How do we build (and break) the ultimate city?

[rmnimoc]

So I was wandering the boards earlier when I found an interesting thread about city building (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=86915). Some of the posts (notably Tippy's insanely awesome city walls with built in waterfalls and the Mammon-Tippy waste disposal system that doubles as an amazing treasury and moat-like defense) lead to me wonder just how epic a sufficiently creative player could make a city. Given that I'm human my next thoughts were how awesome it would be to wreck it. Which lead to me thinking how it could be better. Which lead to me talking to the people I play with and tossing this up as an idea for a campaign about city and empire building leading up to an epic scale.

They loved the idea.

I figured the best way to start it would be to start in an amazingly epic city to give them some good idea. Once they fall in love with the city and realize how amazing it is, I'll burn it to the ground and challenge them to do better. Then I realized that no lone person can hold a candle to a group as far as ingenuity and creativity is concerned, so if I wanted to make outdoing my city a real challenge I would need help. For that help I figured I would turn to the greatest resource in DnD history, the 51,000 brilliant members of GitP.

So, how do we make a city so amazing that even after the 3~4 months of planning and leveling and acquiring the resources to build a city, surpassing it will still be a challenge?

After we build this amazing city, how do we break it?

[Alchemyre]

Well as far as destroying it goes, you could hire a pair of Entropomancers to play an extremely over dramatic, anime-style game of volleyball using a sphere of annihilation. Just a thought.

[(Un)Inspired]

I was hoping this post would be about Legos and set building...

[rmnimoc]

Well as far as destroying it goes, you could hire a pair of Entropomancers to play an extremely over dramatic, anime-style game of volleyball using a sphere of annihilation. Just a thought.
Reasons I can't see that working for are below, but my players know enough about the game that I can't see them not calling me out if I did that. Thanks for the suggestion, but it doesn't fit what I'm aiming for.

It would take more than two entropomancers with a SoA to total the best city I can think up, and that isn't even bringing up what anyone else can. I think a metropolis is around 1000 people minimum, assuming a 5 person family living in a small house (assuming 450~ sq ft), that is a minimum of 90000 sq ft. With a entropomancer (total lvl 20) with int 50 that is a max control check of 100 for 110 feet per round (22 squares) or about 18 FPS. Having two might jack it up to 220 ft per round, but I'm not all that sure how multiple people and SoAs work. Giving them a best case scenario that's about 100 turns to do enough damage for me to consider it leveled. That is 100 turns of mental effort (which is competive) while being attacked. Given that they are two lvl twenties I'd say it is plausible. Then consider this is supposed to be the best city we can come up with, (with a standing army, mages, and anything else we come up with for defenses) and this whole plan kinda falls apart. If you add in roads and buildings that aren't housing that jacks it up to a minimum of twice the number of rounds, while being attacked, and all anyone has to do is move the entropomancers 40 feet from the sphere and it stops moving. I can't see that even remotely being an issue.


I was hoping this post would be about Legos and set building... I'm not really sure how to respond to that.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Have you tried googling the stronghold builder's guidebook?

Trust me.

[rmnimoc]

I've got the book, but it isn't me not knowing how to build an impressive city, it's me wanting a city so impressive that it takes some serious thought for them to outbuild it. Plus the book is more about building a castle/dungeon than a city.

[Forrestfire]

So is this a thread about finding ways to destroy a hypothetical city so we can get rid of its flaws? Because that sounds awesome.

I guess the first thing to do would be to get some answer to locate city bombs...

[rmnimoc]

I suppose there isn't much of a way to stop that from killing everyone, but won't a locate city bomb only do like 5 damage to any objects? Unless I'm wrong that isn't even enough to break a wooden door. Not that it needs to since I'm pretty sure offing everything in a 100 mile radius practicality counts as an extinction level event. I'd rather avoid something of that caliber if I can. Awesome as it is to break a city though, we've got to make one to destroy first.
EDIT: As long as everyone is indoors they would probably be (relatively) fine after hitting their first wall.

