The Agent Smith Challenge

[Lalliman]

Thought experiment. Inquisitor Smith (stat block below) and his army of clones is coming to assimilate you. Your job is to kill as many as possible before they overrun you. For this purpose you get:
- A party of five 12th level characters of your choice, all non-homebrew material allowed.
- A castle or other defensible position of your choice, of reasonable size and design (i.e. not the Tomb of Horrors).
- 100,000 gold to spend on any mundane items in the PHB and any of the items in Saidoro’s Sane Magic Item Prices (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8XAiXpOfz9cMWt1RTBicmpmUDg/view).
- Three days to prepare.

https://image.ibb.co/hx5OZT/21GZMbc.png
When they arrive, the Smiths will come through a portal from Mechanus that opens 120 feet away from the entrenched position (or from the nearest character if you choose not to entrench) and closes after they pass through. The Smiths will come in waves, each one minute after the last. The first wave is 5 Smiths, the second 10, the third 15, etc.

You cannot escape the Smiths. If you travel to a different plane, they will use their portals (powered by DM fiat) to follow you to that plane. If you run, fly or teleport away from them, the next wave will still appear only 120 feet away from you. The Smiths are constructs and do not need to breathe, so hiding deep underwater won’t save you. If you fly more than 120 feet above the ground for an extended amount of time, the Smiths will return to Mechanus and come back with longbows to shoot at you.

What builds and methods do you employ to ensure that you can kill as many Smiths as possible? Blatant cheese (Coffeelock, summoning pixies with Conjure Woodland Beings, etc.) is allowed, but you get bonus points for going without it.

[sithlordnergal]

Question: Can I make a party of three using the exact same class and subclass?

EDIT: Also, there are no smith stats

[Raynor007]

I can't see the Agent Smith Stat Block; is that just me?

[sithlordnergal]

Not just you x3 That said, if you can have a party of 3 people who have the same class and subclass, here is what I propse:

Three to four normal PHB Moon Druids. You'll see why very soon

You'll want a space with a 5 foot wide tunnel that is about 40 feet long, and a room at the end that has enough space for all the druids to hide around a corner. That way there is no way to target the druids at the end of the tunnel with line of sight.


---Prep-Days---

Have all the druids cast Wall of Stone to create the structure needed above. Each Druid can cast Wall of Stone twice a day, and using the ten 10 by 10 panels. With three Druids you should be able to make the structure above within one day.

On day two have two Druids cast Wall of Stone again to make the walls thicker, and have the third Druid use all their 4th and 5th levels spells to cast Shape Stone. Shape the stone walls in a way to create a ceiling so that the Smiths can't climb in.

Once the wall is nice and thick, have all the Druids reshape the walls to prevent the Smiths from climbing in. Also, in the room where the Druids are hiding leave 1ft wide holes at the top to have a clear view of the sky.

By the time the three days of prep are up you should have a decent structure to hide in, with 1 foot wide openings at the top of the room all the druids are hiding in. This is important! And cast Plant Growth. In fact, have all three Druids cast Plant Growth, as you can give yourself a massive area where all normal movement is cut down by 3/4ths.

Within 8 hours of the Smiths arriving, have a Druid cast Alarm about half way down the hallway entrance and wait for the Smith Attack.


With your prep work complete, you should have a pretty thick structure to hide in with only one entrance and exit. The ground should be unworked, and you should have a 1ft wide hole to see the sky. You are now ready to murder some blokes. First thing's first, provided you layered them correctly, the structure made by Wall of Stone should be too much of a pain to break through.

Upon starting the battle have two Druids cast Spike Growth. They should be staggered in such a way that one Spike Growth covers the entire 40ft hall way, while the other is right outside the tunnel entrance. The goal is to force the Smiths to move through the Spike Growth.

Next, have the third Druid cast Wall of Thorns in the main hallway. Now there is total cover and to get to you the Smiths either have to break through the wall of stone, which if you layered them properly they should have a tooon of hp since they gain 30hp per inch of thickness, or go through two spike growths and one Wall of Thorns.

All of the spells cast so far either have a duration of 10 minutes, or are permanent in the case of Wall of Stone and Plant Growth.

If the Smiths manage to break through that defense, which can be recast since only one Druid used Wall of Thorns, Spike Growth is a 2nd level spell, and you have three Druids, you can have all three Druids cast Call Lightning, turn into Earth Elementals, and sink underground.

From there, the Elementals use Earth Glide to move out of the structure, and their Tremor Sense to call down lightning on groups of Smiths. Once again this is a 10 minute spell, giving you a few waves worth of Smiths to hit.

