The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy

[Emperor Tippy]

What is the “Tippyverse”?
At it’s most basic the Tippyverse is nothing more than a setting where the D&D 3.5 rules as written are largely taken at face value and as the basic rules for a world. More specifically, the existence of magic and magic items is integrated into the setting from the start and not tacked on.

Basic postulates:
1. Epic Magic does not exist, it’s way too game breaking to try to make any setting that can work with it.
2. The deities are mostly silent
3. Everything else is pretty much as RAW (excluding some of the truly screwy things like drowning resurrections)

History of the Tippyverse
The Tippyverse (TV henceforth) was created when I was looking at the impact of long distance teleportation magic on a setting; more precisely just how badly such magic mangles the traditional settings. Let’s look at the military and economic implications of such magic.
D&D is a setting where there are no large scale defenses against teleportation magic. It is impossible to prevent an enemy from dropping his entire military right into the middle of your nation with teleportation circles whenever he chooses to do so. The only viable way to defend yourself is to concentrate all of your vital military infrastructure in a relatively small area and concentrate your forces on that area; meaning that you will always have forces on hand to deal with a potential enemy attack. The traditional D&D towns and villages simply can’t be defended because your enemies can drop thousands of troops into them in under a minute and then evacuate back out the next minute.
The concentration of vital government and military infrastructure in a single location is going to naturally lead to trade and other economic activity being focused on that area (large population usually paid in cash, very high security). This concentration of people is going to open the City up to attacks on their food supply, fortunately this problem can be solved by Create Food and Water traps.
Teleporation Circles will be set up between the City and fellow Cities simply because they are the only remotely safe and cost effective way to rapidly move goods between the cities. Who is going to ship goods by boat when TC’s are faster, cheaper, and safer? Or by wagon train? The fact that TC’s are point to point and have fixed points is going to eliminate the various small villages and towns that tend to dot the path between Cities both in real life and in more traditional D&D settings. The high initial investment of a permanent teleportation circle is also going to ensure that they are only set up between locations that can make them profitable within a relatively short period of time, which eliminates most of the smaller cities and villages as well.
All of this combines to create a self reinforcing cycle that concentrates the vast majority of the worlds population in cities that are linked to each other by teleportation circles, fed by create food and water traps (as farms can’t be defended effectively), and require large standing armies for defense.
You are quickly left with the large cities (most on par with the likes of Sharn, or even larger, in terms of population) that hold upwards of 99% of the worlds non monstrous population and cover (maybe) one percent of the worlds surface and the Wilds between the cities that are filled with the denizens of the various Monster Manuals. The Wilds are also where you will find the small villages and thorps of more traditional D&D, where the population is constantly threatened by monsters, rarely exceeds level 5, rarely sees magic, and is basically subsistence level.

The Cities
The massive concentration of population and trade in the various cities (I recommend between a dozen and a hundred cities in the average Tippyverse world) is naturally going to lead to a concentration of wealth and knowledge. Securing that wealth requires a military force that can stand off the strongest of attacks and deal with even high level adventurers. The traditional Tippyverse tends to make use of armies of Shadesteel Golems and Warforged for defense, usually with Wizard officers. This kind of military force becomes necessary to defend a City from other Cities and the various powerful denizens of the Wilds, but it also has the side effect of making the initial investment required to defend a city quite high.
Depending on the DM’s decision a City can be everything from a post-scarcity world populated by various spell traps where even Death is a rarity to a relatively normal D&D city. What the cities are is a location for high level political intrigue, high level adventuring, and of high magic. When the cities Guards are Shadesteel Golems led by level 10-15 casters with invisible Warforged scouts linked with Permanent Telepathic bonds flying overhead and hanging out on every street corner, adventurers will not get away with all of the various shenanigans that they can in more traditional D&D (where the PC’s can regularly solo the city guard after tenth level or so).
Cities are usually ruled by a council made up of the strongest casters in the city. After all, might does make right in D&D and wars between high level casters tend to end badly for everyone involved making the co-opting of new individuals on this power level a necessity (and those that won‘t play ball get ganged up on by every other high level caster in the City).
Over time cities will fall (be it from the attack of an enemy city, a flight of dragons, a civil war between it’s leadership, natural disaster, or whatever else the cause) and others will rise to replace them. New cities are rarities but they do occur (about as often as cities fall).

The Wilds
The Wilds are the area between cities. Here is where you will find everything from dungeons to Orc armies to small farming towns. The Wilds are a Death World by most standards and most individuals will have a hard time eking out an existence. Magic is rare and largely limited to Sorcerers, Warlocks, Druids, and similar classes. Most individuals are low level and it’s rare to find a PC class.
The Wilds are where you will find most of the more traditional D&D quests occurring (dungeon crawling in the ruins of fallen cities, clearing out various monsters, rescuing the mayors daughter, etc.). You will also find a few “barbarian” kingdoms out here (more traditional D&D kingdoms) where the very lack of high level magic (as those capable of casting it migrate to the cities) keeps the kingdom from reaching that singularity point.

What the Tippyverse isn’t:
1. It’s not a world ruled by a single all powerful wizard who mind rapes the opposition (at least not traditionally).
2. It’s not a 1984/Parinoia/Big Brother world where freedom does not exist and the government controls every facet of life

---
Now that the general overview of the Tippyverse is out of the way I will provide some of the fluff background for one of my games in just such a verse. Note that I coined the phrase “Points of light in the darkness” before 4e was even envisioned and that’s been the name of this setting from somewhere around 2007.
---
Points of Light
 History is broadly delineated into two time periods; before Teleportation (BT) and post Teleportation (PT). Zero PT is marked by the invention of the Teleporation Circle by the wizard Akkarin. Fortunately or unfortunately for the world (depending upon your viewpoint), Akkarin’s apprentice Lehon had a keen mind for business and realized the economic implications inherent in the Teleporation Circle. Within a decade the 60 most populous cities on Brychold were linked by a network of Teleporation Circles and trade between them had increased nearly a hundred fold, bringing much economic prosperity to those cities while simultaneously destroying many smaller cities and towns that depending upon trade routes that were no longer in use.
The City of Tung was lead by a fairly powerful mages guild that spent nearly 20 years attempting to reverse engineer the Teleporation Circle before they managed it, and unfortunately for the world they had nothing so benign as breaking Lehon’s trade monopoly in mind. Tung used their own TC’s to launch rapid invasions against rival cities and started what would become known as the Century of the Warring Cities.
A hundred years of lighting raids and vicious attacks saw then end of traditional armies in the war’s between cities and their replacement with the Steel Legions. The Shadesteel Golem was first fielded by the city of Duvarn, whether they invented it or got the plans from somewhere else is unknown however, in the twenty fourth year of Warring and proved a match for even the mage guilds of the other cities; naturally leading to other cities fielding their own Shadesteel Golems in short order. The second half of the Steel Legions were invented in the City of Sharn 8 years later when the first Warforged stepped out of the first Creation Forge. While far less powerful in combat than a Shadesteel Golem, Warforged were much more intelligent and much cheaper and rapidly began to fill the roll of scouts and even NCO’s in the Cities military forces.
The Century of the Warring Cities ended more in a series of non negotiated cease fires than it did treaties and to this day, over two thousand years later, most Cities still exist in a state of Cold War with one another. Of the 60 Cities that existed at the start of the CoWC period only 19 still existed as anything but ruins by the end of the period. The next two millennia saw the rise and fall of more cities until the present day, where 117 Cities and 32 Alliances exist.

While the Cities enjoyed great prosperity during even the height of the CoWC period, the rest of Brychold was rapidly falling back into barbarism. Without the trade routes between major cities and the army units assigned to patrol those routes to keep monsters away, most of the towns and villages rapidly collapsed as they lose access to vital goods and saw increased monster activity. Between the monsters, loss of trade, loss of knowledge (as most of those with valuable skills emigrated to the Cities), and bandit warlords the Wilds were chaos.
The CoWC period made the chaos far worse as the destruction of cities dropped hundreds of thousands (and even millions in many cases) of unprepared individuals into the Wilds. With criminals fleeing the surviving cities to escape into the Wilds, the mass number of refugees, and the ever increasing number of monsters as the adventurers who had been keeping them in line were almost inevitably hirer away by the Warring Cities, the chaos became even worse. By the end of the Century nothing larger than a town existed in the Wilds and most population groupings numbered at best 50 individuals who lived largely as hunter-gathers.
Over the next 2000 years the Wilds have recovered to the point where several barbarian kingdoms exist and farming villages have returned, although the vast majority of the population living in the Wilds is still one hard winter away from death.

Coinage
Thanks to the numerous means of wealth creation made possible by magic, the Cities have ceased to use precious metals and instead use the Drake (equivalent to the copper piece), Scepter (equivalent to the silver piece), and Sovereign (equivalent to the gold piece). All three currency types are created in three ways; the first (and least common) method is the same as the creation of any other magic item with each coin taking approximately a day to produce for those who know how to produce magic items (have Craft Wondrous items feat), the second (and most common) method is through the use of Currency Forges (resetting Wish traps) owned by the individual Cities and are capable of turning out a coin every 6 seconds (or 14,400 coins per Forge per day, 5,256,000 coins per year), and the last method of currency production is with the use of a Coin Purse (a magical item that captures a bit of a creatures essence when they are killed by the bearer and uses it to create a number of coins, the amount dependent upon how powerful the creature is and several other factors (used by DM to provide coin based treasure for monster encounters that take place in the Wilds)).
The communities in the Wilds still use Copper, Silver, and Gold coins.

----
That's a snippet from Points of Light, I'll post an example city and example Wild's nation later. Feel free to ask any questions you have (either about the Tippyverse concept in general or the Points of Light setting in particular) and I will endeavor to answer them

[Keld Denar]

And so shineth the light from above.

And the common people looked upon it, and it was good.

/subscribed!

[vampire2948]

All hail Emperor Tippy!

Nice post, looking forwards to more. Will be useful to have a link for people who ask the 'What is the Tippyverse' question.

[Emperor Tippy]

All hail Emperor Tippy!

Nice post, looking forwards to more. Will be useful to have a link for people who ask the 'What is the Tippyverse' question.
Why I posted it actually, I logged on and had like a dozen PM's asking me questions about it.

Not to mention I'm mildly annoyed at all the people who think it's nothing more than a mind rape setting. It was never that and was always as attempt to make a setting that allowed all forms of play across a broad spectrum of levels and play styles while still maintaining suspension of disbelief, verisimilitude, and an inability for the PC's to drastically redefine the world with even a modicum of common sense.

[PetterTomBos]

That's.. Just.. AWESOME! :D

My players: keep out:

Definately using this as how the strange, foreign lands work in my setting ;)

[SamBurke]

And... subscribed.

This is the sort of logic I'd love to see applied to DnD: mages using power in sensible ways.

[dextercorvia]

Is Points of Light something that is available to the public?

[Psyren]

It seems to me that the lynchpin then to a TV is mass teleportation.

I will be watching this closely of course, but I suppose my questions are twofold:

1) How would one adapt the TV to a psionic setting? (I think someone was trying this - Urpriest?)
2) Does the TV translate to PF rules equally well? Are any of the key elements significantly changed?

When I have some time I can dig through my splats and try to answer these questions myself, but I ask on the offchance someone else has already thought about this.

[Emperor Tippy]

Is Points of Light something that is available to the public?

More of it will be posted in this thread, but no it's not. As the entire setting is hand written it's a pain to upload.


It seems to me that the lynchpin then to a TV is mass teleportation.
It is. Teleporation Circles allow the rapid deployment of entire armies numbering (potentially) in the hundreds of thousands into an enemy city in minutes. When such an ability exists it becomes impossible to maintain a traditional nation because you can never secure your borders and the attacker will always have a nigh insurmountable initiative advantage. This will lead to centralization as the only viable defense, with the inevitable knock on effects. That gives you the start of the Cities.

Then come the economic side effects. A single permanent TC has a cost comparable to a Galley and can potentially move upwards of 70 billion pounds of goods per day. No other means of trade can possibly compete with a TC. That leads to the end of trade routes which screws over the smaller communities as they aren't profitable enough to get a TC and merchants no longer pass through them on the way to major trading hubs. Combine this with the concentration of military force making small communities non viable when faced with monsters and it very much becomes a world sharply delineated between the Cities and the Wilds.

Remove permanent Teleportation Circles and a Tippyverse will never form in the first place.


I will be watching this closely of course, but I suppose my questions are twofold:

1) How would one adapt the TV to a psionic setting? (I think someone was trying this - Urpriest?)
The critical components can be transferred straight over. Psionic Teleportation Circles exist, as does Fabricate. With traps of each (as you can't make permanent a Psionic TC) you can get the two critical components of the Tippyverse (teleporation and food traps).

2) Does the TV translate to PF rules equally well? Are any of the key elements significantly changed?
I don't know enough about PF to answer that one. So long as permanent teleportation circles are possible you can (and logically would) have the Tippyverse. Ultimately everything else is simply a bonus feature. With a Create Food trap you are pretty much set.

[Douglas]

It seems to me that the lynchpin then to a TV is mass teleportation.
More specifically, Teleportation Circle. No other means of teleportation I am aware of has enough capacity to have the effects described here without assuming a truly staggering number of high level casters.

How would the Tippyverse change if that single spell were removed? There'd still be the possibility of a trap-based economy, but it seems like much of the military and trade underpinnings of TV would fall apart without TC.

Edit: And ninja-answered. Still leaves the question of what you think D&D magic minus Teleportation Circle would logically do to a setting.

[Qwertystop]

Finally, a description of it!

[bloodtide]

Just a basic question: But how do you figure Teleportaion Circle is so much of a problem?

1)Spellcasters. You'd need a 17th level plus spellcaster to cast Teleportation Circle. Even if you were to have a massive magical empire, there won't be more then 25 or so spellcasters of that level around. So you have a problem simply casting the spell.

2)Permanency. Again you'd need the 17th+ level spellcaster to cast a permanency and the teleport circle. At the most a single spellcaster could make five such circles a day, at a cost of 5,000 gp and 22,500 xp. That's enough for a spellcaster to loose a level as it's less then 20,000 between levels at the high level end of the chart.

3)Military Attacks. A teleport circle can only send a couple troops at a time. Everyone that can fit in a five foot circle. This is not a good way to get an army into a city. Even just getting a small strike force in will take some time.

4)Trade. A teleport circle can only send a couple creatures and their maximum load. So you can't teleport wagon loads of materials. It would be a slow process to have several people pick up what materials they could and teleport back and forth.

5)As noted in the Teleport spell description, 'areas of strong physical or magical energy may make teleportation hazardous or impossible. Now, granted there are no rules for this, but at least it is in the rules. You also have to take into account magical defenses.

In the end Teleport does not look practical for warfare or trade. Yes, they both have their uses, but not all out world changing.

And if your going from 'teleport' as existed from the dawn of time, then defenses will have existed too. So you'd have equally powerful and permanent anti-teleport area spells to block such effects.

Now, I don't mean to tear down your whole 'mega city and wastelands', I'm just pointing out that saying teleport circle is a world changer does not work out.

[Emperor Tippy]

More specifically, Teleportation Circle. No other means of teleportation I am aware of has enough capacity to have the effects described here without assuming a truly staggering number of high level casters.

How would the Tippyverse change if that single spell were removed? There'd still be the possibility of a trap-based economy, but it seems like much of the military and trade underpinnings of TV would fall apart without TC.
You aren't really likely to see a trap based economy without the population concentrations that become a necessity when TC's exist. The initial cost is quite high unless you are using Wish abuse and the like to get the traps cheap. The TC's almost make a viable market for traps that are turning out things like 14,400 backpacks per day. A hundred cities with an average population of 10 million each? All reachable essentially by walking? The item traps aren't going to be flooding the market in the Tippyverse. But when you are lucky to have one city a nation that breaks a hundred thousand people?


Edit: And ninja-answered. Still leaves the question of what you think D&D magic minus Teleportation Circle would logically do to a setting.
Without Teleportation Circles you can't drop armies into enemy cities, without that ability it actually becomes viable to defend your borders in a more traditional way. Sure, you can use various methods to teleport your army in (run them through a Shapechange trap and have them turn into Archons and teleport in to attack) but all of those methods have draw backs that TC doesn't.

As for what such a setting would be like? I don't really know, I've never really thought about it before.

[Rubik]

Just a basic question: But how do you figure Teleportaion Circle is so much of a problem?I'm pretty sure a strategically-placed oak tree and an acorn of far travel would do it. Just give acorns to everyone (via AoFT traps) and have them teleport to the place the TC is keyed to.

[Ryu_Bonkosi]

Subscribed.

Very nice. The description of the true tippyverse makes me really want to run a game that uses that kind of world. :smallbiggrin:

[Gavinfoxx]

Aren't there options in Draconomicon or Stronghold Builder's Guide which can defend against teleportation? Or scrying, for that matter?

[Emperor Tippy]

Just a basic question: But how do you figure Teleportaion Circle is so much of a problem?

1)Spellcasters. You'd need a 17th level plus spellcaster to cast Teleportation Circle. Even if you were to have a massive magical empire, there won't be more then 25 or so spellcasters of that level around. So you have a problem simply casting the spell.
Not really. There are tons of ways to do it. A level 11 Warlock could set up the TC's if you built right.

And there is the fact that TC's can be permanent. A single one renders trade routes gone between it's two end points.


2)Permanency. Again you'd need the 17th+ level spellcaster to cast a permanency and the teleport circle. At the most a single spellcaster could make five such circles a day, at a cost of 5,000 gp and 22,500 xp. That's enough for a spellcaster to loose a level as it's less then 20,000 between levels at the high level end of the chart.
You gate in a Solar, have him use his Permanency SLA to make the TC permanent, and have him use his Wish SLA to get you another scroll of Gate. Play around with higher CL Gate Scrolls and you can set up an entire network for the cost of one gate scroll.


3)Military Attacks. A teleport circle can only send a couple troops at a time. Everyone that can fit in a five foot circle. This is not a good way to get an army into a city. Even just getting a small strike force in will take some time.
It can deliver over a thousand people per round.


4)Trade. A teleport circle can only send a couple creatures and their maximum load. So you can't teleport wagon loads of materials. It would be a slow process to have several people pick up what materials they could and teleport back and forth.
Um, yes you can send wagonloads of material. A wagon is attended by the animal pulling it. And you can move over 70 billion pounds of goods through a TC per day with the right set up. Although even with walking it still delivers more goods than a cargo ship.


5)As noted in the Teleport spell description, 'areas of strong physical or magical energy may make teleportation hazardous or impossible. Now, granted there are no rules for this, but at least it is in the rules. You also have to take into account magical defenses.
No rules means it doesn't matter. And the defenses are taken into account, there are trivial ways around all of them except epic magic.


In the end Teleport does not look practical for warfare or trade. Yes, they both have their uses, but not all out world changing.
And you prove that you have no idea what you are talking about and/or never bothered to run the numbers.


And if your going from 'teleport' as existed from the dawn of time, then defenses will have existed too. So you'd have equally powerful and permanent anti-teleport area spells to block such effects.
Ah yes, the dreaded houserule. Which has exactly no place in the Tippyverse. No magic exists to block teleportation over an entire nation at anything approaching a reasonable cost.


Now, I don't mean to tear down your whole 'mega city and wastelands', I'm just pointing out that saying teleport circle is a world changer does not work out.

Um yes it does. You can run 96 people through a TC per round. Or 960 people per minute. Or approximately 60,000 people in an hour. And that's without even trying to be efficient.

Using a Permanent Animated Object on a gargantuan object and it can move 8,000 pounds per trip. In 38 trips a single one will move as much as the total carrying capacity of a galley. At 1 trip per minute (and I have systems to get it down to one trip every two rounds) you would move as much as the total cargo capacity of 38 galley's through the TC every day. And that's without using any of the trips to increase the numbers.

[Emperor Tippy]

Aren't there options in Draconomicon or Stronghold Builder's Guide which can defend against teleportation? Or scrying, for that matter?

Nothing that can defend an entire city, much less an entire nation. At least not for a price that even begins to approach reasonable.

[Gavinfoxx]

I meant for large strategic rooms or buildings or stuff. If the Draconomicon option can defend cavern shaped areas of a particular size, would you see more buildings taking shape in such a way that they can be defended by that option?

[jindra34]

I meant for large strategic rooms or buildings or stuff. If the Draconomicon option can defend cavern shaped areas of a particular size, would you see more buildings taking shape in such a way that they can be defended by that option?
Efficiency and logistics. If you claim a lot of area you essentially need a barracks per square mile, and you need to ward each one of them, both against teleporting and destructive spells. That gets really expensive really quickly. And then you need all the support for those soldiers. Which if objects need more soldiers to guard. It ends up being a outward going cost spiral.

[Inferno]

Wouldn't a tippyverse where cities use large numbers of Warforged for defense soon find Warforged replacing the fleshier races?
The Warforged are produced more quickly, level more quickly (if they are seeing the majority of combat/never sleep) and don't rely on food/water traps. And as proper intelligent constructs I can't see them being held exclusively to more martial/cannon fodder type positions.

[Gavinfoxx]

Well, there are options for creating arbitrary amounts of wealth and resources in this setting though, right? I mean that a city could still project power in a relevant way to make it a city state with a demesne, you know? And perhaps be a bit more spread out?

[jindra34]

Well, there are options for creating arbitrary amounts of wealth and resources in this setting though, right? I mean that a city could still project power in a relevant way to make it a city state with a demesne, you know? And perhaps be a bit more spread out?

Besides land (which traditionally was needed primarily for farming [replaced by Food and Water traps]) what exactly would one stand to gain by expanding outward?
And as for projecting power, everywhere not under heavy guard is essentially equidistant to everywhere else. Meaning you could project power halfway across the world as easily as a mile out side your city. As could everyone else.

[Kobold-Bard]

So very, very subbed.

[TheGeckoKing]

I have a question - if you've kept them all in, how do all the more exotic races (Monstrous Humanoids, The Dragons, the Outsiders etc.) react to all this technological/economical growth?

[Jack_Simth]

Now, I don't mean to tear down your whole 'mega city and wastelands', I'm just pointing out that saying teleport circle is a world changer does not work out.
That's not what tears it down.

What tears it down are when you reach the Wish traps and the True Creation traps (or the realization that a fabricate trap doesn't really need materials to work with, as the source materials are part of the material component of the spell, and so 100 copies of the source materials at trap creation gets you all you need forever) to get certain things. And that doesn't so much tear it down as change the nature. Once you've got that going, you don't need the TC's any more except at controllable junction points for local travel, and can spam Forbiddance or similar effects (heightened to 9th to avoid Greater Spell Immunity - materials are gotten via Wish / True Creation / Fabricate traps) to keep most armies out (although unless you find a way to bypass SR, the Golem armies can still get you, and sufficiently CL pumped Spell Resistance traps can arrange for an army that could get in).

Of course, you'll still end up needing the army anyway, as Wish has that pesky clause about "Regardless of local conditions".

Oh yes, and if you have a City, the only real reason to conquer another is Ego, as you have every thing (separated out into two words for a reason...) you actually want already anyway.


More specifically, Teleportation Circle. No other means of teleportation I am aware of has enough capacity to have the effects described here without assuming a truly staggering number of high level casters.

Spell Traps of Teleport Without Error can pull it off the exact same way (and are actually marginally better, as they can have a bigger trigger area, permitting more throughput for comperable costs).


How would the Tippyverse change if that single spell were removed? There'd still be the possibility of a trap-based economy, but it seems like much of the military and trade underpinnings of TV would fall apart without TC.

Edit: And ninja-answered. Still leaves the question of what you think D&D magic minus Teleportation Circle would logically do to a setting.
It could be made to skip from TC-dependent TV world as described to a trap-dependent one that looks very, very similar.

[bloodtide]

Not really. There are tons of ways to do it. A level 11 Warlock could set up the TC's if you built right.

