Wizards on a Rampage aka "Burning Down the House"

[AWiz_Abroad]

My high level wizard (yes I've got 9ths) is getting ready to go face some fortified enemies (constructs). Resources aren't a problem, and I'm wondering the best spells in your opinion for dealing with forts.

Couple of considerations

1. I've got nearly unlimited resources, however, Epic spellcasting, chaingating solars, and other fondue is no go. I do have some time to play with if that's the restricting factor (managed to score 3 20s in a row to see if a vendor had a copy of Teleport through time). That being said, we're not going to be able to go back before the fort, and build our own.
2. The fort I'm going up against is in the center of a very very long bridge, and I need the bridge intact after the battle
3. There are two walls approx 150feet apart with a 30x30 2 story blockhouse in the center (with probable high ranking baddies/casters inside)
4. While my compatriots are very dangerous in their own ways, most of the other casters are specc'ed for murder, not so much mayhem (I'm the BFC/Utility caster)

Current plan involves some Clerics Holy Wording the mooks, some careful applications of Prismatic walls over walls of force surrounded by acid fogs to separate the enemy forces , and the meleers wasting folks while the casters melt faces and keep arrows off of everyone. I had the thought that blowing the walls, or the blockhouse might accomplish some of the same effect.

Any thoughts would be apprciated.

[ArcaneGlyph]

Step 1. Cast Shrink on a pile of boulders
Step 2. Cast Mass fly on you party
Step 4. Drop boulders on enemy while removing the shrink.
Step 5... try not to step in any enemy goo.

For more meyham.. hollow them out and fill em with alchemist fire and other nasty alchemist things.

[Sudain]

My high level wizard (yes I've got 9ths) is getting ready to go face some fortified enemies (constructs). Resources aren't a problem, and I'm wondering the best spells in your opinion for dealing with forts.

Couple of considerations

1. I've got nearly unlimited resources, however, Epic spellcasting, chaingating solars, and other fondue is no go. I do have some time to play with if that's the restricting factor (managed to score 3 20s in a row to see if a vendor had a copy of Teleport through time). That being said, we're not going to be able to go back before the fort, and build our own.
2. The fort I'm going up against is in the center of a very very long bridge, and I need the bridge intact after the battle
3. There are two walls approx 150feet apart with a 30x30 2 story blockhouse in the center (with probable high ranking baddies/casters inside)
4. While my compatriots are very dangerous in their own ways, most of the other casters are specc'ed for murder, not so much mayhem (I'm the BFC/Utility caster)

Current plan involves some Clerics Holy Wording the mooks, some careful applications of Prismatic walls over walls of force surrounded by acid fogs to separate the enemy forces , and the meleers wasting folks while the casters melt faces and keep arrows off of everyone. I had the thought that blowing the walls, or the blockhouse might accomplish some of the same effect.

Any thoughts would be apprciated.

Dons Wizard's Hat of Deviousness, Destruction, and Strategy


Is diplomacy/trade off the table?
You say you have nearly unlimited resources - define that explicitly please.
Please provide your full party makeup, and associated spell lists if possible. If not full spell lists - their roles would be helpful. We need your existing spell list.
Good to know you need the bridge intact - what about the fort itself? What's below the bridge(say if someone had an untimely encounter with gravity)?
What are you expecting in terms of baddies? Can you use prying eyes or other divination spells to find out? You mention constructs - are you certain they are golems, or just people with fortified armor? What are the forts defenses? Are they automatic or manual?
How much mayhem are you willing to cause? Enough to eliminate one or two baddies, clumps of baddies, block off entire rooms, or pull stunts to eliminate the entire fort? Some tricks will cause collateral damage.
Do you care about any loot that may be there? Some strategies don't care about what the enemies are using and so will enable tactics like sundering and forcibly teleporting people. Are there restrictions that the players have? Not everyone is comfortable with plauging a peastant and sending them to a town to spread the disease, and then 'heroicly' arrive to obliterate this outbreak by killing the residents. Some players are okay with turning people into meat-puppets - some aren't. Similarly it doesn't matter if you complete the mission if you get your team killed in the process.
How long(real life, and game time) before you commence attack? What books do you have access to?

[Segev]

Prepare a number of Walls of Force and Dimension Locks sufficient to seal in the entire fort. Permanency the lot of it. Build a staircase up to the top of the giant cube of force on either side of it. Bridge is useable, fort is sealed up tight.

