Got to Dump 12 Million Gold Fast

[Skysaber]

So a little background. We're playing a 3.x Netheril game and were just crawling around in Undermountain, where we got into a room containing a giant anvil that worked out to be 288 cubic feet of pure gold. Now, at 1204 lbs of gold per cubic foot, and 50gp per pound, that works out to 17,337,600gp. That, plus the gems discovered in the same room, brings the total to a little over 24 million gp.

Two of us were playing tonight.

So, the problem is, this is already a pretty high power campaign. Netheril has some big advantages for wizards, so to provide everybody an opportunity to try those out, the whole party is wizard/something gestalts, just a little under 13th level currently, and already well equipped with magic items. And, what it comes right down to, is none of us want to break our DM's back, trying to make him struggle under the weight of advancing the monsters to challenge us if we spent that money in any way smacking of efficiency.

Trick is, nor do we want to insult him by wasting what is probably the biggest treasure haul any of us will ever see in our lives, and he's a clever guy.

So what me and the other player have tentatively decided to do is build ourselves each a fortress. These have the advantages of being ridiculously costly, and you can't carry them with you on a dungeon crawl, so no matter what they do, they can be marginalized with little effort.

Trouble is, I've never built a fort before, by D&D rules. All of the basic stuff, rooms and walls and so on, we'll probably have to build magically, buying a dozen or so lyres of building, and so on, just to avoid looking like we are wasting this treasure haul. Ideally, we'd outfit some cohorts and things to look after the places for us, then spend the rest on making things to make the people of our future enclaves happy.

Thoughts?

[Rubik]

So a little background. We're playing a 3.x Netheril game and were just crawling around in Undermountain, where we got into a room containing a giant anvil that worked out to be 288 cubic feet of pure gold. Now, at 1204 lbs of gold per cubic foot, and 50gp per pound, that works out to 17,337,600gp. That, plus the gems discovered in the same room, brings the total to a little over 24 million gp.

Two of us were playing tonight.

So, the problem is, this is already a pretty high power campaign. Netheril has some big advantages for wizards, so to provide everybody an opportunity to try those out, the whole party is wizard/something gestalts, just a little under 13th level currently, and already well equipped with magic items. And, what it comes right down to, is none of us want to break our DM's back, trying to make him struggle under the weight of advancing the monsters to challenge us if we spent that money in any way smacking of efficiency.

Trick is, nor do we want to insult him by wasting what is probably the biggest treasure haul any of us will ever see in our lives, and he's a clever guy.

So what me and the other player have tentatively decided to do is build ourselves each a fortress. These have the advantages of being ridiculously costly, and you can't carry them with you on a dungeon crawl, so no matter what they do, they can be marginalized with little effort.

Trouble is, I've never built a fort before, by D&D rules. All of the basic stuff, rooms and walls and so on, we'll probably have to build magically, buying a dozen or so lyres of building, and so on, just to avoid looking like we are wasting this treasure haul. Ideally, we'd outfit some cohorts and things to look after the places for us, then spend the rest on making things to make the people of our future enclaves happy.

Thoughts?If you're wizards you can build yourself fortresses for the cost of spell slots and spell components (in other words, 0 gp), if you have the right spells.

I'd buy spells. ALL the spells. For everyone. And grafts, too. Again, for everyone.

[mjlush]

Trouble is, I've never built a fort before, by D&D rules. All of the basic stuff, rooms and walls and so on, we'll probably have to build magically, buying a dozen or so lyres of building, and so on, just to avoid looking like we are wasting this treasure haul. Ideally, we'd outfit some cohorts and things to look after the places for us, then spend the rest on making things to make the people of our future enclaves happy.

Thoughts?

Fantasy concrete could help you speed up building ie Rock to Mud (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/transmuteRockToMud.htm) pour in to a cast, Dispel Magic restores the rock to its original substance. (but not form). The nice thing is you can do reinforced Fantasy concrete by incorporating metal rods and chains into it and also build in traps to catch any mages trying to do passwall, rock to mud etc.

Never make your walls a multiple of 5 feet thick most magic operates in a multiples of 5ft range :->

[Gildedragon]

Check out Stonghold Builder's Handbook.
There's magical items there that you can use.

Otherwise, why not spend it in building up prosperizing a village/institution? It lets you access some wealth/resources in the future and is more pro social. Or build a small university for mages. Or somesuch. Any given party doesn't need more than one or two fortresses and a mundane one can be made by a wizard on the cheap.
(Note: Building of strongholds would benefit from a guide)

[Derpldorf]

I remember a similar situation I ran into a while back. What did I do? I made a hundred foot long twenty foot thick obdurium spike that had a fly speed, earth glide and swim speed. I basically used it to smash through and/or into all kinds of caves/castles/ships/whatever and deliver my hundred plus battalion of assault fairies...

[SowZ]

I'd see if I could at least find a cowl of warding, though. ALL the cowl's of warding.

[WeeFreeMen]

I feel as though a party of Gesalt Wizards with 24 Million in Gold and Magic at their finger-tips has somewhat of an obligation to make themselves a magical flying tippy-verse city. Possibly in the image of BioShock: Infinite

I mean, you could effectively start creating your own country and with that comes political power, etc etc. Should be fun for your DM to play around and for you guys to RP.

Just a thought. :smallsmile:

[Mnemnosyne]

Ask your DM how much a mythallar costs, since you're playing in Netheril. Buy one of those, and put it in your stronghold, so you can then use quasimagical items nearby instead of having to create full magical items.

This also gives you the basis from which to cast Proctiv's move mountain once you get high enough level and want to form your own enclave.

[Skysaber]

Check out Stonghold Builder's Handbook.
There's magical items there that you can use.

Otherwise, why not spend it in building up prosperizing a village/institution? It lets you access some wealth/resources in the future and is more pro social. Or build a small university for mages. Or somesuch. Any given party doesn't need more than one or two fortresses and a mundane one can be made by a wizard on the cheap.
(Note: Building of strongholds would benefit from a guide)

That's really kind of the point I was going for. I regard this as something like a giant magic item, and the mundane cost of a masterwork weapon that is to be a +10 sword is trivial next all of the enhancements put on it.

I've got Fabricates and Walls of Stone, spells to summon giant badgers for tunnels, lyres of building, and an item of +30 to Knowledge: Architecture & Engineering covered already (plus another one of +30 to Know: Geography, and another the same for Know: Local to help me plan a building site).

But the mundane cost is basically just the masterwork component of that +10 sword.

So, Stronghold Builder's Guide. Bed of Regeneration, anyone can lie on this for a couple of rounds to find limbs restored, etc. Cost 91,000gp. I could probably get a dozen of them. Beds of Restoration, 38,000gp a pop, fill a hospital ward with them.

Or should I?

That's really at the core of my conundrum here. How much, and of what? If I throw around massive healing where I could get a conga line of injured peasants in through my doors, and out the other side again in perfect health, I could be sure to make my people happy. I want that. I could even share that with my neighbors for a minimal fee, coppers on the head, or something. A minimal fee just to avoid abuse of the system.

But if I build something like that, someone is going to want to steal it no matter how generous or liberal I try to be. And let's not overlook the armies of orcs that swarm over Netherese ground. They'd surely want something like that for themselves, too, and not be inclined to share.

So in some ways I find myself in the exact reverse situation of most players, as I not only want to establish something wonderful, but I have to defend it.

Fortunately, I have a massive budget to buy magic for it.

[SowZ]

That's really kind of the point I was going for. I regard this as something like a giant magic item, and the mundane cost of a masterwork weapon that is to be a +10 sword is trivial next all of the enhancements put on it.

I've got Fabricates and Walls of Stone, spells to summon giant badgers for tunnels, lyres of building, and an item of +30 to Knowledge: Architecture & Engineering covered already (plus another one of +30 to Know: Geography, and another the same for Know: Local to help me plan a building site).

But the mundane cost is basically just the masterwork component of that +10 sword.

So, Stronghold Builder's Guide. Bed of Regeneration, anyone can lie on this for a couple of rounds to find limbs restored, etc. Cost 91,000gp. I could probably get a dozen of them. Beds of Restoration, 38,000gp a pop, fill a hospital ward with them.

Or should I?

That's really at the core of my conundrum here. How much, and of what? If I throw around massive healing where I could get a conga line of injured peasants in through my doors, and out the other side again in perfect health, I could be sure to make my people happy. I want that. I could even share that with my neighbors for a minimal fee, coppers on the head, or something. A minimal fee just to avoid abuse of the system.

But if I build something like that, someone is going to want to steal it no matter how generous or liberal I try to be. And let's not overlook the armies of orcs that swarm over Netherese ground. They'd surely want something like that for themselves, too, and not be inclined to share.

So in some ways I find myself in the exact reserve situation of most players, as I not only want to establish something wonderful, but I have to defend it.

Fortunately, I have a massive budget to buy magic for it.

Aside from magical defenses, you could have the magic items be made to only be useable by your race, (which even makes them cheaper.) Also, as someone has said, sky fortress. DEFINITELY sky fortress.

[Felandria]

Build yourself a log cabin entirely out of Immovable Rods.

[SowZ]

That's really kind of the point I was going for. I regard this as something like a giant magic item, and the mundane cost of a masterwork weapon that is to be a +10 sword is trivial next all of the enhancements put on it.

I've got Fabricates and Walls of Stone, spells to summon giant badgers for tunnels, lyres of building, and an item of +30 to Knowledge: Architecture & Engineering covered already (plus another one of +30 to Know: Geography, and another the same for Know: Local to help me plan a building site).

But the mundane cost is basically just the masterwork component of that +10 sword.

So, Stronghold Builder's Guide. Bed of Regeneration, anyone can lie on this for a couple of rounds to find limbs restored, etc. Cost 91,000gp. I could probably get a dozen of them. Beds of Restoration, 38,000gp a pop, fill a hospital ward with them.

Or should I?

That's really at the core of my conundrum here. How much, and of what? If I throw around massive healing where I could get a conga line of injured peasants in through my doors, and out the other side again in perfect health, I could be sure to make my people happy. I want that. I could even share that with my neighbors for a minimal fee, coppers on the head, or something. A minimal fee just to avoid abuse of the system.

But if I build something like that, someone is going to want to steal it no matter how generous or liberal I try to be. And let's not overlook the armies of orcs that swarm over Netherese ground. They'd surely want something like that for themselves, too, and not be inclined to share.

So in some ways I find myself in the exact reserve situation of most players, as I not only want to establish something wonderful, but I have to defend it.

Fortunately, I have a massive budget to buy magic for it.

Have a permanent Zone of Truth at your entrance. An item of Sense Motive plus twenty is with a guard at all times, (his job is to detect if the person failed the save.) Have a laundry list of fool-proof yes or no questions, and another list of open ended questions that the sense motive guy has to determine if he is being dodgy with.

Next, and this part is going to be time consuming and costly but worth it. Magic Circle against evil the entire fortress at the highest CL you can afford. Not having to fear your people being dominated or something is lovely. The same treatment must be done with a Zone of Respite. This is much easier, actually, since each one is going to be a much larger area. Your whole city is pretty much indefensible if people can just teleport in.

Next, Mage's Private Sanctum the entire floating city. This makes it immune to Scrying and people will just see a black cloud, basically. So it would complicate any sort of air cavalry assault, at least.

[Skysaber]

I feel as though a party of Gesalt Wizards with 24 Million in Gold and Magic at their finger-tips has somewhat of an obligation to make themselves a magical flying tippy-verse city. Possibly in the image of BioShock: Infinite

I mean, you could effectively start creating your own country and with that comes political power, etc etc. Should be fun for your DM to play around and for you guys to RP.

Just a thought. :smallsmile:

That's actually the eventual aim, but we're a little short on level for it. We began this campaign with the stated goal on all our parts of it going epic, and have been marching towards that from 1st.

An expectation on all of us is that we eventually will become Archmages in the Netherese sense - meaning that we will cast Proctiv's Move Mountain to sheer a mountain in half, flip the top half over, levitate that, and build a city on the flat surface revealed (what was formerly the underside of the floaty bit).

Enchanting our own Mythalars is part of that (and required, as it provides the sustaining force once the Move Mountain spell runs out). Attracting citizens after that is its own issue.

Netherese call these floating cities enclaves and the archmages who construct them are their defacto rulers. But Move Mountain is a 10th level spell, and we won't get those until we hit 20th (and that's only provided we don't lose a casting level along the way).

Buying scrolls to do this early is theoretically possible, I suppose. But the DM has made it clear that to build these on anything other than our own talents would be poison for our careers - basically somebody claiming to be a great painter when he'd hired the work out to someone else.

So, while it would be great to save all of this money for then, I don't want it causing problems now, and with certain members of the party not being as restrained as they should that basically means: spend it now.

We've got access to virtually any 3.x source you can think of. No one so much as bats an eye over even the most obscure 3rd party sourcebook, so literally everything is on the table, as for options - Actually, that was a deliberate attempt to create the 'awash in all kinds of magic' culture of Netheril. And I've got the Races of Legend book Eldest Sons, which has a lovely little 9th level spell called Move Terrain which does exactly what the name describes. So it won't be a problem picking up my little castle and moving it to an enclave I've created when we get to that point later.

What I need now is something worth building, and, this is the tricky bit, that can survive until we get to that point. This is Netheril, and the threats are as great as the powers and rewards, so hordes of a million orcs have already been seen in game by our characters.

[SowZ]

That's actually the eventual aim, but we're a little short on level for it. We began this campaign with the stated goal on all our parts of it going epic, and have been marching towards that from 1st.

An expectation on all of us is that we eventually will become Archmages in the Netherese sense - meaning that we will cast Proctiv's Move Mountain to sheer a mountain in half, flip the top half over, levitate that, and build a city on the flat surface revealed (what was formerly the underside of the floaty bit).

Enchanting our own Mythalars is part of that (and required, as it provides the sustaining force once the Move Mountain spell runs out). Attracting citizens after that is its own issue.

Netherese call these floating cities enclaves and the archmages who construct them are their defacto rulers. But Move Mountain is a 10th level spell, and we won't get those until we hit 20th (and that's only provided we don't lose a casting level along the way).

Buying scrolls to do this early is theoretically possible, I suppose. But the DM has made it clear that to build these on anything other than our own talents would be poison for our careers - basically somebody claiming to be a great painter when he'd hired the work out to someone else.

So, while it would be great to save all of this money for then, I don't want it causing problems now, and with certain members of the party not being as restrained as they should that basically means: spend it now.

We've got access to virtually any 3.x source you can think of. No one so much as bats an eye over even the most obscure 3rd party sourcebook, so literally everything is on the table, as for options - Actually, that was a deliberate attempt to create the 'awash in all kinds of magic' culture of Netheril. And I've got the Races of Legend book Eldest Sons, which has a lovely little 9th level spell called Move Terrain which does exactly what the name describes. So it won't be a problem picking up my little castle and moving it to an enclave I've created when we get to that point later.

What I need now is something worth building, and, this is the tricky bit, that can survive until we get to that point. This is Netheril, and the threats are as great as the powers and rewards, so hordes of a million orcs have already been seen in game by our characters.

In that case, where I you, I would put all the enchantments I listed as Area of Effect on items like tiles and stones that you can put in a land fortress. Then, when you make your floating city, transport the other fortress onto your giant floating island. These defenses are just the start, protection from saboteurs, scrying, and mind affecting spells should be standard in any city a PC makes in a high wealth/high magic setting.

[jokeaccount]

If you want to reach the point where you can build your own flying cities faster then one thing is to make sure you never "fall back" by dying. As far as I know a 13th lvl character can't take all the insane measures a lvl 20 wizard can. You could first of all try to find a way to use that money to back yourselves with all the required contigencies and last resort defenses to keep moving forward towards your goal.
Then with the rest of your almost infinite money invest in businesses in order to make even more money and when you come back with times more power, fame and wisdom, you can leverage all that and finally create your own prosperous city where people will swarm the embassy to become citizens. You can also create a wizard academy in order to have many knowledgeable and powerful wizards ready to manage and defend your new world when it finally gets created.

[TypoNinja]

Magical strongholds get disgustingly expensive shockingly fast. Fast enough that one of the examples in the book is something like 2.5million GP. Course that one exists on more than one Plane so, yea.

I think you'll also find that a flying fortress of any decent size is expensive enough to eat your money in real short order. To the tune of 25k per 20x20 section, if you want it to move at 10 miles an hour. For the cost of movement alone. Double that if you'd like it to Plane Shift 1/day, and another 50k per space if you'd like it to Greater Teleport.

Yes I said Teleporting Fortress.

[Muktidata]

Vow of Poverty :smallwink:

[Sith_Happens]

Buy a neighboring country?

[Arcanist]

Ask your DM how much a mythallar costs, since you're playing in Netheril. Buy one of those, and put it in your stronghold, so you can then use quasimagical items nearby instead of having to create full magical items.

This also gives you the basis from which to cast Proctiv's move mountain once you get high enough level and want to form your own enclave.

This is by far the best comment mentioned so far in this thread. Although, by Archwizard standards nobody would recognize you if you create a Flying Enclave at 13th level.

Personally I'd use the Mythllar to make quasimagical items to duplicate nice Gold, silver, gems, etc ala Tempera of Doubloon. The terrible thing about Netheril is that... Hmmm... This about sums it up accurately... (nodwick.humor.gamespy.com/gamespyarchive/index.php?date=2006-12-20) so buying spells is... problematic to say the least... :smallannoyed:

What Nether Year (NY) is it? This will SERIOUSLY help out in discovering what you can do... I mean you CAN'T get a Mythallar if Ioulaum hasn't published his findings on Mythallar production :smalltongue:

[Matticussama]

This is by far the best comment mentioned so far in this thread. Although, by Archwizard standards nobody would recognize you if you create a Flying Enclave at 13th level.

Personally I'd use the Mythllar to make quasimagical items to duplicate nice Gold, silver, gems, etc ala Tempera of Doubloon. The terrible thing about Netheril is that... Hmmm... This about sums it up accurately... (nodwick.humor.gamespy.com/gamespyarchive/index.php?date=2006-12-20) so buying spells is... problematic to say the least... :smallannoyed:

What Nether Year (NY) is it? This will SERIOUSLY help out in discovering what you can do... I mean you CAN'T get a Mythallar if Ioulaum hasn't published his findings on Mythallar production :smalltongue:

OP already responded to that idea:


Buying scrolls to do this early is theoretically possible, I suppose. But the DM has made it clear that to build these on anything other than our own talents would be poison for our careers - basically somebody claiming to be a great painter when he'd hired the work out to someone else.

So, while it would be great to save all of this money for then, I don't want it causing problems now, and with certain members of the party not being as restrained as they should that basically means: spend it now.