And there is the fact that TC's can be permanent. A single one renders trade routes gone between it's two end points.

Ok, don't know much about Warlocks, but if you say they can do it.



You gate in a Solar, have him use his Permanency SLA to make the TC permanent, and have him use his Wish SLA to get you another scroll of Gate. Play around with higher CL Gate Scrolls and you can set up an entire network for the cost of one gate scroll.

If your going this route, then you can block teleportaion with the exact same kind of thing. You could Dimensional Lock a whole city. Not to mention all the other teleport block type spells, effects and such.



It can deliver over a thousand people per round.

I wonder how you figure this? Teleport circle makes a five foot square teleport people that step on it. How do you figure 1000+ people can step on the five foot square in ten seconds? Or are you using the 'commoner railgun' type reading of the rules?



Um, yes you can send wagonloads of material. A wagon is attended by the animal pulling it. And you can move over 70 billion pounds of goods through a TC per day with the right set up. Although even with walking it still delivers more goods than a cargo ship.

I'm not sure an animal 'attends' a wagon, but ok.



No rules means it doesn't matter. And the defenses are taken into account, there are trivial ways around all of them except epic magic.

All the rules are taken into account? From all D&D books? Even say the Strongholds Builders Guide? Cityscape? All of them?



And you prove that you have no idea what you are talking about and/or never bothered to run the numbers.

I'll guess I'll need you to run the numbers and show how so much stuff can do through a teleport circle.



Ah yes, the dreaded houserule. Which has exactly no place in the Tippyverse. No magic exists to block teleportation over an entire nation at anything approaching a reasonable cost.

But when you throw in gate, wish, scrolls and such...like your Solar example, just about anything is possible. And that is just core.




Um yes it does. You can run 96 people through a TC per round. Or 960 people per minute. Or approximately 100,000 people in an hour. And that's without even trying to be efficient.

Agian, i'll need you to explain how this works.



Using a Permanent Animated Object on a gargantuan object and it can move 8,000 pounds per trip. In 38 trips a single one will move as much as the total carrying capacity of a galley. At 1 trip per minute (and I have systems to get it down to one trip every two rounds) you would move as much as the total cargo capacity of 38 galley's through the TC every day. And that's without using any of the trips to increase the numbers.

Now, this could work.

[Piggy Knowles]

I wonder how you figure this? Teleport circle makes a five foot square teleport people that step on it.

Actually, that's a 5' radius circle, not a single 5' square. So you're actually dealing with an area of 78+ square feet...

[Psyren]

I suppose that once a given locale became totally self-sufficient, they might look into using their wealth to seal off their city via Forbiddance-spam until every square inch is covered.

Of course, you could then use Wish/Miracle to infiltrate someone (or several someones), have them dispel/disjoin an area of the Forbiddance (or even just throw up some nice AMFs) and then bring your army in normally.

As Tippy said, you can't really keep people out without epic magic. ("Cloister!") RAW is funny like that.

[Emperor Tippy]

Wouldn't a tippyverse where cities use large numbers of Warforged for defense soon find Warforged replacing the fleshier races?
I go with 1 Warforged per thousand citizens and 1 Shadesteel Golem per five thousand residents, as general numbers.


The Warforged are produced more quickly, level more quickly (if they are seeing the majority of combat/never sleep) and don't rely on food/water traps. And as proper intelligent constructs I can't see them being held exclusively to more martial/cannon fodder type positions.
It's not really a concern. Any warforged that starts getting ideas can just be mind wiped. And it's not like that's common in the first place.


Well, there are options for creating arbitrary amounts of wealth and resources in this setting though, right? I mean that a city could still project power in a relevant way to make it a city state with a demesne, you know? And perhaps be a bit more spread out?

Most of those methods don't actually help with blocking teleport.


I have a question - if you've kept them all in, how do all the more exotic races (Monstrous Humanoids, The Dragons, the Outsiders etc.) react to all this technological/economical growth?
It depends on the species in question. One and all they tend to leave the cities alone and the cities leave them alone. Nothing else really has the organization to actually threaten a Cities standing military, which isn't to say that Cities don't get destroyed when they go too far. They really just pretty much ignore eachother.


Ok, don't know much about Warlocks, but if you say they can do it.
It's magic item abuse.


If your going this route, then you can block teleportaion with the exact same kind of thing. You could Dimensional Lock a whole city. Not to mention all the other teleport block type spells, effects and such.
Not really. You can't make Dimensional Lock permanent. And even using Forbiddance you really can't render a city immune to TC. There are simply too many work around's (dig down 60 feet for example and TC to there, you are below the Forbiddance cube).


I wonder how you figure this? Teleport circle makes a five foot square teleport people that step on it. How do you figure 1000+ people can step on the five foot square in ten seconds? Or are you using the 'commoner railgun' type reading of the rules?
Each person can activate the trap on their turn. Run lines on all 4 sides of the 5 foot square and you get 960 people through per round using the run speed for a human. You can actually get more through but I didn't feel like figuring the numbers.


All the rules are taken into account? From all D&D books? Even say the Strongholds Builders Guide? Cityscape? All of them?
Yep. The magic to defend against teleportation on a strategic level sucks. Protecting just a single square mile with Forbiddance will cost you upwards of 3 million GP and there are very few tricks to get that cheaper (a Wish Trap buff wagon is about the only way).


I'll guess I'll need you to run the numbers and show how so much stuff can do through a teleport circle.
See later in my post.


But when you throw in gate, wish, scrolls and such...like your Solar example, just about anything is possible. And that is just core.
Yes, none of which is particularly relevant.


Agian, i'll need you to explain how this works.
See above.

[jindra34]

Also even if you ward an area from teleportation, you still have to staff the border with enough people to protect the area from a strike. And given that because you warded the area against teleportation each outpost has to have those numbers stationed at it. Given the shown deployable army size, and the fact that most borders had posts every 1/4 to 1/2 mile that would require an insanely massive force.

[MukkTB]

I assume one of the causes of death for a city is when someone manages to get past the defensive scrying and fire off a locate city bomb? I realize LCB might not be RAW but I'm think there are other was to create magical weapons of mass destruction.

[Emperor Tippy]

LCB doesn't work, so no that's not a cause. But yes, various other WMD's exist and are used.

Although being destroyed by another city is the least common method of a city falling. By far the most common is it's leadership either attempting to kill each other off in a power play and failing (which inevitably leads to civil war and a dead city) or the leadership messing around with experimental magic and doing things like creating a dead magic zone where the city is supposed to be. Or making the city strongly aligned to the positive energy plane (the poor city of Shamrock went that way when a wizard with too much power and all too little wisdom thought it would be a great way to keep all the residents healthy, forgetting about the slight fact that too much positive energy makes you explode).

[Gavinfoxx]

Okay... if we could make a Lair Ward (per Dreconomicon) of some sort of bigger Forbiddence effect, like the Lair Wards for protection against Scrying... would that help? I just realized that the Lair Wards DIDN'T have a teleportation version. :( :( :(

[Emperor Tippy]

Dig a hole and you are under the affect.
Use a Wish trap to get through the affect.
Drop a disjunction.
There are more ways to get around any anti-teleport defenses.

About the only way that actually works involves manipulating planar traits, and that has it's own downsides.

Epic magic is the only effective way to protect a large area from teleportation.

[bloodtide]

What about Weirdstones? They block teleportation within a six mile radius. There is no reason a city can't have a couple of them.

They don't cost all that much, especially when you can wish up 25,000 gold per wish. You could gate in three Effreti a day for a week, for example. Not to mention 'Fabricate' traps and such.

[Emperor Tippy]

What about Weirdstones? They block teleportation within a six mile radius. There is no reason a city can't have a couple of them.

They don't cost all that much, especially when you can wish up 25,000 gold per wish. You could gate in three Effreti a day for a week, for example. Not to mention 'Fabricate' traps and such.
The best anti-teleport defense but you can still get around them without too much trouble. The easiest way to get around it is to just Wish the weirdstone protecting the location you want access to away.

[sonofzeal]

The best anti-teleport defense but you can still get around them without too much trouble. The easiest way to get around it is to just Wish the weirdstone protecting the location you want access to away.
I would be very leery of allowing uses of Wish that aren't explicitly part of its power, because they come down to DM prerogative on whether they work, and it's not strictly RAW what happens either way. Monkeypawing is too easy.



Also - even if you have 1000 people using a TC in a round... what are conditions like on the other side? I can't even imagine the logistical nightmare that'd develop, but stampeding, crushing, and massive and unnecessary loss of life would almost surely ensue if you actually tried this in real life.

[Emperor Tippy]

I would be very leery of allowing uses of Wish that aren't explicitly part of its power, because they come down to DM prerogative on whether they work, and it's not strictly RAW what happens either way. Monkeypawing is too easy.
It's one of the listed abilities of Wish. To bring anything from anywhere on any plane to any other location on any other plane. Will save applies. Transport Travelers clause.


Also - even if you have 1000 people using a TC in a round... what are conditions like on the other side? I can't even imagine the logistical nightmare that'd develop, but stampeding, crushing, and massive and unnecessary loss of life would almost surely ensue if you actually tried this in real life.

An actual invasion is done in a more coordinated manner, but that doesn't alter the fact that you simply can't secure a nations borders when industrial scale teleportation exists.

[Lateral]

LCB doesn't work, so no that's not a cause. But yes, various other WMD's exist and are used.

There's always the Wightocalypse version of the LCB. That one actually works. (Granted, it's a single negative level, but that's enough to kill a whole lotta commoners.)

Although, actually, does the Tippyverse even have level ones in the cities? Is everyone at least, oh, third level, or is your average Joe pretty much at the same level of power as in any other setting?

[Gorfang113]

So I have a question. How do creatures that eat, disrupt, dispell or generally mess with magic (examples: Spellguants, Balhannoths, Mage Ripper Swarms, Arcane Oozes, ect.) work in this setting. It seems to me like they would either be horrible blights on the cities, one of the things that could bring a city down, or something that would be exterminated at the earliest opprotunity. So what is their role or purpose in the Tippyverse?

[TheGeckoKing]

So I have a question. How do creatures that eat, disrupt, dispell or generally mess with magic (examples: Spellguants, Balhannoths, Mage Ripper Swarms, Arcane Oozes, ect.) work in this setting. It seems to me like they would either be horrible blights on the cities, one of the things that could bring a city down, or something that would be exterminated at the earliest opprotunity. So what is their role or purpose in the Tippyverse?

To further expand on this, what about the Colossi (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/colossus.htm)? They, by RAW, still have that annoying 3.0 Antimagic Field rather than the normal magic immunity.

[Zonugal]

Hey Tippy! So I have been playing around with the general idea behind the Tippyverse for my own campaign. The thing is characters stop leveling around level 10 or 11, and thus a teleportation circle wouldn't work.

So I took another approach and focused on food & poverty. I took great attention to the Goodberry spell and wanted to know how you felt about its impact on a tippyverse. As it is a trap could be build for under 300 gp and would seem to convert any single berry into a full, nourishing meal (in addition to healing 1 point of damage).

My general thoughts were this might have a radical affect on agriculture and that poverty may disappear.

Thoughts?

[Emperor Tippy]

So I have a question. How do creatures that eat, disrupt, dispell or generally mess with magic (examples: Spellguants, Balhannoths, Mage Ripper Swarms, Arcane Oozes, ect.) work in this setting. It seems to me like they would either be horrible blights on the cities, one of the things that could bring a city down, or something that would be exterminated at the earliest opprotunity. So what is their role or purpose in the Tippyverse?

You pretty much hit the nail on the head, they can be a threat depending upon the specific monster and circumstances.

One example of WMD's I mentioned earlier in the Points of Light setting was a Living Disjunction spell. Great idea, except it was a work in progress and the wizards creating it had the bright idea of turning it incorporeal and having everything inside it's area (a 30 foot cube) be disjoined. For extra unpleasantness the experiment was being done in the citadel floating about the City, which promptly fell and leveled said City.


To further expand on this, what about the Colossi (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/colossus.htm)? They, by RAW, still have that annoying 3.0 Antimagic Field rather than the normal magic immunity.
Treated as incredibly rare weapons of War. As in a City might have a handful of them. And yes, one of them inside a city can do bad things depending on just how much the city uses persistent magic effects to maintain it's integrity (some literally need magic to not fall apart, others don't).


Hey Tippy! So I have been playing around with the general idea behind the Tippyverse for my own campaign. The thing is characters stop leveling around level 10 or 11, and thus a teleportation circle wouldn't work.
Then it's not the Tippyverse, although it much be inspired by the TV.


So I took another approach and focused on food & poverty. I took great attention to the Goodberry spell and wanted to know how you felt about its impact on a tippyverse. As it is a trap could be build for under 300 gp and would seem to convert any single berry into a full, nourishing meal (in addition to healing 1 point of damage).

My general thoughts were this might have a radical affect on agriculture and that poverty may disappear.

Thoughts?

It doesn't do much more than any of the numerous other ways to eliminate the need for food.

[Doughnut Master]

Why is there even trade in the Tippyverse?

Wouldn't the ability to fabricate or create negate the material imbalances between cities that make trade possible?

By obviating the need for any sort of primary or secondary trade, it would seem natural that the economy would transcend to be entirely knowledge and information based. However, with the ability to read minds and extract information, the ability to capitalize on new discoveries before competitors would seem limited.

[Emperor Tippy]

Why is there even trade in the Tippyverse?

Wouldn't the ability to fabricate or create negate the material imbalances between cities that make trade possible?

By obviating the need for any sort of primary or secondary trade, it would seem natural that the economy would transcend to be entirely knowledge and information based. However, with the ability to read minds and extract information, the ability to capitalize on new discoveries before competitors would seem limited.

As a result of how traps work, every item produced by them will be identical. That creates a large market for objects that aren't made with traps.

The only way to get a trap of magic item production is with a Wish Trap, and those are hideously expensive (absent using Wish abuse to get the trap for free). And you need one for each magic item. Sure, you can play tricks to get things cheaper (Wish Trap of a Scroll of Gate combined with a Shapechange Trap so that anyone can use the Scroll, get a Solar and have it Wish up whatever item you want) but it's still not cheap. And access to those kinds of traps are restricted.

A more complete answer get's into the realm of personal tweaks made to the setting to make things work better.

For example, in Points of Light, it's impossible to use Wish to create a magic trap because those types of magic items derive their power from leylines and are quite finicky to set up; wish can't handle the requirements.

And yes, a fair bit of trade is knowledge based.

[Qwertystop]

It's one of the listed abilities of Wish. To bring anything from anywhere on any plane to any other location on any other plane. Will save applies. Transport Travelers clause.

Would that work, since the Weirdstone blocks teleportation? You're teleporting something out of the Weirdstone's area.

[Emperor Tippy]

Would that work, since the Weirdstone blocks teleportation? You're teleporting something out of the Weirdstone's area.

Yep, Wish specifically ignores local affects. Just like you can Wish a person into or out of a Dimensional Lock.

[Gavinfoxx]

I personally like traps of unseen crafter, where some master craftsman spends some time standing on one to get a gaggle of unseen crafters following them about, and then goes off to direct their work.

[Doughnut Master]

As a result of how traps work, every item produced by them will be identical. That creates a large market for objects that aren't made with traps.

The only way to get a trap of magic item production is with a Wish Trap, and those are hideously expensive (absent using Wish abuse to get the trap for free). And you need one for each magic item. Sure, you can play tricks to get things cheaper (Wish Trap of a Scroll of Gate combined with a Shapechange Trap so that anyone can use the Scroll, get a Solar and have it Wish up whatever item you want) but it's still not cheap. And access to those kinds of traps are restricted.

A more complete answer get's into the realm of personal tweaks made to the setting to make things work better.

For example, in Points of Light, it's impossible to use Wish to create a magic trap because those types of magic items derive their power from leylines and are quite finicky to set up; wish can't handle the requirements.

And yes, a fair bit of trade is knowledge based.

I see. So there still is a market for craftsmanship and specialty items. However, why would there still be trade between cities? There seems to be no reason why one particular city would have these crafting capabilities and another would not. While there's reason for trade between individuals, each city seems like it could function perfectly well in isolation.

As for knowledge, it would seem difficult to protect as magic allows anyone to have a photographic memory, firms would not only have to worry about documents and trade secrets being stolen, but their mere observation poses a security risk. This, in turn, would seem to continue to foster isolationist policies within each city, lest they give up their edge to foreign agents.

[Aegis013]

Maybe they keep the better secrets safely hidden on few individuals who have a continual mind blank? Never writing down the secrets and using magical perfect recall when the information is necessary? (just a thought)

Kind of like corporations keeping trade secrets, they can't be patented because then they'd be public, but they're still closely guarded, and protected by the law.

[sonofzeal]

It's one of the listed abilities of Wish. To bring anything from anywhere on any plane to any other location on any other plane. Will save applies. Transport Travelers clause.
Not anything, any creature. Even ignoring that, wouldn't the Weirdstone's own effect block it? The wording of Weirstone is broad enough to include Wish's "Transport Travelers" function. The only question is what "regardless of local conditions" refers to, specifically whether "conditions" refers to purely to physical conditions, or whether it includes magical conditions and emanations under its umbrella as well. I'd be rather skeptical of any attempt to magically transport something out of an area that bans magical transportation, without stronger wording to back it up. As-is, we sort of have an IHS situation where sufficiently-broad interpretations create hilarity, but RAW is decidedly ambiguous on the subject.

(EDIT) Google revealed the weakness to me - you can only PLACE them regardless of local conditions, the caveat does not extend to TAKING them. So even with the most generous interpretation you can Wish something into a Weirdstone's effect, but can't wish the Weirdstone or anything in its radius back out.


An actual invasion is done in a more coordinated manner, but that doesn't alter the fact that you simply can't secure a nations borders when industrial scale teleportation exists.
I still don't think you could bring army-sized populations through in anything like a timely fashion - not because the spell can't theoretically transport that many, but because the logistics involved in doing so become prohibitive at anything past a few people a round. That said, a few highly-trained and magically-powered people could wreak much havoc in a short time, so it's not that huge of an issue.

Really, the difficulty I see is that even with concentrated forces like the Cities you describe, it's actually still too easy for enemies to do huge damage if they wanted. Your forces are concentrated, but so are your other resources, all the key strategic points an enemy might want to capture or destroy. I don't think any garrison could mobilize rapidly enough without additional teleportation and instant communications, and at that point it doesn't actually matter what sort of area they service. A garrison alerted by Sending and mobilizing through a TC or Mass Teleport can potentially service an entire plane with almost equal effectiveness as their home town. At that point, Cities become almost the worst sort of eggs-in-one-basket setup... unless Weirdstones work and you can effectively turtle up.

[Doughnut Master]

It could actually give utility to martial classes like rogues. HQs are protected with AMFs to keep out spies who would disguise themselves, but a clever fellow with mundane tools could try to penetrate an organization, find or otherwise witness whatever needed to be learned and then high tail it back home for a modify memory session with the company bard.

[deuxhero]

There's always the Wightocalypse version of the LCB. That one actually works. (Granted, it's a single negative level, but that's enough to kill a whole lotta commoners.)

Although, actually, does the Tippyverse even have level ones in the cities? Is everyone at least, oh, third level, or is your average Joe pretty much at the same level of power as in any other setting?

Even if they don't, house pets, vermin (including insects) and other animals won't have enough HD to avoid it, then make quick work of the humans.

[Coidzor]

IT LIVES! :smallbiggrin:

[ShneekeyTheLost]

There are a few teleportation-proof methodologies capable of protecting a city. Also, teleportation means you only need *ONE* standing army of sufficient force to fend off any given opponent, because that one force can be deployed literally anywhere within your TC supply train.

Forbiddance is permanent, and you can use the password loophole to allow everyone to enter without getting killed off, however it is expensive. Then again, in a world in which infinite gold loops exist and are prevalent, it shoudn't be too difficult to pony up the money. Using Divine Spellpower and a whole pile of Nightsticks should be sufficient to have an effective caster level high enough that no one is going to punch through with a dispel.

Area is one 60' cube *per spellcaster level*. If you are already using Divine Spellpower to prevent dispel shenanigans, you can cover an entire city with a single casting, if you have sufficient resources. It might be expensive, sure, but it also absolutely guarantees no one will be teleporting into your city.

If this is more commonly used, then you will have a 'teleportation circle station' outside the city limits (since TC won't port you into the Forbiddance area). This is both an achelies heel and a benefit for the defender. On the one hand, this means if an opponent can capture that station, they can apply a siege and blockade. However, in doing so, the aggressor also opens himself up to having an entire army use Port n Pwn tactics on him through the permanent TC's they are occupying, or simply by more conventional means of every group being led by a wizard of sufficient level to use Teleport and being in range. This makes alliances with other city-states crucial not only for trade, but also for mutual defense treaties, since you can't port n pwn through your own Forbiddance.

The whole key here, and the reason it is worth the price tag involved, is that it prevents your scenario of 'one round, port n pwn, next round gone before defenders can respond'. You have to 'land' outside the city limits, then enter it conventionally (and I use the term loosely, considering 'conventionally' also includes Flight and other means of non-extradimentional travel). While magic still changes the battlefield, Forbiddance makes it nearly impossible for an opponent to project their entire force to a point inside your defenses instantly. At the very least, he will need to arrive to MDJ or use whatever shennanigans necessary to jack up his CL high enough to drop the Forbiddance. At which point, the defenders have an opportunity to respond.

[TurtleKing]

Alright I am not going to discuss the mechanics here. Want to discuss the fluff and philosophy.

Starters how do the dieties react to this? Most Dieties get the power from being worshipped. Main reason for worship is to recieve aid and guidance. So if you take out the need for aid then most of the Dietie's power will dry up. Something tells me they won't associate with the people of the Cities at best. At worst this could lead to war/punishment. This would be especially true for dieties tied to harvest for example. Gating Solars so as to use their abilities may be one of the key points of pulling off Tippyverse, but…what if the Solars says no? What if the use of abilities is refused? Another one are the Wish Traps. To me Wish isn't an automatic effect since it could be granted based on the whims of some entity. Cheapening that may not go over so well said entity so another might anger.

You stated that quite a few Cities as fell over about 2,100 years or so. Well what I postulated could be responsible for some of those.

In another area stemming from certain dieties having no more interaction with the Cities they would gravitate towards the ones in the Wilds. As such while quite a few would end up as stated how many more would be empowered by this? Would those towns with so few magic other than Sorcerers, Druids, Warlocks, and some others not have an influx of certain divine magic due to those dieties? As such to me the Wilds would start to have a Nature-y Divine feel while the Cities have a substantial Arcane feel to them.

[A_S]

There are a few teleportation-proof methodologies capable of protecting a city. Also, teleportation means you only need *ONE* standing army of sufficient force to fend off any given opponent, because that one force can be deployed literally anywhere within your TC supply train.

Forbiddance is permanent, and you can use the password loophole to allow everyone to enter without getting killed off, however it is expensive. Then again, in a world in which infinite gold loops exist and are prevalent, it shoudn't be too difficult to pony up the money. Using Divine Spellpower and a whole pile of Nightsticks should be sufficient to have an effective caster level high enough that no one is going to punch through with a dispel.

Area is one 60' cube *per spellcaster level*. If you are already using Divine Spellpower to prevent dispel shenanigans, you can cover an entire city with a single casting, if you have sufficient resources. It might be expensive, sure, but it also absolutely guarantees no one will be teleporting into your city.

Until one sneaky martial adept infiltrates your city and Iron Heart Surges the entire Forbiddance out of existence.

...kidding. But this does bring up a question: the OP says things are mostly by RAW, but how ridiculous does the ridiculous stuff have to be before it's been ignored by the setting? Is it just trying to account for the effects of extremely powerful spells on a campaign setting, or also for the effects of extremely poorly written rules with clearly non-RAI consequences (like IHS)? Some of these (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=214988) seem like they might have some serious impacts on the way a world functions.

