Apocalypse Now

[MaxWilson]

So, here's an idea for an Omega Plan (last-resort plan when disaster strikes) for a Necromancer:

Animate Dead creates undead. The key limitation to the spell is that those undead go hostile after 24 hours, and you have to use your spell slots to keep control of them. There is no actual limitation on the amount of undead you can create, only what you can control. And skeletons naturally like to kill living things when uncontrolled. Therefore, there is actually nothing stopping you from filling up your maximum amount of undead (generally 100+ for a high-level Necromancer) and popping them in a Demiplane somewhere. Then when things go south--when you are down three party members and half your HP in the middle of an enemy castle--you Disguise Self to look like a skeleton and then cast Demiplane. Out comes 3000 HP worth of undead doing 100d6 + 800 points of damage per round. Shuffle around with the other skeletons until they finish killing everything, and then take the corpses of your former partymates and give them a good burial, and leave. You probably won't accomplish your original plan for the enemy castle (steal an artifact?), and the castle is now uninhabitable, but hey! it's better than dying, right?

You could also pop up a Leomund's Tiny Hut or just Teleport yourself away after opening the Demiplane.

Does anyone else have any good Omega Plans? I already know about the one where you use Animal Shapes to transform a sackful of mice into elephants.

[Inevitability]

Ow, I like this one. Let's see if I can think of something...

Maybe True Polymorph yourself into antimatter?

[Eslin]

Ow, I like this one. Let's see if I can think of something...

Maybe True Polymorph yourself into antimatter?

Using conjure self to create 10 pounds of the core of the sun has always been my favourite. It's a level two ability and the resulting blast will take out you, everyone around you and the surrounding countryside.

[Camman1984]

In 3.5 I used the conjure element spell (iirc) conjure a few cubic feet of anti-uranium. We were losing the campaign badly, to the point our allies had turned on us and their cities were being evacuated to other planes to escape a thay necromancer onslaught.

We worked out that that the explosion annihilated the entire of faerun, plus the solar system and most of space withing several billion miles. But thay were defeated and my character was remembered as a hero (the rest of the party escaped the plane)

I also built the find city bomb, my dm didn't realise I was building that one until we decided to win a war by greater teleporting into the enemy capital and committing genocide.

[JoeJ]

Creating antimatter and conjuring material from the sun both depend on real-world physics that very well might not apply in a fantasy world. The sun idea, in fact, is actually ruled out by canon 2e sources; the centers of the suns of Toril, Krynn, and Oerth are all very hot, but they are not under pressure. (And even if antimatter exists, how did the wizard learn about it?)

A demiplane full of skeletons is a fun idea. The DM would have to rule on how many skeletons you can pack into a 30' x 30' space. Skeletons are not mindless in this edition, so there might be a point at which crowding leads to them fighting among themselves, too. Even with some limits, however, this can be a very viable tactic in some circumstances.

[Perseus]

Creating antimatter and conjuring material from the sun both depend on real-world physics that very well might not apply in a fantasy world. The sun idea, in fact, is actually ruled out by canon 2e sources; the centers of the suns of Toril, Krynn, and Oerth are all very hot, but they are not under pressure. (And even if antimatter exists, how did the wizard learn about it?)


I always hate this argument. So non-casters have to go by real world realism (leverage and other things) for their stuff but casters don't (get to)? Where do we draw this line at?

Also until 5e actually has info on stuff you can't say 2e is cannon for 5e. Hell you can't really say anything is cannon to 5e except what the DM says is cannon (which is going back to 2e rules right there).

However a DM can straight up say that Mystra (or whomever, but I liked Mystra) totally arcane-blocks the ability to conjure inner material of the sun or whatever because the gods, archdemons,and whomever else just don't want mortals to get that powerful.

But depending on the game, I would allow the party to blow up the material plane. Gives me a great reason to sick almost every outsider (deity/vestige/demon lord or whatever) on the party.

Talk about crimes against the very fabric of reality.

[JoeJ]

I always hate this argument. So non-casters have to go by real world realism (leverage and other things) for their stuff but casters don't (get to)? Where do we draw this line at?

I don't understand how this is relevant to what I wrote.

[Daishain]

snippety
In my opinion, the best argument against it being that easy to blow up the material plane has less to do with lore and more to do with the fact that it hasn't happened yet. Seriously, the D&D world has quite a few nutjobs that would love the opportunity to do exactly that, and plenty of them have the power to do a little conjuration.

