How to Not Get Assassinated

[nosirrahyalc]

Say you're a powerful NPC and the PC's are out to get you. What precautions do you take in setting up your castle/base/what-have-you to prevent yourself from getting assassinated?
I have a couple of very powerful rogues in the party and don't want powerful NPCs to go out like chumps thanks to their sneakiness and sneak attack optimization!

[flappeercraft]

Say you're a powerful NPC and the PC's are out to get you. What precautions do you take in setting up your castle/base/what-have-you to prevent yourself from getting assassinated?
I have a couple of very powerful rogues in the party and don't want powerful NPCs to go out like chumps thanks to their sneakiness and sneak attack optimization!

Been thinking about this and I would say make your Stronghold either secret on its location or so in the open and terrifying no one will go in. I would reccomend filling it with traps, patrols, etc. One I would consider is having 1 or 2 Nethersight Mastiffs from MM2 on each patrol and having a separate room full with a couple wizards who prepare Chain of eyes spell and use it on the mastiffs. Make sure to have a permanencied telepathic bond between the wizards and the NPC. This makes it so any attack on the patrol will not be unresponded as the Nethersight mastiff can see ethereals and bring them into the material plane with an attack, see invisible creatures and IIRC it has a continuous effect of True Seeing. I would also reccomend having some creatures with Blindsight covering the area. Also fill it with alarm spells, Greater glyph of warding, symbol of X (Would reccomend symbol of Insanity and Symbol of Spell loss), Greater sign of sealing, Greater arcane locks, Skull watch, Ghoul glyph, energy transformation field and Planar bindings. Other than that I would make some areas have antimagic sigils. Check stronghold builders guide.

[Eldariel]

Depends on who you are and what your resources are of course. D&D world is perilous: death may be a blessing compared to many of the possible fates and between all the magical beasts, fiends, dragons and other manners of horrors not to mention humanoids that roam the Material Plane, many things have powers like invisibility, teleportation, shapeshifting and such. Thus, surviving mostly comes down to:
1) Ensuring you can be brought back to life after you die.
2) Making killing you an extremely poor choice due to the consequences.
3) Making killing you actually difficult.

That last one takes the most power, particularly if you still plan to do things personally. One good way to bypass such issues is to place most of your needs in the hands of underlings crafted through magic. You're most vulnerable when you're not at your stronghold. Oh and preferably hide your stronghold in a harder-to-find location than the material plane. Then just ward yourself in a million ways and make it hard to know of your existence. With great power come great adversaries. Of course, an important person without great indirect or direct power will be someone's thrall or dead in short order.

[John Longarrow]

Take a look at one of the "Evil overlord" lists. Lots of good things to steal from it, especially on lair layout.

Step 1) Make it difficult for people to move about your lair undetected. Do things most PCs wouldn't expect, like having a well lit, clean lair with no hiding spots.

Step 2) Good communications between personnel

Step 3) Well paid and well respected guards. Doesn't hurt to pay top dollar for your security.

Step 4) Tailored uniforms. Few things stand out more than an ill-fitting uniform when your elite guards come by.

[ellindsey]

Body doubles. That wasn't you the PCs assassinated, it was someone made to look exactly like you.

Alternately, plan to be assassinated, with a Resurrection (or even True Resurrection) already set up to bring you back.

[Lormador]

Do what evil masterminds have been doing for ages: set a trap for the assailants.

Other than that, it depends on how much magic you've got available. Not being surprised, having a high initiative, not being vulnerable to sneak attack damage, etc are helpful.

Mostly, for game purposes, you don't really want to make it impossible to assassinate the BBEG (since that's what the characters are set up to do)... you just don't want him to go down like a chump in the first adventure of the campaign. That's the virtue of the trap: one more encounter the players will have to get through, which might just kill them, and will result in them hating the BBEG even more.

[Doctor Despair]

Well, the first and easiest way is to take God Blooded of Vecna (if you have the resources available to you). Poof! PCs don't know you exist. Neither do your other allies or enemies, but if you are powerful by merit of ability and not politics, this will probably help you more than it hurts you.

Without spoiling the campaign... give him some sort of armor, template, race, etc. that grants moderate fortification. They have a one in four chance of still getting their sneak attack damage in, so they don't feel cheesed out of their class features, but the BBEG essentially got x4 HP without giving him x4 HP. Let them use their sneakiness and such to dart in and out of combat to try to proc their sneak attack as they may, or flank and try to duke it out, or what have you. They feel strong, BBEG feels strong, everyone is happy.

Unless they are using UMD to great effect, that ought to satisfy. If we are contending with a plethora of spells, then obviously more measures are required.

[Particle_Man]

How wealthy? If you get some light armour of heavy fortification, you can sleep in it and be immune to critical hits (and thus to sneak attacks, and thus to death attacks if literal assassination is a problem). There are various magic items that make you immune to poison.