If the Smiths leave, you can settle in underground for an hour to try and take a short rest and regain Wild Shapes, then rinse and repeat until the spells are out.

Once you use up the spells, remain in Earth Elemental form, pop up to hit smith a few times, sink under ground, and short rest as needed. Elementals are immune to exhaustion, so you can keep this up until your druid form is eventually beaten to death, because your only weakness is dropping out of elemental form to refresh it.

EDIT: Re-doing the strategy as I just saw that the waves come at 1 minute intervals. Also, I only used a party of 3 Moon Druids instead of 5, since 3 is really all you need. Four would be fine too, as you could make the Wall of Stone structure thicker, but it isn't needed and it feels like it would be breaking the spirit of the challenge at that point

[Lalliman]

That was weird. Should be fixed now.

[Lalliman]

Snip
A devious strategy indeed. Let me test its merit by trying to retort it.

- At 47 HP, any Smith who goes through the tunnel will almost certainly be killed by the Spike Growth and Wall of Thorns. However, their bodies don't disappear like video game enemies when killed. Dead Smiths could (morbidly) be used to cross the spikes unharmed. Each corpse should be able to make one 5 foot square treadable if laid out properly, so the sacrifice of 40 Smiths will render the hallway a non-issue. (This is being favourable and assuming they don't just get, like, planks to cover the spikes.) Given that the Smiths can jump 60 feet horizontally, they can easily avoid most of the spikes outside the tunnel. So then, all that's left is the Wall of Thorns, which will deal an average of 31 damage, or 15 in the fairly likely event that they pass the saving throw. So most of the Smiths will make it into the the room once the first 40 have perished.

- Alternatively, the Smiths can avoid the tunnel and get on top of the structure. They have hand crossbows, so unless the walls are thicker than their arms are long, they can shoot inside even if the druids aren't standing directly below it. They'll be firing blind, but since they'll fire six bolts per round, they will hit eventually. (The Smiths could also crowd around the holes and take turns firing to greatly increase the output of bolts, but that's kind of abusing the turn-based format.)

- The Call Lightning + Earth Elemental strategy is supremely powerful if it works, but can be easily thwarted. If the wall is too thick to stick an arm into the holes and fire, the Smiths will probably assume that the holes are an emergency exit of some sort and block them off, thus rendering you unable to cast Call Lightning. You can't cast it while in elemental form, so the combo will no longer work.

- The final tactic of guerrilla earth gliding can be countered with the Ready action. Smiths have a 55% hit chance and deal 4 damage per hit against earth elementals, so it takes 58 Smiths with readied actions to have a higher than average chance to take out the druid as soon as he surfaces. (29 Smiths if they can ready a multiattack. The rules don't forbid it, but it's a bit unfair given that Extra Attack doesn't work with readying.) Admittedly, it's not gonna be that easy because the Smiths will be providing cover against each other's attacks and those more than 30 feet away will have disadvantage. But by this stage in the battle, there are probably hundreds of Smiths. Having 200 Smiths fire at you will probably kill you as soon as you surface, even with cover and disadvantage.

Despite all that, this is certainly a well thought-out and very effective plan. I'm curious to see if there are any different strategies that can rival it.

Oh and, yes, of course you can use multiple identical characters. You also don't have to use all of the plentiful resources provided if your gimmick does not require them.

[Arcangel4774]

Its pretty easy to break bounded accuracy with the money aloted. You could outfit 2 people with +3 shield, +3 adamantine armor, with protection fighting style for 27 ac. They only hit on 20s and they arent even crits. But by going life cleric 1/college of swords bard 10, fighter 1 you have lots of healing with spells like healing spirit and a spare revival spell. Add on a sword of life stealing for both and youre set. With that nice tiny hut you can even get rests in there to prolong your survivability(assuming you can manage some bottlenecking). As long as all the smiths dont gwt lucky and roll 20s enough to down you in fast enough that you cant recover .

[Ganymede]

One level one character spends three days convincing a wereraven to share the lycanthropic germ.

Said character is now immune to every attack the Smiths possess.

Though, the real way to win this silly game is not to play.

[sithlordnergal]

So, coming at this with an improved idea, especially now that I have Smith's stats. Plus I discovered some more spells that would be helpful and re-read Wall of Stone to make sure it works the way I need it to.


The most important spells for this are going to be:

This is a Non-Concentration spell that lasts for 24 hours, and happens to be a Ritual spell. This spell grants up to ten willing creatures you can see within range the ability to breathe underwater until the spell ends. Affected creatures also retain their normal mode of respiration.

