Wizard vs. City: Property Damage Edition

[Zaq]

So, take one Wizard. Take one city. The exact size doesn't matter, but let's assume that it's at least a moderately sized city with at least a reasonably respectably organized government, militia, whatever, with at least a noticeable percent of its population having class levels. Say that the Wizard hates the city and wants to see it destroyed. The city is unaware of the Wizard's intentions, and the Wizard is working alone. The goal of the Wizard is to start working at sunrise and see the city destroyed by sunset. For the purposes of this discussion, let's say that "destroyed" means that the vast majority of the populace is dead, dying, or evacuated, and most of the buildings are burnt, collapsed, or otherwise lie in uninhabitable ruins.

Without infinite loops or magic items, what would you say is the minimum level at which this could happen? If you can do this as a straight Wizard, please do so; if a certain PrC would be especially helpful, feel free to mention it and explain how.

The important things here, remember, are 1) working within a very short time frame, 2) dealing property damage in addition to population damage, and 3) staying at the minimum level possible. What can you come up with? If you don't want to submit a specific strategy (as would be difficult without defining the particulars of the city, but that shouldn't be necessary, since we want our theoretical Wizard to be able to take out pretty much any given city that doesn't see them coming), that's fine; a discussion about which spells (and spell levels)are most likely to make this feasible would be just as interesting to me.

As usual, this isn't for a specific game. This is just a thought exercise.

[Silva Stormrage]

So, take one Wizard. Take one city. The exact size doesn't matter, but let's assume that it's at least a moderately sized city with at least a reasonably respectably organized government, militia, whatever, with at least a noticeable percent of its population having class levels. Say that the Wizard hates the city and wants to see it destroyed. The city is unaware of the Wizard's intentions, and the Wizard is working alone. The goal of the Wizard is to start working at sunrise and see the city destroyed by sunset. For the purposes of this discussion, let's say that "destroyed" means that the vast majority of the populace is dead, dying, or evacuated, and most of the buildings are burnt, collapsed, or otherwise lie in uninhabitable ruins.

Without infinite loops or magic items, what would you say is the minimum level at which this could happen? If you can do this as a straight Wizard, please do so; if a certain PrC would be especially helpful, feel free to mention it and explain how.

The important things here, remember, are 1) working within a very short time frame, 2) dealing property damage in addition to population damage, and 3) staying at the minimum level possible. What can you come up with? If you don't want to submit a specific strategy (as would be difficult without defining the particulars of the city, but that shouldn't be necessary, since we want our theoretical Wizard to be able to take out pretty much any given city that doesn't see them coming), that's fine; a discussion about which spells (and spell levels)are most likely to make this feasible would be just as interesting to me.

As usual, this isn't for a specific game. This is just a thought exercise.

I would expect a wizard at level 9 to be able to pull it off through a shadow chain. Summon undead V to summon a shadow in an dark alleyway and create a permeant shadow. Once the original shadow is desummoned use command undead on it to make it friendly and start a shadowpocolypse in the city. Since the normal town guard can't fight shadows the city will be quickly overrun.

I am sure some people would be able to do it better and lower level though. A fell drain sonic snap kills people and makes wights and is a 1st level spell with metamagic reducers but I believe the wight rises 24 hours after the level drain kills the target so doesn't work to kill a city in a day.

[WinWin]

Summon Monster and Summon Undead...

Burrowing creatures like a Thoqqua can tear apart buildings and set them on fire. Summoned incorporeal undead can probably spawn fairly easily.

I would use Druid, personally. A level 7 wizard is quite capable of unleashing destruction on a limited scale for a decent amount of time. Especially with a few fell drain and energy substitution feats (mainly to damage objects).

Vortex of Teeth is great. Force Effect, decent area and round per level duration. Can shred people as well as buildings....just musing.

When you factor in active opposition who may also be spellcasters, things get tricky. Best bet would be to rely on Planar Bindings and stockpile critters before the attack is unleashed. Burrowing and Incorporeals are hard to track down and engage properly. Now you're looking at at least level 9.

[Alleran]

Maybe the Locate City Bomb or a Wightocalypse, perhaps?

[Zaq]

I would expect a wizard at level 9 to be able to pull it off through a shadow chain. Summon undead V to summon a shadow in an dark alleyway and create a permeant shadow. Once the original shadow is desummoned use command undead on it to make it friendly and start a shadowpocolypse in the city. Since the normal town guard can't fight shadows the city will be quickly overrun.