Given that they would probably survive if they plan it out a bit, the odds of someone trying go even higher.

[Freelance GM]

As the guy typically DM'ing, I'd rule the "real-life physics" debate this way:

It's a conflict of player knowledge vs. character knowledge. I'd say your character knowing anything about antimatter would be like an aerospace engineer knowing how to create a new medicinal drug. Yes, it's all science, but it isn't anywhere close your character's area of expertise. Your Wizard studies magic, not science. Your character might have 20 INT, but that just means you're exceptionally fast at learning, not that you immediately know everything.
Given the means, your 20 INT character probably could figure out theoretical physics in a month or two of studying, but there's no way for your character to study something like antimatter or atomic theory in a typical D&D setting. Consider, that even though the idea of atoms was first proposed in ancient Greece, atomic theory as we know it didn't even start to come about until the 16th century- and could not be studied empirically until the 19th century. Even if your character could use magic to replicate some of those early experiments, you'd still basically be discovering atomic theory alone. It would probably take years of trial and error before your character even got as far as creating the Periodic Table.

This doesn't go for all sciences, though- your character's smart enough to have insight about a few subjects. I'd say your Wizard's spellbook most likely has notes about gravity scribbled in the margins of the pages for Feather Fall, Levitation, and Fly. Shocking Grasp might have notes about metal conducting electricity, and perhaps Lightning Bolt has the question "How come there's no thunder?!?" written in bold and underlined at the bottom of the page.


But yeah, Perseus, I agree- let the players blow up the world. If they destroy the Material Plane, then the DM has an excuse to run a Planescape game.

As for my doomsday plan? Couldn't you technically just cast Gate to the plane of [insert your setting's scariest Demon Lord here] and then teleport somewhere else? (Your personal "fallout shelter" demiplane, created months in advance, perhaps?)

[Camman1984]

To be honest, this started more as a what fun ideas could be possible.

The only person who can say whether all the doomsday scenarios are possible is the dm, even if the fluff specifically has a line that says the gods won't allow it, dm still has the final say. It's fun to be omnipotent :)

Filling a portable hole with lava is a nice destructive trick you can pull on someone if all else fails.

[CodeRed]

Back in 3.5, I was playing in a Sandstorm campaign than ended up going Epic and turning rather evil towards the end. Buddy was playing a Dry Lich and I was playing a Wizard. We eventually got fed up with this one kingdom that was annoying us, teleported to the center of it, then used the Fimbulwinter Epic Spell that was boosted even worse to create a permanent Blizzard in their capital city. DM was a total science geek so he asked one of his friends who was getting a B.S. in meteorology what would happen in that instance. In the end, the DM ruled that it created a permanent hurricane in the middle of the desert with 80 MPH winds.

Destroyed an entire civilization overnight and killed my character who had to be at the center to get the whole mess going. Totally worth it as my Dry Lich Buddy just ended up raising me as a Mummy almost immediately afterwards.

[Perseus]

In my opinion, the best argument against it being that easy to blow up the material plane has less to do with lore and more to do with the fact that it hasn't happened yet. Seriously, the D&D world has quite a few nutjobs that would love the opportunity to do exactly that, and plenty of them have the power to do a little conjuration.

Given that they would probably survive if they plan it out a bit, the odds of someone trying go even higher.

This is why I figured a deity or whatever like Mystra would permaban certain things like conjuring anti-uranium or whatever. It's one thing to destroy a mortal kingdom and another thing to destroy an entire plane of existence.

They brought back the pre-3.5 DM style so that helps.



As the guy typically DM'ing, I'd rule the "real-life physics" debate this way:

It's a conflict of player knowledge vs. character knowledge. I'd say your character knowing anything about antimatter would be like an aerospace engineer knowing how to create a new medicinal drug. Yes, it's all science, but it isn't anywhere close your character's area of expertise. Your Wizard studies magic, not science. Your character might have 20 INT, but that just means you're exceptionally fast at learning, not that you immediately know everything.
Given the means, your 20 INT character probably could figure out theoretical physics in a month or two of studying, but there's no way for your character to study something like antimatter or atomic theory in a typical D&D setting. Consider, that even though the idea of atoms was first proposed in ancient Greece, atomic theory as we know it didn't even start to come about until the 16th century- and could not be studied empirically until the 19th century. Even if your character could use magic to replicate some of those early experiments, you'd still basically be discovering atomic theory alone. It would probably take years of trial and error before your character even got as far as creating the Periodic Table.

