An unwinnable encounter?

[Aegis013]

Alright, fellow playgrounders, I am in need of your brilliant minds and craftiness. In the game I'm in we are about to enter an encounter that I believe the DM intends for us not to win. I seriously believe that anything we will try to do will fail, but I'm still going to give it my best shot, and I'd like to have you gentlemen help me discover what our best shot is.

A few things to clarify for this: There are no psionics in the campaign (unfortunately)
The Party is this, all level 10 or ECL 10
-Me - the Killer Gnome Shadowcraft Mage (party face, "god", general utility guy) (Enchantment, Evocation and Necromancy banned)
-BSF - The Warforged Warblade (hits pretty hard... not much else, I really hope he picks up Iron Heart Surge)
-Swiss Army Knife - The druid (new player, is pretty helpful thanks to inherent power of druid, and me using polymorph to help him gain form familiarities like Dire Lion)
-The Corpse (acrobatic rogue)
-The Buffmonkey (the cleric, the player quit attending due to work, so I have minor control of the character, usually that means casting DMM persistent mass lesser vigor each day)
-The NPC follower (a ranger, we can tell him to do things and he will, he's basically mindless. He's there so guests can play if they want to)

All of us have a 7HD, ECL 10 small or tiny dragon. They aren't strong enough to provide any realistic support.
Dire Bat, and wolf (animal companions of the druid and ranger) also not strong enough to provide any realistic support.

The enemy:
A 900 ft long flying battle cruiser. It has a main gun which we saw destroy a huge navy vessel and boil a large part of the ocean in a single shot, it is equipped with flak cannons for close range combat.

This ship is transporting a powerful Golem army from the plane of Mechanus which is unleashing a deadly wave of destruction across the entire continent.

It is surrounded by an enormous magical barrier (non specific barrier, Caster Level 50)

Underneath the barrier is an AMF consuming the entire ship.

This means the ship is run on futuristic technology (metagaming)
My character believes there is one or more deities on the ship and that we have to fight gods to save our home country from annihilation.

Here are our resources:
due to Residual Metamagic, a bag of holding, a lesser metamagic rod of persistent spell, I have a 6th level silent image hanging out in a bag of holding that I carry to do all of my evocation and conjuration(summoning) and (creation) spells for me.

We also have a Greater Metamagic Rod of Quicken, and an Infinite Scrollcase (50 scrolls of any spell ready to go).

My Caster level can be temporarily and repeatedly boosted up to 14 by magic items and buffs, and if I can, I'll get a Ring of Arcane Might (haven't been able to get one) to jump that to 15.

The Plans So Far:
My first plan was to hide in a rope trick and let everybody die. That however is far from in character, who will always try to stop the enemy unless there's an AMF... then he'll probably run away, and living a life of hiding from a golem army seems very undesirable, and it would essentially break the game.

My second plan was to use Scrolls of Wish (Infinite Scrollcase) which I can fairly reliably cast, to create the magic items and effects necessary to become the omnificer, and convince the gods to ascend us to divinity and/or smite our foes. This however would absolutely break the game.

My current plan, is to use a wings of swift flying phantom steed with invisibility on both me and the steed, while the druid casts control weather (via scroll from the infinite scrollcase) then disjunction the shield (which will only knock it down temporarily...somehow) and then drop Quickened Cloudkill followed by Cloudkill, followed by Quickened Cloudkill... all in all 6 Cloudkills onto the ship from above. This hopefully will pour into the openings of the ship and kill any and all living creatures inside via con damage. The constructs won't be effected and I have no reasonable way of dealing with them. My understanding is they number in the millions.

So playgrounders, what is our best bet here? If any more information is necessary or useful, please ask.

[Emperor Tippy]

There are a couple of options depending upon how straight the DM is playing.

1) Get a scroll of Superior Invisibility, cast fly, use scroll, teleport in front of airship and ahead of it's barrier.
2) Use a scroll of Invisible Spell Prismatic Sphere in the air in the path of the ship.
3) Make PS permanent if a longer duration is needed.

Ideally the ship will crash into the sphere and get a hole straight through it as everything that touches the sphere is destroyed (this ignores AMF). This should work assuming that the DM is giving any chance and playing by the rules.

Other options:
1) Use a scroll of Miracle and pray that a deity or two is on your side. It's random enough that your DM might even smile upon you and let it work.
2) Use an XP free wish to get a scroll of gate at CL 1,000,000 or so. Use a scroll of Shapechange to become a Lilitu so that you can actually use the scroll (Su ability to auto succeed on any UMD check). Gate in about 99% of the epic monsters in existence and tell them all to kill the ship and everything on it. This is known as the nuclear option in problem solving.
3)Become Pun-Pun. This is known as the divide by zero option.

[Elboxo]

1) Hoooollly sheeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaat


2) Sounds like your cloudkill is a good idea, once that's done it's job, is there anyway for you to *SAFELY* board the vessel and have some people create a distraction or not, and then turn it around, or into space or something?

Alternatively fire proton torpedoes into the reactor core and then finish the session with: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoPWALM2riQ&feature=related

[Aegis013]

Thank you gentlemen, for your quick responses.
Thank you Emporer Tippy, will an invisible prismatic sphere break through a generic CL 50 magical barrier? Since the magical barriers details are DM fiat, and a boosted to around 60 spellcraft check couldn't identify the properties? Or would it just be safer to disjunction it? I know there will be at least a few minutes before it reappears.

[Doc Roc]

I can get you inside, if you need in.

In the planar handbook, there is a thing called the breaching obelisk. It goes to any plane, even private ones like demiplanes, and arrives where-ever you want it to. Needless to say, it's pretty much the most useful thing ever for certain kinds of gambits. If I remember correctly, it even gives you EX Timestop as the greater ability as a planar touchstone.

Interestingly, it'll still get you there safely, even if you can't get back out, since LoE isn't established until after arrival, and an AMF is all that stops it.

Next, we need a kill-tech. For this, we want to reliably destroy everything in about 1000 meters. This is doable, but not easy. So I ask you....

Do you want real ultimate power?

[Emperor Tippy]

Thank you gentlemen, for your quick responses.
Thank you Emporer Tippy, will an invisible prismatic sphere break through a generic CL 50 magical barrier? Since the magical barriers details are DM fiat, and a boosted to around 60 spellcraft check couldn't identify the properties? Or would it just be safer to disjunction it? I know there will be at least a few minutes before it reappears.

You might as well chuck a disjunction at the barrier right before it hits the sphere, no reason to court DM fiat disaster.


I can get you inside, if you need in.

In the planar handbook, there is a thing called the breaching obelisk. It goes to any plane, even private ones like demiplanes, and arrives where-ever you want it to. Needless to say, it's pretty much the most useful thing ever for certain kinds of gambits.

Interestingly, it'll still get you there safely, even if you can't get back out, since LoE isn't established until after arrival, and an AMF is all that stops it.

Next, we need a kill-tech. For this, we want to reliably destroy everything in about 1000 meters. This is doable, but not easy. So I ask you....

Do you want real ultimate power?

Wish alone will drop you inside, transport travelers can ignore local effects.

[Aegis013]

I don't want to go into a gigantic Anti-Magic Field. I really really do not want to do that. All my character has is magic, after that, I'm down to a crossbow. Plus there are millions of construct enemies of various sizes on board the ship. Getting on board is suicide. I want to kill it from a distance.

[Doc Roc]

I don't want to go into a gigantic Anti-Magic Field. I really really do not want to do that. All my character has is magic, after that, I'm down to a crossbow. Plus there are millions of construct enemies of various sizes on board the ship. Getting on board is suicide. I want to kill it from a distance.

Destroy it from afar.....
Wellllp..... Is it immune to near infinite amounts of lava?

[BobVosh]

Destroy it from afar.....
Wellllp..... Is it immune to near infinite amounts of lava?

Follow up question: Is there a dwarven fortress near by? >.>

[Aegis013]

Follow up question: Is there a dwarven fortress near by? >.>

I could get to a dwarven fortress in a couple of days, but by then the ship will be on my home town.

