Forcing Time to Be On My Side

[unseenmage]

I have a Stronghold all designed and kickstarted but it's going to be 6 in-game years getting finished. Including the 70% price hike for a 70% construction time decrease. :smallfrown:

Is there a way to fast-time magic that process along any? Not necessarily looking for it to be done tomorrow, but shaving it down to about a year would be nice.

It's a 16 Stronghold Space tower, 2 rooms per floor.
Faerun cosmology and planes.

I already spent 5 months of in-game downtime setting up and financing this personal stronghold and another more charitable contribution to local city.


Edit: Specifically looking for means to create a temporary, but fairly long-lasting fast-time zone around the stronghold to get it finished faster.

Thanks regardless Playground.

[eggynack]

Could a lyre of building (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#lyreofBuilding) help? Those things are pretty cool.

[Nettlekid]

Well, perhaps hire a Warforged Bard to play a Lyre of Building? So long as it can keep making a DC 18 Perform check, then even though the lyre can only be used to speed up building once a week, you can keep doing it until you stop. And a Warforged who can make a DC 18 Perform check never has to stop. Every 30 minutes is the equivalent of 100 humans working for 3 days. So a single round of playing is the equivalent of one person working for a whole day. If you haven't factored that into the time of building, you definitely should. Especially since it's magical, not actually people building, so except for spellcasters you need to make things like Walls of Force or whatever, all the stonework and whatnot can be done without paying for labor.

EDIT: Dang, Swordsaged (although I put more detail.)

[unseenmage]

Could a lyre of building help? Those things are pretty cool.

Well, perhaps hire a Warforged Bard to play a Lyre of Building? So long as it can keep making a DC 18 Perform check, then even though the lyre can only be used to speed up building once a week, you can keep doing it until you stop. And a Warforged who can make a DC 18 Perform check never has to stop. Every 30 minutes is the equivalent of 100 humans working for 3 days. So a single round of playing is the equivalent of one person working for a whole day. If you haven't factored that into the time of building, you definitely should. Especially since it's magical, not actually people building, so except for spellcasters you need to make things like Walls of Force or whatever, all the stonework and whatnot can be done without paying for labor.

EDIT: Dang, Swordsaged (although I put more detail.)

I'm pretty sure the SBG has a section on the Lyre of Building. Don't remember exactly what it says though. A great deal of this stronghold is either magic or highly incorporated with magic.

I was looking more for a method of creating a fast-time zone to literally complete the thing more quickly. Will edit the OP to reflect this. Apologies.

Edit: Excellent suggestion though, shaved 2 years off the build time. Thanks folks.

[Big Fau]

Hire a Druid 5/Planar Shepherd 5 to use his Planar Bubble class feature (or cast the spell version of it) to gain the effects of a fast-flowing time plane. I don't know of any in generic D&D, but in Eberron Dal Quor has a 10:1 time ratio.

[Feralventas]

If you're high enough level, spend an extra couple of years crafting an epic spell to send it back in time to when you started, only a little to the side so that you can live in it while you're building it.

[ArcturusV]

Odd question: Is there a reason you need to necessarily solve this with a Fast-Time zone, rather than something else? I mean if you're a wizard strong enough that somehow creating a zone of relative time is an option you are seriously considering... there's probably a lot you could do on a smaller scale that would also drastically increase the time. Anything from using spells to just create building materials out of thin air, to shaping bedrock into your walls, and so on, and so forth.

But yeah, if you cannot actually be there to do it, then of course that's not really an option.

[drack]

More workers/use spells like stone wall/help transport supplies?

[Nettlekid]

Yeah, quite frankly, if you're actually looking at fast time zones as a reasonable answer, it would probably be easier to make some sort of perpetual gold machine and use those funds to build faster at higher cost. Buy a second Lyre of Building. Or a third. Or just rent them, actually.

[drack]

yup. :smallbiggrin:

[unseenmage]

Yeah, quite frankly, if you're actually looking at fast time zones as a reasonable answer, it would probably be easier to make some sort of perpetual gold machine and use those funds to build faster at higher cost. Buy a second Lyre of Building. Or a third. Or just rent them, actually.

I kinda already have an infinite gold machine. I used everything it could give me (without building a second one) to pay for the startup costs for the stronghold(s).
Now I'm trying to find a means to put the stronghold to use sooner rather than later.


If you're high enough level, spend an extra couple of years crafting an epic spell to send it back in time to when you started, only a little to the side so that you can live in it while you're building it.