This is a 10 minute Concentration spell, however there are a few important things about it. First, anything you make HAS to be supported by stone at some end, it becomes permanent if you do the full 10 minute concentration, the walls do not need to be vertical, and each wall gains 30 hit points per inch of thickness.

So what this means is you can make a structure with Wall of Stone, and create a ceiling , but you need to find some sort of cliff or tunnel to build off of.

This is going to be your bread and butter damage spell. It will last for a full 10 minutes, deals 7d8 damage every time a creature enters the wall or ends it's turn there, and most importantly it cuts down speed by 3/4 and it blocks line of sight. Meaning you spend 4 feet of movement to move 1 foot through it.

This is a non-concentration spell that lets you sink into a non-magical stone surface for up to 8 hours. During that time you may cast spells on yourself, and from what I can tell you may rest within the stone. It should be noted the only way to harm you while you are melded is if the stone you are in is damaged enough that it can no longer hold you. Biggest downside is that you have to exit where you entered

This is another 10 minute concentration spell that also does not require you to see the point where you are targeting. You are able to do things like change the flow of water, part the water, or create a whirlpool. And the whirlpool is what we are interested in:

This effect requires a body of water at least 50 feet square and 25 feet deep. You cause a whirlpool to form in the center of the area. The whirlpool forms a vortex that is 5 feet wide at the base, up to 50 feet wide at the top, and 25 feet tall. Any creature or object in the water and within 25 feet of the vortex is pulled 10 feet toward it. A creature can swim away from the vortex by making a Strength (Athletics) check against your spell save DC.
When a creature enters the vortex for the first time on a turn or starts its turn there, it must make a Strength saving throw. On a failed save, the creature takes 2d8 bludgeoning damage and is caught in the vortex until the spell ends. On a successful save, the creature takes half damage, and isn’t caught in the vortex. A creature caught in the vortex can use its action to try to swim away from the vortex as described above, but has disadvantage on the Strength (Athletics) check to do so.
The first time each turn that an object enters the vortex, the object takes 2d8 bludgeoning damage; this damage occurs each round it remains in the vortex.


Once again, we'll use three standard PHB Moon Druids

This time you'll be looking for an area under water at least 80 feet long that is against a wall of stone of some kind. The best places to find this would be flooded mines, lakes caused by inactive volcanoes, or underwater trenches. You can find these with the Commune with Nature spell, a 5th level ritual spell that lets you know the terrain for 3 miles, and Wind Walk, a spell that lasts for 8 hours and gives you a Gaseous Form that lets you dash 600 feet every round. You may choose to leave and return to the Gaseous Form at any time during the 8 hours, as many time as you wish. Meaning you can cover a fair amount of ground with it, and move 1 mile every 8 rounds.

Similar to my old idea, you build a structure using Wall of Stone to hide in and use Wall of Thorns to defend it. Only this time there are a few key differences:

1) Rather then waste spell slots, build your Wall of Stone structure so that one edge of it is the cliff wall itself. This provides the needed stone structure to keep it from collapsing, and cuts out an entire Wall of Stone that you need to build. You can use Stone Shape to reshape to cliff into 5 foot by 5 foot holes that you druids can step into to hide from incoming fire from down the tunnel.

2) do not add in any holes what so ever. Only have one way in and one way out for anyone who cannot travel through stone. Luckily you Druids can travel through stone.

3) Build all of it underwater, using Water Breathing to cast and breathe under water

4) Once again use the Alarm spell sometime within 8 hours before the Smiths are set to show up, and out it about 1/2 to 3/4 down the length of the hall way. This will allow you to have enough time to escape your base, or prepare new defenses.

Please excuse the terrible MSPaint job, I'm an engineer student, not an art student =p But, provided you use the new design that is pressed against the cliff, you can make a 90 foot long, 5 foot wide tunnel, with a 90 foot long ceiling on top of it with just two castings of Wall of Stone. And you'd still have two, 10 by 10 panels to use for the end bit there to seal off the room you'll be hiding in. Seeing as each Druid can cast Wall of Stone twice, and by using the 10 by 10 panels you get maximum thickness, you can have three druids create a 1 and 1/2 foot thick stone structure with just their usual Wall of Stone spells. Provided it took you one day to find the perfect location, you could make a stone structure that is 3 feet thick, giving each 10 by 10 section of wall a little over 1000 HP.

https://orig00.deviantart.net/4140/f/2018/207/a/4/wall_design_by_sithlordnergal-dcid3rr.png



With our new structure being under water, that will change a lot of the battlefield. The Smiths won't originally have water breathing or water speed, meaning they will be in danger of drowning and will have to deal with underwater combat rules. Meaning until they get an underwater speed and underwater breathing they:

1) Have to hold their breath. If they took a breath before coming to fight, they can last 5 minutes. If they did not take a breath, they can last 5 rounds.

