[3.5] Defenses fit for a king

[Adam...?]

Short version: in a relatively high-power, high-magic, but otherwise "standard" 3.5 setting, what kind of defenses would you expect the king of a large port metropolis to have?

Long version:
In the game I'm running, the PCs are currently planning to assassinate a king. To make things more interesting, I'm letting them plot their own caper in secret while I design the King's defenses. I'm hoping they'll come up with a clever plot that will blow my mind. However, I'm not sure what really constitutes a reasonable and believable defensive system. Ideally, the PCs should be able to succeed, but it shouldn't be a walk in the park unless they come up with some very clever tactics.

As previously stated, the King rules a large port metropolis. He's got a nice fortified castle in the center of the city (and the PCs have access to blueprints of said structure). In addition, the King has recently declared war against a nation known for training powerful wizards, so he's probably taken some extra precautions against magic shenanigans.

So what would those precautions be? Through DM fiat, it's already been determined that the castle itself is protected against scrying and teleportation. In addition, I figure the castle itself has a barracks that houses about 100 troops, who are on regular patrol. And to make things more interesting, the King is usually escorted by his own personal Janissary-esque bodyguards.

Alarm spells outside upper windows? Some convoluted scheme for detecting invisible infiltrators? Contingent spells on the King himself? I don't even know.

PS: there are five relative low-op lvl 13 PCs. A wizard, a cleric, a fighter, a monk/swordsage, and a rogue/sorcerer.

[gkathellar]

The best defense is to have levels in a PC class. A king in a high-magic setting has no real excuse not to be a high-level wizard and/or cleric or the puppet of one.

[Eldariel]

Well, for starters, there has to be some type of Forbiddance in the whole castle; maybe one dedicated (and trapped/defended) Teleport Room with the rest of the castle inaccessible through travel magic. Some kinds of easy to trigger "traps" that disable magic in any given area. Obviously king himself under Mind Blank, all manners of energy immunities, contingent spells that e.g. create a forcefield around him in case of an attack, Greater Fortifications Soulfire armor (basically deathward + immunity to crits; Soulfire is in Book of Exalted Deeds), Freedom of Movement, Heroes' Feast and various AC + resistance increasing effects at all times. Forceward is probably also a reasonable choice. And of course he needs to be able to fly, and teleport if he leaves the Forbiddanced area.

High level caster casting a Spell Resistance on him is also a given, as well as a Ring or two keyed off to "Greater Dispel Magic" and perhaps a Spellblade [Player's Guide to Faerun] keyed to "Disjunction" at his disposal. He should also have True Seeing from some source, and obviously mundane weaponry due to the available anti-magic effects.


His soldiers should be magically warded as possible, at the very least with the low level magical protections like Protection from Alignment (protects against any mental control too), Heroism and such. Heroes' Feasts in the morning for at least the more important guards alongside Death Wards and Freedoms of Movement are also pretty key.

Much of course depends on how much magic he has access to. It's probably trivial to assume that with his budget, he can deck himself out with magical gear and spellcasting services but obviously this doesn't extend to all his soldiers. Still, at least rudimentary magical protections of his Royal Guard and any soldiers in the castle should be very much state-of-the-art if he's fighting Wizards out of all things (imagine how inconvenient it would be for all the guards to get Dominated and set after him). Obviously, they also need ways to deal with standard issues like flying Wizards (and Wind Walls, also other kinds of Walls), invisibility (most challenging is probably Superior Invisibility [Spell Compendium], but that's rather rare being 8th level spell; still, he should probably have at least somebody capable of sniffing those out, e.g. lots of people with some sight that locates magical auras or some with True Seeing - even just standard guard dogs or Detect Magic or See Invisibility does a ton against standard invisibility tho), damage against the castle itself (I'm fairly sure it needs some kinds of anti-magic enhancements that make it less trivial to e.g. Disintegrate through all the walls; already just because Walls that can be Disintegrated or Stone Shaped or whatever don't serve much of a purpose against a faction of Wizards).