[Aegis013]

Alright I am not going to discuss the mechanics here. Want to discuss the fluff and philosophy.

Starters how do the dieties react to this? Most Dieties get the power from being worshipped. Main reason for worship is to recieve aid and guidance. So if you take out the need for aid then most of the Dietie's power will dry up. Something tells me they won't associate with the people of the Cities at best. At worst this could lead to war/punishment. This would be especially true for dieties tied to harvest for example. Gating Solars so as to use their abilities may be one of the key points of pulling off Tippyverse, but…what if the Solars says no? What if the use of abilities is refused? Another one are the Wish Traps. To me Wish isn't an automatic effect since it could be granted based on the whims of some entity. Cheapening that may not go over so well said entity so another might anger.

You stated that quite a few Cities as fell over about 2,100 years or so. Well what I postulated could be responsible for some of those.

In another area stemming from certain dieties having no more interaction with the Cities they would gravitate towards the ones in the Wilds. As such while quite a few would end up as stated how many more would be empowered by this? Would those towns with so few magic other than Sorcerers, Druids, Warlocks, and some others not have an influx of certain divine magic due to those dieties? As such to me the Wilds would start to have a Nature-y Divine feel while the Cities have a substantial Arcane feel to them.

Didn't the beginning add the postulate the deities are mostly (ie entirely) silent? I think that would basically answer these questions, probably not to the degree you were hoping, but I'm certainly no expert on the Tippyverse.

[TurtleKing]

Probably did. Well if dieties have little to do with the Cities then yes even more so.

[Talentless]

I think it is highly interesting, and I like it, but I am not seeing eye to eye with you in regards to TC.

Your own fluff states that the world existed before the spell, and then some wizard invented it which changed the world.

This creates a problem in that I see no reason that some other Wizard out there decides that he wants to end the threat of a teleport invasion and research/invent an anti-teleport spell that can be used to protect vast stretches of area.

If TC was invented, that means other counter-spells of similar power could be invented*(naturally that doesn't mean they have, but if a PC or a DM using this setting decided too, they could totally do it.)


*Isn't there some rules in the DMG or something about inventing new spells for a niche that doesn't have any?

[Darrin]

There are a few teleportation-proof methodologies capable of protecting a city. Also, teleportation means you only need *ONE* standing army of sufficient force to fend off any given opponent, because that one force can be deployed literally anywhere within your TC supply train.


When EvilBad City realizes your network is protected by n standing armies, they can easily conclude that n+1 armies will defeat you. Cue arms race. I'm not sure there's really an upper bound to that... assuming your network has x possible entry points, having more than x armies available only makes sense if you're sending in multiple waves or in some sort of war of attrition. On the other hand, assuming x is the upper limit, EvilBad City can create a new entry point x+1 by just dropping a new TC within the target area.



If this is more commonly used, then you will have a 'teleportation circle station' outside the city limits (since TC won't port you into the Forbiddance area).


I'm not sure this would work... given that invasions would be extremely rare, your residents would conclude that the area immediately around the station is safe enough, and they don't want to bother walking (or whatever non-TC transporation method) all the way back and forth between the station and the city, so they just set up shop outside the station. The city would essentially just relocate to the most convenient spot, most likely outside the Forbiddance area.

Tippy, would Mirror Mephit Abuse provide a cheaper shortcut to unlimited wishes? Lesser planar binding is available at ECL 7, which can give you a simulacrum-efreet with three wishes essentially for free. If the efreet isn't doing it for you, the mirror mephit can create a simulacrum-black ethergaunt (17th level wizard casting). Find some way to increase the mirror mephit's caster level by +3 (orange ioun stone + bard's inspire greatness, perhaps?), and you can create a simulacrum-solar.

Also, is there a way to use genesis or create some sort of demiplane to make a city immune to invasion? I'm fuzzy on how the security of genesis works. I suppose whatever method you use to get from the TC on the ethereal plane to get inside the demiplane could be seized/destroyed and an enemy force, but I don't see that a seige would work due to the create food traps inside the demiplane, or the high-level spellcasters inside creating a new TC/entry point.

[VladtheLad]

You gate in a Solar, have him use his Permanency SLA to make the TC permanent, and have him use his Wish SLA to get you another scroll of Gate. Play around with higher CL Gate Scrolls and you can set up an entire network for the cost of one gate scroll.


I take issue with a setting that is based on abusing gate. You might as well go the simularcum= infinite wishes route.

That said I really like the general idea. Is the setting viable without abusing spells like planar binding, gate, simulacrum and wish?

[Dyllan]

I take issue with a setting that is based on abusing gate. You might as well go the simularcum= infinite wishes route.

That said I really like the general idea. Is the setting viable without abusing spells like planar binding, gate, simulacrum and wish?

I would say it is.

The keys are Permanent Teleportation Circle (expensive, but doable without abuse) and item creation traps (also expensive, but doable without traps).

The rest is just gravy.

[Emperor Tippy]

I see. So there still is a market for craftsmanship and specialty items. However, why would there still be trade between cities? There seems to be no reason why one particular city would have these crafting capabilities and another would not. While there's reason for trade between individuals, each city seems like it could function perfectly well in isolation.
Each city can function perfectly well in isolation. And honestly, the biggest trade item is relatively minor magical items that have been developed by persons in one city or another.


As for knowledge, it would seem difficult to protect as magic allows anyone to have a photographic memory, firms would not only have to worry about documents and trade secrets being stolen, but their mere observation poses a security risk. This, in turn, would seem to continue to foster isolationist policies within each city, lest they give up their edge to foreign agents.
The reason the cities aren't particularly isolationist (and some are far more so than others) is that the ability to keep out and ferret out infiltrators really isn't possible.


Not anything, any creature. Even ignoring that, wouldn't the Weirdstone's own effect block it? The wording of Weirstone is broad enough to include Wish's "Transport Travelers" function. The only question is what "regardless of local conditions" refers to, specifically whether "conditions" refers to purely to physical conditions, or whether it includes magical conditions and emanations under its umbrella as well. I'd be rather skeptical of any attempt to magically transport something out of an area that bans magical transportation, without stronger wording to back it up. As-is, we sort of have an IHS situation where sufficiently-broad interpretations create hilarity, but RAW is decidedly ambiguous on the subject.

(EDIT) Google revealed the weakness to me - you can only PLACE them regardless of local conditions, the caveat does not extend to TAKING them. So even with the most generous interpretation you can Wish something into a Weirdstone's effect, but can't wish the Weirdstone or anything in its radius back out.
If you want a weirdstone gone you can always just Wish a disposable minion right next to one and have them break it.


I still don't think you could bring army-sized populations through in anything like a timely fashion - not because the spell can't theoretically transport that many, but because the logistics involved in doing so become prohibitive at anything past a few people a round. That said, a few highly-trained and magically-powered people could wreak much havoc in a short time, so it's not that huge of an issue.
It depends a lot on the specifics involved, but yes the logistics are the hardest part (and they still aren't prohibitive).


Really, the difficulty I see is that even with concentrated forces like the Cities you describe, it's actually still too easy for enemies to do huge damage if they wanted. Your forces are concentrated, but so are your other resources, all the key strategic points an enemy might want to capture or destroy. I don't think any garrison could mobilize rapidly enough without additional teleportation and instant communications, and at that point it doesn't actually matter what sort of area they service. A garrison alerted by Sending and mobilizing through a TC or Mass Teleport can potentially service an entire plane with almost equal effectiveness as their home town. At that point, Cities become almost the worst sort of eggs-in-one-basket setup... unless Weirdstones work and you can effectively turtle up.
Keeping an entire plane scouted out so that you know once the enemy arrives isn't exactly trivial, and they use permanent telepathic bonds not sending. Strategic points in the Cities are covered by anti-teleport defenses of one stripe or another, meaning that an invasion force taking out key targets is difficult.

And weirdstones do exist and offer some protection. My point has been that they still don't offer the kind of protection that would keep out another cities military. Between infiltrators, wish, arriving outside the covered area, and a few other methods they can simply be brought down relatively easily.


It could actually give utility to martial classes like rogues. HQs are protected with AMFs to keep out spies who would disguise themselves, but a clever fellow with mundane tools could try to penetrate an organization, find or otherwise witness whatever needed to be learned and then high tail it back home for a modify memory session with the company bard.

Most of the classes do have a point and are used. Although the defenses would make a rogue doing what you describe insanely difficult.


Alright I am not going to discuss the mechanics here. Want to discuss the fluff and philosophy.

Starters how do the dieties react to this? Most Dieties get the power from being worshipped. Main reason for worship is to recieve aid and guidance. So if you take out the need for aid then most of the Dietie's power will dry up. Something tells me they won't associate with the people of the Cities at best. At worst this could lead to war/punishment. This would be especially true for dieties tied to harvest for example. Gating Solars so as to use their abilities may be one of the key points of pulling off Tippyverse, but…what if the Solars says no? What if the use of abilities is refused?
Deities in the Tippyverse are more Eberron than Faerun. And they still receive plenty of worship by those in the Cities, it just tends to favor different gods (Boccob, for example, makes out like a bandit).

Another one are the Wish Traps. To me Wish isn't an automatic effect since it could be granted based on the whims of some entity. Cheapening that may not go over so well said entity so another might anger.
Wish is solely the casters own power, it's not granted by any other entity (that would be Miracle).


In another area stemming from certain dieties having no more interaction with the Cities they would gravitate towards the ones in the Wilds. As such while quite a few would end up as stated how many more would be empowered by this? Would those towns with so few magic other than Sorcerers, Druids, Warlocks, and some others not have an influx of certain divine magic due to those dieties? As such to me the Wilds would start to have a Nature-y Divine feel while the Cities have a substantial Arcane feel to them.
It could work perfectly fine in your setting. It's not the one I use but it's by no means against the basic point of the Tippyverse.


Until one sneaky martial adept infiltrates your city and Iron Heart Surges the entire Forbiddance out of existence.

...kidding.
Don't be, it's perfectly acceptable to IRS Forbiddance away. :smallsmile:


But this does bring up a question: the OP says things are mostly by RAW, but how ridiculous does the ridiculous stuff have to be before it's been ignored by the setting? Is it just trying to account for the effects of extremely powerful spells on a campaign setting, or also for the effects of extremely poorly written rules with clearly non-RAI consequences (like IHS)? Some of these (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=214988) seem like they might have some serious impacts on the way a world functions.
It depends specifically on the rule/situation. The Tippyverse is mostly focused on integrating magic into the setting in a reasonable and effective manner while still preserving the ability to have any kind of campaign at any level in the setting.


I think it is highly interesting, and I like it, but I am not seeing eye to eye with you in regards to TC.

Your own fluff states that the world existed before the spell, and then some wizard invented it which changed the world.

This creates a problem in that I see no reason that some other Wizard out there decides that he wants to end the threat of a teleport invasion and research/invent an anti-teleport spell that can be used to protect vast stretches of area.
Sure, and if he manages it (pure DM fiat) then the entire setting changes. It can be great fun to play a game like that. Points of Light had my group playing both extremes, it was my PC's who set up the initial teleport network, another set of characters who played a large role in the CoWC period, and eventually yet another group who oversaw the mass reordering of the world when the leylines powering the traps that the cities depend on were redirected into a great warding that stopped teleportation over the entire world. Great fun. But that's all setting specific and not the core Tippyverse.


If TC was invented, that means other counter-spells of similar power could be invented*(naturally that doesn't mean they have, but if a PC or a DM using this setting decided too, they could totally do it.)


*Isn't there some rules in the DMG or something about inventing new spells for a niche that doesn't have any?

Yep, but it's not an area covered by the Tippyverse because it's not a rule as written (or intended).


Tippy, would Mirror Mephit Abuse provide a cheaper shortcut to unlimited wishes? Lesser planar binding is available at ECL 7, which can give you a simulacrum-efreet with three wishes essentially for free. If the efreet isn't doing it for you, the mirror mephit can create a simulacrum-black ethergaunt (17th level wizard casting). Find some way to increase the mirror mephit's caster level by +3 (orange ioun stone + bard's inspire greatness, perhaps?), and you can create a simulacrum-solar.
There are plenty of ways to do stuff cheaper. It's not something I really worried about, because even using the costs to produce without any tricks to cheapen it, you would still get the TC network eventually and it would still lead to the rest (eventually).


Also, is there a way to use genesis or create some sort of demiplane to make a city immune to invasion? I'm fuzzy on how the security of genesis works. I suppose whatever method you use to get from the TC on the ethereal plane to get inside the demiplane could be seized/destroyed and an enemy force, but I don't see that a seige would work due to the create food traps inside the demiplane, or the high-level spellcasters inside creating a new TC/entry point.
Genesis is used, how specifically depends on the setting and city. Points of Light saw it mostly restricted to the personal realms of the high end mages and not the cities in general for various personal reasons.



I take issue with a setting that is based on abusing gate. You might as well go the simularcum= infinite wishes route.

That said I really like the general idea. Is the setting viable without abusing spells like planar binding, gate, simulacrum and wish?

It's not a setting based on abusing gate. The setting would already exist without or without gate, all gate changes is how cheaply and easily the infrastructure can be set up.


I would say it is.

The keys are Permanent Teleportation Circle (expensive, but doable without abuse) and item creation traps (also expensive, but doable without traps).

The rest is just gravy.

Exactly. And really, all you actually need are the Teleportation Circles. Sure, you end up with massive farming areas that enjoy the protection of a cities army but that can be just as fun (if not more fun) to play in and doesn't much change the basic themes of the setting. It opens up some additional weaknesses while closing others and tends to alter the cities population figures but it doesn't change the base setting.

The key point of the Tippyverse is the existence of rapid, industrial scale, teleportation magic at a reasonable price.

[VladtheLad]

Thanx. I am actually thinkng of running this in my next campaign and I prolly will run it lite.
Teleport circles will have been created from high level wizards and the profit for casting two such circles and making them permanent is traditionally given to the wizard responsible until he is satisfied. Even assuming the creation of such a circle every 3 years they should have redifined the world in just a hundred years or so.

What changes if you remove item creation traps or if you allow only create food and water traps?

[Parra]

Quite an interesting read, I do have 1 question though: When successfully attacking an enemy city why is the city generally destroyed and not conquered?

Sure its a second point to defend, but the widespread usage of Teleportation Circles makes it quiet easy to achieve. Not to mention that you now have a second cities worth of Golem Manufactoring devices, as well as other goodies from captured/killed opposition, to rapidly boost the newly captured cities defences.

[lorddrake]

Do diplomancers exist on Tippyverse?

Because, if they do it means they go like this:

"Ow, hey there. How about you let me take this pretty stones that does not let people teleport into the city and do stuff?"

or

"Hey! You, master of all magic and owner of town. I know you have these wish and gate traps capable of doing stuff and you doesn't let other people mess with them, but if I promise to be a good boy (or girl) and not to break the stuff, would you let me use,like, forever?"

And I'm not even talking about the jumplomancer, pun-pun and hulking hurlers and the heavy broken stuff...

[Emperor Tippy]

What changes if you remove item creation traps or if you allow only create food and water traps?
You end up with enclaves of raw materials spread across the world (well unless you do things like you genesis to make a plane of silk or steel etc.) that are linked by TC's to their city and guarded by that cities army. The people in the cities produce goods like in any other D&D city or town.

What the Tippyverse really does is concentrate almost the entire population in a very small (relatively) area and removes virtually every reason for them to exit that area. Whether that area is but a single city (in the case of trap use) or a city and resource enclaves/colonies (in the case of no traps) doesn't really change that. Without the geographic constraints you can farm in, say, Iowa and yet have your city in Hawaii without any problem.


Quite an interesting read, I do have 1 question though: When successfully attacking an enemy city why is the city generally destroyed and not conquered?
Because most of the fighting is going on inside the city and such fights usually have thousands of high level casters fighting each other. There is rarely anything left intact. Then there is the fact that unless you can convert the conquered cities military forces or have a military around twice the normal size then you won't have the forces to actually police the conquered city and it will rapidly fall apart. Now add in that all the other cities are unlikely to want you to conquer more territory so they have special operations going on in the area to destroy the city. In the end, conquest is much more difficult than destruction while offering relatively little gain.


Sure its a second point to defend, but the widespread usage of Teleportation Circles makes it quiet easy to achieve. Not to mention that you now have a second cities worth of Golem Manufactoring devices, as well as other goodies from captured/killed opposition, to rapidly boost the newly captured cities defences.
Assuming that you can take any of that intact. Craft Contingent Disjunctions set to things like "The city falls" aren't uncommon.


Do diplomancers exist on Tippyverse?

Because, if they do it means they go like this:

"Ow, hey there. How about you let me take this pretty stones that does not let people teleport into the city and do stuff?"

or

"Hey! You, master of all magic and owner of town. I know you have these wish and gate traps capable of doing stuff and you doesn't let other people mess with them, but if I promise to be a good boy (or girl) and not to break the stuff, would you let me use,like, forever?"

And I'm not even talking about the jumplomancer, pun-pun and hulking hurlers and the heavy broken stuff...

Sure, they exist. But they aren't effective thanks to all of the leadership having Mind Blank up. And in the trap based cities you can fairly easily have the entire population mind blanked (which is incidentally what makes divination's to know when the enemies are going to attack such a bitch).

[TurtleKing]

Mind Blank doesn't protect against a diplomancer. A Diplomancer merely provides an excellent point that others see as ingenious. If they way to do this through magic such as reading minds then yes that part is stopped by Mind Blank yet most of diplomancing is mundane. A simple skill check.

[Emperor Tippy]

Mind Blank doesn't protect against a diplomancer. A Diplomancer merely provides an excellent point that others see as ingenious. If they way to do this through magic such as reading minds then yes that part is stopped by Mind Blank yet most of diplomancing is mundane. A simple skill check.
Fanatic is a mind-affecting effect and thus prevented by Mind Blank.

It's up to the DM if Friendly or Helpful will get you what you want to know.

[jseah]

Player's Guide to Faerun has a CL20 magic item called a Weirdstone. 250 k gp? I think?

It blocks teleportation in a couple of miles radius IIRC. As well as any form of planar travel.

Doesn't block you leaving it, I think.

EDIT:
I see this has been brought up already.

[Parra]

Because most of the fighting is going on inside the city and such fights usually have thousands of high level casters fighting each other. There is rarely anything left intact. Then there is the fact that unless you can convert the conquered cities military forces or have a military around twice the normal size then you won't have the forces to actually police the conquered city and it will rapidly fall apart. Now add in that all the other cities are unlikely to want you to conquer more territory so they have special operations going on in the area to destroy the city. In the end, conquest is much more difficult than destruction while offering relatively little gain.


Assuming that you can take any of that intact. Craft Contingent Disjunctions set to things like "The city falls" aren't uncommon.


Fair points. And now that I think about it, these sorta things probably did occur in the settings history, thus creating the neccessity of things like the Disjunction Self Destruct Wards.

Still though it doesnt feel quite right, from an Evil Expansionist Cities pov, that you dont get to lord your superiority over a conquered population and bend them to heel.

[Emperor Tippy]

Fair points. And now that I think about it, these sorta things probably did occur in the settings history, thus creating the neccessity of things like the Disjunction Self Destruct Wards.

Still though it doesnt feel quite right, from an Evil Expansionist Cities pov, that you dont get to lord your superiority over a conquered population and bend them to heel.
And thus is born a quest for high level play, with the PC's carefully sneaking in in advance to disable the crafted Disjunctions.

You can conquer and capture a City, it's just far more difficult than destroying one (which isn't exactly easy in the first place).

[Doughnut Master]

Does this setting deal at all with the Weave?

It seems that all of this constant and heavy use of magic might threaten to drain the energy of the area, causing these cities to fall into becoming dead magic zones.

[Emperor Tippy]

Does this setting deal at all with the Weave?

It seems that all of this constant and heavy use of magic might threaten to drain the energy of the area, causing these cities to fall into becoming dead magic zones.
No Weave, but numerous campaigns have dealt with Bad Things happening that cause an area to become a dead magic zone. Like the city that was trying to cover it's self in an Enhanced Magic effect (see planar traits) and messed it up, getting Dead Magic instead.

Frankly, most of those kinds of things end up being plot points or campaign hooks. The city falls because of X (dead magic zone for example) at level 5 and the players are lost in the wilderness thousands of miles away from any other city and with no idea how to get to them (as a campaign hook for example).

One memorable quest for a party of mine was having to retrive an item from a city where one thousand years to the outside world was one round to the city. The players had to guard a Planar Shepard who was the center of a bubble of regular time from all of the cities inhabitants that ended up un time locked as they passed by.

[Yorae]

Each person can activate the trap on their turn. Run lines on all 4 sides of the 5 foot square and you get 960 people through per round using the run speed for a human. You can actually get more through but I didn't feel like figuring the numbers.

I just envisioned 960 people going through a TC in a span of 6 seconds.
Does the other end of the TC just look like an enormous pile of bodies as hundreds of people all teleport to the same spot?

That's actually kind of hilarious.

[PetterTomBos]

What about a "random city table" with weaknesses, some of them being vulnerable to dispel magic - like effects? :D

The people are fed by traps, what does the lowliest folks do, garderners and maids? :)

[Emperor Tippy]

If you read the Honor Harrington series by David Weber, those would be the Dolists. When food, clothing, shelter, and healthcare are all free people only work if they are bored and/or feel like it.

[dextercorvia]

I just envisioned 960 people going through a TC in a span of 6 seconds.
Does the other end of the TC just look like an enormous pile of bodies as hundreds of people all teleport to the same spot?

That's actually kind of hilarious.

They continue their movement. Assuming all of them have equal movement (or agree to only use a portion) then I assume there is a bijective map of starting position to ending position. As a simple linear example where any person can move 6 sqaures

ABCXYtc --> tcABCXY

[ShneekeyTheLost]

When EvilBad City realizes your network is protected by n standing armies, they can easily conclude that n+1 armies will defeat you. Cue arms race. I'm not sure there's really an upper bound to that... assuming your network has x possible entry points, having more than x armies available only makes sense if you're sending in multiple waves or in some sort of war of attrition. On the other hand, assuming x is the upper limit, EvilBad City can create a new entry point x+1 by just dropping a new TC within the target area. Right, but that's no different than any other tactical situation. The solution to an army is to bring a bigger army. The point here is that they can't simply drop your entire force right into the middle of your defenses.

Also, the opponent would need to have information on x, which is by no means a given. There's plenty of means of bypassing scrying and divination, and x is dependent on the number of mutual defense treaties and how well they are being used. If a city has more treaties than the OPFOR realizes, they're going to get pwned.



I'm not sure this would work... given that invasions would be extremely rare, your residents would conclude that the area immediately around the station is safe enough, and they don't want to bother walking (or whatever non-TC transporation method) all the way back and forth between the station and the city, so they just set up shop outside the station. The city would essentially just relocate to the most convenient spot, most likely outside the Forbiddance area. I fail to see how invasions would be extremely rare. Given Tippy's timeline, they were exceedingly common. Thus the constant threat of invasion would keep at least the infrastructure behind the Forbiddance.

Keep all major economic facilities and infrastructure within the forbiddance area. If the peons wish to get themselves killed over convenience, that's their problem. The city will be nice and safe.

[Yorae]

They continue their movement. Assuming all of them have equal movement (or agree to only use a portion) then I assume there is a bijective map of starting position to ending position. As a simple linear example where any person can move 6 sqaures

ABCXYtc --> tcABCXY

TC doesn't end the move action?
I guess even if it does, they can still just use their standard action to move again and not collide (assuming that the 4 people entering simultaneously from each side aren't colliding as well).

I can see the process for going through a circle being a bit like an airport, where its a bit of a hassle to organize it and you have to go through customs, maybe have guards check what you are transporting in/out of the city, but you put up with it because its still incredibly quick compared to hoofing it cross-country.