2) Until they get an underwater movement speed, they are in difficult terrain and have disadvantage on all attack rolls

3) Their ranged attacks automatically miss if their target is beyond the normal range of their weapon.

As soon as the first wave of Smiths appear, two Druids will want to cast Wall of Thorns, staggering them in the 5 foot wide tunnel so that one 60 foot wall ends right where the other begins. Since the walls cut movement down to needing to spend 4 feet of movement for every 1 foot moved, they'll be able to move at a speed of 10 feet per round within the wall of Thorns. They can dash up to 20 feet, but since the tunnel is 90 feet long it will take the Smiths at least 4 rounds before they can reach the end of the tunnel. That's four rounds of taking 7d8 piercing, potentially 5 rounds since they have to enter a Wall of Thorns just to enter the tunnel and you take damage by entering the Wall of Thorns.

The third Druid will need to cast Control Water. The Druid doesn't need to see the point where they cast it, and can pick a point within 300 feet that has water. Since you'll be doing all this underwater, it should be easy to pick such a point. This Druid will want to position a Whirlpool so that the tip of it ends right at the entrance of the tunnel they made. Wall of Thorns does not take damage, confirmed by RAW and Sage Advice, and I made sure to look that up. Meaning the Whirlpool will not destroy the wall. The whirlpool also is 25 feet, tall, 5 feet wide at the base, and 50 feet wide at the very top.

With the Whirlpool there:

- Any Smith within 25 feet of the whirlpool needs to make an Athletics Check against the Druid's Spell DC. If they fail they are dragged 10 feet towards the whirlpool. This includes any smiths within your tunnel of death

- Any Smith that enters the vortex, or starts their turn there, must make a strength saving throw or take 2d8 bludgeoning damage. Even if they make the save they take half.

- Any smith caught in the vortex must make an Athletics Check against the Druid's Spell DC with disadvantage to escape the vortex

Seeing as the 5 foot base of the vortex is right in front of the entrance to the tunnel, every smith will have to go through this vortex in order to reach the Druids. Or they need to beat their way through the Wall of Stone. If you have a 5 Druid party, you can just put two Druids on wall repair, and have them cast Wall of Stone to fix it. Wall of Stone does not need you to see the point where you are making the wall after all.

Now, eventually those spells will run out and the Smiths will get through. At which point you can do one of two things:

1) Cast Meld with Stone and sink into the cliff for an 8 hour long rest. Now you can come back fully refreshed.

2) turn into an Earth Elemental one by one and sink into the stone to rest up while the Smiths drown.

Finally, for food you have good berry, for water you have Purify Food and Drink. And if you wanna get really crazy, you can always build a little hole on the other side of your structure after you've used your Wall of Stone that only has enough room to fit your three druids, and store fresh water there.

EDIT: Cheapest method possible for "fighting" the Smiths:

1) Find active Volcano as a Moon Druid

2) Turn into Fire Elemental and jump into Lava

3) Find whatever edge there is to the lava pit to use stone shape on

4) Live out your days in the lava, using a Fire Elemental Form, Goodberry, Meld With Stone, Stone Shape, and Create/Destroy Water'

If the Smiths wanna get you they need to either jump in the lava, wait for an eruption, or try to shoot your Fire Elemental form while you're unable to be seen in a lava pit.

[intregus]

So, coming at this with an improved idea, especially now that I have Smith's stats. Plus I discovered some more spells that would be helpful and re-read Wall of Stone to make sure it works the way I need it to.


The most important spells for this are going to be:

This is a Non-Concentration spell that lasts for 24 hours, and happens to be a Ritual spell. This spell grants up to ten willing creatures you can see within range the ability to breathe underwater until the spell ends. Affected creatures also retain their normal mode of respiration.

This is a 10 minute Concentration spell, however there are a few important things about it. First, anything you make HAS to be supported by stone at some end, it becomes permanent if you do the full 10 minute concentration, the walls do not need to be vertical, and each wall gains 30 hit points per inch of thickness.

So what this means is you can make a structure with Wall of Stone, and create a ceiling , but you need to find some sort of cliff or tunnel to build off of.

