Well, how'd YOU defend the GATES?

[DuctTapeKatar]

I had been reading a post asking which of the Gates in OOTS were the worst/best defended, link to it here. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?490661-Whose-gate-do-you-feel-was-best-worst-defended)

It brought up some clever discussion, as well as some big flaws to each one. With all of this in mind, how would YOU have defended the gates?

Personally, I'd make a large dungeon, with the last floor holding a massive shrine. And whilst the invaders are looking at the giant, glowing figure of the underground construct, a giant trap door would open beneath them and drop 'em into the real gate so they'd get sucked into it.

[Porthos]

Hire a bunch of adventures to figure out how to seal/heal the rifts permanently. Send them on random missions to build up their levels to epic, if necessary.

===

I say the above not to be cheeky, but to simply note that there is no defense that can't be circumvented by a clever storyteller committed group.

Getting RID OF the blessed things entirely is by far the best way to deal with the whole issue.

[dancrilis]

Your defence can be beaten by a fly spell or a competant rogue.

Personally knowing what we know now - I would have a divine and arcane caster combine magic to move the gates to a plane with nothing in it (possible creating a demiplane (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/spells/genesis.htm) solely for this).

Than after building some defences (a couple of stone of Dimensional Lock (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/dimensionalLock.htm) scattered around the place at least) and without involving outsiders or other beings.
Than I might conduct a study to find out what information is out there on them and systematically destroy it - including removing the information from the mind of anyone who knew about it (possible myself included).

There are probably better ways but as a basic security method it would seem to work for most scenarios.

[Peelee]

Your defence can be beaten by a fly spell or a competant rogue.

Personally knowing what we know now - I would have a divine and arcane caster combine magic to move the gates to a plane with nothing in it (possible creating a demiplane (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/spells/genesis.htm) solely for this).

Than after building some defences (a couple of stone of Dimensional Lock (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/dimensionalLock.htm) scattered around the place at least) and without involving outsiders or other beings.
Than I might conduct a study to find out what information is out there on them and systematically destroy it - including removing the information from the mind of anyone who knew about it (possible myself included).

There are probably better ways but as a basic security method it would seem to work for most scenarios.

How, i must ask, would you have them move the Gates? Only two entities know how, to the best of our knowledge: Redcloak and The Dark One

[dancrilis]

How, i must ask, would you have them move the Gates? Only two entities know how, to the best of our knowledge: Redcloak and The Dark One

There is no indication that the spells to move the gate are even epic (there is indication that they are not) - as such researching spells to move interplaner beaches might be a starting point.

As I said 'Personally knowing what we know now -', I have reason to believe that the gates can be moved as such if I was tasked with defending them (with access to the powers of a DnD character) I could make use of that knowledge.

Note my plan might fail (badly) as just like Redcloak's plan might fail, because I like him (and the Dark One) might have incomplete knowledge of what I am dealing with.

But assuming the the information that has been presented to us is accurate I believe that my plan is workable - is it the best plan assuming the the information that has been presented to us is accurate? Probably not but it seems reasonable enough as a baseline.

[Peelee]

I would daresay we do know that the spell is not epic, as the (still) not epic Redcloak seems pretty certain he can cast it, and has been for a while.

What you never addressed, though, is how would you get the spell? Again, only one god and his high priest know it. I would say it is severely restricted knowledge.

[DaggerPen]

I think Pelee raises a valid point, so to expand upon it - what resources do we have, period? Are we assuming a total Order of the Scribble scenario wherein we have full access to all resources they'd have had if they hadn't fallen apart, or a more generic "anything goes"?

[Squeeq]

Well, the way to defend things is to find out the ways people have of accessing it and removing them one by one.

Teleporting to a gate is probably the easiest, and there's plenty of spells to hide that, as well as lots to prevent it from being scryed or searched for, that's something Girard and Dorukan could have worked well towards. Flying makes gate access easier (see the Azure City), but keeping them subterranean is pretty handy for that. They could be burrowed into, but something like adamantium or force walls could help prevent that, which leaves conventional methods, which are physical entry. Besides making the locations unknown as best as possible, being defensible against both an army or a group of high-level adventurers is neccessary. While Girard's gate was well stocked against a smaller group, I feel like an entire army combing the desert with intent would have been able to find it and then lay siege fairly well, while a single group of villains would have had much more trouble with Azure City under the weight of all the defenders.

Interestingly enough, the gate that Xykon is stuck at is pretty handy - the monsters are powerful enough that ONLY high levels can take it on, so no matter how big the army is, each door they go through would likely just be a meat grinder for them, and on a polar cap, there's not enough food around to sustain a standing army anyway.

None of this of course precludes someone coming in with a step more power, able to pierce through your non-teleportation or non-scrying spells, or just carve their way through your beasties with no difficulty, etc. but that's academic. For the purposes of a D&D metagame, I'd probably go with a time-limit dungeon that is focused on attrition, enough to wear out the spells of casters, something where only a (comparatively) lowly martial would be able to outlast things. Not even saying that the things would have to be THAT challenging - enough that a high level fighter or barbarian would have little to no trouble surviving, but enough that most mages would be having to use SOME spells (IE: could not defeat it without expending resources).




Oh, by the way, since the gates dont' seem moveable, does that mean that before azure city and its castle was built (very impressive to have such an enormous city built so recently), was the rift just floating in midair?

[factotum]

I would slap the OotScribble silly until they got the idea that the best way to defend the gates was to *work together*. Every weakness that we've seen exploited would have been counteracted by some aspect of the way the other Gates were defended. For example, imagine Dorukan's Dungeon, as well as being guarded by Dorukan himself, had illusions guarding the route, paladins manning the defences, the anti-magic virus developed by Lirian destroying the spellcasting ability of any living caster who approached, and maybe a few Purple Worms on the upper levels?

[dtilque]

I'm going to assume that I don't know that the gate can be moved. After all, the Order of the Scribble didn't know that.

So bury it. Surround it with layers of multidimensional stone and lead, and maybe some other stuff like adamantium. Make lead the outermost layer, so no one can tell there's magical stuff inside. Leave no open area around it that someone can teleport into. Fill the gap between the rock and the gate with dirt so there's no open space there at all. Around the lead, put lots of ordinary rock and then soil above that. Landscape the area around it so it blends in well with the surrounding land. Just another hill.

If someone learns the coordinates and teleports there, they'll find nothing. They'll figure their info was wrong.

Removing as many references to the gate in various documents (found in libraries, etc.) would also be a good step. Especially any coordinates or other description of its location.

This would not work with the Azure City gate, since that was high in the air before they built the castle up to it. There rest were more or less at ground level as far as I can tell, so it would work with those.

[ViscountGrey]

Am I wrong in thinking that Dorukan's gate was actually the best defended? By use of sigils rather than enchantments (which can be dispelled or need renewing), deception (which has saving throws), or outright main force (which can be killed), he was shown to create a gate that could not be opened, even though his stronghold was taken.

The only mistake was the "pure of heart" thing - which is such a cliché. Maybe if you set the sigil to be activated only by either self (thereby meaning that death saves the sigil), or by something so completely improbable - eg. only be a LG character who is acting in a CE way, with their non-dominant hand, holding a +5 greatsword in the other, standing on one leg. On a rainy night. With a full moon. In summer. On a Tuesday. Oh, and of course, don't let it get around (for eg we've not seen how Nale knew the sigils could only be activated by the pure of heart, meaning this was either a) written down somewhere; b) a rumour (which must have started somewhere); or c) such a cliché that it had to be true).

[factotum]

The only mistake was the "pure of heart" thing - which is such a cliché. Maybe if you set the sigil to be activated only by either self (thereby meaning that death saves the sigil), or by something so completely improbable

Problem is, these things have a way of being found out either in-game or in-story. I always found the portals in the Planescape setting to be an example of this--oh, this door-shaped opening becomes a portal to another realm so long as you're holding a freshly cut rose when you walk through it? Ah, that would explain why this rose bush 20 feet away is missing a lot of its flowers! :smallbiggrin:

[DaggerPen]

I'm going to assume that I don't know that the gate can be moved. After all, the Order of the Scribble didn't know that.

So bury it. Surround it with layers of multidimensional stone and lead, and maybe some other stuff like adamantium. Make lead the outermost layer, so no one can tell there's magical stuff inside. Leave no open area around it that someone can teleport into. Fill the gap between the rock and the gate with dirt so there's no open space there at all. Around the lead, put lots of ordinary rock and then soil above that. Landscape the area around it so it blends in well with the surrounding land. Just another hill.

If someone learns the coordinates and teleports there, they'll find nothing. They'll figure their info was wrong.

Removing as many references to the gate in various documents (found in libraries, etc.) would also be a good step. Especially any coordinates or other description of its location.

This would not work with the Azure City gate, since that was high in the air before they built the castle up to it. There rest were more or less at ground level as far as I can tell, so it would work with those.


Am I wrong in thinking that Dorukan's gate was actually the best defended? By use of sigils rather than enchantments (which can be dispelled or need renewing), deception (which has saving throws), or outright main force (which can be killed), he was shown to create a gate that could not be opened, even though his stronghold was taken.

