins on top of the local underdark equivalent.

So flooding could work for the undercity and terrestrial city, in the right place so long as there's no bottomless pit or effectively bottomless pit that would prevent real flooding damage from occuring, but do nothing to the towers themselves beyond the lower levels of the ones attached to the ground.

Similarly, adding a lot of extra weight and snow on to the top of things would mess up things for the ground and undercity and the upper/open-air levels of the towers, but the floating towers hold up tons of rock and a variable amount of tonnage of occupants, so a few paltry more tons of snow aren't going to really effect them. And I think some of them are catacombs anyway so they wouldn't get effected by snow at all.

Edit: come to think of it, isn't Waterdeep similarly connected to some kind of quasi-infinite place beneath it in the form of Undermountain or something? Though I think there's places underneath it that don't link up to Undermountain so one could still have some room to work the flooding angle.

arguskos
2011-02-03, 09:01 PM
Doesn't The Free city of Greyhawk have Zagyg's "protection." And since Zagyg is an epic level archmage demi-god, doesn't that make any assault's chances of success completely dependent upon Zagyg's mood (thankfully for invaders, Zagyg Yragerne makes Halaster Blackcloak look positively sane by comparison.) And not only that, it has the defense of the Circle of Eight. So even though Greyhawk is much smaller than Sharn or Waterdeep, it's defenses are nothing to sneeze at.
It's also far smaller, and the Circle is busy across the world. The size is a relevant issue. Easier to starve out, easier to just physically bury, etcetcetc.

I wouldn't say it's easy, but compared to Waterdeep and Sharn, it's laughable, since it has no static protections. Waterdeep/Sharn are defended from many things by virtue of just sitting there and taking it (thanks semi-mythals! :smallbiggrin:), where Greyhawk has no such protections, a severe tactical weakness in this sort of circumstance.

Czin
2011-02-03, 09:02 PM
It's also far smaller, and the Circle is busy across the world. The size is a relevant issue. Easier to starve out, easier to just physically bury, etcetcetc.

I wouldn't say it's easy, but compared to Waterdeep and Sharn, it's laughable, since it has no static protections. Waterdeep/Sharn are defended from many things by virtue of just sitting there and taking it (thanks semi-mythals! :smallbiggrin:), where Greyhawk has no such protections, a severe tactical weakness in this sort of circumstance.

But if Zagyg's wheel of madness lands on "defend Greyhawk." It's best to run I assume?

arguskos
2011-02-03, 09:04 PM
But if Zagyg's wheel of madness lands on "defend Greyhawk." It's best to run I assume?
His theory of "defend Greyhawk" might include "teleport it to the Bright Desert". That way, it's protected by the desert! :smallbiggrin:

This is ZAGYG we're talking about here. It's like relying on The Machine of Lum the Mad for defense against a herd of rampaging rhinos: possible, but not a great bet.

faceroll
2011-02-03, 09:04 PM
Snowocaplyse

Could you throw in some blood snow to make it even more awful?

Czin
2011-02-03, 09:12 PM
His theory of "defend Greyhawk" might include "teleport it to the Bright Desert". That way, it's protected by the desert! :smallbiggrin:

This is ZAGYG we're talking about here. It's like relying on The Machine of Lum the Mad for defense against a herd of rampaging rhinos: possible, but not a great bet.

So I take it I was right in assuming he was even loonier than Halaster. No wonder the man's most famous spells are all meant for practical jokes. One must question why Boccob the emotionless takes such a liking to the guy.

Coidzor
2011-02-03, 09:15 PM
Could you throw in some blood snow to make it even more awful?

Hmm, there's a thought.

Almost wish there was a way to spread blacksand around for other climes...

Ksheep
2011-02-03, 09:18 PM
Bulk amounts of Dust of Dryness in the water supply. Take the resulting pellets and hide them somewhere. Should clear the city out within a couple days.

Czin
2011-02-03, 09:28 PM
Could you throw in some blood snow to make it even more awful?

Blood snow? Which splat book is this from, it sounds silly in an interesting way.