I don't think it would be immune to near infinite amounts of lava, but it has an anti-gravity engine on it that is entirely mundane. (Which my character thinks is actually the work of a deity, rather than technology) - so my character would think it would probably be able to survive lava, but that might kill everything on board, which is good.

[TroubleBrewing]

Destroy it from afar.....
Wellllp..... Is it immune to near infinite amounts of lava?


Follow up question: Is there a dwarven fortress near by? >.>

Follow-up to the follow-up: Boatmurdered?

[BobVosh]

Follow-up to the follow-up: Boatmurdered?

Shh, if you speak that name the elephants shall hear you and come for you...be quiet if you know what is good for you...

[Darth_Versity]

Not to be the spoiler of fun, but if your DM has put this in for plot reasons and your pretty sure he doesn't want you to take it down, shouldn't you, well, leave it?

I'm no big fan of railroading, but as a DM I know that sometimes it is needed for the story and when players try to mess with that it just creates bad feelings.

[Duncan_Ruadrik]

an unwinnable encounter you say? Call Captain Kirk!

I think that's what the Kobayashi Maru would say. >.>

[Aegis013]

Not to be the spoiler of fun, but if your DM has put this in for plot reasons and your pretty sure he doesn't want you to take it down, shouldn't you, well, leave it?

I'm no big fan of railroading, but as a DM I know that sometimes it is needed for the story and when players try to mess with that it just creates bad feelings.

I think it is intended to be unwinnable, but he ended the last session early to give us more time to think of plans, which I was against, since he's wasting our time and cutting our sessions short if it's supposed to be unbeatable while encouraging us to try to beat it.

Any encouragement to try to beat it is all I need and I'm going to at least try.
Especially since, as far as we know, we have no way out other than hiding in rope trick until I can cast Genesis and abandoning the world in favor of a timeless demi plane. The Golem Army will eventually cover the entire known world, if we fail to stop it, there will be no hiding from millions and millions of sleepless infinitely dedicated creatures hunting down every living thing.

Plus, it's partly a defiance thing, we spent the last couple months preparing for this, uniting all the kingdoms against the common threat, and all for naught because of DM fiat? That's horribly irksome. I've let him know that, and that I have plans, but am going to discuss them with everybody before the next session starts. If he asks us to basically play totally out of character and throw up our hands and surrender, I will do that to the reasonable extend I think my character would/could (probably hiding in a rope trick and praying for dear life), but I want the DM to know that we have the ability to do SOMETHING, and if he wants an unbeatable, unavoidable encounter, just don't give the thing stats and say it up front.

To be clear, I'm perfectly fine with running into obstacles that are currently too challenging for the party, as long as you can avoid them, or slip past them, or just go somewhere else. This one is going to hunt us relentlessly until it happens, the sooner we try to stop it, the fewer countries get obliterated by constructs.

[paddyfool]

Given what your character believes is going on: you need intel. Seriously, in character: you believe there's a god or gods on board, but know little or nothing about them. How do you find out about gods? Talk to some other ones. Get talking, negotiating, wheeling and dealing; see if you can get the full scoop on this thing, and on what it would take to kill it dead, from the [god of knowledge], as a first priority. An Army of Assorted Archons from the [gods of general goodness] wouldn't hurt either (well, it wouldn't hurt you, anyway).

But enough about harnessing new assets. Let's look at the ones you have already.


Here are our resources:
due to Residual Metamagic, a bag of holding, a lesser metamagic rod of persistent spell, I have a 6th level silent image hanging out in a bag of holding that I carry to do all of my evocation and conjuration(summoning) and (creation) spells for me.

We also have a Greater Metamagic Rod of Quicken, and an Infinite Scrollcase (50 scrolls of any spell ready to go).



we spent the last couple months preparing for this, uniting all the kingdoms against the common threat,

Ah. Let me suggest a plan of battle:

Step 1: Harness all resources possible from the kingdoms united. Above all, get every spellcaster on side, the elites of their military, and any fliers they have. Encourage them to also try and recruit further support, if there's time; dragons would be nice, for instance, if a plea can be made to their enlightened self-interest.

Step 2: The day before, generate 50 scrolls of Gate, and get some Solars or other suitably high-powered beings on your side. Or other summoned forces, wherever you can find them.

Step 3: On the day, do whatever you can to get your force to an attack position outside the arc of this warship's main weapon. Maybe start off with a crapton of disjunctions to bring that barrier down (you can get 50 from your scrollcase alone, and if 50 isn't enough to do it, more probably wouldn't be either), followed by a crapton of general magical artillery from every schmuck that can cast a long-range spell. Light that great big target up. Then go in with an aerial assault - every flier that you could summon, recruit, etc., can dive (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnTHypbLlkE) in while there's an opening. Maybe try to teleport in some hulking monstrosities that can't fly (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/tarrasque.htm) as well.

Step 4: While the enemy's distracted, you and your buddies can lead some small elite force to take out whatever the best intel you can find suggests might be the fortress' weak point (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXIqfHI0hQY).

Step 5: Look awesome. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0119.html) :smallbiggrin:

[Fearan]

How about you just Ice Assassin the battlecruiser?
Follow with a barrage of Disjunctions to strip away barrier and AMF (better let some mook do it unless you can reliebly do DC 25 will save). Finish with gating in some rust dragons.

[paddyfool]

If you could somehow get the thing through a portal to some target-rich environment of an opposed alignment (e.g. the Abyss), that should also do the job for you quite nicely.

[Keegan__D]

Are you actually certain they're evil?

[Quietus]

On the lava idea : Find a plane which is filled with the stuff. Open a gate to that plane inside the biggest pool of lava you can find. The material plane side of it should be placed directly above the ship. One scroll of gate to see if the magical barrier stops nonmagical lava. Either way it should look very damn cool.

[Doc Roc]

There are also abusive ways of shorting the cast time on the various Create Planar Breach spells, which can allow you to basically stitch your reality to the ceiling of the multiverse.


Just saying.


Also, Marvelous Pigments (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/tt/20070724a) can paint holes in stuff. Even walls of force, if you can get the paint to stick.

Finally, metafaculty. J...just metafaculty.

[TroubleBrewing]

Also, Marvelous Pigments (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/tt/20070724a) can paint holes in stuff. Even walls of force, if you can get the paint to stick.

Sovereign Glue, Marvelous Pigments, and a crucible?

As I understand it, you have a short amount of time before SG "sets" and becomes permanent. Use that time to mix the pigments in with the glue, and VOILA! A permanent whatever-you-just-painted.

[Aegis013]

Hmm obtaining new assets might be a bit difficult. I think we have less than 12 hours before this thing reaches us, so some of these plans would be hard to pull off, half of the time getting really meh magical items is near impossible, and half of the time it's easy to get absurdly powerful gear in this campaign. So obtaining new allies isn't that likely.

I suppose I could use my wand of sending to send some messages to various gods and see if they respond, but the only god who has done anything in this campaign so far is Tiamat in the backdrop of the campaign, a minor deity with dominion over drakes and minor dragons (on the enemy's side, we've seen the BBEG collaborating with it), and Bahamut, who sent us an aspect to give us some really cryptic messages and managed to be of no help to anybody.

Honestly, considering Bahamut hinted that he knew exactly what was going to happen and is doing nothing, I think getting the gods involved without an infinity preform(god attracting haiku) check isn't going to be reasonable.

Once again I thank you for all of your helpful suggestions and will weigh them carefully.

[Elboxo]

Given what your character believes is going on: you need intel.... Seriously, in character: you believe there's a god or gods on board, but know little or nothing about them. How do you find out about gods? Talk to some other ones. Get talking, negotiating, wheeling and dealing; see if you can get the full scoop on this thing, and on what it would take to kill it dead, from the [god of knowledge], as a first priority. An Army of Assorted Archons from the [gods of general goodness] wouldn't hurt either (well, it wouldn't hurt you, anyway).

But enough about harnessing new assets. Let's look at the ones you have already.