The only mistake was the "pure of heart" thing - which is such a cliché. Maybe if you set the sigil to be activated only by either self (thereby meaning that death saves the sigil), or by something so completely improbable - eg. only be a LG character who is acting in a CE way, with their non-dominant hand, holding a +5 greatsword in the other, standing on one leg. On a rainy night. With a full moon. In summer. On a Tuesday. Oh, and of course, don't let it get around (for eg we've not seen how Nale knew the sigils could only be activated by the pure of heart, meaning this was either a) written down somewhere; b) a rumour (which must have started somewhere); or c) such a cliché that it had to be true).

Two questions these posts make me think of -

1. When defending the Gates, do we need to let ourselves, or potentially an heir, access the Gate? Are we so sure that the never-before-tested spells used to seal the Rifts and make the Gates will last for eternity and never require emergency maintenence?
2. Serious question - why make a sigil unless you never mean it to be opened? Why not just make a ward instead? These sorts of rules are typically put in there so that someone can access it if need be - for example, to prevent the Gate being subverted, or if the spell is failing years later and needs to be prepared. Making a sigil that isn't meant to be open seems like installing a door, installing a keyhole on a door and then throwing it out - why not just seal it entirely?

[dancrilis]

What you never addressed, though, is how would you get the spell?

... yes I did.

... as such researching spells to move interplaner beaches might be a starting point.

I am not sure what you are querying here?
How I initially found out it was possible? It was written in the comic and I have read the comic.
How researching spells works? Well we have seen that in the comic also.

Now caveats could be added that we could only use knowledge that the Order of the Scribble had at the time - but still researching magic to move the gates (and the rifts) away from the material plane would seem prudent.

The difficulty with it is a) coming up with the idea b) confirming that the idea works, and fortunately for me the idea has been laided out in the comic so I don't need to be original in how I consider that (whether the ritual will work or not is so far untested).

[AvatarVecna]

As far as D&D is concerned, epic Wizard is capable of literally everything. Dorukan could've solved everything if he hadn't been ******* around; circumvent his stupid allies who don't know what they're doing (and Lirian who doesn't know what she's doing either, despite not really being stupid), and defend all the gates with epic magic...or hell, destroy the gates with epic magic. Anything's possible with Epic Spellcasting if you can bind enough outsiders to your will.

Also, it's worth pointing out that while Eugene is set up as being in the wrong regarding how important emotions should be to a proper wizard, Dorukan would've done much better if he'd been willing to delay his avenging Lirian long enough to rest and get the right spells for defeating Xykon. I'm not saying he should never have cared about her, or that he should've given up caring about her when Xykon started trying to use her against him, but I'm saying that him immediately charging out and dueling Xykon with less than full spell slots and prepared spells that weren't specifically prepared for defeating Xykon was a stupid stupid plan. Xykon's not going anywhere, and you dying to try and save your beloved would mean you would fail to save your beloved, so take two seconds to think things through rather than blindly charging out when you're not ready.You have to have them working together, because it's Rich's sandbox, and things only go according to his plan. OOTS has a strong theme of "success is determined by which team works best as a team", and that's the only way this could ever have worked. Dorukan didn't fail because epic magic isn't enough on its own, he failed because he made stupid decision after stupid decision...decisions that no Wizard intelligent enough to survive to epic would make, except for the plot and moral of the story require him to make those stupid decisions.

[Murk]

I would probably be that naive person that assumes there's more good people in the world than evil people, and I'd say: go public.
Tell the world about these gates. There's dwarves living nearby the current gate. There was plenty of population near the one in Azure City. None of those people would want the world to be destroyed. Heck, I'm pretty sure Baron Pineapple himself wouldn't want the world to be destroyed.
There's no reason anyone with good intentions would destroy those gates. If the Order of the Scribble had just come clean about the Snarl ("it's a world killing god eating monster"), not even Xykon would be after them now, because honestly, why would he?

Especially in the OotS world as we see it now, this would be a big risk. Most of these gates are in remote areas, and almost all countries, states and regimes have shown to be pretty isolationist. There's the chance that they all think "Eh, someone else will handle it".
On the other hand, there's a lot of good adventurers looking for xp, so I think it balances out: I think an entire world of good people defending gates against bad people will always trump five mortals trying to defend those gates against the same amount of bad people ad infinitem.

[ViscountGrey]

Unfortunately the very existence of a gate which is known to be preventing the end of the world is almost a self-fulfilling prophecy. As Elan proved to us in Dorukan's Dungeon, showing a person a big lever marked "End of the World Switch. Do not touch under any circumstances. No not even those, I know what you're thinking..." is a precursor to the words "I wonder what this does?" followed by "Oops."

On the other hand if you were to get an Epic wizard (or soul splice V again) and send them through the gate with some kind of epic destruction spell (As we're talking a snarl here, could we have a "epic disentanglement" :smallbiggrin:?), with some chance of survival (or have a cleric on standby with the diamond dust!), could we be looking at problem solved?

Actually, I like the idea of V doing this - it's a pretty major action of atonement that counts on their end-of-life record.

[DaggerPen]

While I don't rule out the possibility this will end with a Snarl boss fight - the Giant did introduce the idea that mortals may be less vulnerable than gods - having a cleric on standby with diamonds would do little if your soul was literally unmade. Even if True Resurrection could work there - dubious - the Giant sort of hates that spell and won't use it, to say the least.

[Peelee]

... yes I did.


I am not sure what you are querying here?
How I initially found out it was possible? It was written in the comic and I have read the comic.
How researching spells works? Well we have seen that in the comic also.

Now caveats could be added that we could only use knowledge that the Order of the Scribble had at the time - but still researching magic to move the gates (and the rifts) away from the material plane would seem prudent.

The difficulty with it is a) coming up with the idea b) confirming that the idea works, and fortunately for me the idea has been laided out in the comic so I don't need to be original in how I consider that (whether the ritual will work or not is so far untested).

Aha. Dunno how I missed that.

What I'm querying is the ability to actually have the resources required to do what is proposed. For instance, I could just say, "I'd have a wizard research and invent the spell Peelee's Cheesy Unbreakable Bond, which renders the Gate completely invulnerable to any method whatsoever of tampering with the gate in any way." We know that spellcasters can research and invent spells, we know that incredibly powerful spellcasters can exist in Stickworld, so why not?

Daggerpen was able to phrase it much better than I; what resources do we have available to us?

[dancrilis]

Aha. Dunno how I missed that.

What I'm querying is the ability to actually have the resources required to do what is proposed. For instance, I could just say, "I'd have a wizard research and invent the spell Peelee's Cheesy Unbreakable Bond, which renders the Gate completely invulnerable to any method whatsoever of tampering with the gate in any way." We know that spellcasters can research and invent spells, we know that incredibly powerful spellcasters can exist in Stickworld, so why not?

Daggerpen was able to phrase it much better than I; what resources do we have available to us?

Yea it depends on what we can use (Peelee's Cheesy Unbreakable Bond would likely be dispellable via higher level magic or meddling deities).


I have also been considering my plan (as I laid it out) - it is possible that it might destroy the world.

We understand that rifts started appearing in the Snarl's prison, and we have reason to believe that is not happening anymore - and we understand that the remaining gates need seem to hold the ungated rifts at bay.

It is possible that a secondard function of the gates it to prevent more rifts appearing (like the prevent existing rifts from reaching out and snatching stuff unless poked) - and if this is the case moving the gates off-plane might allow new rifts to form and thereby insure the Gods destory the world before the Snarl does.

So does defending the Gates but dooming the planet count as a success or a failure - if the planet is destroyed it is likely that the Gates would be even better defended than if the planet continues to exist but it seems it might defeat the purpose of bothing to defend the Gates (unless you wanted leverage in the new world by having an arsenal of Snarl to deploy).

[Crusher]

I'm going to assume that I don't know that the gate can be moved. After all, the Order of the Scribble didn't know that.

So bury it. Surround it with layers of multidimensional stone and lead, and maybe some other stuff like adamantium. Make lead the outermost layer, so no one can tell there's magical stuff inside. Leave no open area around it that someone can teleport into. Fill the gap between the rock and the gate with dirt so there's no open space there at all. Around the lead, put lots of ordinary rock and then soil above that. Landscape the area around it so it blends in well with the surrounding land. Just another hill.

If someone learns the coordinates and teleports there, they'll find nothing. They'll figure their info was wrong.

Removing as many references to the gate in various documents (found in libraries, etc.) would also be a good step. Especially any coordinates or other description of its location.

This would not work with the Azure City gate, since that was high in the air before they built the castle up to it. There rest were more or less at ground level as far as I can tell, so it would work with those.

As long as you don't think you'll need access to them again later, I like this approach. Cover them in anti-detection wards, seal them in anti-scry/ghostform/ethereal rock, build a hill on top of it and don't ever tell anyone where it is. For all intents and purposes it'll just be gone for a thousand years.

Anyone powerful enough to find it will probably be able to penetrate any active defenses you'd set up, anyway. And, sure, in 1000 years erosion might wipe the hill away, exposing the weird rock around the rift and eventually inviting attention. But that's ok. The entire Stick-world itself is only 1000 years old, and even Elves probably aren't capable of actively sustaining a serious defense for 1000 years. Keeping the rift undisturbed for 1000 years would probably count as a win.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

I think I agree with the thought that the Scribblers defense would have been much stronger had they been able to work together on it, rather than separately. Of course, from the story perspective, every Gate had to fall for the story to work, so it's not like a perfect defense would ever have been done, but it is nice to brainstorm. I'm assuming that we're working from the Scribblers' POV, not making our own OP perfect adventure group to do the defense, otherwise things get a lot easier.