[Darkweave31]

I'm a fan of reach persisted mystic shield combined with persisted ghostform to become immune to physical attacks and spells of 6th level and lower, though that'd require incantatrix or similar metamagic shenanigans. Then you can just walk (float?) past them.

Actually you may not even need mystic shield since they most likely won't be using magic weapons or spells to attack you. Ghostform will simply make you immune to all their nonmagic forms of attack.

My favorite is to also get ghost touch gauntlets so you can still use your hands to manipulate physical items when necessary.

[Necroticplague]

Disintegrate looks to be pretty useful. With no con mod and a poor fort saves, most construct fort saves such. Plus, you know, boring holes through walls.

Also, if you have time, make an army yourself. Planar Binding can get you a decent army with some time, limited only by time and what you're willing to pay.

Also, War spells (spells modified by a feat to take a long time to cast, but have vastly increased AOE and power) would be useful, especially as a first-strike. Especially since spells that summon monsters summon 25 of them per CL.

[AWiz_Abroad]

1.Is diplomacy/trade off the table?

These are LN constructs who have signed a contract with the evil empire. Unfortunately they hold their contracts very very very very sacrosanct. Evil empire is using them to man the bridge to stem the flow of refugees out of said evil empire. The party (before I got there) cleared teh first battalion off of the bridge, and tried to negotiate with their bosses. Unfortunately the contract required them to provide another more competent battalion to the evil empire. We should be able to hire them away after the next attack.

2.You say you have nearly unlimited resources - define that explicitly please.

Money: Figure 450,000 gp personally, with relatively easy access to a couple million more (sidequest fighting a Sidhe lord). All told, party can probably put together 3-4 million gp.
Time: Strategic: Teleport through time, Tactical: All the spellslingers have Timestop, and use it very well. Real world. . . probably a month.
Magic Items: Admittedly a weakness of the party, most of our crafting we've let NPCs take care of. Assume fairly easy access to published magic items.

3.Please provide your full party makeup, and associated spell lists if possible. If not full spell lists - their roles would be helpful. We need your existing spell list.
1. Legendary Werebear Barbarian (Smasher)
2. Half Celestial Exalted Cleric/Barbarian (smash + some backup buffs) Has a Hammer of Thunderbolts
3. Full Human Cleric of Thor. Predominantly used for Healing and buffing.
4. Human Wizard. Young Adult Silver Dragon familiar (almost a party member themselves), Debuffer predominantly, likes some direct damage, but has had good luck with
5. Drow Sorcereress. Metamagic stacker supreme. Big fan of ray spells Routinuely dishes out massive amounts of single target damage (early version of a mailman)
6. Me: Half Dragon Wizard/MotAO/MasterSpec (conj)/ Archmage/Loremaster. Primarily have specc'ed towards dumping a lot of spells at once (Auto quicken x3, Multispell x2). My favored combat technique after exhausting spells is Shapechanging into something large to attack people. Standard high-op spell list primarily steered towards transportation (transposition series), battlefield control (Walls/Fogs/Cloudkill), and some limited debuffs. Once again, I know this is not great for this particular fight, which is why I'm asking for advice.
7. Scout: Archery extraordinaire. DMNPC, may be leaving before the bridge fight.

4.Good to know you need the bridge intact - what about the fort itself? What's below the bridge(say if someone had an untimely encounter with gravity)?

The fort needs to go. I'm not seeing great options for a building destroying wizard. The bridge is over a very very deep ravine. 3 foot railings on each side of the bridge (even in between the walls)Figure a quarter of a mile down. Party is going to be able to fly to prevent splattitude.


5.What are you expecting in terms of baddies? Can you use prying eyes or other divination spells to find out? You mention constructs - are you certain they are golems, or just people with fortified armor? What are the forts defenses? Are they automatic or manual?

Forts defenses known are fully 150 advanced maug (MMII I believe) living constructs that were WOTCs precurser race to the Warforged. There is at least one maug general there with unknown capabilities. Previous experience has led the party to suspect there will be clerics and wizards of the evil empire serving as support casters. Last time, they were mounted on griffins, but we didn't spot any. We've ran recon flights under invisibility over the bridge multiple times, and our cleric (as well as I) plan to get force dispositions on the day of the attack utilizing Scrying/Arcane eyes. Frankly, we've got real world time to build the strategy, so I was looking for some spell ideas to pick up in town.

