Defending the base

[sheppardde]

Hello all! I'm looking for a bit of advice.

I'm playing in a campaign in which we recently acquired some property within a major city. The city has been under siege in the past, and on several occasions we've been attacked in various inns, streets, etc, as well as had people attempt to infiltrate our party. So now my party is attempting to fortify our base as much as possible in order to prevent these things from happening in the future.

We're level 15-16, the party is made up of a paladin, rogue, cleric, fighter, and ranger, and we have roughly 30,000 in liquid assets. Also we're hiring on a few staff members at the moment (looking at a wizard to help cast defensive spells on the dwelling).

The campaign has been mostly us fighting evil outsiders with a splash of undead, and the BBG is an epic level caster (little information on him). We're not looking to do much jank here, nor do we think it's really possible to stop the epic caster from breaking in if he wants to, but things which would let us know people had snuck in, strengthen the defenses of physically having the building brought down on us, ward out evil spells, etc., would be nice. Any suggestions for spells/items we could acquire to assist in protecting our base of operations/home?

(D&D 3.5, pretty much all non-splat books allowed.)

[Tvtyrant]

The 5th level Cleric spells Hallow/Unhallow are good for what you are talking about. They last for 1 year, can either aid or harm undead, and allow you to apply one of the following spells for the duration of the spell. Aid, bane, bless, cause fear, darkness, daylight, death ward, deeper darkness, detect evil, detect magic, dimensional anchor, discern lies, dispel magic, endure elements, freedom of movement, invisibility purge, protection from energy, remove fear, resist energy, silence, tongues, and zone of truth.

You also get to pick whether it effects people of your alignment, other people's alignments (for negative effects) or everyone entering it.

[Zahhak]

I'd probably had having only one or two ways in/out (including an escape tunnel), put an alarm spell on the door, and maybe an antimagic field in as wide an area around the tower as you can (I am assuming the BBEG epic caster is atleast nominally humanoid or has access to humanoid underlings). Put some kind of AOE weapon on top of the tower (catapult on rollers, for example), some kind of anti-air weapons (probably just small ballistas), have 24 hour guard duty, and you're golden.

[J-H]

Hire a bunch of the street kids to give you info on the sly. Purchase a few of the houses around your property and set up observers (with a communication method, maybe a 3x/day Message item) who can call in suspicious characters approaching, break-ins, etc. Operate them through a shell company (lawyer/merchant/etc) so that your party is never seen in direct contact with them - this helps make it much less likely that your opponents will easily figure out the connection.

[Saintheart]

Forbiddance. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/forbiddance.htm) Your own divine casters can access it. Set it up with a password, and all planar travel is forbidden within its area. That'll prevent outsider teleporting or plane shift shenanigans, methinks.

But that's not the best part. Set up right, multiple Forbiddance fields are also brutally damaging to anyone who just tries walking through it with a different alignment to yours:

Forbiddance effects can't overlap, but one spell doesn't exactly cancel out the other. Rather, per RAW, "You can’t have multiple overlapping forbiddance effects. In such a case, the more recent effect stops at the boundary of the older effect."

So, visualise a 20 x 20 room with the door I and your spot as X:

I
DDDD
CCCC
BBBB
AAAA
X

Basically you cast four Forbiddance spells, each new spell's boundary five feet forward of the previous one (Cast A, take a five foot step, cast B, etc). Anyone coming through door I and walking across the room to point X suffers a minimum of 3d6 x 4 = 12d6 of untyped damage, assuming no spell resistance. That's because they're getting hit with a new Forbiddance spell every five feet. And that's if they have one aspect of their alignment common to you.

If they fail their saving throws, and they have no common elements to their alignment, it's a potential maximum of 48d6 just by crossing a room. And because it's untyped, undead energy immunities don't apply to it. If you can squeeze in Metamagic on it somehow, it just gets better.

[Saintheart]

The 5th level Cleric spells Hallow/Unhallow are good for what you are talking about. They last for 1 year, can either aid or harm undead, and allow you to apply one of the following spells for the duration of the spell. Aid, bane, bless, cause fear, darkness, daylight, death ward, deeper darkness, detect evil, detect magic, dimensional anchor, discern lies, dispel magic, endure elements, freedom of movement, invisibility purge, protection from energy, remove fear, resist energy, silence, tongues, and zone of truth.

You also get to pick whether it effects people of your alignment, other people's alignments (for negative effects) or everyone entering it.

Small note here, since the subject came up in planning for RHOD: dispel magic under a Un/Hallow effect doesn't give you a cheap Antimagic Field. All it does is hit the person entering with one Dispel Magic effect. Unless the person leaves the field and enters again, the spell won't be triggered again.

[Tvtyrant]

Small note here, since the subject came up in planning for RHOD: dispel magic under a Un/Hallow effect doesn't give you a cheap Antimagic Field. All it does is hit the person entering with one Dispel Magic effect. Unless the person leaves the field and enters again, the spell won't be triggered again.

Based on what exactly? I'm not arguing, but I would like to see your evidence.

[Saintheart]

...comes principally from the guy who mentored me in D&D. I think there might be a RAW Q&A somewhere around where I sought clarification on the subject. I'll go take a look...

EDIT: Yeah. Dispel Magic is explicitly of an instantaneous duration, whether it's targeted, counterspell, or area effect. Un/Hallow makes the spell effect last for one year. Not the same thing.

[hoverfrog]

Just because you have all this power don't neglect mundane traps and locks. A mid level party of spellcasters in one of my games was once stopped by a locked door for several minutes while they smashed it to pieces. Buy the best doors and the best locks you can afford. Trap them with mundane and magical traps. Put a guard on them and keep them out of sight. Add some covered pit traps, rooms full of water, secret doors everywhere, false doors, do things to slow the enemy down and alert you to their presence.

Something important, unlike the DM you don't have to worry about overkill. Your traps aren't designed to injure and inconvenience a party, they are designed to kill. Make them as nasty as you can. Why have a covered pit when you can have a pit with spikes? Why have spikes when you can have barbed spikes with poison on and some swarms of flesh eating beetles at the bottom of the pit to eat anything that falls in. Oh and have the trap reset in one round so they can't climb out again and grease the walls...with flammable oil....and air seal it...then flood it with boiling oil after 10 rounds...and have the walls close in the crush any survivors.

Grimtooth's Traps might give you some ideas.