How to empty a lake ?

[kabreras]

I have a small kraken problem in my game and i have to empty a big lake to find him (and most of all catch him)

Would opening a gate to the plane of fire on the bottom of the lake and permanancy it for 24h (incantatrix) would make the water get on the plane of fire and dissipate ?

How else can i do ?

The kraken is some kind of fiendish boosted kraken and so its just a no way to cast a spell to hold him in place and he just keep fleeing. And the lake have some aboleths in it also so i cant really run around underwater carelessly.

[Arcanist]

Toss in a few dust of dryness (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#dustofDryness) and call it a day

[mattie_p]

The extreme optimization method is to use mirror move (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/sb/sb20000901a). Take a careful look at the material component. Thanks, Aeryr.

[NerfTW]

Toss in a few dust of dryness (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#dustofDryness) and call it a day

It's a bit boring to just throw enough of a wonderous item into the world close enough to where they are to solve any problem instantly. Not to mention 100 gallons isn't that much. That's 100 jugs that you buy milk in. It would barely fill a small room. You'd need thousands to drain a lake of any moderate size.


As for the OP, have you considered not using magic? You're looking to bend the laws of physics and destroy an entire water supply. Draining a lake isn't rocket science and has been done by humans for thousands of years. Just dig a drainage ditch and redirect water towards a nearby valley or lower area. You won't even need to drain the entire lake, just enough to quarantine the Kraken.

[kabreras]

The lake itself is in the underdark so no valley around or such.
Dust is way too expencive for the size of the place.
And DM wont allow miror move to do that :p hell a level 2 spell for an entiere underground sea

[Little Brother]

Cast a Wall of Fire into it. Summon any monster that does significant flame damage on contact, and throw it in there.

Summon a Delver to dig a ditch.

Or, my favorite method, Decanter of Endless Water(s) to pressure-dig a ditch. Several of them make it faster. Then, you can build a spaceship.

[Kuulvheysoon]

As for the OP, have you considered not using magic? You're looking to bend the laws of physics and destroy an entire water supply. Draining a lake isn't rocket science and has been done by humans for thousands of years. Just dig a drainage ditch and redirect water towards a nearby valley or lower area. You won't even need to drain the entire lake, just enough to quarantine the Kraken.

Or combine the two - Stone Shape is a spell that's fairly easily accessible, and is simply marvelous for digging trenches and the like.

[Worira]

Toss in a few dust of dryness (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#dustofDryness) and call it a day

Uhh... That probably wouldn't work too well. To dry, say, the Central Park Reservoir, you'd need about 10 million packets of dust of drying. And that's not exactly a large lake.

[NerfTW]

There's no lower ground? You can't just dig a new lake to drain it into? I mean, you're talking about opening elemental planes, but you can't dig a hole? You can still drain it towards a basin of your own making.

[Worira]

If you can get your hands on a Lyre of Building and have someone to play it, that could work nicely. Move Earth would also work, although depending on how you did it you might need multiple castings.

[Arcanist]

The extreme optimization method is to use mirror move (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/sb/sb20000901a). Take a careful look at the material component. Thanks, Aeryr.

...


Material Component: Any reflective surface, including highly polished shields or armor and even surfaces of water, can be used for this spell. Many spellcasters carry small mirrors with them for material components.

...Oh god... a Wizard has many spellcasters that carry small mirrors with them and they have material components! :smalleek: Circle Magic abuse all up in hur!

[Kuulvheysoon]

*snip*

Or, my favorite method, Decanter of Endless Water(s) to pressure-dig a ditch. Several of them make it faster. Then, you can build a spaceship.


Or you could grab a (couple) Decanter of endless Sand (Sandstorm). Flood out the lake by raising the lakebed itself.

[Little Brother]

Or you could grab a (couple) Decanter of endless Sand (Sandstorm). Flood out the lake by raising the lakebed itself.Yes, but I like the Decanter of Endless Water better. Plus, emptying a lake with water seems funny.

[NM020110]

How long do you have to eliminate this kraken? There are several ways you might approach it besides emptying the lake out.

For example, there was a magic item in sandstorm that was effectively a decanter of endless water that produced sand. Set a few of them up so that any sand will arc into the lake and set them to geyser, then wait a while.

Edit: ninja'ed while writing on this one...

If that's not fast enough, it might be possible to use several of the spells in Frostburn to freeze the lake, likely making the kraken significantly easier to subdue.

Finally, if catching the kraken quickly is a concern, you could use several persisted summon elemental monolith (water) spells maintained by persisted sonorous hums. If a group of three water elemental monoliths can't catch the kraken, then it would seem doubtful that any application of direct force will.

I suppose that if you're not afraid to use resources on this, you could use Wish to transport the kraken to wherever you need it (preferably a riverine cage with an antimagic field). Using a thought bottle, this would only cost 500 xp.

[ryu]

Can gate target a specific place in whatever plane you're targeting? If so does it have to be attached to a solid surface? If so would a small ship work instead? Make a gate to the bottom of any volcano in the plane of fire and watch the lake get crusted over in solid, absurdly hot rock. Most efficient? Ah hell naw! Cool and totally epic wizard style? You bet your life on it.

[kabreras]

I would like to do it quite fast, like ending it within a day.

The kraken itself is not that a problem its that he just keep fleeing and have stupid resists. Once traped its just a giant sushy whaiting to be cut and served with rice.

Thats prety much why i trough about the gate so al the water get out of the lake to an other plane (plane of fire is not really required tbh)

[Knaight]

The kraken is some kind of fiendish boosted kraken and so its just a no way to cast a spell to hold him in place and he just keep fleeing. And the lake have some aboleths in it also so i cant really run around underwater carelessly.