I am sure some people would be able to do it better and lower level though. A fell drain sonic snap kills people and makes wights and is a 1st level spell with metamagic reducers but I believe the wight rises 24 hours after the level drain kills the target so doesn't work to kill a city in a day.

You're right about the Wightocalypse not working. A chain of shadows might cause a good few deaths, but if we're assuming a big enough city, they'll probably have the clerics to put it down before it becomes unmanageable, and incorporeal creatures aren't too good at property damage.


Summon Monster and Summon Undead...

Burrowing creatures like a Thoqqua can tear apart buildings and set them on fire. Summoned incorporeal undead can probably spawn fairly easily.

I would use Druid, personally. A level 7 wizard is quite capable of unleashing destruction on a limited scale for a decent amount of time. Especially with a few fell drain and energy substitution feats (mainly to damage objects).

Vortex of Teeth is great. Force Effect, decent area and round per level duration. Can shred people as well as buildings....just musing.

When you factor in active opposition who may also be spellcasters, things get tricky. Best bet would be to rely on Planar Bindings and stockpile critters before the attack is unleashed. Burrowing and Incorporeals are hard to track down and engage properly. Now you're looking at at least level 9.

I like the idea of burrowers to undermine foundations. Couldn't do the job on their own, but they're a good start. I specified Wizard instead of Druid because Druid's too easy. A few solid weather spells stacked on top of each other (even just Control Winds and Control Weather can cause some serious hurt, and if you get, say, Frostburn involved, things get nasty reeeeeeeally fast) are enough to get most of the job done.


Maybe the Locate City Bomb or a Wightocalypse, perhaps?

Wightocalypse is too slow, and the LCB (even if we assume it works) doesn't damage buildings, at least not as I read it.

[faceroll]

You're right about the Wightocalypse not working. A chain of shadows might cause a good few deaths, but if we're assuming a big enough city, they'll probably have the clerics to put it down before it becomes unmanageable, and incorporeal creatures aren't too good at property damage..

You should probably nail down exactly what resources the city guard has.

Anyway, I am going to go with level 5, assuming your city is flammable.

The wizard has at least 22 int (18 base, 2 race, 1 level, 1 age); this gets him a bonus 3rd level spell, and 2 bonus 2nd level spells.

Spells known:
Fly
Shrink Item
Fireball
Gust of Wind
Invisibility

Spells prepared:
2 fireballs
2 Gusts of Wind
1 Invisibility

Equipment:
1 alchemist fire (10gp)
1 rod of extend spell, lesser (3000gp)
10,200 pints oil (1,020 gp).
Bag of Holding type II (5,000gp)
This puts him 30 gp over wbl; he could easily have craft: lantern oil to get some of it at 1/3rd the price.

Assumptions on weight and volume:
a pint is a pound
60 pints is one cubic foot

For 10 days prior to Operation Thunderclap, he will shrink 10 cubic feet of oil each day with an extended shrink item. That is the equivalent to about 1200 pints, for a total of 6000 pints shrunk to 1/4000th of their normal dimensions. That means he can store those 6,000 pints in the space of 1.5 pints.

He carries the shrunken down pints of oil on his person. He fills his type II bag of holding with 4,200 pints of lantern oil.

According to the PHB, one pint of oil covers 5 feet. That means he can cover 255,000 square feet of space, or 10,200 5' squares.

The wizard has 5 minutes to fly above the city, while invisible and drop lantern oil on all the thatched roofs. Then he drops a couple of fireballs to get things burning, followed by extended gusts of wind to fan the flames and push the fire in the proper direction.

The lantern oil is really just to get the inferno going. There's nowhere near enough of it to cover an entire city (we can cover 255,000 sq feet; we need over 27 million sq to cover a sq mile). With gusts of wind, the fire can be spread. Once the flames start going, though, like any good blaze, it should be self sustaining because it'll create its own weather.

[edit]
Level 7, with lesser planar binding, Thoqquas and fire elementals could get a lot of work done, in addition to Operation Thunderclap. A Candle of Invocation to get a Balor, who has fireball at will, is of course a very obvious solution, but with binding spells, you could probably approximate it without cheesing so very, very hard.