This is going to be your bread and butter damage spell. It will last for a full 10 minutes, deals 7d8 damage every time a creature enters the wall or ends it's turn there, and most importantly it cuts down speed by 3/4 and it blocks line of sight. Meaning you spend 4 feet of movement to move 1 foot through it.

This is a non-concentration spell that lets you sink into a non-magical stone surface for up to 8 hours. During that time you may cast spells on yourself, and from what I can tell you may rest within the stone. It should be noted the only way to harm you while you are melded is if the stone you are in is damaged enough that it can no longer hold you. Biggest downside is that you have to exit where you entered

This is another 10 minute concentration spell that also does not require you to see the point where you are targeting. You are able to do things like change the flow of water, part the water, or create a whirlpool. And the whirlpool is what we are interested in:

This effect requires a body of water at least 50 feet square and 25 feet deep. You cause a whirlpool to form in the center of the area. The whirlpool forms a vortex that is 5 feet wide at the base, up to 50 feet wide at the top, and 25 feet tall. Any creature or object in the water and within 25 feet of the vortex is pulled 10 feet toward it. A creature can swim away from the vortex by making a Strength (Athletics) check against your spell save DC.
When a creature enters the vortex for the first time on a turn or starts its turn there, it must make a Strength saving throw. On a failed save, the creature takes 2d8 bludgeoning damage and is caught in the vortex until the spell ends. On a successful save, the creature takes half damage, and isn’t caught in the vortex. A creature caught in the vortex can use its action to try to swim away from the vortex as described above, but has disadvantage on the Strength (Athletics) check to do so.
The first time each turn that an object enters the vortex, the object takes 2d8 bludgeoning damage; this damage occurs each round it remains in the vortex.


Once again, we'll use three standard PHB Moon Druids

This time you'll be looking for an area under water at least 80 feet long that is against a wall of stone of some kind. The best places to find this would be flooded mines, lakes caused by inactive volcanoes, or underwater trenches. You can find these with the Commune with Nature spell, a 5th level ritual spell that lets you know the terrain for 3 miles, and Wind Walk, a spell that lasts for 8 hours and gives you a Gaseous Form that lets you dash 600 feet every round. You may choose to leave and return to the Gaseous Form at any time during the 8 hours, as many time as you wish. Meaning you can cover a fair amount of ground with it, and move 1 mile every 8 rounds.

Similar to my old idea, you build a structure using Wall of Stone to hide in and use Wall of Thorns to defend it. Only this time there are a few key differences:

1) Rather then waste spell slots, build your Wall of Stone structure so that one edge of it is the cliff wall itself. This provides the needed stone structure to keep it from collapsing, and cuts out an entire Wall of Stone that you need to build. You can use Stone Shape to reshape to cliff into 5 foot by 5 foot holes that you druids can step into to hide from incoming fire from down the tunnel.

2) do not add in any holes what so ever. Only have one way in and one way out for anyone who cannot travel through stone. Luckily you Druids can travel through stone.

3) Build all of it underwater, using Water Breathing to cast and breathe under water

4) Once again use the Alarm spell sometime within 8 hours before the Smiths are set to show up, and out it about 1/2 to 3/4 down the length of the hall way. This will allow you to have enough time to escape your base, or prepare new defenses.

Please excuse the terrible MSPaint job, I'm an engineer student, not an art student =p But, provided you use the new design that is pressed against the cliff, you can make a 90 foot long, 5 foot wide tunnel, with a 90 foot long ceiling on top of it with just two castings of Wall of Stone. And you'd still have two, 10 by 10 panels to use for the end bit there to seal off the room you'll be hiding in. Seeing as each Druid can cast Wall of Stone twice, and by using the 10 by 10 panels you get maximum thickness, you can have three druids create a 1 and 1/2 foot thick stone structure with just their usual Wall of Stone spells. Provided it took you one day to find the perfect location, you could make a stone structure that is 3 feet thick, giving each 10 by 10 section of wall a little over 1000 HP.

https://orig00.deviantart.net/4140/f/2018/207/a/4/wall_design_by_sithlordnergal-dcid3rr.png



With our new structure being under water, that will change a lot of the battlefield. The Smiths won't originally have water breathing or water speed, meaning they will be in danger of drowning and will have to deal with underwater combat rules. Meaning until they get an underwater speed and underwater breathing they:

1) Have to hold their breath. If they took a breath before coming to fight, they can last 5 minutes. If they did not take a breath, they can last 5 rounds.

2) Until they get an underwater movement speed, they are in difficult terrain and have disadvantage on all attack rolls

3) Their ranged attacks automatically miss if their target is beyond the normal range of their weapon.