[mabriss lethe]

My favorite ways generally involve making the risks outweigh the rewards.
-The real or rumored presence of powerful allies that will act on behalf of/get revenge for a fallen NPC (or alternately, rivals waiting in the wings to fill the vacuum of power, and who aren't kindly disposed to the PCs agendas.)
- Make mundane infiltration frustratingly difficult with tight security
- The NPC is in some manner more useful to the party alive and able to act than dead or overthrown.
- Use unexpected classes for some NPCs. My favorite is to use Monk. A mid to high level monk actually makes for a fairly good chassis for a mundane ruler. Good saves, lots of immunities and resistances, and a decent skill set for a noble.

[tiercel]

If you are specifically worried about sneak attack, hello Minor Cloak of Displacement. (Any form of concealment will do.)

More generally, you probably want something like the Necessary Magic Items list (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?187851-3-5-Lists-of-Necessary-Magic-Items)

[icefractal]

Keep in mind the NPC's resources though. If this is someone with massive resources, like significant authority in a powerful kingdom, or wealth on the 'owns fleets of ships' level, or is personally a powerful mage, then absolutely, load up on the exotic minions, magical traps, and personal gear.

If this is someone of more moderate status, then many of the suggestions in this thread are way outside their means. Unless you're going for a comedy style campaign, the mayor of a small village probably shouldn't have a doom fortress and complete set of anti-death gear.

[Calthropstu]

When it comes to making traps, I am very good.

For one, forget traps that can be easily disabled. Any DC you set, they will find a way to meet. Instead, use manual traps triggered by someone watching the hallways. Forcing the PCs into narrow corridors where they can't sneak past (unless they have hide in plain sight) and dropping a trap is the best way to go.

My personal favorites include dropping 2 sections of the ceiling down trapping them, then smashing them with either murder holes, dropping the ceiling down on them (slowly of course) or some good old fashioned poison gas.

Another way to work this is to throw a monster at them with nigh unbeatable perception.

Yet another would be to have an inaccessible part of the base.

And, the best way of all: Make them THINK they have killed you. Hide a small section of the base behind an illusion, set up a body double and when they have "killed" you, they will loot the sections they see... and completely ignore the illusionary wall hiding your real location. Then you can plot revenge under the safety of "everyone believes I am dead."

[Venger]

in addition to the advice upthread, steal some ideas from the classic joker bard (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?99903-Batman-s-Bane-The-Joker) to keep pcs on their toes.

[Doctor Awkward]

During the Warring States period in China, the first Emperor of Qin was so terrified of being assassinated that he used to sleep in his armor.

A Restful crystal from the MiC lets you sleep in armor without penalty, and heavy fortification on it will make your NPC immune to sneak attacks and critical hits. All your assassin will do is probably wake him up missing only 4 to 8 hit points.

[Scorponok]

Depending on if the VIP NPC is low level or not - if they aren't, I'm surprised at how effective a couple of guards standing in front of a fake room with a body double are. When NPCs go into a house, they always assume walls are just that - The real VIP is in another room with a Silent Image in the entrance made to look like a wall.

Of course Alarms are a must, but even a commoner with a pet spider that can alert people if they detect anything invisible (tremorsense) and a low level sorcerer illusioning a pillar (one with small holes looking out of the pillar) and them in it, ready to Glitterdust a burglar is quite effective.

Obviously if the VIP is a high level magic caster or has access to high level magic, you can throw the whole works in, but I'm fairly surprised at how many PCs fail assassination attempts when they decide to do it in the NPC's sleep.

[Kelb_Panthera]

What level? 'Cause it matters... alot.

[TheCorsairMalac]

We're talking specifically about the fortress, right? Not magic items and the like? I'll contribute 3 ideas.

Low-level: Fast moving, grapple optimized bodyguards that stay with him everywhere. PC rogue may kill him, but won't get away. PCs like to survive, so this will probably prevent simple stab-in-the-night assassinations.

Mid-level: Magical fog in important chambers. Counter-intuitively, giving everyone in a room partial concealment is not wonderful for rogues. Concealment prevents sneak attacks, even against unaware victims.

High-level: High quality Glitterdust traps. Glitterdust is only a 2nd level spell, but it imparts a -40 penalty to hide checks without a save. Made by a 10th level caster they would make the rogue unable to hide for a full minute. That's a lot of time to hope no guards walk by.

[Eldariel]

On low levels, animals should be employed. Even simple guard dogs make a Potion of Invisibility/the spell far less efficient, particularly one trained for Uncanny Scent [Savage Species]. The earlier suggestion of a subservient Giant Spider/Bat/etc. (Vermin Keeper, familiar or similar reasons) is of course even more potent - Blindsense, Tremorsense, etc. are huge for making Invisibility less of an "I win"-card.

[barakaka]

The absentia drug lets you scry a random person within a mile. Just travel somewhere no one would ever go and dope up every once in a while. If you see someone, it's high time to get back on that dusty trail. It's also super cheap.