Challenge: The Emperor's New Clothes

[icefractal]

Think you're a master of magic items? Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is simple - the new emperor of Somewhere doesn't intend to hide in a fortress and communicate by illusions. He's going to walk around and meet the people in person. However, the emperor is a low-level Aristocrat. Armed with only a huge budget, make sure he's prepared to survive any assassination/kidnapping/whatever attempts.

The Emperor
The emperor is a neutral human Aristocrat 3, with Str 12, Dex 8, Con 13, Int 14, Wis 10, Cha 15 (elite array, picked semi-randomly).
Of his seven skills, five of them are reserved for things he needs to rule well, and can't be re-assigned.

Your Tools
1) Your budget is basically unlimited, although spending less is more impressive.
2) You have one year before the emperor takes the throne, during which time he won't be seen by the public, so you can be doing whatever with him.
3) After that, he'll be busy. You have half an hour a day and two full days a month for any maintenance your protections require.

The Goal
The emperor needs to survive assassins, which could mean basically anything that can disguise itself well enough to be in a city. So probably not the Tarrasque. He doesn't have to fight them, just escape from them or remain safe long enough for sufficient guards to show up. The Empire of Somewhere is a powerful empire with powerful enemies, so these assassins could be pretty high CR.
He's probably only going to deal with one attempt a day at most, since an attempted assassination is good enough reason to go back inside his fortress for the rest of the day. But any replacements (Crafted Contigent spells, etc) better be replaceable within the time budget above.
You don't have to worry about making him good at being an emperor, that's another team. But they might be using magic items, so Vow of Poverty is a no, for example.

The Requirements
1) The emperor needs to remain living, and look like a normal human (under True Seeing), with no evil aura.
2) It needs to be the actual emperor himself, not an Ice Assassin of an Aleax of him or something.
3) The emperor has to be under his own control. He can't be a mount/animal companion/cohort/etc.
4) Similarly, no vows to gods, no diabolic pacts, etc.
5) No visible grafts, no undead or demonic grafts period. And no detectably evil magic items.
6) He can't explode or look weird in an anti-magic field.
7) He needs to meet people in person. That means actually being physically present and touching them with his actual body.
8) Also, he needs to produce an heir, so he must be able to have children with a normal human and the offspring must meet the above requirements.
9) There's a limit to how much the emperor will put up with during the prep year. He'll spend time in the Otyugh Hole - once. That's the limit. Catalogs of Pain, or whatever that magic location in hell is called? Nope.

Meta Rules
1) No infinite loops.
2) No adding or changing the emperor's levels. He must stay an Aristocrat 3 with no additional HD of any type.
3) Feats "remember" their origin when using DFCS, so no repeated trips to the Otyugh Hole or Heroics.
4) You're only optimizing the emperor. Additional guards/familiars/whatever can't be assumed to be present.
5) No high-time-rate demiplanes. I want those time limits to mean something.

So - with those limits ... how survivable can you make this emperor?

[JeminiZero]

How does the Emperor feel about Astral Projection and True Mind Switch? :smalltongue:

[icefractal]

Astral Projection - nope. He has to meet people with his actual body, it's a respect/confidence thing.

True Mind Switch - Interesting point. I don't think it fails the Requirements (as long as the new body is human-looking, etc), but it's iffy on the Meta-Rules (no adding more levels/HD).

If the new body has 3 HD or less, I'll allow it.

[deuxhero]

Does he need an heir if the preparations give immortality too?

[Skysaber]

Regeneration covers a load of ills. That way an Uber-charger breaking through the crowd or a Hulking Hurler tossing an inn at him become survivable events.

Shadow Hand has a maneuver that lets you become incorporeal as an immediate action. That has real possibilities. Except there is no way to grant him the manifester level for it. A couple of rings for Diamond Mind saves might be to the good, though, especially along with an item that boosts his Concentration skill checks.

Tinfoil hat becomes a definite must. Make one of the emperor's feats Obtain Familiar and let his lil' buddy always have a readied action to pop the command word for His Royal Highness' personal iron tent.