[Douglas]

TC doesn't end the move action?
No. Why would it? You move onto it, as an instant automatic effect you get teleported, and your action continues from your new location as if nothing happened. However much of your movement was left unused in getting to the TC, you have that much still available on the other end.

[Yorae]

No. Why would it? You move onto it, as an instant automatic effect you get teleported, and your action continues from your new location as if nothing happened. However much of your movement was left unused in getting to the TC, you have that much still available on the other end.

Good point. For some strange reason, I was thinking you'd have to stop on the circle (ending your action), get teleported, and then start moving again. In either case, you can still keep moving, because you either have remaining movement or you have your standard left to convert to a move.

[The Glyphstone]

If you read the Honor Harrington series by David Weber, those would be the Dolists. When food, clothing, shelter, and healthcare are all free people only work if they are bored and/or feel like it.

Though Tippyverse > Haven in that the only limitation for the Cities is (theoretically) living space while having infinite food/health care via resetting traps, whereas the PRH could just keep building up indefinitely but was "limited" by its treasury budget.

[Dyllan]

In a world where everything needed for living is supplied for free, imagine the percentage of the population that you could enlist into the army...

[jindra34]

In a world where everything needed for living is supplied for free, imagine the percentage of the population that you could enlist into the army...

About 1/4 to 1/3 as troops. Supply issues and specialized support (spies, medic, engineering, and research corps) cut the numbers down. And that is assuming everyone can make it into some form of military group, which not everyone is mentally capable of handling.

[Vizzerdrix]

I can't help but picture the city from Aeon Flux. Well groomed on the inside of a nice big wall with no (or very few) exits and spell turrets around the top. While outside is an overgrown hostile and dangerous wilderness.

I wonder if sewage and disease would be a problem? Probably not sewage. Purify food/drink is a cantrip, but what about disease? Could medical traps keep up with an epidemic as it jumped from city to city?

[A Ladder]

In a world where food/shelter/health care/goods was provided for with no real cost to those who made it, what would that do to trade/currency?

Supply and demand would destroy these Cities economies.
Precious metals would become non-precious (magic traps making currency/ anything) and thus worthless. (Gold is weaker than iron/steel/mithral/admantine etc). magic items would abound (once again with the traps), so they would be just as worthless. What would be considered precious then?, If any item could be manufactured with relatively little cost (once you can wish in anything the initial cost doesn't matter because it pays for itself).

I imagine people would just hand out ubermagic enchanted whatevers like candy on Halloween. except everyday would be halloween.

I also see knowledge being the only thing precious. Knowing how many entrances/exits/TC spots into a City would be worth far more than a couple billion +1 swords to a City that wanted to invade. But how could you transfer that into currency?

[Lateral]

Precious metals would become non-precious (magic traps making currency/ anything) and thus worthless. (Gold is weaker than iron/steel/mithral/admantine etc). magic items would abound (once again with the traps), so they would be just as worthless. What would be considered precious then?, If any item could be manufactured with relatively little cost (once you can wish in anything the initial cost doesn't matter because it pays for itself).

This is dealt with in the OP.

[Emperor Tippy]

In a world where food/shelter/health care/goods was provided for with no real cost to those who made it, what would that do to trade/currency?

Supply and demand would destroy these Cities economies.
Precious metals would become non-precious (magic traps making currency/ anything) and thus worthless. (Gold is weaker than iron/steel/mithral/admantine etc). magic items would abound (once again with the traps), so they would be just as worthless. What would be considered precious then?, If any item could be manufactured with relatively little cost (once you can wish in anything the initial cost doesn't matter because it pays for itself).

I imagine people would just hand out ubermagic enchanted whatevers like candy on Halloween. except everyday would be halloween.

I also see knowledge being the only thing precious. Knowing how many entrances/exits/TC spots into a City would be worth far more than a couple billion +1 swords to a City that wanted to invade. But how could you transfer that into currency?

See the OP. And magic items aren't exactly as easily produced by traps as is commonly suspected. The only way to produce a magic item directly with a trap is to use a Wish trap. And each trap can only produce one type of item. Given the costs involved in producing such a trap (unless you use Gate Abuse for XP free wishes you are looking at a price tag of several million GP), they aren't exactly common.

[A Ladder]

See the OP. And magic items aren't exactly as easily produced by traps as is commonly suspected. The only way to produce a magic item directly with a trap is to use a Wish trap. And each trap can only produce one type of item. Given the costs involved in producing such a trap (unless you use Gate Abuse for XP free wishes you are looking at a price tag of several million GP), they aren't exactly common.

Ahhh. I see.

But wouldn't inflation by creating those coins at the rate in the OP make them worthless unless there was a cap on how much coin was being generated?

[Emperor Tippy]

Inflation isn't that bad.

14,400 coins per day works out to 5,256,000 coins per year. For a city of 13 million people that's an inflation rate of less than 1 GP per person. From a trap that costs over 2.5 million GP per copy.

[Qwertystop]

And, of course, the government could put a limit on it, same as real-life does with real money (I think).

[Emperor Tippy]

And, of course, the government could put a limit on it, same as real-life does with real money (I think).

Well it's not so much a government limit as it is that no one else can really afford the initial expenditure/has access to the needed spells.

If you don't allow Solar Abuse traps (and I recommend against them) then creating a Coin factory is hideously expensive and takes a very long time. It's rare enough that the government doesn't even have to bother to regulate it (especially as most everyone who could create one is already a part of the governments ruling body).

[Qwertystop]

Well it's not so much a government limit as it is that no one else can really afford the initial expenditure/has access to the needed spells.

If you don't allow Solar Abuse traps (and I recommend against them) then creating a Coin factory is hideously expensive and takes a very long time. It's rare enough that the government doesn't even have to bother to regulate it (especially as most everyone who could create one is already a part of the governments ruling body).

I meant that they don't have to keep the trap running 24/7. They could keep it running at a reduced rate (activate it once every 5 minutes, for example), or just turn it off to change the rate of inflation (in case of some sudden change in the general scheme of things that adds a lot of money to the system, such as a breakthrough that allows the hostile takeover of another city, or a partial invasion by another city that reduces the population and therefore increases the amount of money per person).

[Emperor Tippy]

I meant that they don't have to keep the trap running 24/7. They could keep it running at a reduced rate (activate it once every 5 minutes, for example), or just turn it off to change the rate of inflation (in case of some sudden change in the general scheme of things that adds a lot of money to the system, such as a breakthrough that allows the hostile takeover of another city, or a partial invasion by another city that reduces the population and therefore increases the amount of money per person).

Oh yeah, misread what you meant I guess.

[jseah]

How soon would you expect Tippyverses to discover physics and advanced mathematics? (more advanced than calculus I mean)

Tsiolkovsky rocket equation would be hilarious.

EDIT:
Heck, even standardized units and measurement principles would push the usefulness of magic through the stratosphere.

[Retech]

Well if everything was broken up into 5 foot squares instead of continuous motion, lots of calculus becomes obsolete or just plain wrong.

[The Gilded Duke]

I'm a fan of the Astral Plane myself. Swift action spell casting, subjective gravity, no time trait. Once did a similar setting revolving around a floating island of imported matter. The main focus was on an arcane spell casting university like Hogwarts gone wrong, with power shifting back and forth between the University (and its various sub factions) the Church of Ioun and the Nomad's Guild.

With of course the Nomad's guild providing the most affordable inter-planar transportation and shipping.

How does the Tippyverse interact with other planes of existence, and other Primes? Is there some convenient form of inter-planar travel like the Teleportation Circle?

[sonofzeal]

If you want a weirdstone gone you can always just Wish a disposable minion right next to one and have them break it.
It seriously saddens me that you, with all your imagination and creative RAW expoitation, can't think of an effective way to protect the Weirdstone, especially given the laundry list of things it already blocks all by itself. Any power that can forge a City must surely be able to do something... especially since even sending a single infiltrator in requires a 9th lvl spell. No Mass Teleport traps, no TCs, just single assassins.

I'd start by having not one but several overlapping Weirdstones, and a few backups that can be activated if enough go down. They'd be encased it in Russian-Doll style adamantine spheres, to block a single or even multiple Disintegrates. The squares immediately outside the spheres would likely all be occupied with powerful guards of various kinds - Shadesteel Golums perhaps? I'm sure you could come up with something.

(edit) Looking at the price, it seems like it'd be cheaper for a post-TC culture to make one and protect it with even basic protections, than it would be for attackers to destroy them. Attackers have to spend a Wish, plus arming and equipping and training whoever they send through, and unless there's a one-size-fits-all attack method that can destroy every Weirdstone regardless of defences, then all I have to do is vary my game a little bit, and have backups ready for the few Stones that do go down.

[Psyren]

especially since even sending a single infiltrator in requires a 9th lvl spell. No Mass Teleport traps, no TCs, just single assassins.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't every city equipped with resetting traps of that "9th level spell?" Casting it really shouldn't be a big deal in this verse. :smallconfused:

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Still waiting on why Forbiddance doesn't solve this problem entirely. Considering you have resetting Wish traps, the price tag involved is not a major concern.

[jindra34]

Still waiting on why Forbiddance doesn't solve this problem entirely. Considering you have resetting Wish traps, the price tag involved is not a major concern.

Teleport one Warblade to the edge. Warblade walks in and IHS's the forbiddance away. Or teleport anyone with the ability to use disjunction near the edge. Anything defense that exists as a spell is going to be highly frail, and thus not likely to be used without a mass of support troops, which once you have placed to cover every entry (in all three dimensions) it starts to get redundant.

And then there is the whole you need to give out the password to most everyone you want to let in the city. Kinda makes keeping it secret hard.

[Gavinfoxx]

So I wrote up a post a while back about how societies like this could generate wealth or items or get work done. I'm going to put an edited version of that post in spoiler... I think I got some things you missed, Tippy! ;) Also, could someone explain in detail how the Fabricate traps don't actually need raw materials put into them every time? I couldn't quite figure that one out!


For repeating spells, there are several options:

1.) Eternal Wands, from Magic Item Compendium. They have a little bit of an extra surcharge on them from the DMG formula, but gives 2/day casting of spells levels 1-3.

2.) Magical traps using the DMG rules for recharge and stuff. Note that if you want precedent for magical traps that are beneficial, look at the Boon traps in Dungeonscape.

3.) Drow House Insignia sorts of items, explained in the book Races of Faerun, pg 175. They were updated to be more pricey in Drow of the Underdark. This gives a specific form, 1/day limitation, and certain spell levels, I think 1-3.

4.) Minor Schema, from the book Magic of Eberron (A way to cast spells lvl 1-6, once a day. Further, these work better for Artificers, who can apply their class features to this. If An Artificer makes a Schema of Wall of Iron, and he has a Lesser Rod of Invisible Spell, he could -- for example -- make Invisible Iron...)

5.) Generic wondrous items that cast spells, per the DMG rules for custom magic items. ESPECIALLY go for infinite use, use activated ones once you have the money.

6.) Spell Turrets, from Dungeon Master's Guide II

7.) Spell clocks, from here: www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/cw/20070312a&dcmp=ILC-RSSDND

Of course use as many of the Cost Reduction techniques as is viable, especially from the Cost Reduction Technique Handbook.

An Artificer could, of course, use techniques to get spells more cheaply, perhaps using the Bargain bin list, perhaps.

Of course, a traditional Wizard or Cleric or Archivist could simply use scrying techniques to seek these sorts of people out, and pay them to help cast their cheaper spells into the devices (or the prayerbook, for the Archivist). Remember, people can work together to craft!

Here are some of the spells you use to put in things, or to just cast yourself, depending on how you use it:

Wall of Iron
Wall of Stone
Wall of Salt
Stone Metamorphosis
Greater Stone Metamorphosis
Clearstone
Permanency
Plant Growth
Ironwood
Transmute Rock to Mud
Transmute Mud to Rock
Transmute Metal to Wood
Transmute Stone to Sand
Transmute Sand to Stone
Transmute Sand to Glass
Transmute Metal to Wood
Transmute Rock to Mud
Transmute Mud to Rock
Soften Earth and Stone
Move Earth
Unseen Servant
Hardening
Unseen Crafter
Shape Metal
Metal Melt
Stone Shape
Greater Stone Shape
Fabricate
Nature's Rampart
Magecraft
Planar Ally
Planar Binding
Lesser Planar Ally
Lesser Planar Binding

Also use Decanter of Endless Water, Decanter of Endless Sand, Lyre of Building, planar bind or planar ally things all the way from Lantern Archons for infinite continual flame to Djinn for infinite of ANY plant based items (soarwood, serrenwood, darkwood, densewood, fey cherry wood, duskwood, livewood, bronzewood, other plant based things things like lacquer, deisel, rubber, resin, glue, paper, cardboard, cumin, silphium, coffee, saffron, tobacco, pepper, oil, chilies, paprika, cacao, anise, poppy, marijuana, etc. etc.), to efreeti or noble djinn for full Wishes (which get 25k worth of mundane stuff or 15k worth of magic stuff a pop). Of course you will want to Simulacrum some of them, especially the 'Ha ha you're screwed' Efreetis and Noble Djinn's.

Of course if you don't want to do the full Wish Economy, then you might want to research custom spells to do work, using the rules in the DMG to do so. Unseen Laborer (a Profession variant of Unseen Crafter; profession: Miner, perhaps? Profession: Lumberjack?) would be useful. Also a few more 'Transmute' spells perhaps, to get better metal than low quality Iron. I would suggest trying to research a Transmute Iron to Greensteel (fiendish codex 2), the closest thing D&D has to a very high quality modern steel that is actually functionally different than Iron. This is something that could conceivably be used on, say, breech loading cannon and firearms (it's strong enough for it).. And once you get your truly modern machine shop (see later parts of this post) set up, it would be FANTASTICALLY easy to make firearms that are at least as good as the Winchester Rifle. Remember that lots of spells can be stacked to improve knowledge checks, should you need an epic knowledge check in order to bypass several hundred years of real world firearms design in a few days worth of design and writing down ideas with alchemy, mechanics, etc.

Remember, D&D material science is potentially better than the material science in our real life world, so take advantage of that fact (check out the Crafting Handbook for lots of ideas for mundane crafting).

Create several perpetual motion machines, make advanced machine shops (I have a design for one that uses a simple repeating trap of a blockade spell, a LEVEL 1 SPELL, that looks like a Ferris wheel, and is about as powerful as a V6 engine at high RPM). Get repeating traps of things that help quality of life and productivity, like:

Endure Elements
Prestidigitation
Create Food and Water
Purify Food and Drink
Good Hope
Make Whole
Lesser Restoration
Panacea
Low Light Vision
Superior Darkvision
Mount

Another good trick to get wayyyyy more work than a Decanter of Endless Water or that Blockade Ferris Wheel is a Ring Gate. Put one in a big pool of water, the other shooting back into that big pool of water. Put a turbine next to the output one... bam, infinite power. If you haven't figured out capacitors or electricity or batteries or generators yet, just put it into flywheels. Now you're thinking with portals and all that!

Also for cheap and easy birth control, set up a trap device of 'Bestow Curse - Infertility' and one of 'Remove Curse', if your population boom from all the free food threatens to overwhelm your infrastructure creation.

Use an Elation / Good Hope / Distilled Joy (make sure to get someone like a Factotum to cast the Distilled Joy into the trap as a SLA) to extract infinite amounts of Ambrosia for crafting. Alternately, an Artificer who gets access to a 1/day item of Ironwood or a Boon trap of Ironwood could simply create magical Ironwood breastplates and drain those for crafting XP. Or you could just get the Wood Shape / Wall of Iron / Transmute Metal to Wood / Ironwood combo going for unlimited +1 Ironwood weapons and armor for your entire civilization -- that's always nice and useful.

Of course if you are gong to be doing the crafting YOURSELF, you will need Craft Construct or Craft Homunculus to make hosts and hosts and hosts of mass Dedicated Wrights to do all of this work,what with your unlimited wealth and supplies and infinite XP. This opens up constructs to be a large part of the area you are uplifting as well. Use the ideas from the Mechonomocon handbook to figure out how to do construct crafting most effectively!

Generally, Effigies work really well, even if you don't go insane with the Mr. Roboto trick. Also, Homunculus can have customized skills, so you could make one which could perpetually play your Lyre of Building and just get huge massive amounts of labor done wherever that creature goes. Of course, there are several ways of giving constructs intelligence; my favorite is simply to embed an intelligent item into the construct, and tell the construct to do what the item says.

Basically, what you have with all of this set up is the ingredients for basically no one to ever need to do manual labor, and an economy where no actual 'things' are scarce, and everyone has lots of built things and magic items and stuff, and there is no disease or illness and no one needs to sleep if they don't want to, etc. etc. -- you know, a civilization that has more in common with Star Trek than the Middle Ages...

[Douglas]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't every city equipped with resetting traps of that "9th level spell?" Casting it really shouldn't be a big deal in this verse. :smallconfused:
Yes, but each trap only casts a single specific Wish. You can't take a Trap of Wish For Coins and use it to Wish for transporting your infiltrator. You'd have to make a whole new Trap of Wish For Infiltrator Transportation To X Target Location. While this would work, it would be absurdly expensive overkill for such a limited application.

[Emperor Tippy]

Sure, there are ways to protect the Weirdstone but there are ways around all of them.

Have a caster create a Prismatic Sphere inside the city before heading home. They can now teleport into the Sphere as it blocks the Weirdstone. Load whatever army you want to bring in into nested Bags of Holding and have the wizard port them in that way.

Sure, you can make attacking the Weirdstone more difficult but it still remains possible in numerous ways.

[Psyren]

Still waiting on why Forbiddance doesn't solve this problem entirely. Considering you have resetting Wish traps, the price tag involved is not a major concern.

Wish ignores Forbiddance by RAW:


Transport travelers. A wish can lift one creature per caster level from anywhere on any plane and place those creatures anywhere else on any plane regardless of local conditions. An unwilling target gets a Will save to negate the effect, and spell resistance (if any) applies.

You can also port your army underground and tunnel up, onto a floating platform and fly down, etc.

[Emperor Tippy]

Yes, but each trap only casts a single specific Wish. You can't take a Trap of Wish For Coins and use it to Wish for transporting your infiltrator. You'd have to make a whole new Trap of Wish For Infiltrator Transportation To X Target Location. While this would work, it would be absurdly expensive overkill for such a limited application.
Yes, but that's what you have a Wish for Ring of Three Wishes trap for. They can't produce magic items for free but they can do all of those other nice things Wish can do.

And I assure you that every city has at least one such trap (although access is highly restricted).

[jseah]

Gavinfoxx:
Your magic wheels aren't going to be able to compete with the energy output of a wall of fire.

At minimum CL, I have estimated the power output of a full-sized wall of fire to be somewhere a bit more than 1GW.
This was calculated from the energy from burning 3.5 pints of oil, being equal average damage to a 5ft square section of a minimum CL wall of fire.


Of course, that requires the technical expertise and physics knowledge to build a heat engine.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Teleport one Warblade to the edge. Warblade walks in and IHS's the forbiddance away.No. Morbo says IHS does not work that way.
Or teleport anyone with the ability to use disjunction near the edge. Anything defense that exists as a spell is going to be highly frail, and thus not likely to be used without a mass of support troops, which once you have placed to cover every entry (in all three dimensions) it starts to get redundant.MDJ won't drop a Forbiddance. Cannot be dispelled unless caster level of the caster exceeds the caster level of the spell. With Nightsticks + Divine Spell Power, that ain't happening.


And then there is the whole you need to give out the password to most everyone you want to let in the city. Kinda makes keeping it secret hard.

Who cares about the password being secret? Make it 'Friend' and write it on the door, for all I care. Having the password won't let you teleport into town. That's the important thing.


Wish ignores Forbiddance by RAW: So now you're limited to a very few individuals... the Shadesteel golems are more than sufficient to deal with them.


You can also port your army underground and tunnel up, onto a floating platform and fly down, etc.

And again, you're missing the point.

Yes, you can do that. It's fully expected. BUT it takes TIME to do so. It prevents the 'ambush and destroy in the surprise round with Port n Pwn tactics' problem which TC makes so easily viable.

In every situation, you have to teleport outside of the city. At that point, you can be effectively responded to. You can't send in NI minions directly into the city. They have to start somewhere outside the city. Which means they have to deal with the city's defenses. Which are both numerous and powerful.

Forbiddance prevents you from bypassing those defenses. Which means needing a smaller standing army, and port n pwn tactics won't work.

[Douglas]

Yes, but that's what you have a Wish for Ring of Three Wishes trap for. They can't produce magic items for free but they can do all of those other nice things Wish can do.

And I assure you that every city has at least one such trap (although access is highly restricted).
I was about to say the XP cost to craft such a thing would be insurmountable (assuming that XP cost negation methods aren't in use), but it appears the official trap cost rules convert it to a pure gp cost for some reason despite having a base XP cost for using a spell at all. Odd.

At eighteen and a half million gp, though, that's still one hell of an expensive project. It would take slightly over 100 years to make. It would take an impressively long-sighted and patient planner to commission such a thing, sufficiently so that it strains believability a bit for every city to have done it.

[jindra34]

No. Morbo says IHS does not work that way. Why wouldn't IHS work on it, considering it is a spell, has duration, and effects everything in its area?


MDJ won't drop a Forbiddance. Cannot be dispelled unless caster level of the caster exceeds the caster level of the spell. With Nightsticks + Divine Spell Power, that ain't happening. Can't be dispelled by dispel magic, and MDJ ends as though by dispel magic but doesn't dispel.


Who cares about the password being secret? Make it 'Friend' and write it on the door, for all I care. Having the password won't let you teleport into town. That's the important thing.

Point, though in that case any access to the area is going to be from outside and will take time.

[Psyren]

You can't send in NI minions directly into the city.

Nonsense, of course you can. Pack them into non-dimensional storage. A single infiltrator breaking LoE to the stone (Prismatic Sphere was the example used I believe, but there are lower-level ways) can then turn his bag of holding inside out, each other defender does the same etc.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Why wouldn't IHS work on it, considering it is a spell, has duration, and effects everything in its area?
Can't be dispelled by dispel magic, and MDJ ends as though by dispel magic but doesn't dispel.Sorry, but that is incorrect, due to the wording of MDJ:

(ending the effect as a dispel magic spell does)

Which means you need to beat the CL with your MDJ. Not gonna happen.


Point, though in that case any access to the area is going to be from outside and will take time.

Considering you're saving weeks, if not months, and making it impossible for the caravans to be lost... the price of waiting an hour or so is trivial by comparison.


Nonsense, of course you can. Pack them into non-dimensional storage. A single infiltrator breaking LoE to the stone (Prismatic Sphere was the example used I believe, but there are lower-level ways) can then turn his bag of holding inside out, each other defender does the same etc.

What stone? We're talking Forbiddance here.

[Emperor Tippy]

I was about to say the XP cost to craft such a thing would be insurmountable (assuming that XP cost negation methods aren't in use), but it appears the official trap cost rules convert it to a pure gp cost for some reason despite having a base XP cost for using a spell at all. Odd.

At eighteen and a half million gp, though, that's still one hell of an expensive project. It would take slightly over 100 years to make. It would take an impressively long-sighted and patient planner to commission such a thing, sufficiently so that it strains believability a bit for every city to have done it.

When many cities have been around for over a thousand years? And most of their leadership is immortal for one reason or another?

A hundred years isn't a real concern. Sure, the PC's aren't going to get them; but it's not a real problem for the cities.

And yes, the lack of XP on traps is stupid.

[sonofzeal]

Sure, there are ways to protect the Weirdstone but there are ways around all of them.

Have a caster create a Prismatic Sphere inside the city before heading home. They can now teleport into the Sphere as it blocks the Weirdstone. Load whatever army you want to bring in into nested Bags of Holding and have the wizard port them in that way.