6.How much mayhem are you willing to cause? Enough to eliminate one or two baddies, clumps of baddies, block off entire rooms, or pull stunts to eliminate the entire fort? Some tricks will cause collateral damage.

As I mentioned, the bridge needs to be intact, and the country to the west (CG) needs to be left along, but other than that. . . anything goes. I'm looking for higher level mayhem than just walking in and wasting a couple of clumps in the open however.

7.Do you care about any loot that may be there(some strategies don't care about what the enemies are using and so will enable tactics like sundering and forcibly teleporting people. Are there restrictions that the players have? Not everyone is comfortable with plauging a peastant and sending them to a town to spread the disease, and then 'heroicly' arrive to obliterate this outbreak by killing the residents. Some players are okay with turning people into meat-puppets - some aren't. Similarly it doesn't matter if you complete the mission if you get your team killed in the process.
We're a really good aligned party (including an exalted), so infecting commoners with lycanthropy style plans is right out. The bridge fort is preventing the flow of refugees out of the evil empire, and is a violation of treaty (additional motivation for my LG Half Dragon). As far as loot, reference half dragon, my character does like wonderful magic items, but he's also ridiculously intelligent, so definately realize that sometimes loot must take a second place to survival.

8.How long(real life, and game time) before you commence attack? What books do you have access to?

Real life. Figure 3-5 weeks. Game time, figure 2-3 days. In game, my character hoards knowledge, being a loremaster, former dean of a wizards college, and very well liked, and indeed he developed school specialization within the setting, so he can probably locate most all spells. Out of Game, no BoVD, no CC, severe curtailments on CM. Spell compendium's available. My character has banned enchantment and Necromancy.

[AWiz_Abroad]

Disintegrate looks to be pretty useful. With no con mod and a poor fort saves, most construct fort saves such. Plus, you know, boring holes through walls.

Also, if you have time, make an army yourself. Planar Binding can get you a decent army with some time, limited only by time and what you're willing to pay.

Also, War spells (spells modified by a feat to take a long time to cast, but have vastly increased AOE and power) would be useful, especially as a first-strike. Especially since spells that summon monsters summon 25 of them per CL.

What would your recomendations for Planar binding be?

What specific War spells are you referencing?

[AWiz_Abroad]

Prepare a number of Walls of Force and Dimension Locks sufficient to seal in the entire fort. Permanency the lot of it. Build a staircase up to the top of the giant cube of force on either side of it. Bridge is useable, fort is sealed up tight.

Extra points for creativity, but I'm not sure attempting to bottle up casters of that level is A. possible, or B. Desireable. Plus B. Disjunction, or even a simple disintegrate, and we do it all over again. One of the advantages of the Refugees as theat they're bringing food, money, and the major export, high quality wine out of the evil empire for that, you kind of need wagons.

That being said have a cookie for a fascinating solution to the problem.

[AWiz_Abroad]

Step 1. Cast Shrink on a pile of boulders
Step 2. Cast Mass fly on you party
Step 4. Drop boulders on enemy while removing the shrink.
Step 5... try not to step in any enemy goo.

For more meyham.. hollow them out and fill em with alchemist fire and other nasty alchemist things.

A decent solution, but wouldn't dropping said boulders from high enough potentially compromise the structural integrity of the bridge?

Also, I wonder how you would price that much alchemist fire as a vial is hardly a measurement of volume.

[AWiz_Abroad]

I'm a fan of reach persisted mystic shield combined with persisted ghostform to become immune to physical attacks and spells of 6th level and lower, though that'd require incantatrix or similar metamagic shenanigans. Then you can just walk (float?) past them.

Actually you may not even need mystic shield since they most likely won't be using magic weapons or spells to attack you. Ghostform will simply make you immune to all their nonmagic forms of attack.

My favorite is to also get ghost touch gauntlets so you can still use your hands to manipulate physical items when necessary.

Works for me, but not the refugees. A nice way to stay unharmed during the scrimmage though.

[Necroticplague]

What would your recomendations for Planar binding be?

What specific War spells are you referencing?

Nightmares can allow you to constantly Astral Project. Since Astral Projection copies your equipment, it allows you to burn through otherwise prohibitively expensive objects by simply suiciding the astral form, then re-projecting using the nightmare. Not as useful for the warriors in your party, though.