To the OP: You've discussed building fortresses, which is good, but also consider buying an armory to equip your troops with. After all, if you want to control a floating city then you'll need well armed people to defend it!

Since you've mentioned Orc hordes, one way to spend some of that wealth would be to buy large caches of Wands: Wands of Fireball and Wands of Lightningbolt to help fight off the hordes en masse, and then Wands of Cure Light Wounds, Wands of Lessor Restoration, etc to use to heal your troops. Buy 50 - 100 each of these different types of wands, and your army will be quite capable of engaging these hordes and making a significant dent into it.

Along those same lines, buy the armor, weapons, shields, etc to equip your army. You could easily afford to equip a few Companies (80 - 250) of troops with +1 gear, and then some Battalions (300 - 1,200) with masterwork gear. Since you eventually want to build and control a floating city, you also need an effective air force; see if you can purchase Griffon/Hippogriff/Giant Eagle eggs and find someone to help train them. Get an elite group of loyal mounted combatants (Marshall/Cavalier style charger builds) with Lances, and suddenly you have a strong force to give you air supremacy around the city (in addition to archers, ray spells, etc).

If you can build your own little army capable of engaging the hordes of weaker enemies, then engage their leaders with your party, you could do some significant damage to the enemies of Netheril. This would be a good way of making a name for yourself and earning great prestige among the leading Archwizards; political capital that may prove to be of great use later in your political careers.

[Rubik]

Check out Stonghold Builder's Handbook.
There's magical items there that you can use. But don't use any of their pricing for building stuff. Hiring NPCs for that is expensive, but it's all stuff you can do for basically free. Things like Wall of Stone and Planar Binding cost virtually nothing, as opposed to the millions of gp the SBG seems to think are necessary to do the exact same things. Yet one MORE reason why spellcasters are vastly superior.

Build magical traps. Lots and lots of magical traps. And I don't mean wide-mouthed-spike-pit traps, either. I'm talking things like traps of Heroes' Feast, Mass Heal, and Genesis. Use that last one to create and vastly expand a demiplane to use for your stronghold. Use traps of Wish to populate your new world with plants and butterflies to pollinate them, if nothing else. Don't forget traps of Permanency and Forbiddances (and Guards and Wards) to prevent entry by anything short of a single permanent portal and Wish spells.

C'mon, people. What other awesome traps can we think of? Rapidly repeating traps of Mage's Lucubration for when your party spends 8 hours resting and prepare spells would be nice, yes?

[Socratov]

Ehm... here's an option for ya: buy your own dragons and whatever you don't spend use it to supply them/keep it safe with them as part of their hoard...

[Matticussama]

Griffon/Hippogriff/Giant Eagles would probably be more cost-effective (and dependable) than Dragons, but hell - if you can convince a few to work with you in return for a chunk of your wealth, then go for it! Probably better if they're Lawful, so that they're more likely to actually stick around rather than just taking the money and running.

[J-H]

A few Tomes to boost your stats wouldn't bump you too far out-of-line power wise... you're already gestalt.

Pick up one or two of almost every Wonderous Item.

[Socratov]

Griffon/Hippogriff/Giant Eagles would probably be more cost-effective (and dependable) than Dragons, but hell - if you can convince a few to work with you in return for a chunk of your wealth, then go for it! Probably better if they're Lawful, so that they're more likely to actually stick around rather than just taking the money and running.

besides, I would like to remind of the rule of cool. I mean, you are a wazard/something, riding/keeping a mother-bleep-ing dragon.

[Slipperychicken]

2-3 Boccob's Blessed Books along with every spell in the game. Take the feat Uncanny Forethought for great justice.

Many, many Pearls of Power, of every level 1-9. You want endurance? You can cast all day.

Ring of Wizardry for the highest spell level you can get it for.

ALL THE METAMAGIC RODS. Like, 2-3 each.

Buy some Craft Contingent Revivifys for everyone. They're basically 1-ups.

Tomes of Great Intelligence +6. Headband of Intellect +6.

Get an intelligent, flying, plane-shifting castle with the ability to cast Teleport Through Time at will and disguise itself as a police box (no seriously, you can do that with Stronghold Builder's Guide). Get yourself a doctorate and change your name to Who.

[hewhosaysfish]

Build your stronghold into the hollowed out tip of a mountain-top... but make all the rooms reversible so that if at some later date the gravity should get reversed (or perhaps the mountain-top where clipped off and turned upside-down) then all the floors would become ceilings, the ceilings become floors and there are still usable staircases.

[Andreaz]

The Tomes and Manuals for +5 to stats. All of them, for everyone. costs around 825k per person.

[Telonius]

Make sure your stronghold has a room like this:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v349/DocDoom777/Toons/ScroogeMcDMoneyBin.jpg

[Pandoras Folly]

Build a country. Seriously. with that much gold and magic it could be done.

Man hours for hire for all skill levels is listed in the srd. Eventually would be getting taxes and make your money back several times over.

[Derpldorf]

This isn't exactly on topic, but what's your build?

[Slipperychicken]

Man hours for hire for all skill levels is listed in the srd. Eventually would be getting taxes and make your money back several times over.

He wants to get rid of the money, not make more.

[Eldan]

Well, the worst thing for a wizard is running out of spells.

I suggest buying 244 pearls of power level 7.

[Rubik]

Use Polymorph Any Object (twice) on everyone in the party to turn them into warforged, then buy warforged component psychoactive skins of proteus (ML 15) for them. They cannot be forcefully removed from anyone, and will let you turn into anything with 15 HD or less. VERY useful.

[herrhauptmann]

besides, I would like to remind of the rule of cool. I mean, you are a wazard/something, riding/keeping a mother-bleep-ing dragon.

You mean like the Zhentarim Skymage?

[cosmicAstrogazr]

I have nothing to add-- all the suggestions here are great, especially the one about the reversed gravity mountaintop fortress. I just wanted to say, hot DAMN I wish I was in your campaign; it sounds like a great time. :smallsmile:

[Gandariel]

i think the question that needs answering here is:

What is your alignment?

[Phelix-Mu]

I think if we look at the OP's original comment, the OP was looking for something that would be a nice, out-of-combat useful investment without radically changing the balance of power in future encounters. Unless you are going to leave 244 pearls of power for 7th level spells at home, this isn't a particularly useful investment.

While I do think that pretty much every Netherese wizard should aspire toward their cultural touchstone--the flying city--an early bout of luck with the money fairy may inspire a thoughtful character to pursue a different avenue. This works well, since the OP has already mentioned that the wizards each wish to construct mythallars and flying cities with their own power (as opposed to buying them down at Buck's Discount Mythallars...that's right, here at Buck's Discount Mythallars, you know you are getting nothing but the finest, best, most heavily discounted mythallars available to the...).

So, along the lines of an alternate investment, let's go for something that will be useful, socially productive, and help acquire the kind of name that will eventually equal prestige among your fellow Netherese arcanists.

I'm thinking a fortified college of wizardry. Place it somewhere iconic and advantageous. A mountain might be nice, but maybe also consider some kind of fortress that can submerge itself beneath the waters of a massive lake or the sands of a desert. I think there is some pricing for airtight stronghold spaces.

Purchase a series of constructs to guard the fortress. I have always been fond of brass golems, caryatid columns, and dread guards (the last being very cheap and intelligent...be sure to look at the 3.5 updates on these constructs).

Now, to attract talent you need to start a library. There is pricing for this, as well. Also, hire some wizards and experts to teach. Give them generous funding for researching spells with novel uses that could help normal people.

Start entry-level flying structures, in particular flying gardens that self-sustainably produce nutritious food with the help of magic, improve air quality, and can employ commoners. Massively improve quality of life for thousands by generating the kind of knowledge that people can use to improve their own lives.

Found a series of hospitals. They don't need to be super tricked out with magic, but should be full of skilled experts with items to boost their Heal checks and access to wands and potions for ailments that transcend normal medical skill. Pay these experts to collaborate with spellcasters to develop items and techniques that can cure people and improve lifestyles for their patients. The access need not be entirely free, and indeed a sustainable business plan is advisable, since you want these institutions to be around into the distant future.

If orcs are a problem in the lands beneath the Netherese cities, consider funding a cabal of enchanters/beguilers that raid orc tribes, abduct/feeblemind orcs, kidnap them and bring them somewhere where they can be educated and civilized (depending on alignment, you can do this voluntarily or forcibly via magic and narcotics-induced reprogramming). Repeat this often enough, and within a generation or two (pretty short for orcs), you will have enough orcs with non-orc values. Then you can start to spread word to the normal orcs that there is a better/alternate way of life. Strength and bravery might still be useful values in such a society, but so is education, wisdom, and the ability to lead by example. Train some of the successful non-orc orcs to have elite skills (ToB grade melee coolness), and show the other orcs that being smart is cool. Teach them about agriculture, the value of work, and so forth. Make sure they are well-defended enough (ideally at least in-part by their own power) that they can live securely into the future.

Finally, set up a series of safe houses and fall-back positions for use by yourself and/or party members and/or confidantes in emergencies. Crap happens, and contingencies are invaluable at any level. Stock these places with spare spellbooks, scrying devices, communication devices, potions, wands of useful spells x, y, and z, and copies of the items that are key to your build. Be careful not to make access to all of these places dependent on certain spells; include at least one place that is just a normal house in an out-of-the-way town that is heavily warded against divinations and break-ins.

Good luck. That is surely a mountain of money, but remember, you are probably in a party that has more brain-smarts than is possible in real life. I'm sure your characters can come up with decent investments.

[Skysaber]

Ok, this is what I've got so far.

I figure the idea of placing my fortress on a mountaintop, and designing it so it can later be inverted, is a good one. I'll go with that. I also hadn't known the trick with fantasy concrete, and I like it. But I think I've got a better one.

Bit of backstory. In Netheril everyone dreams of being gods, but for wizards that wasn't so much a dream as a goal. They felt they could achieve it. The ironic thing is that by 2nd ed rules they were doing pretty much exactly what they needed to do to obtain it: get to absurdly high levels, accumulate a bunch of followers (an enclave), and so on.

Now our DM has been heavily playing up the aspect of Netherese culture that says they look down on divine casters as having surrendered their chances of ascending to divinity, by making themselves subservient to the existing pantheon. Many Netherese even refuse to have divine healing magic cast on them, for fear of that tainting them with a hint of fealty to the god that provided it.

But, not wanting to have to face a campaign from first to epic without recourse to healing magic, we all came up with our own little dodges. Yes, we have a prestige bard. There is also an Ur-Priest, a Chameleon, and a new character was just joining in who was a Wizard/Factotum (his job called him away or else he would have been attending last night).

My character is a Wizard/Cleric, and he's been telling anyone who would listen that he is on the apprenticeship program toward divinity. That, just like magic, you could either study it out for yourself, or you can seek instruction from those who already know how. His great success to date is that most Netherese who know of him have adopted a 'wait and see' attitude toward him. If his method works, fine, but if it fails legends of that will go down in history as a warning to others.

Anyway, all of that is just to explain that I've got access to the Earth Domain, and enough ways to pump my turning check that I could go out and command a Galeb Duhr, who have Stone Shape at will.

I figure not only is he a priceless fortress creation tool, but given a bit of time that guy can sculpt the slopes of the mountain into mostly impassable cliffs, channeling traffic up a few windy roads that are easily watched and guarded against.

More stuff: In the Quintessential Fighter Revision Update, they have Guardian Gargoyles (which aren't actually gargoyles in the D&D sense, more just statuary on the wall) that can be placed every 30 feet along the outer wall of a stronghold, and once every 3 rounds can be commanded to cast a CL 5 Fireball or Lightning Bolt at any target within range.

These cost 30,000 apiece. So I could get a hundred of them for 3 mil. Actually, if I make that 120, and split evenly between lightning and fire, then every round the fortress can be firing 20 Fireballs along with 20 Lightning Bolts, and sustain that rate of fire eternally.

Same update to Quint Fighter also allows for intelligent strongholds, as well as Trollstone, that regenerates 1 structural point per round and can only ever be permanently damaged by acid or fire. An intelligent fortress triples the construction cost, and trollstone doubles it. But as Rubik has pointed out, with spells my construction cost for the base fortress is zero. And multiples of zero are still zero.

Yay me.

[nedz]

Dealing with this much money sounds like more trouble than it's worth. Having this much cash will trash the local economy, and all it will really buy you is a whole string of would be thieves.

My advice is to bury it in a hole in the ground, after chopping off the odd corner or two — to pay for the traps you will need to guard it.

[Felandria]

Mail some of it to:
Felandria
Mount Olympus:smallbiggrin:

[rockdeworld]

6 rods of the gold wyrm. You now have 6 epic level casters under your command. Bonus: as a wizard, when you hit epic level, they can help you mitigate spell DCs.

Edit: Ignore this, I just read the rest of the OP where you said you don't want to spend it at all efficiently. Replace it instead with 3 rods of Epic Might (which are terribly overpriced, fairly useless items). Although I like your castle idea better.

[Eugenides]

Build yourself a log cabin entirely out of Immovable Rods.

This just made me have a laughing fit. I second this idea.

On a second thought, is there a way to make immovable rods sentient? I'm thinking 12 million gold could get you a sentient swarm/hivemind of immovable rods.

[Skysaber]

Troops

A quick peek into Dragon Magazine #341 has an article on lesser golems, three of which I find very interesting. The Paper Golem, 2HD for 600gp, is the cheapest golem by far, but has enough drawbacks to be suboptimal. Wood Golems, on the other hand, at 4HD for 4,000gp, are not only the next least expensive I have found, but also have the Fast Repair 2 quality. And there is an awful lot to be said for a golem that can repair itself.

Also of interest are Tin Golems, out of that same article. At 3HD for 6,400gp, they are more than double the gp per HD of a wood golem, and don't have Fast Repair, but these guys get craft and profession skills. So, in addition to being guards, they could also be a private industry churning out goods to support the rest of the castle so I don't get struck with maintenance costs.

Anybody know if there are standard rules anywhere for what it costs to advance a golem's HD? Because both the Tin and Wood guys can go up to 12HD, which would make them far more durable.

Anyway, picking up a mixed bag of a thousand of these could cost anywhere from 4 to 6.4 mil, at which point I figure any army of orcs that could climb the steep windy roads up the sides of the mountains, through hail of fireballs and lightning, breach the regenerating walls and overcome a thousand (minor) golems has earned the place.

Walls of Iron plus Fabricate and I'll have no shortage of mundane weapons and armor for my ordinary troops (unfortunately few, as these guys want to be paid - which makes minor golems cheaper in the long run).

So, I now have time to buy and raise griffin eggs for an elite flying force and so on. Maybe even a dragon cohort or two.

One great addition would be a huge church bell enchanted with Omen of Peril. One of the greatest rules about Netheril is that it says right in the box that capped spells are no longer subject to those limits, so for 60,000gp I could get one at 30th caster level, so it has 100% accuracy - giving us an hour warning of any attack.

Now feeling the place is somewhat secure from a brute force, frontal attack, any ideas on what I could put inside?

Quintessential Wizard has an Arcane Tutor feat that lets you have and teach a minimal number of very low level wizards. But it hardly seems worth the feat. Anybody know of any other mechanics anywhere for setting up an arcane school?

Or should I devote myself to hospitals? I still have the budget to grab an absurd number of beds outfitted with various healing spells.

Actually, I really need to look more into the Zone of Truth and other stuff, too.

[Randomguy]

If you play your cards right, you could probably manage a mostly peaceful political takeover.

Get yourself one tricked out hospital in every major town. Make sure you check out the Lair Wards in draconomnomnomicon, they can be useful for defence and to provide the healing (I'm not sure if it's the most cost effective way, though). Name all of the hospitals after yourself, or create a persona via alter self and occasional public appearances.
You don't need to train any experts if you don't want to; you could just get some angels as nurses via planar ally or planar binding.

By providing cheap healing as well as possibly cheap food via a trap or spell clock of Hero's Feast, you can gain favour with the masses. Providing jobs for experts will also probably help your case, if you choose to do so. The hospitals, as well as political power gained from a few well placed bribes combined with your pull with wizards, will make you a very influential political figure.


As for minions, there are cheaper ways to do it than by crafting golems. The easiest is Simulacra. You can summon mirror mephits with SM4 and have them make simulacra of creatures to serve you. Like adamantine horrors, for example. A somewhat less cheesy way is to cast simulacrum yourself to make Madcrafters of Thoon, who can make stromclouds and scythers of Thoon (both of which can self repair). The downside is that it's limited by quintessence, and you're associating yourself with Thoon.

There's also a construct that can repair other constructs, a clock roach or something, in MM3 or MM4.

Lesser golems seem to be the most cost efficient constructs aside from that, though.

[CaladanMoonblad]

Add transportation to your proposed citadels. The cost adds up pretty quickly (Stronghold Builder's Guide)- heck, get flying, swimming, underwater, burrowing, teleport, etc. if you really just want to blow through millions of gold coins.

Check it-

the average Stronghold Space for a castle is like 20-30. The cost for flying is around 15k for every stronghold space. And like 25k for the fastest speed... for every stronghold space. That alone is good for 1.4 million gold for a Howl's Flying Castle. Add in some throw pillows and you've got yourself a flying citadel of wealth. Maybe your GM will have fun destroying it? Easy come, easy go right?

[Skysaber]

The biggest trap I am caught in is that my DM knows that I am an optimizer. So if I don't at least make an attempt to get the most bang for my buck on this fortress, the jig will be up.

So paying SBG prices on anything I can get any other way, like movement, is right out. I'd never drop a few mil on an ability I could get by casting a spell a few levels later, and he knows that about me.

Right now I am thinking I could make a few simulacrums of myself (glancing at the spell, they serve the caster of the spell, so using mirror mephits does not seem to be in my best interest). If I then briefly pass around my collection of items that boost turning ability, each simulacra could then command its own galeb duhr. At will equals once a round, ten rounds per minute, sixty minutes per hour, and twenty four hours per day, that works out to 14,400 castings of Stone Shape per day, per galeb duhr (who are elementals, and do not need to eat or sleep). A completely ridiculous quantity. We'd have that mountain sculpted in no time.

Theoretically, I could even use Psychic Reformation so my simulacra all had the Arcane Tutor feat, so could serve as part of the staff of my college of wizardry.

For that matter, psychic reformations are very cheap considering the budget, so I could be an optimized item creator for parts of the construction.

Now how would it work, if I were to create simulacra of myself as an item crafter? I presume they could do nothing, as they have no xp to spend. But what would happen if I were to, say, supply them with Distilled Joy?

Eh, not a good idea when I am trying to get rid of money, not start up a magic item factory.