On the off chance that you decide against lake draining;
There is a spell that will prevent fleeing (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/reverseGravity.htm). Cast this on the water around the squid, and call it a day. If you put a net in the way, the water will even pass through it while it catches the squid.

Also: Reverse Gravity is not a concentration spell. So cast it on the area around the squid, and it moves up. Cast a few of these (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/wallOfStone.htm) under that area but above the lake, in a box shape, and let it fall into them. Given that the kraken doesn't even have a land speed, and you can leave tiny holes to drain the water, this should pin it fairly easily. Alternately, you can use these to make a trap on the ceiling, have it lifted into it, then stick a wall on the bottom, with a drain for the water. At that point, you have a squid in a box.

[Balmas]

Step One: Find sphere of annihilation
Step Two: Put SoA in the bottom of lake
Step Three: let SoA use it's black hole powers to drain lake

[Acanous]

Jeez, only one mention of Sphere of Annihilation, and it's the one right above me.

SoA will drain the lake faster than any other method, and it will kill the Kraken to boot.

To find the Sphere, you can cast Legend Lore, or just wish for it to be moved to (30 feet) from your present location on a horizontal axis.

SoA will do the job.

[Little Brother]

Portable Hole/Bag of Holding depth charges.

Or just throw a couple of open bags in there, attached with string. Once filled up, you pull it out and empty it elsewhere. Easy, if not fast.

[Kerilstrasz]

there is a sponge thingie in magic item compendium... sucks looooots of water and then you squeeze it and lets out what a normal sponge would... check it

[Garwain]

What's wrong with 'Control Water' ?

Or else, make 'Water Walking' a spell with reach and force the kraken to walk the surface...

[Bouregard]

Buy salt, tons of it. Fill lake with salt.
Now the Kraken can't dive anymore.
Or loads of quick dry cement.


Mhm reverse gravity cast at the lake could also work.


Or find some desert dwelling chromatic blue dragons and let them remove the water, they have a spell for it.

[kabreras]

For the record the lake is like 100 KM long per 60 km large.

[hoverfrog]

If the problem is the kraken fleeing then all you need to do is most faster than it. Box it in, slow it down, speed yourselves up, find it's lair and lay a trap, that kind of stuff. Draining a lake of that size is the kind of thing that starts and international incident.

[Telonius]

Dispel Water (Sandstorm p.114) is also a good one for this situation. Also a Cleric spell, so you should be able to cast it within a day if you have a high-enough level Cleric with you. 200 cubic feet of water per level is going to add up quickly.

You could try a Wall of Iron/Heat Metal combination. Conjure the Wall of Iron first (or just get a bunch of metal things, whatever your preference). Then Heat the metal to get the surrounding water to boil. The spell lasts seven rounds with each casting. Your DM would have to rule on how much of the surrounding water boiled, but once that happens, you can just spam it to boil off the whole lake.

EDIT: Ah. 100km long. That would take a while.

[ahenobarbi]

For the record the lake is like 100 KM long per 60 km large.

It will not be easy to drain such a lake in a mere day. even if it was just 1m deep (uh-huh no kraken in such a shallo water) you'd have

10 00 000dm * 600 000dm * 10dm = 6 000 000 000 000l (1 585 032 310 000 gallons)

of water. If you want to drain it within 24hours you have to remove

6 000 000 000 000 / (24 * 3600) = 69 444 444 [l/s] (18 345 281 gallon, 69 444cubic meters)

almost 70 million liters per second.... To have that much water move through a single gate (disc, 6m diameter) it would have to flow

69 444 / (6 pi) = 3685 [m/s] = 13' 266 [km/h]

Not gonna happen. It would be even worse with SoA (since it's smaller). So you should

- Handle the Kraken without drying the lake
- Have your DM overlook how big the lake is
- Use a lot of (thousands) SoAs, gates, fire walls holes etc. to dry the lake

[CTrees]