Sure, you can make attacking the Weirdstone more difficult but it still remains possible in numerous ways.
Any invasion against an Un-weirded City (UC) could be launched far more easily, far more cheaply, and far more rapidly against a Weirded City (WC). Additionally, the defensive advantage WCs grant allow true turtling - it should be concievable to make them a true "bottle city", entirely self-contained unless they choose to make forays beyond their walls. With the Weird effect projecting a mile or two outside their walls from multiple stones, and a sufficient population base inside, there would be (as you admitted yourself) little practical reason to ever seek contact with outsider... unless conquest became interesting.

And I'm still not sure an UC could ever adequately protect itself. Rapid deployment of something akin to adventuring parties could easily cause far more damage than they take, and create ample opportunity and distraction to move an even larger force in elsewhere. Any resources a City could bear down on attackers, the attackers could bring to bear right back... and in far greater concentration. Given the population sizes you've given for cities we're talking about huge things. And while the defensive forces would be relatively concentrated compared to a kingdom, they'd be exceedingly sparce compared to the compact strength of the attackers. I do believe a determined attacker could expect to win in detail, if nothing else. And once someone has two Cities under their command, and can bring twice the force together against the next...

Fragile mutual-defence accords might help, but introduce their own host of complications. What if one of the "assisting" forces was intent on helping the attackers? And even without that, the confusion of multiple forces battling through the UC, confused further by illusions and enchantments, would almost be certain to completely debilitate the defending UC.

The UC system could work temporarily, but I do believe it would be highly unstable in the long run. A campaign showing the breakdown of the UC network might still be interesting though....

[Emperor Tippy]

Sorry, but that is incorrect, due to the wording of MDJ:

(ending the effect as a dispel magic spell does)

Which means you need to beat the CL with your MDJ. Not gonna happen.
That's why you use Truename Dispel. No check needed.

[Gavinfoxx]

Gavinfoxx:
Your magic wheels aren't going to be able to compete with the energy output of a wall of fire.

At minimum CL, I have estimated the power output of a full-sized wall of fire to be somewhere a bit more than 1GW.
This was calculated from the energy from burning 3.5 pints of oil, being equal average damage to a 5ft square section of a minimum CL wall of fire.


Of course, that requires the technical expertise and physics knowledge to build a heat engine.

Yea, but there are lots of losses in a heat engine. And heat engines mostly just turn turbines ANYWAY... the lake or ocean or huge amount of water for a ring gate one can make a goodly amount of energy on its own, ya know?

[jindra34]

Considering you're saving weeks, if not months, and making it impossible for the caravans to be lost... the price of waiting an hour or so is trivial by comparison.


It presents a weak point unless your being isolationist, as you either have to expend more troops to defend the point of arrival (as well as the boundaries of your forbiddance) or risk some one else ambushing and capturing each one of them. And each defense post has to be able to stand up to a potential rush of a couple hundred attackers per round for an unknown duration. That will get unfeasible very quickly.

[Psyren]

What stone? We're talking Forbiddance here.

That's even easier to break. Wish in, Celerity->Quickened Wings of Cover->+ MDJ centered on self, no more Forbiddance, all in the surprise round. I'm sure there are easier ways.

EDIT: Also, Shadesteel golems are a joke. Lets say I want to get creative rather than simply orbing them all to death. I Mindrape a couple of Tarrasques (picked up on a routine jaunt to the Realm of Dreams) stuff them into my portable hole, and release them on all the golems. The ensuing chaos gives me plenty of time to do away with the Forbiddance or seal off the Weirdstone.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

That's even easier to break. Wish in, Celerity->Quickened Wings of Cover->+ MDJ centered on self, no more Forbiddance, all in the surprise round. I'm sure there are easier ways.Does not work because Forbiddance does not need LoE. It's effect is an area, not a spread. So there is no applying total cover to negate the effect. Sorry.

[jindra34]

In all honesty I think defenses in a Tippyverse or the like operate on the principals of not making it worth it, and mutually assured destruction. Too many things operate well on attack and there is simply no sound way to fortify an area.

[Psyren]

Does not work because Forbiddance does not need LoE. It's effect is an area, not a spread. So there is no applying total cover to negate the effect. Sorry.

The cover is not to block Forbiddance, it's so that my MDJ doesn't disjoin my bags. MDJ ends Forbiddance, end of story. Sorry.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

The cover is not to block Forbiddance, it's so that my MDJ doesn't disjoin my bags. MDJ ends Forbiddance, end of story. Sorry.

No it doesn't, unless your effective caster level is higher than the effective caster level of the Forbiddance.

So... no it doesn't. End of story.

[Weezer]

No it doesn't, unless your effective caster level is higher than the effective caster level of the Forbiddance.

So... no it doesn't. End of story.

So you pump your CL. It's not like that's particularly hard...

[jindra34]

No it doesn't, unless your effective caster level is higher than the effective caster level of the Forbiddance.

So... no it doesn't. End of story.

Fine magic domain cleric, 9th level domain slot can be MDJ. So your trick for raising caster level can be used on MDJ. And MDJ also disjoins not dispells (against spells the two actions have similar effects but still to different words).

[Psyren]

No it doesn't, unless your effective caster level is higher than the effective caster level of the Forbiddance.

So... no it doesn't. End of story.

There is no CL check for disjunction except for breaking AMF.

(End of story.)

[Jack_Simth]

Also, could someone explain in detail how the Fabricate traps don't actually need raw materials put into them every time? I couldn't quite figure that one out!Spell in question (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/fabricate.htm):
Material Component

The original material, which costs the same amount as the raw materials required to craft the item to be created.
The materials are the material component. When building a magic device trap that isn't a one-shot trap, you put in 100* the cost of the material component, and thereafter, the trap just works.

So the trap of Fabricate (30 gp diamonds) costs raw diamonds requiring 100 * 1/3rd of 30 gp, or 1,000 gp in materials. Thereafter, it spits out a 30 gp cut diamond every time it goes off. Forever. As a 5th level spell at caster level 9, the non-material component portion costs 22,500 gp and 180 xp. So for 23,500 gp and 180 xp, you can make a Fabricate trap that gives you a 30 gp diamond every round forever. After one day (14,400 rounds), you have 14,400 30 gp diamonds, or 432,000 gp worth of diamonds. It takes 47 days to craft, you need to have Craft Wondrous Item, and you need to be able to cast Fabricate.

The more you put into the effect in terms of raw materials, the more you can get out of it.

So the trap of Fabricate (3,000 gp diamonds) costs raw diamonds requiring 100 * 1/3rd of 3,000 gp, or 100,000 gp in materials. Thereafter, it spits out a 3,000 gp cut diamond every time it goes off. Forever. As a 5th level spell at caster level 9, the non-material component portion costs 22,500 gp and 180 xp. So for 122,500 gp and 180 xp, you can make a Fabricate trap that gives you a 3,000 gp diamond every round forever. After one day (14,400 rounds), you have 14,400 3,000 gp diamonds, or 43,200,000 gp worth of diamonds. It takes 245 days to craft, you need to have Craft Wondrous Item, and you need to be able to cast Fabricate.

[Weezer]

There is no CL check for disjunction except for breaking AMF.

(End of story.)

And here is the relevant line of text that proves your point:


All magical effects and magic items within the radius of the spell, except for those that you carry or touch, are disjoined.

This indicates that once MDJ is cast all spell effects are disjoined automatically, and CL isn't mentioned at all.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

There is no CL check for disjunction except for breaking AMF.

(End of story.)

Has nothing to do with a CL check and everything to do with 'cannot be dispelled unless the caster level of the caster is higher than the caster level of the Forbiddance'

[sonofzeal]

Has nothing to do with a CL check and everything to do with 'cannot be dispelled unless the caster level of the caster is higher than the caster level of the Forbiddance'
Here's the full quote, from the SRD:


Dispel magic does not dispel a forbiddance effect unless the dispeller’s level is at least as high as your caster level.

This says nothing to prevent Disjunction from working normally. Disjoining is not the same as Dispelling.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Here's the full quote, from the SRD:



This says nothing to prevent Disjunction from working normally. Disjoining is not the same as Dispelling.

Unfortunatelly, because of this:


(ending the effect as a dispel magic spell does)

says that it is exactly the same.

[Varil]

These cities make me think of Sigil. Huge, powerful, magical, probably immortal, insanely powerful mysterious leader...

Actually, a good argument for their defense is probably going to be said leader, or leaders. Sure, most of the government guys are going to be merchants and bureaucrats, but at least a few are going to be extremely old and powerful people. Epic level wizards(or lichs)/clerics/whatever. Even without epic spells, full casters at those levels are going to be so far past killable that only a similarly powerful leader is going to stand a chance.

So we've got multiple layers of defense here...the walls, which serve to keep out the riff-raff, probably regular divinations("Are we about to be attacked? How about now?"), teleportation blocks(which will likely exist if only to slow down the initial strike), mobile strike forces that are going to specialize in quick-strike urban combat, and finally the "nukes", which are the high level casters who come into play if the army fails.

Ultimately, I imagine it's the "nukes" that prevent full-scale war most of the time. A strike to steal some expensive whatzit(taking the whole building if you have to, depending on how elaborate the "trap" is) makes sense. A strike to take over the enemy city? That should be rarer, if only because it means that both sides are likely to end up engaging in a decapitation war, to see who runs out of government officials first.

[RelentlessImp]

So, question. If Tippy ever ascends to godhood, what would his portfolio be, and his domains?

[sonofzeal]

Unfortunatelly, because of this:

says that it is exactly the same.
Hmm, didn't notice that since I was looking at Forbiddance.

It's fuzzy wording though. "As" dispel magic implies similarity but not necessarily identity, and we need identity for a strong case here. As it stands... DM prerogative I guess on how closely the two function to each other, and how that interacts with Forbiddance's wording.

[sonofzeal]

So, question. If Tippy ever ascends to godhood, what would his portfolio be, and his domains?
Planning, Artifice, Law, Commerce, Rune.

[Varil]

Magic, Planning, Knowledge, Creation?

[Shadow Lord]

This is made out of so much Win.

[Psyren]

says that it is exactly the same.

Incorrect; That line describes how to treat the spell once it is ended (for instance, if you disjunction a Flying mage, he will float to the ground rather than plummeting like a rock.) The fact that Disjunction ends the spell is not a question; for that clause to even come into play, the magic must first be disjoined.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Incorrect; That line describes how to treat the spell once it is ended (for instance, if you disjunction a Flying mage, he will float to the ground rather than plummeting like a rock.) The fact that Disjunction ends the spell is not a question; for that clause to even come into play, the magic must first be disjoined.

Incorrect. It is, effectively, like automatically making your CL check to dispel an effect. However, Forbiddance is immune to dispelling, unless your CL is higher than the caster's is.

Either that, or they should have used some other language, because as written, it's similar to an auto-success dispel magic, which is ineffective against a Forbiddance.

[sonofzeal]

Incorrect; That line describes how to treat the spell once it is ended (for instance, if you disjunction a Flying mage, he will float to the ground rather than plummeting like a rock.) The fact that Disjunction ends the spell is not a question; for that clause to even come into play, the magic must first be disjoined.

Incorrect. It is, effectively, like automatically making your CL check to dispel an effect. However, Forbiddance is immune to dispelling, unless your CL is higher than the caster's is.

Either that, or they should have used some other language, because as written, it's similar to an auto-success dispel magic, which is ineffective against a Forbiddance.
I'm honestly disappointed that two top-quality optimizers can categorically insist that THEIR interpretation is 100% right, without realizing that the wording is ambiguous. It can go in either direction.

Seriously. English is not an unambiguous language like Esperanto. It is not logically inductive unless set up with exceeding care, and we all know WotC tends not to take that care. In this case, the key missing element is whether it ends the spell in the manner of dispel magic, or in the method of (a presumably successful) dispel magic. The former would side with Psyren, the latter with ShneekeyTheLost. And as the key words here are in an implicit rather than explicit clause, there is no method of determining which was intended.

It's simply indeterminate.

Deal with it.


(Although even given ShneekeyTheLost's interpretation, if the dispel check is automatically successful then it's automatically successful. It doesn't need to check against Forbiddance's special clause because it's automatically successful. And if it's not automatically successful then we're back to making normal dispel checks against everything, which is clearly not what's intended. The difference between the two interpretations would only come up if a spell effect was completely immune to Dispel Magic, which Forbiddance isn't. It's just more resistant than most.)

[Psyren]

Incorrect. It is, effectively, like automatically making your CL check to dispel an effect. However, Forbiddance is immune to dispelling, unless your CL is higher than the caster's is.

Either that, or they should have used some other language, because as written, it's similar to an auto-success dispel magic, which is ineffective against a Forbiddance.

They didn't need to. Disjunction does not say "As dispel magic, except..." It merely describes how to treat the spell once it has been ended. In other words "treat this as though you succeeded in dispelling it normally." If it did not end the spell, that clause would not apply. So now you are attempting to say that it ends the spell while failing to end it. Your logic defeats itself.

And even if you choose to read it any other way, it's still moot; pump your CL and you win. You can even exceed DM's regular cap this way, because all it cares about is your CL rather than your dispel check.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

(Although even given ShneekeyTheLost's interpretation, if the dispel check is automatically successful then it's automatically successful. It doesn't need to check against Forbiddance's special clause because it's automatically successful. And if it's not automatically successful then we're back to making normal dispel checks against everything, which is clearly not what's intended. The difference between the two interpretations would only come up if a spell effect was completely immune to Dispel Magic, which Forbiddance isn't. It's just more resistant than most.)Only it is an immunity, if your CL is not higher than the CL of the person who put it up. Which is where this mess comes from in the first place.

Forbiddance is immune to dispel magic unless your CL is higher than the caster's CL. MDJ functions as a dispel magic. Ergo: immune.

I suppose it's up to the individual GM involved, however I brought it up to point out that there's plenty of ways to negate port n pwn tactics.

Of course, the whole situation goes obsolete once Anticipate Teleport gets pulled out of the SpC...

[sonofzeal]

Only it is an immunity, if your CL is not higher than the CL of the person who put it up. Which is where this mess comes from in the first place.

Forbiddance is immune to dispel magic unless your CL is higher than the caster's CL. MDJ functions as a dispel magic. Ergo: immune.
It isn't an immunity, it's simply checked for success in a different manner.

And you clearly didn't read the rest of my post, since you're still inserting words that aren't in the actual text. You added the term "functions as", when the issue is entirely about whether "as" means "functions as" or "in the same way as". The former means you're making normal Dispel Checks with a +10 CL max, if you take it literally. The latter means that, as Psyren previously said, flying casters would drift slowly to the ground.

I personally think Psyren's interpretation is RAI. But neither is RAW, because RAW is ambiguous.

[Weezer]

I personally think Psyren's interpretation is RAI. But neither is RAW, because RAW is ambiguous.

In fact I would argue that both are RAW, because of that ambiguity.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Either way, Anticipate Teleport still makes Port n Pwn tactics obsolete...

[Tvtyrant]

Can I ask about Hallow:Dimensional Anchor? Especially if it is on an enlarged Hallow, and then just make multiples of them.

[jseah]

Yea, but there are lots of losses in a heat engine. And heat engines mostly just turn turbines ANYWAY... the lake or ocean or huge amount of water for a ring gate one can make a goodly amount of energy on its own, ya know?
Ring gates have a 100lb per day limit. You can't send things through permanently since things extended halfway and retracted don't count.

Even with a horrendous 10% efficiency, a minimum CL wall of fire has the power output of one of a small hydroelectric dam.
Plus, they are incredibly thin and can be easily stacked if you need more power density.

[Smokin Red]

First of all, that's great!
I hope I get to read more about points of light.


One thought why isolation (turtling?) isn't that great.
Genetics!
Isolated groups of humans over a long time (thousands of years if I read it right) would get really ugly -> inbreeding and incest.

Well, it could be that the leaders (immortal caster types) don't care about misshapen and retarded commoners.

[Mnemnosyne]

In a population of millions in a single city, I don't think inbreeding and incest is an issue that would ever come up. The total population of all Europe at some points in history is speculated to have been around 30 million.

[RelentlessImp]

In a population of millions in a single city, I don't think inbreeding and incest is an issue that would ever come up. The total population of all Europe at some points in history is speculated to have been around 30 million.

Here's something. Space. Do Tippyverse cities make use of Enveloping Pits and Bottles of Air as housing projects? You could build an entire modern-sized city that can house something like a thousand times what a modern city does in the same amount of space by using layered Enveloping Pits and Bottles of Air to create entire sections of the city.

Otherwise you wind up with massive city sprawls that are even more impossible to defend.

[sonofzeal]

First of all, that's great!
I hope I get to read more about points of light.


One thought why isolation (turtling?) isn't that great.
Genetics!
Isolated groups of humans over a long time (thousands of years if I read it right) would get really ugly -> inbreeding and incest.

Well, it could be that the leaders (immortal caster types) don't care about misshapen and retarded commoners.
Minimum population for sufficient genetic diversity depends heavily on how strict breeding control is; I've heard numbers as low as 27, if you're going to mandate breeding pairs. The standard number bandied around for a viable space colony is usually closer to 160-180.

Anything with a population over a thousand can avoid significant inbreeding without any difficulty. Anything with a population over a million doesn't even care; as long as siblings or cousins aren't going at it, it's a non-issue.

[Psyren]

MDJ functions as a dispel magic.

It very clearly does not. It disjoins, not dispels. The similarity to dispel magic only comes into play post-disjunction, when the magic has ended.

[hewhosaysfish]

Minimum population for sufficient genetic diversity depends heavily on how strict breeding control is; I've heard numbers as low as 27, if you're going to mandate breeding pairs. The standard number bandied around for a viable space colony is usually closer to 160-180. Anything with a population over a thousand can avoid significant inbreeding without any difficulty. Anything with a population over a million doesn't even care; as long as siblings or cousins aren't going at it, it's a non-issue.

The number I head was 500... Not that it matters; your point stands: the proposed Tipptverse cities are larger than the minimum by several orders of magnitude even after we divide the gene pool between the various fantasy races.

[mint]

Tippy, what prevented wide divination magic from predicting attacks when the mega city wars broke out?

[Gnaeus]

One thought why isolation (turtling?) isn't that great.
Genetics!
Isolated groups of humans over a long time (thousands of years if I read it right) would get really ugly -> inbreeding and incest.

Well, it could be that the leaders (immortal caster types) don't care about misshapen and retarded commoners.

This problem would actually be much larger in a typical D&D verse than in a tippyverse. All those isolated villages surrounded by hostile terrain filled with bandits and monsters would have major, major inbreeding problems compared with a city of millions.

[Galanar]

Spell compendium, pg 13 Anticipate teleportation, level 3

enlarge it, becomes a level 4 spell,

create items that cast it once each day, for a CL of 10 it would affect 100ft

towers that predict where enemies are going to teleport exatly, and have a full round to teleport defenses in or cast a spell to insta kill them

if you have the money, use the level 6 version and CL of 20

now you have a tower every 400 ft and delays enemies for 3 rounds.

i bet someone smarter than me can think of a cheap spell to kill anyone you know is going to appear in an exact location in 3 turns

[Psyren]

Re: Anticipate Teleport

It is debatable whether Wish's transportation clause is a teleportation effect. Nothing in the Wish text says it gains any descriptors, it's not duplicating another spell, and Wish is not even conjuration. It "lifts you" and "places you" - that's it. So AT and GAT don't work by RAW.

[Emperor Tippy]

Tippy, what prevented wide divination magic from predicting attacks when the mega city wars broke out?
Practically everyone being covered by Mind Blank made it a real problem.

Also the fact that many cities are covered entirely in a permanent Mage's Private Sanctum made it a bit worse. Without such defenses you were open to enemy scrying and divination, with those defenses you can't divine your own cities or future either.

@Anticipate Teleport items
AT is an emanation and needs line of effect. It's quite easy to break that.

Again, getting inside the critical infrastructure and secure locations in the city can be (and is) a cast iron bitch; but the defenses used to do that can't reliably be applied to an entire city of hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of people.

[PetterTomBos]

Ring gates have a 100lb per day limit. You can't send things through permanently since things extended halfway and retracted don't count.

Even with a horrendous 10% efficiency, a minimum CL wall of fire has the power output of one of a small hydroelectric dam.
Plus, they are incredibly thin and can be easily stacked if you need more power density.

How to get power? Depends on what you want. If you simply want heat (or heat-related stuffs like boiling something) you'd go for the fire spells, or there is probably some elemental plane of fire solution the optimizers here will go for ;)

But for turning something around and around (for mills, electricity or whatever) using teleportation circles (or some other Teleports) maintaing a reservoire would be king. Building some turbine that goes around with the water should be straightforward (I think the playgrounders should be able to build alot of it given materials and some time). A heat engine, complete with a boiler of water to vaporize, to be sent trough the tubines to make it rotate has got way more issues.

[jseah]

A heat engine, complete with a boiler of water to vaporize, to be sent trough the tubines to make it rotate has got way more issues.
It's harder to make yes.

But its also more powerful. I could try calculating Carnot efficiency of a wall of fire boiler (and it will be higher than the equivalent in the Industrial Revolution), but that is just an upper bound.

Cost for cost, I strongly doubt even a 10% "heat to movement" efficiency wall of fire boiler will lose in energy production to many things.


One of those things is a modified ring gate. You thread an open portable hole (stuck to a suitably stiff backing) through a ring gate so both sides have a bit of the hole open.
This allows you to run a pipe through one end of the hole, and out the other end on the other side of the ring gate. Any water being pumped through it doesn't count to the ring gate's 100lb per day limit.
Ring gates can go 100 miles apart, IIRC? That's alot of energy if you send it straight up. Doubly so if you do this on a high gravity plane.

But then if you're going to play games with portable holes and ring gates that way, you can do far far worse.
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12155641&postcount=20

[PlzBreakMyCmpAn]

It is impossible to prevent an enemy from dropping his entire military right into the middle of your nation with teleportation circles whenever he chooses to do so.Teleportation circles are 9th level and this (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/dimensionalLock.htm) is ei

[HunterOfJello]

I want to set my next game in this campaign setting !

[sonofzeal]

Teleportation circles are 9th level and this (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/dimensionalLock.htm) is ei
It can't be made permanent, it only covers a relatively small area, and you'd need to cover every cubic foot of your city with them. A TC attack only needs one significant opening to mount a serious invasion.

However, as someone else pointed out earlier, Hallow is a 5th lvl spell and Dimension Anchor is a 4th, and tying the latter to the former covers eight times the volume that Dimensional Lock does, with a duration of Instantaneous (effectively one year).

Oh, and Weirdstones cover a 6-mile radius.

[Tvtyrant]

It can't be made permanent, it only covers a relatively small area, and you'd need to cover every cubic foot of your city with them. A TC attack only needs one significant opening to mount a serious invasion.

However, as someone else pointed out earlier, Hallow is a 5th lvl spell and Dimension Anchor is a 4th, and tying the latter to the former covers eight times the volume that Dimensional Lock does, with a duration of Instantaneous (effectively one year).

Oh, and Weirdstones cover a 6-mile radius.

(psst, he is talking about me! :smallcool:)

I think the issue is that there are a number of ways to lock off an area. The question of comparative cost is a good one, but if you are using fortresses then simply guarding those would let you control the territory.

[Weezer]

(psst, he is talking about me! :smallcool:)

I think the issue is that there are a number of ways to lock off an area. The question of comparative cost is a good one, but if you are using fortresses then simply guarding those would let you control the territory.

And the other issue is that any way to lock off an area can be countered with equal or less effort so while you can make an area inconvenient to attack via TC you can't make it impossible.

[Doug Lampert]

It can't be made permanent, it only covers a relatively small area, and you'd need to cover every cubic foot of your city with them. A TC attack only needs one significant opening to mount a serious invasion.

However, as someone else pointed out earlier, Hallow is a 5th lvl spell and Dimension Anchor is a 4th, and tying the latter to the former covers eight times the volume that Dimensional Lock does, with a duration of Instantaneous (effectively one year).