[Red Fel]

You want to build an awesome city? Build it on rock & roll (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1b8AhIsSYQ).

Also, as a rule, I prefer not to destroy cities. I just destroy their inhabitants. Seems a perfectly good waste of architecture otherwise.

Oh, and look, somebody suggested my beloved Locate City Bomb. I'll throw in that a Wight-ocalypse (using Fell Drain) is a lovely holiday treat, and something most cities - with their majority-first-level-commoner populations - are hard-pressed to prevent.

[Rogue Shadows]

I suppose there isn't much of a way to stop that from killing everyone, but won't a locate city bomb only do like 5 damage to any objects?

It's a d6 per 5 10 feet traveled from the center towards the edge of its effect, if I recall correctly, but also I believe it only affects creatures. EDIT: Actually, wait, no, I don't think it does. I'd have to look over the feats n' such used, but I'm pretty sure that it just deals damage to everything in its area of effect - creatures, objects, whatever.

Still. The bomb is the equivalent of a 4th-level spell and has a 10 miles range per caster level, so its minimum size is 80 miles, or 422,400 feet, or 84,480d6 42,240d6 damage to any creature in the center of the effect.

However, someone should check me on this - do you keep moving regardless of if you hit something before hitting the edge of the bomb, or do you stop moving if you hit something and take appropriate damage, or do you stop moving but take full bomb damage?

A great majority of people are going to hit various objects and take significantly less damage, if you stop moving if you hit something before reaching the edge of the effect and take only appropriate damage. Most commoners will still be killed, but other characters who happened to be standing near a wall will only take a few d6s of damage.

EDIT
Oh, for references, here is locate city bomb:

Take Locate City. AOE, no save, radius 10 miles per CL. (Really, any low level large area spell works.)

Add Snowcasting (frostburn). Adds a snow material component, and gives the spell the Cold descriptor.

Add Flash Frost Spell (PHB2) . modifies any Cold spell with an area to slick that area in ice, for a short duration Grease effect and 2 cold damage, no save.

Add Energy Substitute (CA). Modify any spell with an energy descriptor to use another energy type from the list. Here that list is Electric. It deals 2 electric damage in its area but lacks a save. [EDIT: If you think this prevents the system from working because it's no longer [cold] for flashfrost (despite order of operations on metamagic producing different results), you can also use Energy Admixture and get around the problem.]

Add Born of Three Thunders (CA). Modifies any damaging electric or sonic spell to be both electric and sonic. It also gives the spell a Fortitude save for deafening and a Reflex save for prone, similar to the Great Thunderclap spell. Our spell is now an AoE [Electric/Sonic] (or [Electric, Sonic, Cold]) effect with, among other things, a Reflex save.

Use Explosive Spell (CA). Mmodifies any AoE spell which has a reflex save, which you'll note we now have. Subjects in the area are pushed to the nearest unaffected square. They take 1d6 damage per 10 feet moves this way, due to the FEAT (ie not reducable by evasion). The spell has a radius of MILES. That's a lot of 10' increments before the creatures stop.

[rmnimoc]

Most cities might not be prepared for it, but this is supposed to be the ultimate city/future penultimate, couldn't you either permanency consecrate or have traps of hallow or consecrate?
You only take damage from the distance you did travel with the LCB, and walls do a rather good job at stopping people. Won't stop undertakers from having a busy week though.
I do believe explosive spell specifically says creatures.
Complete Arcane pg 79

You can cast spells that blast creatures off their feet.
Prerequisite

Benefit

On a failed Reflex save, an explosive spell ejects any creature caught in its area, sending it to a location outside the nearest edge of that area, dealing additional damage and further knocking creatures prone. For example, all creatures in the area of an explosive fireball that fail their saving throws not only take full damage but are pushed to the closest square outside the perimeter of the spell's 20-foot-radius spread. Likewise, an explosive lightning bolt moves targets that fail their saves to outside the area defi ned by the squares the bolt's line passes through. Any creature moved in this manner also takes an additional 1d6 points of damage per 10 feet moved (no additional damage if moved less than 10 feet by the effect) and is knocked prone. If some obstacle prevents a blasted creature from being moved to the edge of the effect, the creature is stopped and takes 1d6 points of damage from striking the barrier (in addition to any damage taken from the distance moved before then). In any event, this movement does not provoke attacks of opportunity. Explosive Spell can be applied only to spells that allow Refl ex saves and affect an area (a cone, cylinder, line, or burst). An explosive spell uses up a spell slot two levels higher than the spell's actual level.

