Defending a tower

[Oko and Qailee]

Hey guys. So I'm kind of hunting for ideas for ow to defend a single, rather large, tower (>200ft tall).

Some background:
So I started a D&D campaign (which is going really well) and int his campaign I created not only a BBEG but a BBGG and a BBNG (good, neutral). The reason is because I like to give players freedom t determine their own end goals. Now, in this universe the BBGG is a 15th level ranger/cleric (a very optimized wisdom archer build, cleric casting 11th level.)

This archer is 120 years old and has spent a good amount of her life fighting to maintain peace throughout the world, ofc she hasn't removed it completely, and in her efforts shes has recruited a decent number of allies into a semi-secretive good society (think of a D&D Justice League).

Now, the group currently has a base of operations in a massive tower. With each floor being a single room dedicated to living, planning, containment of magical items (there isn't a magic mart really in my world), and keeping obscenely powerful prisoners.

Now the party decided they're going to ask this group for help getting pieces of the McGuffin to stop the BBEG (the party is mostly good aligned). HOWEVER, there is one member of the party that is Lawful Evil and he's wearing a ring the conceals alignment and thoughts. He knows this group is powerful and the player has already tried to rob from everyone and everything.

Now, I don't want to shut the player down at all, but for the sake of not straining suspension of disbelief too much I feel its necessary that the tower has as much protection and defenses as is appropriate for a group of people who average ~13th level. The party will be ~lvl 10 when they get there, so I understand it's unlikely that they can do much there, but you never know, some people are clever.

Now, I can always say that the tower was first constructed by a wizard long gone, and put a ton of permanency effects on it, but I was wondering what I could place in there within the realm of reason. Anything possible up to 13th level is fair game IMO and this group of people in the tower have a huge interest in guarding whats inside the upper floors. I was currently thinking of Permanency spells of wall of fire and force around the magic items and high profile prisoners, and golems to wander the tower as security, but this feels like very little and easy to pass and most permanency spells seem to require higher levels.

Idk, any thoughts?

[Captnq]

{Scrubbed}

[Oko and Qailee]

{Scrubbed}

FIrst of its a BBGG.

The BBEG is a lvl 15 artificer. Also, the BBGG has 11 levels of cleric casting and all the nightsticks she wants.

I'm glad you felt it necessary to post just to make fun of me without understanding much. My players are all new and I'm not going to throw crazy optimized enemies at them, the BBEG artificer is using only is crafted items essentially.

But thanks, you lack of input was... insightful? I sure needed someone to randomly insult me for some reason?

Like, really, what was the point of this post?

Edit: BTW, since you seem to be unaware, you can easily make arrows be Force arrows that bypass windwall. Not every High level character has to be a wizard, because not every player is a wizard.

[Phelix-Mu]

Alright, so, first, some mundane measures that are pretty much no-brainers.

1.) Hidden doors/corridors/stairs: towers have an unusual geography to defend, and this can quickly lead to defenders getting isolated or stuck at the top. A secret means of egress is key, but also might allow the defenders to bypass defense formations, mazes, bottlenecks, and so forth. As usual, these secret passages must be mined with either magic or rockfalls to allow them to be collapsed in an emergency. Magic is convenient, but well-hidden mundane stuff is harder to shut-down (especially with multi-layer redundancies).

2.) Bottlenecks: These defense formations are flanked by arrow slits, topped by trapdoors for boiling oil, and otherwise hard to get through. The idea is to slow enemy incursion and inflict gruesome injuries. In a tower, already tight on space, these are particularly useful. Be sure to make walls out of riverine or walls of force, to avoid stone shape bypasses.

3.) Mundane traps: less spectacular than magic traps, but far cheaper, non-dispellable, and more variety. Best used in redundant layers; if someone attempts to disable the first, they trip the second, or the first is a fake, designed to hide the second, or they synergize with each other.

4.) Rockfalls: Strategically isolating parts of the tower is very useful. Won't shut down teleports, but will force invaders to burn magic to circumvent (and they may therefor be teleporting blindly...useful). I suggest blackpowder or ditherbombs (Races of the Dragon) to destroy supporting beams. Hide the triggers and the explosives behind objects that block line of sight and divination. A thin layer of slate can easily be broken, and the trigger surrounded by a layer of lead, allowing a little niche to contain the trigger, known only to the creators/owners of the tower.