1.) Have a character with Iron Heart Surge go wading.
2.) "I'm wet, I don't like this condition!"
3.) "IRON HEART SURGE!"
4.) ???
5.) Profit!

~~~~~~

My first though was, of course, Mirror Move (which with the right prep work, can destroy the entire elemental plane of water), but I didn't see IHS mentioned yet.

[Invader]

It helps to know what level you are too. If pesky things like level and WBL are thrown out the window, anything is possible quickly.

[Bahamut Omega]

I'd recommend using a combination of casting Move Earth, Stone Shape, and Wall of Stone to start cutting the lake into smaller, more manageable sections.

Your issue it that it keeps running away, so take that option away from it and back it into a corner.

EDIT: Nevermind, I just read the lake's dimensions. I was thinking this was a lake about a square mile or two in size.

[Lappy9001]

There's actually a D&D Adventure module called Dry Spell (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20040626a) that features an Eversoaking Sponge. It absorbs 1,000 gallons per round, so you shouldn't have to wait that long for it to work. Allegedly, it's also in the Arms and Equipment Guide.

[Lapak]

It will not be easy to drain such a lake in a mere day. even if it was just 1m deep (uh-huh no kraken in such a shallo water) you'd have

10 00 000dm * 600 000dm * 10dm = 6 000 000 000 000l (1 585 032 310 000 gallons)

of water. If you want to drain it within 24hours you have to remove

6 000 000 000 000 / (24 * 3600) = 69 444 444 [l/s] (18 345 281 gallon, 69 444cubic meters)
EDIT: Forgot the person I was answering. :smalleek:

There's actually a D&D Adventure module called Dry Spell (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20040626a) that features an Eversoaking Sponge. It absorbs 1,000 gallons per round, so you shouldn't have to wait that long for it to work. Allegedly, it's also in the Arms and Equipment Guide.

If the calculation quoted is correct, AND the entire lake is just 1 meter deep (which I'm sure it isn't) it would still take 3,000 days for the Sponge to soak up the lake.

Lakes have a lot of water in them!

[Invader]

There's actually a D&D Adventure module called Dry Spell (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20040626a) that features an Eversoaking Sponge. It absorbs 1,000 gallons per round, so you shouldn't have to wait that long for it to work. Allegedly, it's also in the Arms and Equipment Guide.

According to the math that ahenobarbi did for us, you need to drain 70,000,000 liters a second to drain it in a day so 167 gallons a sec isn't going to cut it. :smalltongue:

[BRC]

Draining a lake this size is not all that practical (Though a Gate to another plane is the best one I can think of).

Personally, I would focus on luring the Kraken to part of the lake, like an Inlet or something, then cutting that off from the rest of the lake.

[nedz]

A lake this large is probably fed by one or more rivers and drained by one. If this is the case then damming the inputs will eventually drain it. Conversly if you don't damm the input streams then you will never empty the lake.

Can't you just trap the Kraken in a Forcecage ?

[Lappy9001]

EDIT: Forgot the person I was answering. :smalleek:


If the calculation quoted is correct, AND the entire lake is just 1 meter deep (which I'm sure it isn't) it would still take 3,000 days for the Sponge to soak up the lake.

Lakes have a lot of water in them!


According to the math that ahenobarbi did for us, you need to drain 70,000,000 liters a second to drain it in a day so 167 gallons a sec isn't going to cut it. :smalltongue:Ah, I missed the post of how big the lake was :smalltongue:

You could always double up, though. If draining a lake is a typical challenge for your character, you could probably make a couple of those sponges and let them sit while you cast relevant spells.

However, working on getting the kraken out might be more practical.

[Mithril Leaf]

Depending on your level, and how the rules for spreading poisons in water work, you could try making all your spells into minor creation and dumping tons of black lotus extract into the lake. If the kraken isn't poison immune, that might kill it.
Probably not the best idea, but me being who I am, it's what came to mind.

[Lapak]

Depending on your level, and how the rules for spreading poisons in water work, you could try making all your spells into minor creation and dumping tons of black lotus extract into the lake. If the kraken isn't poison immune, that might kill it.
Probably not the best idea, but me being who I am, it's what came to mind.Size of the lake is going to be just as much of a problem with this plan, unless lotus extract is lethal in dosages at the parts-per-quintillion level.

Or you have hundreds of mages doing a full-on 'industrial dumping' level of water pollution with the stuff.

[Kerilstrasz]

hmmm... a very rare/expensive way is an orb of anihilation...

[ericgrau]

I find that the problem with most methods for this type of problem is that they can't even handle 1% of a lake. I call it the, "It's a 5 story tall slug? Just sprinkle a handful of salt on it" problem.

Assume a general "opening at the bottom" tactic:
PE = mgh
KE = .5 * m * v^2
Ideally PE = KE, h = water depth.
v = (2gh)^0.5

Flow = Av = A(9.8 * h)^0.5 (at most)

Assuming a 100,000 m x 60,000 m x 20 m (average) lake:
Flow = A(9.8*20)^0.5 = A * 14 m/s (at most)
Volume = 100,000 x 60,000 x 20 = 120,000,000,000 cubic meters

Time = Volume / Flow = ~8,500,000,000 m^2 * s / A

Let's assume we have 24 hours to work with, or 86,400 seconds:
86,400 = 8,500,000,000 m^2 * s / A
A = 8,500,000,000 m^2 / 86,400 = ~98,000 square meters (probably more, since actual flow is lower than my upper limit)

A 20 foot gate is about 30 square meters. You're hosed. You'd need an opening over 400 meters across. Given 10 days you might do it with an opening over 100 meters across. If it keeps running away whenever it gets hurt and it's not a threat, I'd use divinations on the kraken then save or loses until it finally fails its save. Maybe flesh to stone, or imprisonment + teleportation circle + freedom,

[The Grue]

Given the following:

1) The lake is extremely large, though not nearly as big as any of the Great Lakes, and thus impractical to drain in a single day

2) The kraken you are hell-bent on catching, instead of acting like a fearsome beast of the sea that it is (incidentally what's a sea creature doing in a freshwater lake?), prefers to run away from tiny fleshy surface things that it could eat like popcorn

...this strikes me as a case of T-Rex On The Planes syndrome. I posit two scenarios