[Radar]

One could use Flaming Sphere instead of Fireball to start the fires. It can hop from roof to roof to get at least the same coverage. It easily extinguishable, so lace it with Ivisible Spell just in case. You direct it with move action and casually walk around with your standard action.

1. While in a dark alley cast Invisible Flaming Sphere.
2. Cast Invisibility on yourself.
3. Go to town.

It might be done with appropriate reserve feat, but it would reveal you as the bad guy too easily. Flying around and tossing Fireballs might also result in gaining a new nickname: Piñata (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0154.html).

[faceroll]

Flying around and tossing Fireballs might also result in gaining a new nickname: Piñata (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0154.html).

At level 5, you can cast a fireball at targets 600 feet away. That's 6 range increments for most weapons, or -12 to attacks vs. you. With mage armor and a shield spell up, and 10 dex, you've got effectively 30 AC. That's going to be pretty hard for the town militia to hit.

[hamishspence]

Apocalypse From The Sky (BoVD) has a very big effect and a fair amount of damage (10d6) but requires an artifact as a focus.

[Feytalist]

The Great Fire of LondonCity X oil flask/fireball idea is nice, but will have reduced effectiveness against stone buildings.

I suggest a few stone shapes/stone to muds at key locations. It might necessitate a Knowledge (architecture and engineering) check or two, but correctly placed could collapse a whole section of wall/castle/nuclear bunker.

[Radar]

At level 5, you can cast a fireball at targets 600 feet away. That's 6 range increments for most weapons, or -12 to attacks vs. you. With mage armor and a shield spell up, and 10 dex, you've got effectively 30 AC. That's going to be pretty hard for the town militia to hit.
Frankly, I didn't account for that. High AC is not much of an issue, since they'll hit on a 20 anyway and it's reasonable to assume a few dozens of archers at least. The most important problem is posed by insane Spot rules, which make you impossible to see from that far (-60 to Spot checks due to distance). People in D&D are extremly shortsighted.

[Killer Angel]

For structural damage, You don't need to be a wizard for that, but you can use a Lyre of building.
Other than buildings, you can construct tunnels, ditches, or whatever. We'll have the equivalent of 100 humans laboring for three days, undermining various buildings. Be a wizard with some rank in engineering, and you'll do a lot of damage.

edit: bah, no magic items...

[faceroll]

Frankly, I didn't account for that. High AC is not much of an issue, since they'll hit on a 20 anyway and it's reasonable to assume a few dozens of archers at least. The most important problem is posed by insane Spot rules, which make you impossible to see from that far (-60 to Spot checks due to distance). People in D&D are extremly shortsighted.

Yeah, I didn't bring up the spot rules because they're just plain dumb. Anyway, 36 archers shooting at you is a little less than 2 hits a round. 2d8 damage won't kill you before they get fireballed to death or you take refuge behind a curtain of smoke.

[faceroll]

The Great Fire of LondonCity X oil flask/fireball idea is nice, but will have reduced effectiveness against stone buildings.

I suggest a few stone shapes/stone to muds at key locations. It might necessitate a Knowledge (architecture and engineering) check or two, but correctly placed could collapse a whole section of wall/castle/nuclear bunker.

Level 7, go with bound thoqqas to start doing damage once everything's gone up in smoke.

Operation Thunderclap was the operation that burned Dresden to the ground. With enough propellent, everything burns.


Frankly, I didn't account for that. High AC is not much of an issue, since they'll hit on a 20 anyway and it's reasonable to assume a few dozens of archers at least. The most important problem is posed by insane Spot rules, which make you impossible to see from that far (-60 to Spot checks due to distance). People in D&D are extremly shortsighted.

Yeah, I didn't bring up the spot rules because they're just plain dumb. Anyway, 36 archers shooting at you is a little less than 2 hits a round. 2d8 damage won't kill you before they get fireballed to death or you take refuge behind a curtain of smoke.

[kardar233]

Flatten or burn a city in a day? Pshaw. Let's do it in two rounds.

What you really want to do with Operation Thunderclap is to make it a proper thermobaric detonation. If done correctly, that explosion will make a blast wave that will collapse any and every building in the city, except for things built into the ground and well-constructed stone.

For that, you'll need to disperse those ten-thousand-odd pints of lantern oil in an evenly-distributed shape (likely a sphere), and then start the chain reaction from the centre. I'm not sure how to handle the dispersion; maybe Archmage's Spell Shaping with some kind of force effect? Then, you can Fireball the centre, and be very far away if you happen to like your internal organs in a non-mush format.