Ah. Let me suggest a plan of battle:

Step 1: Harness all resources possible from the kingdoms united. Above all, get every spellcaster on side, the elites of their military, and any fliers they have. Encourage them to also try and recruit further support, if there's time; dragons would be nice, for instance, if a plea can be made to their enlightened self-interest.

Step 2: The day before, generate 50 scrolls of Gate, and get some Solars or other suitably high-powered beings on your side. Or other summoned forces, wherever you can find them.

Step 3: On the day, do whatever you can to get your force to an attack position outside the arc of this warship's main weapon. Maybe start off with a crapton of disjunctions to bring that barrier down (you can get 50 from your scrollcase alone, and if 50 isn't enough to do it, more probably wouldn't be either), followed by a crapton of general magical artillery from every schmuck that can cast a long-range spell. Light that great big target up. Then go in with an aerial assault - every flier that you could summon, recruit, etc., can dive (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnTHypbLlkE) in while there's an opening. Maybe try to teleport in some hulking monstrosities that can't fly (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/tarrasque.htm) as well.

Step 4: While the enemy's distracted, you and your buddies can lead some small elite force to take out whatever the best intel you can find suggests might be the fortress' weak point (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXIqfHI0hQY).

Step 5: Look awesome. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0119.html) :smallbiggrin:


I'm glad someone got my idea, +1

[Jack_Simth]

There's a number of ways.

One Plan:
You've got Shrink item, right?
So here's what you do:

You get a LOT of boulders, and turn them into pebbles.
You put the pebbles into the bag of holding.
You fly up above the thing, and disjoin the barrier.
You turn the bag of holding inside out.

The pebbles fall to the ship, which, thanks to the AMF, means that you're now pelting the ship with a LOT of boulders. From a very high distance. Falling objects that are heavy do a LOT of damage. Smash, smash, smash. Hopefully enough to ground the ship.

Looks like a few other plans have been mentioned....

[Aegis013]

I like this shrink item plan. My hometown has the largest collection of mages in the world (although I think at level 10, I'm the most powerful mage in the world) and they should have the ability to shrink me some giant rocks. My Silent Image can make them with Minor and/or Major Creation. I have a bag of holding, which I can use, plus this can be done in conjunction with the invisible prismatic sphere and the Cloudkills.

Thanks again guys.

[Jack_Simth]

I like this shrink item plan. My hometown has the largest collection of mages in the world (although I think at level 10, I'm the most powerful mage in the world) and they should have the ability to shrink me some giant rocks. My Silent Image can make them with Minor and/or Major Creation. I have a bag of holding, which I can use, plus this can be done in conjunction with the invisible prismatic sphere and the Cloudkills.

Thanks again guys.
Rocks plan hinges on the Antimagic Field in and around the ship. Minor and Major creation have a duration, so would go away in the AMF. This somewhat defeats the purpose of dropping the rocks in the first place.

[Doc Roc]

Alternatively, do you have 8 hours? 8 hours is enough for us to rebuild your character so that it contains the initiate of mystra feat...

Any idea what the caster level on that AMF is?

[Aegis013]

Rocks plan hinges on the Antimagic Field in and around the ship. Minor and Major creation have a duration, so would go away in the AMF. This somewhat defeats the purpose of dropping the rocks in the first place.

So they do. Thanks for pointing that out. I'll just have the image cast Wall of Stone repeatedly I suppose. Duration: Instantaneous, so they should just be mundane rocks post casting.

[Aegis013]

Alternatively, do you have 8 hours? 8 hours is enough for us to rebuild your character so that it contains the initiate of mystra feat...

Any idea what the caster level on that AMF is?

I would guess somewhere around 60-70+, we've been running into things of that caster level in regards to this ship, and I know (metagaming) that the AMF is produced by an entirely mundane item, via futuristic technology that blurs with magic, so I'm not even sure disjunction can prevent them from just switching it back on. My character still just thinks there is a god on board.

The DM gave up some details too easily.

[Bhaakon]

I don't want to go into a gigantic Anti-Magic Field. I really really do not want to do that. All my character has is magic, after that, I'm down to a crossbow. Plus there are millions of construct enemies of various sizes on board the ship. Getting on board is suicide. I want to kill it from a distance.

Assume that the enormous future-tech airship and it's golem army is made of metal, I'm going to suggest a simple solution.

1) Gather as many rust monsters as you can find. I'm sure that you can figure a way to get them.

2) teleport in your rust monster army.

3) repeat as needed.

You can also do this with enormous vats of non-magical metal-eating acid and molten lava, but I think the rust monsters have more panache.

[Doc Roc]

I would guess somewhere around 60-70+, we've been running into things of that caster level in regards to this ship, and I know (metagaming) that the AMF is produced by an entirely mundane item, via futuristic technology that blurs with magic, so I'm not even sure disjunction can prevent them from just switching it back on. My character still just thinks there is a god on board.

The DM gave up some details too easily.

Well, I mean, we CAN get your CL into the 70s range, and get you initiate of mystra, but it will be seriously hideous. This whole thing sounds like it's the set up for some epic deus ex machina.

[Aegis013]

Well, I mean, we CAN get your CL into the 70s range, and get you initiate of mystra, but it will be seriously hideous. This whole thing sounds like it's the set up for some epic deus ex machina.

It sure does. I want to have some plans anyway, since the DM cut the final session short to "give us more time to plan". Which if it's going to be a deus ex machina type event, why would we want/need to plan?

Edit: I'm not sure I want to rearrange any of my feats, the only ones I have that aren't prereqs for PrC's are the Heighten Spell/Earth Spell trick for Shadowcraft Mage, Signature Spell: Silent Image, and Residual Metamagic. Plus, even with a CL of 70+, I don't really want to try to go through the nonsense of it. I think we can make some reasonable plans with what we have.

[Ziegander]

A lot of the suggestions here are sound advice, but what about that "non specific barrier" that's surrounding the AMF? How are you punching through that? You don't even know what it is or how it operates. What affect would you imagine a Disintegrate spell would have on it?

[Aegis013]

A lot of the suggestions here are sound advice, but what about that "non specific barrier" that's surrounding the AMF? How are you punching through that? You don't even know what it is or how it operates? What affect would you imagine a Disintegrate spell would have on it?

I don't know, but due to a misinterpretation of the dispel rules (which was fixed later) I know it is subject to dispel (I used a greater dispelling crossbow and managed to dispel it, illegally, now we know that isn't actually possible without more CL boosters) and if the shield goes down it'll be down for probably something to the effect of 1d4 minutes (it was down for 4 minutes and came back up. We later realized what we had done, didn't matter though we didn't manage to do anything to ship after the shield was down other than find out there's an AMF under it). I intend to use the infinite scroll case to spawn a scroll of disjunction to temporarily bring down the barrier to create an attack window.

All I know is "it can be dispelled" otherwise I have no idea what its effects are, and my 60-something spellcraft check couldn't recognize the magical aura or help me determine any of its mechanical effects.

As far as disintegrate... I'm not sure. My best guess is it would hit the magic barrier for a lot of damage and nothing would happen.

[prufock]

I think prismatic sphere/wall is your best bet, though I like the lava idea. Anyone ever think about what happens if you turn a wall of force sideways?

Can you Wish away that barrier? Or at least a hole in it?

[Doc Roc]

Can you buy a lyre of building? Interestingly, its secondary ability is almost as cool as the first, letting you render structures totally indestructible. Might be useful against that cannon! You can comfortably wish for one, which is of note.

[Ziegander]

All I know is "it can be dispelled" otherwise I have no idea what its effects are, and my 60-something spellcraft check couldn't recognize the magical aura or help me determine any of its mechanical effects.

Well, knowing it can be dispelled is definitely good enough. I'd disjunction it too, no sense messing around with it if you already have a safe way out.

[Aegis013]

Can you buy a lyre of building? Interestingly, its secondary ability is almost as cool as the first, letting you render structures totally indestructible. Might be useful against that cannon! You can comfortably wish for one, which is of note.