This doesn't go for all sciences, though- your character's smart enough to have insight about a few subjects. I'd say your Wizard's spellbook most likely has notes about gravity scribbled in the margins of the pages for Feather Fall, Levitation, and Fly. Shocking Grasp might have notes about metal conducting electricity, and perhaps Lightning Bolt has the question "How come there's no thunder?!?" written in bold and underlined at the bottom of the page.


But yeah, Perseus, I agree- let the players blow up the world. If they destroy the Material Plane, then the DM has an excuse to run a Planescape game.

As for my doomsday plan? Couldn't you technically just cast Gate to the plane of [insert your setting's scariest Demon Lord here] and then teleport somewhere else? (Your personal "fallout shelter" demiplane, created months in advance, perhaps?)

My group once used the ocean is their arcane focus... Didn't destroy the plane since a god stepped in (Yondella or whomever) but the gods sent the party to live on a prison settlement planet called Athas... Also had certain spells banned from being used (plus you know how much Darksun hates arcane casters...).




To be honest, this started more as a what fun ideas could be possible.


Most things that lead to horrible results ends with someone saying this...

:p


Back in 3.5, I was playing in a Sandstorm campaign than ended up going Epic and turning rather evil towards the end. Buddy was playing a Dry Lich and I was playing a Wizard. We eventually got fed up with this one kingdom that was annoying us, teleported to the center of it, then used the Fimbulwinter Epic Spell that was boosted even worse to create a permanent Blizzard in their capital city. DM was a total science geek so he asked one of his friends who was getting a B.S. in meteorology what would happen in that instance. In the end, the DM ruled that it created a permanent hurricane in the middle of the desert with 80 MPH winds.

Destroyed an entire civilization overnight and killed my character who had to be at the center to get the whole mess going. Totally worth it as my Dry Lich Buddy just ended up raising me as a Mummy almost immediately afterwards.

Neat, reminds me of the time my Planar Shepard Druid, a Dry Lich, and a Cleric (I was thr least ootimized btw...) built a flying Mr. Burns block out the sun machine... Lots of fond memories of Dry Liches...

Note: Turned the flying Mr. Burns block out the sun machine into a giant magnifying glass... Some groups just want to watch the world burn, literally.

[Jlooney]

I actually had to use my omega plan once. My group and I were playing 1st edition. In 1st edition you could link you psychic abilities with other psions. I managed to get like 6 mindflayers to help us out because the oncoming horde was stupid. so once we linked up we actually looked at the rules and found out that the stacking was exponential. We actually had to google how many miles were in our galaxy and how far the 11 people all using all of their power multiplied out. The DM ruled we destroyed our universe, faerun, forgotten realms and the darksun universe. (mainly because he figured they were all prime materials that were just neighboring universes.)

[odigity]

My group and I were playing 1st edition.


We actually had to google...

...you played 1st edition during or after 1998?

[Perseus]

...you played 1st edition during or after 1998?

To be fair, I just played in a three shot 2e game a few weeks ago.

My favorite omega plan, though more of a contingency plan...

Group was up against a BBEG that the DM wouldn't let us kill.

Me being a Fire Immune CN (leaning CE) cleric of whomever switched sides and killed off my party. Then made buddy buddy with the BBEG (the players of the PCs were all O_O). The DM had the BBEG invite me to go slay some stuff to have a good old time...

Well I teleported us (yeah, I had greater teleport) into the center of the sun. Teleported back to the planet. Took a few days to resurrect the party (had to go to LG heaven to find one, I figured we would get our butts handed to us) but I got them all back without level loss.

The DM and the other players were all shocked to say the least. A double double cross was least expected from the guy who never played D&D before and was on his 5th session (we started high level).

Tldr: Contingency Omga Plan: Kill Party Mates, Kill BBEG, Resurrect Party, make everyone in the room paranoid.

[Jlooney]

...you played 1st edition during or after 1998?

this was back in 2004. Just because other editions were out doesn't mean we don't go to our roots sometimes ;)