How many spellcasters are there under his service and what types? Do the Janissaries have any spellcasting capability?

[NNescio]

The best defense is to have levels in a PC class. A king in a high-magic setting has no real excuse not to be a high-level wizard and/or cleric or the puppet of one.

"Ha, the court archmage is a mere apprentice! Mine, to be exact."

[Zylle]

Definitely give him one or two decent level wizards as guards that he can call with alarm. Contingent Spells for sure. With enough money (which the king probably has), he could pay to have them cast on anything and everything. Doors and windows to his bedchamber, his own clothing, any vehicles he travels in--all of it can call for help with alarm or fire off a nasty spell (preferably one that doesn't allow for a save) if he's attacked.

He'd probably also want to take magical precautions against poison, and make sure that he's well attended by guards whenever he leaves his castle.

As king, he's probably also invested in the best magical items he can afford. +AC, +SR, +DR, he'd be sure to want it all. Maybe a Ring of Counterspells if you can think of a spell the players might be likely to use. Just don't give him anything you don't want your players looting after they kill him!

[gkathellar]

"Ha, the court archmage is a mere apprentice! Mine, to be exact."

Has anyone ever told you that you're excellent at channeling Emperor Palpatine?

[JaronK]

My rule for kingly defense: never let them target the real king. That's what Simulacrums are for... just have a Simulacrum that does anything dangerous, including day to day pronouncements, major speeches, and so on. Likewise, the king can have lookalikes with hats of disguise to be him who function as diplomats. The king does a lot of back room work, vacations a good bit, and probably has a harem. He also meets with people of appropriate status, but almost always under various protective magics. When he does sit on the throne, he's behind a Permanent Wall of Force. Also, consider making the throne into a Throne Gaurdian from here: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fey/20021213a . Yowch.

It's not at all hard to excavate in D&D (Lyre of Building, burrow speed creatures, etc) so I'd expect the actual king's quarters to be mostly underground, where divinations have more trouble penetrating. He'd still come to the top of the castle sometimes to get some sun and whatnot, probably rebelling against the security once in a while, but mostly his luxury quarters would be below ground surrounded by stone (Wall of Stone means most heavy construction would be from that spell).

And he's definitely immune to poison, because why wouldn't a king have something like a Captain's Table for regular Hero's Feasts? Also, I'd imagine his magic items would be more set around charisma and leadership, because that's needed for his job.

JaronK

[Haldir]

If the King is serious about staying alive, a Contingent Teleport is the best option, but does not make for a great encounter with the PC's.

To give you a truly great answer to this question, some more information about the King may necessary. Is he the hands on type? The puppetmaster who manipulates his people? What powers does he have, personally?

A very interesting way to do the fight will be to have the King designed to impede and somehow mark all the people who are coming after him. Debuffs, Save and Fail/Save and Die, should be his primary method of personal defense, allowing those 100 soldiers to get into position to finish the job for him. Summoning rock or water elementals on the Contingency of being attacked will give the assassin's something to tangle with while the Kings Guard shows up.

Every King worth assassinating has a personal guard, this guard should be as important to the PC's plan as the King himself, so you may want to take alot of time to develop them and ensure they're interesting and useful characters. Even if you only have a general idea of where the 100 mooks are, you should know exactly where every member of the personal guard is when the PC's make their attack.

Depending on his resources and power, there should be alarm spells and traps everywhere. A clever king would have traps set with dispel magic at key chokepoints throughout his castle, causing them to severely burn their planned resources before they even get to take the shot.

Illusion traps to trick the PC's into misreading the layout of the castle, or somehow misreading the castle's defenses/defenders. The seldom used but interesting http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/guardsAndWards.htm might also be useful here.

[DeAnno]

One effective defense I saw in a campaign was having the whole area silenced. If that could be attached to a Contingency or a switch and his casters were prepared for it, it could be devastating to the party.