Any ideas on how to get that oil dispersed? I'm interested to see how low level I can break a city in two rounds.

[Telonius]

Using this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kar%C3%A1nsebes)* as a template, you'd need a bunch of booze and maybe a few well-placed Ghost Sounds or other illusions to neutralize the soldiers. After that, a Cloudkill or two to get the commoners, then set some buildings on fire. With no fire department to put it out, you'll have a smoldering ruin of a city in no time.

* Note - the battle might not have actually taken place, but it's hilarious enough that it should have.

[faceroll]

Flatten or burn a city in a day? Pshaw. Let's do it in two rounds.

What you really want to do with Operation Thunderclap is to make it a proper thermobaric detonation. If done correctly, that explosion will make a blast wave that will collapse any and every building in the city, except for things built into the ground and well-constructed stone.

For that, you'll need to disperse those ten-thousand-odd pints of lantern oil in an evenly-distributed shape (likely a sphere), and then start the chain reaction from the centre. I'm not sure how to handle the dispersion; maybe Archmage's Spell Shaping with some kind of force effect? Then, you can Fireball the centre, and be very far away if you happen to like your internal organs in a non-mush format.

Any ideas on how to get that oil dispersed? I'm interested to see how low level I can break a city in two rounds.

Have a container of the 10,000 odd pints, suspend a delayed blast fireball bead inside, cast resilient sphere around it, dismiss the sphere the turn the fireball bead goes nuclear?

Requires pretty high level spells.

You could also wrap a regular fireball bead in quintessence, then dismiss the quintessence. Requires level 7 manifesting, though.

[Boci]

Apocalypse From The Sky (BoVD) has a very big effect and a fair amount of damage (10d6) but requires an artifact as a focus.

I don't think that update was official, so by RAW its still a material component I believe.

[hamishspence]

I thought it was errata rather than FAQ?

A later source (Elder Evils) I think has it referred to as a material component, true. Though it has a radius of 10 km despite the caster having a much higher caster level (radius is supposed to be 10km per caster level).

[Boci]

I thought it was errata rather than FAQ?

Nope, BoVD was never errated.

[WinWin]

Fun fact

Apocalypse from the sky is a Personal spell. You cast it on yourself. Which means it can be shared via Share Spells.

[mootoall]

It's a good day when you have unlimited artifacts in your spell component pouch.

[Yora]

Have a container of the 10,000 odd pints, suspend a delayed blast fireball bead inside, cast resilient sphere around it, dismiss the sphere the turn the fireball bead goes nuclear?
First ignite the oil (after mixing it with an oxididator) and let the pressure build up as it burns. Then dismiss the sphere!

[faceroll]

An alternative to operation thunderclap would be using alchemist acid instead. The limiting factor there is cost, as you have 1/16th of the acid as you have oil, and it costs like 200x more.

I just realized that operation thunderclap's real optimization is wealth optimization. A wand of shrink item costs 11,250gp, market price. We can craft one for half that. With a feat from eberron and one from faerun, we can reduce the cost by 75%, twice. That gets us to a wand costing 3,165gp each. This requires 3 feats; we need to be level 6 to meet all pre-reqs.

Level 6 gets us 13k, so we can afford 3 of these wands. That's 150 castings at CL 5, for 1500 cubic feet. That's a total of 90,000 pints, shrunk down to take up the volume of 22.5 pints (about as many pounds).

We can saturate roughly a tenth of a square mile in oil. :smallsmile:



Here's another approach:
Fireballs on a wand, energy sub with acid for full damage to objects. Now add some metamagic:
Widen, maximize, empower, twin, energy admixture, for +15 levels of metamagic.
Now take arcane thesis for -6 levels, sanctum spell for -1 level, easy metamagic for -5 levels, and practical metamagic for another -4 levels. That gets us wands of fire-acid ball as a level 2 spell (cause of sanctum spell shenanigans).

Each casting shoots two balls of death that do 60+5d6 fire damage and 60+5d6 acid damage that affects everything in a 40 foot radius. Assuming your average stone building has walls 1 foot thick, that is 180 HP. The acid damage alone does minimum 130 damage, while the fire does another 57 damage, minimum (accounting for hardness, etc). What doesn't get set on fire is reduced to an acidic goop, and what doesn't get reduced to goop is set on fire. :D

[DoctorGlock]

Certainly not the earliest, but for hard to beat utter destruction there is the twin gate solar bore. Open a gate to plane X. Step through. Open another parallel gate into the core of the sun. Laugh maniacally as the city temperature is raised to 12 million degrees Fahrenheit by your million mile long beam of nuclear death. Watch from another plane, since the atmosphere ignited long before the earth's crust melts.