[Rogue Shadows]

You only take damage from the distance you did travel with the LCB, and walls do a rather good job at stopping people. Won't stop undertakers from having a busy week though.

Fair enough. Even a d6 of damage is enough to reduce most human commoners (2 hp) to 0 hp, though.


I do believe explosive spell specifically says creatures.

Well, some creatures may very well be dealing dozens of d6s of damage to objects they collide with, which may very well be enough to break them, anyway.

Regardless, it's still kinda' cool that the bomb not only kills the majority of creatures, but leaves behind an intact city. Now just add fell drain...

[rmnimoc]

Concecrate would keep any wights from rising.
Like I said before though, I'd rather avoid using the LCB if at all possible. The instant my players learn about this all manner of fireball material components will start to hit the fan.

[dantiesilva]

Hey look its a normal every day real world apartment complex, until you open the door to your apartment and find it is really Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Mansion. Now use epic spellcasting to make it last forever with the permanency spell you researched. Now you have to deal with the walls being destroyed. Build the walls out of the hardest materials invented in D&D covered by layers of led, and illusions so it looks fancy. And outside of the illusion is an invisible wall of force.

That was just off the top of my head without trying of making the best city ever mind you.

[Kerilstrasz]

Well... i think i have the craziest idea about D&D in general so far...
i might be wrong about mechanics but here it is...

This is for how to spectacularly destroy the city...

1st. You need a way for a person's voice to reach EVERY spot in the city..
i suppose you could have magic mouths to say the message you want(i ll tell you later about the message) with trigger to activate when they hear the message...
So.. you speak the message (for example "The red stone is made of oily spinach" near one M.Mouth, and it triggers and repeats it, that triggers the next, and the next up to the whole M.Mouth network.
2nd. The message is a trigger word for a hidden network of traps to destroy a hidden network of little beads on which you had cast perma AMF.
3rd. With the AmF now gone, every object in city (stones, bricks, lampposts.. every thing) becomes again what it previously was before the effect of AMF...
animated objects that as last order it had "destroy everything!"

So.. if all of the above work, and planned correctly, you dont need to destroy the city... the city will destroy herself!

[WbtE]

I think this challenge would be easier if the city had constraints in terms of space and wealth. Otherwise the "ultimate city" is just the "penultimate city" + one square foot of ornate frescoes (or whatever).

[rmnimoc]

Hey look its a normal every day real world apartment complex, until you open the door to your apartment and find it is really Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Mansion. Now use epic spellcasting to make it last forever with the permanency spell you researched. Now you have to deal with the walls being destroyed. Build the walls out of the hardest materials invented in D&D covered by layers of led, and illusions so it looks fancy. And outside of the illusion is an invisible wall of force.

That was just off the top of my head without trying of making the best city ever mind you.
Why would you cover a wall of force in layers LEDs? Why would you cover anything is layers of leds? o.o?
Making every building a permanent MMM would be pretty awesome though, while also making it rather easy to total. Well, easy by comparison. Just have another epic caster dispel the whole city.

Well... i think i have the craziest idea about D&D in general so far...
i might be wrong about mechanics but here it is...

This is for how to spectacularly destroy the city...