[dtilque]

As long as you don't think you'll need access to them again later,

That is a big question. Everything we've learned about the gates says that there's no need for anyone to ever access them. But there are hints that we haven't learned everything about them, so there may be some reason they will need to be accessed/opened under certain very rare circumstances. Eventually we may find out what those are.

[ChillerInstinct]

Imagining, for the moment, that the obvious answers of "fix the rifts" and "make the Order of the Scribble swallow their pride and work together" are off the table, I'd probably do SOMETHING like Dorukan, in that alignment sigils would be used.

...The difference being, instead of relying on JUST purity of heart sigils, I'd mix in "a heart as black as pitch", "a heart as free as the four winds", and whatever alignment ones I could. The odds of getting a party together of, say, all 9 of the alignments, without someone trying to kill one of the others, are fairly low.

For extra good measure, the room leading to the gate would have several locks requiring the simultaneous activation of all 9 sigils... which would explode and kill each party upon activation, requiring multiple parties containing as many conflicting alignments as possible to even reach the core. And it would have to be in short order or after I died without a suitable heir, since in theory new sigils and locks could be put into place to replace the old ones.

Because screw you, I'm a Wizard.

[Pyron]

My solution would be to place a sign in front of all the gates that say: "Keep out!"

[Ionbound]

My solution is as follows:

Build a gate. Cast the gate in an inch-worth of lead. Cast standard abjurations on the lead (you know the type, probably the same kind every gate had). Pour concrete over the lead into the shape of a block. Use the block as the cornerstone of the main building of my castle (NOT THE OUTER WALL. The part that people, you know, live in). And then just go about making a city around it, Azure City style.

[Necris Omega]

To be completely honest, I'd probably end up experimenting on it looking for a better solution and and dooming all creation in the process.

"Okay... Sphere of Annihilation test take 12!"

[DaggerPen]

Imagining, for the moment, that the obvious answers of "fix the rifts" and "make the Order of the Scribble swallow their pride and work together" are off the table, I'd probably do SOMETHING like Dorukan, in that alignment sigils would be used.

...The difference being, instead of relying on JUST purity of heart sigils, I'd mix in "a heart as black as pitch", "a heart as free as the four winds", and whatever alignment ones I could. The odds of getting a party together of, say, all 9 of the alignments, without someone trying to kill one of the others, are fairly low.

For extra good measure, the room leading to the gate would have several locks requiring the simultaneous activation of all 9 sigils... which would explode and kill each party upon activation, requiring multiple parties containing as many conflicting alignments as possible to even reach the core. And it would have to be in short order or after I died without a suitable heir, since in theory new sigils and locks could be put into place to replace the old ones.

Because screw you, I'm a Wizard.

Okay, but why? The purpose of having a sigil that can be bypassed by the pure of heart is so that the pure of heart can bypass it. Otherwise, why make it bypassable at all? Under what circumstances are you going to need a set of bizarre sigils to be triggered? If the goal is to prevent all access, set up wards to prevent all access. If the goal is - as I suspect - to make it so that you or adventurers who need to access the Gate for reasons you consider legitimate can access it, then your convoluted setup hardly accomplishes that goal.

The purpose of a wall is to block access. The purpose of a door is to allow access through the wall. The purpose of a lock is to block access except to the right people. Bizarre sigil setups are kind of like building a door, putting a fancy almost-impossible-to-pick lock on it, making a cast of the key, splitting the cast into five pieces, burying the pieces in separate corners of the map, and then melting the original key down into a small figurine. Sure, it'll keep people out, but it's less secure than a wall and yet completely undermines the reason for having a lock in the first place.

[ViscountGrey]

Okay, but why? The purpose of having a sigil that can be bypassed by the pure of heart is so that the pure of heart can bypass it. Otherwise, why make it bypassable at all? Under what circumstances are you going to need a set of bizarre sigils to be triggered? If the goal is to prevent all access, set up wards to prevent all access. If the goal is - as I suspect - to make it so that you or adventurers who need to access the Gate for reasons you consider legitimate can access it, then your convoluted setup hardly accomplishes that goal.

The purpose of a wall is to block access. The purpose of a door is to allow access through the wall. The purpose of a lock is to block access except to the right people. Bizarre sigil setups are kind of like building a door, putting a fancy almost-impossible-to-pick lock on it, making a cast of the key, splitting the cast into five pieces, burying the pieces in separate corners of the map, and then melting the original key down into a small figurine. Sure, it'll keep people out, but it's less secure than a wall and yet completely undermines the reason for having a lock in the first place.

I think ChillerInstinct, and certainly I was in an earlier post, is working from the basis that at some point in the past the gates were created - the reasons they were made as gates and not as walls is unfathomable, lost to the mists of time. It is logical to assume that those who created the gates knew about a set of circumstances which may require the gates to be opened, and therefore built in that possibility. Those coming afterwards can only work on the knowledge that what is behind the gates can destroy the world and therefore fortify them as much as possible - preferably with defences that would still be up and running were you to die / get killed - but still leave open the possibility of opening the gates based on an unknown, but existing requirement.

We call these the "known unknowns" - things we don't know, but that we know we don't know. In project management the approach is to take these into account and build in a certain amount of flexibility for a time when the unknowns may become knowns.

[dancrilis]

We call these the "known unknowns" - things we don't know, but that we know we don't know. In project management the approach is to take these into account and build in a certain amount of flexibility for a time when the unknowns may become knowns.

Which I believe is DaggerPen's point, in the event that the known unknown occurs and ChillerInstinct needs to access the gate the protections they have on accessing it will mean that they cannot unless they get multiple groups of multiple alignment people working together and willing to sacrifice themselves - unless they have a backdoor, which than could be exploited by others (Dorukan's backdoor was the bypass for pure of heart, ChillerInstinct would likely need a backdoor for the backdoor if they wanted to access the Gate).

Frankly if you are going the route they laid out I imagine most people trying to assault your gate will merely bypass the protections via dispel magic, break enchantment, mordenkainen's disjunction or use magic device combined with disarming device (to avoid the fatal elements).

[factotum]

I think ChillerInstinct, and certainly I was in an earlier post, is working from the basis that at some point in the past the gates were created - the reasons they were made as gates and not as walls is unfathomable, lost to the mists of time.

I'm not sure they really *are* gates in terms of "can be opened". They were constructed to shore up the weak points in reality where the rifts are, not with any intention of them being used for evil purposes; that was just an unhappy side-effect. It's like Dorukan and Lirian fixed a weak wall by sticking plastic explosive in the gaps--it unquestionably *worked*, but someone with a blasting cap comes along and suddenly you have a big problem.

[DaggerPen]

I think ChillerInstinct, and certainly I was in an earlier post, is working from the basis that at some point in the past the gates were created - the reasons they were made as gates and not as walls is unfathomable, lost to the mists of time. It is logical to assume that those who created the gates knew about a set of circumstances which may require the gates to be opened, and therefore built in that possibility. Those coming afterwards can only work on the knowledge that what is behind the gates can destroy the world and therefore fortify them as much as possible - preferably with defences that would still be up and running were you to die / get killed - but still leave open the possibility of opening the gates based on an unknown, but existing requirement.

We call these the "known unknowns" - things we don't know, but that we know we don't know. In project management the approach is to take these into account and build in a certain amount of flexibility for a time when the unknowns may become knowns.


Which I believe is DaggerPen's point, in the event that the known unknown occurs and ChillerInstinct needs to access the gate the protections they have on accessing it will mean that they cannot unless they get multiple groups of multiple alignment people working together and willing to sacrifice themselves - unless they have a backdoor, which than could be exploited by others (Dorukan's backdoor was the bypass for pure of heart, ChillerInstinct would likely need a backdoor for the backdoor if they wanted to access the Gate).

Frankly if you are going the route they laid out I imagine most people trying to assault your gate will merely bypass the protections via dispel magic, break enchantment, mordenkainen's disjunction or use magic device combined with disarming device (to avoid the fatal elements).

Dancrilis partially got it, but I think you're sticking a bit on them being called "Gates." The fact that they're "Gates is irrelevant to my point. The Gate is not the door in my extended metaphor - the sigil is the door, and the conditions used to pass it are the key. Using byzantine conditions that no one's really meant to meet is the thing with the mold.

In fact, let's pretend for a second that they're not Gates at all - they're just unidentified MacGuffins you have to guard for unknown and irrelevant reasons. Now, say someone comes along with the proposed sigil plan again. My question is still "Why on earth would that be the vulnerability in your sigil?" You put bypasses like "lets only the pure of heart through" in order to allow access - if you're trying to deny anyone access to the MacGuffin whatsoever, leaving a hole, no matter how Byzantine, is a non-optimal solution compared to "throw that exact same type of magic into a ward that just keeps anyone out". Meanwhile, if your goal were instead "keep most people out but allow emergency access", your sigil conditions are nigh useless, because bypassing them takes ages.

Could you just dispel the sigil if you needed in? Absolutely! As dancrilis alluded to, sigils are still vulnerable to brute force attacks like dispelling, etc. What else is in the exact same situation? A ward that just zaps everyone who tries to get in - except that one can't also be bypassed by meeting the obscure conditions.

Rule of thumb - don't build a backdoor into your defenses unless it's meant to be used. A condition literally no one is actually supposed to meet is a condition you should leave out.