Might look into Regelia of the Phoenix, in the back of the MIC. A contingent auto-Heal 1/day has a lot going for it.

+6 Belt of Magnificence is not going to hurt much. Combine that, using the item stacking rules, with a Belt of Hidden Pouches and you gain the ability to hide lots of gear without ruining the slender lines of His Highness' robes, and it has a familiar pocket as well so his cuddly guard can always be there, ready to trigger off the hat.

A starmantle cloak (Book of Exalted Deeds, p116) makes him immune to damage from non-magical weapons and lets his Imperial-ness make a reflex save to take half damage from magical weapons. His Ref saves will suck, but they'll suck slightly less with the belt on. Hopefully, with a ring of Diamond Mind and an item of +30 to Concentration checks he'll make the first save.

A cowl of warding (Magic of Faerun, p156) makes our walking target dummy immune to anything that would affect his mind or limit his movement. Alternately, you could combine a third eye conceal (Magic Item Compendium, p141) and a ring of freedom of movement to get the same result.

A Hathran mask of true seeing (Unapproachable East, p57) allows him to see through any magical effect that would hide something from the royal gaze or show him something false, eliminating lots of options on that front.

Really, though? Have an invisible simulacrum of the emperor follow him around everywhere. Yes, even into the toilet. This simulacrum has one job, and one job only. The moment it perceives any attack upon the emperor it is to Benign Transposition out with him via a readied action.

Keep a closet full of spares. One for every day of the month, at least. Lean on the imperial treasury to have them stock up on enough Pearls of Power of the appropriate levels for you to show up one day each month with a single simulacrum spell memorized, then cast the thirty or so needed, using pearls to refresh the spell.

[Gemini476]

When you say that the DCFS feats remember their origin, what do you mean? Do you mean that trying to shuffle away Iron Will will just give you Iron Will again, or do you mean that even if you shuffled away Iron Will for Toughness going back to the Otyough Pits wouldn't give you a feat again?

Also, do we get to choose his feats? And do you want a specific build for our Most Esteemed Court Wizard?

[cosmonuts]

As with everything that has been said so far, emperor has soulfire and heavy fortification armor enhancements tacked on. No crits, no death effects.

Boots of temporal acceleration to give himself time to run.

Amulet of second chances to protect against the inconceivable.

Third eye clarity so he can survive one stun/daze.

[Gemini476]

To expand upon what I'm currently thinking of:

Be a Wizard 14/Spellguard of Silverymoon 4.
Have Spell Focus (Necromancy), Black Lore of Moil, and Magic of the Land.

Use the Dark Chaos Shuffle to give the Emperor Tomb-Tainted Soul (or pay someone to Psychic Reformation him, I guess). (This requires the Emperor to be non-good.) Cast Black Lore of Moil Hide Life through your Spellguard, with TTS making the Emperor be healed by negative energy damage and thus have BLoMHL count as a defensive spell for the purposes of the Spellguard.
The Emperor is now immune to all forms of death until his detached bodypart is destroyed. I suggest a finger.

At this point, get rid of Tomb-Tainted Soul. Have someone cast Regenerate to replace the lost finger.

Now cast Contingency, using Magic of the Land to make it count as a defensive spell for the purpose of Spellguard. Or Chained Contingency, if you want to speed things up. Put any nonaligned non-necromancy Personal range spells you feel like putting onto the Emperor in the Contingency, be it Teleport or Shapechange or whatever. Maybe have a Demiplane with the minor positive-dominant trait and spells and spell-like abilities restricted to Plane Shift (so he can get back once the heat cools down.)

So yeah. If you can get Tome-Tainted Soul onto the Emperor then you can cast any Personal-range Necromancy spell on him, and if he doesn't currently have a Tomb-Tainted Soul then Magic of the Land means that you could put any non-aligned non-necromancy spell with a Personal range onto him.