Ksheep
2011-02-03, 09:32 PM
Blood snow? Which splat book is this from, it sounds silly in an interesting way.

It's from Frostburn. Anyone who contacts it must make a DC10+1 per round Fort save or take 1d2 Con damage and be nauseated for an hour. Nasty stuff, especially if it covers a large area.

Coidzor
2011-02-03, 09:40 PM
It's from Frostburn. Anyone who contacts it must make a DC10+1 per round Fort save or take 1d2 Con damage and be nauseated for an hour. Nasty stuff, especially if it covers a large area.

How much of an area can it cover? I'm assuming it requires existing snow as the target/area of the spell effect.

arguskos
2011-02-03, 09:41 PM
How much of an area can it cover? I'm assuming it requires existing snow as the target/area of the spell effect.
It's an environmental effect, so, dunno. A whole city, in theory, if a way could be found to generate it en masse.

Ksheep
2011-02-03, 09:46 PM
How much of an area can it cover? I'm assuming it requires existing snow as the target/area of the spell effect.

It's a (super)-natural phenomenon that appears in blizzards from magically-tainted areas. It usually lasts 2d8 rounds during the blizzard, but it coats everything it falls on.

Looking at the spells, there is a spell called Blood Snow (Cleric 2, Druid 2, Sorc/Wiz 3) that you can cast upon a snow field (not a falling blizzard, tho), which turns it into blood-snow. Effects a 20 ft square of snow per level. It only lasts for 1 round per level, and doesn't have the increasing fort save.

Coidzor
2011-02-03, 09:46 PM
It's an environmental effect, so, dunno. A whole city, in theory, if a way could be found to generate it en masse.

So it just effects all contiguous snow? :smallconfused: That would make snowing in a city a lot nastier.

arguskos
2011-02-03, 09:48 PM
So it just effects all contiguous snow? :smallconfused: That would make snowing in a city a lot nastier.
No no, the dude above you got it. It's a weather effect, it just randomly happens.

NichG
2011-02-03, 09:59 PM
Here's a particularly mean one:

Use well-timed Polymorph Any Object spells over an extended period to convert 100 ft^3/lv per casting of magma into a couple liters of water. Add water to the city reservoir or water supply. Wait 9 days or however long for the effect to end. Could also be done with food, or, if you want to firebomb the world, air.

Coidzor
2011-02-03, 10:05 PM
Re: bloodsnow: Ah. Thanks for clearing that up.
Here's a particularly mean one:

Use well-timed Polymorph Any Object spells over an extended period to convert 100 ft^3/lv per casting of magma into a couple liters of water. Add water to the city reservoir or water supply. Wait 9 days or however long for the effect to end. Could also be done with food, or, if you want to firebomb the world, air.

In that vein, I believe someone mentioned shrink item as another possible way to get magma from point A. to point B. safely and with the ability to reconstitute it as magma.

awa
2011-02-03, 10:36 PM
use the gate spell to summon elderich abominations from the far realm (or any other stupidly powerful monster that favors destruction) . Gate can be used to summon immensely powerful creatures you cant control them but all we need to do is destroy a city having a habitable plane after words is not one of the challenge requirements

CockroachTeaParty
2011-02-03, 11:22 PM
Yeah, Frostburn has several spells that could destroy cities. I'm not sure if the editor and writers were aware of just how preposterously deadly generating feet of snow per round in a large area truly is.

lightningcat
2011-02-03, 11:25 PM
I was going to go with the old classic of earthquake, but without some serious help it can't deal with much more then a hamlet with a single casting. Although the terror effect of watching a quarter of the population getting sucked into a fissure plus most buildings collapsing would convince most peasents to head out of town.

But If you could cast multiple widened earthquakes. Hum...

EDIT: Dang, widen takes 3 levels higher.

Coidzor
2011-02-03, 11:30 PM
I was going to go with the old classic of earthquake, but without some serious help it can't deal with much more then a hamlet with a single casting. Although the terror effect of watching a quarter of the population getting sucked into a fissure plus most buildings collapsing would convince most peasents to head out of town.

But If you could cast multiple widened earthquakes. Hum...