Sorry, not epic. And the local Epic level ally is out of town on epic level business. Which sucks, but at least I got her express permission to upgrade her country while she was away before she left.


More workers/use spells like stone wall/help transport supplies?

Odd question: Is there a reason you need to necessarily solve this with a Fast-Time zone, rather than something else? I mean if you're a wizard strong enough that somehow creating a zone of relative time is an option you are seriously considering... there's probably a lot you could do on a smaller scale that would also drastically increase the time. Anything from using spells to just create building materials out of thin air, to shaping bedrock into your walls, and so on, and so forth.

But yeah, if you cannot actually be there to do it, then of course that's not really an option.

The Stronghold Builder's Guide lumps a lot of the 'something else' solutions into existing cost reducers. The 70% price hike for 70% faster construction is one part. There's a list of spells and specifically how they help, and I've used those too where they apply.
I'd missed it the first time through but the Lyre of Building is just another reducer. Max of 30% reduction in price. Though it explicitly calls out price and has a separate sentence saying how the Lyre can reduce time instead...

Perhaps employing multiple Lyres will do the trick. At least insofar as the non-magical bits are concerned. Problem is the magic items/wondrous architecture takes days/weeks of creation time. Which, of course, is why I'm looking into chronal solutions.

[drack]

Buy each room as a new building, and turn your tower horizontal? :smalltongue: (that way all building times tick down at once)

[Emperor Tippy]

Use Arcane Genesis to create a fast time demiplane with the ratio that you want.

Travel there. Use Awaken Object to create a Colossal Animated Object. Awaken it. Have it use a scroll of Minute Form to drop its size down to Fine. Create an Ice Assassin of it. Give it a scroll of Planar Bubble. Have it take the feat Permanent Emanation: Planar Bubble.

Shapechange into a Zodar. Wish up an auto reset trap of Ice Assassin of that dude. Dot them over the entire work site.

For extra fun, also make the Arcane Genesis plane Minor Positive Dominant (for fast healing for everybody) and Enhanced Magic for all of the spells that you want to use in construction.

There you go. Exactly what you asked for.

[drack]

Isn't there a clause under the fast time trait which make it not a genesis option? :smallconfused:

[Kane0]

Isn't there a spell that makes a version of unseen servant en masse that can do manual labor? A wand or two of that might help.

[Emperor Tippy]

Isn't there a clause under the fast time trait which make it not a genesis option? :smallconfused:

No, only for the Psionic version. Arcane Genesis has no such clause.

[unseenmage]

...
Travel there. Use Awaken Object to create a Colossal Animated Object. Awaken it. Have it use a scroll of Minute Form to drop its size down to Fine. Create an Ice Assassin of it. Give it a scroll of Planar Bubble. Have it take the feat Permanent Emanation: Planar Bubble.
...

Sorry, no can do on the Permanent Emanation.
I'm not allowed access to epic stuff. Even if is right there tantalizingly out of reach.

[drack]

No, something listed under the time trait, not the genesis spell. Something that defaults it as not player controlled, and is not contradicted in genesis, and therefore carries over...

[Samalpetey]

No, something listed under the time trait, not the genesis spell. Something that defaults it as not player controlled, and is not contradicted in genesis, and therefore carries over...

The wording for the normal time planar trait in the DMG says "Unless noted otherwise in a description, every plane in the D&D cosmology has the normal time trait" Is this what you're thinking of?

[Emperor Tippy]

Sorry, no can do on the Permanent Emanation.
I'm not allowed access to epic stuff. Even if is right there tantalizingly out of reach.

Use Enhanced Magic Extend + Occular Spell+ Persist + Chain then and just cast Planar Bubble every two days. In this case you can just use Tiny, Small, or Fine animated objects in the first place.

[unseenmage]

Use Enhanced Magic Extend + Occular Spell+ Persist + Chain then and just cast Planar Bubble every two days. In this case you can just use Tiny, Small, or Fine animated objects in the first place.

Sources? (Having trouble finding "Enhanced Magic Extend") Thanks.

[Emperor Tippy]

Sources? (Having trouble finding "Enhanced Magic Extend") Thanks.

Enhanced Magic (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/planes.htm#enhancedMagic)

Use Arcane Genesis to make a plane with whatever metamagic that you want as part of the Enhanced Magic trait.

It's the cheap when to get all your buffs Heightened to 9th level, Persisted, and Extended without any problem.