Actually, interestingly enough, my hometown has an item that produces that same barrier over the whole town, (To the best of our knowledge, moving it would cause a magical energy release powerful enough to level the town, so it's not a viable asset) and despite having scrutinized the barrier, I still have no idea, IC and OOC what it does precisely. So my home town may just survive the cannon thanks to the shield... but I really don't want to see the other towns get annihilated.

Not sure if I can get a lyre of building. I doubt anybody would just have one on hand, and there's not enough time to get one crafted.

[Dalek-K]

Once took down a huge airship with nothing but a fly spell and a ton of instant fortresses ;)

Though the AMF would stop that from working I guess...

But my guess is that you are being pushed to let them destroy everything and then the game will be like terminator where all the golems coughmachinescough are out to destroy everyone and you and your rag tag team has to stop them.

:)

Oh and DM fiat/railroading is sometimes necessary ... Most people call it "plot"

[Doc Roc]

Lyre is probably an item you could safely wish for.

[Mnemnosyne]

Standard gate-loop might also help. Get a scroll of gate, gate in a titan, have it gate in another titan, who then gates in another... There's ways to optimize that further but I don't know them off-hand - specifically, gate in something with a high enough caster level that it can then gate in something with an even higher caster level, and so on, but I don't know the specific chain of monsters that will allow that. Still, infinite titans might help.

Of other suggested plans I really like Emperor Tippy's prismatic sphere idea (love me some prismatics) but let's assume someone on that ship has constant true seeing or some other way to counter the invisibility effect. Instead of relying purely on the invisible spell metamagic to ensure they don't see it and stop/change course/bring it down with an MDJ, we need to fully obscure it. Use both fog cloud and an invisible fog cloud before casting the sphere. Ideally (since this is in the sky) if you can place it inside a natural cloud, all the better. After all, this plan depends on the ship running into your immobile prismatic sphere, and you don't know what kind of maneuvering capability the ship has.

[Grollub]

Sounds to me like your DM just watched Independance Day, and wants to re-enact it.

1) Hire a drunk cropduster...er a wizard to fly up and suicide on it!!

2) Upload the anti-mechanical virus to the mother ship!!

:smallsmile:

[werik]

I think it might be beneficial to look at this from another perspective. Rather than assuming that the goal of your efforts should be the destruction of the ship, the golems, and the god(s) on board you should consider merely disabling the ship as much and as quickly as possible before escaping. As 10th level characters, complete victory is obviously way above you. If you also don't feel that you have enough time to gather gods or other powerful creatures to your side, the best strategy appears to be to delay the attack as long as possible until you can secure such assistance.

To seriously take up the Star Trek example that was mentioned, the three major factors in starship combat appear to be the phasers (canon), the shields (forcefield), and the engines (futuristic propulsion system). As much information you can gather about all of these devices would be the most helpful in coming up with your plans. If your away team can disable their weapons main weapons system, then your town isn't guaranteed complete, immediate destruction. Take down the shields, and there is a chance that others can fight back. Take out the engines and the ship has to stop and may even crash, causing additional damage to the ship. You might want to port in and split up to disable all three of these factors. If you could get solid information that the nature of the engines rests on some sort of anti-gravity field, then a reverse gravity spell should disable the engines, at least temporarily. That could send it hurtling towards the ground and possibly destroy the whole thing. Also, if you believe that your town has the same sort of shield, more information on the specifics of that design might help you. If there is some sort of crystal or other device that generates the field, smashing it or porting away with it could be beneficial.

I know that didn't provide many specific spell ideas, but maybe the change of goals might make your task seem more feasible. Good luck to you!

[Aegis013]

I know that didn't provide many specific spell ideas, but maybe the change of goals might make your task seem more feasible. Good luck to you!

Thanks for your suggestions, but even having scrutinized the shield and generator all my character has realized is moving the big crystal (the generator) will cause an explosion that will destroy the town. Other than that, I've got nothing.

Getting onto the ship would be no problem; splitting up would be suicidal, there are at the very least thousands of constructs on that ship, there's no way we could fight through that in an AMF.

So I think the prismatic sphere, falling rocks and my original cloudkills idea are probably going to be the most likely to knock those three major components out. Still, your input is greatly appreciated.

[Mnemnosyne]

If moving the big crystal on the shield generator will cause an explosion, is there any feasible chance of getting someone (preferably someone expendable) aboard the enemy ship to move THEIR shield generator crystal and cause an explosion?

Since you have 9th level spells available, you could Wish someone teleported next to the generator (to avoid error chance since you've never seen the location, and to avoid any 'you can't teleport there' sort of thing, since Wish explicitly ignores local conditions when using it to transport someone), and they could immediately move it or smash it or something. If you do this with a minion you gated in (like one of the aforementioned titans) you don't have to worry about the damage from the explosion, and if it fails, well...not that much resource loss.

So you could gate in a titan, have it chain-gate more titans, then use Wish (either from a creature the titans gate in or from your own magic/scrolls) to teleport one creature per caster level (so minimum 17) directly to the enemy shield generator. Give the titans orders to destroy the shield generator, then destroy everything else aboard the ship they can possibly get their hands on. Then, simultaneously enact all the other plans.

[Rejakor]

DANGER WILL ROBINSON


You are not meant to OHKO this ship. With the AMF and everything, and that golem army you mentioned, clearly you are meant to get on this ship somehow and stop the mechanus invasion. Maybe that means talking to their top brass, who are here for the wrong reasons. Maybe that means finding the dead guy in the command deck who set the invasion in motion before succumbing to his wounds, and changing the controls to turn it back. I don't know. But obviously you're meant to get inside it and stop it somehow.

Blocking LoE blocks AMFs. So, a bit of canvas and some glue will turn a section of corridor into a magical zone once again. A scroll of Invoke Magic (LoM, 9th) will at least help you use YOUR own magic again (at the cost of a standard action) for a turn, but it won't help you use scrolls. Seriously, get on board the ship, do the adventure. Using the obscure rules benefit of a prismatic sphere ignoring AMF (and hell, it could be an advanced AMF, and I doubt the obdurium+++ hull will die to random rocks) is probably just going to lead to the GM having to wing the session, or suddenly twenty more ships come through planar breaches with 'WAVE 2 OF 30 OF THE INVINCIBLE ARMY OF MECHANUS THAT HAS TO BE STOPPED NOT JUST KILLED', and you're like 'well, ****'.

[Randomguy]

Option 1: Use control winds to try and knock it out of the sky. Cloudkill won't go through an antimagic field, to my knowledge.


Option 2: Acquire many very large objects such as redwood trees, easter island heads, vats of alchemical fire or acid, the like. Cast shrink item on them. Cast invisiblity on them. Use the launch object spell to fling them at the ship and say the command word while they're in mid air.

For both of those options, have as many defences set in place as you can: invisibility the very least, any form of celerity, contingent teleportation or just regular teleportation and the like.

Option 3: infiltrate the ship and take it down from the inside. Use the arcane eye spell to have the eyes get up close and try to find out as much about the ship and the crew as you can, then go in using a disguise check.

Option 4: Find a peasant or polymorph a rock into one. Hit him with dominate person. Hit him with polymorph any object into a great wyrm gold dragon (or hell, a prismatic or epic dragon) and try to have him attack the ship. It won't survive, but the slaughter will be fun to watch.

[DoctorGlock]

Instantaneous duration conjuration effects are what you want. You cannot penetrate the AMF barrier since the ship is effectively flying fiat, but disabling key systems may be possible. Orb the engines repeatedly. Once you have disabled its locomotion you will have more time to plan alternate means. Likewise, get some traditional siege equipment on the ground near your kill zone and start hucking adamantine balista bolts through the hull. If the shield around the AMF can be brought down by dispel get as many disjunction scrolls as you can. Once the primary barrier is down them you chuck this stuff through the AMF. Prismatic sphere will do this as well which is why it's probably the best solution. Get some air support in the form of sorcerers with wings ov cover to protect your allies from beam cannons while you mounts the assault. If you cannot beat the fiat and the dm wants to kill you anyway, then you can open fire with a solar bore and destroy the gameworld. Open a gate in front of the ship to the plane of fire. Open from the plane of fire to the center of the sun. Million mile beam of nuclear death plasma should melt your ship as well as your world.