Someone mentioned getting some creature that can produce earthquakes in a recentish thread(I think it was the one comparing a wizard's options for conquering a kingdom to a cleric's undead horde route), so there might be a way to form a small army of earth-quake making creatures.

Would still leave a fair amount of Sharn unaffected and might be blocked by Waterdeep's mythal/spellwards, but definitely something to consider.

Well, 1/day an Earth-domain Cleric with some metamagic reducer of 1 could get it as a 9th level spell. ....or just DMM Widen it.

Come to think of it though, if the sides of the towers or floating towers of Sharn count as cliffs that could be quite nasty indeed what with it being a long-range spell...

zenon
2011-02-04, 05:17 AM
You simply use shape stone to create a giant cave beneath the city, which you then collapse. This should kill almost every one in the city, unless they are levitating or something.

Gnoman
2011-02-04, 08:10 AM
Be a level 20 wizard. Kill them all one saving throw at a time. Do things oldschool.

Dyllan
2011-02-04, 08:47 AM
Be a level 20 wizard. Kill them all one saving throw at a time. Do things oldschool.

I think you MIGHT run out of spell slots.

Level 20 Sorcerer might have enough to kill everyone but the level 1 commoners... and they can be stabbed to death if you're a level 20 anything, without fear (should be able to get enough DR to ignore any lucky hits, and only one in 400 will get a lucky crit).

arguskos
2011-02-04, 12:41 PM
You simply use shape stone to create a giant cave beneath the city, which you then collapse. This should kill almost every one in the city, unless they are levitating or something.
Better way to do this is with Lyres of Building. :smallamused:

umbrapolaris
2011-02-04, 12:52 PM
let a Sorcerer-King of Athas cast his Dragon Metamorphosis spell ^^

Tyndmyr
2011-02-04, 03:22 PM
My favorite method is Invisible Spell. Yup, anything that's hangs around for a while, cast it invisible. Wall o' fire, for instance. Toss a coin in the middle as bait.

Obviously, Undetectable Aura will be used on everything left around to avoid trivially easy magic detection. For curing those who enjoy see invisibility too much...invisible explosive runes or symbols.

Nothing causes a panic like people dropping dead everywhere, and when the trusted wizards go in to investigate, they go insane.

Uncertainty
2011-02-04, 03:44 PM
My favorite method is Invisible Spell. Yup, anything that's hangs around for a while, cast it invisible. Wall o' fire, for instance. Toss a coin in the middle as bait.

Obviously, Undetectable Aura will be used on everything left around to avoid trivially easy magic detection. For curing those who enjoy see invisibility too much...invisible explosive runes or symbols.

Nothing causes a panic like people dropping dead everywhere, and when the trusted wizards go in to investigate, they go insane.

I like your style!

Invisible cloudkill... Invisible grease on the stairs/by that steep ledge. Invisible (permanent!) symbols of pain/insanity. Invisible webs in the streets, walls of force at sea-level in the harbor...

Would invisible sphere of ultimate destruction work?

Tyndmyr
2011-02-04, 03:48 PM
Invisible solid fog. Invisible summons. Invisible invisibility. Invisible dancing lights. Invisible Apocalypse From The Sky. Invisible Polymorph.

There's really no limit to the number of subtactics, which means you can constantly shuffle, doing a different one every time with absolutely no additional investment. Break the city and your DM's mind, all at the same time. Order now, and receive an additional invisible item at no extra charge!

