Have a solution, in need of a problem

[Jacoby]

So, my players are about to come into possession of a ring that allows the wearer to become invisible to a single creature. This item comes with a caveat: the player's npc patron will bequeath the ring to the players, but only after a players use the ring to break into a magically-warded bank vault.

This is the part where I'm at a loss for ideas. The party's patron could surely obtain a scroll of invisibility, but instead chose a more expensive, reusable single-target item.

So I pose this problem to you lovely folks: what sort of defences, magical or otherwise, could best be thwarted by targeted invisibility?

[Alucard2099]

Be lazy and take the harry potter vault.

[Daishain]

Fairly standard high security building. They'll need a good plan to get in, though this might be made easier if portions of the building are open to the public.

Vault is in a basement underneath the building. Basement houses a construct, golem, or other guardian creature that relies on sight more than other senses it may or may not have. Aside from being a fierce opponent, the creature is likely to alert half the town if roused.

[RazDelacroix]

Alright my fellow knights of the crosstrade, here's the situation. *cue the Mission Impossible theme*

First of all, the goods lay in a magic-warded vault in the So&So Bank belonging to the ole' Dwarfelles group. That means it's going to be a mean job all the way through. There's seven layers of security known to us.


Visible Muscle; heavy-duty thugs with instructions to contain and/or beat-down anyone acting out of line. They're well trained and listen to their bosses without a problem, but they themselves got no brains really. Come in pairs and there's at least three sets patrolling the insides of the place in addition to the standard guard posts.

Unseen Muscle; these are the spooks you wanna keep an eye out for. Plain-clothes hides martial artists and potential spell-slingers. They can appear as either the banks' tellers or customers. We're going to need a way to smooze over some info on who's whom.

Constructs; I know what yer thinking. Golems, but wait! There's only one actual golem working on guarding the vaults. What you really need to be on the lookout for are the clockworks. Spindly-legged spheres with little alarm bells attached. They move too fast or get the jitters seeing someone up to something they ought notta, they'll start ringing their bodies till the muscle comes along.

Gelatin; that's right, at night they release a big-ole gelatinous cube through the halls after everyone else locks the place up till morning. Once morning rolls around the golem ushers the cube back into a 'pen' so as not to scoop up any personnel.

Mechanical Lock; the vaults require a trio of keys to open the panel to the combination lock that properly opens the door. Seems simple enough right? Except...

Arcane Wards; there will be a number of magic wards that lookout for anything fishy. Don't ask me the specifics, because just which spells are used and the bypass codes to get through them are carried by So&So's premier Lock-Mage. Said blood is guarded at all times by three big muscle sorts. And even if you get through all of that, there is still one last bit.

Clock-Work Dragon; Yep. Dont' ask me WHERE they got a dragon from. I think it's some sort of living construct that they acquired and set it to guard the vault from the inside.


This is on top of the fact that the bank was originally a dwarven keep meant to repel intruders from above AND below. If you can get one of the employees to squeal on who's doing what on the inside, someway to slip the codes from the Lock-Mage, and somehow get the Clock-Dragon to not whatever-beam you do smithereens, we just might have that ring earned for ya.

[Princess]

The elaborate complex is patrolled by many guards... but strangely, only one guard can see any given part of it. It's almost as if the ring was designed to be the bare minimum necessary item to sneak in and rob the place.

[DireSickFish]

Simple, he can't track the party with a scroll or potion. The ring is obviously useful so the party won't get rid of it. It was also a lot cheaper to have made than a full ring of invisibility. He's also taken the precaution of making himself immune to the ring.

You can be full malevolent with this having him go badguy at some later date. Or he could just be parinoid/properly prepared about the obviously powerful PCs.

The beauty of this justification is that you never ever have to tell your players that this is why. They'll scoff and say a potion or scroll would have worked and now they conned him out of an item. Or think it's silly. But you can just smirk that DM smirk that only comes from knowing something the PC's don't.

[Jacoby]

Thank you, everyone for the ideas. I won't say whose idea I plan to use, I know my players frequent these boards, but you were a great help.

[bardo]

DireSickFish's idea is so evil it's beautiful.

The guy should have a solid reason prepared as to why they HAVE to take the ring. A scroll or a potion simply won't do, because....

The building has an area that's open to the public. Anyone can go in, but the guards pat you down thoroughly before you enter. No weapons, no shoes, no jewelry, no items of any kind except basic clothing. There's no way to sneak a potion into the place. You might be able to sneak a scroll in there, but activating it will draw attention for sure. Perhaps a cunning player could find a way to sneak a ring inside, put the ring on just before closing time, wait inside until the guards leave and let his friends in through the back door?

Bardo.

[Inevitability]

The ring doesn't influence the one bearing it in any way. It doesn't hide him with an illusion effect, it uses an enchantment effect to cloud the mind of a single person at the time, making the area around the ring (including the bearer) seem uninteresting to them. It has trouble functioning against multiple people because it was made to only use the spell on a single target.

This has the benefit of bypassing spells such as See Invisibility or True Seeing, and even Detect Magic will only reveal the ring and its victim, not the creature itself.