[unseenmage]

Is it just me or would it be slightly less involved to just set up a bunch of overlapping traps of Planar Bubble across the worksite? After the Genesis thing of course.

[Emperor Tippy]

Is it just me or would it be slightly less involved to just set up a bunch of overlapping traps of Planar Bubble across the worksite? After the Genesis thing of course.

Planar Bubble makes the creature radiate the planar traits of its native plane. That is why you need creatures that are native to your Demiplane (such as Animated Object's created on said plane).

[unseenmage]

Planar Bubble makes the creature radiate the planar traits of its native plane. That is why you need creatures that are native to your Demiplane (such as Animated Object's created on said plane).

Ahhh! That makes much more sense. Why the reduction in size if you don't mind my asking?

[Emperor Tippy]

Ahhh! That makes much more sense. Why the reduction in size if you don't mind my asking?

Because it makes them far easier to move around. Unless you think that you can fit colossal animated objects wherever you want.

Since you can't use Permanent Emanation you don't need Colossal in the first place so you might as well make them as small as possible.

[drack]

The wording for the normal time planar trait in the DMG says "Unless noted otherwise in a description, every plane in the D&D cosmology has the normal time trait" Is this what you're thinking of?

I believe so. :smallbiggrin:

[Pickford]

Use Arcane Genesis to create a fast time demiplane with the ratio that you want.

Travel there. Use Awaken Object to create a Colossal Animated Object. Awaken it. Have it use a scroll of Minute Form to drop its size down to Fine. Create an Ice Assassin of it. Give it a scroll of Planar Bubble. Have it take the feat Permanent Emanation: Planar Bubble.

Shapechange into a Zodar. Wish up an auto reset trap of Ice Assassin of that dude. Dot them over the entire work site.

For extra fun, also make the Arcane Genesis plane Minor Positive Dominant (for fast healing for everybody) and Enhanced Magic for all of the spells that you want to use in construction.

There you go. Exactly what you asked for.


So...


An ice assassin spell creates a living, breathing creature that is a near-perfect duplicate of an existing creature.

and...

Construct Type:

Because its body is a mass of unliving matter

Constructs do not eat, sleep, or breathe.

How's that work?

[drack]

To be fare ice assassin is an illusion cast over a snowman, and the snowman doesn't really breath, the illusion does...

[Phelix-Mu]

To be fare ice assassin is an illusion cast over a snowman, and the snowman doesn't really breath, the illusion does...

Or does the semi-realness of the shadow magic make the snowman quasi-breathe, to the extent that it does breathe for all intents and purposes? Will we ever know the truth?

The spell is pretty vague on this whole matter, really, and it seems to contradict itself in the span of several sentences, where the creature is both a living breathing creature, and also an animated statue made of ice (most animated statues in the game aren't "living" and don't breathe). Enough vagueness to really allow the spell to do whatever we want, as any intent that is less vague than the spell description itself is going to sound plausible.

The real problem is more fundamental to shadow-type illusions themselves. Such illusions are quasi-real/partially real/mostly real. But something that's an "illusion" is normally not real. Any real part of an illusion sounds pretty non-illusory to anyone speaking english. So, if the living breathing creature is only partially real, isn't it really actually real? Since there is no %-roll for amount of damage of amount of hp, like in the shadow conjuration/evocation like, then the illusory part of the creature is pretty irrelevant, except for possible interaction with true seeing (which shows it's a statue...or at least that's the case for simulacrum...not sure if this carries over to ice assassin).

Anyway, it's a really silly discrepancy. "Real for all intents and purposes," as in the manner of ice assassin, is pretty much "real."

[drack]

Yup, it's a real illusion that eats and breaths and sees you when you're sleeping.

[unseenmage]

Yup, it's a real illusion that eats and breaths and sees you when you're sleeping.

And knows when you're awake.

[Phelix-Mu]

Right. The spell creates an illusory, real copy. But, in point of fact, the spell creates a real copy, with a few minor alterations called out in the spell. It seems to me that the copy can even get old and have kids, take up crocheting (through purchasing psychic reformation), or geek it up and post on internet forums about the humourous intricacies of RAW. It's a real creature; the spell says just that. In fact, looking at the spell, it's not illusory in any way, as it's not clear if it's the copied appearance or the ice statue appearance that is illusory (though various levels of nitpicky will read it differently). There doesn't seem to be anything to disbelieve. The only difference is the healing mechanic and the advancement mechanic (there is no advancement), and the cold subtype.