Xanmyral
2011-02-04, 04:44 PM
While I'm normally an advocate of sending in fiery death, attacking a large city where others can do the same will require some... Finesse. So I would go the subtle route. Start off with something simple, such as poisoning the water supply with blinding sickness. This could be carried out by having an unseen servant carry a twenty pound jug of infected water to the cities well, or where ever they get their water. A floating jug though is rather suspicious, so if possible do it when night has fallen, and with an invisible jug if possible. Once there, I imagine the disease will need a few days to fester and spread, assuming they don't have some way to purify the water. Sure, the higher ups won't be infected, but the lower class will. Perhaps find some "ladies of the evening," and infect them with some contact disease such as shakes and slimy doom... Try to keep it from their attention, mind rape if necessary. Although a more humorous route would be to take a mummy under your control, alter it's shape to be a cortisone, and have it spread mummy rot. Systematically attack food supplies, and generation stations-(Farms, docks, what have you...) to cripple food supply. Perhaps let some food get through, but poisoned with a specific, identifiable poison, and stash said poison in a higher up's chambers to be found. Methodical assassinations of priests, clerics, healers and etc to cripple recovery of town; suggested means magical such as luminous assassin-(If I remember correctly...) and so such. While doing this, have a rather obvious scene take place. A gang fight, riot, undead attack etc, but have them leave clues to a hidden plot, say from some cult or so such. The adventurers will stumble upon the clues, and attack what ever cult you feel for the attacks on. Bonus points if the cult is successfully framed, and unaware. Hell, if you have time add another layer to the feint, and make it look like the cult was hired by some other high up officials. While they run around chasing ghost trails, your work will be ultimately ignored, as they would of, hopefully, pinned it on the gang/cult/higher ups. Another good method to add would be to find structural focal points are in various infrastructures, and utilize disintegrate, or stone to mud, or if you feel quite morbid-(who doesn't?) Stone to flesh. You can be in the city, disguised as a peasant, or maybe some lowly apprentice and hedge wizard. Try to leave as many false trails as possible, look as inconspicuous as you can, and use throw away cohorts when possible.

Kansaschaser
2011-02-04, 05:13 PM
Unfortunatly, I can't avoid Metamagic feats. Here is how I could destroy all three cities.

Wizard 3 / Cleric 3 / Geomancer 10 (take tremmorsense drift) / Mystic Theurge 4

Wizard Caster Level = 17
Geomancer Caster Level = 7

Feats
1st level: Extend Spell
3rd level: Persistent Spell
6th level: Divine Metamagic: Persistent Spell
9th level: Extra Turning
12th level: Extra Turning
15th level: Extra Turning
18th level: Extra Turning

Cast Persistent Dragon Breath (5th level spell from the Spell Compendium).
Cast Persistent Animate Breath (7th level spell from the Spell Compendium).

You can now summon a Huge Elemental every 1d4 rounds with your breath weapon. If you spend the next 20 hours summoning elementals, you could get about 7,500 huge elementals. That's an average of 1 elemental summoned every 2.5 rounds. If your DM makes you roll, the number could be more(12,000 max) or less (3,000 minimum).

Now cast Persistent Undermaster (9th level spell from the Spell Compendium).

Order your army of Elementals to seige the city while you attack from below with Undermaster. Earthquakes and Move Earth work best for toppling buildings.

SurlySeraph
2011-02-04, 05:31 PM
Fell Drain [anything with a really big area], as in the Locate City Bomb, is great. Especially if you can work on Twin and Repeat so that everything with up to 4 HD dies. My favorite way to do that would probably be using Control Weather or one of the previously described ways to create a large volume of snow or water and then using Water to Acid. It's probably best if you can cast it on the water vapor in rainclouds, but you could also cast it on the sewers to erode away everything the city is built on, or flood the city and then cast it on the surface layer of the water. Or more than one of the above; a simple Fell Drain Water to Acid is only a 5th-level spell, so you could cast several to simultaneously undermine the city's foundations and dissolve away cover from the sky, while killing everyone who touches any of the water.

Blackfire (Wiz 8) is nice, but better for armies than for cities because you need the people to be tightly packed.

Let's not forget the 1d2 Crusader, Hulking Hurler, Ubercharger, and Olo's Bolt Spammer for martial destruction of cities.

Qwertystop
2011-02-04, 05:56 PM
Invisible solid fog. Invisible summons. Invisible invisibility. Invisible dancing lights. Invisible Apocalypse From The Sky. Invisible Polymorph.

There's really no limit to the number of subtactics, which means you can constantly shuffle, doing a different one every time with absolutely no additional investment. Break the city and your DM's mind, all at the same time. Order now, and receive an additional invisible item at no extra charge!