Useful Magic:
Big category here. With access to at least 7th level spells, you can do a whole lot.

- Reverse gravity traps. The permanent reverse gravity is normally suppressed, but if the trap is sprung, the AMF suppressing it is covered up by a lead sheet, which reactivate the reverse gravity. Put poisoned spikes on the ceiling, or have a glass layer closing off a glass vat full of acid. Person falls up, breaks glass, submerged in acid. Be sure to use mundane paints/cammo nets to make sure the glass or spikes are hard to see.

- Extract water elemental is great. Have traps of this following up poison traps designed to weaken saves. The water elemental now further slows the invaders down.

- Elemental guardian spell (Dragon Mag #347): can be made permanent. Binds a medium lesser elemental weird. Used on the earth variety, these are earth elementals that are invisible when surrounded in earth, have earth glide, and have a ranged attack that deals acid damage (useful in a tower). They have an Int of 12, and can take complicated commands from people that speak the relevant elemental language.

[Captnq]

Yes, but the force arrows would still be projectiles and thus would be reflected by Roaring. Roaring reflects all non-magical PROJECTILES, not all arrows. And it's only a +3 ASA.Combined with a selective (metamagic feat) AMF and all incoming projectiles bounce back at the one who shoots. Once the projectile leaves the AMF, it becomes magical again and does full damage.

Arrow catching just protects your allies within 5'.

Hank's bow does not shoot projectiles.

Hank's energy bow:

As they are force effects

You are referring to:
FORCE (+2 WSA)

A projectile weapon with the force property turns ammunition shot from it into a force attack. These force projectiles ...

I'm sorry, but the RAW of it is, FORCE WSA does not get past Roaring.

My roaring suit of armor costs the base armor plus 25,000 gp, which is well within the range of any 10th character. I can get it down to 16,000 gp if I need to.

The Selective Antimagic field is a 7th level spell. Lasts 150 minutes, and is available to any 7th level Artificer with desire to create it as a 2,625 gp scroll.

[Oko and Qailee]

First off, Phenix-Mu thanks a million.

Some questions. Wouldn't reverse gravity traps require permanency of Anti magic fields?

I have never heard of elemental guardian, thats awesome!

I love the bottlenecking idea, and I think I'm going to implement that on the stairs up.

As for outward, I think some sort of Illusion of some sort that allows those inside the tower to see outwards, but not vice versa, would be useful (ex. Illusion a window to look like a wall from the outside, inside you know where a window normally is so you can shoot attackers without guessing where you should attack from)

[Phelix-Mu]

...stuff...

But the OP didn't ask for help optimizing the BBGG. The question was about defenses for the tower. While making the BBGG more effective does help defense, it seems unwelcome.

Moreover, roaring and anti-arrow op are not exactly the go-to options for new players. I believe the "defenses" are against a theoretical go a player might have at the tower, not against the BBEG.

Finally, the archer is only one of an organization of people defending the tower (though seemingly the strongest), and, as noted, is also a cleric, and so could probably pull a clinch divine power/righteous might melee setup that wouldn't be too shabby (especially since the nightsticks points to persistomancy...this is competitive op for the indicated op-level).

EDIT: The AMFs could be cast regularly by spell clocks or self-resetting magic traps..otherwise making them permanent would be ideal. Alternately, there are two traps of reverse gravity (first reverses it, second reverses again, making it normal), but then someone comes in, and one of the reverse gravity is dispelled by a trap of greater dispelling.

[Oko and Qailee]

Yes, but the force arrows would still be projectiles and thus would be reflected by Roaring. Roaring reflects all non-magical PROJECTILES, not all arrows. And it's only a +3 ASA.Combined with a selective (metamagic feat) AMF and all incoming projectiles bounce back at the one who shoots. Once the projectile leaves the AMF, it becomes magical again and does full damage.

Arrow catching just protects your allies within 5'.

Hank's bow does not shoot projectiles.