[Gotterdammerung]

use a wish scroll. Wish that every living thing on the planet will be able to hear and understand your words for the next 5 minutes. Tell the whole wide world about the approaching golem army and their impending conquest. Also include the info that you know about strengths and weaknesses of the invading force.
And the current location of the battleship.

[JaronK]

If they get to use advanced technology, you do too.

Option 1: Here's what you do. Get two Decanters of Endless Water. Attach to them 1" diameter 1' long tubes, with the decanters facing in opposite directions (so the thrust will cancel out). Load an Adamantium slug into one side. Have the command word to start the water be "Fire!" and the stop word be "In the hole!" Find that rune (somewhere, can't remember where) that turns all water passing over it into steam, instantly. Have it in both barrels.

Now you're shooting 5 gallons of water per second, turning it into steam, and forcing it through a 1' tube that's got a 1" diameter. The thrust of this thing is equivalent to about 1/2 the thrust of the space shuttle engines. Using the falling damage rules as a gauge for how much damage a high speed projectile should do, we can estimate roughly 5kd6 damage per slug. And don't forget Adamantium ignores lower hardness values. So, launch your slugs at this thing (drop the barrier first, if you can). If it's not made of riverine, you'll blow a hole right through it. Have more slugs. Take this thing down with your brand new man portable antimateriel rifle.

Option 2: Stronghold Builder's Guide has Prismatic Walls as an option. These can penetrate AMFs... and darn near everything else. Make a tiny fortress, just one stronghold space in total. Cover it with Prismatic Walls, give it the flying option. Fly straight in, cutting right through this thing like a drop pod covered in plasma. Fly around burning things up... perhaps some of you can jump out and do whatever havoc you like. Remember, if you keep a cage around yourself with no holes bigger than 1 square foot, the AMF can't penetrate (no line of effect).

JaronK

[Doc Roc]

Option 2: Stronghold Builder's Guide has Prismatic Walls as an option. These can penetrate AMFs... and darn near everything else. Make a tiny fortress, just one stronghold space in total. Cover it with Prismatic Walls, give it the flying option. Fly straight in, cutting right through this thing like a drop pod covered in plasma. Fly around burning things up... perhaps some of you can jump out and do whatever havoc you like. Remember, if you keep a cage around yourself with no holes bigger than 1 square foot, the AMF can't penetrate (no line of effect).

JaronK

I've seen this happen. It's not pretty. Also, take a look at Precipitate Complete Breach in the Planar Handbook. It's not immediately useful to you, I suspect, but it's an incredibly strange and powerful spell. For one thing, the breaches themselves appear to be ex, not su, since they are never typed. Their interaction with AMFs is thus undefined. Andddd they pretty much have zero chance of leading to happy places. A couple of my builds use serious shenanigans to cast an infinite number of PCB.

And finally, ring-gates can be used to redirect the ship's cannon. Do you know the beam width?

[Aegis013]

DANGER WILL ROBINSON


Like I said in previous posts, I intend to discuss all plans of action with all members of the game (DM included) at the start of next session before carrying any of them out. If the DM really wants us to not do x or to do y, he'll need to say so and I will ask him as such, but he ended the session early to give us time to plan, thus, I'm doing what he told me to do. If what he explicitly told the group to do is the opposite of what he wants us to do, well, I'm not able to read minds (outside of the game).

Also, I'll point out that we've known from the beginning of the game that the country which commands this ship is bent on world conquest. Judging by the plot so far, even if we attempted diplomancy shenanigans, we would just get mobbed by millions of constructs and die instead of succeeding into negotiation. I've already used a wand of sending to warn every world leader about a day before this began, yet still there has been no response and no activity that we know of, and I would expect if there was going to be, they would've responded. We can't rely on any of the other country's for this.

I'll look up the Prismatic Wall stuff, sounds fun. Although, I don't see any indication that AMF needs LoE from its original text. Is there clarification somewhere online? Because I wouldn't be surprised if the DM handwaved it to suppress my abilities if there were any way of justifying it (even through a prismatic cube). He allowed my character (Shadowcraft Mage) and has the enemy nation have gigantic AMF's everywhere (we flew around on Phantom Steeds and checked out some key strategic locations in their country) of any importance.

Thanks again for the help and suggestions.

[Mnemnosyne]

Antimagic Field is an emanation, which by default requires line of effect. PHB 176 under Line of Effect, lower left corner of the page. This is why the cone-hat and such tricks work (if you're not familiar with the trick, use shrink item on a cone-shaped solid object large enough for you to hide under, and wear it as a hat. An antimagic field suppresses shrink item, causing it to expand to full size, fall, covering you, breaking line of effect, and allowing you to cast).

[Gavinfoxx]

Here's the anti-antimagic handbook...

http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=10104.0

Read it, learn it, love it.

[Aegis013]

Thanks for the clarifications, that helps a lot.

[Gavinfoxx]

Also, I think intelligent items (which are classified as constructs) still work fine in antimagic fields... so your item familiar, or whatever other intelligent items you have will work fine... and it's like 1000 gp / item to give items basic intelligence...

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/intelligentItems.htm

If you can make an intelligent use activated (at will) wondrous device of orb of force or orb of acid and one of wall of stone (so you have a battlefield control spell and a damaging spell)... and those should work in an antimagic field...

go here: http://www.imarvintpa.com/dndlive/SearchList.php select has any of these schools: conjuration, Has Any of these Durations: instantaneous, and resistance involves all of these: no, for ideas.

[Rubik]

I can think of a number of things you can do here. Most will require that you disjoin the AMF, and nearly all of them need you to disjoin the barrier first.

The Prismatic Sphere will work against the ship, but not against the constructs (unless they're not actually golems and are inevitables or somesuch). Just FYI.

Use all the divination spells you can to find a sphere of annihilation and a talisman of the sphere, and hurl the sphere right into the thing's engine. Otherwise, Gate in an umbral blot to do the same thing.

Grab a casting of Summon Monster, a portable hole, and a bag of holding. Have the critter drop the bag into the hole (using whatever means are necessary to keep the portable hole open) right next to the ship and tear a hole in the fabric of reality, sucking the entire ship into Null-space (since the ship is considered a single object).

Have a summons break a staff of power or a staff of the magi in a retributive strike next to the hull.

Gate in the biggest mob of rust monsters or rust dragons you can (or both, and using the mob template from the DMG II to have them count as a single creature). Have them eat the ship and any metal golems they find.

Abuse the Wish spell and Wish for (and place) dozens of Small mirrors of Erised opposition at every exit point on the ship, such that any construct or other foe exiting it will immediately spawn an opposite that will do its best to kill the original, and will dissipate if it kills the master copy.

Grab a scroll of Ray Deflection and cast Chaos Shield (or have a ring of entropic deflection, from the MIC) when the gun charges up to fire. It's probably a ray, so it'll go bye bye if you stand right in front of it (or throw them on a summonable). I believe there are ways to REFLECT rays as well, though I don't recall any off-hand. Or just ready a casting of Gate to redirect the shot back at the ship so it will obliterate itself from one end of the ship to the other.

Grab a scroll of Genesis, head to the astral plane, and set up a demiplane with the flowing time trait, such that 10 years in the demiplane = 1 round on the material plane, and the mild positive-dominant and resurrection traits of Ysgard (if you can), then start crafting books full of Widened, Maximized, and Empowered Explosive Runes at the highest CL you can, and grab a CL 5 wand of Dispel Magic. After you Disjunction the barrier and the AMF, drop every book you've got into a wide pile and AoE Widened Dispel Magic them. Every rune that you fail to Dispel will explode, dealing 36+3d6 damage (before hardness obviously). If you have a few hundred books, this should destroy the entire ship. If you have enough, scatter the pages all over, and have everyone available cast Dispel Magic (at the lowest CL) area Dispel, and the entire thing should be obliterated.