[Goblin_Priest]

I'd make it extremely public so that every villain would kill each other in order to try to control it. ;)

[Kish]

While it doesn't really address the main point (which DaggerPen already did address), I'd also like to mention that "lost to the mists of time" seems, to me, to imply less knowledge then we have. The Gates were created by Lirian and Dorukan less than a hundred years ago. "Those who created the Gates" are, in two cases, also those who fortified them; none of the Order of the Scribble were furrowing their brows going, "Huh, I wonder why this is a Gate, but I better not block access to it off entirely, it might be needed for something."

[ViscountGrey]

Except that by choosing not to document anything for posterity, they have obscured any knowledge of why they were created as gates in the first place, as opposed to walls, hence the knowledge gap. It's almost like Heisenberg's uncertainty principle - we're finding more and more out about the gates - who created them, what they are gating, what is on the other side, who is trying to open them, what their destruction causes etc. - in the meantime we are further away from finding out why on earth someone would build a construct which allows access to the end of the world switch instead of just denying all possible access.

I think if we're looking at defending the gates to ensure they remain walls as opposed to doorways, then a "shoot the messenger" approach could work - set all your best wizards, illusionists, builders etc. to creating the most elaborate defence they can in terms of actual physical barriers, magic wards, phantasms etc. BUT don't let them tell you what they've done - send an expeditionary force to attempt to reach the gate - again don't find out HOW, merely IF they reach it.... once that's done, kill them all - that way the only one left is you, and all you know is there is a gate, because you have carefully arranged for all others with any more knowledge to be dead.

[DaggerPen]

For the record, I have no objection to the idea of defenses that assume you or someone else may need legitimate access to the Gates at some point - indeed, I think the exercise is more fun if we do. I just think it's silly to put in a backdoor if it's not meant to be used. I'd rather do something like "A sigil that can only be used by the pure of heart, if the pure of heart are announcing aloud their intent to destroy/access and repair (as appropriate) the Gate and knowledge of what that entails while they do so, with a sign next to the sigil saying that you must tell the sigil what you truthfully intend in order to reach your goal," which prevents accidental destruction but still allows emergency access.

[KillingAScarab]

Problem: The planet you're on holds the key to the destruction of the entire universe.

Assumption: This is not the only planet.

Solution: Remove every sentient creature from the planet, resist the urge to call it Forbidden Planet. Instead, call it Boring Planet. No one wants to go to Boring Planet.

[DaggerPen]

... actually, that's an interesting point. I think that the Snarl can probably destroy the entire plane, but we know the outer planes would be safe during the "destroy and rebuild the world" step required to fix the rifts for real. I can see the gods being unable to agree on a "remove everyone and put them back after" plan - that may reveal too much to the mere mortals, and some gods may be reluctant to cede the flux of follower souls that can power them up (Hel) - but it's theoretically possible for some ridiculously epic level adventurers. I doubt we're getting to that power level, though.

[DeliaP]

Build a sequence of dungeons, in widely separated locations each of which (after the first) can only be entered or exited through a (possibly epic) teleportation spell set up in this way:

- each person has to step into a 5x5 room, one at a time, and close the door.
- if the door is closed with one person in the room, a small hole opens up in the wall.
- reach into the hole and press the button to teleport to the next dungeon.
- after the teleport happens, the door unlocks and the next person can go through.

Fill each dungeon with assorted tricks, traps, constructs, monsters, sigils, wards, illusions, whatevers you want to make anyone feel that they have earned their way through the dungeon. Sure, make it so that you can get through if you need to.

Provide sufficient just-not-quite-too-hard-to-solve clues (like, put into a diary in a secret-but-breakable code, that is conveniently found in one of the early dungeons) to indicate that you have to get through twenty of these dungeons to reach the final deep, sealed completely separate room with the gate. (physically located somewhere else entirely).

However, while the room to teleport out of dungeon eleven into dungeon twelve looks exactly like all the others, it works differently. To teleport you don't press the button in the hole, you circle around the hole with your thumb, anti-clockwise, and that teleports you straight to the room with the gate. Dungeons twelve through twenty don't exist. Don't tell anyone untrusted this. Instead, put a sphere of annihilation in the hole.

What can I say, I like the classics! :-)

[Fincher]

I'm going to assume that I don't know that the gate can be moved. After all, the Order of the Scribble didn't know that.

So bury it. Surround it with layers of multidimensional stone and lead, and maybe some other stuff like adamantium. Make lead the outermost layer, so no one can tell there's magical stuff inside. Leave no open area around it that someone can teleport into. Fill the gap between the rock and the gate with dirt so there's no open space there at all. Around the lead, put lots of ordinary rock and then soil above that. Landscape the area around it so it blends in well with the surrounding land. Just another hill.

If someone learns the coordinates and teleports there, they'll find nothing. They'll figure their info was wrong.

Removing as many references to the gate in various documents (found in libraries, etc.) would also be a good step. Especially any coordinates or other description of its location.

This would not work with the Azure City gate, since that was high in the air before they built the castle up to it. There rest were more or less at ground level as far as I can tell, so it would work with those.

The only problem is that if you manage to fool everyone into thinking there's nothing there, there's still the risk that someone would come along and mine it or build a castle there or something.

I'd do the sigil thing, do the buried in the earth thing around it, and then to top it off I'd build a strip club over it. The strip club would be named Pleasure's Gate so whoever arrives there would think the information was just set-up for a punchline. Of course, the gate would still be found anyway because it's a story and one way or another it was always going to be found.

[Christopher K.]

In a manner that fits what the Order of the Scribble was doing and in-character? I'd have to say my Gate's gimmick would be constructs in a subterranean vault, sealed off from the outside world. After all, constructs don't need to breathe, can work tirelessly, don't have lives outside of their designated functions, and are difficult to deceive, so give them orders to constantly build and maintain each other.

The epic gimmick(the virus, the final illusion, the Sapphire Martyrs, etc) would be that the entire dungeon would be controlled by a core mind modeled after myself to make any executive decisions as necessary once I am no longer there to supervise, capable of rearranging dungeon terrain as need be.

..You know, this is starting to sound a lot like Aperture Science.

Besides, that steampunk stuff is SUPER trendy these days.

[DaggerPen]

In a manner that fits what the Order of the Scribble was doing and in-character? I'd have to say my Gate's gimmick would be constructs in a subterranean vault, sealed off from the outside world. After all, constructs don't need to breathe, can work tirelessly, don't have lives outside of their designated functions, and are difficult to deceive, so give them orders to constantly build and maintain each other.

The epic gimmick(the virus, the final illusion, the Sapphire Martyrs, etc) would be that the entire dungeon would be controlled by a core mind modeled after myself to make any executive decisions as necessary once I am no longer there to supervise, capable of rearranging dungeon terrain as need be.

..You know, this is starting to sound a lot like Aperture Science.

Besides, that steampunk stuff is SUPER trendy these days.

... not gonna lie, that sounds super cool. Trying to think what your thematic Gate weakness would be - maybe someone manages to subvert or override the constructs' orders, which they continue to follow mindlessly?

[Christopher K.]

... not gonna lie, that sounds super cool. Trying to think what your thematic Gate weakness would be - maybe someone manages to subvert or override the constructs' orders, which they continue to follow mindlessly?
I'd imagine that the thematic weakness would be to somehow convince the core that the Gate would be safest if someone had easy access to it, though Xykon or Durkula or any intelligent undead could easily walk in if the constructs were merely ordered to keep all living creatures from reaching the gate. After all, a simple oversight like that can be the downfall of an overconfident artificer.

[dancrilis]

I'd imagine that the thematic weakness would be to somehow convince the core that the Gate would be safest if someone had easy access to it, though Xykon could easily walk in if the constructs were ordered to keep all living creatures from reaching the gate.

And here I thought the core weakness would be the core would be too well designed and so would go slowly insane from the decades of isolation and end up seeking to unleash the Snarl solely to ends its misery (or it would create a body and wander off to do something else).

[Skull the Troll]

Unfortunately the very existence of a gate which is known to be preventing the end of the world is almost a self-fulfilling prophecy. As Elan proved to us in Dorukan's Dungeon, showing a person a big lever marked "End of the World Switch. Do not touch under any circumstances. No not even those, I know what you're thinking..." is a precursor to the words "I wonder what this does?" followed by "Oops."

On the other hand if you were to get an Epic wizard (or soul splice V again) and send them through the gate with some kind of epic destruction spell (As we're talking a snarl here, could we have a "epic disentanglement" :smallbiggrin:?), with some chance of survival (or have a cleric on standby with the diamond dust!), could we be looking at problem solved?

Actually, I like the idea of V doing this - it's a pretty major action of atonement that counts on their end-of-life record.

I dont think a direct attack could work based on what we know. The Snarl destroyed an entire pantheon of Gods in moments. As far as replicating the movement spell for the gates, I suppose its possible but it seems like it would need direct divine intervention. Theres no indication that the Scribble had any idea such a thing was possible. On top of that the gates are only threatened because someone knows this spell. Its actually bad if more people know it. If you did learn the spell you should make sure there is no record of it and then suicide immediatly after casting it - possibly by entering the snarl and destroying your own soul. Unfortuantly the best defence the gates had was destroyed when Sereni decided to keep a jornal - secrecy. Once the existance of a location is known then its a hittable target. No dungeon of any type could be kept safe from a sufficently determined attacker. A plane shift could be followed, a lead vault could be dug up, etc.