Question: Would a weirdstone be worth it? I have no doubts my DM would let me build it into a 3.0 golem as the head or something, making it immune to all but a very slender list of spells and eliminating the easiest ways to remove it. They'd have to actually be in the fort, and there's still the golem to defend it. There's also nothing to say I have to put a door into that room. Sorry, thief, no matter your Search roll you can't find a secret door that's not there. If I need access I can just Stone Shape in and out.

Could simulacra have the Leadership feat, I wonder?

[Mr Adventurer]

You found the gold in Undermountain? It's probably fake.

[Cirrylius]

Has anyone suggested spreading some of it around the rest of the party? If you're buying significant magic items for yourself, two of you leaving the rest of the party behind on the Wealth By Level chart could get... tense.

I'd second a Tardis over a flying city; the latter is too high profile and too big a target for (comparatively) low level characters to adequitely defend, even with a s*****n of golem guardians. It also opens up... well, okay, not MORE plot options, but certainly more fantastical ones.

I'd also second a wizard's college, and also a seminary. Take a position as vice-archchancellor or something, some high position that doesn't actually do a lot, and keep the fact that you're the owner a secret, except for who you actually hired to run the place. Give lectures when you're not adventuring, be generally high profile in the halls of power, throw your weight around, make students remember you. That way in a few years, you've got potentially dozens of NPC's, who can make scrolls and potentially other magic items, all speeding up their local ladders of promotion all over the country, who've been trained to salute you.

Invest in businesses and properties, and then invest the money you make back into them. The gold won't show up on your character sheet, and it looks like community enrichment, but if you're ever in a pinch you can just liquidate say, five percent of your properties for a quick cash flush, and if you do want to play Monopoly Man + Munchkin down the road, you've set up the groundwork. Plus if you need custom armor, or good horses, or fifty barrels of tanglefoot goo and a thousand Tarasque-sized caltrops you've got the personnel and the leverage to make it happen.

If you feel like playing politics, buy an office, or an election, or whatever. You can run one HELL of a sandbox for twelve million gold.

As for magic items, the Belt of Magnificece springs to mind. +6 all stats, very simple, very neat, opens up several other item slots, and not HUGELY overpowered since most of those stats would just be for show for a wizard/cleric.
Don't forget you can add your favorite magic item properties to pre-existing items, and load up on all those useful little enchantments that individually aren't super expensive; get Sustenance and Feather Fall put on that +3 Ring of Protection.
Remember all those little interesting items that would make life easier and more interesting, but couldn't quite afford at the time? Yeah. Camping's much less rustic with an Everfull Mug, a Bag of Everlasting Rations, a Heward's Fortifying Bedroll, and a Rod of Alertness. Don't get so swept up in the big numbers that you forget the cheap(er) stuff.

[Randomguy]

I'd go for both the weirdstone and for leadership on the simulacra. The weirdstone is great protection, plus it makes your castle even more like Hogwarts: No apparating on school grounds.

Leadership can help with your goal of getting people to trust divine casters: Get adepts. Lots of them. They can staff your hospitals for you, should you choose to make them, as well as provide medical help for arcane students (I school full of wizards is bound to have some accidents). They could also help with spell research.

Cohorts can be used to provide magic that you don't have. For example, one simulacra gets a psion cohort and he teaches psionics in your magic school (it can be open to all sorts of spellcasters). I'd also get an archivist and a druid.


I'd also go for item crafting, but only for constructs to help defend the place. Maybe put the craft wondrous item prereq to use too by making a couple of blessed books for the students to scribe spells in, like communal spellbooks for each house (assuming you use houses, you could make each one lead by a simulacra of yourself) that you could take a look at.

[silverwolfer]

with that much gold coin, you could build an entire fortress out of gold coins, with soverign glue and protect from heat and acid spells, and then say it is the church of waukeen .

http://t3ak.roblox.com/51525c3999546a7bd65092f0d28f6d66

[Cirrylius]

...and then say it is the church of waukeen .

That reminds me of another option.

Open a bank. Why should rogues have all the fun stealing from NPC's?

[nedz]

You found the gold in Undermountain? It's probably fake.


That reminds me of another option.

Open a bank. Why should rogues have all the fun stealing from NPC's?

Cue the NPC on PC heist.

[Skysaber]

Oooh, Elvan High Magic out of the Quintessential Elf (not the D&D version, which is just a lame implementation of Epic), costs feats, but I can psychic ref those.

No, the important thing is that in most ways it behaves just like metamagic, only you can take temp Con loss to pay for it - which I wouldn't have to do, as I've been running Divine Metamagic since first level. And there is this lovely little feat called Massive Spell, that costs 6 lvl shift, but alters the area of a spell to one mile diameter.

I think I'm in love.

If I buy a Rod Of Excellent Magic or two (each costs 650,000gp and provides up to 2000xp per day that can only be used to fuel spellcasting) then I can afford to throw a few Permanencies around, and get permanent area buffs over the whole fortress, like that Circle of Prot vs Evil, Invisibility Purge or even a Zone of Truth. And using DMM to pay off the adjustment, the epic rods should cover the xp costs just fine.

Oooh, no this just opened up tons of lovely possibilities. I can get Mage's Private Sanctum up over the entire structure with just a single casting.

Hmm, Ward of Anubis, out of Mythic Vistas: Egypt, inflicts a -15 enhancement penalty on all Disable Device, Open Lock and Search checks performed within the warded area (which can now be the entire mountain, almost), raises all trap DCs by 4, and gives the structure SR 25 vs the sorts of spells used to defeat security: passwall, knock, etc.

I like.

Hmm, Forbiddance with a mile diameter starts to sound really useful. For that matter Consecrate and Hallow. You know, I could tie a Freedom of Movement effect to the Hallow that applies only to my alignment. Or Death Ward. Which would be more useful?

Traps of Divine Power and Eyes of the Avoral for my guards.

Got a potential way to raise Golem HD for an acceptable price. Actually, If I take as my cohort a Golem Master out of Kingdoms of Kalamar: Player's Guide, she can make my golems for half price *and* add on two more HD and nat armor apiece for free. So I could have 14HD wood and tin golems on the cheap. They'd even look pretty (one of the golem master's class abilities).

Tin golems have a special quality that gives them 6 ranks of two different craft or profession skills, over and above what they could ordinary get for HD, and they have Int 5, so they get skills of their own. So, 14+3+6=23, I could have golems with 23 ranks of craft and profession skills.

That's a pretty high quality industry right there. And, as many of you have said, if this does produce a profit that can just be reinvested, or given to charity to obtain goodwill for political influence later.

I wonder. The Planar Handbook provides cloth and paper that are fire immune, and the worst aspect of a paper golem is they are ridiculously vulnerable to fire. But what about golems made out of fire immune paper?

Or if I could dress my wood golems in fire immune overalls?

Something to ask my DM, I suppose.

[Skysaber]

This isn't exactly on topic, but what's your build?

I've hesitated to reply because I don't think you'd believe me.

Let me start by quoting my brother, who is fond of saying "A Tiger tank is overpowered compared to an M4 Sherman, on even terms to a Pershing, and a target to an M1 Abrams."

Overpowered is relative.

On that note, like on those rollercoaster rides, there might as well be a sign standing next to our game table "This much cheese is required to play."

You know that feat in Races of Destiny called Fearless Destiny? The one where once a day when damage would normally kill you, instead it drops you to -9 and stable? We ALL have that feat! And we've ALL used it multiple times! Most of us use it practically every session.

There is, in AEG Mercenaries, a 3-feat chain that ends up granting you full hit points for die, as though you never had and never would roll less than maximum for your levels. There isn't a party member without that feat chain. Many of us wouldn't consider playing without it.

Yes, there are various mechanisms in our game granting extra feats.

We've all gone and gotten ourselves luck rerolls from various sources. We've invented a spell version of the Teleport Trigger psionic power, and this is all IN RESPONSE to the challenges we've been facing.

Our very first fight, I kid you not, four first level party members without a magic item between us, we were escorting a caravan that fell under attack by 200 4HD orcs. And we were lucky, we only had to face 100 of them ourselves.

We pulled out all the stops and played above and beyond. I used the Farcasting feat from Encyclopedia Arcane: Battle Magic, where you can add 100ft to the range of any spell for the price of an additional spell slot of the same level, and tossed out a couple of Burning Hands with 130ft range in 180 degree arcs, getting the majority of the orcs we faced two or three times before I ran out. As a Domain Specialist in Fire, I was tossing out 2D4 per Burning Hands and hitting 60 to 80 orcs at a time. Move back, fire, move back, fire. It softened them up, but at the end, I was not the one party member who was still standing. Most of the actual killing got done by summoned Ice Beasts using cold auras.

A 4th level orc barbarian with greater than 20 Str took one swing at me while power attacking with a greataxe and hit for 26 damage. The guy was not even a leader, just an ordinary grunt, and that's pretty much been the tone ever since.

At 7th level one of our fights was against four CR18 monsters working in concert. Pretty much all of our fights end up with half our numbers -9 and stable or otherwise incapacitated.

So, with that in mind, we've allowed some really impressive party members and it hasn't seemed to make much difference. We've tweaked and optimized and squoze ever gp until it screamed, and still, up until about level ten or so, our foremost concern was how to get the unconscious bodies of fallen friendlies out of the battle zone while organizing our retreats.

I have an entire page, covered front and back, in my Alternate Class Features. We used the Ritual Spell feat and other cheese to qualify for Prestige classes early. My second level was Arcane Heirophant down one track, so I wouldn't lose a caster level taking Shifter down the other. I was and still am a Divine Minion, and for the first five levels of our existence I was our primary melee combatant, doing free action Wild Shape into a Dire Lion, charge and pounce.

Now I'm *afraid* to! We've fought too many things that not even a dire lion can grapple.

My level after that was War Weaver, and most of my daily spells (and all of my turn attempts) got spent sharing persistent buffs with the party. These, and all things like them, have just been to try and keep ourselves alive.

Things kind of settled down, around level ten or so, when we started using Shield the Faithful (where the caster can exempt members of his own faith from area effects if he wants to) to lay down wide area effects that we, I having converted the whole party to my religion, are immune to.

Ice slicks, solid fogs, and blast 'ems that we could ignore but our enemies could not have kind of equalized things for a while.

But the thing is, it's sort of a fragile truce, and our DM has already been making noises about how he's going to cancel out this advantage. Most of the monsters we've begun to face are appearing with character levels in their own parties: bard singing in the back, fighter doing tank while rogues circle around to flank, and casters using optimized counterspelling that does not even cost them their action.

One of them made a caster level check where the die roll meant the enemy had to be nine levels above me for the counterspell to work, and the DM had to think about it for a bit before deciding 'no'.

Oh, and in this last fight where we got hold of that anvil, the enemy party were all also medusae. And that's the one where he had to stop and think if the enemy had nine caster levels more than me.

It's exhilarating, in an utterly terrifying way.

But that's why we are so reluctant to jump the power levels again by spending this money efficiently - because every time we do so, well, the monsters increase in power about 50% more than we do, and we are running out of cheese!

[Derpldorf]

Okay.... I was looking for an actual answer but, okay then.

If you really want to get rid of your gold without significantly increasing your power level get yourself a dull gray ion stone and make it sentient. Give it the ability to cast ... Pretty much all the power words at will.

[Morphie]

My first question was: Who has the gold to give for such an item?
But then I thought that, being a mage and all, you would have the means to break some of it, and then pay for a way to transform all the gold into coins. How you would be able to transport such a huge weight surpasses me, but I'm sure that where there's a 17 Million Gold Anvill to be had, there will be a way.

But, on a general point of a view, I'm not sure why did your DM place such a game-breaking treasure accessible to your party. Is it a trial, a challenge to your resourcefulness? Even if you don't intend to break the game, such money will eventually be used to give you an incredible advantage. If not, why pick it up at all? A Flying Teleporting Fortress of Awesomeness is cool, but what's the point to have it if you're not going to enjoy it? What would be the motivation for the PCs to continue questing if they only need about 3/4 million to buy everything they ever need to survive an epic adventure? Fame and glory are ok, so is the pursuit of knowledge and blablabla, but this is a game, and you just found a Free Pass to everything you'll ever need and more.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but I think you should talk to your DM and understand the purpose of this. I think you can assume one of three possibilities:

A) He's tired of the adventure and wants to finish it in about one-tenth of the estimated time with 5% of the challenge.
B) The anvil was not supposed to be seen and used as treasure and now he's grinding his teeth and hoping you'll just stick with the gold you already have.
C) He wants you to build a city as a way to build and expand your Magocratic empire (not sure if the word even exists, but, if I had 12 million GP, it would, by capital decree).
Or (bonus round) D) The BBEG is a GOD and you need all the money you can get if you want to have a chance to defeat it.

My advice would be: make a list of what you think you'll need, calculate the total amount and buy it. Leave the rest in a hidden cave in the depts of the Ocean guarded by Water-breathing Tarrasques with lasers, you don't need the attention of hordes of evil dudes that chase you around just to get a piece of the treasure.

Just my two cents :smallsmile:

[Cirrylius]

C) He wants you to build a city as a way to build and expand your Magocratic empire (not sure if the word even exists, but, if I had 12 million GP, it would, by capital decree).
Yup. A magocracy is a thing, so the adjective magocratic should fit.



Or (bonus round) D) The BBEG is a GOD and you need all the money you can get if you want to have a chance to defeat it.

Oh yeah. That reminded me. A friend of mine suggested you use your chunk of change to bribe Waukeen into granting you Divine Rank 0:smallbiggrin:

[Skysaber]

My first question was: Who has the gold to give for such an item?
But then I thought that, being a mage and all, you would have the means to break some of it, and then pay for a way to transform all the gold into coins. How you would be able to transport such a huge weight surpasses me, but I'm sure that where there's a 17 Million Gold Anvil to be had, there will be a way.

But, on a general point of a view, I'm not sure why did your DM place such a game-breaking treasure accessible to your party.

As for how to move a 346,752lb gold anvil, the answer was to Reverse Gravity the room, Spider Climb in along the floor, set up an Enveloping Pit below the anvil, then cancel the Reverse Gravity.

You may then, at your pleasure, hack off bits with an axe and use Metal Melt (SPC) to run the liquid gold into forms for ingots, or rods that can then be cut and stamped into coins.

Heh. Given the volume you could quite literally say we have made our own mint. That reminds me, at our next session I may have to joke about putting our faces on those coins.

As for why our DM put it there, the short answer is that he didn't. He is running the Ruins of Undermountain boxed set by TSR, with suitable adaptations to 3.x, and the anvil was there because TSR put it there. He even read to us the entry out of the book to prove it.

He has owned the boxed set since forever, and the Netheril set too, come to think of it, and this is his first chance to run either. Frankly, I wouldn't read too much into it, because even though he has been playing for years, and a player in our group for ten years, this is his first time DMing anything.

That's why the power scale has been off between us and the monsters. He is quite used to our group being potent, and not yet used to running the monster side of things, so he gets the power scales off from time to time. Well, quite frequently, to be honest. That's the biggest part about why we don't wish to suddenly jump on the power scale, as then we'd be back to constant near-death experiences for a while as he felt his way towards a suitable challenge again.

[nedz]

I believe the trope is Give them more gold than they can possibly carry. The designer's theory is that because they can never recover the gold it won't break the game.

I tried this once, and I've seen someone else run the same idea.

The party always get the treasure out, it becomes an obsession, much more important than anything else which they might have been doing.

[Socratov]

I believe the trope is Give them more gold than they can possibly carry. The designer's theory is that because they can never recover the gold it won't break the game.

I tried this once, and I've seen someone else run the same idea.

The party always get the treasure out, it becomes an obsession, much more important than anything else which they might have been doing.

It's acutally a time where you see real teamwork and problemsolving within a party (more then jsut "I hit it with a big metal stick/ball of fire") :smallamused:

[Shining Wrath]

I assume you are high enough level to transport that much gold? Because otherwise there's going to be a serious problem getting your 240 tons of loot out. Tenser's floating disk will not cut it here.

The other serious problem is that when word gets out it is worth the time of every neutral or evil: king, prince, duke, high-level PC, and / or DRAGON to come pay you a visit. When the red Great Wyrm shows up and demands everything, how will you respond?

So you need to build keeps to defend your gold, and you need to build them before word gets out, so you need lots of magical building aides, and you need them NOW. That could involve paying high prices, hiring assistant mages to cast more spells per day than you can, etc.

[Rubik]

I assume you are high enough level to transport that much gold? Because otherwise there's going to be a serious problem getting your 240 tons of loot out. Tenser's floating disk will not cut it here.

The other serious problem is that when word gets out it is worth the time of every neutral or evil: king, prince, duke, high-level PC, and / or DRAGON to come pay you a visit. When the red Great Wyrm shows up and demands everything, how will you respond?

So you need to build keeps to defend your gold, and you need to build them before word gets out, so you need lots of magical building aides, and you need them NOW. That could involve paying high prices, hiring assistant mages to cast more spells per day than you can, etc.Protip: Keep quiet about the fact that you even have that much money. Hack off a chunk and melt it down for coin any time you need some, but otherwise don't tell anyone.

So long as the enveloping pit/portable hole they're using is shielded from divinations, it should be just fine.

[Slipperychicken]

I believe the trope is Give them more gold than they can possibly carry. The designer's theory is that because they can never recover the gold it won't break the game.

I tried this once, and I've seen someone else run the same idea.

The party always get the treasure out, it becomes an obsession, much more important than anything else which they might have been doing.

Have you seen the lengths to which real people go, and the sacrifices we make just to get money? It shouldn't be surprising at all that PCs would do the same when faced with such extreme, immediate temptation.

[Woodzyowl]

1. Buy 1.2 million cows.
2. Sell them back at an even higher price, since you will likely have most of the supply.
3. ???
4. Profit
Actually, I might have mixed up 3 and 4 there.

[Shining Wrath]

Protip: Keep quiet about the fact that you even have that much money. Hack off a chunk and melt it down for coin any time you need some, but otherwise don't tell anyone.

So long as the enveloping pit/portable hole they're using is shielded from divinations, it should be just fine.

As though that's even possible ... That much money inspires legends.

[Morphie]

If I was the DM I would place a continuous Antimagic Field around the anvil to keep it from being stolen. The party could break a little bit of it but the core would be unachievable. Or it could be "just an illusion" (cue 80's music) placed upon a giant iron anvil.

If the DM allows it, don't be afraid to break the game, he already has done so.

[Phelix-Mu]

As though that's even possible ... That much money inspires legends.

If the bunch of Netherese gestalt arcanists that constitute the party can't keep the lid on a very important bit of secret info, then I think that constitutes a bigger long term threat than the problems with being filthy rich.