Hank's energy bow:


You are referring to:
FORCE (+2 WSA)


I'm sorry, but the RAW of it is, FORCE WSA does not get past Roaring.

My roaring suit of armor costs the base armor plus 25,000 gp, which is well within the range of any 10th character. I can get it down to 16,000 gp if I need to.

The Selective Antimagic field is a 7th level spell. Lasts 150 minutes, and is available to any 7th level Artificer with desire to create it as a 2,625 gp scroll.

Dude relax. I Already have her wielding a modified hanks energy bow (I added splitting to it). Good point with the RAW involving force arrows.

The Artificer isn't going to attack this tower, no one is, but it's not unlikely that some of my greedier party members might want to loot it. Sorry if that wasn't clear in the OP. The BBEG himself has a different set of goals, the BBGG only existed for if the party chose to be an Evil party (they didn't).

[Oko and Qailee]

But the OP didn't ask for help optimizing the BBGG. The question was about defenses for the tower. While making the BBGG more effective does help defense, it seems unwelcome.

Moreover, roaring and anti-arrow op are not exactly the go-to options for new players. I believe the "defenses" are against a theoretical go a player might have at the tower, not against the BBEG.

Finally, the archer is only one of an organization of people defending the tower (though seemingly the strongest), and, as noted, is also a cleric, and so could probably pull a clinch divine power/righteous might melee setup that wouldn't be too shabby (especially since the nightsticks points to persistomancy...this is competitive op for the indicated op-level).

The BBGG is essentially a ranger cleric, she does have DMM persist. She at minimum always persists Divine Power and Haste (travel domain FTW!). With Splitting Hanks Energy bow allowing her to power attack, this is acttualy quite a bit of damage per round if you're not ready for it.

But like I said, I don't want to just make my players lose, I want them to have fun and win provided they aren't being super silly (at lvl 1 the rogue tried to ride an Ankheg... needless to say hilarity ensued (by hilarity I mean impalement (everyone laughed))). They're also either really unoptimized or low tiered.

[Phelix-Mu]

I edited my above post, lol. Just so you don't miss it.:smallwink:

EDIT: If you have nightsticks to spare, righteous wrath of the faithful (Spell Compendium) is a little better than haste, and is nice to have layered on there in case one of them gets dispelled.

[Oko and Qailee]

I edited my above post, lol. Just so you don't miss it.:smallwink:

EDIT: If you have nightsticks to spare, righteous wrath of the faithful (Spell Compendium) is a little better than haste, and is nice to have layered on there in case one of them gets dispelled.

Problem is, Righteous wrath doesnt give a bonus attack to ranged attacks, only melee :(

[Phelix-Mu]

Problem is, Righteous wrath doesnt give a bonus attack to ranged attacks, only melee :(

Say what now? *checks book*

Well....

"OOPS. OOPS is brought to you by erasers. Never leave home without one."

Still, it's a nice area boost for allies. Unlikely to be useful since the archer will maintain range, though. Damn you, anti-ranged bias! Screwing martials wasn't enough? Had to mega-gimp the archers? *silent rage*

[Captnq]

*sigh*
fourth rule of DMing: Over Prepare

The tower is created by the BBGG.

The tower's design and defenses will be based on the BBGG's point of view.

You need to stop thinking about "what is the most effective" and start thinking, "Who was in charge of creating the tower?" If the BBGG is defending the tower, the tower will reflect his point of view.

Clerical: Focus on buff spells and healing.
Archer: Ranged fighting.

Now you're talking a 200'+ tower. That means you are in the second bracket just to hit people attacking the bottom of the tower, even with long bows. So there will have to be somewhere around 50' up a series of full cover arrow slits for the archers to shoot down. Shooting from the top is an wasted -2 penalty. A gnome sight is a much needed non-magical accessory for each and every archer. As well as a wide avenue of fire. At least everything for 500' feet has to be chopped down to remove all cover. A series of pits will be dug about 100' out that will give total cover to the archers at 50'. This will lure attackers in. The Gnome sight using archers at the top of your tower will have no problem shooting down on those hiding in the pits.

The interior of your tower will be a series of fall back positions with buff and healing staged at the key choke points. The choke points will be long avenues of fire.