As soon as the first wave of Smiths appear, two Druids will want to cast Wall of Thorns, staggering them in the 5 foot wide tunnel so that one 60 foot wall ends right where the other begins. Since the walls cut movement down to needing to spend 4 feet of movement for every 1 foot moved, they'll be able to move at a speed of 10 feet per round within the wall of Thorns. They can dash up to 20 feet, but since the tunnel is 90 feet long it will take the Smiths at least 4 rounds before they can reach the end of the tunnel. That's four rounds of taking 7d8 piercing, potentially 5 rounds since they have to enter a Wall of Thorns just to enter the tunnel and you take damage by entering the Wall of Thorns.

The third Druid will need to cast Control Water. The Druid doesn't need to see the point where they cast it, and can pick a point within 300 feet that has water. Since you'll be doing all this underwater, it should be easy to pick such a point. This Druid will want to position a Whirlpool so that the tip of it ends right at the entrance of the tunnel they made. Wall of Thorns does not take damage, confirmed by RAW and Sage Advice, and I made sure to look that up. Meaning the Whirlpool will not destroy the wall. The whirlpool also is 25 feet, tall, 5 feet wide at the base, and 50 feet wide at the very top.

With the Whirlpool there:

- Any Smith within 25 feet of the whirlpool needs to make an Athletics Check against the Druid's Spell DC. If they fail they are dragged 10 feet towards the whirlpool. This includes any smiths within your tunnel of death

- Any Smith that enters the vortex, or starts their turn there, must make a strength saving throw or take 2d8 bludgeoning damage. Even if they make the save they take half.

- Any smith caught in the vortex must make an Athletics Check against the Druid's Spell DC with disadvantage to escape the vortex

Seeing as the 5 foot base of the vortex is right in front of the entrance to the tunnel, every smith will have to go through this vortex in order to reach the Druids. Or they need to beat their way through the Wall of Stone. If you have a 5 Druid party, you can just put two Druids on wall repair, and have them cast Wall of Stone to fix it. Wall of Stone does not need you to see the point where you are making the wall after all.

Now, eventually those spells will run out and the Smiths will get through. At which point you can do one of two things:

1) Cast Meld with Stone and sink into the cliff for an 8 hour long rest. Now you can come back fully refreshed.

2) turn into an Earth Elemental one by one and sink into the stone to rest up while the Smiths drown.

Finally, for food you have good berry, for water you have Purify Food and Drink. And if you wanna get really crazy, you can always build a little hole on the other side of your structure after you've used your Wall of Stone that only has enough room to fit your three druids, and store fresh water there.

EDIT: Cheapest method possible for "fighting" the Smiths:

1) Find active Volcano as a Moon Druid

2) Turn into Fire Elemental and jump into Lava

3) Find whatever edge there is to the lava pit to use stone shape on

4) Live out your days in the lava, using a Fire Elemental Form, Goodberry, Meld With Stone, Stone Shape, and Create/Destroy Water'

If the Smiths wanna get you they need to either jump in the lava, wait for an eruption, or try to shoot your Fire Elemental form while you're unable to be seen in a lava pit.

This. I was going to figure out a way to do this only being teleported into the sun but this is just as good!

[bid]

The Smith can't fly.
A murder of aarakocra warlocks can EB/AB/ES them down at will.

Until they cheat with longbows, that is...

And you can keep it up with invisibility until you need a long rest.

[th3g0dc0mp13x]

I mean cheesy but why not.

5 Warforged (Juggernaut) Fighter Champion 12
Stats at Level 12: 20,8,16,14,12,8
Feats: 1 with Ritual Caster(Wizard) and PAM, 4 with GWM and PAM.
Fighting Styles: Tunnel Fighter, Great Weapon Fighting.
Equipment: 5 +3 Halberds, scroll of Leomund's tiny hut



Scribe scroll into spell book.
Cast Leomund's Tiny hut inside your little courtyard with one 5' wide entrance.
Repeat step two every 7.5 hours.
When the smiths come into range my guys each get an attack with advantage since the smiths can't see them.
If the smiths move they also get hit. again for the same amount
With GWM*4 that will come out to 68.56* damage per turn against an AC 20 Target.
Continue ad infinitum until they get intelligent enough to bring someone with dispel magic.



*Damage does not take into account crits or great weapon fighting so this is a conservative amount.
*Hits on a 13+ with GWM active i.e. 64% of the time 87.5% without GWM. Averaging 22.5 dmg with GWM and 12.5 without



Edit: you could do something similar but not as effectively with rogue 11/fighter 1 using whips to deal 1d4+6d6+8 damage. they miss out on the initial strike though.