You can have a total of four Contingencies on him, in other words: one from the spell itself, and three Contingent Spells. Here's a handy table for how long it takes to make a Contignent Spell, if anyone wonders:


Level
Cost
Days


1
100
1


2
600
1


3
1500
2


4
2800
3


5
4500
5


6
6600
7


7
9100
10


8
12000
12


9
15300
16

[Zweisteine]

For something like 540,000 gp, he can get a greater psychoactive skin of proteus. It's basically always-on shapechange (actually greater metamorphosis). Another item (of alter self), would let him look like your normal self as well.

Under true seeing, he'd look like whatever he was whatever he was using alter self to be. A polymorph-piercing effect sees his true form, but with a psychoactive skin on.

Greater metamorphosis can grant many, many, many powerful defenses.

And I'm out of time to write.

[Snowbluff]

Crank everything worth cranking.

+5 Defending Ringblade Poison Rings x5
+5 Defending Ringblade Spiked Gauntlets x5

69 AC. Not impossible to bypass, but handy against most forms of attack.

[Shining Wrath]

Ring of Regeneration, since that takes HP loss out of the picture.
Item granting Dimensional Anchor, because you don't want the assassins to take the Emperor away and kill him at their leisure.
Item granting Greater Anticipate Teleport, so that the assassins can't just arrive en masse out of nowhere
Item granting Mind Blank
Place Elminster's Evasion on him. The "safe place" has to itself be warded with all sorts of wards, naturally, and guarded by 1 more perfectly loyal guard than the assassins can possibly hope to defeat
Items granting Protection from Chaos, Evil, Good, and Law
Use Greater Planar Ally to obtain several 18 HD Neutral Outsiders that will, for payment, agree to serve as the Emperor's bodyguards and companions. Choose some allies that have cleric levels and can cast restoration / resurrection if needed. Among the ally's duties are helping to identify and remove any curses cast upon the Emperor. Since money is no object, have teams of them with rotating expiration dates and different strengths and weaknesses
The allies have Greater Anticipate Teleport item, too, and also Mind Blank items
Edit: Also, Ring of Free Action so he can't be kept from leaving

[thethird]

How does he feel about wheelchairs? Well not necessarily wheel chairs we can probably have him an intelligent moving throne.

That has a self resetting trap to cast Revenance (spell compendium) continually on him. Now we only need to plate it in gold and a torchlight atop of it...

[Jack_Simth]

OK. We give him a cursed Necklace of Adaptation and a cursed toe ring (of Sustenance) that both have a number of automatic reset magic device traps built into them:

Disjunction (Detection Method: Greater Arcane Sight. Goes off when a spell is cast within range, targets the area the King is in - but not The King)
True Resurrection (Detection Method: Status. Goes off when the King is dead).
Break Enchantment (high CL; Detection Method: Greater Arcane Sight. Goes off on the King whenever anything it might solve is on the King)
Greater Dispel Magic (high CL; Detection Method: Greater Arcane Sight. Goes off whenever any unexpected magic is on the king)
Greater Restoration (Detection Method: Status, Greater Arcane Sight. Goes off whenever something it might solve is on the King)
Freedom (detection method: Status, Greater Arcane Sight. Goes off whenever something it might solve is on the King)
Heal (detection method: Status. Goes off whenever something it might solve is on the King)
Greater Plane Shift (goes off when any of the above trigger for any reason, or when the paired item stops functioning for any reason; sends him to an extraplanar fortress)
Protection from Evil (goes off on him regularly)
True Seeing (goes off on him regularly)
Delay Death (goes off on him regularly)
Mind Blank (goes off on him regularly)
Favour of the Martyr (goes off on him regularly - among other things, granting him Endurance)
Heroics (goes off on him regularly - granting him Diehard)
Freedom of Movement (goes off on him regularly)
Death Ward (goes off on him regularly)
Energy Immunity (goes off on him regularly, rotates through energy types)

Expensive as all get-out? Sure. Hard to get around? Yes. However, he can still touch people, have fun with his wife, et cetera.

Who needs Contingency?

Edit: Oh yes, and just for giggles, we make both of them Intelligent Magic Items with a dedicated purpose of protecting the King. Which means, among other things, that they can trigger their traps when they feel like it if something else comes up.