But before you pick ANY of this, You MUST know your NPC. Who was in charge of construction? The wizard who cast all these perm spells? The Archer? A professional dungeon building dwarf?

You must know their strengths and weaknesses. You must know how they have been defeated in the past as well as the victories. We are defined by our losses far more then our successes. Why an archer? Did he charge into battle and get killed then got raised from the dead? Why is he good? Because he's on a rampage to destroy those who killed him, or because he was killed, he knows what death is like and wants to protect those who serve under him?

My posts are often blunt and to the point to make you think. I loath to point out every step of something because then you aren't learning. To learn, you must research and develop on your own. Telling you how to defeat your Archer is telling you how to create your Tower. Every time he lost and survived, it will have left an impression on his personality. That impression will be seen in his tower.

Know your NPC. Determine his losses and you will know his tower.

[Kuulvheysoon]

If this is the Final Redoubt of Good, then they're bound to have a lot of cash lying around.

A couple of scrolls of Genesis could make some of the more dangerous vaults demiplanes as an additional security measure. If you're containing prisoners on one, though, make sure that the prisoner has no idea that he's on a demiplane. Nothing like getting his hopes up then realising how screwed he is.

Take a look at the hallow (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/hallow.htm) spell - you can tie another spell effect to it and make it last a whole year. It's not inconceivable to have, say, tongues tied to it to ensure that not all of the Leaguers need to speak common. Actually, an even better effect to tie to it would be true seeing. choose it to only effect creatures of your alignment (Good), and then all Good creatures will be able to see through all illusions... such as disguises or illusory walls (so you wouldn't have to worry about making the walls one-way).

Forbiddance (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/forbiddance.htm) might also be a good effect to have (Although it's slightly pricey, it's only a Cleric 6 spell).

As most people are right handed, having stairs going up in a clockwise direction would hamper them offensively (maybe give the attacker a -4 circumstance penalty to attack, or not able to use Power Attack?). This was a strategy used in Real Life for medieval castles.

[avr]

Defence against flying creatures has to be on the mind of a guy who builds a 200' tower. Whether that's bound air elementals or invisible stalkers, weird weather conditions, or just some higher level and larger area version of the alarm spell, there has to be something there.

If the wizard who built the tower might have been able to scrape up a temporary +2 CL from some items or whatever, they'd be able to cast permanency on a phase door. This would make for a quite inaccessible safe or perhaps a secure roof door.

The BBGG has no doubt layered (greater) glyphs of warding anywhere they're concerned about. Simple, but it hadn't yet been mentioned.

[Randomguy]

I'm thinking you need a few floors where mundane operations are held, possibly recruitment or a place where freelancing adventurers can take on quests to do some good (If the problem isn't urgent or the league doesn't have any people to spare), possibly for the reward. This should have a light guard, no magic traps or anything.

You also need sleeping and eating quarters, as well as offices for paperwork, magical research, mundane research, maybe a library or something. This'll be members only, access restricted. Maybe make it double as the fallback area in case of an attack and have some defences in place.
I'd go with a design that force the intruders to enter at the edges and spiral through towards the center, with arrow slits and murder holes the whole way through. At the center is a set of secret doors that lead into the area with the arrow slits (which would be well hidden and tightly locked and barred). Normally access to the floors above would be via ladder, which could be pulled up in case of attack. Oh, and make the entire spiral uphill, so you could through marbles or oil or something down and force them to make balance checks.

The 2 really high security areas would be the prison place and the magic item storage. They need to be positioned in a way that an escaping prisoner wouldn't have an easy path to the loot, and there would need to be an emergency plan in case the prisoner got loose.

For the loot, I'd go with a hidden floor between 2 of the other floors. Maybe make it accessible only by going through the wall via magic like Xorn Movement or Stone Shape. You should also have a fake, heavily trapped treasure room.

For the prison room, I suggest using, among other things, a spell called Energy Transformation feild to summon a Wall of Gears blocking the exit to the jail cell, with the guards positioned so that they would be out of range. It's got the same advantages as an AMF (since the prisoner can't use any magic usefully) except it lets the guards buff up and then go into the protected area.