[unusualsuspect]

The Gazebo of the Gods

1. Know Thy Enemy

To kill the most Smiths, you'd want a method that doesn't allow for meaningful retaliation no matter how many Smiths there are, and preferably one that has the Smiths do the killing for you.

Once we figure out all the ways Smith can damage you and damage himself, we can use them to win the challenge.

Smith has no flight, but can jump up to 20 feet vertically. If his 120 ft crossbow isn't in range, Smith can return with Longbows. Smith has no feats, so his range with the Longbow is 600 ft (at disadvantage after 150 ft).

Combining the two, the Smith's absolute BEST range for his ranged attacks from the ground is 5 (size, if firing up) + 20 (leap) + 600 (weapon range), or 625 feet.

A character that stays at 630 feet or above, then, is impossible to attack by the Smiths on the ground, except/unless the Smiths come out of their portal sufficiently above the ground such that their attacks can reach the character.

Now, Smiths can open their portal anywhere 120 feet away from the prepared location/characters, which could just as easily be 120 feet straight up or down as it could be 120 feet to the left or right. Depending on exactly where they open the portal, they may be subject to damage through falling (any portal 30 feet or higher starts applying falling damage, due to the Smiths ignoring up to 20 feet). A setup that forces the Smiths to come out the portal at maximum falling damage (220 ft) to even be able to attack at all would thus need the player to be at least 890 ft above the ground.

As I read the OP, it doesn't seem like the Smiths get a choice of whether to open a portal or not every minute (they have to). Because of that, timing the waves should be easy to figure out - If a bunch of Smiths just ported in, the challengers are in the clear for 10 rounds.

Further, it doesn't seem like the Smiths get a choice whether to open a portal MORE than 120 feet from the entrenchment, which opens up all sorts of shenanigans to exploit. The most important one, though, is one I've already mentioned: fall damage.

The maximum fall damage possible is 20d6. On average, that will total 70 damage, which is easily enough to kill a Smith... on average.

The minimum damage is 20, however, so some Smiths will inevitably survive a 220+ ft fall. There's a formula to look up exact statistical distributions, but that's a bit too much work for a theory workup anyway. Suffice to say that you could rack up a near-infinite kill count off of just killing a majority of Smiths that fall out their portal.

While falling damage might be capped at 20d6, it isn't incompatible with other damage at the end of the fall. One of the most useful places to have a Smith fall would be into lava (submerged = 18d10 per round), which would guarantee Smith kills in 2 rounds (20 + 18 the first round, +18 the second), as was mentioned earlier tangentally by Sithlordnergal.

Other viable options are acid lakes, Spheres of Annihilation, and the like.

While Smith can leap up to 60 feet horizontally, the rules for movement still limit him to his 40 ft movement speed, and so between his movement and his action, he can cover up to 80 ft per round.

A guaranteed kill for a smith, then, would be 1 + [(27 minus the damage per round of the hazard) divided by the damage per round of the hazard] rounds.

AFAIK, the highest per-round minimum damage for a natural hazard is 18 (immersion in lava), so that will be preferred, but anything that can do a minimum of 14 damage per round will kill a Smith in 2 rounds.

Whatever radius the entrenchment has, the area below it would need to have a radius of [smith killing rounds x 80 ft] to guarantee kills. Since the Smith waves just keep getting bigger, eventually that area will have a nice island of charred Smith corpses clogging up the lava, but that'll be many, many, many glorious Smithcrisps in the future, especially if you find a place with Deep lava and a very, very wide area.

Of course, even if the Smiths survive on the corpse island, they still can't attack if you're out of attack range.

2. Location, Location, Location

So what we're looking for is a location that is:

A. open at least 830 feet above the ground and away from all other places with solid ground. At least means "why the hell not go higher?" so let's go higher. 1000 feet sound good? It'll do for now, unless we see something else later, but could easily be "over 9 minutes of Fly straight up" for a good simple capstone. Quick calculations suggests a bit over 9 minutes of 10 rounds of 30' move + 30' Dash action will easily get us to 5,500'. Smiths will have a long time to fall before they hit the ground.

B. Above an area of open lava (preferably vast, deep, and flowing so that Smith bodies don't gum up the works) or other appropriate damage-dealing pool big enough to prevent Smith from escaping.

So we have our location. Doing absolutely NOTHING, a vast majority of the Smiths are killed upon impact, the vast majority of the survivors are killed upon immersion into lava, and all of the remaining survivors die the next turn. Even when an island starts to build up, the vast majority is STILL killed upon impact. Kills are going to rack up like nobody's business, and all the challengers have to do is stay up high enough perpetually and survive.