[RedWarrior0]

A magic item, that, when a command word is spoken, does a six-second negation of the closest two or three dimensional anchors (all those that cover him, of many throughout the castle); It then Word of Recalls him to the vault far, far below the castle; said vault has a magic item of at-will Heroes' Feasts, a wizard who uses the vault as a study. Its walls are about ten feet thick of iron, followed by a thin sheet of lead and then a foot or two of adamantine for good measure. On both the outside and the inside, in addition to between layers, is a wall of force. When one of said walls of force is breached, the dimensional anchor is dispelled, a contingent plane shift on the wizard (and the king after about five minutes down there) takes them to the wizard's demiplane, which is far, far away. Another contingent spell Gates in as many demon princes as you can think of.

[ExemplarofAvg]

What do your PC's know about the king's: Habits, Schedules, Family, Realm, Education, Training, Strengths, Weaknesses. The massive fortifications of his castle don't help if he's taking a walk through the city with his guards to provide the appareance of understanding the commonfolk. Knowledge is Power. What knowledge do they have. Heck, is it possible they manage to break into the castle and deal with guards and mages and the king isn't even there? Spoiler contains more ideas and thoughs.


I'm going to offer some counter advice so that I can find out more about the king to end up offering better advice, have the king have a schdule in the mornings he goes for a walk around his grounds maybe even breakfasts in the grounds with his family and higher nobles if the weather is nice (He has guards with him and 1-2 High level mages, and multiple archers along the walls and whatever guards the nobles would bring) He then bathes wherever in the castle you so choose with guards at the room but some mage or such is his attendant in the room for conversation purposes along with the maids who wash him. He then receives people in the great hall (maybe it's him behind the wall of force maybe it's a look-a-like with means of hearing how the king would respond) he then lunches by himself (or with a consort, the queen knows but doens't care) he then sits with his generals and heads of other departments if there's a war going in he's going to be involved. Then he suppers with his family then I'm out of ideas.

As for the king himself he's going to be well-trained and versed in pretty much everything, or should be, is he a competent king or incompetent. I'm guessing fairly competent and the affairs of his land are in order or else he wouldn't be waging war against a powerful foe and he must have a good reason for doing so. Class-wise I think Warblade from being trained from the swordmasters of his realm or maybe a duskblade if he has access to magics to show a dual influence on him, or god-forbid a warblade//duskblade. Give the PC's a treat with Strikes, Stances and Spells.

[gkathellar]

Here's the problem with all of these theories: why haven't all these casters who are defending the king and fashioning magic items for him overthrown him yet? Is he just that good at playing the social game and keeping them on his side/setting them against each other? Are they all just that irrationally loyal?

Maybe these casters are planning to overthrow him — all of them, separately. When the PCs walk in, they're not just stumbling into a nest of kingly defenses, they're stumbling into a thirty-Xanatos pileup that explodes in every direction the moment their actions make it urgent. You could basically make it a big race to kill the hapless king and his still-loyal defenders as the palace goes absolutely nuts and countless characters with PC classes set about killing each other without even fully comprehending why.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Stalwart Pact, Renewal Pact, and Death Pact, all from the Spell Compendium, are a good start.

A Gemstone of Heavy Fortification from the Draconomicon, which would need to be embedded into him via Limited Wish. Buying one of those and +1 armor costs exactly the same as putting Heavy Fortification on that +1 armor, if his armor is +2 or higher or if he's ever without his armor then the gemstone is the better deal.

This list (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=187851) presents a great deal of items that grant necessary immunities and other effects for adventuring, it's definitely worth looking at.

[Morph Bark]

The best defense is to have levels in a PC class. A king in a high-magic setting has no real excuse not to be a high-level wizard and/or cleric or the puppet of one.

Obviously the king is a warweaver. He also has an entire orchestra of bards with various kinds of bardic music in the throneroom.