[HalfQuart]

I don't really have any experience playing at that level, but it seems to me you need to block divination and teleportation. You could use a permanent Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/magesPrivateSanctum.htm) on an area at the top of the tower; that would be a neat effect to have the top part constantly in a fog to anyone looking in. But I don't think that's really sufficient; Kuulvheysoon's Genesis scroll idea sounds pretty good... that way the tower would be bigger on the inside. :-) -- good both for keeping things in and keeping them out.

[Telok]

These are some of the spells I used to defend the tower of a moderately paranoid, neutral mage in my game.

Permanent (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/permanency.htm) False Vision (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/falseVision.htm)

Hallow (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/hallow.htm): Magic Circle vs Evil (www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/magicCircleAgainstEvil.htm)

Illusionary Wall (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/illusoryWall.htm) conceals all stairwells. Obvious stairs are traps.

Hidden behind false walls that are set to fall down: Symbol of Weakness (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/symbolOfWeakness.htm), Symbol of Sleep (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/symbolOfSleep.htm), Symbol of Pain (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/symbolOfPain.htm), Symbol of Persuasion (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/symbolOfPersuasion.htm), Symbol of Fear (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/symbolOfFear.htm)

Gaseous Form (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/gaseousForm.htm) to fit through S-shaped pencil sized holes in the ceiling/floor in order to access sealed and Forbiddance (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/forbiddance.htm) barred secure areas.

[rexx1888]

*sigh*



My posts are often blunt and to the point to make you think. I loath to point out every step of something because then you aren't learning.


my posts aren't normally blunt, but I'm going to be right now. No matter how helpful you are intending to be right now, you are instead being rude. Your tone is horrible. Just stop talking. Go away, learn some tact and realise that sometimes whatever smart thing you have to say is worth utterly squat if you say it like a jerk.

[Eric Tolle]

Don't forget the use of Magic Mouths as a warning system on the treasury and important areas. The if-then nature of Magic Mouths means you can use then to relay messages or even make simple computations.

[Oko and Qailee]

*Responding to*


I understand the tower will represent his point of view, but what if (as mentioned above) that point of view include recruiting like minded powerful people. The BBGG doesn't have to be the most powerful, but I would prefer her to be the highest level, even then though I can easily say they have an arcane caster up to level 15 in there.

The group as a whole (whoever worked with her at the time) would have build the tower. Clearing 500ft of forest is no big deal and the area is already a region of relatively flat grassland mostly. So that's covered.

About knowing the NPC.
The NPC prefers defense to offense when preferable and loves ranged fighting and keeping distance. I was imagining there only being a few ways into the tower and between Summons and an high level Melee NPC's the bottom floor would be defended there. The Archer and casters would reign death from above vs an army, but vs less foes the Archer wouldn't be afraid to get a bit closer in order to hit more accurately. She has high Sense Motive, so she's good at assessing an opponents strength. With Ranged Weapon Mastery, Far shot, and Travel Devotion she can easily kite most melee characters.

She would know from experience that casters are difficult to deal with, which is why she would have her own as well. Once again though, she would want those casters to be placing all sorts of "no you can't loot our tower" buffs on the tower.

I appreciate the thought as to trying to make me think more about my tower and BBGG. That's why I posted on here in the first place. I don't know enough about D&D (I know all the rules and stuff, but I never think about such clever ways to put them together as a 2xReverse Gravity trap).




*awesome response*


I think the Genesis might be overkill. My players are very unoptimized except for the party Paladin, but he's a Paladin without SotAO.

Would something like Dispel Magic against non-good be useful with Hallow? Right now I'm thinking of the usefulness of auto-removing buffs vs the usefulness of trueseeing vs invisible foes and the like.

Forbiddance is absurdly pricey :smalleek: I'm not going to take if off the table because, as you said, they should have gold to spare. I will calculate how much it costs though. Won't this be auto-shut down vs the Evil Player though? As it'll be remarkable obvious he's Lawful Evil and he's trying to keep that hidden.

The clockwise thing is brilliant and I never knew that. I am certainly using that, probably going to say it's a -2 circumstance penalty.



*More cool stuff response*


Currently I have each important room with a two Greater Glyphs of warding. One fires off blindness and the other fires off Sound Burst, this allows for the defense to hear where is a hopefully blind intruder.