[Slipperychicken]

If the bunch of Netherese gestalt arcanists that constitute the party can't keep the lid on a very important bit of secret info, then I think that constitutes a bigger long term threat than the problems with being filthy rich.

Yeah, they should be fine with putting the "big pile" in lead-lined extradimensional storage, or just splitting it up into several Haversacks/Bags of Holding. Then they're just seen as producing the several thousands at a time which successful adventurers usually do.

[koboldish]

I built the Tardis in D&D once. It was only like 2.4 million gold. That's what I would do. Along with every spell in the game. Spend the rest on a fort. Just my opinion though :smallbiggrin:.

[Phelix-Mu]

I think it's probably been posted many times before, but if I were the OP, I would sink at least 100-500k in some kind of enterprise/series of enterprises designed to create sustainable income. The future is never certain, but I will lay heavy odds on some kind of financial crunch coming up in the party's future. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but once the money starts to dry up, every time one of your mansions or floating this or that gets disenchanted, green-slimed, or spellfired to dust, it's really going to hurt. A revenue stream into the future that is set up to be hard to interrupt (i.e., diversified) will serve your character very well.

Here are a couple ideas:

1.) Arcanists like spells for transport. But not everyone has spells, and sometimes mounts are just cooler. So breed mounts (valuable horses can be very valuable, far beyond the actual cost of maintaining a competent breeding program). Ur-epona, ecalypse, asperi, and so forth are all excellent creatures for breeding, and you can even set up some kind of off-plane spot for grazing (and for emergency evac if anyone ever tracks down your breeding facility).

2.) Fine art. Alright, so D&D doesn't model this very well, but rich people drop crazy money on things just because they are aesthetically pleasing and/or fashionable. With your colossal resources, you can scout talent, patronize promising artists, and deal in the exotic and hard-to-acquire stuff that everyone wants.

How would #2 work mechanically? Probably just found a business and hire the appropriate experts. Association with some kind of multinational/interplanar affiliation would be desirable, but you could just reduce it to a series of business contracts investing in galleries and talent for a share of their profits. If you invest in artisans that produce items of game value, all the better, as the finest magic items are works of art in their own right.

[Cirrylius]

How would #2 work mechanically?
Eh. DM fiat, probably. Unless he was an Epic craftsman, neither Craft (Fine Art), or Profession (Art Stable), or the business rules from... DMG II(?) would result in a lot of gold, by RAW. Then again, I suppose you could just handwave the year's income to represent a single work.

[Slipperychicken]

I built the Tardis in D&D once. It was only like 2.4 million gold. That's what I would do. Along with every spell in the game. Spend the rest on a fort A Sonic Screwdriver. Just my opinion though :smallbiggrin:.

FTFY.

Put every spell in the game on a near-invincible wand. It is now the sonic screwdriver. Money really is the best superpower.

[Randomguy]

I think it's probably been posted many times before, but if I were the OP, I would sink at least 100-500k in some kind of enterprise/series of enterprises designed to create sustainable income. The future is never certain, but I will lay heavy odds on some kind of financial crunch coming up in the party's future. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but once the money starts to dry up, every time one of your mansions or floating this or that gets disenchanted, green-slimed, or spellfired to dust, it's really going to hurt. A revenue stream into the future that is set up to be hard to interrupt (i.e., diversified) will serve your character very well.

Here are a couple ideas:

1.) Arcanists like spells for transport. But not everyone has spells, and sometimes mounts are just cooler. So breed mounts (valuable horses can be very valuable, far beyond the actual cost of maintaining a competent breeding program). Ur-epona, ecalypse, asperi, and so forth are all excellent creatures for breeding, and you can even set up some kind of off-plane spot for grazing (and for emergency evac if anyone ever tracks down your breeding facility).

2.) Fine art. Alright, so D&D doesn't model this very well, but rich people drop crazy money on things just because they are aesthetically pleasing and/or fashionable. With your colossal resources, you can scout talent, patronize promising artists, and deal in the exotic and hard-to-acquire stuff that everyone wants.

How would #2 work mechanically? Probably just found a business and hire the appropriate experts. Association with some kind of multinational/interplanar affiliation would be desirable, but you could just reduce it to a series of business contracts investing in galleries and talent for a share of their profits. If you invest in artisans that produce items of game value, all the better, as the finest magic items are works of art in their own right.

If he wants money he can use distilled joy + simulacra + feats to help make item crafting efficient for a stream of magic items to sell. I'd use this to make golems and then sell the golems to friendly wizards if money gets short, and keep them otherwise.

[Phelix-Mu]

Eh. DM fiat, probably. Unless he was an Epic craftsman, neither Craft (Fine Art), or Profession (Art Stable), or the business rules from... DMG II(?) would result in a lot of gold, by RAW. Then again, I suppose you could just handwave the year's income to represent a single work.

Value of specific artwork produced can exceed actual gp price within certain markets. While this is more how actual world luxury markets work than a game mechanic, there is nothing to suggest that connoisseurs of art in-game would behave any differently. In short, Craft(artwork) arrives at a standard market value for a discrete item. But artisan prestige, provenance (a.k.a., famously owned by famous person), and demand within a specific market can artificially increase this price.

In short, invest in an auction house or gallery that deals in high-end artwork. Such a business doesn't operate on a mechanic defined by skill usage, and profit margin would be determined by negotiation of the contract outlining the terms of investment. This is more a function of interaction skills, in fact, as a convincing investment proposal can prompt a more lucrative arrangement.

Is there DM ruling involved here? Yes. Was the OP looking only for RAW stuff to do with money? Not even in the slightest.

EDIT: Item sweatshop is, of course, more profitable, but less sustainable, as infinite item production should lead to depreciation in a hurry. If the DM is going to allow endless profit schemes, then a whole lot of the previous posting is irrelevant, as 12 million gp invested into a perpetual money scheme will shortly yield the value of the entire Prime, and actual spending of money will be something well beneath a being of your power.

[Saito Takuji]

Build yourself a log cabin entirely out of Immovable Rods.

wouldnt that be more of a rod cabbin

[Randomguy]

EDIT: Item sweatshop is, of course, more profitable, but less sustainable, as infinite item production should lead to depreciation in a hurry. If the DM is going to allow endless profit schemes, then a whole lot of the previous posting is irrelevant, as 12 million gp invested into a perpetual money scheme will shortly yield the value of the entire Prime, and actual spending of money will be something well beneath a being of your power.

The goal of the golem crafting wouldn't be an item sweatshop, it would be for minions which can double as disposable income if going gets tough. It lets the OP spend money in a productive way and still be able to reclaim a lot of it if necessary.

[Phelix-Mu]

The goal of the golem crafting wouldn't be an item sweatshop, it would be for minions which can double as disposable income if going gets tough. It lets the OP spend money in a productive way and still be able to reclaim a lot of it if necessary.

My bad, and I wasn't specifically pointing out your suggestion, just pointing out that the common suggestion of "make and sell magic items for profit" should have in-setting limits, especially in a high-magic setting like Netheril, where magic is just about everywhere already.

Sorry if I misinterpreted your point.

[Cirrylius]

Is there DM ruling involved here? Yes. Was the OP looking only for RAW stuff to do with money? Not even in the slightest.


Eh. DM fiat, probably.
Emphasis mine. I threw in the other stuff to show why it should be DM fiat. Calm down.

[Pyromancer999]

A purchase aside from a fort that you may want to make is a Vestments of the Archmagi(Magic Item Compendium), a pricey purchase that is definitely worth it for arcane spellcasters.

[Phelix-Mu]

Emphasis mine. I threw in the other stuff to show why it should be DM fiat.

Ah, so we are pretty much in agreement, then. My post was mostly to clarify it for the OP, in case I hadn't been clear (I was in a bit of a hurry when I first posted).

Just because the rules implementation of the money-making scheme is in the DM's hands doesn't make it not worth trying (again, not a criticism). The DM is clearly expecting a high-level of player commitment to milking the ruleset for every ounce of advantage, so creative ideas are probably par for the course. Any DM comfortable with houseruling is a resource worth probing for limits, in any case. The giant golden anvil treasure suggests that this DM is fishing for complications from the players (extra money is pretty much the fastest, most reversible way to inspire creative thinking, as was previously mentioned).

Good luck to the OP with making whatever investments you do make stick, as I'm sure there will be plot collateral for some of what the players come up with.

[Rubik]

If I was the DM I would place a continuous Antimagic Field around the anvil to keep it from being stolen. The party could break a little bit of it but the core would be unachievable. Or it could be "just an illusion" (cue 80's music) placed upon a giant iron anvil.

If the DM allows it, don't be afraid to break the game, he already has done so.Meh. Just put a tarp over it to break line of effect. Voila, AMF is disabled.

[TypoNinja]

I believe the trope is Give them more gold than they can possibly carry. The designer's theory is that because they can never recover the gold it won't break the game.

I tried this once, and I've seen someone else run the same idea.

The party always get the treasure out, it becomes an obsession, much more important than anything else which they might have been doing.

Its not even hard, A good casting of shrink item can make a million pounds of goodies into something fairly easily retrieved.

Standard solution in my current game, we have a shrunk item cart/wagon. When we find a haul to big for the bag of holding the wagon gets unshrunk, loaded up, and shrunk again.

[Morphie]

Meh. Just put a tarp over it to break line of effect. Voila, AMF is disabled.

It would depend on where the AMF would be centered, now wouldn't it? If you have the means to build a giant gold anvil, you should have adopted some safety measures to keep it from being stolen.

[Gildedragon]

Actually question is:
Why would anyone make an anvil out of gold.
It's so ductile and... bad for banging really.
I guess its heavy but it dents so easy.

[Skysaber]

Thanks to all for your comments/suggestions so far.

Anvil was in a shrine that basically served as a dead magic zone to all but that deity's followers. The chamber itself was invulnerable, as was the anvil so long as it was in the chamber.

Luckily I have levels of Prestige Paladin, and since those substitution levels no longer map correctly, we've been treating them as Alternate Class Features. Restore the Weave turns out to be surprisingly useful in Undermountain, where there are a fair amount of magic dead areas. Getting enough uses per day took a fair amount of finagling, tho.

I like the idea of keeping quiet about our sudden, massive fortune. You're right, it saves so much trouble if you're just producing a few thousand coins at a time, just like a normal adventurer. Again, luckily, another expectation the DM explained to us as we all started out at first level, was that we needed to create new spells. It wasn't just an option, it was required if we wanted the other archmages later on to take us seriously. I never imagined I'd be using Wall of Lead so soon, but suddenly I think it's one of my favorites.

Invented, ironically enough, because it would be useful for fort construction. And speaking of that, ok, so I've probably gone a little golem crazy, but this is what I've got so far.

Prices I've been looking at were all prices to buy. Since I just reread the intro blurb to golems in the MM and it said that the creator can reassert control of golems he created at any time, bought golems provide no security. Thus I'll be forced to make my own.

So, making it myself reduces costs by 50%
Golem master cohort providing assistance (heck, I'll buy an item of continuous Fusion and merge with her if I have to) reduces prices on all golems by 50% again.
Since all these are stronghold expenses, then presumably by entering into an agreement to guard an important pass or something, I can get fund matching from ground nobles via the Landlord feat, and take another 50% off.
Finally Magical Artisan plus Extraordinary Artisan is another 50% off gold.

So I end up paying 6.25% of ordinary purchase price on golems (and my DM can be happy, because he knows I am optimizing).

Xp is not really as much a concern, as there is a 6th level druid spell in Kingdom's of Kalamar: Player's Guide called Draw Forth the Oak Spirit that permanently creates a dryad, and a dryad sleeping near her tree (where else would she be?) is one of the examples listed as appropriate targets for the Distill Joy spell. So, set up Distill Joy traps near each dryad tree and, since fey eat and sleep and breathe, presumably for about 8 hours per day it can be distilling joy. As obtaining 6th level druid spells is not a particular problem, I ought to have all of the item crafting xp I need.

Now unless I want to use the rest of my natural lifespan item crafting, the next thing on the agenda is Dedicated Wrights. How many is a matter of number crunching, as I can only craft for 8 hours per day, and each one requires you start them off by working with them an hour on each project. So I can only begin 8 projects daily, so for lesser golems who only cost a couple of grand I'm not saving much time. On the other hand, I bit the bullet and bought some major golems, and a wright could save me upwards of half a year each on those.

Before I start crafting, I'll have to go off and read a chapter out of the Nether Scrolls. We specifically chose an era where they were still on public display. All I have to do is show up, prove I am an arcanist, and I'm in to the auditorium where each page sits behind an as-close-to-impervious-as-makes-no-difference barrier that also serves to magnify the text for easy reading by a roomful of arcanists. The appropriate chapter gives all constructs I create maximum hit points for their hit dice, and, coincidentally, if I allocate a bit more time and read two chapters I can shave another 25% off the price of any magic items I craft, forever. So, worth doing.

I'll also get 4 bonus item creation feats out of those two chapters, including Craft Construct, making this less feat intensive than I'd feared.

We are now at 4.6875% of original purchase price for golems. Call it 5% for ease of calculating just to rough out a shopping list, and once a ballpark has been established I can do final calculating and use the change for incidental items (like Lyres of Building and a Wonderous Architecture Lab of continuous Fusion if needed) and extra traps.

I have been armed with a tentative ruling that to obtain a price scheme for advancing constructs within existing limits, but without existing advancement costs: divide that construct's cost by it's CR to get "Price per challenge Rating", then just advance its HD as per the table in the back of the monster manual, paying as appropriate.

We'll see how that works.

For other tweaks and adjustments, Golem Master has a class ability that adds 2 bonus HD, 2 additional nat armor, and 10 extra HP, none of which I have to pay any extra for, as that's all her skill. And Dragon Magazine 327 has some feats for removing the Berserk quality, adding extra arms and rudimentary intelligence to golems that I might be using. I'll also be dipping into Encyclopedia Arcane: Constructs, for additional things, as needed.

And, with all of that said and done, I've run out of room to list the golems I'm buying. So I'll save that for a follow up post.

[Socratov]

So... no enslavingbefriending a dragon by supplying a hoard? :smallfrown:

You could have been dragonriders dude/girl!

[Sith_Happens]

[Snip]

You know, at that point you could probably just build a stronghold out of golems.

[Lapak]

I know it is not the answer that the OP is looking for, but I literally cannot see this thread without thinking "Fund a political uprising that is not intended to put yourself into power but simply to unseat all the existing office-holders. Blow a bunch of it on a party, hiring spellcasters to Gate or Teleport in notable guests like godlings and emperors. Hire an epic-level adventuring team to compete against your party in an adventure! But don't forget to retain the services of someone with a lot of ranks in Profession (Law), just in case you feel the need to smack someone. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewster's_Millions_(1985_film))"

[Skysaber]

Sorry for the delay. My attention got caught by new possibilities and I had to recalculate everything. So, without further ado:

Start off with 12 simulacra of myself, and another 12 simulacra of my golem master cohort to split the load between. If necessary, I can set up 13 Wonderous Labs of Fusion, with the command phrase "Wonder Twin Powers, Activate!" and the somatic component of simultaneously touching fists.

Fast Item Creation out of Ultimate Feats, by Mongoose, lets us each craft 2,000gp worth of magic items per day, and Exceptional Artisan reduces item creation time by a further 25%. Ordinarily, I'd not care so much about the time. But the feats are free with the psychic reformations I'll already be doing, and it really would be prudent to have as much of my defenses established as possible before anyone realized what was going on.

A variable number of Dedicated Wrights to be calculated later. 6,100gp each for the 3HD version, which I will get as I am feeling a need to sneak in some waste somewhere. Golem Master makes that 5HD, or almost tough enough to live to run away, should it ever get attacked. 312 would give 24 to each pair of fusioned crafters, or enough to keep up a steady flow of projects if each was three days long. Hopefully, though, I won't need that much. Although, who knows? Perhaps I'll need more.

2,000 Paper Golems, ordinarily 2HD for 600gp, but tricked out so they are actually worth having that bumps the price up to 3,500gp a pop. At least they'll be 6HD, though, before the golem master makes that 8. The only things making them viable in combat at all are they still have a golem's magic immunity, and since they are origami anyway I plan to form them into birds like swans and cranes and whatnot, and grant them Flyby Attack. Encyclopedia Arcane: Constructs, gives mechanics for granting feats to constructs, and it's quite modestly priced, too.

1,000 Tin Golems, less for combat, more for craft skills. If any hive had worker bees, these are mine. At 14HD after all bonuses, and with their special +6 ranks to two craft or profession skills over and above what is available per HD, I can have workers with 23 ranks, enough so that masterwork tools and taking 10 gives 35 on every check. I figure I'll go primarily into the printing and bookbinding business. After all, wizards love their books. Final cost for tricked out versions, 16,250 each. Ouch! But worth it to form businesses to fall back on, should I ever have need (and can give my profits away to charity until then).

1,000 Wood Golems. My silly side wants so badly to make these guys out of bluewood and give them white footy-pants and a cap. My inner child wants to recreate the March of the Wooden Soldiers. And my practical side wants them to be effective. Luckily, all three can be appeased. By applying the Sacred Guardian template out of Bestiary of Krynn, specifically the Knowledge domain, these guys can have True Sight active all of the time, and I can station Soldier Smurfs all over the place, every door worth noting anyway, as guards. A quick dip into EA: Constructs again lets me grant them +10 comp to Spot, Sacred Guardian makes them intelligent, so they can have max ranks in it, and since constructs don't get bored, they can be taking 20 all of the time, totaling 49. And while I know there are rogues in the world who could still slip past that, they are fewer than the common, everyday, garden variety. And I'm not stopping Archmages either. Cost for final, tricked out version of wood golems is 8,750 each, and they'll have full HD (12, upped to 14 by cohort).

24 Remembrances, a construct out of Creature Collection 3, by Relics and Rituals, that has the appearance, as well as full skills and class abilities, of a living elvan bard of equal level, and arguably better spellcasting in the form of SLAs. Originally 9HD, but can be had to up 18HD, which my cohort would make 20. Tricked out as sacred guardians, etc, their intelligence would be 25, and DR decent, so I could trust these as stewards to take care of the place while I'm away - and to be very entertaining when I am in residence. What is it Shakespeare said? "There is no profit had where there is no pleasure taken." Cost is a pain, though. Originally 170,000gp, with full options package 213,950 each.

So far I am thinking the command structure goes : Me, my simulacra, my remembrances, then the intelligent castle itself can give orders to the rest of my golems for coordinated defense.