[Ilmryn]

It's a good day when you have unlimited artifacts in your spell component pouch.

Artifacts have no gp price :smallbiggrin:

Locate city is probably the easiest, assuming explosive spell is allowed. A blast powerful enough to throw people for a mile (unsure of LC's exact area) should be powerful enough to flatten buildings.

Anyways, assuming a typical medieval city, consisting of mostly wood buildings with thatched roofs, invisible spell and all the fire spells you can get ahold of should do the trick. Everything gets lit on fir for no discernible reason :smallbiggrin:

[OracleofSilence]

why destroy the city if you can dominate the king, steal the treasury, order the guards out, and blow the crap out of the place via chain bindings and spamming group charms to get handy little followers that kill each other for you?

[Telonius]

why destroy the city if you can dominate the king, steal the treasury, order the guards out, and blow the crap out of the place via chain bindings and spamming group charms to get handy little followers that kill each other for you?

Because you can!

This message brought to you by Villains for Chaotic Evil. We'd have a snappy catchphrase if we could get our members to agree on one.

[Randel]

You could try starting a riot, while one wizard can cause a bunch of damage with spells having a whole bunch of people rioting can cause even more damage. It's like they're doing your job for you (or at least distracting the heroes while you work).

Spells that can help you include:

Explosive Runes - mail some letters to the right people, put exploding runes on silver pieces and drop them around in public places, cast it on random signs... the possibilities are endless!

Lesser Gease - Find somebody with a low will save and force them to do stuff for you. This can be anything from delivering packages, carrying torches and pitchforks when the populace demands someone do somethign about all the disasters, or anything else that isn't directly suicidal to the person.

Contagion - Cast it on someone and they are instantly stricken with a disease. Assuming the disease is contagious then its just a matter of killing them and spreading the afflicted bodily fluids around to infect more people. I'm not 100% sure how contagious these diseases might be but if you can get enough people afflicted with it then that starts an epidemic and thus causes damage, fear, and a distraction for your other plans.
Alternatly, you can use it on livestock, animals or vermin to infect the food or have animals spread the disease.


Now, starting a riot and a plague might not be causing collateral damage like you want but remember that destroying cities is what villains do and that makes heroes and guards and such want to stop you. Causing havok and chaos will at least distract provide a distraction while you go on your own killing spree. Assuming you are using Lesser Gease or other enchantments then you can prepare all these distractions in advance before the big day when you start wrecking havok yourself. You want there to be multiple problems in multiple places to spread the damage out and detract attention from yourself.


Oh, and feel free to use scrying to better keep an eye on any potential week points where you can cause damage or inflict terror. Keep an eye out for zoos, workshops with dangerious chemicals, areas with lots of wooden buildings, or the cities water sources that could be affected by dumping filth-feaver infected corpses into it.

Oh, and depending on how genre savy the population is, starting an undead apocalypse and a mundane plague at the same time could result in a whole lot of people running around and hoarding supplies for themselves and getting in the way of the people trying to solve the problem. Poison the water and food supply before unleashing the undead and then start a panic by having your geased minions demand quicj action while hoarding up supplies and weapons for themselves.

Only when the authorities are busy with the riots and plagues and ourbreaks should you try setting the city on fire and collapsing buildings.


Oh, and if you can craft a reseting magic trap that casts Explosive runes on stuff then that would just make things better. If you can get a few thousand copper, silver, or gold pieces that explode when people look at them then thats sure to cause some trouble. (feel free to replace coins with dollar bills or trading cards or porn or whatever).

[Marnath]

*snip*
Now take arcane thesis for -6 levels, sanctum spell for -1 level, easy metamagic for -5 levels, and practical metamagic for another -4 levels. That gets us wands of fire-acid ball as a level 2 spell (cause of sanctum spell shenanigans).*snip*

Umm, what? O.o
Arcane thesis, easy metamagic, and practical metamagic are all -1 level. Where did you get such huge numbers from, exactly?