How easy is it to boost +2CL? Because if it's absurdly so then I'll put one in.

As for Air defense, there's always the elemental guardians, and I'm going to give the group a Mercury Dragon (Adult Cr12), it has already been established plot wise why this D&D Justice League has one as an ally.

I'm thinking of maybe some sort of easily accessible flight for defenders that can be triggered at a moments notice. Obv the casters can use Fly spells, but you never know when you need a Barbarian with a greatsword flying around.



*Cool designs response*


I have actually set a few mundane operations, such as rooms for dinner, sleeping, guest rooms, lounging areas. While the BBGG doesn't spend much of her wealth on extravagance (other than weapons for defense) she understands that a lot of people will be more willing to work for her when there's ample reward (she doesn't hire Evil individuals, but Neutral will do).

My objection with hiring lower level individuals within the tower itself is that it creates are very real opening in the defense. I would imagine for mundane recruitment of lower level characters would begin in a separate building.

I have the Magic items about half-way up the tower and the prisoners about about 3-4ths (It's harder to attack from above than below, so the prisoners (one of which is uber high priority) are higher up, but not at maximum height, because I don't want only one layer of aerial defense to have to fail for the prisoner to escape.

Wow, energy transformation is AMAZING.



*Mages Private Sanctum


Preventing teleportation is indeed super important. I really don't like Scry and Die. If I don't use Forbiddance I'll use Mages Private Sanctum. Which one depends on the total cost.




Gaseous Form (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/gaseousForm.htm) to fit through S-shaped pencil sized holes in the ceiling/floor in order to access sealed and .

This is another super cool idea.

[Deophaun]

-String your turrets into walls.
-Zig-zag those walls to force monster to walk as far as possible to the exit.
-Upgrade the turrets at the end of walls first, where monsters have to spend the most time.
-Don't forget sticky turrets.
-Make sure there are two paths to the exit, that way you can open one and block the other, forcing the monsters to retrace their steps. If you're good, you can keep an infinite of monsters amount going back and forth indefinitely.

That is how you do tower defense.

[Orm-Embar]

As most people are right handed, having stairs going up in a clockwise direction would hamper them offensively (maybe give the attacker a -4 circumstance penalty to attack, or not able to use Power Attack?). This was a strategy used in Real Life for medieval castles.

Nice to see this point brought up. There even was (is) a Scottish clan, prone to left-handedness, who built their interior stairs counterclockwise.

[avr]

Currently I have each important room with a two Greater Glyphs of warding. One fires off blindness and the other fires off Sound Burst, this allows for the defense to hear where is a hopefully blind intruder.

How easy is it to boost +2CL? Because if it's absurdly so then I'll put one in.

As for Air defense, there's always the elemental guardians, and I'm going to give the group a Mercury Dragon (Adult Cr12), it has already been established plot wise why this D&D Justice League has one as an ally.

I'm thinking of maybe some sort of easily accessible flight for defenders that can be triggered at a moments notice. Obv the casters can use Fly spells, but you never know when you need a Barbarian with a greatsword flying around.
For +2 CL an orange prism ioun stone (DMG) and a ring of arcane might (CArc) should be sufficient and well within the means of a 13th level wizard.

Greater glyphs of warding can hold up to 6th level spells - considerably nastier than blindness. Blindness plus sound burst should be on low security areas where killing intruders or nearly so is considered impolite.

OK, so there are creatures who can effectively patrol or scout the local area. Never mind that thought then.

For on-demand flight there might be spell traps (http://www.d20srd.org/indexes/traps.htm) with non-harmful spells. Note that this may need to be limited to avoid the possibility of a Tippyverse if this is not desired.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

-String your turrets into walls.
-Zig-zag those walls to force monster to walk as far as possible to the exit.
-Upgrade the turrets at the end of walls first, where monsters have to spend the most time.
-Don't forget sticky turrets.
-Make sure there are two paths to the exit, that way you can open one and block the other, forcing the monsters to retrace their steps. If you're good, you can keep an infinite of monsters amount going back and forth indefinitely.

That is how you do tower defense.
Argh! Somebody beat me to it!