1,200 Caryatid Columns. I almost didn't go for these, as price per HD was surprisingly low, and they did not have any compelling special abilities. Then I realized that at 21HD (their max) the save DC on their Break Weapon ability would be 20, or enough that hordes of mooks would break virtually every weapon on virtually every strike against them, and even a high level adventuring party carving its way through the place would rather quickly be disarmed. As sacred guardians, they would even have the DR and Fast Repair to enable them to withstand those blows. A few simple tweaks, and they can be dual-weilding their bastard swords, getting second and third iterative attacks, along with two slams, power attack and cleave. They can be martial maidens of mayhem scything their way through orc hordes! They can also be upgraded to serve dual-purpose as archers so I have some ranged defense against things that can ignore lightning and fireballs. And, just to be perverse, with their new intelligence as Sacred Guardians I can get them to have maximum ranks in Heal, and the appropriate profession skill to be hospital staff, so they can be maidens of mercy when there aren't orc skulls to cleave. And, why not? I can also grant them +10 comp to Perform, along with max ranks in dancing, so they can follow choreography at the direction of my remembrances. I want some parades!

Cost is a whopping 81,000gp per maiden though.

Now, If I am calculating right, that all totals up to an impressive 135,066,800gp. But after reduction to 5% comes down to a mere 6,753,340gp, or just a touch over half my budget.

I was also going to buy a handful, probably around a few dozen at most, of the high ticket golems to have something to stand off more serious threats. But I am not done calculating how many, or of what, so far.

So, any suggestions on high-ticket, high-power golems? Or anything else I may be overlooking?

[Skysaber]

So... no enslavingbefriending a dragon by supplying a hoard? :smallfrown:

You could have been dragonriders dude/girl!

I could always effigy-up a few dragons. Cheaper than paying for their hoard, and almost as effective. Actually, after dipping into EA: Constructs where I could add back in their breath weapon and immunity, functionally identical if I stick with the younger dragons without SLAs or spellcasting.

[Kirgoth]

The perfect amount of money is enough that you never have to worry about it again. This is too much which means you once again have to start worrying about it. Keep a million, buy a pleasure palace, guards, investments to keep you going and give the rest to the king and church and let them worry about it.

[Randomguy]

You could try one of the dragon golems from Draconomicon, but it might be more cost effecitvie to use dragon effigies, I'm not sure.

If you crafted 3 Mind Flayer effigies and then Awakened them, then you could maybe Voidmind up some minions. You can't voidmind elementals, though, so you wouldn't be able to use your command elementals ability to take an elemental, then voidmind it, freeing up more HD for you to command.


MM3 has some golems, but none of them look particularly powerful or interesting.


Maybe you should consider mass producing cheap but weak traps that would work together to take down big things. For example, 100 000 traps of 1/day Sonic Snap that all target the same creature, except using a better spell that doesn't allow SR and doesn't have a damage type.

[Skysaber]

I know it is not the answer that the OP is looking for, but I literally cannot see this thread without thinking "Fund a political uprising that is not intended to put yourself into power but simply to unseat all the existing office-holders. Blow a bunch of it on a party, hiring spellcasters to Gate or Teleport in notable guests like godlings and emperors. Hire an epic-level adventuring team to compete against your party in an adventure! But don't forget to retain the services of someone with a lot of ranks in Profession (Law), just in case you feel the need to smack someone. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewster's_Millions_(1985_film))"

In any kind of normal situation, where political power is derived from the consent of the governed (for example, a mayor is a mayor because everybody says he is the mayor) that would be one thing.

In Netheril, however, the situation gets kind of reversed, where archmages have so much political power just because they have that much REAL power, without any additional help from anyone. Their followers and hangers on associate with them because of the goodies proximity to such power naturally brings. If you live in an enclave you don't have to be concerned over the teeming hordes of migrating orcs, for example. And quasimagical items are available on the cheap because of the mythallars they create, and so on.

If the common people of an enclave got together and voted an archmage off, it would not be the archmage leaving. So the normal rules for subversion and politics pretty much go out the window.

[Felandria]

I know it is not the answer that the OP is looking for, but I literally cannot see this thread without thinking "Fund a political uprising that is not intended to put yourself into power but simply to unseat all the existing office-holders. Blow a bunch of it on a party, hiring spellcasters to Gate or Teleport in notable guests like godlings and emperors. Hire an epic-level adventuring team to compete against your party in an adventure! But don't forget to retain the services of someone with a lot of ranks in Profession (Law), just in case you feel the need to smack someone. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewster's_Millions_(1985_film))"


What you did there.

I see it.

[Skysaber]

Ok, as many of you probably predicted, I went overboard on golems again.

The short list:
24 Old One Guardians at 287,210 ea, equals 6,893,040gp
24 Slaughterstone Behemoths at 320,916.25 ea, equals 7,701,990gp
24 Juggernauts at 369,931.81 ea, equals 8,878,363.44gp
6 Juggernauts at 319,931 ea, equals 1,919,586gp
12 Razor Golems at 170,041.66ea, equals 2,040,492gp
120 Gold Golems at 157,750 ea, equals 18,930,000gp
120 Scourging Stanchion at 152,250 ea, equals 18,270,000gp
120 Scourging Slingers at 174,750 ea, equals 20,970,000gp

Total: 85,603,471.44gp
After cost reduction to 5% : 4,280,173.57gp

Final tweaking involved the Sacred Guardian template and Extra Arms for everyone, max HD for all but the golds, and the Glyph Guardian template for some. And at this point I am a little sick of golems, and almost wish I'd spent my time researching something else. And speaking of time, in some ways I am running up against the old adage "You can have it done well, you can have it done fast, or you can have it cheap. Pick any two."

To prevent a long string of adventures fending off people and/or things after my fortune I need my defenses established fast. To do that I need a positively ridiculous number of Dedicated Wrights (to the tune of 600), and to start off the whole circus by having the first few Dedicated Wrights I craft help me make more Dedicated Wrights. Only after the crafting frenzy is over I'll probably never have a use for them again, which is waste, and I hate one use items. Then it occurred to me it wouldn't be quite so wasteful if they had some other function or purpose, instead of just sitting around for eternity waiting for me to stumble across another fortune - something that will probably never happen again.

Then it occurred to me, how another poster had already compared this castle to Hogwarts, as both would be magic schools housed in castles where it was impossible to teleport on the grounds. And suddenly I knew what I wanted to do with my leftover Dedicated Wrights.

I've found my House Elves.

I've already got methods of granting skills and feats to constructs, and it turns out the little guys already come with some, so more would be easier. I can turn them into cooks and cleaning staff!

All told, after my full 4.6875% cost reduction, that cost me 10,481,169gp out of 12,098,000. So I have just about 1.6 mil left to spend, and I never want to see another golem again - which probably means I'll have to move out of my own house, cause they'll be everywhere in there.

[Pally din]

This is the most overpowered game I've ever heard of, but it does sound fun. Also, clearly the OP knows math and sourcebooks. But, I think his defense is lacking.

So many golems represents a single point of failure. Expect to encounter constuct bane items, and rangers speced out against constructs and only constructs, etc.

Also, although you went golem crazy, you neglected more about the base fortress. One of the resulting flaws is that an army can GET TO your fortress before you and your golems really can do anything about them. You need defense in depth, so that they have to get past layers of increasing resistance before they can even get to your walls. I recommend a ring or shell of airships (12 minimum), which hopefuly you can set up a group of golems to craft for you.

And if they are crafting ships, you also have the start of a merchant fleet, which you need for both trade and to bring in some raw materials. You need trade to start a sustainable income, because people cost money over time, and eventualy you need people rather than golems. You need raw materials, for instance carbon to help turn iron into steel, not to mention trace metals. And you need steel because you should have your golems crafting arms and armor. All of which means you need more crafters than you've allocated so far. And if you can competence item for yourself, why not add that to your crafters? Telling the DM your airship craft was a 50 instead of a 30 might mean something in a hurricane. Don't forget golems, men, and weapons for the airships too.

Now, your castle/fort, if you plan for it to fly someday, start prepping for that now. Why build a medieval castle, to eventualy fly, when so many advasaries WILL fly to attack you. Which means you need to start thinking 3D. Hell, you did not even really think 2D. Parts of your walls can cast fireballs and lightning bolts, but you don't have that really integrated with the design of your walls. Lightning should be arranged to go along the face of the walls. And walls arranged in a star shape. Scaling that up to 3D implies a spheroid, but a spikey spheroid. Which means your walls are really a shell. Unconventional, but people can't just fly over your walls then. Now, you also only have fire and electricity covered. Why not throw some energy subsitution in there and make sure you cover acid, sonic, and cold? But that means you need 5* these blasters + 2X* for the 3D aspect. Suddenly you have less money available for some of your latter frivolities. So, if you have a 3D star shaped fort, you may need to double check that your quantity of wall defense accounts for both your mile casting as well as the range of your lightning bolts. Longer bolts (and boulders) make for longer and fewer star points, while shorter means you need more. Helping slightly with that is the fact that you want your mile casting to be able to cover bad guys outside your walls, making your base radius smaller. Fortunately by going 3D and having golems you can pack a lot in.

You also need some kind of underground forces, in order to prevent a suprise attack from that direction. Mobility for the future when everything flies, yet they stay below you wherever you are, is a good thing to plan for now. Say hello to more crafting and equiping.

And if you are reshaping stone and crafting airships, you have the possibility of creating underwater cities and submarines (stone works good in compression), or maybe that could be what your friend does, so that you all can adventure over more than the land surface of the world.

Archers, lightning, and fireballs are nice, but where are the thrown boulders? Potentialy, you can craft your own hollow boulders too and stuff them will all sorts of interesting things (poisions, monsters, traps). The bad guys won't catch them if you thow them out of reach only to have them crack open. But a mix keeps them guessing. Then start planning combined strikes where say there is an attribute drain feature to the poision, monster, and trap that you suddenly threw into 1 area. Shrink your boulders for storage though.

And I've seen nothing to indicate that you've tried to break your own defense as if you were you. This would indicate failure points that need to be improved.

What happens when they melt your stone to mud, turn your metals into wood, and warp your wood, as just one possibility, which again is why it is a good idea to never let them get that close to begin with.

[Randomguy]

FYI, you can shave another 10% off golem cost by joining an affiliation from PHB2.


I suggest you get a beneficial trap of Repair X Damage, or alternatively an Energy Transformation Field linked to a repair damage spell, so that your constructs can either heal themselves unlimitedly or use spell like abilities to heal themselves.

[Skysaber]

Ok, we had another game session, during which we told our DM what we are doing. He approved of some things, and made statements that telegraph pretty clearly we can expect our forts to get attacked, possibly on the highest levels, ie, archmages, perhaps even as early as next session.

So only a week to get everything finalized.

Originally, I was going to have a simple, circle shaped ground fort. If I am to get 120 Guardian Gargoyles, they can only be placed every 30ft along the outer wall. So that means if my castle were a circle, it would have have a circumference of 3,600ft, leading to a diameter of 1145.9 feet and an area of 1,031,324 ft. Over a million square feet on the ground floor is appropriately voluminous for grand and luxurious living.

Unfortunately, it's been pointed out fields of fire should be integral to fortress design, and a circle is a very poor shape to try and defend, mostly because the curve works against defenders trying to concentrate their fire on attackers. Also, given who we are and the environment we're in I really have to think three dimensionally. Because we will be attacked, and it's near certain those attackers would have flight.

I say unfortunate, because it complicates everything tremendously.

For a three-dimensional star fort, the shape that leapt most easily to mind was a Great Dodecahedron. There was a toy in the Rubik's Cube line called an Alexander's Star, which is where I got the idea from.

Ok, twelve pentagons. If each side is 720ft, that gives me my 3,600ft perimeter. Only to get the full, 3D shape gives me 30 edges, and 445.7ft per inner ridge (60 of those, unless all this math has fried my brain), so a grand total of 1,610 Guardian Gargoyle positions.

If I do that, there would be no place anywhere on the surface where at least 53 of them couldn't bear, and no route of approach where at least ten times that couldn't fire on an attacker. I can raise the caster level to 10 and build in the metamagic feat that extends range, so they'd all be able to fire out to 1,600ft.

Come to think of it, no. Lightning Bolt is a 120ft line. Oh, well, I'll have to invent a version that has long range. A level or two higher is worth not having to recalculate things at this point.

Anyway, with a flying fort boasting that volume of fire I could almost expect, on returning home after an adventure to check on construction, one of my golems to approach, and in a low, gravely voice announce, "The Death Star will be completed on schedule."

Pity there's no D&D equivalent to a superlaser.

And now I'm hearing in my head, "Those quasits are so small they're evading our Turbo-Fireballs!"

Anyway, I can land the thing if I build a special dock for it on my mountaintop so my druids can still enjoy access to their beloved outdoors.

A Tornado's Eye out of the Draconomicon has a 80ft diameter safe zone in the center, and getting multiples add those together. So, getting 16 Tornado's Eyes at 90,000 apiece has a 1,280ft safe zone, putting the edge of the storm a just about 50 feet from my walls. But I've got druids I've got to look after, so I'll buy 20 so that leaves me 450ft between wall and windstorm at the narrowest point, which is enough for generous gardens - keep my druids happy and have a place to plant my dryads.

Incidentally, a magic item that generates tornado force winds around you? That alone almost renders the rest of my planned defenses irrelevant. All ranged weapon attacks are impossible, even for siege weapons, and there is no size creature that isn't checked, knocked down or blown away should they try to enter. Since having a weirdstone makes approach via Teleport impossible, I'll have to leave an access tunnel - and once construction is finished, put my galeb duhrs on closing off anyone else's attempts to burrow in, because they haven't got another method of approach.

[eviljav]

Maybe buy up all the onyx gems in the world, destroy them, and then laugh at necromancers?

[Muktidata]

Vow of Poverty

[jywu98]

Buy a bunch of Candles of Invocation. Share and let the whole party ascend.
@Mukidata: Gotta love your avatar. Dota 2 is the best computer game ever!

[Randomguy]

A Tornado's Eye out of the Draconomicon has a 80ft diameter safe zone in the center, and getting multiples add those together. So, getting 16 Tornado's Eyes at 90,000 apiece has a 1,280ft safe zone, putting the edge of the storm a just about 50 feet from my walls. But I've got druids I've got to look after, so I'll buy 20 so that leaves me 450ft between wall and windstorm at the narrowest point, which is enough for generous gardens - keep my druids happy and have a place to plant my dryads.


This part seems a bit risky: Since lightning bolts only get 120 feet range you'll have a large area that you can't target. I suggest you either make the safe area a bit smaller, or increase the range of your attacks.

[Skysaber]

I must be reading the wrong sourcebooks, because I am not finding flying ships anywhere.

[8wGremlin]

what about using genesis and creating your own demi plane.
tie this in with the mythal and get it to only allow you access by some token or such

[Skysaber]

what about using genesis and creating your own demi plane.
tie this in with the mythal and get it to only allow you access by some token or such

That's a far better defense than what I'd been planning. Cheaper, all around more effective, yeah, I like that. I had been playing around with ideas on mile wide Screen spells to hide the build location. This is better.

[Krobar]

I must be reading the wrong sourcebooks, because I am not finding flying ships anywhere.

You want a ship? Here's what I would do. Take any normal ship design (I'm partial to the caravel) and add to it:


Cloud Keel (Arms & Equipment Guide) - enables it to fly at MV 40 (clumsy)
Everfull Sails (Stormwrack) - increases speed, always has wind
Planar Helm (Stormwrack) - enables entire ship to Planeshift (via Planar Navigation)
Fharlanghn's Lines (Arms & Equipment Guide) - reduces necessary crew to 1 (the captain)
Captain's Table (Arms & Equipment Guide) - Heroes' Feast every day
Decanter of Endless Water - just a useful item to have
Major Spelljammer Helm - for spelljamming to different crystal spheres


With your amount of gold you could buy several scrolls of Wish, and use those to render it immune to fire, acid, sonic, electricity and force effects, Passwall, Disintegrate and Warp Wood spells; you could get it Hallowed to provide Magic Circle against Evil and Death Ward protections to everyone aboard, you could get Forbiddance cast on it, you could get someone to craft a Rod of Submerge Ship (7th level spell) and Mirage Arcana (5th level spell) too. You could get it mithril plated, and harden the mithril with the Hardening spell, cover that with a likewise hardened Oak veneer to cover the mithril, and you'd have the greatest ship ever. It could fly, be a submarine, plane shift, blend into its surroundings, travel between the crystal spheres and would be protected from just about everything that would normally affect a ship.

All of this would probably not even cost 1/4 of the money you have available.

[Beldar]

Greetings Everyone.

I am the other player that was there with the OP (Skysaber) in that game session where we got the money. So I too have 12 million to spend.
Skysaber pointed out this thread to me, and I thought I would post here and get your opinions.

I made up my fort independently of Skysaber (well, a little crossover later on, such as when he heard of my fort using Eye of the Tornado defenses) & it turns out mine is much simpler than his. It isn't optimized, but I spent all my gold but 61.

I basically took a 2-pronged approach to defense: the Mister Miyagi idea of "best defense: not be there" combined with "Security through Obscurity", though those are on top of the usual stone walls, defenders etc.

What I'd like to do is present my fort & ask how you, in my DM's place, would attack it.
That way I get ideas for more & better defense. And you, if you want to use it, get the details of a fort that could be used in your high-level games (ie, this could be the fort of a major bad guy that players have to defeat, if you feel inclined).

Before detailing the fort, I'd like to say that I could see 3 main 'attack modes':
1) Bring up the troops:
The standard typical way to attack a fort: March up whatever army you can & beat on it by main force. In D&D, this could include all sorts of monsters, constructs, millions of orcs, a few dragon riders, or even just a single archmage - whatever. The main idea is bald open brute force.

2) Stealth:
This could be an expert thief sneaking in, or an archmage teleporting in, or a few ghosts coming in ethereally - whatever.
The basic idea is to bypass our defenses & get inside them, ideally without our knowledge, & then find a way to stab us in the vitals (something like taking over the control room, if there is one).

3) Politics:
This would likely be something along the lines of going to the nominal Lord (king or equivalent) of whatever area the fort happens to be in (at the moment, as you will see later) and saying something along the lines of "they are in your area but haven't sworn fealty to you, so you should act now to stomp them before they become a threat (or act now to take over this resource while you can): give me authority to do so in your name, and an army, and I'll take care of it for you..."
In short, this is whatever way they can think of to use the force of Law against us (though, as always, that is ultimately backed up by raw combat force, so would be similar to #1 above except that potentially the force they use could be greater - a whole kingdom's worth of resources could come after us if we defy them).

