How to get them into a trap?

[Flame of Anor]

I'm amusing myself by thinking of clever ways to defeat the BBEG in our campaign. My current thought is to put her in a pit which has energy transformation field cast on it. Then all of her cleric spells would be useless; they would only fuel the energy field, which would cast cloudkill or something. So far, so good.

But how to get her into the pit? My wizard could learn Trobriand's baleful teleport, but it's hardly likely that she'd fail her save against it. He could take the fifth level of the Fatespinner PrC (he has the first four), since that grants the ability to give someone a -10 on one saving throw...but that would put him a level behind in spells, since only the first four levels advance casting. Then there's teleportation circle, which has the advantage of allowing no saving throw, but my wizard is still some way off from having 9th-level spells, and in any case it could be awkward to get the BBEG to step on the right square.

So, any ideas?

[Keltest]

Summon some disposable minion to grab them and jump into the trap?

[Darrin]

Skull Talisman (Frostburn), Glyph Seal (MIC), or Shalantha's Delicate Disk (Lost Empires of Faerun) can all be used to trigger a no-save teleport effect with the BBEG as the target.

[Flame of Anor]

Skull Talisman (Frostburn), Glyph Seal (MIC), or Shalantha's Delicate Disk (Lost Empires of Faerun) can all be used to trigger a no-save teleport effect with the BBEG as the target.

Could you elaborate? I'm not seeing it. None of these mentions denying the target a save that the original spell would grant. The glyph seal and Shalantha's delicate disk would at least have the proper effect if the BBEG failed her save, but the skull talisman wouldn't even do that--the person who destroys it controls the effect. And anyway, it would be difficult to get the BBEG to destroy the disk or the talisman.

[NevinPL]

Atramen Oil + some knock out poison,
Bead of Force + rollin',
Sarcophagus of stone + Shrink item,
make her want to come there.

[Inevitability]

Make it look like the trap is actually something beneficial. Illusions only allow for a save if interacted with, so the villain won't know what hit her until it's too late.

[Darrin]

Could you elaborate? I'm not seeing it. None of these mentions denying the target a save that the original spell would grant. The glyph seal and Shalantha's delicate disk would at least have the proper effect if the BBEG failed her save, but the skull talisman wouldn't even do that--the person who destroys it controls the effect. And anyway, it would be difficult to get the BBEG to destroy the disk or the talisman.

Greater Glyph Seal is the easiest, as you can set the trigger condition so you only need to get it near the BBEG. Once the trigger condition is met, the BBEG becomes the "Target:" as per the rules for glyph of warding. The destination would be set when the teleport spell is cast. There's no save for the teleport unless the target is an unattended object. Dimension door would also work, but would probably have to be heightened to 5th level.

Shalantha's delicate disk is also pretty easy, you just have to throw it at the BBEG and make sure it breaks when it hits her. Stored spells with specific targets "are targeted upon the creature or object that shattered the disk". There aren't any specific rules for throwing the disk at a creature, but you can treat this as a ranged touch attack with an improvised thrown weapon (-4 attack penalty), and assume that if the disk touches any solid object, this does at least 1 HP damage and shatters the disk. If the disk shatters on the BBEG, she's the last one who "touched" it, and thus would count as the person who "shattered" the disk. If this sort of rules wankery is not to your taste, then add a Glyph Seal with a shatter spell keyed to the BBEG: she triggers the shatter which breaks the disk, and thus becomes the target of the stored spell in the disk.

Skull Talisman is trickier, as it requires more damage to break. A medium skull has 10 HP and Hardness 5, although you can "soften" it up by doing 9 HP damage to it first. Explosive runes works well here, although you'll need some additional chicanery to get the BBEG to read the runes. Adding a Glyph Seal/Greater Glyph Seal with a spell that damages all creatures and objects should work, such as cyclonic blast, deadfall, earth reaver, explosive cascade, fireburst, hail of stone, shatterfloor, or snowball swarm. I also fiddled around with maybe coating the skull in gray slime (Dungeonscape), encasing it in a ceramic jar, and throwing the ceramic jar at a target, with maybe some liquid light (Cityscape WE (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070314a)) to set it off, but that was starting to lean towards the "iffy" side of things.

[Lerondiel]

With 5th level spells:

Stone Shape the room 30'x30'

Stone Shape the pit 30' diameter

Cast 30'x30' Wall of Force over the pit and add Permanency

Summon small thin Walls of Stone to pave over the Wall of Force but leave a very small section missing only you will know is exposing the invisible Wall of Force. Pave the rest of the castle/dungeon with the same material so the room doesnt look out of place.

When the cleric enters the room grt dispel your wall of force - making sure you have Fly running

[Segev]

Rather than a pit, just put it in a room with an obvious arcane idol of some sort. Then, lure her into that room, and boast about how she'll never stop you now. Cast a spell into the area to put the Energy Field over a threshold of 3 spell levels.

The spell effect is a suggestion: "This idol is the key to their plan to thwart you, but you're clever enough to keep casting exactly the right spells to stop its many functions, as long as you keep at it and don't let it out of your sight."

Done right, this should keep her in that room, burning up her spells to "thwart" the idol (and keep re-casting the suggestion on her) until she's out of spells, and even then, she'll desperately be praying for her next set to keep this thing from "activating" to "thwart" her. Make sure your own Spellcraft is high enough, and get somebody with Bluff to help out as you lament each "brilliant" spell she casts, until you are "forced to retreat," secure in the "knowledge" that "she'll fail to stop it eventually."

[Lerondiel]

Rather than a pit, just put it in a room with an obvious arcane idol of some sort. Then, lure her into that room, and boast about how she'll never stop you now. Cast a spell into the area to put the Energy Field over a threshold of 3 spell levels.

The spell effect is a suggestion: "This idol is the key to their plan to thwart you, but you're clever enough to keep casting exactly the right spells to stop its many functions, as long as you keep at it and don't let it out of your sight."

Done right, this should keep her in that room, burning up her spells to "thwart" the idol (and keep re-casting the suggestion on her) until she's out of spells, and even then, she'll desperately be praying for her next set to keep this thing from "activating" to "thwart" her. Make sure your own Spellcraft is high enough, and get somebody with Bluff to help out as you lament each "brilliant" spell she casts, until you are "forced to retreat," secure in the "knowledge" that "she'll fail to stop it eventually."

Wouldn't luring, boasting and bluffing allow Sense Motive checks & a Suggestion allow a Will save? Not great odds against a cleric.

[Segev]

Wouldn't luring, boasting and bluffing allow Sense Motive checks & a Suggestion allow a Will save? Not great odds against a cleric.

Not all clerics are masters of Sense Motive, and even then, glibness can overcome that. As for the will save...true. I guess you'll have to spam a few spells into the area in order to force multiple saves until she fails one.

Also, phrasing it as reasonably as possible could give her a -4 penalty to that Will save.

[Rakoa]

While I don't have any suggestion to contribute (though I like some of the one's suggested here) I can say that the last level of Fatespinner is a bad idea for this purpose. If you're really dealing with the Big Bad, chances are she has more HD than you do, and so is ineligible for the last ability. If you know for certain that she has equal to or less than you (which would be strange), it's still a bad idea because if you're banking on her failing a Will save, you might as well make it a Save or Die/Lose rather than this convoluted plan.

Really, the last level of Fatespinner is just a trap.

[Flame of Anor]

Atramen Oil + some knock out poison,


If it were that easy, we could just coup-de-grace her and not worry about the trap. But the -4 from atramen oil probably won't get it done.



Bead of Force + rollin',

Resilient spheres don't roll.



Sarcophagus of stone + Shrink item,

Good, though at that point I might as well just stuff her in a bag of holding.


make her want to come there.


Yes, that's always on the table.


Greater Glyph Seal is the easiest, as you can set the trigger condition so you only need to get it near the BBEG. Once the trigger condition is met, the BBEG becomes the "Target:" as per the rules for glyph of warding. The destination would be set when the teleport spell is cast. There's no save for the teleport unless the target is an unattended object.

Shalantha's delicate disk is also pretty easy, you just have to throw it at the BBEG and make sure it breaks when it hits her. Stored spells with specific targets "are targeted upon the creature or object that shattered the disk".

Oh, I see--it's the regular teleport spell that you put in it, not baleful teleport. So it never allows a saving throw, since it's supposed to be used on willing targets. Is that going to be a problem--does the glyph seal make it work on unwilling targets?



Really, the last level of Fatespinner is just a trap.

Agreed.

[Darrin]

Oh, I see--it's the regular teleport spell that you put in it, not baleful teleport. So it never allows a saving throw, since it's supposed to be used on willing targets. Is that going to be a problem--does the glyph seal make it work on unwilling targets?


The target for teleport is "You and touched objects or other touched willing creatures". Glyph Seal uses the wording from glyph of warding, which was intended to be used against unwilling targets. The text for 'Spell Glyph' says, "If the spell has a target, it targets the intruder." The way I parse this is the intruder (whoever triggered the glyph) becomes the "You" specified under teleport's "Target:" entry. This essentially overwrites the intruder as the "spellcaster", and there is no rule or condition that checks to see if a spellcaster targeting him/herself is willing or unwilling. Be aware that the rules on this are somewhat sloppy, as glyph of warding assumes that a Spell Glyph is a "harmful spell" without actually defining what constitutes a "harmful spell" (e.g. casting CLW on a skeleton), and Glyph Seal/Skull Talisman/Shalantha's Delicate Disk does not explicitly invoke a similar restriction on what spells can be stored.

Skull Talisman is slightly clearer about how it targets the spell, as the text says the creature who activated the skull talisman becomes both the target and the spellcaster for the purposes of determining who/where the spell targets, although all of the rest of the spell's effects (such as caster level, destination, shape, etc.) are determined by the original spellcaster when the skull talisman is created.

All of these items essentially allow you to "overwrite" or ignore certain elements of the spell description. For example, you can cast "Personal" spells on creatures with no spellcasting ability. Or you can reduce longer casting times to whatever it takes to activate the item (Glyph Seal = free action, Skull Talisman/Delicate Disk = standard action or attack action). Which is to say... it's not entirely clear the rules were intended to work this way, and certain spell combinations may lead to DIVIDE BY CUCUMBER results. If you allow this sort of rules wankery to take place in your game, then you'll need to stay on your toes and be able to adjudicate oddball effects on the fly.

[Segev]

There's always the "unerringly move creatures from one place to another" function of wish. Can you get a scroll or something?