1st. You need a way for a person's voice to reach EVERY spot in the city..
i suppose you could have magic mouths to say the message you want(i ll tell you later about the message) with trigger to activate when they hear the message...
So.. you speak the message (for example "The red stone is made of oily spinach" near one M.Mouth, and it triggers and repeats it, that triggers the next, and the next up to the whole M.Mouth network.
2nd. The message is a trigger word for a hidden network of traps to destroy a hidden network of little beads on which you had cast perma AMF.
3rd. With the AmF now gone, every object in city (stones, bricks, lampposts.. every thing) becomes again what it previously was before the effect of AMF...
animated objects that as last order it had "destroy everything!"

So.. if all of the above work, and planned correctly, you dont need to destroy the city... the city will destroy herself!
That is a special kind of epic. Ridiculous impossible for someone to animate every single object in a city though, and I'm pretty sure someone would notice you doing that, but that idea is going to be used. Just not for this. (That would make arguably the greatest dungeon ever.)


I think this challenge would be easier if the city had constraints in terms of space and wealth. Otherwise the "ultimate city" is just the "penultimate city" + one square foot of ornate frescoes (or whatever).
I'm a huge fan of not imposing arbitrary limits on things, if they can scrounge up the money and space, I see no reason why they can't build it. And I doubt one sq. ft. of ornate frescoes would really help the city defend itself against whatever destroyed the penultimate city which is the goal. Especially since I plan on keeping them preoccupied by something else while whatever the thing is is trying to destroy it.
Thanks to you I'm going to end up wasting a week trying to figure out how weaponize fancy murals.

[WbtE]

I'm a huge fan of not imposing arbitrary limits on things, if they can scrounge up the money and space, I see no reason why they can't build it.

Sorry, I meant limits for the penultimate city to be dreamed up here.


I doubt one sq. ft. of ornate frescoes would really help the city defend itself against whatever destroyed the penultimate city which is the goal.

The first time I saw one of Raphael's works (admittedly, larger than one square foot) in person I was quite awestruck. Perhaps it would have been different if people were firing arrows at me, but you never know.

[Forrestfire]

Thanks to you I'm going to end up wasting a week trying to figure out how weaponize fancy murals.

I'm fairly sure that there's at least one monster made of ink or paint. :smallamused:

[rmnimoc]

My bad, as for limts on the penultimate city... I'm at work so I don't have the my books with me, but I'd say since they will be going to epic levels and doing this the previous city builders might have as well. So whatever the WBL of 5 level 20s *1.5 is seems fair (since everyone almost always ends up with more gold than WBL would suggest). That said my books are at home so I'm not sure that number is as reasonable as it sounds in my head.

[icefractal]

Locate City bombs (and their related cousins, pretty much anything that deals damage in a massive area) are the first thing you have to worry about, not just for the penultimate city, but for any city better than some shacks to exist.

Basically, if you allow those spells to work, you have three options:
1) There are no casters high-enough level, or a very small number that all have reasons not to destroy cities. High enough level can be single-digit though, IIRC.
2) There is a way to protect cities that's cheap and convenient enough to ward at least any good-sized town.
3) There aren't cities, or even large towns. People who can live in underground fortresses; the small villages on the surface are occupied by those too inconsequential to be worth vaporizing.

I don't think that a "mutual assured destruction" stalemate works when individual casters, some of who may be crazy and/or following a god of destruction, can do this.


Personally, I go with semi-disallowing them - any metamagic that applies "extra stuff" to an AoE spell can only affect up to a 5'/CL radius. You can still destroy cities once you get the 8th/9th level spells that do large scale damaging AoEs without metamagic, but that's fine - a 15th+ level character being a threat to cities sounds about right, and those spells do have ways to deal with them.

I could go with #2 instead, and have an "anti-AoE" warding spell on any city worth the name, but honestly that just sounds like a way to get the same thing with more wasted time on both ends.

[WbtE]

My bad, as for limts on the penultimate city... I'm at work so I don't have the my books with me, but I'd say since they will be going to epic levels and doing this the previous city builders might have as well. So whatever the WBL of 5 level 20s *1.5 is seems fair (since everyone almost always ends up with more gold than WBL would suggest). That said my books are at home so I'm not sure that number is as reasonable as it sounds in my head.