War spells are from Dragon Magazine 309. Unfortunately, they normally require a feat to use normally, so you're going to have to settle for a scroll of such. Here is a thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?306567-War-Spells!-Discussion-and-Application) that gives most the details of the.

[AWiz_Abroad]

Nightmares can allow you to constantly Astral Project. Since Astral Projection copies your equipment, it allows you to burn through otherwise prohibitively expensive objects by simply suiciding the astral form, then re-projecting using the nightmare. Not as useful for the warriors in your party, though.

War spells are from Dragon Magazine 309. Unfortunately, they normally require a feat to use normally, so you're going to have to settle for a scroll of such. Here is a thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?306567-War-Spells!-Discussion-and-Application) that gives most the details of the.

Oh that is glorious. I've actually got a level up to do before the battle, and we can retrain a feat. . . so yes. We'll see if the DM says no go on it or not. Nice one though.

Seriously, Cookie.

[Irk]

How about a Selective Planar Bubble of a plane with the Dead Magic and Enhanced Magic traits as well as a 20:1 time ratio for free metamagic, immunity to magic, and 20 turns to your opponents one in a set area around you?
How about a Genesis'd demiplane with a fast time trait and resetting traps of Smoky Confinement and Ice Assassin creating a massive army?
Toss in a resetting trap of Planar Bubble (Dal Quor) so your army takes 10 turns for the opponents one.

EDIT: Actually, that probably won't be allowed. What about the locate City Bomb or a Wightpocalypse?

[AWiz_Abroad]

How about a Selective Planar Bubble of a plane with the Dead Magic and Enhanced Magic traits as well as a 20:1 time ratio for free metamagic, immunity to magic, and 20 turns to your opponents one in a set area around you?
How about a Genesis'd demiplane with a fast time trait and resetting traps of Smoky Confinement and Ice Assassin creating a massive army?
Toss in a resetting trap of Planar Bubble (Dal Quor) so your army takes 10 turns for the opponents one.

Planar traits are a bit too far on the optimization chain I think. I appreciate their inherent beauty and elegance, but I already dump my spells way too quickly without them.

Edit: LCB is no go, since it's not a city. Wightpocalypse doesn't work because construct.

[Zubrowka74]

You could wish the constructs out of their contracts, then make another deal with them if needed.

Also, if you can find a way to change their alignment to CN, this could be another workaround.

[Irk]

You could try some sort of Chained Greater Humanoid Essence scheme to get rid of their magic resistance? (Or Ability Rip, but that might be SR: Yes.)

[AWiz_Abroad]

You could wish the constructs out of their contracts, then make another deal with them if needed.

Also, if you can find a way to change their alignment to CN, this could be another workaround.

Option 1: Rule 0'ing the whole situation is interesting, but frankly fairly unsatisfying while potentially dangerous. Aren't there inevitables that specifically go around to enforce contracts? I can't imagine this would make us beloved. Thats in addition to the risks inherent in teh wish itself, since something like this wouldn't be on a safelist.

Option 2: Any more details on how precisely to change 150+ constructs alignments without provoking a response from their nation of warrior mercenaries on mechanus? Killing them in honorable battle doesn't incur enmity, screwing with their alignment long term? Risky

[animewatcha]

Teleport through time. Sneakily add yourself to the list of people that they listen to ( even higher in authority to the evil empire ). Come back to present ( you never enforced your authority over them so it shouldn't mess up the time/space continuum too much ) and prove that you are 'who you are' and outrank the evil empire orders. Heck, even hire them to go against the evil empire.

[thatryanguy]

Why would you want to destroy your new army?

Arms & Equipment Guide p125 - Rod of Construct Control. 69K market price. You take over and give new commands to any constructs within 60 ft. Intelligent constructs get a will save (DC23).

[Elkad]

Not my level of expertise, but dropping the entire blockhouse through the bridge seems a nice opener. Render the bridge temporarily ethereal or use a big passwall or something?

[animewatcha]

Are there innocents in there ( pretty much people/things that would irk the exalted one? ) If not, nuke the fort with the bridge then rebuild the bridge with wall of stone / wood spells. Make the bridge new and improved with a rock hard woody.

[Gavinfoxx]

Yea just make a new bridge. Its not that hard.