I think I have prepared for all 3 kinds of attack, but hope you will point out any holes (though do not get the impression that I think I am invulnerable - nothing is nor can be. I'm just trying to manage the risk & bring it down to reasonable levels, where I may be able to deal with it).

So, in short, I took the example castle called the "Cheap Keep" from the back of the Stronghold Builder's guidebook. I kept the outside looking exactly the same: thus, the security through obscurity - it doesn't look wondrous, rich, expensive or even noteworthy. As far as anyone can tell by looking from a distance, it is to castles what a small 1-man sailboat is to yachts. Remember these are the days of flying city-enclaves. So in that context this small 2 story fort probably just screams "here is a wannabe who managed to come up with a few thousand gold & spent it on a cheap keep".

Anyway. To the cheap keep I added lots of magic and mobility. It can fly, move across the ground, or burrow at 10mph. It can switch to the Ethereal plane and back & can teleport twice a day (this is the "Best defense: not be there" part).

Some quick math says that creatures with a move speed of 30 (double moving at 60, sinc ethey can only run a short while) go:
60' per round is 600' per minute. That's 36000' per hour, or 6.8 miles per hour.
Or in other words, my castle can outrun them (over long stretches - their run speed is just a bit higher than my move, but they can't sustain it long).
If they fly, I will burrow.
If they burrow, I will fly.
If they are somehow able to keep up or get at me anyway, I can teleport or go ethereal.

I think that cuts out most conventional armies. If 1 million orcs can't get at you, then their numbers are irrelevant.
Actually on that topic, I will mention that I have this fun mental image (probably never to be realized) of my fort running down (driving over) and steam-rollering armies of orcs while playing Ride of the Valkyries, or perhaps the theme from Jaws :)

Anyway, this post is probably too long already. A few more posts to come. The fort. It's magic traps. And its defenders/equipment. I hope it isn't too much text all at once.

[Beldar]

So, as I mentioned, here are the add-ons I bought for teh Cheap Keep (mostly from Stronghold Builder's guide)

Note, from the Cheap Keep I have moved rooms 9 and 20 to the top back corners as fighting towers.

Castle components:
* Bed of regeneration, restoration, wellness (remove curse), Platform of Healing
* 4x Cabinet Of Stasis (occupant in Stasis)
* Chamber of Comfort (air quality & temp maintainer. On Master Bedroom)
* Chamber of Seeing (all invis becomes visible. put this on entrance chamber to castle #1)
* 4x Chamber of Safety Greater (Reverse Arrows) In the fighting rooms (#9, #14, #15, #20).
* 4x Chamber of Speed (Haste). In the fighting rooms (#9, #14, #15, #20).
* 4x Wondrous Architecture. Chamber of Hunter's Mercy. In the fighting rooms (#9, #14, #15, #20).
* 4x Wondrous Architecture Window of Eyes of the Avoral, and Ganest's Far Strike (Caster lvl 10th, Maximized). In rooms (#9, #14, #15, #20).
* Wondrous Architecture Pillar of Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum (continuous. does not extend past castle walls)
* Wondrous Architecture Pillar of Greater Anticipate Teleportation (continuous. cl 12 so it gets the whole castle. In case other measures fail)
* Decanter or Endless Water
* Everfull Larder
* Table of Feasting (like Heroes Feast).
* 4x Hall of Holiness (Holy Aura on those within - AC bonuses & SR etc) In the fighting rooms (#9, #14, #15, #20).
* 4x Hall of Hope (+2 morale bonus on every roll) In the fighting rooms (#9, #14, #15, #20).
* 11x Airtight (All of the spaces with openings to outside: all the 2nd floor, #1 on 1st floor and #9 and #20. Arrowslits have airtight glasssteel shutters)
* 20xHole of Hiding (Perm Rope trick above every room to multiply space).
* Map of Tactics Greater (status on those who touch it first - does it update its terrain as the castle moves?).
* Pantry of preservation (no spoilage)
* Orb of Pleasant Breezes (nice weather within 2 mile radius)
* Mirror of Mental Prowess. Extra Features: Detect Evil, Detect Magic, Message. 10' x 12' on mobile stand. Polished metal - unbreakable.
* Prismatic Prison on the Vault room (prismatic part is within the stone walls).
* Tornado's Eye (Maintains Tornado around castle. Need 4 for big enough eye. Assume you can turn it off).
* Wondrous Absence (Nystul's Undetectable Aura) in all 28 spaces.
* Examination Window (Glasssteel window in the wall of room #1) of: Power Sight, Know Protection, Discern Bloodline, +30 Sense Motive,
Detect Good, Detect Evil, Detect Law, Detect Chaos, Detect Fire, Omen of Peril

[Beldar]

Here is where I get most of the power-ups for my fort defenders - from Magical Traps (they basically cost spell level times caster level times 500, as per DMG, and that assumes they automatically reset).

Magic Traps
Archer Traps:
On Inner door to room #14 (they pass it as they leave), Automatically resetting Magic Traps that cast the following on Everybody moving and within 20' of them:
* Wind Tunnel (+10 with ranged weapons & Double Range increment),
* Accuracy (comp arcane. double Range Increment),
* Hawk Eye (comp adv. range increment times 1.5 & +5 spot),
* Raptor's Sight (races of the wild. 1hr/lvl +5 spot checks & range penalties are halved),
* Heroics 4 times (Spell Comp. set it to Far Shot feat for double range increment, plus rapid shot, precise shot and manyshot).
* Insight of Good Fortune (PHII close range. 1min/lvl or until discharged. one subject rolls twice, takes best result, once during duration.)
* Eyes of the Avoral (+8 spot checks, see detail to 10 miles)
* Embrace the Wild (choose Shark, Porpoise, Bat, or Wolverine to get Extraordinary senses & listen & spot bonuses).
Net result, archers can shoot longbows with a range increment of 400', to a total of 4000' max with no net penalty at that range & +10 spot. On Composite Great Bows, it is 520' range increment for 5200' total.


Hand to Hand trap:
On Inner door to room #15 (they pass it as they leave), Automatically resetting Magic Traps that cast the following on Everybody moving and within 20' of them:
* Fortunate Fate (Contingent Heal)
* Delay Death, extended (14 rounds to not die from damage)
* Infernus' Invulnerable Aura (+8 armor bonus heavily fortified, can be discharged as wall of force or counterspell fueled by greater dispelling)
* Spikes (level 10. +2 to hit, +10 dam & double crit range)
* Divine Eminence (ultimate Divine. Set str to 20 as an unnamed bonus).
* Bite of the Werebear (3.5 compendium. 1rnd/lvl you gain +16Str, +2Dex, +8Con, +7 Nat'l armor enhancement bonuses, and 2 claw attacks at D8+str & a bite attack at -2 for 2D8+.5 times str bonus, and the Blind Fight, Power Attack & MultiAttack feats)
* False Life (d10+3 hp)
* Heroics 12 times (Choose 8 fighter feats - suggest Dodge, Improved Dodge, Supreme Dodge, Thick Skin, Thick Skull, Strength of Blood, 2handed Powerstrike, Brutal Throw, Mobility, Sprink Attack, Bounding Assault, Rapid Blitz)
* Divine Favor (level 9: +3 to hit & dam)
* Favor of Ilmater (Insert Diety name here. Immune to a long list of conditions for 7 min)
* Tail Slap (Races of the Dragon. 1rnd/lvl gain a tail that can attack as a standard action. Melee touch for d6/2lvl. 1st such attack causes target hit to make a str check DC lvl+12 or be knocked back 5'+5'/5points damage, taking 2d6 more damage if it hits a solid object.)
* Elation (Book of ED. all allies in 80' range get +2 morale bonus to str & dex & speed increase of 5' for 1 round/lvl also offsets fatigue)


Mobility Trap:
On Inner door to room #9 (they pass it as they leave), Automatically resetting Magic Traps that cast the following on Everybody moving and within 20' of them:
* Lutzaen's Frequent Jaunt, extended (Dim door as a move action 1/round for 11 rounds)
* Wind Walk (fly superfast for hours)
* Fly
* Xorn Movement (swim thru dirt & rock, leaving no tunnel)


Combat Traps:
In each Guard room (9, 14, 15, 20), Automatically resetting Magic Traps that cast the following on Everybody saying the word "Help":
* True Strike
* Cure Light Wounds


Communication Trap:
In the Dining Hall (#10), an Automatically resetting Magic Trap that casts the following on Everybody saying the word "Message for you sir":
* Sending


Subversion Trap:
In the Dining Hall (#10), an Automatically resetting Magic Trap that casts the following on Everybody moving and within 20' of it:
* Moment of Clarity (gives new save against any ongoing mind-affecting ability)


Work Trap:
In the Dining Hall (#10), an Automatically resetting Magic Trap that casts the following on Everybody saying the word "Time to get some stuff done":
* Mage Hand
* Prestidigitation
* Unseen Servant
* Tenser's Floating Disk


Weapon Trap:
On Inner door to room #20 (they pass it as they leave), Automatically resetting Magic Traps that cast the following on any weapon touched to it:
* Magic Weapon (+1)
* Master's Touch (proficient)
* Weapon Shift (any melee weapon shifts into any other melee weapon, retaining bonuses etc)
* Burning Sword (gain Flaming Burst)
* Frost Weapon (gain d6 cold damage that stacks with other cold)
* Mighty Wallop, Greater (Races of the Dragon. 1 bludgeoning Melee Weapon, for 1 hr/lvl does damage as if 1size category bigger per 4 caster levels, max +5 size categories {to Colossal}, without increasing size or weight.) Caster Level 12


Antimagic Entrance:
On Inner door to Barbican room #1 (Lower floor), an Automatically resetting Magic Trap that casts the following anytime a resident of the castle wearing a guard uniform says "Stop the intruder":
* Antimagic field filling the Barbican room #1 (Lower floor).


Detection Trap:
On the outside of the door to the Armory (#12), Automatically resetting Magic Traps that cast the following on Everybody moving and within 20' of them:
* True Seeing
* Arcane Sight - Greater
* Linked Perception, Widened (all allies in 40' radius get +2 spot & listen for each ally in that area).
* Tremorsense
* Power Sight
* Know Protection
* Discern Bloodline
* Omen Of Peril
* Detect Good
* Detect Evil
* Detect Law
* Detect Chaos
* Detect Fire

[Beldar]

And here is a list of the constructs and equipment the fort has.

Constructs
* 4x Slaughterstone Behemoths (MM3 leveled up to 45hd)
* 2x Slaughterstone Eviscerators (MM3 leveled up to 45hd)
* 2x Brass Golems (MM2 leveled up to 48hd)
* 8x Nimblewrights (MM2 - leveled up to 30hd)
* 24x Artillery Scarecrow Type A (Encyclopedia Arcane Constructs)
* 12x Artillery Scarecrow Type B
* 12x Artillery Scarecrow Type C
* 12x Artillery Scarecrow Type D
* 18x Artillery Scarecrow Type E
* 6x Artillery Scarecrow Type F
* 4x Utility Scarecrow Type A
* 4x Utility Scarecrow Type B
* 4x Utility Scarecrow Type C
* 2x Shard Golem Type A (Encyclopedia Arcane Constructs)
* 4x Shard Golem Type B
* 10x Shard Golem Type C
* 22x Shard Golem Type D
* 8x Mithril Golem Type A (Encyclopedia Arcane Constructs)
* 2x Mithril Golem Type B
* 16x Adamantite Golem (Encyclopedia Arcane Constructs)
Total (176 golems)

Equipment
* 100 9th-level Eternal Wands of Magic Missile
* 100 9th-level Eternal Wands of Hail of Stone
* Hat of +30 to each of: Knowledge Local, Knowledge Nobility, Knowledge Geography, Profession Law.
* 4x Composite GreatBow of the Solars, Splitting, Sizing, restricted to only work from within the castle.
Bow of the Solars (Book od ED) - all arrows fired are Slaying. +2 enhancement bonus too. Composite for 38 str (+14).
GreatBow range increment 130 feet, d10 damage.
Splitting (Champions of ruin page 42) - missile weapon's shots split into two identical shots each & every time you fire. If you fire a +1 arrow, you get two, etc. Cost +3 enhancement bonus.
* 100 Arrows of Multiple Impact (the potion form of Magic Missile 9th - splits into 5 arrows that always hit)
* 4 Quiver of Returning (make 'em myself. Encyclopedia Magica)
* 4 +1 arrows of Brilliant Energy. Made of wildwood, so they self-heal.
* 8 +1 arrows of Energy (Fire, Electric), Exit Wound. Made of wildwood
* 8 +1 arrows of Energy (Cold, Acid), Exit Wound. Made of wildwood
* 6 +1 arrows of Seeking, Blood Seeking & Paralyzing. Made of wildwood
* 4 +1 arrows of Undead Bane, Ghost Touch and Spell Storing. Made of wildwood
* 4 +1 arrows of Stunning, Stygian, Knockback and Enfeebling. Blunt Arrows from races of the wild. Made of wildwood
* 4 Arrows of Focusing - the next spell you cast can use it (the arrow, wherever it landed) as its start point instead of your finger. Made of wildwood
* 100 +1 arrows of Spell Storing. Made of wildwood

* 2 Vibrant Purple Ioun Stones (3e)
* 4 Chutes of Launch Item, use-activated. In the fighting rooms (#9, #14, #15, #20). Drop an item in the chute & it gets launched. Can aim the chutes.
Have scores of ammo (10lb bottles) of: Acid, Alchemists fire, oil, lawn-dart bundles, gaseous poison, poisoned small dart bundles, tanglefoot bags, smoke bombs, Itemized barrels of flaming oil, itemized bags of boulders, bundles of leaflets written in explosive runes, Fire Seeds, rocks with Salantha's Delicate Disk (Fireball) attached.
* 40 Great (2 handed) Warmaces (Comp War), made of Bluewood (Like steel - Faerun) and weighted with lead as needed to have the same stats as a steel weapon.
* Ring of Truth

[Beldar]

And here are the details for the some of those constructs.

All are as per Encyclopedia Arcane Constructs.

1) Artillery Scarecrow. (46 construction points)
Medium sized Scarecrow made of Aurorum wire (Book of ED special material - can reassemble it when destroyed). 32 Construction Points.
6D10 hd. -1 initiative. Speed 30'. AC 15 (-1 Dex +6 Natural). Attack with a weapon or slam (d6+1 damage). Str 13. Dex 8.
Darkvision 60'
Made with an Extra Arm (extra standard action, costs 4CP)
Additional Special Ability Slot (gives it an extra 'slot' can take it at most twice). 5cp each.10cp total.
Made with the Feat Rudimentary Intelligence (Dragon mag #327) (gives a Int score of 1/2 my caster level, but that still allows skills and feats). And Imbue With Intelligence spell from Magic of Arcanis (cost 500xp) lets you give a Construct 4 more int.
Put all skills into Spot or Listen.
Puts its 3 feats on high initiative if nothing else (Improved init, hair trigger reflexes & lightning initiative)

Spend 1 of its 7 slots on Alternate Form (polymorph Self 3/day). They spend most of their time as songbirds to avoid attention & take up less space.

Spend 6 of its 7 'slots' on spell Effect
Type A has the following spells in its Spell Effect slots:
Call Lightning
Fireball
Ganest's Far Strike
Summon Monster 3
Mephit Mob in 2 slots

Type B has the following spells in its Spell Effect slots:
ManyJaws
Mestil's Acid Breath
Sound Lance
Stinking Cloud
Summon Monster 6 in 2 slots

Type C has the following spells in its Spell Effect slots:
Holy Storm
Pollen Cloud
Spiritual Weapon (Extended)
Wall of Hornets
Enkili's Lightning Storm in 2 slots

Type D has the following spells in its Spell Effect slots:
Lightning Bolt
Blast of Sand
Storm Mote
Mystic Lash
Dinosaur Stampede in 2 slots

Type E has the following spells in its Spell Effect slots:
Boreal Wind (doubled duration and range via metamagic). Takes 2 slots.
Disintegrate. Takes 2 slots
Acid Fog, in 2 slots

Type F has the following spells in its Spell Effect slots:
Fire Seeds. Takes 2 slots.
Widened Murderous Mist. Takes 2 slots
Skull of Secrets - invisible spell insidious spell. Takes 2 slots.

2) Utility Scarecrows - very similar to above but:
Put all skills into Craft (65 skill points to spend - 5 each on all 10 craft skills, 9 in Search, and 1 each in 6 professions: Farmer, Miner, Sailor, Attendant, Cook, Scribe)
It spends its time making and maintaining things, or in using its spells (For support or stockpiling).

All Have Speech in one slot (letting it speak & have an Int of 8 - add 1/2 caster level and 4=20 Int).
Type A:
Spend 6 of its 7 'slots' on spell Effect
Shatter
Shrink Item
Stone Shape
Unseen Servant
Break Enchantment double range, invisible spell in 2 slots

Type B:
Spend 6 of its 7 'slots' on spell Effect
Phantom Steed
Delay Death
Cure Serious Wounds
Repair Serious Damage
Greater Dispel Magic in 2 slots

Type C:
Spend 6 of its 7 'slots' on spell Effect
Fabricate (2 slots)
Heal (2 slots)
Greater Glyph of Warding (2 slots)

[Beldar]

And here is the detail on the rest of those constructs.

3) Shard Golem Cost (103cp total)
Medium sized Shard Golem made of Aurorum bands 64 Construction Points.
15D10 hd. +0 initiative. Speed 20' (Can't run). AC 27 (+17 Natural). Attack with a weapon or 2 slams (d8+8 damage). Str 27. Dex 10.
Darkvision 60'. DR 40/+2. -2 circumstance to hit rolls. Immunity to magic except Electricity (slows) and fire (Heals and un-slows).
Made with an Extra Pair of Arms (2 extra standard actions or attack with a 2-handed weapon, costs 6CP)
Extra Miscellaneous limbs: Large Torso gives it +3 str. Tail gives it an extra Slam Attack. Wings give it a fly speed. 5 cp. (15cp total)
Extra Miscellaneous limbs: Long Neck (get +5' reach). 5cp
Natural Weaponry (get extra attacks from Antlers {D6}, Tusks {d3}, Limb Spines {d4}. can get this multiple times). 3cp. (9 cp total)
Melee Weapon Proficiency (Can use a Melee Weapon). 2cp.
Ranged Weapon Proficiency (Can use a ranged weapon). 2cp
Additional Special Ability Slot (gives it an extra 'slot' can take it at most twice). 5cp each.10cp total.
Made with the Feat Rudimentary Intelligence (gives a Int score of 1/2 my caster level, but that still allows skills and feats). And Imbue With Inteligence spell from Magic of Arcanis (cost 500xp) lets you give a Construct 4 more int.
Put all skills into Spot.
Puts its 6 feats on: Ambidexterity, Multiattack, Improved Multiattack, Strong Off-Hand, 2 Handed Powerstrike, Improved Toughness.
It gets +11 to hit base. -2 Circumstance. +10 from 30 str gives it a total to-hit of +19 on all attacks. It has +5 base save on each save.
Give it 2-handed Barbed Chains (Savage Species) for 3d6+20 damage in each pair of hands. Its Tail Slam does d8+10, Limb Spines does d4+10, Tusks do d3+10, and Antlers do d6+10.
Give it 2 Halfling War-Slings (Races of the wild. one for each pair of arms) for use when fighting at range.
Poison all these (contact poison on the tail slam, since it does not penetrate)

It has 3 slots.
All have: Spell Effect Fireball in the 1st slot (Fire at own feat to heal self, remove any slow effect, & clear off foes. or fire at a distance).