That would be 5,400,000gp, or about 216gp per citizen for a settlement of 25,000. I think you'll want to go at least an order of magnitude higher - don't worry too much about the PCs, they'll be able to do a lot of the work themselves. :smallsmile:

[rmnimoc]

Locate City bombs (and their related cousins, pretty much anything that deals damage in a massive area) are the first thing you have to worry about, not just for the penultimate city, but for any city better than some shacks to exist.

Basically, if you allow those spells to work, you have three options:
1) There are no casters high-enough level, or a very small number that all have reasons not to destroy cities. High enough level can be single-digit though, IIRC.
2) There is a way to protect cities that's cheap and convenient enough to ward at least any good-sized town.
3) There aren't cities, or even large towns. People who can live in underground fortresses; the small villages on the surface are occupied by those too inconsequential to be worth vaporizing.

I don't think that a "mutual assured destruction" stalemate works when individual casters, some of who may be crazy and/or following a god of destruction, can do this.


Personally, I go with semi-disallowing them - any metamagic that applies "extra stuff" to an AoE spell can only affect up to a 5'/CL radius. You can still destroy cities once you get the 8th/9th level spells that do large scale damaging AoEs without metamagic, but that's fine - a 15th+ level character being a threat to cities sounds about right, and those spells do have ways to deal with them.

I could go with #2 instead, and have an "anti-AoE" warding spell on any city worth the name, but honestly that just sounds like a way to get the same thing with more wasted time on both ends.
Plenty of times through history amazing weapons were invented that could have been invented hundreds of years earlier if someone sat down and thought about such things. In my mind, insane as a LCB is it makes sense (as in it works RAW and while it is a ridiculous exploit it seems like a totally viable thing in my head), so I'd rather not just ban it, and since I have a tendency to stack metamagic myself (I conquered the nine hells with 3 castings of a spell in a lvl 1 slot at level 22). In my mind all those things are possible, it's just no one has opened that particular pandora's box yet. It takes someone truly unique to create something as off the wall as a nuclear divination spell.


That would be 5,400,000gp, or about 216gp per citizen for a settlement of 25,000. I think you'll want to go at least an order of magnitude higher - don't worry too much about the PCs, they'll be able to do a lot of the work themselves.
I'll go with 81,000,000 then (WBL for 20*1.5*10*1.5). That sound reasonable?
I highly doubt that wealth will even begin to be that big of a problem for the PCs, they have a tendency to figure out new and inventive ways to become insanely wealthy, usually through insane levels of diplomacy on things that have wish.

I'm fairly sure that there's at least one monster made of ink or paint. If there is I'll find it. If not, I'm sure I can make an epic spell that says otherwise.

[Forrestfire]

Hrm... Would having people in the city with Rings of Counterspelling set to Locate City/Apocalypse from the Sky work?

Oh, another thing that can be used to make the city stronger is to line the buildings with extremely thin layers of riverine. Because it's made of force, the thickness doesn't matter when it comes to stopping damage.

Ooh, if you used two layers of riverine, you could sandwich lead foil inside it to keep divinations out without having to worry about lead poisoning.

[rmnimoc]

Hrm... Would having people in the city with Rings of Counterspelling set to Locate City/Apocalypse from the Sky work?

Oh, another thing that can be used to make the city stronger is to line the buildings with extremely thin layers of riverine. Because it's made of force, the thickness doesn't matter when it comes to stopping damage.

Ooh, if you used two layers of riverine, you could sandwich lead foil inside it to keep divinations out without having to worry about lead poisoning.
Don't rings of counterspell only hold up to spell level 7 or something? (Would a ring of counterspelling activate on either of those? AftS is a level nine spell and don't both AftS and the LCB target the caster, not anyone else? I thought for a ring of counterspelling to activate you had to actually be the target. After all isn't the person with the ring not the actual target?) The next idea though? Brilliant. I know absolutely nothing about riverine, but soon as I get home I'll check it out. What book is it in?
Also, can you set up some way for a contingency on a city (as in when this is cast, counterspell)? Like casting it on someone and casting flesh to stone on said person? Have it be a year long job with great pay, I can bet a few people would go for it if they knew you could do it and undo it safely.