Oh, and Weirdstones cover a 6-mile radius.

RAW Hallow and Dimensional Anchor is useless for preventing invasion.

The Hallow applies the spell to all creatures of the type you specify within the area of the spell. So AFTER I come through into your area I'm Dimensionally Anchored and can't teleport!

There is no statement anywhere in the Hallow description that the spell applies to entities prior to entry to the area. So I have to enter the area to be hit by the Dimensional Anchor. Dimensional Anchor has no ability to stop someone from teleporting in, it just stops them from using teleports to manuever or leave once in (which is valuable enough that you probably want to do it anyway).

Finally, Hallow has expensive components and a small area compared to a city and needs to be recast every year. You can use traps to cast it and avoid the components, but it's a marginal value and I at least tend to rule that magical traps are non-mobile so there are better defensive traps.

Wierdstones have been extensively discussed in the thread, they don't stop a wide range of other attacks including simply wishing the Wierdstone was somewhere else.

My question for Tippy is why there's more than ONE city per world? I mean, the original development being through teleport circles makes that hold for the start, but with food from traps and the cost of setting up a city why build one rather than joining an existing one? I simply can't see the incentive for anyone who wants to live in a City and can cast Greater Teleport to start by building one rather than moving to one.

[Ryu_Bonkosi]

My question for Tippy is why there's more than ONE city per world? I mean, the original development being through teleport circles makes that hold for the start, but with food from traps and the cost of setting up a city why build one rather than joining an existing one? I simply can't see the incentive for anyone who wants to live in a City and can cast Greater Teleport to start by building one rather than moving to one.

In case you wanted to hold power for yourself or you disagree with the political system already in place would be the two big ones that I can think of.

[sonofzeal]

The Hallow applies the spell to all creatures of the type you specify within the area of the spell. So AFTER I come through into your area I'm Dimensionally Anchored and can't teleport!

Except that caveat is not actually in the spell text. It doesn't say anything about within or without. It doesn't affect creatures "within the area of the spell", it simply affects creatures.


Finally, Hallow has expensive components and a small area compared to a city and needs to be recast every year. You can use traps to cast it and avoid the components, but it's a marginal value and I at least tend to rule that magical traps are non-mobile so there are better defensive traps.
A valid point. Still, a year is a long time given the resource-generating potential of a city. I wouldn't use a trap to cast it though, I'd have a trap to create the material component and then cast it manually. A trap of "Create 5k gp of incense", or even "Create 1k gp of incense" five times, can generate far more than you'll ever need.


Wierdstones have been extensively discussed in the thread, they don't stop a wide range of other attacks including simply wishing the Wierdstone was somewhere else.
Already addressed. This doesn't work, on multiple levels.

1) It's uncertain Wish bypasses Weirdstone's warding
2) Even if it could, Wish-porting only ignores restrictions on the LANDING side, not the TAKING side
3) Even without that, Wish-porting only targets CREATURES and Weirstones are OBJECTS.

So, no, you very thoroughly can't Wish-port it away. You can Wish-port someone in, possibly, but then conventional defenses apply. Personally, given the cost of Wish-porting someone in compared to the cost of the Weirdstone, I'd just have multiple redundant Weirdstones each with moderate defenses, in the center of total deathtraps. Whoever ports in could destroy the Weirdstone if they were sufficiently equipped/prepared (but exact defences would vary significantly so they could always be caught off guard, especially since Weirdstones block divination), but I could pretty much guarantee that they'd be crushed immediately thereafter in the counterattack, since other Weirdstones would cover the lack and they couldn't Wish-port back out. Essentially, I'm pretty sure I could make the cost of destroying Weirdstones prohibitive compared to the cost of creating them, meaning anyone attacking me is hemorrhaging resources far faster than I am and will almost certainly lose in the long run.

[Emperor Tippy]

My question for Tippy is why there's more than ONE city per world? I mean, the original development being through teleport circles makes that hold for the start, but with food from traps and the cost of setting up a city why build one rather than joining an existing one? I simply can't see the incentive for anyone who wants to live in a City and can cast Greater Teleport to start by building one rather than moving to one.

Inertia and politics are the big reasons. Those cities all initially grew out of preexisting cities that the TC network caused to expand exponentially. Once you had several cities it becomes much easier for more to form (play the preexisting cities off each other for protection initially, for example) and combining them is much more difficult because the leadership and population are likely unwilling to do so.

You can come up with various in game reasons for it, but the big reason from a setting creation stand point is that it 1) keeps the cities focused on other cities which gives a reasonable explanation for why they aren't dealing with stuff in the wilds, 2) allows the PC's to adventure in separate locals that can be wildly divergent (one city might be virtually lawless anarchy while another is a mind raped utopia), 3) allows the PC's to deal with campaign hooks that are much more difficult in a monopole world.

[Heliomance]

Y'know, if you take this setting, run it forward to the fall of the Great Mage Empires (maybe one wizard learn epic magic and made everything fall over) and then another thousand years, you end up with Exalted.

[Emperor Tippy]

*shrug* I've never bothered with Exalted so no idea how accurate that is.

But I do ban epic magic in all of my games that it isn't specifically intended for (actually I ban all epic and use a homebrew mechanic for characters that get enough XP to go up a level past level 20).

[Dyllan]

I must say, I love this concept. I'm tempted to implement it in our shared game world, except that I'm afraid it would change things too much. We have never used the trap crafting rules, largely because you can break the economy with them. And we've managed to ignore the obvious progression that would come from pervasive permanent teleport circles by not having any high level casters who were interested in doing that (I mean, at that point you're nearly a god already... why bother helping the little people get around? Money is power, and you've already got more power than all of them combined).

I'd love to drop this in some isolated part of the world, but I don't see any way to do that without it spreading everywhere... except one.

What if the cities war resulted in the MAD principle... but their leaders didn't stop. I think I'm going to introduce a continent (or perhaps archipelago) that is a Post Apocalyptic Tippyverse.

[Rubik]

The surefire way to block teleportation within the cities is to block extraplanar travel. You've got all sorts of creation traps, so just transport yourself to all of those adjacent planes and start creating a giant ball made of layers of different things, and make them MASSIVE. Miles wide, large enough to block anything traveling through that plane (and since it's onioned in inch-thick layers, trying to Disintegrate through is difficult at best). Do it on the Astral, Shadow, and Ethereal planes, and you don't have to worry about it (and you don't have to worry about hauntings or ethereal spying, either). However, the Plane of Faerie and the Planes of Mirrors and Dreams are a bit more difficult to deal with...

And have constant construct patrols that watch for sappers, who add layers and make repairs as they go.

[Emperor Tippy]

That only works on the Ethereal Plane by RAW, and with DM adjudication it might be doable on the Plane of Shadows (doubtful however because of how it's fluffed). Astral doesn't have that kind of 1:1 congruence.

[Rubik]

That only works on the Ethereal Plane by RAW, and with DM adjudication it might be doable on the Plane of Shadows (doubtful however because of how it's fluffed). Astral doesn't have that kind of 1:1 congruence.It's still a start, and it does block ethereal teleportation effects. Granted, most are astral IIRC, but still.

[Emperor Tippy]

It's still a start, and it does block ethereal teleportation effects. Granted, most are astral IIRC, but still.

So does a Weirdstone. Or surrounding the entire city in a CL 1,000,000 Resilient Sphere that has been made persistent and extended by an Incantatrix. One city has 500 of those (each a CL lower than the one before) around it at any given time.

[PlzBreakMyCmpAn]

It can't be made permanent, it only covers a relatively small area, and you'd need to cover every cubic foot of your city with them. A TC attack only needs one significant opening to mount a serious invasion.Any way to non-DM fiat to teleport while dimensional anchored? This thread hinges on many assum

[Calintares]

How would the Tippyverse function without self-resetting traps?

[Gavinfoxx]

Things that can enable spells to be cast on a population:

1.) Eternal Wands, from Magic Item Compendium. They have a little bit of an extra surcharge on them from the DMG formula, but gives 2/day casting of spells levels 1-3.

2.) Magical traps using the DMG rules for recharge and stuff. Note that if you want precedent for magical traps that are beneficial, look at the Boon traps in Dungeonscape.

3.) Drow House Insignia sorts of items, explained in the book Races of Faerun, pg 175. They were updated to be more pricey in Drow of the Underdark. This gives a specific form, 1/day limitation, and certain spell levels, I think 1-3.

4.) Minor Schema, from the book Magic of Eberron (A way to cast spells lvl 1-6, once a day. Further, these work better for Artificers, who can apply their class features to this. If An Artificer makes a Schema of Wall of Iron, and he has a Lesser Rod of Invisible Spell, he could -- for example -- make Invisible Iron...)

5.) Generic wondrous items that cast spells, per the DMG/SRD rules for custom magic items.

6.) Spell Turrets, from Dungeon Master's Guide II

7.) Spell clocks, from here: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/cw/20070312a&dcmp=ILC-RSSDND

Remember to consider the rules regarding combining multiple magic items in one item in the DMG!

[Qwertystop]

Possibly there would be lots of extradimensional spaces (whatever the biggest one is) with Bottles of Air in them, each space containing a small farm. The biggest thing the traps are for is food, so that the population of a city doesn't have to be spread out over a lot of farmland.

[Emperor Tippy]

How would the Tippyverse function without self-resetting traps?

Just fine. You have highly efficient farms (either on demiplanes or in the ideal growing areas on the material plane) that are protected much like the cities and worked by constructs with casters providing the various farm improvement spells, food delivered by teleport circle.

Other than that they are pretty much like any other D&D city except with a much larger population.

[Heliomance]

So Teleport Circle is, in your opinion, the only thing that warps a setting enough to need to rewrite it on this scale?

[Emperor Tippy]

So Teleport Circle is, in your opinion, the only thing that warps a setting enough to need to rewrite it on this scale?

Yes and no.

Teleport Circle (or analogs, i.e. permanent Gate) warp the world far more obviously and directly than most other magics because they have such a fundamental and widespread effect on a very large number of people. Trade is the life blood of the world. Make it easier and more centralized and it will have a major effect. Combine that with a drastic alteration to the basic military situation (logistics are massively simplified, ambushes become effectively impossible, strategic surprise is actually possible and easily achieved) and you will irrevocably alter the world.

Other magic can have a massive effect but much of it is understated. For example, permanent telepathic bonds allow instantaneous secure teleportation between any two people no matter where they are on a plane. Most any ruler should keep one half of a TB pair in their capital while the other half of a pair is sent out to a military unit/base. Rapid, instant, secure communication between any two units is a major alteration. Comparable to the real world before and after satellite communications, for example.

The same thing can be done with Ring Gates. Combine a Ring Gate with a bag of holding and you can pass 2,500 pounds of goods to someone a hundred miles away instantly. Nest Bags of holding and you can move an entire army like that.

Magic traps will drastically alter a world even without TC's, the list of ways they would do so is incredibly long though.

Divination magics being used in a systemic way would alter the world in a manner that is almost impossible to predict. Just think about the real world? How would humanity react if tomorrow it became possible to accurately and cheaply predict the future?

The various mind reading magics are almost a potential game changer. Although admittedly much less of one as Mind Rape is relatively rare. But even Detect Thoughts is potentially a huge thing.

[Sunken Valley]

What about mind control? even with the will save, you could crush a king's mind at a high level with dominate monster.

Animate dead. An undead army is broken. Would put cleaners out of work.

Commune, Divination, speak with dead etc. Puts detectives out of work.

How come these can't warp a world like that circle can.

Oh and finally:

:smallsigh:Tippy=Win

[Emperor Tippy]

What about mind control? even with the will save, you could crush a king's mind at a high level with dominate monster.
Why do you think that virtually all of the leadership are level 20 casters of various sorts? And everyone of them has mind blank up 24/7.

Mind Control is a definite concern for the various groups in game. Some of the leadership go so far as to have a Craft Contingent Wish on them set to activate 5 hours after they are hit with Mind Rape and with the effect of restoring their previous memories.


Animate dead. An undead army is broken. Would put cleaners out of work.
Undead armies are mostly meh. Even the classic Wraith Apocalypse isn't a real threat to the cities


Commune, Divination, speak with dead etc. Puts detectives out of work.
None of which work reliable inside the cities thanks to being covered in permanent Mage's Private Sanctums, most crimes being committed by people with Mind Blank up, and the Weirdstones.


How come these can't warp a world like that circle can.
They all would warp it, how much is variable.

Mind Control of the leadership is possible but the only real safe and secure way to take over someone long term is Mind Rape. And that's a 9th level spell. So yeah, a level 17+ character can take over a kingdom relatively simply, but that's nothing special at that point.

Most royal guards are going to have permanent Detect Magic on them, if not Arcane Sight. They will see the mind control magic (short of Mind Rape) and then it's just a matter of a Break Enchantment to solve the problem.

Undead armies are relatively weak and easy to deal with (short of the self replicating forms), construct armies are a bigger threat.

And I already mentioned divination's are being something that would drastically alter the world on their own. However, predicting that is far more difficult because we don't even really have a basic frame work to start from.

[Eric Tolle]

In a population of millions in a single city, I don't think inbreeding and incest is an issue that would ever come up.

In addition, with the large-scale trade that's part of the setting, you're going to get genetic mixing and transfer between cities. After all, it's far easier to travel then in your standard extruded fantasy product setting.

With travel so easy and fast, tourism and emmigration will likely be even more common than in the real world- and heck, even medieval Europe had tourists.

[Yahzi]

I was going to make another arguement for Forbiddance, but realized it didn't help.

So I just want to say - very cool idea, Tippy.

I have two house rules that prevent the Tippyverse, but even with that, the multiplying effects of magic, levels, and time means that the world looks a lot like the Thousand Points of Light.

Which is cool, because that's what D&D is supposed to look like. Vance's Dying Earth was like that (aside from the fact that it was really a Thousand Points of Dark, since each individual city-state tended to be pretty rotten. :smallbiggrin: )

[Piggy Knowles]

I also tend to agree that undead armies are meh, but I feel like mostly discounting Animate Dead's potential impact on a society is unfair.

To me, Animate Dead provides an unlimited and unerring source of labor. Zombies have an almost negligible cost to create, don't eat, sleep or breathe, and will follow simple instructions endlessly. Basically, any repetitive mundane task could probably be done by a zombie for 25gp worth of onyx...

[Menteith]

What simple repetitive task still exists, though? The economy of TV is a service based industry with spells/magic items, knowledge, and other unique skills being the only true valuables. Inside of the Cities, I don't see a serious use for a mindless, slow working (relative to Fabricate or other magic), creature that requires you to have a generous supply of corpses(which, depending on social norms, is a little gauche). Outside of the cities, I'd agree with you. I could certainly see a Necrocracy in the uncivilized wilds that is run with mindless undead being the underlying technology, but there are far more advanced and cost effective ways of production that eliminate that necessity in the Cities.

It's likely trying to compare horseback riding to an airplane. Both are means of transportation that can effectively move you from west coast to east coast (in America). The horse takes less money to produce and maintain. The industry/technology capable of using an airplane requires enormous amounts of money and time. People still don't ride horses because it's horridly inefficient.

[Tyndmyr]

I would be very leery of allowing uses of Wish that aren't explicitly part of its power, because they come down to DM prerogative on whether they work, and it's not strictly RAW what happens either way. Monkeypawing is too easy.



Also - even if you have 1000 people using a TC in a round... what are conditions like on the other side? I can't even imagine the logistical nightmare that'd develop, but stampeding, crushing, and massive and unnecessary loss of life would almost surely ensue if you actually tried this in real life.

That is...a bit excessive, but yes, it would be entirely reasonable to have an army formed up into ranks, marching through. You could easily have four abreast marching per rank in a ten foot space...squeezing in D&D terms. The exact number can be quibbled over, and depends on a few variables, but regardless, a LOT of people can be moved through a TC very rapidly. Enough that the details are mostly irrelevant for arriving at the conclusion that TCs are the way to go whenever possible for invasions.

Im actually rather happy to find out that my image of the tippyverse is closer to the original than the mindrape one.

[Piggy Knowles]

What simple repetitive task still exists, though? The economy of TV is a service based industry with spells/magic items, knowledge, and other unique skills being the only true valuables.

Small scale? Turning cranks, moving things from place to place within cities or farms (ie, small and specific movement that is too inefficient to use teleportation circles for), mining hard minerals, that sort of thing.

Large scale? Undead computer. I think the original suggestion was on 4chan and NSFW, but basically, create a chain of undead with "If X then Y" style logic commands to make a giant, undead computer.

[Menteith]

Small scale? Turning cranks, moving things from place to place within cities or farms (ie, small and specific movement that is too inefficient to use teleportation circles for), mining hard minerals, that sort of thing.

Small-scale movement is the only legitimate use I see of these. There's no need for a mindless creature to operate a control crank, and no need for an endlessly turning crank (that I can see). What on earth would they be mining for that can't be produced on a massive scale through magic? Even if there's a substance that can't be Fabricated, a reasonably leveled caster should be able to strip mine a site fairly quickly - certainly faster than individuals with picks or even their bare hands.



Large scale? Undead computer. I think the original suggestion was on 4chan and NSFW, but basically, create a chain of undead with "If X then Y" style logic commands to make a giant, undead computer.

That's actually really interesting. If they had the capacity to line up a working, creature-based computer though, why wouldn't they use constructs or traps? Both of those options are possible, more durable, and could have their bodies specifically designed to function in a computer.

[Emperor Tippy]

The most common place to see undead in the cities is as bodyguard for high level casters who are neutral or evil.

Shapechange into a Dread Wraith, kill somebody with your Constitution Drain (Su) and they return as a Wraith permanently under your command that doesn't count against the HD limit for commanding undead.

I prefer Incarnum Wraiths though as they have a perfect fly speed (instead of good), don't suffer from daylight powerlessness, can't cause a Wraith apocalypse (only creates another Wraith if it kills someone with an Essentia pool), and look cooler.

[Deth Muncher]

Hey Tippy, I had a question: What incentive is there, ever, for PCs to leave a city? Or city network, that is - I mean really, if each city is its own highly functioning, self sustainable microcosm, then why would anyone leave?

Or rather, what incentives have you given players to leave the towns in this setting? I could, I guess, see the standard fare of "go check out a ruined city" or "go invade this other city" or even some sort of political intrigue, if that's your speed, but unless the PCs are just kind of born with the "Wanderer's Itch", there would be no real reason for anyone to ever leave the well-protected microcosm of their city.

[Rubik]

Hey Tippy, I had a question: What incentive is there, ever, for PCs to leave a city? Or city network, that is - I mean really, if each city is its own highly functioning, self sustainable microcosm, then why would anyone leave?

Or rather, what incentives have you given players to leave the towns in this setting? I could, I guess, see the standard fare of "go check out a ruined city" or "go invade this other city" or even some sort of political intrigue, if that's your speed, but unless the PCs are just kind of born with the "Wanderer's Itch", there would be no real reason for anyone to ever leave the well-protected microcosm of their city.If knowledge is one of the few things that truly has value, then there should be tons of it in those lost cities. Ancient crumbling empires overflowing with forbidden and archaic knowledge that was lost when they fell.

You could become immensely powerful, influential, and VERY rich if you brought back enough of the right kinds of information, including technology and magical knowledge to be reverse-engineered.

[Endarire]

How would the Tippyverse work in an E6 setting?

I know that teleport is a key component of the Tippyverse from what I understand.

[lorddrake]

How would the Tippyverse work in an E6 setting?

I know that teleport is a key component of the Tippyverse from what I understand.

There was this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=218222&highlight=tippyverse) from some time ago that was something about that.

[Darrin]

How would the Tippyverse work in an E6 setting?

I know that teleport is a key component of the Tippyverse from what I understand.

I think it has to be teleportation circle. Just plain teleport isn't efficient enough to deliver goods/troops to the cities in sufficient quantities, although if you have enough teleport traps you can eventually replicate the effects of a teleportation circle.

If E6 contains Candles of Invocation and creatures that can still cast high-level spells, then it's just a matter of whoever manages to get the chain-gating Solars set up first gets access to infinite wishes, which he can use to create teleportation circles by proxy. Aside from just stumbling across a Candle of Invocation, there are a few methods in E6 that could be used to set up some infinite wishes combos (Pazuzu, mirror mephits, etc.).

However, since humanoids would be restricted to 6HD, it's fairly likely that the city's overlords would eventually be replaced with high-level creatures with high-level spellcasting. Dragons and Black Ethergaunts, for example. From that point, the structure of the Tippyverse would be pretty much the same. The only difference would be instead of high-level wizards running everything, it would be high-level monsters who cast spells as high-level wizards. Presumably they keep all the 1-6 HD humanoids around for cannon fodder, ego-stroking, or light after-dinner snacks.

[Curious]

How would the Tippyverse work in an E6 setting?

I know that teleport is a key component of the Tippyverse from what I understand.

Much the same, but with high-level wizards replaced with kobold Sorcerors and Witches. And of course, more importance placed on the actual armies of the setting, rather than the high level wizards,

[Demonic_Spoon]

If epic magic wasn't banned this would be the ideal environment for some mythals.

Also, the psionic power Divert Teleport (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/divertTeleport.htm) anyone?

All in all a awesome concept though.

Also, I'm seeing the utilization of mindsight Formian queens with their 50 mile telepathy to organize things.

No moving cities? Using the stronghold builders guidebook it could be totally doable to have a flying/swimming/burrowing/teleporting city if you get enough wealth to throw around.

[Frosty]

Teleport Circle (or analogs, i.e. permanent Gate) warp the world...Combine that with a drastic alteration to the basic military situation (logistics are massively simplified, ambushes become effectively impossible, strategic surprise is actually possible and easily achieved).
In a conventional, non-tippyverse setting where easy, mass teleporting is not available, how come devils and demons don't just auto-win every engagement? Many devils and demons have Greater Teleport at-will. Against your standard fantasy army, this is a decisive advantage. The fiends will be able to ambush with impunity any mortal incursions into the hells, and if the fiends decide to invade the material plane, there's nothing the armies in the material plane can really do.

[Demonic_Spoon]

Well there's the Blood War and the fact that the celestials would intervene in the event of this happening.

[Silva Stormrage]

I have a question about the lack of teleportation blocking in regular D&D.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/forbiddance.htm

Forbiddance does exactly that. Now, it also has a massive material gold component which means its pretty much unusable to ward of the empire completely. Without using this trick.

Using a Spell To Power Erudite/Thrallherd Minimum Level 15 you can have a thrall cleric that has the southern magician feat. Not completely sure if southern magician lets StP Erudite learn it though. I know there is also a feat in Dragon Magazine (Not sure which issue) that lets Spell To Power Erudites learn divine spells as well.

Once the Spell To Power Erudite can cast it he can simply remove the material components to cast in on the majority of the region.


Weaknesses of Forbiddance spam.
1) Can be dispelled (Hard though)
2) Hurts creatures of different alignments


This might make an interesting side in this setting. A group of Erudite thrallherds that only call thralls and believers that are the same alignment as them and then block themselves off from the rest of the world.

[Jack_Simth]

I have a question about the lack of teleportation blocking in regular D&D.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/forbiddance.htm

Forbiddance does exactly that. Now, it also has a massive material gold component which means its pretty much unusable to ward of the empire completely. Without using this trick.
There's several problems with Forbiddance (most of which have already been discussed in this thread):
1) Forbiddance affects a very small area, as far as a city or a nation is concerned. To cover a big area, you'll need a rather lot of castings of this very expensive spell.
2) In order for your Teleportation circles to have any useful effect, you need to have assorted receiving zones that are left out of your Forbiddance anyway.
3) Forbiddance permits SR, so a trap of Greater Spell Immunity placed just before your teleportation circle means that your army can charge right on in.
4) As Forbiddance has a duration, it can be dispelled or Disjoined by one caster who gets past your defenses... probably going in using a tourist or a business reason as a cover.
5) Forbiddance has a fixed area once cast, and doesn't have any bypasses for line-of-effect... which means someone who gets past your defenses initially can simply dig down a few feet into the ground, and build their own receiving area for the incoming army.
6) Forbiddance also hurts people of other alignments than the caster (bypassable with a password, but still), which makes it rather annoying to use to cover a big city, as there will generally be people of multiple alignments there.