My idea for the best defense for the gate is to convince the gods to reach an accord with the Dark One. Give him Azure City and its surrunding lands. Make a bargain in return for withdrawing knowledge of the spell from Redcloak and Xylon. With the souce of knowledge of the spell gone the gates could be repaired and the current status quo maintained.

[dtilque]

I'd do the sigil thing,

You mean ward. And yes, I should have included those in my idea.


do the buried in the earth thing around it, and then to top it off I'd build a strip club over it. The strip club would be named Pleasure's Gate so whoever arrives there would think the information was just set-up for a punchline.

Mommy, why is there a strip club in the middle of 1) an elven forest, 2) remote mountains, 3) uninhabited desert, or 4) arctic wasteland?


Of course, the gate would still be found anyway because it's a story and one way or another it was always going to be found.

Very true. If a future adventure(s) is destined to discover an Eldritch Horror whose very nature drives men mad, Mad, MAD... then all the defences, hiding, and trickery in the world won't do any good. You can't fight narrativium.

[Peelee]

Mommy, why is there a strip club in the middle of 1) an elven forest, 2) remote mountains, 3) uninhabited desert, or 4) arctic wasteland?

A.) What kind of parent takes their kid to a strip club?
2.) What kind of parent takes their kid to an arctic wasteland, or uninhabited desert?
III.) Why is there not a strip club there, is the real question. Time to tweak up Faerun a bit! "Welcome to Icewind Male, an all-male revue."

More puns to come as i think of them.

[Fincher]

Mommy, why is there a strip club in the middle of 1) an elven forest, 2) remote mountains, 3) uninhabited desert, or 4) arctic wasteland?

Then you would need to put up strip clubs in random locations all around the world so that it would seem normal. You know, for the good of humanity.

Or I guess you could create a town around the strip club. That might be a little more practical.

[danielxcutter]

Hmmm, I'm not an expert of the D&D system, but I do have a good idea. Make a 3D maze, one made of hundreds of sections that have portals to navigate between them instead of just corridors. The layout changes every few hours, and every single sections is filled with dozens of savage monsters with high spell resistance, as well as sadistic traps such as Gaseous Form + Gust Of Wind to seperate party members, or blasting them with several Disjunctions to take out magic items such as Ring Of Energy Immunity. Also, since a party trying to get the gates would be almost certainly be Evil, including spells such as Holy Smite or Protection From Evil would have a great effect. The walls of course have been lined with lead and admantium to prevent from simply breaking through.

And lastly, add a subtle pattern, in the form of monsters getting more powerful the closer you get to somewhere. When the BBEG catches on to it, he'll naturaly follow it. In this last room, make a fake Gate. When touched, the final trap is set off: Dozens of powerful explosive spells that deal sonic damage, or if possible force damage, followed by several Sphere of Annihilation spells combined with Rods of Cancelation for 2d6*10*n damage.

The gate itself is located in the core of the maze, cut off and inaccessible without tearing down the entire thing.

[Kish]

A Sphere of Annihilation isn't a spell. It's a minor artifact. A Rod of Cancellation is a magic item, not a spell. There's probably some way, at a certain level of resources, to make the ceiling rain Spheres of Annihilation followed by Rods of Cancellation aimed at the Spheres, but, especially with the preceding "tons of force damage" idea, this looks like way more resources than any member of the Order of the Scribble had.

[danielxcutter]

A Sphere of Annihilation isn't a spell. It's a minor artifact. A Rod of Cancellation is a magic item, not a spell. There's probably some way, at a certain level of resources, to make the ceiling rain Spheres of Annihilation followed by Rods of Cancellation aimed at the Spheres, but, especially with the preceding "tons of force damage" idea, this looks like way more resources than any member of the Order of the Scribble had.

Yeah, my bad, that was what I meant to say in the first place. Stupid typo. Also, you're also right about the expenses - the Oots world might not even have those things, let alone in the number I was thinking about. What about the massive force damage overkill by the way, is that too expensive as well? I did mention sonic damage first, but force damage is better since it can't be blocked by a Ring Of Sonic Immunity.

I presume that the other ideas were okay, since you haven't said anything about that.

[Kish]

Thing is, it's hard to say what kind of budget makes sense here. What's the cost-equivalent of Cloister? Or of the Ghost-Martyrs of the Sapphire Guard? Or a family of homegrown sociopath sorcerers? I don't know.

[danielxcutter]

Thing is, it's hard to say what kind of budget makes sense here. What's the cost-equivalent of Cloister? Or of the Ghost-Martyrs of the Sapphire Guard? Or a family of homegrown sociopath sorcerers? I don't know.

How much would be a sufficient budget for five low~mid twenties level adventurers? That should be a less vague way to judge it.

[Xihirli]

I would have done the exact same thing Serini did, only every single path would end with a fake gate identical to the real one.

[Mandor]

Pull a "Tomb of Horrors" on them. Have a single dungeon entrance, well shadowed, black as pitch. With a Sphere of Annihilation in it.
Maybe a backup trap that causes several such Spheres to be shot through the corridor at high speed and return, too.

Anything from the "Killer DM" handbook, really.

[EDIT: Therkla'd by DeliaP and Danielxcutter, possibly others.]

[danielxcutter]

Pull a "Tomb of Horrors" on them. Have a single dungeon entrance, well shadowed, black as pitch. With a Sphere of Annihilation in it.
Maybe a backup trap that causes several such Spheres to be shot through the corridor at high speed and return, too.

Anything from the "Killer DM" handbook, really.

[EDIT: Therkla'd by DeliaP and Danielxcutter, possibly others.]

*head tilt* Therkla'd? Does that have to do with the "ninja'd" thingy I keep seeing? Btw what does "swordsage'd" mean?

[Mandor]

*head tilt* Therkla'd? Does that have to do with the "ninja'd" thingy I keep seeing? Btw what does "swordsage'd" mean? Correct on Therkla = Ninja but no idea on the Swordsage bit. That one is new to me.

[Pyron]

Correct on Therkla = Ninja but no idea on the Swordsage bit. That one is new to me.

"Swordsage'd" is just another variation on "Ninja'd". It's preferred by some people because the Swordsage is a more OP class.

[Kish]

*head tilt* Therkla'd? Does that have to do with the "ninja'd" thingy I keep seeing? Btw what does "swordsage'd" mean?
Swordsage is a D&D class from Tome of Battle. Widely renowned for, among other things, making good ninjas.

[danielxcutter]

Correct on Therkla = Ninja but no idea on the Swordsage bit. That one is new to me.


"Swordsage'd" is just another variation on "Ninja'd". It's preferred by some people because the Swordsage is a more OP class.


Swordsage is a D&D class from Tome of Battle. Widely renowned for, among other things, making good ninjas.

Oh. *chuckles*

[HolyDraconus]

Have an Exalted Character of Good knowingly and willingly (without magical... assistance) help the greatest of Vile People, with the full knowledge that doing so is an IRREVOCABLE Evil act which will doom its soul to being utterly destroyed.


There. Outside of bs Diplomancy shenanigans, its pretty much not opening.

[DaggerPen]

Have an Exalted Character of Good knowingly and willingly (without magical... assistance) help the greatest of Vile People, with the full knowledge that doing so is an IRREVOCABLE Evil act which will doom its soul to being utterly destroyed.


There. Outside of bs Diplomancy shenanigans, its pretty much not opening.

... as, like, a sigil condition, or?

[Ehcks]

Security by obscurity. Using Move Earth and similar magic, I would work to create a mountain over the gate. Once it was fully covered, I would spread a rumor that I'm a crazy old wizard that likes buildings mountains.

When the first is completed, I would use all of my resources to hire an army of dwarven casters to help form an entire mountain range. I would then spend the rest of my life living on those mountains and creating more, to ensure other's belief that I am just a crazy mountain wizard and there's nothing here but rock.

[goodpeople25]

The defences we have seen had the gates be accessible though, is thier a tunnel or would use magic to get in? Plus obscurity could fail if the other gate defenders tipped them off to your existence. (Like writing in a diary though I doubt a gate defender would be so careless :smallwink: )

[Mandor]

Have an Exalted Character of Good knowingly and willingly (without magical... assistance) help the greatest of Vile People, with the full knowledge that doing so is an IRREVOCABLE Evil act which will doom its soul to being utterly destroyed.


There. Outside of bs Diplomancy shenanigans, its pretty much not opening.

Um.... Dragonlance, "Time of the Twins" trilogy? Isn't that exactly what Raistlin got Crysania to do?

[King of Nowhere]

Using the money of a large city, found an order of paladins sworn to protect the gate; those paladins will work closely with wizards, who will provide the best abiurations and illusions for it, and with druids, who will call the forces of nature to aid the gates (don't forget fire resistance!). And don't forget to guard it with a dungeon fillled with the nastiest monsters you can find.

Basically, I'm putting all the defences of the five gates into one.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

I'd probably do SOMETHING like Dorukan, in that alignment sigils would be used.

...The difference being, instead of relying on JUST purity of heart sigils, I'd mix in "a heart as black as pitch", "a heart as free as the four winds", and whatever alignment ones I could. The odds of getting a party together of, say, all 9 of the alignments, without someone trying to kill one of the others, are fairly low.