[Forrestfire]

Riverine is in Stormwrack, it's basically a wall of force that can be worked like metal.

[rmnimoc]

I'm not sure Locate City is in the scrying subscool, so I doubt lead can stop it from offing all my poor little commoners. Granted, I want them all to die anyway but.....

Anyone know the cost of Riverine?

[Forrestfire]

The lead is a generic defense against scrying and divinations. After all, what kind of ultimate city would it be if adventurers could just scry-and-die things in it?

Riverine is 2,000gp per pound. I think the best way to use it is to find a way to buff your Craft(architecture or whatever) skill up to ridiculous levels then use a fabricate spell to make buildings out of the thinnest sheets you can make.

[herrhauptmann]

There used to a thread about building an entire city around a tarrasque.

Employs a small army of people to keep it restrained, and they harvest it for food and magical reagents.

[rmnimoc]

Alright, so we now have a city with:
-Riverine covered lead walls (just how thin can force walls get?)
-Reseting create food and water traps for 25,000 people (~6,000,000gp?)
-A handful of petrified guards with contingency counterspells against AftS (if we can actually do that)

What else can we do.....

Edit: We could possibly save the money on create food traps by centering the city around a tarrasque, and it isn't impossible (or even difficult) for a party of lvl 20s to take one down so it's sound there. That also helps flavor the city a bit more, which is always good.

[herrhauptmann]

Also, if they don't KNOW there's a tarrasque under the city, they'll have a fun time when they finally destroy everything and Big T comes out of the wreckage a few minutes later.
Not as good a boss fight as in Bastion of Broken Souls in the 3.0 adventure path, but oh well.

[Skysaber]

Every post I've seen so far is how to make a great military. But there's a lot more aspects to a city than that.

The Justice system. You've got to have one, and it ought to be more than Shadesteel golems able to bash things with a stick that annoy you. Try putting up permanent Zones of Truth around your courthouses and marketplaces. It won't stop everyone lying, some will make their saves, but it can and will make a difference in the lives of ordinary people.

And fewer lies = happier people in almost a direct one for one correlation.

It's been my experience that most people don't care about the military until it fails to protect them. Until then it's invisible.

[icefractal]

If you're using PF material, Touch of Truthtelling is far superior to Zone of Truth. The reason? It puts a mark on their forehead if they're subject to it. No more worries about people making the save or being immune - just don't let them testify until they willingly accept it.


Speaking of the justice system - if we're going with a city powerful enough to Riverine everything up, then that gives us an option for imprisonment that's a hell of a lot more reliable (and less expensive) than anti-magic cells.

First off, we should consider the reasons for imprisonment:
A) Keeping the person out of commission for the given amount of time.
B) Rehabilitation and/or punishment

For A, the solution is simple. Flesh to Stone. Then put store the statue as securely as you like. When the sentence is up, Break Enchantment. No chance of self-powered escape, and easier to prevent a rescue.

For B, we turn to the old favorite, Programmed Amnesia. Implant the memories of whatever kind of prison sentence you want. If you're not concerned with ethics, you could also use this to force whatever kind of rehabilitation you want, but that's not necessary.

This also means you can mix and match durations between the two. Give someone a ten-year (subjective) sentence that only lasts a week, or conversely, a one week (subjective) sentence that lasts ten years. Maybe have two different judges decide the subjective and objective length, for some interesting flavor.


Re: "Nuke" protection - the problem with counterspelling is that it isn't one single spell that can do this, it's a whole bunch of them. Apocalypse from the Sky isn't even the one I'd worry about, as it's a 9th level spell with somewhat irritating components. But the Locate City trick works just as well with any number of other spells instead of Locate City.

Also, a lot of these have large enough areas that they could be cast from outside the city, preventing counterspelling even if prepared. Some of them emanate from a creature/item, and thus could be cast any distance away and teleported in.