[Greenish]

lots of people with some sight that locates magical auras or some with True Seeing - even just standard guard dogs or Detect Magic or See Invisibility does a ton against standard invisibility tho)A few beguilers (the race), perhaps? A tad fancier than guard dogs, but one of them coming along for the patrol would save a lot of hassle.

[NNescio]

Has anyone ever told you that you're excellent at channeling Emperor Palpatine?
I have been told so by my players, yes.


Here's the problem with all of these theories: why haven't all these casters who are defending the king and fashioning magic items for him overthrown him yet? Is he just that good at playing the social game and keeping them on his side/setting them against each other? Are they all just that irrationally loyal?

Maybe these casters are planning to overthrow him — all of them, separately. When the PCs walk in, they're not just stumbling into a nest of kingly defenses, they're stumbling into a thirty-Xanatos pileup that explodes in every direction the moment their actions make it urgent. You could basically make it a big race to kill the hapless king and his still-loyal defenders as the palace goes absolutely nuts and countless characters with PC classes set about killing each other without even fully comprehending why.

Obligatory reference. (http://nodwick.humor.gamespy.com/gamespyarchive/index.php?date=2008-08-13)

[Dr.Epic]

The best defense is to have levels in a PC class. A king in a high-magic setting has no real excuse not to be a high-level wizard and/or cleric or the puppet of one.

Plot armor is far more effective.:smallwink:

[Silva Stormrage]

Here's the problem with all of these theories: why haven't all these casters who are defending the king and fashioning magic items for him overthrown him yet? Is he just that good at playing the social game and keeping them on his side/setting them against each other? Are they all just that irrationally loyal?

Maybe these casters are planning to overthrow him — all of them, separately. When the PCs walk in, they're not just stumbling into a nest of kingly defenses, they're stumbling into a thirty-Xanatos pileup that explodes in every direction the moment their actions make it urgent. You could basically make it a big race to kill the hapless king and his still-loyal defenders as the palace goes absolutely nuts and countless characters with PC classes set about killing each other without even fully comprehending why.

Most people DON'T want to rule a kingdom. Just like a lot of people don't want to be president. Look at it from the head wizard's point of view, he has an nearly unlimited supply of wealth and research material, can do mostly what he wants, and if he really needs to has a say in the government of the kingdom. If he was king he would need to do all sorts of unnecessary things meant for other people, give speeches, sign bills, act royal etc. Also wizards are not known for high charisma or a knowledge of how a kingdom works.

In short, being the strongest in the kingdom doesn't mean he is a good king or even WANTS to be king.

[Qwertystop]

I've always said that one of the best defenses is to make the castle either a Permanant Animated Object (except intelligent and loyal, I'm sure there's some variant of Awaken that applies to constructs) or set up a Contingency to animate the castle (and make it intelligent, loyal, etc.) when the King is harmed/says a command/whatever.

The Contingency option has the benefit of being easier to hide, the Permanancy option has the benefit of working if the specific trigger is avoided and gives a lot of extra convenience to the castle (doors opening for you, bath starts filling itself ahead of time, maybe the beds make themselves and the tables auto-set if there's a bunch of arm-shaped carvings in the mouldings).

[NNescio]

I've always said that one of the best defenses is to make the castle either a Permanant Animated Object (except intelligent and loyal, I'm sure there's some variant of Awaken that applies to constructs) or set up a Contingency to animate the castle (and make it intelligent, loyal, etc.) when the King is harmed/says a command/whatever.

The Contingency option has the benefit of being easier to hide, the Permanancy option has the benefit of working if the specific trigger is avoided and gives a lot of extra convenience to the castle (doors opening for you, bath starts filling itself ahead of time, maybe the beds make themselves and the tables auto-set if there's a bunch of arm-shaped carvings in the mouldings).

Castle Heterodyne?

[Qwertystop]

Castle Heterodyne?

Yes, but I thought of it about a year before I saw Girl Genius, so I refuse to refer to it as such.