For extra good measure, the room leading to the gate would have several locks requiring the simultaneous activation of all 9 sigils... which would explode and kill each party upon activation, requiring multiple parties containing as many conflicting alignments as possible to even reach the core. And it would have to be in short order or after I died without a suitable heir, since in theory new sigils and locks could be put into place to replace the old ones.

Problem with this plan: let's pretend that I am the evil villain Gatesnatcher.

I go out and kidnap low-level villagers of the appropriate alignments, have my minions fight through whatever traps necessary to get to your sigils, and throw my villager-prisoners at the sigils--threatening bodily harm, harm to their loved ones, using mind control or whatever I need to do to get them to touch the sigils. I don't need them to work together, because they're my prisoners; they'll do what I say or I'll kill them and find someone who will. Either I or my minions will do all the trap-busting and monster slaying. And because the people touching the sigils are all cannon fodder, I don't care if your sigils blow them up; Detect Good, Detect Evil and so on are all things in DnD, I'll just go out and kidnap new ones, it won't even necessarily be difficult to find them.

And if I'm feeling less Evilly inclined myself, is anything stopping me from summoning monsters of the appropriate alignments to touch these things? 'Summon Monster I' seems to have a fairly wide array of alignments to play with all by itself, and I seem to recall a rule that summoned monsters that are slain don't actually die? Actually, that may be an easier way to circumvent your defense, assuming I can either coordinate that many summons across however-many sigils or find enough trustworthy like-minded summoners to help me.

[Tvtyrant]

If I was playing a D&D character I would make a floating tower above the gate (lots of ways to do this, probably summon a ghost wizard to make ethereal walls and stick the tower on top of it).

Inside of it would be a spelltrap of Wall of Magma which would cast it every 6 seconds, creating a waterfall of half-ethereal lava which would coat the gate and make turning ethereal to pass to the gate impossible.

To prevent the tower from being destroyed it would be coated in riverine, and to prevent things with fire immunity from burrowing into the pool of cooling rock the traps would have elementally shifted damage (yes, sonic walls of magma). To keep the rock from just piling up I would place a sphere of annihilation at the bottom, so the excess lava is slowly moved away and the whole thing stays semi-solid and hot.

[King of Nowhere]

If I was playing a D&D character I would make a floating tower above the gate (lots of ways to do this, probably summon a ghost wizard to make ethereal walls and stick the tower on top of it).

Inside of it would be a spelltrap of Wall of Magma which would cast it every 6 seconds, creating a waterfall of half-ethereal lava which would coat the gate and make turning ethereal to pass to the gate impossible.

To prevent the tower from being destroyed it would be coated in riverine, and to prevent things with fire immunity from burrowing into the pool of cooling rock the traps would have elementally shifted damage (yes, sonic walls of magma). To keep the rock from just piling up I would place a sphere of annihilation at the bottom, so the excess lava is slowly moved away and the whole thing stays semi-solid and hot.

Forgive me for being ignorant about most of what is non-core, but can't this titanic ddisplay of magic be defeated simply by a few break enchantment or something?

[danielxcutter]

Forgive me for being ignorant about most of what is non-core, but can't this titanic ddisplay of magic be defeated simply by a few break enchantment or something?

Technically, none of the ideas we've made is a perfect defense - such a thing is simply impossible. While most people won't even get close to the gates before being vaporized, every defense has one tiny weakness - and every story has either the villains or the heroes finding it.

[factotum]

Forgive me for being ignorant about most of what is non-core, but can't this titanic ddisplay of magic be defeated simply by a few break enchantment or something?

I'd say the bigger problem is that the idea would only work for the Azure City gate. All the others are either underground or at ground level, making it somewhat difficult to have a floating anything enclosing them.

[Tvtyrant]

Forgive me for being ignorant about most of what is non-core, but can't this titanic ddisplay of magic be defeated simply by a few break enchantment or something?

The magic items that make the lava are inside the riverine, which is immune to it. The tower and lava's etherealness is an intrinsic property, none-magical and so cannot be dispelled. From the Prime it would look like a waterfall of lava falling from nothing, while from the ethereal it would look like a fully encased tower within which the lava flows.

It is pretty easy for a high level wizard to excavate ground, so you could make one of these anywhere given some work.

[Valynie]

Security by obscurity. Using Move Earth and similar magic, I would work to create a mountain over the gate. Once it was fully covered, I would spread a rumor that I'm a crazy old wizard that likes buildings mountains.

When the first is completed, I would use all of my resources to hire an army of dwarven casters to help form an entire mountain range. I would then spend the rest of my life living on those mountains and creating more, to ensure other's belief that I am just a crazy mountain wizard and there's nothing here but rock.

This one gets my vote
Also make sure that no one in my group ever wrote something about the gates.

Also take the goblin race under my protection and help them become a full part of civilization so the dark one does not have to reveal to the bearer of the red cloak the secret of the gates

[durron597]

As far as D&D is concerned, epic Wizard is capable of literally everything. Dorukan could've solved everything if he hadn't been ******* around; circumvent his stupid allies who don't know what they're doing (and Lirian who doesn't know what she's doing either, despite not really being stupid), and defend all the gates with epic magic...or hell, destroy the gates with epic magic. Anything's possible with Epic Spellcasting if you can bind enough outsiders to your will.

Also, it's worth pointing out that while Eugene is set up as being in the wrong regarding how important emotions should be to a proper wizard, Dorukan would've done much better if he'd been willing to delay his avenging Lirian long enough to rest and get the right spells for defeating Xykon. I'm not saying he should never have cared about her, or that he should've given up caring about her when Xykon started trying to use her against him, but I'm saying that him immediately charging out and dueling Xykon with less than full spell slots and prepared spells that weren't specifically prepared for defeating Xykon was a stupid stupid plan. Xykon's not going anywhere, and you dying to try and save your beloved would mean you would fail to save your beloved, so take two seconds to think things through rather than blindly charging out when you're not ready.You have to have them working together, because it's Rich's sandbox, and things only go according to his plan. OOTS has a strong theme of "success is determined by which team works best as a team", and that's the only way this could ever have worked. Dorukan didn't fail because epic magic isn't enough on its own, he failed because he made stupid decision after stupid decision...decisions that no Wizard intelligent enough to survive to epic would make, except for the plot and moral of the story require him to make those stupid decisions.

We've had very few characters with both high Int and high Wis. Dorukan is no exception, his behavior is exactly in line with what I'd of expect of 19+ Int and no better than 13 Wis.

[dancrilis]

We've had very few characters with both high Int and high Wis. Dorukan is no exception, his behavior is exactly in line with what I'd of expect of 19+ Int and no better than 13 Wis.

Argueably only one - and he wants to give control of the gate to his god ... which come to think of it might be a fairly good way of protecting the gate if you choose the right god (possible if you can get one of the party to accend to divinity like the Dark One or Davlin they might be a good choice).

[DaggerPen]

If we're bringing the gods into things, we get a high priest to have their god directly propose a set of Gate protection interference exception legislation into the Godsmoot allowing any god to smite any interloper who attacks the Gate and then sabotage the High Priest of any god who seems likely to vote against it so only the ones in agreement attend.

I have a feeling like "get the gods involved" is probably not destined to end in cake and puppies for everyone, however.

[HolyDraconus]

Um.... Dragonlance, "Time of the Twins" trilogy? Isn't that exactly what Raistlin got Crysania to do?

Not quite. Raist led her to believe that doing so was in her best interests. What i suggested leaves no doubt that it is NOT in the paragon of good's best interest. I even stated knowing its an evil act and they know without a doubt that it is one. So then how can you open the gate now? Diplomancy is about the only way i can think of, but since it is an evil act, the good char falls immediately upon attempting it, preventing the gate from being opened. So yea, its all good.

[DaggerPen]

Not quite. Raist led her to believe that doing so was in her best interests. What i suggested leaves no doubt that it is NOT in the paragon of good's best interest. I even stated knowing its an evil act and they know without a doubt that it is one. So then how can you open the gate now? Diplomancy is about the only way i can think of, but since it is an evil act, the good char falls immediately upon attempting it, preventing the gate from being opened. So yea, its all good.

But how do you intend to set it up? Will you use some type of sigil spell with an "open in case of [x]" condition? Why not just make it "never open" instead? Does it make the spell stronger or something?

[Guancyto]

Honestly, aside from the Crazy Mountain Wizard scheme (which is glorious, and even beyond the mountains has the significant advantage of throwing a whole dwarven civilization between bad guys and the gate), you're going to be hard-pressed to do better than Dorukan did. His downfall was ultimately that the defenses relied on a human rather than a robot, which is not something I can really hold against him.

The Dungeons of Dorukan had:

-An epic wizard (the best defense against anything in D&D 3.5e)
-A defense that remained impenetrable even after the epic wizard was dead
-Complete immunity to sub-Epic scry-and-die tactics
-A constant stream of adventurers (here for the Dungeon!) to direct at threats to the Gate and/or scout for apprentices
-Sub-objectives for a bad guy who doesn't know about the super-secret Gate to loot and go home happy (like Nale)

If he had combined it a bit with Girard's/Soon's schemes and trained a bunch of other wizards to help him out and/or hold him back from going a bit nuts when Lirian was in trouble, the story of OotS probably wouldn't even have happened. The real problem was he isolated himself from the world and only kept one person he cared about, which is sort of a persistent problem for wizards.