So for protection, I think you need either:
A) A dome of force around the city, preventing LoE to anyone inside.
B) Ultra-durable walls on all buildings, enclosed walkways, most citizens never go outside. Safer than A, because it blocks nukes from inside the city, but gives you kind of a bomb-shelter aesthetic.
C) Some kind of homebrewed anti-AoE spell/effect.


Here's another one to watch out for: The Shadow Cascade.
3-4 Shadows can easily pop out of the ground and take down an average person in the surprise round. Then that person becomes another Shadow. By the time anyone notices, there are dozens or hundreds and they can hide underground to avoid Clerics.

Solution: Force walls stop incorporeal creatures, so just make the floors out of Riverine also and you prevent ground lurking. Shadows can still fly in the normal way, but if your guards have measures to deal with them (decent quantities of Magic Missiles handle them nicely) then you're good.

This leaves the secondary problem of Shadows hanging around outside your city and sniping the trade caravans. Solution: Turn some guards ethereal, give them a way to detect undead, and have them fly through the ground and zap any Shadows they find.

[herrhauptmann]

Here's a better way to punish someone that turning them to stone.
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16583700&postcount=7
Now they're actually conscious to experience their punishment. Yeah it's expensive. But you also only have to worry about SR, rather than someone who's somehow immune to petrification effects and the like.

[rmnimoc]

Every post I've seen so far is how to make a great military. But there's a lot more aspects to a city than that.

The Justice system. You've got to have one, and it ought to be more than Shadesteel golems able to bash things with a stick that annoy you. Try putting up permanent Zones of Truth around your courthouses and marketplaces. It won't stop everyone lying, some will make their saves, but it can and will make a difference in the lives of ordinary people.

And fewer lies = happier people in almost a direct one for one correlation.

It's been my experience that most people don't care about the military until it fails to protect them. Until then it's invisible.
Today 01:05 AM
Thank you. A city that is well defended is an impressive city, but a city that has to have more than that to be memorable. I was already a decent way towards hammering out a justice system (since Tippy offered some amazing ideas on the thread I mentioned in the op). All courtrooms being in zones of truth, using probe thoughts to answer questions during a trial, possibly even using an outsider from mechanus, arcadia, or celestia.
Nuke protection. Figuring this out might be a tall order, but I'm sure we can come close and any holes in our defense gives the players another way to one up it which is good.
For the shadows, just like wights, consecratehallow will prevent an apocalypse, the floors of riverine are also a cool idea. I can't be the only one who thinks having ethereal guards would be hilarious am I? We might have to find a way to make sure all the commoners pass a will or fortitude save to keep from having a heart attack the first time a guard pops out of the ground to say hi.
Guard: *Raises head just above the ground* "Good morning citizen."
Level one commoner who just moved here: "AHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!" *Falls over dead*
Guard: "Oops."

l suppose using criminals for the counterspell statues might be quite a bit cheaper than paying someone for it. I don't know if I could set up a counterspell contingency on someone unwilling/ in temporal stasis (them again I am the DM, I can probably do whatever I wanted if it REALLY came down to it.
Programmed amnesia is an amazing idea, plus a few of my players will find it on the edge of morality if it is used to rehabilitate someone (another way to be different and possibly even better. Plus the morality vs the pragmatism aspect of it is the kind of thing my players tend to enjoy.

So now in addition to all we already have, we now have a bunch of level 9 clerics running around hallowing everything. It has a duration of a year so the clerics just run around (well, walk 80 feet away every 24 hours) slowly circling around hallowing everything. Each cleric can cover about 14600 square feet a year, but the costs for material components make that at minimum 365000 gp a year per cleric, making a decent sized metropolis around 45000000 gp a year. Ouch. Okay hallowing everything is a terrible idea.

[Forrestfire]

I'm sure that with the wealth for starting the city, making something to get enough money for components would be trivial.

Also, riverine floors and walls, while useful against things that would break the city, make incorporeal guards a less useful proposition, since they can't pass through them.