[gkathellar]

Most people DON'T want to rule a kingdom. Just like a lot of people don't want to be president. Look at it from the head wizard's point of view, he has an nearly unlimited supply of wealth and research material, can do mostly what he wants, and if he really needs to has a say in the government of the kingdom. If he was king he would need to do all sorts of unnecessary things meant for other people, give speeches, sign bills, act royal etc. Also wizards are not known for high charisma or a knowledge of how a kingdom works.

In short, being the strongest in the kingdom doesn't mean he is a good king or even WANTS to be king.

But here's the thing: absolutely no royal family should be able to maintain their power unless they can fight off all the wizards who do want to run the show. Which means either that the royal family is made of wizards, or that they ultimately answer to a wizard or wizards that can defend them. Or, it's only a matter of time. Whatever the case, casters should logically be running the show.

In the land of PC classes, it doesn't matter who calls himself king — it matters who has the class levels.

[Talentless]

But here's the thing: absolutely no royal family should be able to maintain their power unless they can fight off all the wizards who do want to run the show. Which means either that the royal family is made of wizards, or that they ultimately answer to a wizard or wizards that can defend them. Or, it's only a matter of time. Whatever the case, casters should logically be running the show.

In the land of PC classes, it doesn't matter who calls himself king — it matters who has the class levels.

Or there could be, I dunno, some Wizard who lives in the Court, fends off all manner of would-be ursurpers in exchange for funding, living expenses, and all manner of needs he might have. Who then selects his apprentice when he reaches a certain age, and uses his resources and magic to ensure the apprentice has the same outlook as himself, send him off to adventure to a decent level (10th ish, assuming standard NPC level rules apply).

Then have the apprentice work with the master against opponents to get him up to 9th level spells.

Then leave the apprentice his spellbook and magic items, position, and the wealth that goes with it and Voilla, you got a system that will make the Wizard guardians of the throne more entrenched, with more magic items and crap to work with, the longer it goes, until eventually you have something like 18th level wizards with quintuple or more WBL to work with, completely uninterested in politics.

Good ****ing luck killing the King then.

[Morph Bark]

Or there could be, I dunno, some Wizard who lives in the Court, fends off all manner of would-be ursurpers in exchange for funding, living expenses, and all manner of needs he might have. Who then selects his apprentice when he reaches a certain age, and uses his resources and magic to ensure the apprentice has the same outlook as himself, send him off to adventure to a decent level (10th ish, assuming standard NPC level rules apply).

Then have the apprentice work with the master against opponents to get him up to 9th level spells.

Then leave the apprentice his spellbook and magic items, position, and the wealth that goes with it and Voilla, you got a system that will make the Wizard guardians of the throne more entrenched, with more magic items and crap to work with, the longer it goes, until eventually you have something like 18th level wizards with quintuple or more WBL to work with, completely uninterested in politics.

Good ****ing luck killing the King then.

This is how I am going to do it for the human king in my campaign setting now. His heir will of course need it, as he has over seventy half-siblings, some of which might aim for the throne as well.

[Runestar]

So you mean the king isn't a great wyrm gold dragon in alternate form? :smalleek: Perhaps with say, lvs in dragon ascendent?

[CTrees]

I'm with JaronK - simulacrums, all the way. Or, better, the king is astral projecting from his personal, genesis'd demi-plane/pleasure dome. "the princess king is in another castle," indeed!

Really though, I'm actually pretty fond of having kings and the like simply being aristrocrats (not necessarily even high level ones) that happen to have excessive wealth. If you can get through their defenses, you're golden, but good luck with that! I suggest making things like the throne intelligent artifacts with activation tied to bloodline. Also, having access to "Wealth" as an at-will SLA goes a long way towards effective preparations. Especially as we're essentially dealing with feudalism (D&D economics/politics are weird and muddled) - granting wizards/mystic theurges land over which to rule, with their taxes being paid in occassional spell casting, can help a lot.