[King of Nowhere]

If he had combined it a bit with Girard's/Soon's schemes and trained a bunch of other wizards to help him out and/or hold him back from going a bit nuts when Lirian was in trouble, the story of OotS probably wouldn't even have happened. The real problem was he isolated himself from the world and only kept one person he cared about, which is sort of a persistent problem for wizards.

Yeah, which is sort of the point for all the "epic wizards can do anything" mentality; no matter how powerful, the epic wizard is still less powerful than the same epic wizard plus a group of guys of other classes.

[danielxcutter]

Yeah, which is sort of the point for all the "epic wizards can do anything" mentality; no matter how powerful, the epic wizard is still less powerful than the same epic wizard plus a group of guys of other classes.

After all, one hundred twenty six is still bigger than one hundred, and that twenty six might be just enough to change the outcome of the battle.

[Porthos]

Technically, none of the ideas we've made is a perfect defense - such a thing is simply impossible. While most people won't even get close to the gates before being vaporized, every defense has one tiny weakness - and every story has either the villains or the heroes finding it.

Preeeeeety sure the "Getting rid of the Rifts in the first place" (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=21065088&postcount=2) one is a perfect defense. :smallwink:

Sure that doesn't stop someone from poking new holes in reality. But I wasn't tasked with the "Get rid of the Snarl" problem. :smalltongue:

[137beth]

I'd use Dorukan's method, except I'd make it so that only a goblin wearing the Crimson Mantle could get past the sigils.
Hey, maybe I have a different objective than the Scribblenauts did:smalltongue:

[Prinygod]

Personally i think Dorukan had the right idea. Not the sigil idea necessarily, but personally defending it. Let's face it in DND the only thing that can stop a prepared high level wizard, is a better prepared higher leveled wizard. Now I understand that it wouldn't be a story if Dorukan destroyed Xykon, but he might have been able to if he spent less time making extra dimensional booty calls.
I mean you can still do that but spend some evenings grinding some xp, your good so long as no one is able to crack your defenses before you get back. And if they do you were never going to beable to stop the anyways, they were more prepared and a higher level.

[dancrilis]

Let's face it in DND the only thing that can stop a prepared high level wizard, is a better prepared higher leveled wizard.

I am not to sure that actually is true in game.

For example Wizards are confined in what they can do/make by XP/time/gold.

Here make a level 20 wizard, you have nothing but 760,000gp and 190,000xp and your initial stats are from the standard array - remember every spell you learn beyond the two per level costs gold to scribe and gold to purchase.
So from the SRD you would get eight 9th level spells free and would spend 75,600gp getting the other sixteen (unless you knew a friendly wizard willing to let you copy their spellbook).
The 8th level spells will add another 121,900gp.

There you have burned over a quarter of your total cash on high level magic (not counting spellbook cost) - note you haven't actually cast anything with a material component yet, and if you want to go down the route of having all the SRD spells I am not going to bother doing the rest of the maths - but you would likely end up with very little cash for other projects, and if you want to craft something you are giving yourself at least one negative level to do so.

Than we will say you get into a fight against a level 20 Sorcerer - they have Dispel magic and Greater Dispel magic on there list, so now they have more spell slots than and the ability to counterspell more or less anything you can do and also have the benefit of not having wasted lots of there 760,000gp getting spells, they have invested in protections etc.

There is a theory that a high level wizard can do anything as they should have all the spells and be able to prepare for anything - and sure with infinate resources and time why not (so can anyone else with that allowance, fighters can have use magic device etc to do what they need) ... but even if your wizard becomes an immortal they will not have infinate resources with which to prepare for everything.

We could bulk the combatants up to level 30 and thereby have much more gold - but even than Level 30 only have 3,000,000gp and I believe that if you move past SRD there are a total of 105 9th level spells for a Wizard - giving you a baseline cost of a minimum of 458,325gp (not including scrolls that might cost more due to expansive material components - which I imagine there are a few).

And again that is not an insignificant cost for just getting the spells into your book.

Are there ways around this - yea probably, but the baseline rules of the universe indicate that you are unlikely to be able to be 'super wizard best at besting can't be best cept by super wizard newest best at besting'.

[factotum]

It's kind of unreasonable to assume that a wizard of that level will only have the standard wealth-by-level, though. For a start, such a wizard could, with the right selection of spells, pop over to the Elemental Plane of Earth and come back with enough diamonds to fill a wheelbarrow!

[dancrilis]

It's kind of unreasonable to assume that a wizard of that level will only have the standard wealth-by-level, though. For a start, such a wizard could, with the right selection of spells, pop over to the Elemental Plane of Earth and come back with enough diamonds to fill a wheelbarrow!

Could they?
Worlds have ways of working - in the world of OOTS this is laid out in panel four (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0158.html).

Take your wizard heading over to the Elemental Plane of Earth to get diamonds to break the system - you can bet a number of things might happen, they will run afoul of some antagonist that will delay them until they level up, the current owner of the diamonds in the plane 'the elemental lord of diamonds' or whatever will step in an say 'hey no, bad wizard' and hit them with a rolled up newspaper, everything will do smoothly only for them to return and suddenly find that some crisis is taking there money away from them (in Haley's case a burning down hotel did it before she could spend anything).

Effectively from what we know of DnD and the World of OOTS (either together or seperately) the world (i.e DM/Author) will prevent people abusing the system to breach the Wealth by Level guidelines.

As such saying 'I will just do X to breach the wealth by level guidelines' isn't really a workable plan.

[georgie_leech]

Preeeeeety sure the "Getting rid of the Rifts in the first place" (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=21065088&postcount=2) one is a perfect defense. :smallwink:

Sure that doesn't stop someone from poking new holes in reality. But I wasn't tasked with the "Get rid of the Snarl" problem. :smalltongue:

Yeah, but that assumes that it's possible at all to permanently seal the rifts. We have circumstantial evidence that it isn't: if it was, why wouldn't the OotScribble just do that instead of dedicating their lives to guard them? They have Epic levels, after all. Their flaws were of the 'failed to cooperate and had narrow view points' variety, not 'too lazy to do the job properly.'

[Porthos]

Yeah, but that assumes that it's possible at all to permanently seal the rifts. We have circumstantial evidence that it isn't: if it was, why wouldn't the OotScribble just do that instead of dedicating their lives to guard them? They have Epic levels, after all. Their flaws were of the 'failed to cooperate and had narrow view points' variety, not 'too lazy to do the job properly.'

I just find it amusing that everyone accepts the problem stated as is, instead of applying good ol' adventurer lateral thinking. Really had no idea this board was so lawful. :smalltongue:

More to the point, the Order of the Scribble broke apart. Who is to say that if they stuck together as a team they wouldn't have started to work on the "Ok, we've applied a bandage to the seeping wound, now lets see if we can actually close it."

Because, I have to say, never sealing the Rifts is just kicking the can down the road. Sooner or later even the most cooperative of defenses will fail, if only to time and entropy. Dealing with the actual problem would seem to be order of the day for long term planning.

That or figure out how to deal with the Snarl. Then the Rifts just become oversized portals. :smallwink:

[georgie_leech]

I just find it amusing that everyone accepts the problem stated as is, instead of applying good ol' adventurer lateral thinking. Really had no idea this board was so lawful. :smalltongue:

More to the point, the Order of the Scribble broke apart. Who is to say that if they stuck together as a team they wouldn't have started to work on the "Ok, we've applied a bandage to the seeping wound, now lets see if we can actually close it."

Because, I have to say, never sealing the Rifts is just kicking the can down the road. Sooner or later even the most cooperative of defenses will fail, if only to time and entropy. Dealing with the actual problem would seem to be order of the day for long term planning.

That or figure out how to deal with the Snarl. Then the Rifts just become oversized portals. :smallwink:

Naturally. It's just kind of dodging the question a bit though. How would you guard the gates while you're busy working on someway of sealing them more permanently? It's still a valid question even if fixing it is really the best outcome.

For the record, my vote is for the obscurity method up thread, mixed with some construct based guardians and preferably a Cloister-type effect within all the anti divination materials. Have an automatic spell trap or something to Summon me (or whoever gets the Cloister up and running) to refresh it periodically.

[dancrilis]

Because, I have to say, never sealing the Rifts is just kicking the can down the road. Sooner or later even the most cooperative of defenses will fail, if only to time and entropy. Dealing with the actual problem would seem to be order of the day for long term planning.

I think your plan may have the same theoretical problem mine did (I just wanted to move the gates to a private demiplane):



We understand that rifts started appearing in the Snarl's prison, and we have reason to believe that is not happening anymore - and we understand that the remaining gates need seem to hold the ungated rifts at bay.

It is possible that a secondard function of the gates it to prevent more rifts appearing (like the prevent existing rifts from reaching out and snatching stuff unless poked) - and if this is the case moving the gates off-plane might allow new rifts to form and thereby insure the Gods destory the world before the Snarl does.


If you need gated rifts to prevent more rifts appearing than simply sealing the rifts is not a solution, you could unmake the world and but it back together properly I suppose ...

[factotum]

Because, I have to say, never sealing the Rifts is just kicking the can down the road. Sooner or later even the most cooperative of defenses will fail, if only to time and entropy. Dealing with the actual problem would seem to be order of the day for long term planning.


The issue there is that the Gods themselves believe the only way to seal the rifts is to destroy the universe so they can re-weave the threads of reality. Not only do they know a lot more about this sort of stuff than the Scribble do (or we do, for that matter), they've had a good long while to think about it--even if the thought only occurred to them when Soon ran into the rift in the forest, that's still 60 years to figure out a solution. Yet it's still come down to "We need to destroy the world to re-imprison the Snarl".