[Shining Wrath]

OK. We give him a cursed Necklace of Adaptation and a cursed toe ring (of Sustenance) that both have a number of automatic reset magic device traps built into them:

Disjunction (Detection Method: Greater Arcane Sight. Goes off when a spell is cast within range, targets the area the King is in - but not The King)
True Resurrection (Detection Method: Status. Goes off when the King is dead).
Break Enchantment (high CL; Detection Method: Greater Arcane Sight. Goes off on the King whenever anything it might solve is on the King)
Greater Dispel Magic (high CL; Detection Method: Greater Arcane Sight. Goes off whenever any unexpected magic is on the king)
Greater Restoration (Detection Method: Status, Greater Arcane Sight. Goes off whenever something it might solve is on the King)
Freedom (detection method: Status, Greater Arcane Sight. Goes off whenever something it might solve is on the King)
Heal (detection method: Status. Goes off whenever something it might solve is on the King)
Greater Plane Shift (goes off when any of the above trigger for any reason, or when the paired item stops functioning for any reason; sends him to an extraplanar fortress)
Protection from Evil (goes off on him regularly)
True Seeing (goes off on him regularly)
Delay Death (goes off on him regularly)
Mind Blank (goes off on him regularly)
Favour of the Martyr (goes off on him regularly - among other things, granting him Endurance)
Heroics (goes off on him regularly - granting him Diehard)
Freedom of Movement (goes off on him regularly)
Death Ward (goes off on him regularly)
Energy Immunity (goes off on him regularly, rotates through energy types)

Expensive as all get-out? Sure. Hard to get around? Yes. However, he can still touch people, have fun with his wife, et cetera.

Who needs Contingency?

Edit: Oh yes, and just for giggles, we make both of them Intelligent Magic Items with a dedicated purpose of protecting the King. Which means, among other things, that they can trigger their traps when they feel like it if something else comes up.

I think it's still possible for the assassins to gate him elsewhere and Dimensional Anchor him immediately upon arrival at the other end, then take away his toys and dismember him.

[Jack_Simth]

I think it's still possible for the assassins to gate him elsewhere and Dimensional Anchor him immediately upon arrival at the other end, then take away his toys and dismember him.
He never arrives. The Gate gets Disjoined (it opens in his vicinity, after all), and then he's whisked away to his fortress.

Edit: That said, he can be taken down. It just requires as many sunderers with readied actions as he has toys (so that all toys get destroyed simultaneously).

[Vaz]

Starmantle Cloak and Use Activated Item of Evade Burst (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/evadeBurst.htm).

[Windstorm]

How does he feel about wheelchairs? Well not necessarily wheel chairs we can probably have him an intelligent moving throne.

That has a self resetting trap to cast Revenance (spell compendium) continually on him. Now we only need to plate it in gold and a torchlight atop of it...

I laughed more than I should have.

I can't think of anything that hasn't already been said, other than this proves how much of an enabler large sums of gold are in 3.5.

[Azoth]

If you can get an archivist5/runecaster8 to do his crafting, you can load him up with slotless permanent runes of any divine spell. Hell if his craft skill of choice for his runes is jewelry you can load up as many of these on a beaded necklace or bracelt as you wish with command triggers as vague as you like. The spells stored in the runes will activate instantly once the rune is triggered regardless of casting time. This allows the buffs to be active constantly.

Using simple normal jewelry works best since it won't instantly draw attention to the item as a prime target for theft or dispelling.

Runes also only take 10min+casting time of the spell to create. So you can churn out alot of them in just 1 day. Another fun foible of them is that the spell is fully cast into the rune so any metamagic you can apply to the spell is put into the rune and any save DC against the effect is full on 10+spell level+creator's ability mod instead of 10+spell level+minimum ability mod to cast.

You can also get a wiz or sorcerer to enter rune caster using southern magic or alternate spell source for all those delicious buffs.

How about a permanent rune of Wings of Cover set to trigger anytime someone attacks you. Full on immunity to attacks without action expenditure for 2x4x2000=16k gold. Pure rule's legal non custom item