While you're on the demiplane, have a few dozen lower level mooks follow you into the demiplane and rebuild them into initiators with White Raven Tactics, and summon things for the warblade to kill in to-the-death duels to level him up to 14 and have him perform a character rebuild (as per the PHB II) as a bloodstorm blade with TWF and ranged feats (especially Far Shot). Have him use the Favored Contact feat from Cityscape to enter the PrC at level 5, and then retrain it out when he's taken a few levels and qualifies for the skill prereq using the skills granted by the class itself (so that he gets Blade Storm at level 14). Craft him two greater arrows of construct slaying (from the DMG), with seeking, splitting, bane (construct), and distance, as well as a few other items that grant distance multipliers (as I believe there are a few in the MIC and elsewhere; check the archery handbooks) and have him throw them at every golem that he can see using Blade Storm. Since he's using the arrows as thrown melee weapons rather than firing them as ammo, they won't break when they hit, though he'll take a -4 to hit for using them as melee weapons (but still totally worth it). If you find that they DO break on test-runs, try raptor arrows, since they're auto-bane and won't break. He should be able to destroy every single golem in one round if he can get enough distance out of the arrows, especially if he's getting multiple full attacks every turn due to allies with White Raven Tactics and friendly mages who can teleport him across the battlefield. Teleport, initiate readied WRT, Blade Storm, repeat. Make sure he readies nothing but Iron Heart strikes, and that you have two initiators ready with White Raven Tactics when he needs to replenish his maneuvers (or make him an idiot crusader with the same number of maneuvers known as he has maneuvers readied, so he always has one iron heart strike known as a crusader via an item or Martial Study).

Also while on the demiplane, start an escalating Wish-loop and get a few million Simulacrum and/or Ice Assassin castings, and start creating solars by the metric ton. Having ten million spellcasters under your direct control (even if all they do is spam Melf's Acid Arrow) is a definite win for you. Feel free to do something similar if you can recover the eye, hand, or head of Vecna.

Use Shrink Item to shrink as many granite boulders as you can, tie them up in crates, then metamagic Telekinesis-fire them at the hull. The AMF should allow them to expand and deal 1d6 points of damage per 25 lbs that you fired (which, with a Max-CL Telekinesis, should be around 1.5 million [shrunken] pounds per casting). This can also take out quite a few golems as well. If you run out of spell slots, just start dropping shrunken pebbles onto the ship's hull from a couple-hundred feet up. Even with errata they'll do 20d6 damage apiece, and you'll be throwing out thousand-pound boulders by the handful.

Awaken Object or Haunt Shift on the ship, then use a Wish to transport it and everything on it to the negative energy plane into a voidstone field (where it and all of its constructs should basically disintegrate), or to a burst cluster in the positive energy plane, where they should explode in short order.

RAW, you don't actually pass through a Gate; instead, touching the surface of the Gate teleports you to the other side. This means that things that pass through the Gate don't actually have to be able to fit; thus, just cast it so the ship will touch its surface, and shunt it somewhere uncomfortable, such as right outside of Bahamut's lair (and on a collision course; if he's going to be a bastard about helping ya, you might as well be a bastard back).

Use Polymorph Any Object to turn the ship into a giant glob of acid. If it's not a magic ship (and if it's in an AMF then it shouldn't be) then it won't even get a save, attended or not.

Or hell, just get onboard and cast a Widened Shatter spell. If the ship's not magic it should basically just explode. If it is, Disjunction it first.

A scroll of Maximized/Empowered/Twinned/Repeated/Chained Disintegrate. Since scrolls can have multiple spells, have one scroll with ~1000 castings on it. Line a bunch of casters up all in a row, use your Standard action to cast it at the ship, then pass it on using your move action to the next person in line, who does the same. Repeat until the ship is gone. Find a similar spell with SR: No (such as Melf's Acid Arrow or, again, Telekinesis) to handle the golems.

Gate a number of epic critters (like hecatoncheires) onto the ship. Remember that you don't have to control them if they're more than 2x your CL in HD. Instead, just put them onboard where they'll do the most damage and let them loose; any sufficiently bloody-minded critters should start tearing things apart ASAP, and the golems should start attacking them in short order, and so long as the beasties you call can't fly away, they should tear them all apart handily. So long as they're not undead or a construct (or otherwise immune to stunning), you should be able to take them out afterwards using dust of sneezing and choking.

A few castings of high-CL Control Winds and Control Weather should be able to create tornado-level winds, which should tear the hell out of the ship and destroy every single construct on it. Use Miracle to throw these out without having to worry about long casting times.

If you down the ship and the golems aren't geared to fly (and they probably aren't), equip a few thousand peasants with lard (which acts as a flammable [Ex] Grease spell) and have them throw buckets of it under the constructs' feet. They'll slip, trip, and fall, preventing the ones behind them from advancing; meanwhile you can have a few low-level optimized Dragonfire Inspiration bards (all with different energy types and war drums) pumping up an army of archers to deal huge amounts of damage with volley-shots. There's actually a good chance at killing them all if you have a big enough contingent of peasantry working for you, and they don't even have to be above level 1. You'll take casualties, certainly, but that's war.

Feed it to a Colossal-sized bag of devouring (if you can find one).

Use the Locate City bomb trick to do something really nasty to a scroll of Widened Detect Magic (SR: No! Whee!), and slap it on a speed build. A ruby knight vindicator that can move 300,000 miles in a round should be able to Explosive Spell the hell out of the entire golem army so long as they fail their Reflex saves (and with that kind of speed he can maneuver well enough to mop them all up well enough). Have initiators with White Raven Tactics on hand to make this easier.

And best of all, you might just be able set up all of the above, if you abuse Wish loops well enough.

[edit] Looks like some of the above have already been mentioned. Oops.

[Little Brother]

Take inspiration from the final battle of Code Geass. Get flying soldiers and throw them into the fire to stop attacks. You have multiple kingdoms, you have bodies to burn. Also, fly warblades above the ship, drop them down, and have them BY CROM!!!! away the AMF. Then throw bodies into the fire. Level one wizards still have grease and magic missile after all. Minions are disposable. They throw out a high level wizard? Throw away 8 fighters to flank him. One of them might hit and do a little damage. If you outnumber them 50-1, then you can afford a 49-1 casualty rate.

So, yeah, what are these kingdoms like? How many of what level what class? Any chicken-infested commoners? If so, drop one in there and have it explode the super star destroyer with a spell component pouch. More info is needed for a foolproof plan.

Or expand on werik's idea and overload the Warp Core.

[nedz]

an unwinnable encounter you say? Call Captain Kirk! I think that's what the Kobayashi Maru would say. >.>
For this plan to work you need to get hold of the DM's rule books, and modify certain rules so as to include loopholes. How good are you at Forgery IRL ?

Can you lay your hands on a Sphere of Annihilation ?
If so just manouvre it into position in front of the ship, something that big is unlikely to be agile.

Also, Marvelous Pigments (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/tt/20070724a) can paint holes in stuff. Even walls of force, if you can get the paint to stick.

Can you paint a Sphere of Annihilation ?

Actually I suspect Mr DM is planning a War of the Worlds type plot thread, so the vessel will likely have plot based armour in addition to every thing else. There is no known rule more powerful than Rule 0.

[DoctorGlock]

There is no known rule more powerful than Rule 0.

Aside from its corollary. No players is no game. While I hope it's not just flying plot armor and there is some trick, a DM that chucks CL 70 antagonist devices with literal gods on board is a DM that bears watching.

[Aegis013]

So, yeah, what are these kingdoms like? How many of what level what class? Any chicken-infested commoners? If so, drop one in there and have it explode the super star destroyer with a spell component pouch. More info is needed for a foolproof plan.

Or expand on werik's idea and overload the Warp Core.

Thank you again for the suggestions! You've all been of great help!