[Lateral]

Locate city is probably the easiest, assuming explosive spell is allowed. A blast powerful enough to throw people for a mile (unsure of LC's exact area) should be powerful enough to flatten buildings.

This version of the Locate City bomb does not and has never worked. Locate City's area is a 10-mile/level radius circle; Explosive Spell shunts everybody upward 0 ft., dealing no damage.

Although... Without explosive spell, it already does 4 damage to everything in the radius (via Energy Admixture and Flash Frost Spell). Your average Commoner 1 with a 10 CON has 4 HP; this ought to kill a decent portion of the city.

[Tvtyrant]

Wall of Iron repeated over and over with Shrink Item. Then Fly it up into the sky, let go and dismiss. Or just Contingency Sudden Widen Reverse Gravity the population in about a hundred places.

[NecroRick]

Locate city is probably the easiest, assuming explosive spell is allowed. A blast powerful enough to throw people for a mile (unsure of LC's exact area) should be powerful enough to flatten buildings.


A quick primer on "Why Locate City Bomb doesn't work" or "How I learned to stop worrying and read the rules" :D (NB: this is a cultural reference, not a flame)

(1) Locate City has a radius, not an area

(2) Even if it did work, you wouldn't want it to, because you are at the center of effect, so you will take more damage than anybody else

(3) If you exclude yourself from the 'area' of effect, congratulations, you just became the closest edge for a not inconsiderable portion of the people the spell effects, and will be buried under a mountain of corpses... not to mention the sonic damage from all those people travelling towards you so fast they break the sound barrier (Hey, if the city bombers are going to use dodgy logic, might as well fire it right back at them :D )

(4) anyone indoors won't take damage (if they travel under 10 feet before hitting the obstacle they take no damage) anyone unfortunate enough to travel 10 feet before smacking into the wall is likely to survive, or be knocked to 0. Most of those weak enough to be knocked (barely) into negatives will stabilise anyway

(5) it doesn't effect buildings

(6) it's a lot of feats (so not the low level option it is often presented as)

(7) there is reasonable doubt (or at least significant debate) over whether the feats actually work together the way the city bomber wants them to (if even part of one combo doesn't work, then the whole thing fails)

(8) it is actually much better at killing people outdoors than indoors... so it makes a better city defense against a beseiging army, or against those pesky tree-hugging Druids and hippy Elves in the neighbouring countryside than it does at attacking cities (even if it worked, which it doesn't)

(9) if shadows aren't going to work because of a 'sufficient' number of mid-low level clerics, then even if it worked (which it doesn't) and lets say you wipe out all the 1HD commoners with a bit of fire/acid/lightning/falling damage, but that just makes the mid-high level inhabitants annoyed, and the low level ones will just get their cleric to top them up before they join the posse to wipe you out

(10) divination - any single event big enough to wipe out a whole city (assuming it works, which it doesn't) would definitely pop up on the divination radar, possibly from weeks or even months out. Most likely there would be a strike team waiting for you (this is why the fire idea is better, assuming you can set up multiple causes in a circuitous fashion (rather than having all the leads point straight back to you))

[druid91]

A quick primer on "Why Locate City Bomb doesn't work" or "How I learned to stop worrying and read the rules" :D (NB: this is a cultural reference, not a flame)

(1) Locate City has a radius, not an area

(2) Even if it did work, you wouldn't want it to, because you are at the center of effect, so you will take more damage than anybody else

(3) If you exclude yourself from the 'area' of effect, congratulations, you just became the closest edge for a not inconsiderable portion of the people the spell effects, and will be buried under a mountain of corpses... not to mention the sonic damage from all those people travelling towards you so fast they break the sound barrier (Hey, if the city bombers are going to use dodgy logic, might as well fire it right back at them :D )

(4) anyone indoors won't take damage (if they travel under 10 feet before hitting the obstacle they take no damage) anyone unfortunate enough to travel 10 feet before smacking into the wall is likely to survive, or be knocked to 0. Most of those weak enough to be knocked (barely) into negatives will stabilise anyway

(5) it doesn't effect buildings

(6) it's a lot of feats (so not the low level option it is often presented as)

(7) there is reasonable doubt (or at least significant debate) over whether the feats actually work together the way the city bomber wants them to (if even part of one combo doesn't work, then the whole thing fails)