[BlueInc]

I would suggest giving the king many of the defenses suggested here - but making sure your characters find out about the worst ones. So, for example, if the king has a contingency teleport, make sure the players have access to a planar-anchor like spell. If the king has animated constructs, make sure your players have a chance to study them and find out what their weaknesses are. If the king has a half-dozen body doubles, give them a chance to stalk each one and force them to make a choice about which one to attack.

Of course, save one or two nasty surprises for the end (the king died years ago; the king himself is a golem!)

[Adam...?]

Point #1: You're all awesome.

Point #2: More details. The King himself won't be all the impressive, probably just NPC levels. He's more of a figurehead, who rules through his charisma and massive public support. Playing politics very well and having powerful allies also helps.

I've already statted out most of his personal bodyguard. Some big, tough, half-dragon fighter-types, and some high-ish level sorcerers. If there's an important role to be filled there, I could easily just add extra people. In addition, he's got at least one powerful wizard in his employ (thought probably not on active guard duty).

The PCs know the layout of the castle, and therefore (presumably) where the King sleeps, and where he conducts most of his business. Besides that they have not tried to gather any more information.

Point #3: Lot's of good ideas here. A daily casting of at least Mind Blank and Heroes' Feast is good, and I like the idea of a network of Alarm spells to stop people from trying to fly in through the upper windows. Some way of giving the King spell resistance also sounds good, but the spell itself doesn't have a particularly long duration. Maybe just a simple Mantle of Spell Resistance?

Any specific ideas for fun contingent spells? I already considered contingent teleport, but that sounds like a recipe for a super anti-climatic encounter. "You catch the King by surprise. You have one round to kill or incapacitate him, or he teleports away and you fail." Blech. Maybe something weird like Forcecage/Ghost Sound, to protect the King, alert guards, and give them ample time to respond?

Also, I kind of like the idea of simple body doubles. Just extra dudes using mundane disguises. It'd be something the PCs could easily find out about if they choose to do a little snooping before attacking, but would really mess with them if they don't. Would it be overly paranoid to have the double sleep in the obvious master bedroom, while the real king sleeps in a guest bedroom?

Point #4: I'm perfectly okay with not using "optimal" defensive plans. My goal is to create an interesting and challenging task for the PCs to try to puzzle through. I'm thinking if I used all of your suggestions, the poor guys wouldn't stand a chance; none of them are that knowledgeable about the ins and outs of high-level DnD. At the moment, I'm rather worried that they'll just run in blind, hit the obvious safeguards, then be pissed that the task was "impossible." On the other hand, if they're going to be that stupid, I think I can live with that.

[Zylle]

For defensive contingent spells, something like Blink, Displacement, Greater Invisibility, or Expeditious Retreat. Maybe even Gaseous Form. Repulsion is a good defensive spell too, depending how far away the party is when it's triggered. Makes it harder to catch him but not totally impossible...

Offensively Mass Reduce Person is nice to hit the party with: doesn't kill them outright but makes their job harder. Any of the Summon Monster spells would probably be handy. Perhaps a Transmute Rock to Mud, on the floor the characters are standing on. If they're on the second floor of the castle or above, maybe they fall into the room below, which contains either horrifically strong NPCs or loads of treasure, as convenient for the DM :smallsmile:

[Eldariel]

Point #3: Lot's of good ideas here. A daily casting of at least Mind Blank and Heroes' Feast is good, and I like the idea of a network of Alarm spells to stop people from trying to fly in through the upper windows. Some way of giving the King spell resistance also sounds good, but the spell itself doesn't have a particularly long duration. Maybe just a simple Mantle of Spell Resistance?

Mantle of Spell Resistance is ridiculously weak and expensive. Spell Resistance is 10 min/level; 3 Extended castings by a Caster Level 18 Cleric (could easily be character level 11 with Ankh of Ascension and Beads of Karma) would last 18 hours, 4 would last 24 hours.