Invisible solid fog. Invisible summons. Invisible invisibility. Invisible dancing lights. Invisible Apocalypse From The Sky. Invisible Polymorph.


Invisible invisibility.

What the heck would that do?!
(My thought is visible normally, but invisible to See Invisibility")

Severus
2011-02-04, 06:08 PM
GODZILLA!

Really people. Unless they can summon Mothra, they're toast!

Jallorn
2011-02-04, 06:41 PM
Has anyone considered some Delayed Blast Fireballs? Here's how my idea works. Get a small group of wizards who can cast DBF and teleport. So either 13th level, or spend a fair amount of money on scrolls/wands/staffs/whatever.

Actually, if we go with the latter, that is, scrolls, we can use some first level Factotums or other UMD class. Obviously the motivator isn't 1st level, but it makes the hirelings cheaper. Also obviously someone a few levels higher would be better for the UMD checks, but still. That's why Factotums are best, they can blow a bunch of IPs on all the checks.

Anyway, you give each of, say, 5, UMDers 6 scrolls of DBF, and 6 scrolls of Quickened Teleport, then send them to 30 locations. They walk to the first location, and use the first DBF there, letting it wait for five rounds, then Teleport to the second location. At the second location, they set the DBF for only 4 rounds, etc. Voila, 30 simultaneous Fireballs leading to 30 simultaneous fires. For increased chances of success, add more hirelings.

Don't believe this would work? Ask those firefighters in California how hard it is to stop a giant fire.

Czin
2011-02-04, 06:50 PM
Has anyone considered some Delayed Blast Fireballs? Here's how my idea works. Get a small group of wizards who can cast DBF and teleport. So either 13th level, or spend a fair amount of money on scrolls/wands/staffs/whatever.

Actually, if we go with the latter, that is, scrolls, we can use some first level Factotums or other UMD class. Obviously the motivator isn't 1st level, but it makes the hirelings cheaper. Also obviously someone a few levels higher would be better for the UMD checks, but still. That's why Factotums are best, they can blow a bunch of IPs on all the checks.

Anyway, you give each of, say, 5, UMDers 6 scrolls of DBF, and 6 scrolls of Quickened Teleport, then send them to 30 locations. They walk to the first location, and use the first DBF there, letting it wait for five rounds, then Teleport to the second location. At the second location, they set the DBF for only 4 rounds, etc. Voila, 30 simultaneous Fireballs leading to 30 simultaneous fires. For increased chances of success, add more hirelings.

Don't believe this would work? Ask those firefighters in California how hard it is to stop a giant fire.

The players handbook specifically says that spells like fireball cannot start mundane fires because the heat disappears so quickly.

Jallorn
2011-02-04, 06:51 PM
The players handbook specifically says that spells like fireball cannot start mundane fires because the heat disappears so quickly.

Well darn...

Still, the idea of numerous simultaneous fires across the city has merit.

faceroll
2011-02-04, 06:57 PM
Has anyone considered some Delayed Blast Fireballs? Here's how my idea works. Get a small group of wizards who can cast DBF and teleport. So either 13th level, or spend a fair amount of money on scrolls/wands/staffs/whatever.

Actually, if we go with the latter, that is, scrolls, we can use some first level Factotums or other UMD class. Obviously the motivator isn't 1st level, but it makes the hirelings cheaper. Also obviously someone a few levels higher would be better for the UMD checks, but still. That's why Factotums are best, they can blow a bunch of IPs on all the checks.

Anyway, you give each of, say, 5, UMDers 6 scrolls of DBF, and 6 scrolls of Quickened Teleport, then send them to 30 locations. They walk to the first location, and use the first DBF there, letting it wait for five rounds, then Teleport to the second location. At the second location, they set the DBF for only 4 rounds, etc. Voila, 30 simultaneous Fireballs leading to 30 simultaneous fires. For increased chances of success, add more hirelings.

Don't believe this would work? Ask those firefighters in California how hard it is to stop a giant fire.