Type A has Unavoidable in one slot, and 7-Leagues-Jump in the other slot.
Type B has Spell Effect Antimagic Field in two slots.
Type C has Spell Effect Harm in 2 slots
Type D has Spell Effects Acid Sheath in 2 slots


4) Mithril Golem (129cp total)
Medium sized Mithril Golem 80 Construction Points.
19D10 hd. +0 initiative. Speed 30' (Can't run). AC 33 (+23 Natural). Attack with a weapon or 2 slams (4d8+14 damage). Str 38. Dex 10.
Darkvision 60'. DR 50/+4. when hit by a magic weapon, can stun him sometimes (5% per plus). Immunity to magic except antimagic/dispel (slows) and damage (Heals and un-slows).
Made basically the same as above
It gets +14 to hit base. +15 from 41 str gives it a total to-hit of +29 on all attacks. It has +6 base save on each save.
Give it 2-handed Barbed Chains (Savage Species) for 3d6+30 damage in each pair of hands. It could instead slam 4 times for 4d8+15 each. Its Tail Slam does d8+15, Limb Spines does d4+15, Tusks do d3+15, and Antlers do d6+15.
Give it 2 Halfling War-Slings

It has 4 slots.
Type A has Spell Effects: Mephit Mob in 2 slots, Sound Lance in one slot, Blast of Sand in 1 slot
Type B has Minor Invocation in 2 slots, And Vessel in 2 slots


5) Adamantite Golem (137cp total)
Medium sized Adamantite Golem 88 Construction Points.
20D10 hd. +0 initiative. Speed 30' (Can't run). AC 35 (+25 Natural). Attack with a weapon or 2 slams (4d8+16 damage). Str 42. Dex 10.
Darkvision 60'. DR 60/+3. Immunity to magic except electrical (slows 2 rounds) and polymorph major creation and make whole (Heals and un-slows). Curing spells only work on it after it has rested 24 hours.
Made basically the same as above
It gets +15 to hit base. +17 from 45 str gives it a total to-hit of +32 on all attacks. It has +6 base save on each save.
Give it 2-handed Barbed Chains (Savage Species) for 3d6+34 damage in each pair of hands. It could instead slam 4 times for 4d8+17 each. Its Tail Slam does d8+17, Limb Spines does d4+17, Tusks do d3+17, and Antlers do d6+17.
Give it 2 Halfling War-Slings

It has 3 slots.
All have: Fast Healing 2 in the 1st slot and Spell Effect Antimagic Field in 2 slots

[Beldar]

Here are some more notes about castle features and defenders.


Features:
* Barbican lower floor (Room #1) is lined with 1' thick magically hardened Quartz, including the Portculli. It is all airtight when both portculli are closed. It has several barrels in it, each created with a Permanent Conjure Ice Object, and filled with Itemized (but not cloth form - just shrunk) Acid (one which harms flesh, but not metal or stone), which is at near-freezing temperatures. When A visitor is found to be imminently dangerous, the guards on watch set off the Antimagic trap in the room. This both disables any magic the intruder has, and also disables the conjured barrels & un-itemizes the acid, so it fills the room. The intruder is now drowning in acid, stuck in antimagic, with exceptionally strong walls all around him. He is also taking Cold damage and fighting Hypothermia. There are also 2 Shard Golems in the room to beat on the intruder while he drowns.
The portculli Latch down from outside, so no amount of strength can open them from the inside. They are as strong as we can make them & golems guard the inside. If someone is trapped inside, Golems with Repair Serious Damage stand ready outside to repair any damage that person does in attempting to get out.

* The 4 trapdoors in the roof go into the 4 guard towers & can't be opened from outside. They have a fake lock mechanism outside, to bother and delay anyone trying to get in that way, but are barred from inside, the bar is latched closed & a golem watches the bar & re-bars it if it moves on its own, and rings an alarm bell in that case.

Free things done:
* Castle Protect the whole thing (perm spell from Compleat Warlock. makes it immune to magic, impassable by extra dimensional travel ot teleport)
* Cast Hardening on all walls, ceilings floors etc.
* Cast Earthfast on all walls, ceilings floors etc.
* Cast Hallow on the area. Gives Magic Circle against Evil, and tie a Dimensional Anchor vs Evil to it.
* Forbiddance on a pillar in the center of the castle, with the password option (so we can still do dimensional travel & summoning, but those without the password can't).

Get Defenders via:
* Call Faithful Servants (twice my lvl of Lantern Archons or Musteval Guardinals for 1 year). Book of ED.
* Cry of Ysgard (summons 4 goat-centaur rangers for 1 year). Book of Ed.
* Valiant Steed (Summons a pegasus or Unicorn to serve for a year). Book of Ed.
* Monsters Commanded (as an evil cleric commands undead) via the appropriate Clerical Domains. Like Fire Mephits via the Fire domain. Get 1 hd per my level. Boost the numbers via: Rod of Undead Mastery Magic Item compendium p175 (Cost 10,000gp) doubles the number. Then things that add to your level for turning checks also raise the number you can command. Such as. Phylactery of undead turning (DMG).
Fire, Ice, and Water mephits all have useful attack spells. Also consider Myconid Queen MM2 (Plant domain) kuz she cranks out free potions.
* Simulacrum (12 copies of myself).
* Constructs.
* Cohort feat.

[Beldar]

And lastly here are some procedures I worked out for the place.

Procedures:
* Lantern Archons can teleport high above any foe, dropping their 50lbs of lawn darts or similar payload, then teleport back & repeat. Basically an infinite-range catapult.
* If the folk at the castle need me, they can use Sending to consult with me, and the Mirror of Mental Prowess to bring me there asap (the party too, if needed).
* If anybody comes to visit the castle, can make a Leomund's Secure Shelter as a Parley Pavilion. Make it just outside the castle.
* Any visitors we may want to let in, get examined first in the Barbican. The outer door opens, lets them in & shuts. With both doors closed, they are examined with all the detection spells etc built into the window. They are also asked questions - anything the guard with ring of truth does not hear was a lie. They have a system of hand-signals between guards to unobtrusively (and out of sight - behind a desk) show whether answers were lies or not.
* If any of our magic effects is getting in our own way (such as forbiddance or the eye of the tornado), we can turn it off by having a golem with antimagic turn that on & go stand by the source of the magic effect.
* Keep about 60 Mephits (even mix of Fire & Ice, for their useful ranged spells) on hand at all times from the Mephit Mob spell. They are to make sure to pass the detection trap regularly & then hang out by windows watching (with about +120 to spot & listen from Linked Perception alone).
* In the event of an attack, or even possible danger (see Omen of Peril below), we run the Mephit Mob summoning spells as fast as we can (until we need to do direct damage instead, & maybe even then). In 5 minutes, with average rolls (3.5 rounds to cast it again & 7 summoned per spell), our 32 golems can get 14 castings each for a total of 3136 mephits (each staying for 110 minutes). Send these past the hand to hand trap (or the missile trap as appropriate) & then out to fight. At max (summoning as fast as we can until the first ones time out), we get 314 castings each for 70,336 mephits. If each just does magic missile & dies, that's 492,352 damage average.
* We have 71% probability of successful prediction from Omen of Peril. Run everybody by that regularly & take a poll of the results. One result will have about 71% of the votes & each of the other 2 results will have about 14.5%. Go with the majority.
* We wear the hat of knowledge local, nobility, geography and profession law in order to find the best place to land the castle - somewhere where the local nobles will not interfere, or if they do then we know the law & have complied. If the local noble is inclined to break his own laws to our hurt, then we know that too & have not landed in or near his territory.
* Those who try to approach the castle under combat conditions whom we want to slow and hurt, get Acid Fogged.
* On a very regular basis, when not otherwise busy, the Golems that can cast Skull of Secrets do so, as often as possible, on any terrain we pass by, leaving invisible insidious Skulls of Secrets set to say "You're an Orc" and blow up anytime when an Orc comes into range. Similarly, we leave Greater Glyphs of Warding around to blow up anything Evil.
* The Adamantite golems fight while under antimagic by default - it makes most golembane things cease and makes your weapon no longer magic, so they are safe with their DR60.
* If a spellcaster of any sort assaults us & gets close enough, a golem with Antimagic field activates that & grapples the caster.
* The Nimblewright Golems are good lieutenants when I, a Simulacrum, my cohort etc are not around. They have very high mental stats, good skills etc & can speak & pass for Human. Other golems are instructed to take orders from the Nimblewrights when higher chain-of-command types are not around.

My egregious spamming of this thread is now complete. We hope your spamming experience has been an enjoyable one...
;-)
But Seriously, I hope that wasn't too much text. But I did want you to have all the details in case it was useful to you, or in case you wanted to comment on any defense holes you spot. Thanks for listening.

[Skysaber]

Just an FYI for those who are interested. We've had our game. Beldar's fort got allowed in its entirety. I had a couple of rules interpretations in the "you're kidding right" category get disallowed, as well as a couple of them allowed. Luckily I was relying on none of them, so my fort goes forward as well.

On a somewhat related note, Undermountain is filled with the most ridiculous stuff! Our first encounter of the evening was "you go into a room. There is a grey tapestry hanging on the wall. Check behind the tapestry? There's a mirror."

Our response - Send a summoned monster to look in the mirror, we've already faced mirrors of opposition down here.

DM "Well, the monster looks in there and nothing happens. Look in there yourself? Ok, what's the first monster you're thinking of?"

Us "What? You mean like the Staypuff Marshmallow Man?"

DM "Ok, the Staypuff Marshmallow Man starts crawling out of the mirror."

Again, he read us the boxed text, where it says that mirror creates whatever monster you think of when you're looking at it. So, we, totally and legitimately, got to fight the Staypuff Marshmallow Man in D&D. It got decided that a Flesh Colossus out of the Epic Level Handbook was the closest equivalent, although the abilities got renamed. Horrific Appearance became Adorable Appearance (same game effect), Fearsome Aura became Confusing Aura (How could Mr Staypuffed possibly attack us?) and Stench instead became a delicious candy smell that distracted us with hunger.

100' wide antimagic field stayed the same.

[Slipperychicken]

Buy a continuous or at-will item of Prestidigitation. Use it to flavor your rations, as well as anything else you happen to put in your mouth. And make your clothes always the perfect temperature. Buy some for the whole party.

Unslotted item of Endure Elements. For great comfort in any weather.

[Beldar]

So, to be clear - when we fought the Epic Flesh Colossus (re-skinned as the Stay-Puft marshmallow man) we went about it very carefully.
That thing is tough.
So, just as you don't try to out-armwrestle a gorilla, nor enter a shoving match with a tank, nor enter a pissing-contest with Niagra falls, we didn't go into combat with this thing in any 'conventional' way.

We're not remotely that tough.

Instead we did it good, old-fashioned American-Style: Strategic High-altitude Bombing from safety.

We flew up high, well past what we imagined it's throwing range was.
Then, just in case, we did Camouflage spells to make us hard to tell from the sky around us.

Then we let loose with the following combination:

Conjure Ice object to get a barrel.
Decanter of Endless Water to fill it.
Water to Acid (Sandstorm) to make it be acid instead.
TrueStrike & drop it on the Colossus.

The barrel vanished as it entered the antimagic zone 100' from his head, but the acid was 'real' so it stayed & misted him.

We had to repeat that quite a bit, but that did eventually kill the beast.

It was cool :)

Though last time we had been given the choice - if we took the 24 million gold, we'd get no XP for the next 2 sessions. We accepted that, never imagining that next session we'd fight something so far above ourselves that we should have gotten, by the calculation in the DMG, 691,200xp to split between us (enough to take us each to 29th level & about halfway to 30th).

In a way, fighting the colossus for no xp made it even more epic. :)

BTW, the DM didn't 'arrange' this - we chose to go down a certain hallway & he showed us on the map later that that ended up in room L of undermountain, where this mirror was.

[Skysaber]

FYI, you can shave another 10% off golem cost by joining an affiliation from PHB2.

I, uh, kinda messed myself up following your first suggestion. It's my own fault, really. I spent too much on golems, so didn't have enough left over for the fort itself, and rather than buy fewer golems, I tacked on a few more cost reducers including the one mentioned.

This is the final page of cost reducers I presented to my DM

Making it myelf = 50% off
Landlord feat = 50% off
Weaver of Power = 50% off
Magical Artisan + Extraordinary Artisan + Dragonsmith + Apprentice (Craftsman) + Favored in Guild feats = 90% off
Having read Magic Item Creation chapter in the Nether Scrolls = 25% off
Affiliation with an arcane college (which I create) = 10% off
Golem Master cohort = 50% off price of constructs only

Results = 0.84375% cost reduction on most things
Results for golems = 0.421875

And now, after paying less than half a percent total price on the golems I create, I find that even after that army I built, and spending all I thought I'd need building my fort, of my total of 12 million, I'd only spent 4.

So now I'm back where I started, trying to quietly dump money before certain other players discover what's still in pocket and they can just ascend.



I suggest you get a beneficial trap of Repair X Damage, or alternatively an Energy Transformation Field linked to a repair damage spell, so that your constructs can either heal themselves unlimitedly or use spell like abilities to heal themselves.

Where is Energy Transformation Field and how does it work? I've never used it before.

I've tried to cover the healing angle by adding on the Sacred Guardian template to every construct I'm building. Costs are trivial for the bonuses, one of which is Fast Repair 5. But that doesn't mean more healing around for emergencies isn't better. Heaven knows I'm using that myself often enough.

Has anyone worked out any plans for, I dunno, going to the plane of Mechanus with a butterfly net and catching Clockwork Swarms?

[Randomguy]

Where is Energy Transformation Field and how does it work? I've never used it before.

I've tried to cover the healing angle by adding on the Sacred Guardian template to every construct I'm building. Costs are trivial for the bonuses, one of which is Fast Repair 5. But that doesn't mean more healing around for emergencies isn't better. Heaven knows I'm using that myself often enough.

Has anyone worked out any plans for, I dunno, going to the plane of Mechanus with a butterfly net and catching Clockwork Swarms?

Energy Transformation Field (http://dndtools.eu/spells/magic-of-faerun--20/energy-transformation-field--1756/) is in the Spell Compedium. It permanently rigs an area so that any magic/supernatural effects cast in the area are converted into another spell, set by you at the time of casting. It's got an xp cost and a gp cost, but your build can deal with those pretty well.

On another note, I find it kind of funny you haven't heard of Energy Transformation Field but your build uses a half dozen prestige classes from extremely obscure books. :smallbiggrin:

EDIT: You can craft clockwork menders (MM4) for, like, 10gp a pop. You could just craft them. Also, they're intelligent, and have ranks in craft, so you could use aid another to get something like +yes to any craft check, but you could do that already.
Alternatively, set up an energy transformation field of Summon Clockwork Mender Swarm for 5000 gp and 250 xp and get one of your Galeb Dur to spam stone shape into it for 2 hours a day and you can get a clockword mender swarm available to you 24 hours a day. You'd need to cast Energy Transformation Field multiple times to get multiple swarms, though, but if one of your swarms is destroyed then it's replaced automatically.
Summon Clockwork Mender Swarm is actually a great spell to link to an ETF. Get 2 galeb dur spamming stone shape to summon a swarm every round, and have the swarm self destruct via swarm sacrifice. A new swarm will appear every round, so that lets you heal constructs 22hp per round, indefinitely.

ETF's are also great for defence: Set one to summon something with an at-will spell like ability. In times of peace, it can use the spell like ability to recharge the field, so each casting will leave the ETF with more charges than before. In times of war, you get a single self-regenerating minion.

[Skysaber]

Energy Transformation Field (http://dndtools.eu/spells/magic-of-faerun--20/energy-transformation-field--1756/) is in the Spell Compedium. It permanently rigs an area so that any magic/supernatural effects cast in the area are converted into another spell, set by you at the time of casting. It's got an xp cost and a gp cost, but your build can deal with those pretty well.

On another note, I find it kind of funny you haven't heard of Energy Transformation Field but your build uses a half dozen prestige classes from extremely obscure books. :smallbiggrin:

I guess, having read the core books first, I've had the longest time to forget the details. Besides, I've often found the obscure stuff interesting, so I guess you could say I specialized in that.

On that note, I found doing my research on how to build this that just about everything one could want for a stronghold could be done cheaper and more easily for ships.

Now, my fort being a, shall we say awkward? shape (essentially a giant 12-sided die with a five pointed star on each side, easily big enough across to serve as an enclave), I presented to my DM the following strategy:

Ok, the first thing I'm going to do is go to a secluded lake somewhere an make a bucket sized version of my final fortress, with a lid, put enough dirt and rocks in the bottom so it will stay upright, then set it afloat for a while. Watch and observe. Use Mage Hand to push it through the water back and forth and around a bit.

That shape is now a water-craft, having been a man-made object floating and propelled through water. It is not a GOOD water craft, but certain magic doesn't care.

Secondly, I will create a bathtub sized version and climb into it myself. I may get wet a few times falling out until I figure out the appropriate amounts of ballast needed. Once that is done I will use the Guide Craft and Power Craft spells out of the Book of Eldritch Might 3 to toodle around the lake for a while. Cross it, zig zag around, carry cargo of stones and forest detritus from one end to the other, carry passengers, etc.

Repeat with versons of both bucket and tub made from tin, then iron, and then glass. Finish off with a version made of a very thin casting of Wall of Stone.

What followed then was a long (20 minute) session where the DM and everyone else pitched in with stories of all of the awkward shaped boats that existed in real life - some of which the DM had paddled around. And in the end it got approved, which is perfect because most ship enhancements have an area of "one ship", while stronghold improvements that do the same thing make you pay the cost for every 20'x20' space.

Vast savings.

A simple Air Ship ritual, from Broadsides! costing 40,000gp in materials made the whole thing fly and as a ritual was non-dispellable even by Disjunction.