1) The GM has Something In Mind; there's a special method the GM has devised ahead of time for you to capture this kraken that does not involve draining a lake

2) The GM doesn't actually want you to capture the kraken

I ask, therefore, why you need to capture this kraken. The answer should shed some light on which of the two scenarios we're dealing with here.

[kabreras]

2 days, hell even 3 i take it that kraken decerve it.

I gess i will have to go in with a contingency that cast resilient sphere around me when TPing at the bottom of the lake, then cast the gate inside the sphere, permanancy it for the day (or even for 2 days with extend on top of it), TP out and comming back the next day or 2.

I need to be precotionous, the Kraken is not the only thing that run around in this lake (aboleths and others stuff is also roaming in there) but well considering the level of the gate with all these metamagics they wont be able to dispell it.

[Arcanist]

I'm gonna assume that Dispel Water is out of the question since nobodies recommended it?

[kabreras]

Given the following:

1) The lake is extremely large, though not nearly as big as any of the Great Lakes, and thus impractical to drain in a single day

2) The kraken you are hell-bent on catching, instead of acting like a fearsome beast of the sea that it is (incidentally what's a sea creature doing in a freshwater lake?), prefers to run away from tiny fleshy surface things that it could eat like popcorn

...this strikes me as a case of T-Rex On The Planes syndrome. I posit two scenarios

1) The GM has Something In Mind; there's a special method the GM has devised ahead of time for you to capture this kraken that does not involve draining a lake

2) The GM doesn't actually want you to capture the kraken

I ask, therefore, why you need to capture this kraken. The answer should shed some light on which of the two scenarios we're dealing with here.

The GM didnt want us to capture or kill it (he escaped 2 times).
The kraken killed one of us (2 levels ago) now we are anyway past him in the senario but well... We want our revenge...It wont change anything but we just want to kill him...
(Prety much like an other archmage that whiped the floor with our arses and that we will visit again soon)

[The Grue]

2 days, hell even 3 i take it that kraken decerve it.

I gess i will have to go in with a contingency that cast resilient sphere around me when TPing at the bottom of the lake, then cast the gate inside the sphere, permanancy it for the day (or even for 2 days with extend on top of it), TP out and comming back the next day or 2.

I need to be precotionous, the Kraken is not the only thing that run around in this lake (aboleths and others stuff is also roaming in there) but well considering the level of the gate with all these metamagics they wont be able to dispell it.

Again I ask why you need to capture this kraken. The fact that there are other scaries roaming the lake further convinces me that we're dealing with one of the two scenarios I outlined.

[Worira]

It's been mentioned, but it doesn't affect nearly a large enough volume of water. I did like the earlier mention of casting Water Walk on the kraken, which would force it to the surface and possibly suffocate it.

[Deepbluediver]

For the record the lake is like 100 KM long per 60 km large.

Ditto everything hoverfrog and ahenobarbi said.
I know magic is pretty powerful in D&D land, but having your first response be "drain the lake!" might not be the best way to go. Why not use Shapechange to transform yourself into a giant shark and take the fight to the Kraken?

Also, I don't know your GM very well, but if some one started dumping billions of gallons of water onto the elemental plane of fire, I think some of it's inhabitants might take exception to that.

[kabreras]

Again I ask why you need to capture this kraken. The fact that there are other scaries roaming the lake further convinces me that we're dealing with one of the two scenarios I outlined.

We dont need, we want to

[The Grue]

We dont need, we want to

I direct you then to Scenario 2; Your GM is not comfortable with ad-libbing and going off the rails and will continue to devise increasingly improbably reasons why you can't catch the kraken in an effort to get you back "on-task".

Depending on how comfortable you and your GM are with one another I would suggest either dropping it and moving along, or asking the GM if he minds if you catch that kraken because you're getting the distinct impression that he doesn't want you to. If he's made up his mind that you aren't going to catch the kraken, no amount of rules-lawyering or clever planning will change his mind.

[Lapak]

2 days, hell even 3 i take it that kraken decerve it.

I gess i will have to go in with a contingency that cast resilient sphere around me when TPing at the bottom of the lake, then cast the gate inside the sphere, permanancy it for the day (or even for 2 days with extend on top of it), TP out and comming back the next day or 2.Replace 'the next day or two' with 'in a couple of hundred years, assuming that the inflow from whatever waterway feeds this lake can't simply make up for the new outlet.'

It's a lot of water. A LOT of water. A LOT of water that we're talking about here. A Gate isn't going to cause the water to flow out any faster than it normally would. Seriously, you'll want to try one of the other tactics suggested: pen it in, Reverse Gravity, hire a Knight and have them Challenge it, hit it with Suggestions that it can win, fake being in trouble so it genuinely thinks it CAN win, something other than draining the lake.

[Arcanist]

The least expensive and easiest solution would be to create a dispel water spell trap (self-resetting) and then just place it by the water for a few days laughing maniacally when you see the Kraken flailing around on dry land then you walk up to that stupid fish* and you say "That was for my friend". As he dies you take a jem and trap the fish* into a soul jar and then throw the jem into the ocean to further torture the beast...

Now you can rebuild the Lake for the people at a price :smallamused:

[gbprime]

You're over thinking the problem.

A Kraken has no spell resistance, a Kraken's Dex is 10. Have an invisible wizard hit it with an Empowered or Maximized Ray of Clumsiness (Spell Compendium, Sor/Wiz Level 1). You then follow this up with ANYTHING that does 1 point of temporary dex damage. When it's Dex drops to 0, it is immobilized.

And if it's a fiendish kraken and has spell resistance, then use Assay Resistance on it first.

Then just beat it to a bloody pulp.

[137beth]