Ah, really. I just can't see how anyone could write such an open-ended thing and not attempt to be more explicit with the language.

[drack]

Actually the illusory nature comes into play.

When people use illusion piercing stuff to look at it, it says that it's either a semi, or an ice assassin. It allows people to know that that's the fake. Now you can always make one of yourself, let it kill you,and play on as the fake, but you get the idea.

[Phelix-Mu]

Actually the illusory nature comes into play.

When people use illusion piercing stuff to look at it, it says that it's either a semi, or an ice assassin. It allows people to know that that's the fake. Now you can always make one of yourself, let it kill you,and play on as the fake, but you get the idea.

Does the spell say that, though? I've looked at it a couple times, and maybe I'm just not seeing that specific part, or the trees are getting lost through the forest of potential abuse that the DM in me is internally shouting about.

The only thing I seem to see is that the creature that is copied sees it differently. But it isn't clear to me that the ice statue appearance is the real appearance, or is any more real than the copied appearance, as both appearances are only described as "appearances," and are totally relative to who is looking.

I guess the real thing is the "near-perfect duplicate formed out of ice" or somesuch. Near-perfect is so relative, though, and based on simulacra, even the duplication process via Disguise checks could be optimized to the extent that no one could ever really tell.

EDIT: Anyway, since I'm posting so much, lemme just put in my two cents. The Stronghold Builder's Guidebook is soundly 3.0. I don't know if lyre of building changed much or at all, but it bears looking into, since the discount in SBGB is based on the older version of the item.

Looking at lyre of building itself, it allows a ridiculous amount of work to be done.

I would advise the modular concept, too. Build the stronghold as several smaller bits constructed simultaneously, then attach them together. Good idea.

As to the wondrous architecture construction, consider finding an artificer with those nifty time-reducing artisan feats. Assuming they are available in your world, of course.

Planar time trait manipulation is a big red-flag for DMs, as it's most mundane use is infinite spells/money/items. A DM pretty much can't hand a bigger gun to a player than manipulating time traits, short of some kind of pre-epic epic spells.

Finally, the SBGB is a book of guidelines for DMs, not hard and fast rules. It sounds to me like power-level is not a limiting factor for the character in question. Magic at higher levels, combined with high resources, is extremely hyperbolic, much more so than SBGB suggests. Ignore the book aside from the items, and talk to the DM directly about how an army of simulacra of yourself (quickly accessible via simulacrum elixir, Frostburn)with access to UMD can scroll of fabricate your way into a luxurious stronghold in a matter of days. Then you can subsequently abuse shapechange to gain unlimited wishes to just wish up items of x or y.

[drack]

The spell is an illusion spell, and there are things that specifically see through illusion spells. Naturally not seeing it doesn't mean it can't kick your ass, so all you really do is see that it's a block of ice hammering you with those warm fleshy hands. Not that hard to figure out more or less what it is from there. :smalltongue:

[Phelix-Mu]

The spell is an illusion spell, and there are things that specifically see through illusion spells. Naturally not seeing it doesn't mean it can't kick your ass, so all you really do is see that it's a block of ice hammering you with those warm fleshy hands. Not that hard to figure out more or less what it is from there. :smalltongue:

And now true seeing shows you a "near-perfect duplicate made of ice." But if the duplicate is near-perfect, it might not be apparent that it's made of ice. Near-perfect is meaningless without some DC attached to it (as in simulacrum with the Disguise mechanic).

I suppose it's more obvious than the illusory perfect duplicate, but it isn't obvious from the spell that what someone with true seeing sees is the same as what the creature copied sees (specific trumps general, I believe, as the noted appearance of "animated ice statue" specifically is only visible to the copied creature).

In any case, it's a moot point most of the time, as you note, since the most abusive parts of the spell are that it creates a copy of some very strong creature that has what amount to minor nuisance weaknesses.

[drack]

So then you would intemperate anything that sees through the spell as a whole to... do what exactly? :smallconfused:

[Phelix-Mu]

So then you would intemperate anything that sees through the spell as a whole to... do what exactly? :smallconfused:

I guess the same thing that it does when you see through the shadow conjuration SM3 celestial black bear right before it bashes you for %-normal damage? It's fairly trivial to be able to tell that something isn't real right before it does something totally real to you. Disbelief or seeing through does even less with ice assassin.

[drack]

Yup. Mostly comes into play in epic political games where people can be insulted that you sent one instead of coming yourself. :smalltongue: