Spell Turrets as castle/ship defenses?

[kalos72]

So one of my group came up with the idea of using spell turrets from DMG II on castle walls to help secure the city or on ships to replace catapults and such.

Perhaps ones that fire the same spell 5 times instead of a line of them? Or maybe something that can take verbal commands?


Thoughts?

[Elandris Kajar]

Seems like a decent idea. I would suggest maybe adding symbols/explosive runes/ fire trap/gulp of warding to add more chaos while it fires. I may have to borrow it.
(Insert evil DM laugh here)

[Saintheart]

By RAW spell turrets are a lot more limited than they first appear.

They have to vary their spells - there's nothing in the DMG 2 that really allows them to fire the same spell repeatedly across the rounds.

Also consider the range, particularly when it comes to city defences against sieges, or indeed on ships: spell turrets don't target objects, they target individuals that stray within 120 feet of the turret. So to avoid the turret all a caster (or a catapult) has to do is stay outside 120 feet. A composite longbow has a range increment of 110 feet, so you'd only take a -2 to stay outside a spell turret's range and shoot at whatever's protecting it, and catapults (light or heavy) have a range increment even longer. Indeed the catapult itself won't attract any attacks from the spell turret, because it's an object.

[kalos72]

Well, if you modified the original design to increase the "auto detect" range or just allowed it to be controlled via voice/mental commands that would solve the biggest drawback. But do you really think the turret cares if its a person approaching or a piano? I would think, considering the original intent its about blocking passage of anything no?

I think the restriction on various spells needing to be cats if a very minor problem overall...perhaps even Fireball@lv4, Fireball@lv5, Fireball@lv6, etc would suffice.

[Saintheart]

Just saying you can't do it on the RAW as such.

And it's not spells of different levels. All the spells have to be the same level ... but each one has to be of a different school. Again, not a different type, not a different descriptor, but a different school. And while the turret might trigger out to 120 feet, putting four or five spells of different schools of the same level that will hit out at that maximum range is not as easy as it sounds. It's sort of like trying to find a word that rhymes with 'orange'.