(8) it is actually much better at killing people outdoors than indoors... so it makes a better city defense against a beseiging army, or against those pesky tree-hugging Druids and hippy Elves in the neighbouring countryside than it does at attacking cities (even if it worked, which it doesn't)

(9) if shadows aren't going to work because of a 'sufficient' number of mid-low level clerics, then even if it worked (which it doesn't) and lets say you wipe out all the 1HD commoners with a bit of fire/acid/lightning/falling damage, but that just makes the mid-high level inhabitants annoyed, and the low level ones will just get their cleric to top them up before they join the posse to wipe you out

(10) divination - any single event big enough to wipe out a whole city (assuming it works, which it doesn't) would definitely pop up on the divination radar, possibly from weeks or even months out. Most likely there would be a strike team waiting for you (this is why the fire idea is better, assuming you can set up multiple causes in a circuitous fashion (rather than having all the leads point straight back to you))

Ok. If you stuck to the usual Area-Radius and you'd be dead quibbles (And weren't quasi-insulting), I wouldn't be doing this.

3.) Nope shackle yourself to a few immovable rods. You take very little damage everyone else dies. And breaking the sound barrier does not do sonic damage. There is very little dodgy logic in the locate city bomb. In fact the rest of it is so good that the only two arguments against it are the area and the metamagic stacking.

4.) Whoops we just went out that window. To be honest, anyone hitting a medieval tech level wall with enough force to launch them that far should be shattering the wall anyway.

5.) No but the thousands of people slamming into the wall do. Along with every other living thing that was just blown away.

6.) Admittedly this is true.

7.) There is debate. Personally I don't see the point in it. It's ridiculous quibbling.

8.) Depends on the structure of the city. But in general yes.

9.) Not when they are dead half vaporized a large number of miles away from you cleverly tricking them into walking outside for free tacos...

10.) Divination. Does. Not. Work. Like. that. I have tried and tried to find the source of this Divination let's you know everything story. And have found one spell that might help you. And it has a built in chance of giving misinformation. Oh and also explicitly makes extraplanar beings ticked off at you.

[faceroll]

Umm, what? O.o
Arcane thesis, easy metamagic, and practical metamagic are all -1 level. Where did you get such huge numbers from, exactly?

Arcane thesis is -1 for each metamagic feat, regardless if it's +0, so changing fireball to acid ball gets you -1. Easy and practical are taken for each feat. You have to go Gray Elf, chaos shuffle, and probably abuse the hell out of buying feats like Otyugh Hole and then shuffling those.

Super cheesy, and kind of starts to ascend "pun-pun's ladder", in that you've got as many feats as money can buy. You can get unlimited feats with a familiar and shuffling out alertness, I believe. I know you can do it with weapons of legacy and a legacy feat.

[ffone]

Frankly, I didn't account for that. High AC is not much of an issue, since they'll hit on a 20 anyway and it's reasonable to assume a few dozens of archers at least. The most important problem is posed by insane Spot rules, which make you impossible to see from that far (-60 to Spot checks due to distance). People in D&D are extremly shortsighted.

Side issue and I'll create a separate thread if desired - but is this how Spot works? Do you need to make Spot checks to see something that isn't hiding/invis, doesn't have any terrain concealment, is in the open sky or facing you on a featureless plain? Or do you just automatically see things that aren't hiding and to which you have line of sight?

[Alleran]

Artifacts have no gp price :smallbiggrin:
Or you could find a Dweomerkeeper buddy and get him to cast it for you via Supernatural Spell, presuming that you can drag the casting time down to a standard action somehow. Not only is there no component cost of any sort, but it's undispellable on top of that.

Either that, or just be a Phaerimm. Cast it as a spell-like ability instead.

[NecroRick]

Side issue and I'll create a separate thread if desired - but is this how Spot works? Do you need to make Spot checks to see something that isn't hiding/invis, doesn't have any terrain concealment, is in the open sky or facing you on a featureless plain? Or do you just automatically see things that aren't hiding and to which you have line of sight?

Isn't it more of a problem that if 200 archers fire at a target 5 miles away, 10 of them will hit?

With respect to spot, my theory is you see what you would normally see. I view it as a perception check to see if you can spot [sic] the unusual thing about them.

So if you're right next to the guard sentry, it is a lot easier to spot that he's dead and been propped up to still look alive than it is if you're 60 feet away.

Spot: notice something unusual about something you can already see
Search: find something hidden

Not sure how that ties in with the various "thief is sneaking up on you"/ambush type rules.