Edit: Oh yes, and when someone does breach your defenses against teleportation, your own defenses against teleportation prevent you from dropping troops into the breach to counter them.

[Hecuba]

While the possibility of T.C.s would be an absolute necessity, I think that it's also worth noting that the structure of the Tippyverse (at least given what's been presented) also requires a minimum threshold population and economic production.

In particular, the societies in question need to be large enough to allow for:

1) A durable supply of TC casters. Ultimately the rate at which a major power can reasonably eliminate TC casters must not exceed frequency of them emerging from the population. If the population is not big enough for that to hold true, proactive killing of enemy TC casters should arise as a pure strategy equilibrium rather than population concentration for defense.
The precise population required will be a function of the frequency of PC classes along the total population.

2) Production levels high enough that the economies of scale TC provides must outweigh the cost. Essentially, we need an economy (and thus a population) big enough to support a market system instead of a patronage system as the dominant structure.

Interestingly, these elements provides a more organic way for such a world to originate-- a Tippy-like need not have the invention of TCs as an inflection point, but instead see them emerge once a threshold population is reached. I'm not sure if that is more or less interesting, but food for thought at least.

[JackRackham]

More of it will be posted in this thread, but no it's not. As the entire setting is hand written it's a pain to upload.


It is. Teleporation Circles allow the rapid deployment of entire armies numbering (potentially) in the hundreds of thousands into an enemy city in minutes. When such an ability exists it becomes impossible to maintain a traditional nation because you can never secure your borders and the attacker will always have a nigh insurmountable initiative advantage. This will lead to centralization as the only viable defense, with the inevitable knock on effects. That gives you the start of the Cities.

Then come the economic side effects. A single permanent TC has a cost comparable to a Galley and can potentially move upwards of 70 billion pounds of goods per day. No other means of trade can possibly compete with a TC. That leads to the end of trade routes which screws over the smaller communities as they aren't profitable enough to get a TC and merchants no longer pass through them on the way to major trading hubs. Combine this with the concentration of military force making small communities non viable when faced with monsters and it very much becomes a world sharply delineated between the Cities and the Wilds.

Remove permanent Teleportation Circles and a Tippyverse will never form in the first place.


The critical components can be transferred straight over. Psionic Teleportation Circles exist, as does Fabricate. With traps of each (as you can't make permanent a Psionic TC) you can get the two critical components of the Tippyverse (teleporation and food traps).

I don't know enough about PF to answer that one. So long as permanent teleportation circles are possible you can (and logically would) have the Tippyverse. Ultimately everything else is simply a bonus feature. With a Create Food trap you are pretty much set.

Apologies in advance if I'm covering old ground. I don't have time to read the whole thread tonight. That said:

I do believe that this sort of power structure would also lead to hegemony of the most powerful city. What we have is a scenario very much like a world saturated with nuclear weapons.

As you pointed out, the attacker would have the initiative advantage and high-level combat in d&d takes place so quickly that, even with TCs, one's allies would not arrive in time to prevent one's destruction. At the same time, it would always be possible to counter this with the threat of attack on the main city by an alliance of lesser cities.

So, the alpha city would wield great influence (in that no city would dare confront them directly), but would be loathe to appear heavy-handed lest the other cities see it as a threat to common well-being and band together against it. We're looking at a power making 'friendly suggestions' to other leaders through diplomats, probably a world very much at peace after this amount of time has passed (due to the catastrophic implications of any conflict), a world where secrets are very powerful and secret power is the very best kind.

Realistically, there would also be wizards working around-the-clock in each of these cities to develop defenses against the teleportation of huge armies, as the possession of such an offense without the worry of retaliation would ultimately lead to global supremacy - and the only true security to be offered in this scenario.

At some point, someone would figure out a defense and gain dominance, but the technology would probably spread with their influence and eventually their empire would break up into a handful of smaller empires who would be forced to resort to more conventional tactics if they wanted to war on one another. Of course, this would mean crossing the wilds.

At this point, there would be a second great peace. Eventually, however, one of two scenarios would play out: either people would wizen up, see the cyclical evolution and escalation of warfare and defense for what it is and create a beneficent world government (which might or might now be corrupted later) or the world would wage war in a more conventional way, by moving their armies over land and sea.

Either way, this would likely mean the conquering of the Wilds. In the first scenario, the new government would want to prove its good intentions and redirect some of the aggressions of a people accustomed to a Cold War. Moreover, the merchant class would be looking for new markets and investments. In the second scenario, leaders would not want their armies to be worn down by random monsters and raiders on the way to the target.

The Wilds would be cleared out and infrastructure allowing for the movement of people and equipment would return - eventually leading over many cycles of a thousand years or more (and assuming the world hasn't been annihilated by some maniacal power) to a World City based on magic. When max density is reached within this global city, exploration of whatever else exists (space, other planes, etc) becomes a given and the process continues on a larger scale.

Everything after the fourth paragraph is over-rant. My apologies.

[Heatwizard]

So, the assertion is that you can't protect a Weirdstone in such a fashion that it becomes invincible. No matter how much time or money you put into it, it's always vulnerable to some Wish-inserted goofy destruction party. It stands to follow, then, that if it's impossible to defend this target flawlessly, it's not really possible to defend any target flawlessly, and with sufficient Wish-squads you can destroy anything you want. Including resetting Wish Traps.

Now, it seems to me like taking out everyone else's Wish Traps would kind of end your problems; the major weakness to the Weirdstone lockdown takes a hundred years to build, and if you have a wizard (or a sorceror, if that's your thing) hit up the Usual Divination Channels for "Is anyone building a Wish Trap? y/n If yes, then who? _________" even once a year, you'll see it coming a long ways away and have plenty of time to stop the construction, or kill the builder, or whatever. It's obviously doable, because if something could protect your Wish Trap, then why didn't you deploy it on your Weirdstones?

[Aquillion]

Hey Tippy, I had a question: What incentive is there, ever, for PCs to leave a city? Or city network, that is - I mean really, if each city is its own highly functioning, self sustainable microcosm, then why would anyone leave?

Or rather, what incentives have you given players to leave the towns in this setting? I could, I guess, see the standard fare of "go check out a ruined city" or "go invade this other city" or even some sort of political intrigue, if that's your speed, but unless the PCs are just kind of born with the "Wanderer's Itch", there would be no real reason for anyone to ever leave the well-protected microcosm of their city.I mean, people climb mountains in the real world; probably it's mostly the same thing. The thirst for adventure would have to play a huge rule -- yeah, there's some treasure, but the honest truth is that if you want power and wealth you'd be better off just staying at home and studying magic.

(Unless -- by a strict reading of the rules, the fastest way to learn magic, or anything, is to adventure. So it's possible that people leave the cities to become powerful wizards. But that seems like it's taking certain parts of the rules more literally than they're intended to be; we have no rules for becoming a level 20 wizard purely by sitting in a tower and studying, but the game definitely doesn't imply that it's impossible.)

A lot also depends on how rare PC classes are, which isn't something the books provide guidance on. If they're very rare and few people manage to learn one, I would expect PCs to be considered valuable resources and special agents by the leaders of cities -- high-level wizards would actively recruit adventurers to use as agents, support them, and use them on missions of various sorts. The nature of these missions, though (assuming we're deliberately trying to weight our assumptions in order to create a niche for adventurers, to make the setting playable) would have to be carefully-considered, since many things can just be accomplished with Teleport, Wish, scrying, etc.

Remember that there are some things that people might want from the wilderness. Artifacts are probably the most important target for adventurers, since they can't be replicated with Wish; magical items that land outside the range of what Wish can safely produce could also be worth sending adventurers for.

In a way, though, the most valuable return that a high-level wizard gets from supporting an adventurer party is the adventurers themselves -- once the adventurers become high level in their own right, they can be useful allies. (Well, the casters can be.)

On the other hand, if character classes are more common, then none of this happens.

[QuidEst]

This was a very interesting read. Thanks!

It seems to me that being small and obscure is a decent defense against armies and the like. Self-sufficiency isn't difficult, so you could have a high-level wizard or cleric who decides to leave his city and set up a small community. Heck, if he got some followers, they could find a demiplane to isolate themselves on. Certainly, that's an exception- it just seems like something that would be interesting to throw into a campaign.

The logical structure for a city, so far as I can tell, would be powerful people near the points military force (with a few exceptions, people who want to keep apart, etc.) and the poor further away. The cities are crowded, after all, so you'll probably always have people who risk the lack of protection by living just outside it. What do other people think? If a caster has access to a personal teleport, would (heh…) telecommuting make more sense?

Attacking another city doesn't seem like it would be quite as much of a threat as it might seem- your city is left without its army, and the attacked city can alert the other seventeen cities that it's wide open. With so many parties neutral opportunists to any given conflict, I feel like the cold war might be a little more stable than it might otherwise.

[Endarire]

I'm trying to imagine how and at what speed an E6 Tippyverse would evolve into a full-scale Tippyverse, assuming the E6 limits were removed.

Sounds like an interesting campaign idea!

[Wookie-ranger]

Tippy = win!
this idea is awesome, definably have to try to play it at some point.
However:

1: can we agree on that even a 7 level PC can effectively have infinite wealth (gp) thanks to the very simple diamond creation trap that someone pointed out earlier? what would that do to the economy/inflation? could a PC simply go out and buy every item in the DMG with his/her infinite amount of cash? or would high level items be restricted?

2: a group of city states that life far removed from the outside and have near infinite power. they created powerful magic to help them in their daily life and to protect themselves from they other city states. Netherese much?

edit:
3: given infinite wealth and thousands of years time, why not just build a wall of golems that so tightly together that nothing can pass through. and the forbiddence or whatever teleport protection spell starts exactly behind the golems? no that i think about it. why not make an entire sphere or golems? the ones on the 'roof' made permanently invisible or mode of invisible iron; or just have an illusion of a perfectly nice sky above the city and from the outside it looks like one gigantic metal sphere. like a dyson sphere as in the TNG episode "Relics" a while back.

[Aquillion]

edit:
3: given infinite wealth and thousands of years time, why not just build a wall of golems that so tightly together that nothing can pass through. and the forbiddence or whatever teleport protection spell starts exactly behind the golems? no that i think about it. why not make an entire sphere or golems? the ones on the 'roof' made permanently invisible or mode of invisible iron; or just have an illusion of a perfectly nice sky above the city and from the outside it looks like one gigantic metal sphere. like a dyson sphere as in the TNG episode "Relics" a while back.You couldn't start work on that quietly, though, or do it quickly. Other cities would find out what you're doing, and they'd gang up on you in self-defense (since once you've completed it, you could attack them with impunity.)

Much like how World War I started, in part, because the German military establishment was terrified of Russia's planned modernization of its forces (after which any long-term German military victories would have been implausible) and were determined to spark a large-scale war in Europe before that happened.

[Wookie-ranger]

Much like how World War I started, in part, because the German military establishment was terrified of Russia's planned modernization of its forces (after which any long-term German military victories would have been implausible) and were determined to spark a large-scale war in Europe before that happened.

ok, lets not get into real world history. but that statement is simplifying it to the point of simply being wrong. that was (to an extend) a factor but there is SO much more to it then that.


back on topic:
The dyson sphere would still be possible but it would also end up with an arms race, the same as with the shadesteel golems, weirdstones, wish traps, etc. in the end everybody would have one. so if everyone has one, the playing field would still be the same.

the important thing to think about is the time frame we are talking about. thousands of years! given the rapid exchange of goods, services and knowledge the amount of advancements would be exponentially increasing by the day (or almost anyway:smallwink:)! and this does not even account for changes in the speed of time (wish traps), demi-planes with different a different speed of time, or simply gateing in someone/thing from mechanus to help you build the whole thing. given enough resources there is always a way to make/have made something in the blink of an eye.
remember we are talking about infinite resources, not just very very very much.

[Anecronwashere]

Why not make it simply incredibly hard to invade, rather than impossible?

Set up Forbiddance everywhere, overlapping Weirdstones everywhere with the only gap being the exact centre which has your TCs.
Have invisible flying patrols, visible flying patrols, invisible guards on every corner, all with the ability to set off signals to bring the main army in immediately.

As soon as someone pops in somewhere that isn't the TC-area (using Wish to get there) they are attacked with the army mobilizing to that position.

Add in some mutual-defence contracts with some other cities and everyone who displays an overt action of war gets invaded by 2+ cities and their armies.
Of course, you should totally add in the clause "this contract may be voided if you take overt military action against another city without overt military action from said city first" so you don't have to back the attackers (and hopefully so do the other cities so all Attackers are mobbed without any support)

[Fable Wright]

Hm... since the cities have traps of Fabrication, Create Food, Create Water, something sticks out to me... why didn't any cities cut off the teleportation circles? They don't need trade anymore for essentials, and magical items created without traps could be brought into a city without the need for such large-scale teleportation devices. What could the other cities offer in bulk that merits the use of TCs anymore, that makes it worth the risk of invasion by the legions? Merchants could have some Ring Gates and facilitate commerce like that rather than bulk teleport that could be used for armies, with occasional teleports for special order items. Why are TCs used anymore?

[Hecuba]

Hm... since the cities have traps of Fabrication, Create Food, Create Water, something sticks out to me... why didn't any cities cut off the teleportation circles? They don't need trade anymore for essentials, and magical items created without traps could be brought into a city without the need for such large-scale teleportation devices. What could the other cities offer in bulk that merits the use of TCs anymore, that makes it worth the risk of invasion by the legions? Merchants could have some Ring Gates and facilitate commerce like that rather than bulk teleport that could be used for armies, with occasional teleports for special order items. Why are TCs used anymore?

The TC doesn't require anyone casting it on the receiving end: as such, not having one in your city doesn't protect you from other people using one to reach your city. You have to proactively protect against it, which is more difficult and more expensive.

[gkathellar]

Why not make it simply incredibly hard to invade, rather than impossible?

Yeah, that's the whole idea.


Set up Forbiddance everywhere,

Forbiddance allows for SR, and so is of limited usefulness.


overlapping Weirdstones everywhere

All of the problems of Weirdstones vs. Wish-based removal mentioned above.


Have invisible flying patrols, visible flying patrols, invisible guards on every corner, all with the ability to set off signals to bring the main army in immediately.

This is already sort of implicit.


As soon as someone pops in somewhere that isn't the TC-area (using Wish to get there) they are attacked with the army mobilizing to that position.

Unless you don't know they've arrived. That might also be a thing.

But yeah, in general that's the whole point of having a major city where you can concentrate your forces.


Add in some mutual-defence contracts with some other cities and everyone who displays an overt action of war gets invaded by 2+ cities and their armies.

Except that mutual defense contracts of that type are practically impossible to maintain. But yes, alliances would be of great use. It's just that you don't always know where the invaders are from, or how trustworthy your allies really are.

In short — almost everything you suggest is already implicit in the Tippyverse. It doesn't change the fact that TV-type settings are basically the only way to realistically account for the presence of magic.

[Roguenewb]

Okay, I think I can destroy this world....

Genesis: 8 trillion times speed. My Warforged Wizard brings the supplies for a Wish (Quickened Wish Trap) Trap. Once that's completed, .0015 rounds on Prime, the Warforged Wizard begins to make thousands of different Wish traps for whatever different kinds of items he wants to make. Each 6 seconds, activating his original Trap, the Wizard can make anything. He makes a creation forge inside his plane, and expands his plane by using a Genesis trap all the time. I don't wanna do the math, but I'm pretty sure the plane is larger than the real world in less than a round of time on Prime. Maybe he makes thousands of warforged with thousands of genesis traps so that they can keep making the plane huge. Every time he makes a warforged, he mind-rapes it with a mind-rape trap so that they serve him completely and utterly. After exactly 42 rounds on the Prime (for the lulz) he simultaneously ports a Quintillion level 20 wizards (fully leveled by crafting effiges with traps so they get xp perfectly) for each creature on the Prime.

If there is a creature that can handle a quintillion level 20 warforged wizards, I've never heard of it. If nothing else, they can just alternately fire Disjunctions and Orbs of Force to make sure that those creatures are annihilated, in one round. It is totally impossible to stop this plan by RAW.

I hate spell traps, with a passion, and heh, I don't even need them. My level 20 Warforged Artificer can craft a scroll, make the plane, build a creation forge and use warforged Elation/Good Hope/Distilled Joy to craft anything. Use activated wondrous items can do anything that traps can do, without the cheese, and they are actually more powerful.

I destroy the Tippyverse. In a round. Goddamn Genesis.

[Tyndmyr]

Okay, I think I can destroy this world....

Genesis: 8 trillion times speed. My Warforged Wizard brings the supplies for a Wish (Quickened Wish Trap) Trap. Once that's completed, .0015 rounds on Prime, the Warforged Wizard begins to make thousands of different Wish traps for whatever different kinds of items he wants to make. Each 6 seconds, activating his original Trap, the Wizard can make anything. He makes a creation forge inside his plane, and expands his plane by using a Genesis trap all the time. I don't wanna do the math, but I'm pretty sure the plane is larger than the real world in less than a round of time on Prime. Maybe he makes thousands of warforged with thousands of genesis traps so that they can keep making the plane huge. Every time he makes a warforged, he mind-rapes it with a mind-rape trap so that they serve him completely and utterly. After exactly 42 rounds on the Prime (for the lulz) he simultaneously ports a Quintillion level 20 wizards (fully leveled by crafting effiges with traps so they get xp perfectly) for each creature on the Prime.

If there is a creature that can handle a quintillion level 20 warforged wizards, I've never heard of it. If nothing else, they can just alternately fire Disjunctions and Orbs of Force to make sure that those creatures are annihilated, in one round. It is totally impossible to stop this plan by RAW.

I hate spell traps, with a passion, and heh, I don't even need them. My level 20 Warforged Artificer can craft a scroll, make the plane, build a creation forge and use warforged Elation/Good Hope/Distilled Joy to craft anything. Use activated wondrous items can do anything that traps can do, without the cheese, and they are actually more powerful.

I destroy the Tippyverse. In a round. Goddamn Genesis.

1st, it's not clear that Genesis can do this. Time is certainly arguable as a trait, and there's no particular reason to think that a trillion times faster is reasonable. If it is...the tippyverse has likely already found and utilized it. If not, you fail.

2nd. A trap of quickened wish is ludicrously expensive.

3rd. Thousands of Genesis traps would require kind of a lot of resources. This is getting very ridiculous.

[Fineous Orlon]

The Tippyverse is fascinating and fun, it's just very blackbox, or 1 supplement away from not working. After all, ELH, 1 such supplement, is already ruled out.

What I mean, is that since there are no more rules for 3.5 being officially published, there is no development within the rules reflecting many casters or power blocs in the TV working to overcome, or end run around, the rules that make the wheels run in TV.

I mean, really, if someone in the Forgotten Realms tried to initiate a Tippy-city, and Harpers found out, there would be a prestige class that could undo Tippy-conditions, or Regional Feats to bypass Tippy-defenses, etc...

In fact, the excellent work to create the Tippyverse [perhaps intentionally] points a few fingers at things to change or tweak in the rules to head towards the new abbreviation RACSD, or Rules as Common Sense Dictates...

.... and yet the TV also sounds like a very fun setting!

[Deth Muncher]

I was just thinking, there's a job/series of jobs that would pop up in each major city. This is entirely just a tangential thing, but funny to think about - I remember many pages ago, there was the mention of how because of the instantly teleporting army problem, inter-city wars could be very strange. And so, I figure there would end up becoming a small job of someone (or someones) casting Greater Anticipate Teleport, and then setting up a communication network between cities, similar to a train station.

You're in City A, you want to go to City B. The teleport clerk in City A shoots a Message (or using Sending Stones, or whatever) to City B, saying "Hey, we got a teleport coming in." Person teleports, is confirmed in City B, and all is well. If there's an unauthorized teleport, then the city can get to readiness hopefully very quickly, as the teleport clerks would be sounding alarms.

This is a completely unimportant meandering, but something I thought you all might find funny.

[rweird]

Roguenewb: If you can do it, someone in TV could do it before you, and someone else would have done it too and would have made a plane that goes at 100 trillion years there = 1 round in TV and overrun your plane, and someone would overrun his plane, and someone else would do the same thing, because this, TV is using scying, contact other plane, forsight, etc. for people that will try this and have a rapid response team, because there are so many wizards of about the same power and nobody wants this, they predict him doing it and kill him. This is assuming you can change time like that,though if you want to destroy TV, you could all you need to do is play Pun-Pun.

[Gavinfoxx]

And what would a Tippyverse City do against an air fleet or a sky navy or whatever attacking the city with barrages at standoff range, from large numbers of high speed airships or spaceships, which were teleported in and then opened up, with extreme range weapons, and are in loose formation? And the group of the ships kept extremely mobile (like circling the city or something)?

[Jack_Simth]

And what would a Tippyverse City do against an air fleet or a sky navy or whatever attacking the city with barrages at standoff range, from large numbers of high speed airships or spaceships, which were teleported in and then opened up, with extreme range weapons, and are in loose formation? And the group of the ships kept extremely mobile (like circling the city or something)?
Generally? With MAD methods (Mutually Assured Destruction - also known as a Doomsday Device), or by anticipating it and setting up similar levels of available force.

[Man on Fire]

All Hail Redcloak!

After reading first post I have issues with the idea.


1. It’s not a world ruled by a single all powerful wizard who mind rapes the opposition (at least not traditionally).
2. It’s not a 1984/Parinoia/Big Brother world where freedom does not exist and the government controls every facet of life

It should be because we don't have that in D&D and it would give players something to accomplish. What impact can players have on this world? Save few villages? Nothing they can accomplish will have a lasting effect, because at some point another teleporting war will erupt. With one of those two you at least give the party something to fight against. Here you just have another cliched setting and quite frankly, I don't see the appeal - if I can play a game with just dungeoncrawls and same old same old I can play Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Dragonalnce, so why should I choose setting in which everything will be undone by another war in future, that is bound to erupt? And I can sacrifice a bit of realism for it, nobody will die because of not applying mass teleport spells to history and if somebody would I can just homebrew ring of anti-teleport field or other greater dimension lock or whatever else I want. Even this for unathorized teleportations (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0652.html) will do.


It was never that and was always as attempt to make a setting that allowed all forms of play across a broad spectrum of levels and play styles while still maintaining suspension of disbelief, verisimilitude, and an inability for the PC's to drastically redefine the world with even a modicum of common sense.

Yeah, I'm not buying that. Any setting in which PCs cannot redefine it can be burned for all I care. If I'm a PC then I want to redefine the setting. I want to introduce the change that will have full, lasting impact and then I want to start another game 50 year later and see how things turned out. Your setting is good only if it would be created as consequence of PCs direct actions - they introduced teleportations, things went out of hand and now hundred years later new party is dealing with the mess. But as it is now? If party cannot change things, then it's a crappy setting.

Sorry, I'm not seeing any use of this. there is no need for a setting in which the only appeal is a bit of realism, when entire concept of most popular form of the game, dungeoncrawl, is completely devoid of it and removes any impact PCs can have on the world. And if I want the setting in which magic wars devastated the world, I'll play Dark Sun.

[Iamyourking]

You're joking right? The ability for the players to radically change the world is the absolute worst thing that an RPG can have; and the Tippyverse's overall stability is one of its best features. The only way that could be better was if it was an already established setting; that way there would already be important characters to do things and ensure that the players stay out of the story at large. Knowing that there is a good chance you will mess up the careful balance of a setting makes for miserable players, miserable DMs, and deeply unpleasant games; and if you keep it up too long you end with World of Warcraft's expansions.