As far as the kingdoms go, our kingdom is the most magical on the continent and I'm probably the most powerful magic user to have ever existed in its history. All of the plans that involve NPCs that have character class levels are unlikely to succeed, 4/5 people in our country have magical potential, but it's closer to 1/10,000 in other countries, and the highest order of magic users we can expect to find might be a 3rd level wizard. Yeah... the NPC's haven't posed us any threat so far in the game and we've steam rolled every encounter.

Using Wish and Gate loops, it wouldn't be too hard to set a bunch of these up, but I'd like to shy away from them, although I will definitely point out that by RAW we certainly can produce infinite wishes.

I really appreciate it again. Also, as far as the god/s on board the ship, that is simply what my character believes. As a player, I know that they most likely do not have a god on board, but they may have that lesser dragon deity, however unlikely that is.

[Little Brother]

Thank you again for the suggestions! You've all been of great help!

As far as the kingdoms go, our kingdom is the most magical on the continent and I'm probably the most powerful magic user to have ever existed in its history. All of the plans that involve NPCs that have character class levels are unlikely to succeed, 4/5 people in our country have magical potential, but it's closer to 1/10,000 in other countries, and the highest order of magic users we can expect to find might be a 3rd level wizard. Yeah... the NPC's haven't posed us any threat so far in the game and we've steam rolled every encounter.So you're saying you have NO access to IHS? That makes things more difficult. Still, it sounds like you have no shortage of Commoners and Warriors, yes? Throw the warriors at the enemy. How many warriors do you have?

If you have a single commoner, you can win. Bubs might help, too, but the commoner=your win. Either get it to endlessly draw from a spell component pouch. Or, if it carries a pig, throw it at the battleship and make it drop the pig. BANG, you have Asmodeus on the ship.

[Gavinfoxx]

So you're saying you have NO access to IHS? That makes things more difficult. Still, it sounds like you have no shortage of Commoners and Warriors, yes? Throw the warriors at the enemy. How many warriors do you have?

If you have a single commoner, you can win. Bubs might help, too, but the commoner=your win. Either get it to endlessly draw from a spell component pouch. Or, if it carries a pig, throw it at the battleship and make it drop the pig. BANG, you have Asmodeus on the ship.

Would covering the whole thing in chickens really be acceptable...?

[Aegis013]

I'm not even sure what you guys are talking about right now. Asmodeus? Pigs? Chickens? I'm lost. Still appreciate the help, thought.

If we called, we might be able to collect about 100 man militia before the ship arrives, if we're lucky. It probably wouldn't be that many, our country only recently discovered that the rest of the continent existed and we've never had a standing military.

I might be able to find a way to get our Warforged Warblade IHS, but I don't really want to send him onto the ship, as active warforged in this setting are something like a national treasure. (We're the only country who has any that aren't broken, and nobody else has figured out how to cast repair object [it's actually a plot/setting device, but still, I'm sure you get it])

[Rubik]

I'm not even sure what you guys are talking about right now. Asmodeus? Pigs? Chickens? I'm lost. Still appreciate the help, thought.A flaw in Dragon Magazine allow commoners to pull out infinite numbers of chickens, and one forces the character to hold a pig at all times (and I think that if he doesn't, Asmodeus shows up, rather miffed).

Anyway, check my ideas on the last page (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12211894&postcount=58). Grab some scrolls of Genesis and your time issues are rather nullified. Bring those 100 militia members with you, and retrain them into initiators.

[Little Brother]

Would covering the whole thing in chickens really be acceptable...?Nope, but sending enough chickens in there that it explodes might. Suicide mission, but the commoner doesn't need to know that. If all else fails, suggestion/charm person

I'm not even sure what you guys are talking about right now. Asmodeus? Pigs? Chickens? I'm lost. Still appreciate the help, thought.Dragon 330, page 87. Flaws for commoners
Chicken Infested: Flaw, whenever you draw a weapon or pull an object out of a container, you have a 50% chance of drawing a chicken, instead. No, we don't know where the chicken came from: it's your character

Pig Bond: You must at all times carry a pig that weighs an amount equal to your maximum load. The pig refuses to walk on its own. If your strength score increases, the weight of the pig increases to match your new maximum load. If your strength score decreases... get a cart.
SPECIAL: If more than a few inches separate you and the pig, the pig transforms into Orcus(sorry, my bad, I thought it was Asmodeus. Still...) and skins you(which probably kills you)

Think this ship will work without a crew(either crushed to death or pecked to death by the millions of chickins >:4) or with a pissed off Orcus on it?

If we called, we might be able to collect about 100 man militia before the ship arrives, if we're lucky. It probably wouldn't be that many, our country only recently discovered that the rest of the continent existed and we've never had a standing military.Okay, get a bunch of commoners. Also, throw something at your DM. Doesn't every other country have an interest in stopping this?

I might be able to find a way to get our Warforged Warblade IHS, but I don't really want to send him onto the ship, as active warforged in this setting are something like a national treasure. (We're the only country who has any that aren't broken, and nobody else has figured out how to cast repair object [it's actually a plot/setting device, but still, I'm sure you get it])
All he needs is to be in the AMF. That's it. After that, Presto-BY CROM!!-o, it's gone. Though the boulder bombardment works, too.

[nedz]

Maybe it has the equivalent of a ventillation shaft ?
Try scrying for some gap in its defenses ?
Maybe you can just fly in ?

[Rubik]

I suggest evacuating the country to a demiplane of your creation. Let the rest of the world take care of itself, since they obviously don't care.

[paddyfool]

OK, most of the solutions given here will break your game wide open. And mine don't work either, since I rather overestimated the resources implied in your having united various nations against this threat.

My suspicion is that you aren't meant to win this battle, but that doesn't mean you can't do some damage. Hit-and-run tactics might work, and can tell you how good your enemy's intel is as well (e.g. if you evacuate the next city in their path, but give it the illusion of still being populated and defended, while really it's just some big trap of the [sphere of annihilation/portal to the abyss/lots of lava] variety).

[Heatwizard]

So, the shield generator explodes if you move it wrong, and you've got one. You've got access to Wish.

I'm thinking, Wish your generator onto their ship as an improvised bomb.

[Rubik]

What if you encourage the ship to fire its cannon by making an illusion of, I dunno, a half-dozen colossi arranged in a tightly-clustered group, and ready a casting of Gate to redirect its fire back at itself?

[Aegis013]

What if you encourage the ship to fire its cannon by making an illusion of, I dunno, a half-dozen colossi arranged in a tightly-clustered group, and ready a casting of Gate to redirect its fire back at itself?

Actually, that could be pretty hilarious assuming I used something like an invisible gate spell and had already disjunctioned its shield. Unless I was just hoping it would blow its own shield up.

Also, as far as the teleporting the shield generator, the way the DM said it (which I don't remember verbatum) seemed to suggest that the explosion would emanate from where the crystal was, so that's a bit too risky.

[jara]

...and an Infinite Scrollcase (50 scrolls of any spell ready to go).


if it's a custom version, that's cool, but the infinite scrollcase [MIC162] looks a lot more like a bag of holding that only holds 50 scrolls, rather than conjuring them up. i'm just a bit confused by that.

on topic, i'd like to put my support behind the rust monster / dragon idea.

or, try to gate in a few deities. however, deities "are under no compulsion to come through the gate", so it would be up to your DM.

[Danin]

I wish I had more time to type out an answer but I'll be brief.

An immovable object in the path of a flying ship sounds like it might do some damage, as the mass of this thing implies a lot of momentum. Walls of force will be destroyed by the shield. Solution? Create a spear of adamantine a few hundred feet long and held up on one end by walls of force. Make it invisible.

Entirely mundane acid does bad things to objects.

Any main battle cannon like that likely fires ammunition. Send someone to blow it up. The ammunition I mean. In the ship.

Golems, if any land and start tearing up the place, are terribly weak against illusions.

Sounds like you aren't supposed to win. Good luck.

[Analytica]

My feeling: games where you can't win or only win in a specific way are often boring. If you still want to play them, the most enjoyable way to do so is to find some way to fit the intended solution into what your character would do. From that perspective, when faced with this, I would seek alliances with all the powers that presumably should want to avoid the apocalypse...