Delayed blast fireballs + quintessence (4th level psion power) = free hand grenades. :smalltongue:

Oooh, use energy sub: acid to get full damage to structures. Then melt the city. Let's see, a wizard1/psion3/cerebremancer10/legacy champion 6 gets wizard casting of 15 and psion of 17. With practiced spell caster and an orange ioun stone, the cerebremancer can cast 20d6 delayed blast acid balls. That's an average of 70 damage per spell, which used on stone, destroys 4 inches of it per casting. Say the thickest structures are 5 feet thick stone, then you need about 15 castings to level 1. Assuming the city has a radius of 6,000 feet and homogeneous 5 foot thick stone structures, you only need 1,350,000 castings of the spell. Maximize, twin and repeat spell which each halve this number. Widen spell would reduce the required number of castings by more than 2 thirds. If you could get all those metamagics applied, you would only need to cast the spell 50,000 times.

Hmmmm, that's pretty useless. Need bigger radius.

Darklady2831
2011-02-04, 07:01 PM
The players handbook specifically says that spells like fireball cannot start mundane fires because the heat disappears so quickly.

Quoted from the PHB

"The Fireball sets fire to combustibles and damages objects in the area. It can melt metals with low melting points, such as lead, gold, copper, silver, and bronze."

Jallorn
2011-02-04, 07:04 PM
Quoted from the PHB

"The Fireball sets fire to combustibles and damages objects in the area. It can melt metals with low melting points, such as lead, gold, copper, silver, and bronze."

Alright, so it does work, nice!

Czin
2011-02-04, 07:40 PM
Quoted from the PHB

"The Fireball sets fire to combustibles and damages objects in the area. It can melt metals with low melting points, such as lead, gold, copper, silver, and bronze."

Oh right, I was thinking of burning. Fireballs can't make a creature burn. That was what I was thinking of.

Claudius Maximus
2011-02-04, 07:54 PM
Evil Weather - Green Fog. Everyone within 1 mile per level has to make a DC 17 fort save or be polymorphed into a random creature for 10d6 minutes. If the city doesn't tear itself apart on its own in that timeframe, this could certainly serve as a hell of a distraction.

Takes an hour to cast, but takes effect instantly.

SurlySeraph
2011-02-04, 08:23 PM
Hmmmm, that's pretty useless. Need bigger radius.

Water to Acid is Instantaneous and does I think 1d6 per round to objects. You could use Weather Control, enough castings of Create Water, etc. to get the city uniformly an inch or so deep and then cast Water to Acid a bunch of times and let it soak.

Or you could use one of those damage spells whose radius is CL-dependent and the Greater Consumptive Field trick, but that seems a bit too straightforward for something like this.

Ionizer
2011-02-04, 09:08 PM
Delayed blast fireballs + quintessence (4th level psion power) = free hand grenades. :smalltongue:

Oooh, use energy sub: acid to get full damage to structures. Then melt the city. Let's see, a wizard1/psion3/cerebremancer10/legacy champion 6 gets wizard casting of 15 and psion of 17. With practiced spell caster and an orange ioun stone, the cerebremancer can cast 20d6 delayed blast acid balls. That's an average of 70 damage per spell, which used on stone, destroys 4 inches of it per casting. Say the thickest structures are 5 feet thick stone, then you need about 15 castings to level 1. Assuming the city has a radius of 6,000 feet and homogeneous 5 foot thick stone structures, you only need 1,350,000 castings of the spell. Maximize, twin and repeat spell which each halve this number. Widen spell would reduce the required number of castings by more than 2 thirds. If you could get all those metamagics applied, you would only need to cast the spell 50,000 times.

Hmmmm, that's pretty useless. Need bigger radius.

Hmm, what about Widened, Energy Sub:Acid Blistering Radiance, including the Radiance ability of the Radiant Servant of Pelor (Edit: find a way to add more radiance somehow, I don't think there's enough of it yet. :smallbiggrin:)? 200-ft radius spread that deals 2d6 acid damage per round for 20 rounds (40d6 total, or 140 average damage without metamagic) for a 20th level caster. Still probably needs a lot of castings, but a 200-ft radius is bigger than a 40-ft radius.