[Gavinfoxx]

I thought one of the main points of playing pen and paper games over other types was the fact that you have agency and can have dramatic and lasting impacts on the world around you?

[Iamyourking]

Maybe, as long as it is minor and ultimately unimportant. You can still have interesting stories without any lasting effect though, and obviously ability to influence the world as a whole and gameplay are totally unrelated.

[TuggyNE]

[snip]

It sounds to me like you personally dislike several of the basic premises of the setting. That's fine, but it's impossible for that to translate into meaningful critique; attempting to do so boils down to "Your idea is stupid, here's how you should completely change your conception." This is radically different from critiquing other aspects of the setting, which are usually derived from the premises in some way, because there it's less about subjective personal preference and more about the internal logic of the setting.

If you don't like a premise, take it out in your own game, and see how the setting changes. Or just, y'know, don't use the setting. Don't just come into an explanation thread and say "Oh yeah, this is terrible, I don't like the basic idea here" — that's rude and doesn't help anyone. What would probably work better is to start a new thread with your ideas of how to modify the Tippyverse, and work from there.

[Gavinfoxx]

Maybe, as long as it is minor and ultimately unimportant. You can still have interesting stories without any lasting effect though, and obviously ability to influence the world as a whole and gameplay are totally unrelated.

What exactly do you mean by minor and unimportant? Lasting and dramatic is not minor and unimportant!

I want to be a hero who forever changes the face of the world... that's kinda the point of playing the game....

[MukkTB]

After some thought I've come to the opinion that a civilization would not need to get into single city states. In the modern era we have countries that include multiple cities even though the military possessions of any one city could wipe out multiple other cities. IDK. I mean if the enemy started porting in soldiers to attack something all the defenders have to do is port all their soldiers to the same place.

Edit - If battle is instead waged by some RAW legal equivalent of the locate city bomb then putting all of your civilization in one city is actually pretty foolish.

[Iamyourking]

Of course they're different things, that's the whole point. The world should be essentially the same when the game starts and when it ends, unless one of the actually important people, which is not and never will be the players, changes it. For example, one of my favorite RPGs is Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. I don't go into it thinking I'm going to kill Archaon or save the Empire from Orcs, I know perfectly well that at most I might play a minor part in a greater plot and not die horribly in the process. That's whats great about it, you can have your fun and be involved in a perfectly interesting, if small scale, story and know that when you're done the setting won't be noticably different from when you started.

However, this is getting off topic; so why don't you respond to this and we'll leave it at that?

[Gavinfoxx]

Of course they're different things, that's the whole point. The world should be essentially the same when the game starts and when it ends, unless one of the actually important people, which is not and never will be the players, changes it. For example, one of my favorite RPGs is Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. I don't go into it thinking I'm going to kill Archaon or save the Empire from Orcs, I know perfectly well that at most I might play a minor part in a greater plot and not die horribly in the process. That's whats great about it, you can have your fun and be involved in a perfectly interesting, if small scale, story and know that when you're done the setting won't be noticably different from when you started.

However, this is getting off topic; so why don't you respond to this and we'll leave it at that?

Uh. Why should this be the case? What you are describing is a particular type of gritty setting where player characters are essentially helpless to change things -- WFRP is at a MUCH lower power level. That's appropriate for that setting and that gaming style. However to say this is a universal truth and is desirable in all situations is completely and patently wrong. I, for the most part, prefer grand games where I DO make change, rather than ones that I don't. The ones where the setting doesn't dramatically react to what I do, I just play computer RPG's for that.

[Iamyourking]

I'm sorry, I shouldn't disparage people's personal preferences. I somewhat lost my temper because Man on Fire was coming off so strong about stable settings being bad and snapped at him; but now I've taken a few minutes to calm down and acknowledge that your way of playing is perfectly legitimate as long as you are willing to do the same for mine.

[Tavar]

The Players in the TV can effect things: they can try and make a new city. Find some ancient artifact. Defend their city and strike back in a war. Stop some growing dead magic zone.

Hell, they could even create one, dooming the world.

Yes, many of these aren't possible for a low level character, but that's not really a mark against the setting, unless you assume that every PC, by virtue of being a PC, is able to greatly change the setting.

[Eldan]

I'm sorry, I shouldn't disparage people's personal preferences. I somewhat lost my temper because Man on Fire was coming off so strong about stable settings being bad and snapped at him; but now I've taken a few minutes to calm down and acknowledge that your way of playing is perfectly legitimate as long as you are willing to do the same for mine.

I think what came of as being a bit annoying was how total you made your statement. You didn't say "I prefer games where players leave the world basically intact", you said "Players should not have an impact", which is very different.

As for me, I quite love games where the world is totally different in the beginning from how it was when it started of.

[Quellian-dyrae]

Yeah, I'm not buying that. Any setting in which PCs cannot redefine it can be burned for all I care. If I'm a PC then I want to redefine the setting. I want to introduce the change that will have full, lasting impact and then I want to start another game 50 year later and see how things turned out. Your setting is good only if it would be created as consequence of PCs direct actions - they introduced teleportations, things went out of hand and now hundred years later new party is dealing with the mess. But as it is now? If party cannot change things, then it's a crappy setting.

I could be wrong, but I don't think the "inability to change the setting" indicates that no matter what the PCs do, they ultimately have no effect. I mean, that certainly can be the case, but that would be a choice of the DM, not an aspect of the setting. What the stability of the setting does is make it so that a PC can't make such grand sweeping changes easily through exploitation of the rules. They have to actually work at it, have adventures...play the game, rather than play the system.

[Iamyourking]

I think what came of as being a bit annoying was how total you made your statement. You didn't say "I prefer games where players leave the world basically intact", you said "Players should not have an impact", which is very different.

As for me, I quite love games where the world is totally different in the beginning from how it was when it started of.

Which is precisely why I apologized, I was coming across too strong because I thought he was coming across too strong.

[Hecuba]

I could be wrong, but I don't think the "inability to change the setting" indicates that no matter what the PCs do, they ultimately have no effect. I mean, that certainly can be the case, but that would be a choice of the DM, not an aspect of the setting. What the stability of the setting does is make it so that a PC can't make such grand sweeping changes easily through exploitation of the rules. They have to actually work at it, have adventures...play the game, rather than play the system.

While a certain amount of player-induced change is necessary, there are limits if you're concerned with the internal consistency of a setting. If a level 15 character can fundamentally an vastly alter geopolitics to their favor, then why were geopolitics in that state to begin with? There are a limited number of ways to deal with this:

There haven't been any significant number of level 15 equivalent beings. (In this case, who are the players fighting?)
All prior and other current 15+ beings are incompetent or uninterested in geopolitical power.
They don't, because there are enough sufficiently more powerful beings in the setting to prevent the level 15 beings from doing so


Most settings take the last options, which then begs the question of why that significant a number of 15+ characters hasn't fundamentally changed society in any of a huge number of ways (i.e. Teleportation).

[Lord_Gareth]

Nothing that can defend an entire city, much less an entire nation. At least not for a price that even begins to approach reasonable.

I haven't yet caught up to the thread (reading it now), but upon seeing this I felt compelled to ask: what about Halaster's teleport cage, from Expedition to Undermountain? It takes for-freaking-ever to set up, but blocks teleportation pretty comprehensively, in or out.

[Quellian-dyrae]

While a certain amount of player-induced change is necessary, there are limits if you're concerned with the internal consistency of a setting. If a level 15 character can fundamentally an vastly alter geopolitics to their favor, then why were geopolitics in that state to begin with? There are a limited number of ways to deal with this:

There haven't been any significant number of level 15 equivalent beings. (In this case, who are the players fighting?)
All prior and other current 15+ beings are incompetent or uninterested in geopolitical power.
They don't, because there are enough sufficiently more powerful beings in the setting to prevent the level 15 beings from doing so


Most settings take the last options, which then begs the question of why that significant a number of 15+ characters hasn't fundamentally changed society in any of a huge number of ways (i.e. Teleportation).

Right. That's what I was basically getting at, that when one says the TV limits the ability of players to change the setting, it means they can't just use the D&D rules to utterly change the setting (possibly as a standard action).

I was just pointing out that that doesn't mean that the setting automatically nullifies the things the PCs accomplish through the game. PCs in the Tippyverse would still have just as many opportunities to be great heroes and leave the setting changed through their quests and adventures as they would in the Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Eberron, or wherever else.

[Hecuba]

I haven't yet caught up to the thread (reading it now), but upon seeing this I felt compelled to ask: what about Halaster's teleport cage, from Expedition to Undermountain? It takes for-freaking-ever to set up, but blocks teleportation pretty comprehensively, in or out.

That's actually the most efficient option available, IIRC. Ultimately however, it's still bypassed by an equal level spell (wish) and subsequently (or even contingently) brought down with a dispel. Moreover, without knowing where insertion will happen, you can't reply fast enough to prevent further insertion.

And finally, because overlapping and adjacent iterations of that spell explicitly merge to a single ongoing effect, I believe one targeted dispel magic ends the whole deal. (I'd actually have to double check this- I recall the wording for the interaction of an area dispel with ongoing effects being limited to the area, I can't recall the precise interaction of a targeted dispel and an ongoing spell).

Generalized, the problem isn't that teleport defenses don't exist. But, because that the because of the precision and range of teleportation in 3.5, any large scale teleportation defense must be more effective than the spells it defends against. Instead, every defense can be bypassed by a well prepared equal-level caster.

[Man on Fire]

It sounds to me like you personally dislike several of the basic premises of the setting. That's fine, but it's impossible for that to translate into meaningful critique; attempting to do so boils down to "Your idea is stupid, here's how you should completely change your conception." This is radically different from critiquing other aspects of the setting, which are usually derived from the premises in some way, because there it's less about subjective personal preference and more about the internal logic of the setting.

If you don't like a premise, take it out in your own game, and see how the setting changes. Or just, y'know, don't use the setting. Don't just come into an explanation thread and say "Oh yeah, this is terrible, I don't like the basic idea here" — that's rude and doesn't help anyone. What would probably work better is to start a new thread with your ideas of how to modify the Tippyverse, and work from there.

"Don't like, don't read" much? Sorry, but in RPGs the premise is the basis, the most important thing that drags people into the game. Here? Here the premise is "the same old only everything you do doesn't matter". Why should anybody want to play that? If the premise is flawed and uninteresting then it should be changed and entire setting should be changed with it.


You're joking right? The ability for the players to radically change the world is the absolute worst thing that an RPG can have; and the Tippyverse's overall stability is one of its best features. The only way that could be better was if it was an already established setting; that way there would already be important characters to do things and ensure that the players stay out of the story at large. Knowing that there is a good chance you will mess up the careful balance of a setting makes for miserable players, miserable DMs, and deeply unpleasant games; and if you keep it up too long you end with World of Warcraft's expansions.


Maybe, as long as it is minor and ultimately unimportant. You can still have interesting stories without any lasting effect though, and obviously ability to influence the world as a whole and gameplay are totally unrelated.


Of course they're different things, that's the whole point. The world should be essentially the same when the game starts and when it ends, unless one of the actually important people, which is not and never will be the players, changes it. For example, one of my favorite RPGs is Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. I don't go into it thinking I'm going to kill Archaon or save the Empire from Orcs, I know perfectly well that at most I might play a minor part in a greater plot and not die horribly in the process. That's whats great about it, you can have your fun and be involved in a perfectly interesting, if small scale, story and know that when you're done the setting won't be noticably different from when you started.

However, this is getting off topic; so why don't you respond to this and we'll leave it at that?


I'm sorry, I shouldn't disparage people's personal preferences. I somewhat lost my temper because Man on Fire was coming off so strong about stable settings being bad and snapped at him; but now I've taken a few minutes to calm down and acknowledge that your way of playing is perfectly legitimate as long as you are willing to do the same for mine.

If it wasn't for that apology, I would give you pretty angry rant.
Listen, I understand that some people just want from the setting a backstory for dungeoncrawls, a setting they know, where nothing ever changes but it's full of fun NPCs that are cool and if you try hard then one day you may be as cool as them. I understand that some players just care about pimping their characters, showing of all their cool gear and stuff. I know that some players like peace and stability of status quo, that they want the world in which they know what to expect.

I'm not one of them.

For me the best fun in the game is to see how my character affect the world, how he changes his surroundings. If I want to kill Drizzt, then I don't want DM to pull things out of his anus to save his stupid drow buttlocks only because it would change the setting too much. Going against estabilished canon can sometime give great results, see this (http://spoonyexperiment.com/2012/03/04/counter-monkey-thieves-world-part-1-poor-impulse-control/) story (http://spoonyexperiment.com/2012/03/04/counter-monkey-thieves-world-part-2-the-chicago-way/) - they completely wretched the setting but it was probably one of the best, most epic games I ever heard about. Sure, going against things all the time is wrong but the possibility should be there because it may lead to amazing story. Tippyverse removes that, nothing that players will do will matter because next teleporting war will snip it away.


The Players in the TV can effect things: they can try and make a new city. Find some ancient artifact. Defend their city and strike back in a war. Stop some growing dead magic zone.

Hell, they could even create one, dooming the world.

City gets destroyed by teleporting army from another city and Tippy himself said it's impossible to defend from teleporting army. Dead magic zones aren't anything wizards couldn't handle. And what use is ancient artifact? If I cannot use it to have some impact on the world, it's just another decoration, it has no more appeal than in any other setting. There are no plot hooks or concepts players may hold to, there are no threats for them to overcome, it has nothing other games doesn't have except for a little bit more of realism. Look at published D&D settings:
* Greyhawk is the setting that gives you generic fantasy, he was there first and for that reason he wanted to give people what most of them wanted.
* Dark Sun gives you destroyed, dying world in which your players must fight to survive, asking the question how far your heroes are willing to go.
* Planescape gives you this amazing, bizarre city that's unlike anything that exist in the D&D, with all those crazy races and beings and planes to explore, having strong proto new weird feeling.
* Thieves World and Lankhmar allow you to play in worlds of popular series of books.
* Spelljammer combines fantasy and science-fiction
* Mystara gives you sky pirates
* Ravenloft and Masque of Red Death are horror games in typical middle ages or in Victoria-Era-esque worlds

What does Tippyverse gives to you? Nothing Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms and Dragolance don't. Only in Forgotten Realms I at least have Drizzt to kill to become most wanted criminal, while in Tippyverse my story won't be even sang by travelling bards in inns because conventional means of travel are dead and there are no inns.


I could be wrong, but I don't think the "inability to change the setting" indicates that no matter what the PCs do, they ultimately have no effect. I mean, that certainly can be the case, but that would be a choice of the DM, not an aspect of the setting. What the stability of the setting does is make it so that a PC can't make such grand sweeping changes easily through exploitation of the rules. They have to actually work at it, have adventures...play the game, rather than play the system.

But making those sweeping changes is also a chance of making interesting story. Good example would be The Squirt Gun Wars (http://spoonyexperiment.com/2011/10/08/shadowrun-the-squirt-gun-wars/) quite fun story that started when players explored the rules to do something very insane. I see no appeal in the game where I know there are things my character is not allowed to do only because it would break estabilished canon, it breaks the illusion.

[demigodus]

Sure, going against things all the time is wrong but the possibility should be there because it may lead to amazing story. Tippyverse removes that, nothing that players will do will matter because next teleporting war will snip it away.

I realize I probably shouldn't cherry pick, but responding to your entire post would take forever, and this does more or less seem to summerize your problems with the Tippyverse. If I'm wrong about that, sorry.

Anyways, the Tippyverse doesn't remove your idea to change the setting. It just makes it ridiculously hard. It makes it so that if you want your characters to have an exceptional effect on the setting, they have to be exceptional. PCs not auto-succeeding on rewriting the entire campaign setting is not a bad thing really.

If the campaign setting is held together by DM fiat, or defined powers that so far surpass the PCs it might as well be DM fiat, I can understand that being a problem. However, if the campaign setting is kept consistent/constant because of NPCs with similar powers to the PCs simply acting intelligently, that isn't a problem. In such a case, the standard for changing the setting is out-witting the person who wrote the setting. It gives the PCs a nice challenge if they want to rewrite the landscape, and gives them an internally consistent world to work in that they won't accidentally change/crash/wreck if they just want to operate in it.

[Andorax]

It seems as if one of the rules to participate in this thread is to either express awe at how amazing Emperor Tippy is or else try and find a reason why the rules don't mean what he says they mean and the whole thing "doesn't work".

Not that I'm unimpressed, by any stretch, but I'd rather try an obligatory attempt at poking a hole. According to Basic postulate #1, "all Epic magic" does not exist. According to the ELH, any magical item with a market price of over 200,000 GP is by definition an Epic magic item. As such, while Teleport Circles remain, and some of the lesser traps (food and water for instance), some of the higher-end items, including the wish-traps, are illegal by the very rules of the Tippyverse itself.


Ok, with that out of the way...


Rise and Fall of the Tippyverse


One of the fundamental laws of western civilization (generally speaking) is that one needs to be a productive member of society in order to enjoy the full benefits of same. Hopefully, you can generally agree with this premise without seriously digressing the discussion in this thread.

One of the issues I'm seeing with the Tippyverse as described is that it is providing all the "necessities of life" in essentially unlimited supply from the 1st level NPC's point of view. Food, water, shelter and clothing all provided. Protection in the form of an unassailable, indestructable, and (presumably) infallable police force...backed, when necessary, with all manner of divinative and compulsion magics. It would seem, then, that the Tippyverse has the underlying structure to create practical, functional Socialism.

I also wouldn't be surprised to see, eventually, a move towards globalization of the City society. With so much mobility, the Cities would eventually tend towards a single entity.

So then we turn to science fiction, and ask the question of how the Tippyverse will turn out. Will it tend towards Benevolent Socialism (idealized in Star Trek's Federation, where the removal of economic incentive leads to the "challenge to improve oneself" as the driving motivation of human nature)? Let's see..transporters, replicators...sounds promising, if you've an optimistic view of human and demihuman nature.

Or will it move towards an unmotivated, lazy, self-centered society, Selfish Socialism, that eventually is unable to produce the kind of high-level powerful individuals necessary to sustain and expand upon itself. It is to the latter that I find the most interesting potential. Imagine, if you will, that a scene out of the history of the Dune novels is what winds up playing out. People become fat and lazy on the society-provided wealth and comfort. Only a few people ever bother to do anything significant (and as a result, actually gain levels). Vast hordes of pacified L1-2 humans of irrelevant classes clog the city, following the rules to stay out of the dictatorial grasp of the mechanized police force, but otherwise not bothering to do much else.

Eventually, there are precious few high level caster-types left to actually run the show, sit on the city councils, and make the decisions. Over time, they'll die off, and replacing them will become increasingly more difficult. Weed down the populace sufficiently, and it doesn't take much to envision a situation where one or two powerful individuals with a particularly anti-social agenda could decide to 'rewrite the rules' and eliminate anyone who gets in their way. Siezing the reins of power, eliminating the rivals on the council, and using the mechanized police force to do whatever THEY demand. Again, we're taking a chapter right out of the history of Dune (and the ban on "thinking machines" that resulted from this particular era).

Say it all ends in violence? Low-level but determined and charismatic individuals eventually motivate the masses to rise up against the construct armies of the Cities and the handful of lich-lords that command them. The Tippyverse Cities fall into ruin. The circles still work, so the revolution spreads throughout. The traps still work...well, some of them...so society is still able to cobble together a meagre existance. But the ability to actually make them is lost, and a society forced to rebuild from such a catastrophic loss could be interesting indeed.

Particular note taken if in fact laws are passed that forbid the very structure that led to the Tippyverse coming about in the first place. Some areas might intentinally destroy the circles leading to their ruined city to get "off" the global grid and protect themselves. Others might establish inquisitions to destroy anyone who shows sufficient arcane, divine, or psionic might to attempt to impose a new magiocracy (The Githyanki model, without the Lich Queen).

If sufficient resources didn't survive the war, and sufficient people did, it might even be necessary to start reclaiming the "outside world" (scene reminicent of Aeon Flux) and finding a way to compete with those barbarian kingdoms that never gave up on living live the "real way" and are much, much better at it now.

As interesting as the Tippyverse is in full swing, I think it might be even MORE interesting as a falled civilization.

[JoeYounger]

Over time, they'll die off, and replacing them will become increasingly more difficult.

You won't ever have to replace them. Tippy already said that the leaders of the city are all immortal via various means.

[Man on Fire]

I too agree that Tippyverse would work much better as a failed civilization. I find an use for it in my campaing idea, only going with it much futher away - magic wars destroyed civilization, reducing it to buchn of small villages that struggle to survive, many joined raiding bands of monsters, some monsters decided to become farmers. Gods took their magic away, wizards, druids, psions and the others, already almost whiped out by war, are hunted down by inquisition, the ancient knowledge has been lost. Small group of heroes struggle to regain lost knowledge, to bring back magic to the world and now use it for good. Basically Earthsea during Dark Times with a touch of Berserk. Devastated world in anarchy, where tyrants rise and fall, bandits and monsters rampage, people desperately try to survive and players may be the only one to save the world, if they can find the knowledge that doomed it once. Main hook is based on isolation of wizards and similiar guys - players are limited to have no more than two casters/manifesters in a party and only pure ones (no Paladins, Bards, Duskblades, probably even Clerics) to put emphasis on how rare and lonely they are. Won't really work as a setting, but as a campaing it would do well, with party working to bring back the magic to the world, to save it from slowly dying.

I'll need to try this one out once.

[Demonic_Spoon]

Food, water, shelter and clothing all provided. Protection in the form of an unassailable, indestructable, and (presumably) infallable police force...backed, when necessary, with all manner of divinative and compulsion magics.

Only a few people ever bother to do anything significant (and as a result, actually gain levels). Vast hordes of pacified L1-2 humans of irrelevant classes clog the city, following the rules to stay out of the dictatorial grasp of the mechanized police force, but otherwise not bothering to do much else.

Eventually, there are precious few high level caster-types left to actually run the show, sit on the city councils, and make the decisions. Over time, they'll die off, and replacing them will become increasingly more difficult. Weed down the populace sufficiently, and it doesn't take much to envision a situation where one or two powerful individuals with a particularly anti-social agenda could decide to 'rewrite the rules' and eliminate anyone who gets in their way. Seizing the reins of power, eliminating the rivals on the council, and using the mechanized police force to do whatever THEY demand.

Say it all ends in violence? Low-level but determined and charismatic individuals eventually motivate the masses to rise up against the construct armies of the Cities and the handful of lich-lords that command them. The Tippyverse Cities fall into ruin. The circles still work, so the revolution spreads throughout. The traps still work...well, some of them...so society is still able to cobble together a meagre existance. But the ability to actually make them is lost, and a society forced to rebuild from such a catastrophic loss could be interesting indeed.

So yeah, couple of problems you have there. How are the level 1-2 peasants going to defeat the construct police force? The power of being able to die like lemmings? Then there's the various means of compulsion that'd be available to the magicrocy if we're going the evil route, not the least of which is monstrous thrall, mindrape, dominate etc. Also, as previously mentioned the casters won't just die. But let's not get into a discussion of the various ways to cheat death.

Even if the higher level mages start dying, new members can be inaugurated into the ranks via mind seed, memory bottle, barghest feeding, psychic reformation etc.

Even if the mages are overtoppled, this doesn't seem to equate itself to all the magic traps suddenly failing, since they're self-sustaining. Unless the people went on a sudden vandalism spree the system should continue to function well into the foreseeable future while alternatives are put into place.

@Man on Fire: I don't quite see how you equate tippyverse with stasis, sure its difficult to effect the essential underpinnings of the setting, but not impossible, you also seem to assume that a teleportation war is imminent, not sure where you're getting that. A example of how you could dramatically effect the setting, without extreme cheese, is getting the vecna-blooded template to avoid divinations, wear some antimagic chains, start killing the mages that don't have initiate of mystra/persisted incite magic.