Any specific ideas for fun contingent spells? I already considered contingent teleport, but that sounds like a recipe for a super anti-climatic encounter. "You catch the King by surprise. You have one round to kill or incapacitate him, or he teleports away and you fail." Blech. Maybe something weird like Forcecage/Ghost Sound, to protect the King, alert guards, and give them ample time to respond?

I suggest you use Forbiddance (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/forbiddance.htm) without the alignment component (perhaps include that in some more private areas with a password) on the whole castle. This both, explains why the King doesn't have a Teleport handy and makes getting to him a tad challenging; the PCs can't just Teleport in wherever. It also conveniently blocks Ethereal & Astral travelling within the castle area, and enemy summons (obviously convenient). It both, is an obvious protection against Wizards and kind of necessary there, and allows you to setup an encounter where the King can't just TP away (but the PCs can't either; once they're in, they go in deep and either triumph or die trying).

For Contingencies, Otiluke's Resilient Sphere is a great pick. It protects him and he can dismiss it as desired. Celerity [Player's Handbook II] is another one; in the event of him getting jumped on he gets a free chance to bail the eff away.

Contingent "Heal" on him dropping unconscious would also probably be in order and contingent "Delay Death"/"Revivify" (either or) [Spell Compendium] in case he takes a lethal wound. Makes them work a little harder.


Don't forget to deck him out with magic items (stuff like Ring of Freedom of Movement, Cloak of Resistance, that sorta thing). It will both, explain why he's stayed in power for so long and give the PCs some phat loot if they do manage to take some with them (do note that this of course assumes they manage to kill him and have the time to loot everything/can fight the whole castle).

And don't forget Resurrection magic and "Clone"-spell. If the players truly wish to kill him, I hope they bring something to the table that negates the simple Raise Dead/Clone he probably has available. There's options so it's not a copout; it's simple logical self-preservation for a figure of power with resources.

[CTrees]

overly paranoid

What is this "overly paranoid?" I'm not familiar with the concept. I thought the only options were "sufficiently paranoid" and "dead and deserving of it."

[gkathellar]

What is this "overly paranoid?" I'm not familiar with the concept. I thought the only options were "sufficiently paranoid" and "dead and deserving of it."

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.

[ZealPaladin]

I don't know if anyone has suggested this so far, but how about Greater Anticipate Teleportation (Complete Arcane)? If certain areas of the castle are warded against teleportation, then a caster could spend a mere 10 minutes and have that area protected from a surprise round from the PCs. Greater anticipate would give guards and wizards working for the King a solid 3 rounds to raise an alarm (dancing lights (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0512.html), anyone?) and to prepare to crush any PCs ready to warp in. Even the level 4 version gives them a one round reaction time.

Also, I cannot stress how important divinations are in defense. Spells like true seeing and see invisibility, especially when cast upon guards, can foil the oft-used invisibility tactic. Prying eyes can scout multiple areas of the castle and warn a potent spellcaster of intruders (for 1 hour/caster level). Furthermore, a wizard could use Contact Other Plane on a routine basis and, perhaps, ask a Greater Deity if "our castle will be attacked this day/week." If the answer is yes, they double their defenses. If the answer given by the deity was wrong, there was no harm done in preparing.

I tend to like warding spells (such as Sign of Sealing to bolster doors, and the Guards and Wards spell, which can lock down an entire stronghold in 30 minutes, which is good with prior knowledge). However, guards and wards would have to be set preemptively, and having Web on all of your stairs may not be a good idea for guards.

Finally, an underhanded tactic would be to place Symbols of Pain/Insanity/Death above random doorways or in certain spots in the castle, and instructing guards not to look at those spots for fear of their lives. This way, someone who is actively searching for traps in the castle (i.e. breaking in) risks reading one of the symbols and triggering it. I've always found that Symbols were a nasty surprise for my PCs :smallamused:.