Submerge Ship out of Dragon Mag #314 gave it a Swim speed of 60, and left it fully submersible.

Earth Keel costs 150,000gp, and now it can move across land as if it were on water. Dunno if that gives it a burrow speed because of the previous spell or not.

Ice Keel, combine with the previous as a custom item, allows movement across ice at the vehicle's best rate, cost 150,000gp

A coldfire engine out of Frostburn, for the low-low price of 200,000gp gave the whole thing a movement speed of 80 in all modes, while a Lightning Turbine out of A&EG doubles its speed when it gets struck by lightning.

Better yet, Valadick's Spheresail (Netheril CS p144) grants spelljammer tactical speed 20 & double long distance spelljamming movement. Cost as for 10th lvl scroll, and is automatically permanent.

Orrery of the Inner Planes (Encyclopedia Magica p800), sail to and survive conditions of any inner plane, cost 40,000gp

So my 'ship' that is a fortress, can now sail through earth, sea, sky and space, and mounts enough Guardian Gargoyles that, by flying low enough, this fort could make a reasonable attempt at ending the existence of orcs as a surface race.

But one of the main problems Netheril has always had with that species is that, no matter how many we kill, some always escape to breed up the menace all over again. That being the case, I'd rather be thorough, than have to do this all over again.

5 automatic traps to constantly summon Invisible Stalkers, and a perm Magic Mouth giving out their instructions. Simply, "Kill an orc." It doesn't matter which orc, any orc will do, and with instructions so simple they are unlikely to try and misinterpret them. It's easier to just do the job.

At 14,400 invisible stalkers per day per trap, that could make a serious dent in the population. And used after a large scale eradication effort (like the fort flying low over their major encampments), might be enough to finish the species off. To the point where I'd need Augury traps confirming, "are there orcs in this world?" etc, so I don't summon stalkers for a race that no longer exists. Which means I'd like for my perm Magic Mouths to be on replacable tiles giving out different instructions "Kill an orc", "Kill a goblin", "Kill a kobold", etc, so I can redirect the stalkers to different targets as we run out of one menace or another.

Only now I have this urge to build a golem that wears black armor and breathes heavily.

[Deimosian]

I've got a similar situation... GM made a dungeon with walls, floors and ceilings made of 2 ounce 1"x1" wall tiles. Since a gold piece in his world is an ounce... and there were 181800 square feet of surfaces covered with it... Works out to 52,358,400 gp.

So far all we've done with it is shovel it into ten portable holes. Which is my advice to you at this point. A portable hole holds up to 282.74 cubic feet, almost all of what you've got. Fill it up, distribute the rest, save the portable hole of gold for a rainy day.

[Krobar]

I guess, having read the core books first, I've had the longest time to forget the details. Besides, I've often found the obscure stuff interesting, so I guess you could say I specialized in that.

On that note, I found doing my research on how to build this that just about everything one could want for a stronghold could be done cheaper and more easily for ships.

Now, my fort being a, shall we say awkward? shape (essentially a giant 12-sided die with a five pointed star on each side, easily big enough across to serve as an enclave), I presented to my DM the following strategy:

Ok, the first thing I'm going to do is go to a secluded lake somewhere an make a bucket sized version of my final fortress, with a lid, put enough dirt and rocks in the bottom so it will stay upright, then set it afloat for a while. Watch and observe. Use Mage Hand to push it through the water back and forth and around a bit.

That shape is now a water-craft, having been a man-made object floating and propelled through water. It is not a GOOD water craft, but certain magic doesn't care.

Secondly, I will create a bathtub sized version and climb into it myself. I may get wet a few times falling out until I figure out the appropriate amounts of ballast needed. Once that is done I will use the Guide Craft and Power Craft spells out of the Book of Eldritch Might 3 to toodle around the lake for a while. Cross it, zig zag around, carry cargo of stones and forest detritus from one end to the other, carry passengers, etc.

Repeat with versons of both bucket and tub made from tin, then iron, and then glass. Finish off with a version made of a very thin casting of Wall of Stone.

What followed then was a long (20 minute) session where the DM and everyone else pitched in with stories of all of the awkward shaped boats that existed in real life - some of which the DM had paddled around. And in the end it got approved, which is perfect because most ship enhancements have an area of "one ship", while stronghold improvements that do the same thing make you pay the cost for every 20'x20' space.

Vast savings.

A simple Air Ship ritual, from Broadsides! costing 40,000gp in materials made the whole thing fly and as a ritual was non-dispellable even by Disjunction.

Submerge Ship out of Dragon Mag #314 gave it a Swim speed of 60, and left it fully submersible.

Earth Keel costs 150,000gp, and now it can move across land as if it were on water. Dunno if that gives it a burrow speed because of the previous spell or not.

Ice Keel, combine with the previous as a custom item, allows movement across ice at the vehicle's best rate, cost 150,000gp

A coldfire engine out of Frostburn, for the low-low price of 200,000gp gave the whole thing a movement speed of 80 in all modes, while a Lightning Turbine out of A&EG doubles its speed when it gets struck by lightning.

Better yet, Valadick's Spheresail (Netheril CS p144) grants spelljammer tactical speed 20 & double long distance spelljamming movement. Cost as for 10th lvl scroll, and is automatically permanent.

Orrery of the Inner Planes (Encyclopedia Magica p800), sail to and survive conditions of any inner plane, cost 40,000gp

So my 'ship' that is a fortress, can now sail through earth, sea, sky and space, and mounts enough Guardian Gargoyles that, by flying low enough, this fort could make a reasonable attempt at ending the existence of orcs as a surface race.

But one of the main problems Netheril has always had with that species is that, no matter how many we kill, some always escape to breed up the menace all over again. That being the case, I'd rather be thorough, than have to do this all over again.

5 automatic traps to constantly summon Invisible Stalkers, and a perm Magic Mouth giving out their instructions. Simply, "Kill an orc." It doesn't matter which orc, any orc will do, and with instructions so simple they are unlikely to try and misinterpret them. It's easier to just do the job.

At 14,400 invisible stalkers per day per trap, that could make a serious dent in the population. And used after a large scale eradication effort (like the fort flying low over their major encampments), might be enough to finish the species off. To the point where I'd need Augury traps confirming, "are there orcs in this world?" etc, so I don't summon stalkers for a race that no longer exists. Which means I'd like for my perm Magic Mouths to be on replacable tiles giving out different instructions "Kill an orc", "Kill a goblin", "Kill a kobold", etc, so I can redirect the stalkers to different targets as we run out of one menace or another.

Only now I have this urge to build a golem that wears black armor and breathes heavily.

I like your ship. Enjoy planeshifting and spelljamming! It opens up all kinds of new adventure possibilities.

[Skysaber]

Now having poured time and money into building a ship/fort, I find I've done all I can reasonably do for it, bought an army of golems, etc, and am looking for new ideas on what to spend/waste money on.

Going back over previous posts, I've set up about 120 businesses. Each of them based on my ship/fort/enclave while it was undergoing construction on my pocket plane. It turns out this counts as wilderness, since there are no settlements within 20 miles, so costs were cheap.

I've gone ahead and bought book lots out of Stronghold Builder's Guidebook, building the shelves and other furniture myself using Fabricates and sometimes playing Lyres of Building. I consider a comprehensive library to be top of the line book lots covering each of the ten knowledge skills, and I've got 5 of these. Two complete libraries for the university I plan on building, one available to the public for a small access fee, one available just to Arcanists so they can feel special by not mixing with the common folk, and one reserved strictly for myself.

Esoteric Libraries by Athenaeum Arcane even has trio of magic items useful for this, one is a magical card catalog, another is a magic checkout system so you can keep track of who has what, and the third is a clockwork printing press that can churn out extra copies on demand.

Still and all, if feels pretty basic. So if anyone's got any ideas on how to spruce it up, exotic tomes that are obtainable, more magic or ideas on how to manage this, and I would be grateful.

DMGII wants to treat arcane colleges as just any other business, near as I can tell, which is about as flavorless as it gets. Quintessential Wizard just gives rules on the master/apprentice relationship, and while Quintessential Wizard II has more advanced rules on magical colleges it is more from the student perspective, along with a set of tables for rolling one up randomly. So if anyone knows of more advanced or comprehensive rules covering this, that would be helpful.

I figure I can dump about a million gold on this no trouble, should I find an agreeable rule set to build it off of. And since most of that would be staff hiring fees, arcane furnishings, etc, I can bypass some of the cost reducers I've set up and finally get rid of some of this gold.

After that, I've still got a vast fortune, but am running out of ideas of what to spend it on. I even went and broke my self-imposed rule of "no personal power-ups" and got a Cowl of Warding (thanks for that suggestion, btw). So any ideas on vast holes in which to sink money would be helpful.

Or, and I don't even know if this is possible, but does anyone have ideas on what you can do if an epic Netherese Archmage comes hunting your head?

[Randomguy]

Or, and I don't even know if this is possible, but does anyone have ideas on what you can do if an epic Netherese Archmage comes hunting your head?

Actually, with the amount of money you have, there kind of is. You can get enough scrolls, staffs and other items to pretend to be an epic level caster, and then fight as if you were one.
The problem is the same as the one Vaarsuvius had when he was fighting Xykon, though: All that magic power is shackled to you, and you're only mid level, so you've got to plan things well.
Oh: Alternatively, instead of fighting him yourself, have a bunch of simulacra of yourself fight using the scrolls and staffs. Then, use magic to somehow make duplicates of your fortress (you'll need to prepare this in advance, possibly with shrink item) and send each one to a different plane, making you harder to follow.

As for more ways to spend money:
You could add swivels to all your stairs and use have spell clocks of telekinesis to move them, to increase the resemblance of your castle to Hogwarts.

You could make a few backup fortresses, in case your current fortress is conquered. Just make sure you've got a way to move all your golems from one to the other.

[Icewraith]

Argh... so much wasted potential.

What you do is finangle a way to time travel back to second edition and rediscover the anvil, thus netting you a ridiculous amount of XP and epic levels, then travel back to the present and redo everything using epic magic.
:p

Namely, that death star laser you were complaining about lacking?

Start with the epic destroy seed. Tack on all the damage dice you want, pump the caster level to ridiculous, mitigate with planar binding/ally and there you go. It can even blow through antimagic fields and dead magic zones.

Golems are nice and everything, but if you're fighting flying opponents with elemental resistances your best bet is probably going to be mass summoning Air Elementals. You may want to produce a spell or spells that create or summon specially templated Air Elementals. Another monster to consider would be dominated, mindraped, sanctify the wickeded, helm of opposite alignmented, or some other way of reliably and permanently controlling arrow demons.

Don't permanency spells whenever possible. Craft items or traps with spell effects instead. Permanencied spells are gone forever when dispelled, items are merely suppressed unless your opponents start throwing around disjunctions or disintegrates. If you're not doing it already (I skimmed but didn't see it mentioned specifically), the Thought Bottle trick should let you use your XP much more efficiently.

Your goal is now to attain epic level as fast as possible before some archmage with epic magic figures out what you've been up to and steals all your work. Also, if you run into any nasty opponents you don't want coming back, find a Devourer and trap it in one of your fortresses. Trap the Soul opponents you don't want recurring and feed them to the command undead-ed Devourer so if they have allies willing to burn a wish to try and get them back there is still a 50% failure rate.

In terms of your level, you need to find suitable opponents quickly. Try and wipe out a colony of Frost Giants, they have enough HD that the DM should only have to gestalt them without actually advancing hit dice to challenge you. You could also try dragonslaying, but you probably don't want to attract the attention of anything that covets riches that greatly and is usually related to Great Wyrms or advanced epic Wyrms with epic spellcasting.

You could also try causing a massive cavern collapse on a Drow city using earthquake, stone shape, and similar spells. You could do the same if you find an Illithid colony since you'd have a shot at taking down an Elder Brain, which is worth a chunk of XP. You could go plane-hopping and maybe try to kill large quantities of demons for xp, but you need to do so without attracting the attention of any major demon lords.

I suggest you immediately invest in items of Mind Blank for the whole party so you can't be found out with most divination magic before you're able to defend yourself. You may also want to change your appearances and use different names untill you hit epic and can defend yourself from your fellow arcanists. Establish a means of communicating with your businesses via code and invest in an item of Sending so you can stay in touch while you go out and harvest XP under an alternate identity. To keep up the charade, invest in +as high as you can get items of disguise to foil use of gather information. You might also consider faking your own deaths and establishing Mark of Justice - bound contracts or similar with the people who will temporarily "inherit" your businesses then use modify memory to make them temporarily forget you're alive.

[Skysaber]

Argh... so much wasted potential.

What you do is finangle a way to time travel back to second edition and rediscover the anvil, thus netting you a ridiculous amount of XP and epic levels, then travel back to the present and redo everything using epic magic.

Ok, I admit it. I broke under peer pressure and installed a Travel Through Time spell option on my ship/fortress. It's surprisingly cheap to do on a ship, too. I could throw on Teleport and a few other options at the same time.

But now that I've done it I'm worried that should I go back and gain levels in the past, I'll alert other mages to what a threat I'll be, so they'll attack me when I am young and weak... like, for example, now.

I'm sure my DM would jump on that chance.


Namely, that death star laser you were complaining about lacking?

Start with the epic destroy seed. Tack on all the damage dice you want, pump the caster level to ridiculous, mitigate with planar binding/ally and there you go. It can even blow through antimagic fields and dead magic zones.

That would work? Hm, and here I was thinking that if I really wanted to go that way I'd have to mount a giant slingshot and load it with an uber-charger or an optimized hulking hurler - although that last one would probably think my ship was the ammunition, not the other way around.


Golems are nice and everything, but if you're fighting flying opponents with elemental resistances your best bet is probably going to be mass summoning Air Elementals. You may want to produce a spell or spells that create or summon specially templated Air Elementals. Another monster to consider would be dominated, mindraped, sanctify the wickeded, helm of opposite alignmented, or some other way of reliably and permanently controlling arrow demons.

An arrow demon would actually work sortuv well as an Effigy. They'd lose a few points off their attack bonus, which hurts, and they couldn't use their Dimension Door any longer, which saps away significantly at their coolness factor. But the archery buffs they'd maintain.

Then again, I think I'm going to deliberately avoid going there lest I get golems on the brain once again.

And there is something I can use, at 27,500gp a pop, but I can make my own under discount, to get a helm of opposite alignment effect on called demons. They get a save, and SR applies, however.

When you say templated air elementals rather than the basic garden variety I assume there is an awesome template for increasing their abilities?


Don't permanency spells whenever possible. Craft items or traps with spell effects instead. Permanencied spells are gone forever when dispelled, items are merely suppressed unless your opponents start throwing around disjunctions or disintegrates. If you're not doing it already (I skimmed but didn't see it mentioned specifically), the Thought Bottle trick should let you use your XP much more efficiently.

Got a Thought Bottle. You're right, they're just too useful not to have. Bit disappointed about the permanencied spells vanishing, as they're cheap. But I will be guided by your superior experience on this matter, and make magic items for most things instead.

Pity, as covering my fort with perm Walls of Force was so tempting.


Your goal is now to attain epic level as fast as possible before some archmage with epic magic figures out what you've been up to and steals all your work. Also, if you run into any nasty opponents you don't want coming back, find a Devourer and trap it in one of your fortresses. Trap the Soul opponents you don't want recurring and feed them to the command undead-ed Devourer so if they have allies willing to burn a wish to try and get them back there is still a 50% failure rate.

Can I just say that is so completely brutal?


In terms of your level, you need to find suitable opponents quickly. Try and wipe out a colony of Frost Giants, they have enough HD that the DM should only have to gestalt them without actually advancing hit dice to challenge you. You could also try dragonslaying, but you probably don't want to attract the attention of anything that covets riches that greatly and is usually related to Great Wyrms or advanced epic Wyrms with epic spellcasting.

Hunting dragons is certainly a two-edged sword. On the one hand, the dragon itself can be made into so many lovely magic things that the beast is worth more than the bed of gold it typically sits on. Entire soucebooks have been written on the subject of the wonderful magical goodies dragons can be turned into.

And, on the other hand, it bodes ill when you meet up with an epic spellcasting great wyrm when you are wearing bits from Junior.


I suggest you immediately invest in items of Mind Blank for the whole party so you can't be found out with most divination magic before you're able to defend yourself. You may also want to change your appearances and use different names until you hit epic and can defend yourself from your fellow arcanists. Establish a means of communicating with your businesses via code and invest in an item of Sending so you can stay in touch while you go out and harvest XP under an alternate identity. To keep up the charade, invest in +as high as you can get items of disguise to foil use of gather information. You might also consider faking your own deaths and establishing Mark of Justice - bound contracts or similar with the people who will temporarily "inherit" your businesses then use modify memory to make them temporarily forget you're alive.

All of those are good ideas, although I feel funny buying Mind Blank items for familiars, steeds and animal companions.

Some part of me is now wondering if I should just quietly invest in a set of epic gear on the side, to just stash away in case of need to run from an epic arcanist, or just in case this was the last treasure haul we'll be getting for a very long while.

It would be awkward to get to epic levels and still have only 13th level gear.

[Waspinator]

Wait, can't you only have one Dedicated Wright working at a time?

[Skysaber]

Wait, can't you only have one Dedicated Wright working at a time?

I've read the complete entry a couple of times now but never run across that. Can you tell me where it is written? Because it seems you aren't the only person with that impression, but I've never found the rules.

[Randomguy]

Ok, I admit it. I broke under peer pressure and installed a Travel Through Time spell option on my ship/fortress. It's surprisingly cheap to do on a ship, too. I could throw on Teleport and a few other options at the same time.

But now that I've done it I'm worried that should I go back and gain levels in the past, I'll alert other mages to what a threat I'll be, so they'll attack me when I am young and weak... like, for example, now.

I'm sure my DM would jump on that chance.


Go back so long ago that no one from that time period is alive today save those that became undead. Operate under Mind Blank and a false name, and be careful to only cause stable time loops. Then when you reach epic levels make and then cast a spell to stop people from scrying on your past self, giving current you protection against divinations. It's still risky, though.



Hunting dragons is certainly a two-edged sword. On the one hand, the dragon itself can be made into so many lovely magic things that the beast is worth more than the bed of gold it typically sits on. Entire soucebooks have been written on the subject of the wonderful magical goodies dragons can be turned into.

Use the Dragon Ally line of spells to get a dragon, have the dragon cast Clone a bunch of times and then harvest the parts from the Clone. You might want to consider making this method of acquiring dragon items well known in order to reduce dragon hunting world wide and to give dragons an easy way to make money (by casting the spell themselves). This would probably make you more popular with dragons as a whole, which is always nice.