[firebrandtoluc]

Unless civilians are on the bridge or inside the fort, or the bridge is some kind of national treasure, nuke that sucker. Building bridges is pretty simple with magic of your caliber. If you want you could use walls of force to bolster the ends of the bridge near the fort and then just nuke the middle. One wall of stone would fill the gap and restore stability before the force walls run out. Go the extra mile and hire an engineer to direct you if you don't have engineering yourself.

Oh, I recommend using the undermaster spell. It's in the spell compendium.

[Slithery D]

Can you use Teleportation Circle to make the bridge and fort completely irrelevant?

Best case you go directly to point A and accomplish what you need to before the fort even hears about it. Worst case you perform a turning movement to their near rear to force them to abandon the fortification and deal with you outside their fort and on your terms. (Try not to be completely surrounded.)

[Sudain]

You my friend, have Kudos for being willing to type all that information out. :D

If they are LN constructs who hold contracts in HIGH regard then they remind me of the Inevitables, so I'm basing what I would plan on that. Can you subvert the contract(forgery?), or bluff/disguise to act as the evil empire? If the refugees are on the same side of the bridge then it may not be possible to pull a 'ruse' over them saying you are bringing in your army over for some reason(invisibilty mass) and or spare weapons/armor. I would expect this plan to fail, though it would be nice to not obliterate the army you plan to hire. Teleportation circle+permanacy might work to have the refugees bypass the fort(though bringing anything with them could be a problem). Shadow walk may help if it's only one group.

Resources.... Ebeh.... I uhm... WOW. I envy you. What level are you? 24? Other people will have better ideas on gear than I will. You guys have a nice party makeup as well. I'll try to focus on large-scale spells rather than tactical spells, you guys likely have plenty of practice with that.

1) Gate: Gate open a portal to the plane of water(composed entirely of water so it should start flooding out of the gate at an amazing rate). There is no specification of the gate's size in the spell description so you might be able to gate open portal the size of the fort directly above it. That should case more than a little chaos. The plane of fire, and maybe light could also be good options for this. You can gate in specific entities - like the titan if you need a giant distraction and possibly destroy the fort itself.
2) The Symbol Of X spells + permanency line here are AMAZING here. Symbol of X etched into some standards+perm so it doesn't go away, will wreak havoc on people and can be used across fights. Downside is 60 foot radius, so you may need to have a couple and place/hurl them at choke points. You may have those schools banned, but does the rest of your party? :)
3) Control Weather is large-scale, though it takes a little time and does not garentee results of destroying things. Sadly they are contructs, but it may have an application.
4) Control Winds - Replicatable with wish and lesser wish, possibly helpful but not garenteed.
5) Whirlwind - I really want to like this, but I don't know that it will be helpful to you other than the long range. Maybe a program like (Pickup contructs and fling them over the edge(?))
6) Earthquake - Long range and it does structural damage. Bounus points for pairing it with reverse gravity. Cleric spell so that may help on action economy.
7) Reality Maelstrom(Spell Compendium) - Not Massive AoE, but still a personal favorite, especially if you can get 2-3 castings of it off.
8) Blackfire(Spell Compendium) - possibly not your party's style but worth mentioning(Fire and watch it spread).
9) Wall of Iron - incase you need to build the bridge back up.
10) Stone/Wood Shape - Low level spells but not to underestimated. Remove a couple support beams and things can fall down. Disentigration and Black Sphere of Annihilation(Spell Compendium) also serve this purpose. Move Earth covers moving dirt(if there is any) for this purpose.
11) Transmute metal to wood - Not sure if it will work for everything but carefully used this might 'woodenize' the baddies. Or make doors easier to handle.
12) Mage's Disjunction - If you don't have it I suggest keeping it around for 'just in case'. Probably will not come into play or be useful.
13) Guards and wards - massive area - may not be useful though.
14) Shadow walk - If you can convince them to walk into the spell - leave them there in that plane. :)
15) Mirage Arcana - Maybe if you were setting the ambush, or you could cast it while everyone was asleep(?) Highly unlikely though.

Those are the large scale AoE magics that I can think of. I hope they help, it sounds like you have an amazing group to play with.

[Vogonjeltz]

When it comes to wrecking a fortress of constructs, I'm thinking either Summon Elemental Monolith, which is fun in its own right.

[LarwisTheElf]

The Symbol Of X spells...

Do what Xykon did with the symbol of insanity on a bouncy ball, just get a lot more. Then fly over the the place and drop 'em, or teleport them into the building.

Then just sit back and watch the chaos ensue. BWAHAHA!!