The least expensive and easiest solution would be to create a dispel water spell trap (self-resetting) and then just place it by the water for a few days laughing maniacally when you see the Kraken flailing around on dry land then you walk up to that stupid fish* and you say "That was for my friend". As he dies you take a jem and trap the fish* into a soul jar and then throw the jem into the ocean to further torture the beast...

Now you can rebuild the Lake for the people at a price :smallamused:

:smallsigh:
It's gonna take a lot more than a few days to drain. You'll be dead by that point. So yea, do something that doesn't involve draining. Reverse gravity or water walk could be your best bets.

[Arcanist]

:smallsigh:
It's gonna take a lot more than a few days to drain. You'll be dead by that point. So yea, do something that doesn't involve draining. Reverse gravity or water walk could be your best bets.

Dispel Water drys up 200 cubic feet of water per level per casting... Depending on the caster level of the trap the lack will be dried up in no time really... No math behind this since, lets face it, I suck at math so I'll wait for a better mathematician to come along and do it for me :smalltongue:

With Water Walk you would have to touch it and previous experiences state that as suicidal and with Reverse Gravity you would have to sail across the lack continously casting the spell (or using a trap) and hope you get lucky and hit the area the Kraken just so happens to be in...

[137beth]

.....
Then perhaps you missed the discussion about the size of the lake, and the previous several people who calculated how long it would take. The lake is 100 km by 60 km. If we assume it is only 20 m deep, that is 4.24048*10^12 cubic feet, so for CL 20 it would take 1.06012*10^9 (about 1 billion) castings. If you cast it 6 times per day, it would take 1.76687*10^8 days=483742 years to empty the lake. I guess you have some time to spare.

[ericgrau]

Even cheesing a self resetting trap every round would take about 200 years.

Originally I assumed 100 meters deep until I read that lake Erie averages 19 meters deep so I went with 20. At its deepest point it is 64 meters.

[Arcanist]

.....
Then perhaps you missed the discussion about the size of the lake, and the previous several people who calculated how long it would take. The lake is 100 km by 60 km. If we assume it is only 20 m deep, that is 4.24048*10^12 cubic feet, so for CL 20 it would take 1.06012*10^9 (about 1 billion) castings. If you cast it 6 times per day, it would take 1.76687*10^8 days=483742 years to empty the lake. I guess you have some time to spare.

The crossed out part was basically speakin french to me :smallconfused: Use English (or its more awesome counterparts, Engrish and Spanglish)

EDIT: Apparently I was a rude in my response to my request... If you could be so kind would you give me a more laid back explaination of that? scientific notation is not my specialty...

[The Grue]

The crossed out part was basically speakin french to me :smallconfused: Use English (or its more awesome counterparts, Engrish and Spanglish)

I like how you asked for someone to do the math, and then chastised the first person to actually present the math.

Anyway, all of this discussion is moot if the GM has decided he doesn't want the party to catch this kraken, which I maintain is what's going on here.

[ericgrau]

... and specifically for speaking mathese. Try looking up "scientific notation" if you're confused. It is very useful for large numbers and what most calculators display for them. And try asking more nicely for explanations. I can understand complaints if someone is being too technical for no reason, but it's reasonable here.

EDIT response to edit: By "looking up" I meant google or wikipedia. It's a common enough topic that you should get a wonderful explanation from either source. Or if a short answer is understandable enough then X.XXX * 10^Y means move the decimal point Y spaces to the right. Hence the usefulness on big numbers, especially ones that won't fit in a display.

I wouldn't be so sure that the DM will railroad without more evidence than "it ran away twice". It's more certain that the kraken doesn't want to die, which is reasonable. I hate it when DMs make monsters totally mindless.

[Lapak]

Even cheesing a self resetting trap every round would take about 200 years.And again, even that is assuming that this lake has no inflow to sustain it. 200 cubic feet of water every 6 seconds is barely even noticeable compared to what the lake may already be losing if a river flows out of it, and is almost certainly nothing compared to what's flowing in. A quick search indicates that, for example, the river that drains Lake Superior measures outflow in thousands of cubic meters per second. And that river is puny compared to any of the great continental rivers.

[The Grue]

I wouldn't be so sure that the DM will railroad without more evidence than "it ran away twice". It's more certain that the kraken doesn't want to die, which is reasonable. I hate it when DMs make monsters totally mindless.

How intelligent is a kraken? Is it intelligent enough to realize that smaller prey-animals are capable of killing it? This is an apex predator we're talking about here.

[Crasical]

Drop a Sympathy (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/sympathy.htm) on a boulder, and then light it up with Continual Flame to make it very noticeable in the gloom of the underdark. Alternatively, cast it on a musical instrument and play the instrument. As long as the creature is aware of the object, they should be making saves vs Sympathy. Use this to lure the Kraken somewhere.

[killem2]

Rather than draining, what if you use Wall of Iron, in the manner of creating channel locks.

That way you could create channels, check for the kraken, and continue on. Granted you would need a really high level wizard (or multiple ones.)

[Templarkommando]

I'm actually from Oklahoma. I know that seems unrelated, but it will soon make a bit more sense. Oklahoma has no natural lakes, yet if you look at your map there are hundreds of little bodies of water that are in fact titled "lakes." The truth is that they are actually reservoirs that are made by damming tributaries and creeks and so on. If you can find a lower cavern beneath the lake, dig a tunnel up to the lake support it with wood supports, then when you finish your tunnel, set the supports on fire and collapse the tunnel which will bring the water from your subterranean lake flowing into the lower cavern.