[dancrilis]

The issue there is that the Gods themselves believe the only way to seal the rifts is to destroy the universe so they can re-weave the threads of reality. Not only do they know a lot more about this sort of stuff than the Scribble do (or we do, for that matter), they've had a good long while to think about it--even if the thought only occurred to them when Soon ran into the rift in the forest, that's still 60 years to figure out a solution. Yet it's still come down to "We need to destroy the world to re-imprison the Snarl".

It is also worth noting that while the God's could rebuild the world without the rifts - it is possible (unconfirmed either way) that due to wear and tear new rifts would form on the new world, after all the current world wasn't built with rifts.

[Porthos]

The issue there is that the Gods themselves believe the only way to seal the rifts is to destroy the universe so they can re-weave the threads of reality.

Kinda close to 'facts not in evidence' for me. (more below)


Not only do they know a lot more about this sort of stuff than the Scribble do (or we do, for that matter), they've had a good long while to think about it--even if the thought only occurred to them when Soon ran into the rift in the forest, that's still 60 years to figure out a solution. Yet it's still come down to "We need to destroy the world to re-imprison the Snarl".

Twin problems here. One the whole "information blackout" thing they have going on makes it a little hard for them to pop down to a mortal and spill the beans. Not impossible, obviously (see The Dark One, for one). But it's still a consideration.

Secondly, it might be difficult and/or out of their capabilites (the joke/observations about how epic characters can be more powerful than gods in DnD comes to mind here). They might know of a way to 'sew up' the Rifts, but it's just easier for them to tear down the world and start over. Or if they could do it, they might not want to get close to the Rifts with the glorified Cosmic Needle, lest a snarly appendage decide to lash out at them.

As to why not tell the mortals? Well, there is an out. As long as the Snarl exists, the gods probably don't want to go around telling folks that a god-eating abomination is just one drill-into-reality away. Even if they could tell the mortal world about how to get rid of the Rifts, just telling them about the Snarl might be problematic.

This consideration ISN'T around for World 3.0 where they presumably make a better prision and still don't tell anyone about it.

Finally, I guess I just don't see the gods of this setting as all-knowing, all-seeing. It's not exactly uncommon for gods in a story to have blind spots for one reason or another. And it wouldn't surprise me at all to see the same here, especially the way they've been depicted so far at times. :smallwink:

[georgie_leech]

Finally, I guess I just don't see the gods of this setting as all-knowing, all-seeing. It's not exactly uncommon for gods in a story to have blind spots for one reason or another. And it wouldn't surprise me at all to see the same here, especially the way they've been depicted so far at times. :smallwink:

Maybe, but I'd expect they'd probably have some insight into the physical nature of the world, what with them, you know, making it and all.

[factotum]

Finally, I guess I just don't see the gods of this setting as all-knowing, all-seeing. It's not exactly uncommon for gods in a story to have blind spots for one reason or another. And it wouldn't surprise me at all to see the same here, especially the way they've been depicted so far at times. :smallwink:

I'd be with you if there were only *one* God, but there are dozens. Literally dozens. Even if they're not all-seeing and all knowing, the idea that not one of them can figure out a way to seal the rifts without destroying the world is quite hard to believe. As for communicating with the mortals below, we know the Gods can do this via their clerics.

[dancrilis]

I'd be with you if there were only *one* God, but there are dozens. Literally dozens. Even if they're not all-seeing and all knowing, the idea that not one of them can figure out a way to seal the rifts without destroying the world is quite hard to believe. As for communicating with the mortals below, we know the Gods can do this via their clerics.

The snarl is literal Deific strife made manifest ... if the Gods make the world in true harmony perhaps there would be no rifts and never would be, but it is possible that the minor arguements they had in the formation of this world are why the rifts appeared at all.

[Kish]

A better question would be, can the gods find a way to close the rifts without destroying the world that doesn't cost them more than it would cost them to destroy the world. Where, in many of their cases, "cost more" means "takes trivially more effort," and in some cases means, "any answer will do, I've wanted an excuse to destroy this world for a long time."

[Monito]

Apologies if someone made this reference already, having trouble loading the previous pages for some weird reason that's is in no way related to laziness.



I'd probably install some sort of metal iris. Maybe get a plucky team of heroes to travel through it regularly to collect alien artifacts to help defend the prime material plane. I can see it keeping my interest for at least 8 seasons and a spin off series.

[Harrymcb]

My solution. Prove myself to be insane to others then make it public knowledge I am defending the gate. GO DOUBLE BLUFF

Edit I forgot to mention it would be stored in my worn out shack with dirty laundry covering it

[The Unlucky One]

Take the Azure City rift. Encase the damn thing into a 30-foot radius sphere of adamantium (in between floors, not a the view of everyone). Put up a permanent antimagic field around the thing. ''Cloister'' the whole castle with no summoning loophole. Still have the paladins (and ghost martyrs). Have soundproof wall/door so crazy paladin can't hear the bad part of your story and kill you.

[arrowed]

There are three aspects to beings like Xykon and Redcloak who wish to control/corrupt/abuse the Gates: first, they have knowledge of the Gates, and second, they have the desire to abuse them. Finally, they have the power and resources to pursue their ambition. Thus we require three aspects to our defence of the Gates: removal or restriction of knowledge, removal or negation of desire, and removal or countering of power.
Knowledge might be the easiest to deal with. I will assume the gods keep up a magic firewall effect against spells like Discern Location and Contact Other Plane so that no information about the Gates can be discovered through magical means. Against more mundane methods, misdirection on a grand scale: remove all written records, and if you're feeling morally grey, memories of the true locations and nature, and then substitute false ones. Create half a dozen decoys across the world, and create dungeons stocked with armies of golems, traps and self-maintained hazards. Load each of these with scrying-magic that will alert your elite troops at the real Gate to the nature of the intruders. If they escape the death-trap dungeon, kill them with scry-and-die tactics and your best, not some silly appropriate encounter level, and do it while they're vulnerable. If that fails, frame them for murder or otherwise paint a bullseye on their back. Further use Wish to notice any divination targeted at the Gates (I read you could do that in the Epic Level Handbook, page 115.)
Desire might sound infeasible at first, but it ties in closely with knowledge. It is inevitable people will learn about the Gates, either by the Crimson Mantle or sheer coincidence, so muddy the waters. When you destroy the original records, sometimes place a fake account that leads to the aforementioned deathtraps and also lies about the true nature of the Gates. Let it say they cause strange dreams in nearby minds, that they seal away the lost gods of the east, or some other misleading piece of information that will con them into failure or convince them to stop looking for the Gates. A good lie doesn't really occur to me but I'd go for something like the Gates seal a force of cosmic Good, willingly imprisoned to preserve the balance of power between the deities, which will kill any who awaken it, let alone release it. Or tell them they must step into the Gate to control the Snarl (I would make a terrible rogue). There's one more aspect to desire Dorukan accounted for: if they want to control the Gate, they're probably Evil. Hence, build in defences specifically against Evil beings, such as Forbiddance and Dorukan's pure-of-heart-runes if available.
Power. :xykon: This is threefold: power to access, power to corrupt, and power overcome defences. Access has been covered pretty well in the strips: a combination of multidimensional stone, pure-of-heart-runes and illusions would prevent 99.999% of people reaching the Gate (but not Good Undead miners with adamantine pickaxes). You could probably create equivalent defences with just core spells like Forbiddance, Dimensional Lock, False Vision, and lead sheeting. :belkar: Power to corrupt: you need an arcane and divine caster to warp the Gate. So set your defences accordingly, with Antimagic Fields, magic-proof guardians and soldiers with Rings of Spell Turning. There's a particularly nasty little asset in the Epic Level Handbook called Flux Slime that produces an Antimagic Field and specifically damages creatures with spell-like or supernatural abilities! (Not sure if that includes casters, actually...)
Power to overcome defences: to paraphrase Xykon, with enough power you can overcome any obstacle. The best solution to this problem is to a) have more power and b) take away theirs. Did I mention Flux Slime depowers magic items permanently? That's going to wipe away a good portion of any serious foe's offensive ability. For the foes themselves, set Glyphs of Warding charged with Enervation to hit non-undead targets, fight them in Antimagic Fields, and tailor your defences to the enemy. Lirian's virus was great against spellcasters, but would have done squat to Tarquin for example. Use Dominations against Fighters and constructs against Rogues, and fight smart above all.
Ok... time to wind down my rant with a little footnote: none of the Order of the Scribble actually defended their Gates alone, Dorukan had the sylphs and perhaps the 2nd edition monsters, Lirian had her nature buddies, Soon had his sapphire guard, and Girard had his crazy baby-snatching relatives. Even Serini is using monsters to defend the last Gate, and she might have other allies who refresh the stock of monsters. So we will not defend our Gate alone. I favour Soon here, a city provides a lot of defence and concealment against those of malicious intent. Gather a secret order, make sure each one is good and loyal, and maybe beg a few celestials off the gods (since they won't defend the Gates themselves). Have hit-squads, diviner-and-rumour-surveillance, illusionists on a rota, and undecievable constructs on the payroll. Employ strategy and subtlety in large doses, and keep updating the defences! CONSTANT VIGILANCE! (Harry Potter reference, it's Mad-eye's catch phrase).