Seerow
2014-12-23, 08:37 PM
Short bit of background: In the current campaign, our group of would-be heroes are part of a resistance against the tyrannical wizard who rules the general area of the campaign world that we are familiar with. Recently we cleared out a small mountain stronghold, and decided we were going to claim it for ourselves, and managed to snag Landlord as a bonus feat after securing funding from the rebellions leaders for refurbishing and expanding.
Of course, this being my group, sticking with a small base of operations is completely out of the question. I mean, that's just boring. So while it will start as a small personal base of operations, our plans are to eventually expand this stronghold into a city. Basically keeping the only current floor as being a mostly defensive area, with a few major lines for transportation between sections of the city, but build the city mostly going downward further into the mountain. We already have plans for getting this started, but it's not relevant to this point.
What is relevant is we want to build an enormous statue/monument to place on the top of our mountain, a shining beacon of hope that can be seen for literally miles around. We're talking about a statue somewhere between the Statue of Liberty and the Eiffle Tower in height (so probably around 600ft), basically being built to come up out of the mountain peak.
The problem with a big shining symbol of hope and freedom is that the destruction of said symbol can cause crushing despair to a populace. We want this thing to be as close to indestructible as it can get. And we are dealing with at minimum a 17th level Wizard who will have every reason to want to destroy it. So, playgrounders, what methods of destroying such a monument are out there? And what can we do to stop them?
The original plan was make it Spell Immunity Magical Architecture, picking out the spells we deem most likely to cause trouble. The problem is that Spell Immunity would get us 3-5 spells at best, and I suspect there are many more that will cause us trouble. Also apparently Magical Architecture can be taken out by a rogue with a decent disable device check, which is somewhat worrisome.
As far as resources available:
-All sources are open. Current DM is open to anything as long as we can show him a page citation (this includes Dragon Magazine material).
-We run on a general agreement that the DM throws lots of money our way, and we spend anything above Wealth By Level on fun projects like this. Since we're still in the conceptualization stage and a bit away from actual construction I can't say what our budget will be for sure, but I would guess somewhere in the vicinity of 300k-500k gp specifically for constructing defenses. If it is doable with less, so much the better. If it requires more, I'm still interested in hearing just to get a general idea of what we should be aiming for.
-Something like casting Wish and saying "I wish this couldn't be destroyed by any power" or whatever specific wording you want is pretty unlikely to work, and may as well be ignored.
-Consdier general defenses like men/traps guarding the area are already accounted for. This is specifically about making the object as hard to destroy as possible.
-Since the point of the object is to be seen, typical invulnerability tricks like a Lich hiding away his phylactery in some pocket dimension simply don't apply here. I would hope this goes without being said, but I figured I'd say it anyway.
Of course, this being my group, sticking with a small base of operations is completely out of the question. I mean, that's just boring. So while it will start as a small personal base of operations, our plans are to eventually expand this stronghold into a city. Basically keeping the only current floor as being a mostly defensive area, with a few major lines for transportation between sections of the city, but build the city mostly going downward further into the mountain. We already have plans for getting this started, but it's not relevant to this point.
What is relevant is we want to build an enormous statue/monument to place on the top of our mountain, a shining beacon of hope that can be seen for literally miles around. We're talking about a statue somewhere between the Statue of Liberty and the Eiffle Tower in height (so probably around 600ft), basically being built to come up out of the mountain peak.
The problem with a big shining symbol of hope and freedom is that the destruction of said symbol can cause crushing despair to a populace. We want this thing to be as close to indestructible as it can get. And we are dealing with at minimum a 17th level Wizard who will have every reason to want to destroy it. So, playgrounders, what methods of destroying such a monument are out there? And what can we do to stop them?
The original plan was make it Spell Immunity Magical Architecture, picking out the spells we deem most likely to cause trouble. The problem is that Spell Immunity would get us 3-5 spells at best, and I suspect there are many more that will cause us trouble. Also apparently Magical Architecture can be taken out by a rogue with a decent disable device check, which is somewhat worrisome.
As far as resources available:
-All sources are open. Current DM is open to anything as long as we can show him a page citation (this includes Dragon Magazine material).
-We run on a general agreement that the DM throws lots of money our way, and we spend anything above Wealth By Level on fun projects like this. Since we're still in the conceptualization stage and a bit away from actual construction I can't say what our budget will be for sure, but I would guess somewhere in the vicinity of 300k-500k gp specifically for constructing defenses. If it is doable with less, so much the better. If it requires more, I'm still interested in hearing just to get a general idea of what we should be aiming for.
-Something like casting Wish and saying "I wish this couldn't be destroyed by any power" or whatever specific wording you want is pretty unlikely to work, and may as well be ignored.
-Consdier general defenses like men/traps guarding the area are already accounted for. This is specifically about making the object as hard to destroy as possible.
-Since the point of the object is to be seen, typical invulnerability tricks like a Lich hiding away his phylactery in some pocket dimension simply don't apply here. I would hope this goes without being said, but I figured I'd say it anyway.