... but you've already done that, and Bahamut strangely doesn't care. This might imply something like that the warship will fail through its own hubris or similar, but that's really stupid if so. Divinations, metafaculty, or contact other planes, though, to gain some DM guidance as to the intended solution might still be a workable solution (if possible, less painful to work with the rules arbitrator than against it) unless the DM really is bad at their job and seriously want you to either fail or just watch.

Otherwise...

... agree with the idea on the field generator. Discuss this IC, thus confirming to the DM that you buy into their world, where such field generators are not ad hoc at all, and certainly should explode if uprooted. Maybe Wish it out? I always figured Star Trek warfare should just be done by teleporting the opponent's warp core into their command bridge...

Genesis has an offensive application, maybe that interacts strangely with AMFs? I can't think that an AMF could intefere with an actual planar boundary (unlike how it interferes with the magic creating extraplanar attachment points).

The shrink item tricks seem really good, but if I were your DM, I would rule that shadow conjuration-type effects would in fact go away entirely in AMFs, even if instantaneous. This may or may not be RAW, but you might want to be prepared for the possibility.

[Mnemnosyne]

Personally, if I'm presented with an apparently unwinnable challenge (that maybe has one way to win that's predetermined by the DM) I have fun breaking the world in order to win it even if I don't know the solution the DM has in mind.

As for the shrink item tricks, there's no need to conjure the rocks, just teleport to someplace with rocks and shrink a bunch of natural rocks. The only magical effect then is the one keeping them small, and you WANT that one to go away. That's pretty much the basis of the trick. However, I feel like the rocks plan has the potential to fail simply by the DM ruling the ship is made out of a material so hard that the rocks fail to damage it much.

My favorite plans, looking over the entire thread, are either Tippy's prismatic sphere plan, or just teleport a strike force in there, grab the enemy shield generator, and jiggle it. Preferably with a disposable strike force, like a load of chain-gated Titans.

By the way, make sure to tell us how it went after you enact some of these plans.

[Gavinfoxx]

@Aegis: So... how did it go?

[Aegis013]

if it's a custom version, that's cool, but the infinite scrollcase [MIC162] looks a lot more like a bag of holding that only holds 50 scrolls, rather than conjuring them up. i'm just a bit confused by that.

on topic, i'd like to put my support behind the rust monster / dragon idea.

or, try to gate in a few deities. however, deities "are under no compulsion to come through the gate", so it would be up to your DM.

Well, mine apparently does this, I think you're right about the wording on it though. So I suppose it's a homebrew version.


@Aegis: So... how did it go?

Actually, the session is going down tonight, so I'll report back after. Sorry for bumping the thread back up after such a long time.

Also, thank you again everybody for your help and support.

[Rubik]

Actually, the session is going down tonight, so I'll report back after. Sorry for bumping the thread back up after such a long time.What do you have planned?

Inquiring minds want to know!

[Aegis013]

Largely what everybody else has suggested. Disjunctioning the shield, of course.

Invisible prismatic sphere aimed, hopefully for key components of the ship.

Using an illusion to draw the main gun and using a gate to return the shot.

Using a Gate to pour endless lava and/or acid on the thing.

Since I have enchantment school banned, getting the cleric to use Geas scroll on someone, or have an NPC dominate person a commoner and PaO him into an epic dragon.

Depending on if I can rustle up some rust monsters, warp them on board.

Drop shrink item'd walls of stone on it.

Rust Dragons are iffy, since they're in cahoots with a lesser dragon deity.

Orb'ing the stabilizers with my Silent Image.

Yeah, thank you for all your help, I'll report the resutls in 6-7 hours after the session is over.

[Diefje]

Fly to the moon, ally the local ewoks, and take out the shield generator. The rest builds a giant catapult. When the shield goes down, launch your BSF and Corpse into the exhaust pipe.

??????

Profit!

[Aegis013]

Session is done. Final result: Beat the ship, broke the game.

After discussing plans with the other players and DM, and asking twice to be sure, if going ahead with these plans was ok, and if it wasn't going to mess him up, he assured me that fighting the ship was fine.

I decided that fighting the ship where it was, on the southern border of our country before it reached populated area was the best idea but we found that a flight of dragons, carrying the BBEG, and a swarm of WWI fighter plane sized, flying constructs were heading for the capital. So I looked at our NPC companion (who guests play) and PoA'd his animal companion into an epic dragon (stat block on pg 100 of the Draconomicon, though gold, since red is a color we don't want). I did the same for the druid's animal companion, and my familiar.

We left the NPC's (the most expendable) animal companion/Dragon monstrosity at the town to guard it and we flew around the flight of dragons to the ship.

I made an illusion of titans summoning titans to try to draw its main gun, and the druid's animal/dragon ready to strike. It opened up with barrages of flak, just curtains of the stuff, I popped an invisible Prismatic Sphere in front of it, Dimension Door'd to above it, my familiar/dragon met me there as the druid's animal/dragon hit the shield with disjunction.

We opened up three gates, one to a plane of lava, one to a plane with tons of corrosive acid, and one to an area in the desert near our home where something like no-HD, mindless, non-construct umbral blots exist that can be pushed around by rolling will saves at them. These are clearly homebrew stuff. We had cleverly left our cleric there to roll will saves and roll them into the gate and drop them through the ship, or have them wink out of existence in the AMF, never really clarified, and flipped open a bag of holding to rain down reduce item'd-walls of stone. All of this did bring down the ship. During the finale of the combat, I made a rope trick and gathered the party inside.

When the ship hit the ground it went off like a nuke, irradiating the entire area. The druid's animal/dragon and my familiar/dragon teleported to safety to avoid the blast. We quickly followed with a teleport of our own after taking stock of the damage.

Now we're a ways north of the capital, looks like our guardian epic dragon toasted their constructs but didn't even scratch their dragon flight. Which is pretty concerning. We note immediately that the BBEG isn't with the flight. So I use sending to ask one of the leaders of the town what's going on. Turns out he's come here to "make an alliance" with us to "use our resources". Of course we don't buy that at all.

So our personality-less NPC suddenly has emotions and is upset about his animal companion dying and wants revenge, tries to go down... it's my phantom steed spell he's flying on so I tell him "They took down your wolf in super dragon form, you can't win, you can jump to your death or sit your saddle." So he jumped.

A blue dragon caught him. He has the green orb, and the blue dragons are on the enemy side. Hmm. I wished him onto the positive energy plane. He promptly exploded. And the game broke.

Apparently, he had managed to pull out a scroll of a very strange time stop spell that instead of making meta time for himself, made us lose perception of time for 5 minutes (no save, no SR), that he can cast as a level 10 ranger, I didn't detect this scroll despite a (custom magic item boosted) +60 spellcraft and persistent detect magic. He was also under magical compulsion to work for the enemy which I also never detected. I found this enormously frustrating, but it at least explained why our epic dragon lost. He commanded it to lose the fight; During his time stop shenanigan, he managed to steal all of our dragonorbs (macguffins in this campaign) and replace them with exact duplicates sans the ability to bond to a dragon (I never noticed the difference despite +60 something spellcraft and scrutinizing my equipment after the time stop event).

The BBEG needed those. Now they're somewhere on the positive energy plane. DM was at a loss for what to do. So he just revealed what was supposed to happen; the BBEG was going to resurrect Tiamat (who is dead in this setting) use the dragonorbs to drain Tiamat's power sealing magic from the world. But now he could only resurrect Tiamat, and it wouldn't help him at all. Though his motives still didn't make sense, since Tiamat caused an apocalyptic event with her (Tiamat is female, right?) death that unleashed magic into the world. So all it was going to do was start another apocalypse.

So there you have it. Sorry for the gigantic walls o' text. Thanks for your help, your brilliant minds beat the ship. Then I broke the game on accident. Whoops. We'll still be playing, just random sandbox until/if the DM thinks of a story to proceed with.

[Doc Roc]

Positive Energy Plane solves games.