If you can't find a natural cavern at a lower level than your lake (your DM is a meany-head if that's the case, but I digress) Look into ways of creating your own cavern. Disintegrate, Stone to Mud, Stoneshape and similar spells seem to be good candidates for this job. The only problem I foresee here is that I'm not sure exactly how much volume of stone/earth you could move per day with these spells. I do know that beholders are famous for making huge artificial caverns with their eye beams, but it could be difficult to find one willing to aid you in your cause. You could also technically do all of these things through mundane means - shovels, picks etc. - if it is absolutely necessary.

[Invader]

And again, even that is assuming that this lake has no inflow to sustain it. 200 cubic feet of water every 6 seconds is barely even noticeable compared to what the lake may already be losing if a river flows out of it, and is almost certainly nothing compared to what's flowing in. A quick search indicates that, for example, the river that drains Lake Superior measures outflow in thousands of cubic meters per second. And that river is puny compared to any of the great continental rivers.

Its a 5th level cleric spell (4th druid, bard) but lets say 9th level caster. thats 1,800 cubic feet per round, that's a decent amount although its still no where near enough (even with multiple traps) to drain a lake that size.

It still begs the question though, what level is your party? This is all for nothing if someone finds a meaningful way of doing it if you're 5 levels to low.

Personally just cast earthquake a few times and let the fissures do the work. It doesn't say how much water is drained so make it a huge fissure that is able to drain a few billion gallons...

[Invader]

Rather than draining, what if you use Wall of Iron, in the manner of creating channel locks.

That way you could create channels, check for the kraken, and continue on. Granted you would need a really high level wizard (or multiple ones.)

It's 60km wide and 100km long, creating channels are probably going to be out of the question.

[Bahamut Omega]

I find that the problem with most methods for this type of problem is that they can't even handle 1% of a lake. I call it the, "It's a 5 story tall slug? Just sprinkle a handful of salt on it" problem.

Assume a general "opening at the bottom" tactic:
PE = mgh
KE = .5 * m * v^2
Ideally PE = KE, h = water depth.
v = (2gh)^0.5

Flow = Av = A(9.8 * h)^0.5 (at most)

Assuming a 100,000 m x 60,000 m x 20 m (average) lake:
Flow = A(9.8*20)^0.5 = A * 14 m/s (at most)
Volume = 100,000 x 60,000 x 20 = 120,000,000,000 cubic meters

Time = Volume / Flow = ~8,500,000,000 m^2 * s / A

Let's assume we have 24 hours to work with, or 86,400 seconds:
86,400 = 8,500,000,000 m^2 * s / A
A = 8,500,000,000 m^2 / 86,400 = ~98,000 square meters (probably more, since actual flow is lower than my upper limit)

A 20 foot gate is about 30 square meters. You're hosed. You'd need an opening over 400 meters across. Given 10 days you might do it with an opening over 100 meters across. If it keeps running away whenever it gets hurt and it's not a threat, I'd use divinations on the kraken then save or loses until it finally fails its save. Maybe flesh to stone, or imprisonment + teleportation circle + freedom,

You actually need to also use an integral of Bernoulli's equation since it's water flowing under pressure.

[Integrate with regards to Pressure over the limits of Pmax to 0]:

[(v^2)/2]+gz+[P/rho]=Constant

where:

v=velocity of flow (I think you need to integrate again for this since it will change as the pressure goes down);
g=gravitational constant (should be constant, but is not necessarily 9.81 m/sec^2 since this is DnD and I don't know if this is an alternate plane with weird gravity);
z=lake depth at the point of your drain (should be constant);
P=pressure (this will go down linearly as the lake drains);
rho=density of the fluid (this should be constant).

You'll probably want to simplify the equation to get a head of 0, though, so to rewrite it:

Head = z + [P/(rho*g)] + [(v^2)/2g] = 0

[Crasical]

How intelligent is a kraken? Is it intelligent enough to realize that smaller prey-animals are capable of killing it? This is an apex predator we're talking about here.

Intelligence 21. So it's smarted than we are.

[ericgrau]

You actually need to also use an integral of Bernoulli's equation since it's water flowing under pressure.

[Integrate with regards to Pressure over the limits of Pmax to 0]:

[(v^2)/2]+gz+[P/rho]=Constant

where:

v=velocity of flow (I think you need to integrate again for this since it will change as the pressure goes down);
g=gravitational constant (should be constant, but is not necessarily 9.81 m/sec^2 since this is DnD and I don't know if this is an alternate plane with weird gravity);
z=lake depth at the point of your drain (should be constant);
P=pressure (this will go down linearly as the lake drains);
rho=density of the fluid (this should be constant).

You'll probably want to simplify the equation to get a head of 0, though, so to rewrite it:

Head = z + [P/(rho*g)] + [(v^2)/2g] = 0

Correct, and I am lazy so I only went for an upper bound on flow. You also need to consider the shape of the opening around its edges and consider losses there because it is probably not 100% efficient.

Regardless the upper bound on flow isn't high enough, so after all that solving you'll get a lower flow and the situation will be worse.

[killem2]

how big of a boulder would it take to drop into the lake, to make the splash so big, it makes most of the water just exit in tsunami like waves and is it possible?

[BIGMamaSloth]

It will not be easy to drain such a lake in a mere day. even if it was just 1m deep (uh-huh no kraken in such a shallo water) you'd have

10 00 000dm * 600 000dm * 10dm = 6 000 000 000 000l (1 585 032 310 000 gallons)

of water. If you want to drain it within 24hours you have to remove

6 000 000 000 000 / (24 * 3600) = 69 444 444 [l/s] (18 345 281 gallon, 69 444cubic meters)

almost 70 million liters per second.... To have that much water move through a single gate (disc, 6m diameter) it would have to flow

69 444 / (6 pi) = 3685 [m/s] = 13' 266 [km/h]

Not gonna happen. It would be even worse with SoA (since it's smaller). So you should

- Handle the Kraken without drying the lake
- Have your DM overlook how big the lake is
- Use a lot of (thousands) SoAs, gates, fire walls holes etc. to dry the lake
You missed just buying 1 and a half billion dusts of drying! While a little pricey (you can afford a trillion odd gold pieces right?) you have the added benefit of dropping them on someone you don't like.