[darksolitaire]

IMO skills can be fixed by modifying rolls so that natural 20 counts as a +30 to the check (or +25-+40, or what have you). There are no longer critical successes, so impossible stays impossible. Likewise, natural 1's can be made to count as something from -5 to -20 range.

[Flickerdart]

IMO skills can be fixed by modifying rolls so that natural 20 counts as a +30 to the check (or +25-+40, or what have you). There are no longer critical successes, so impossible stays impossible. Likewise, natural 1's can be made to count as something from -5 to -20 range.
Skills have never had critical successes, and critical fails are relative to the DC.

[mootoall]

Nat. 20s aren't critical successes on skill checks anyway. Adding anything for getting them is silly.

[Kansaschaser]

Level 5 Wizard.

Purchase or create a Colossal++++ Warhammer with a hidden chamber in the hilt. Climb inside the hilt and cast Animate Weapon(3rd level spell from Complete Mage).

You are now traveling around inside a Colossal++++ Animated Warhammer that can strike with a +25 (so it could hit most things, even higher level NPC's) on it's attack roll and it would do 24D8+13 (139 average) damage per hit. If you want, you can cast Magic Weapon or Greater Magic Weapon on the Warhammer ahead of time to give it a +1 magical bonus.

Animate Weapon lasts as long as you concentrate, so you can go all day inside this behemoth. The Animated Weapon has 256 hit points and a hardness of 15. If you had enough money, you could have crafted the weapon from Adamantine so that it could do even more damage.

[Radar]

Level 5 Wizard.

Purchase or create a Colossal++++ Warhammer with a hidden chamber in the hilt. Climb inside the hilt and cast Animate Weapon(3rd level spell from Complete Mage).

You are now traveling around inside a Colossal++++ Animated Warhammer that can strike with a +25 (so it could hit most things, even higher level NPC's) on it's attack roll and it would do 24D8+13 (139 average) damage per hit. If you want, you can cast Magic Weapon or Greater Magic Weapon on the Warhammer ahead of time to give it a +1 magical bonus.

Animate Weapon lasts as long as you concentrate, so you can go all day inside this behemoth. The Animated Weapon has 256 hit points and a hardness of 15. If you had enough money, you could have crafted the weapon from Adamantine so that it could do even more damage.
This is hilarious and bizzarly practical. One of the funniest things about adamantine weapons is, that they have a flat increas of the price (3000 GP) regardless of ammount of raw materials used, which means, this adamantine Colossal++++ warhammer is affordable.

[Lateral]

A quick primer on "Why Locate City Bomb doesn't work" or "How I learned to stop worrying and read the rules" :D (NB: this is a cultural reference, not a flame)

-snip-


Ok. If you stuck to the usual Area-Radius and you'd be dead quibbles (And weren't quasi-insulting), I wouldn't be doing this.

-snip-

Each of you has valid points, but may I once again point out that the Explosive Spell bomb does not work because of simple geometry? The wightocalypse doesn't have this problem, nor most of the problems NecroRick mentioned, but it also doesn't work for the OP's challenge.

Bottom line is that the Locate City bomb isn't appropriate for this challenge; let's just move along.

[Kansaschaser]

Level 5 Wizard. This is a Wizard that can cast at least four 3rd level spells per day.

1. Create a Glass Aquarium or purchase one.
2. Fill with 5 cubic feet of water (312 pounds of water).
3. Cast Water to Acid (Stormwrack) on the water.
4. Cast Shrink Item on the Acid.
5. Repeat Steps 2-4 that day and the following 4 days.
6. Hide each piece of cloth throuout the city. You should have 10 pieces of cloth by then.
7. Wait for the shrink item spell to expire and watch as buildings crumble to the ground and people melt in pools of acid.

Note: Each piece of cloth is the equivelant of 312D6 points of acid damage that ignore hardness. The only thing acid won't eat through is glass. You just did 3,120D6 points of damage to the city and/or it's in habitants. With enough time(probably several weeks), you can turn the city into an acrid crater.

EDIT: This is also fun to do with burning oil if placed inside flamible buildings.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Earthquake is a great property-destroying spell, and the destruction of the property will generally cause the death or evacuation of the majority of the population. It'll flatten anything not made of stone or reinforced masonry, which are severely damaged. A second casting will finish the job.