[Little Brother]

I'm going to bring up depth charges, again. Bag of Holding/Portable Hole Depth Charges. Drop 'em deep, put an illusion/some bait, or just a lot of them, and rig them up to activate when jostled at all. Seems easy way to kill the Kraken, even if you can't physically reach it.

Make sure to place them far enough apart that they won't suck each other up.

[Invader]

I'm going to bring up depth charges, again. Bag of Holding/Portable Hole Depth Charges. Drop 'em deep, put an illusion/some bait, or just a lot of them, and rig them up to activate when jostled at all. Seems easy way to kill the Kraken, even if you can't physically reach it.

Make sure to place them far enough apart that they won't suck each other up.

Again the lake is 100km by 60km and who knows how deep and the OP gave a timeline of 24 hours. I'm not sure how you accomplish all this, especially as you're in the underdark.

[Little Brother]

Hm. Have a simulacrum factory in your demiplane? Bajillions of Efreet, pumping out a Bag, a Hole, and another Efreet, then setting up the charge. All at speeds dozens of times faster than normal?

Other ways that could work: MAYBE a decanter of endless sand pissing the kraken off enough to make it come up? Then you could beat it up normally.

Or set up a spell turret with Maximized Time Stop(Trickery Domain), Miracle(Metamagicked out Delayed Blast Fireball), Wish(Envy Domain)(MM'd out Delayed Blast Fireball), and a Shades(MM'd out Vitriolic Sphere)? Infinite damage?

[Knaight]

The lake is 100 km by 60 km. If we assume it is only 20 m deep, that is 4.24048*10^12 cubic feet, so for CL 20 it would take 1.06012*10^9 (about 1 billion) castings. If you cast it 6 times per day, it would take 1.76687*10^8 days=483742 years to empty the lake. I guess you have some time to spare.

This doesn't check out - this assumes that the average width and length are 100km and 60 km. They may well be maximum dimensions, which means that treating the lake as a rectangular prism really doesn't work. Assuming an elliptical lake, the area is pi(50km)(30km), and the volume is pi(20m)(50km)(30km). Given that the volume for a rectangular prism is 4(20m)(50km)(30km), and we know that that is 4.34048*10^12 cubic feet* we can simplify to 4.34048*10^12(pi/4)*. For an elliptical lake, we thus get 3.409*10^12 cubic feet. Call it 3.4 trillion, given that we are operating off of two significant digits at best with the initial data.

This doesn't really change much substantively, as the currently proposed drainage methods are too slow by several orders of magnitude.

This leaves draining the lake as implausible. However, poisoning everything in it was mentioned - here's how this works:
1) Produce a small amount of black lotus extract.
2) Talk the GM into treating homeopathy as a valid medicinal principle in the setting, on account of it being fantasy.
3) Dump the black lotus extract in the lake.


*We could do that anyways given general cases, but that just necessitates demonstrating said general case for those less familiar with math, so I worked in specifics.

[Little Brother]

Open a gate in the sun to the plane of fire, then another gate, directly in front of it, in the plane of fire to the lake. Just pray. Just have a contingent AMF on it(Or Dispel, or any other way to shut it off), a Pact of Return(Set to you dying from one of your magical experiments)(Actually, make it a couple, just in case, or some for your precautions failing) and a contingent Immunity to fire. Maybe a contingent teleport, too.

Either way, with a bit of XP and a few spells, you wiped out the Underdark. And possibly the rest of the planet. Too lazy to bother trying to figure out the damage done. Nesting Time Stops would make stuff go faster, which might let you react fast enough to limit the damage(Ish).

Either way, a lance of superheated plasma capable of igniting the atmosphere. That should empty the lake pretty fast.

[Templarkommando]

After thinking about this for a while consider this.

In the real world, I'm unaware of any underground lakes of this size. Furthermore, I'd be interested to see the physics behind any such lake as to whether or not it would collapse quickly from erosion and the sheer weight of the earth above it.

Edit: after writing this I thought it would be a good idea to make sure I wasn't completely off-base. It looks like I was given the following article is true.

http://sometimes-interesting.com/2012/02/17/the-largest-underground-lake-in-the-world-lake-vostok/

[TuggyNE]

However, poisoning everything in it was mentioned - here's how this works:
1) Produce a small amount of black lotus extract.
2) Talk the GM into treating homeopathy as a valid medicinal principle in the setting, on account of it being fantasy.
3) Dump the black lotus extract in the lake.


homeopathy

Good show, sir. :smallcool:

[Callista]

So why not just cast water breathing and freedom of movement, walk up to it, and attack as normal?

[Kerilstrasz]

well... how about raise the temp of water so hot that the kraken gets out by itself?
or freeze the lake, trap the kraken , cast locate monster(?) and walk there and do what you want...

[kabreras]

So why not just cast water breathing and freedom of movement, walk up to it, and attack as normal?

Because he anyway swim way faster than i can hope about reaching him and there are others things i would like to avoid in the lake that would make an underwater fight quite tricky (aboleths for exemple)

[Worira]

Because he anyway swim way faster than i can hope about reaching him and there are others things i would like to avoid in the lake that would make an underwater fight quite tricky (aboleths for exemple)

...20 feet? I'm pretty sure you can outpace that, dude.

EDIT: Oh wait, I forgot about Jet.

[Jarian]

...20 feet? I'm pretty sure you can outpace that, dude.

Don't be silly. It is far easier to open gates and evaporate the lake with solar plasma than it is to cast... I dunno... *flips open Stormwrack and stabs at about half the spells blindly* that for a swim speed.


EDIT: Oh wait, I forgot about Jet.

I sincerely doubt that the amount of effort and gold going into draining this lake could not be better spent granting the party similar movement speeds. Heck, it should be possible to get land speeds of 150+ feet per round, and double that with flight or swim.

[Worira]

Yeah, it's probably still going to be easier, but it might be a bit trickier. Let's see... keeping up with the Kraken requires a bare minimum of 70 ft. swim speed, with more being preferable. The spells Swim and Expeditious Retreat get up to 60, add Quickswim (which stacks with Expeditious Retreat because one is an enhancement bonus to land speed and the other to swim speed), and you're at 70. Add Wings of the Sea for another untyped +30, and you're at 100. Add Cloak of the Sea for Freedom of Movement and Water Breathing, and you're set.

OK, so maybe not that tricky.

[nedz]

Intelligence 21. So it's smarted than we are.

In other words its already done the maths and knows its quite safe.

Even if you did open a large enough hole to drain the lake in 24 hours, whats to stop the Kraken escaping through that route ?

[nedz]

Kraken are sea creatures. Does this 'lake' have a connection to the ocean ? Simple test: taste the water, is it salty ?

[Deepbluediver]

Because he anyway swim way faster than i can hope about reaching him and there are others things i would like to avoid in the lake that would make an underwater fight quite tricky (aboleths for exemple)

If you manage to succeed in emptying the lake, what's to stop the Aboleth's and other things from showing up and attacking you, also? I think they might object to having their home destroyed.

The more we learn about this quest the more it seems like you're just seeking revenge out of spite.

[Little Brother]

Are you particularly attached to your planet? I mean, planetbusting is easy, but otherwise, it's kinda...

You could make a simulacrum factory, pump out about 50 Kraken simulacra, send them down, and have them kill it. Or, get an efreet and wish it out of the lake. Then stab it.

[The Grue]

If you manage to succeed in emptying the lake, what's to stop the Aboleth's and other things from showing up and attacking you, also? I think they might object to having their home destroyed.

The more we learn about this quest the more it seems like you're just seeking revenge out of spite.

As we've already been told, it's not a quest. He's hell-bent on catching this kraken seemingly for its own sake.

Again, I pose my question: Are you certain your GM is okay with you killing this kraken? All these schemes and plans hatched in this thread will only serve to annoy your GM if he's trying to get you back on task, and that will have lasting consequences on your campaign. I know if it were me, and my GM was giving more and more reasons why catching this kraken was implausible or dangerous, I'd have a chat with him and ask if maybe there's something he's trying to tell me.

[kabreras]

As we've already been told, it's not a quest. He's hell-bent on catching this kraken seemingly for its own sake.

Again, I pose my question: Are you certain your GM is okay with you killing this kraken? All these schemes and plans hatched in this thread will only serve to annoy your GM if he's trying to get you back on task, and that will have lasting consequences on your campaign. I know if it were me, and my GM was giving more and more reasons why catching this kraken was implausible or dangerous, I'd have a chat with him and ask if maybe there's something he's trying to tell me.

The GM wont care if we manage to get it, its just hard to do, btw we are level 17 so no uber crasy things that only work on paper and that are not platical ingame.

[Little Brother]

The GM wont care if we manage to get it, its just hard to do, btw we are level 17 so no uber crasy things that only work on paper and that are not platical ingame.Are you a full caster? Do you have Shapechange?


And define "Uber crazy things that only work on paper and that are not practical in-game."

[kabreras]

And define "Uber crazy things that only work on paper and that are not practical in-game."

Blowing the whole planet for exemple

[Little Brother]

Blowing the whole planet for exempleStrictly speaking, if timed with the right contingencies, you might just roast the entire underdark...

But is a simulacrum factory okay?

[kabreras]

Strictly speaking, if timed with the right contingencies, you might just roast the entire underdark...

But is a simulacrum factory okay?

of course not

[SSGoW]

The GM didnt want us to capture or kill it (he escaped 2 times).
The kraken killed one of us (2 levels ago) now we are anyway past him in the senario but well... We want our revenge...It wont change anything but we just want to kill him...
(Prety much like an other archmage that whiped the floor with our arses and that we will visit again soon)

"Just walk away. No one will get hurt if you just walk away"

I think that is from Mad Max but I like to think of "Butters" from Southpark.

[The Frank One]

Since I've seen this lake compared to the Great Lakes a few times in this thread I'm going to speak up with some real life experience and explain how big the Great Lakes actually feel since the term "lake" almost seems misleading. I live in Michigan and have lived near the lakes my whole life, was at Lake Michigan two days ago.

They look like oceans. If you stand and look out on the great lakes, they just go on as far as you can see, endless water, no obvious curve to the shoreline around the lake, just water, water, water. You are going to need a lot of time and probably custom item creation to impact a body of water this size without stupid and unreasonable TO solutions.

I really think isolating the Kraken in a seperate, smaller, lake (you may have to split off yourself) is the best idea so far. A lot of people have posted very impressive math giving you numbers that boggle the mind. Those numbers all add up to a lake that looks a lot like an ocean standing on the shoreline and its hard to impact that much water.

Wish and/or Miracle might be the answer but this is definitely a "powerful request" and I as a DM would not be comfortable with allowing it. Geologic formations and topography are not to be ****ed with on that level by a measly 17th lvl wizard in a real game.

[killem2]

Ok, here is another possible option.

After some google foo, there was in history an F5 tornado that lifted a train that weighed nearly 70 tons.

there are 239.65 US gallons in a ton. So we have a possible, max of 16775.50 gallons of water.

Place the tornados via control weather spell, in the center of the lake, hire a fleet of wizards to all cast their own version of the spell as many times as they can.

According to yahoo answers there are 1,299,318,233,965,804.5 U.S. gallons of water in lake Michigan.

We need 77,453,323,833 tornados.

Level 20 wizards can cast at elast 4 of these per day, they last for 4 hours, it really only takes a few minutes to suck up its limit of water and it will go off to where every it goes to drop its load of water. At that speed it will be clear of the area of the lake.

We need, 1,936,330,958 level 20 wizards.

Ok, GO! :D