Easy peasy.

3. People in Force Houses Don't Care About Thrown Bricks

Because of the escalating nature of the Smith waves, the inability to prevent them from getting off at least one attack, and the statistical reality of rolling near-infinite dice, you need to either be utterly immune to mundane weapons (that sounds hard) or have a barrier between you and the Smiths that is immune to mundane weapons (that sounds easier).

Let's explore the easier option. Force barriers are the immediate go-to for this, IMO, partially because complete immunity to mundane weaponry (not just resistance and requiring 20s to hit) is not possible to my knowledge (possibly through Polymorph/True Polymorph/Shapechange shinanigans, but that doesn't sound sustainable).

I direct everyone's attention to Leomand's Tiny Hut. It is a Self targeting spell that creates pretty much EXACTLY what we need (albeit over 2 castings): a Sphere of impenetrable-to-mundane-weaponry force that can be cast by 12th or lower characters and can be cast often enough and long enough to last 24 hours in perpetuity (It's a ritual).

Because it requires 2 castings, and Self is the target, you'd need two people casting it to maintain 100% Smith Immunity.

As an added bonus, it's a literal sphere of force made by magic - even if the Smiths came out of their portal 120 feet directly above the top Dome, they wouldn't be able to land anywhere except maaaaybe the 5 foot square directly above it, and even that would be precarious. That's 1 or 2 Smiths at most at any time, who are utterly incapable of doing anything to harm you (the barrier is still immune to mundane weapons), with everything else sliding off the perfect sphere of force (no handholds, no friction, no texture, just a curved surface of force).

It's going to be an annoying obscuring of the view, though, so its best we don't allow clingers.

Since we want to be thorough, let's add another requirement for location:

C. The Hut is located where the local environmental conditions make it literally impossible (DC 26+ Acrobatics check) for a Smith to avoid falling off of the perfectly smooth sphere.

4. "What Is My Purpose?" "Cast the Hut, Sir."

Ideal challengers are survivors in harsh conditions that may not give you access to fresh water, food, and just about everything else needed on a day to day basis to keep the body running.

Revised Warforged just came out (official material, even if still UA/playtesting), which do not have to eat, drink, breath, or sleep. They also have no known upper limit to their age, so they are theoretically capable of staying up there just about forever. Forever is a lot of minutes of ever-increasing Smith Suicides.

At first glance, a challenger that has natural flight would seem the obvious choice, but we're in it for the long haul here - 7 days of straight flying will eventually kill you with exhaustion, and I want to last far longer than that, and the ways to avoid Exhaustion gained through avoiding sleep are resource-wasteful. We may be taking on a literal Smithstorm here, but that's no reason to spend a single copper piece more than we need.

We'll need two of them, I'm afraid, since you can't get both hemispheres through the same person as the two castings don't stack. Each needs clothes sufficient to be comfortable, its spellbook, and its arcane focus. All other gear should be sold to pay for expenses - the challengers ain't made of money, y'know!

We need them casting Tiny Hut as a ritual, so that means at least Wizard 5.

5. We All Float Up Here, Forgy

Without natural flight, that still leaves our challengers with the need to figure out a way to stay up at that 830+ ft distance from every other form of solid ground.

There are no official mundane methods of flight that would allow 24-7 upkeep that I am aware of. We must look to magic.

Spells all seem to be far too limited in duration to be functional - this has to be up 24-7, 365 days a year, 366 on leap years. We must look to magic items.

Many items are as limited as spells in duration, but a few stand out. The most obvious exception is the Carpet of Flying, which flies on a command and has no limit to its duration. The largest carpet could support up to 800 pounds, which should be sufficient for our needs: 2 warforged, 2 arcane focuses, 2 spellbooks, 2 sets of clothes, and a harness to hold one of the warforged underneath the Carpet (for style points, we're doing our best to make a perfect sphere).

But man, do the challengers look like they have gold burning holes in their Portable Hole? Carpets of Flying are Very Rare. That ****'s expensive, so if there's a better budget item, the challengers should go for it.

As it happens, there is. Because this is really more about staying at a certain elevation in height/away from everything with solid footing, we don't actually need the item to be able to fly - we have at least two lvl 5 wizards, they can handle that for the 1-time use to get them up there.

Direct your attention to the Immovable Rod. This magical item's is 5/12ths the price of the Carpet, and supports 10 times as much weight (not that it matters - we're still only 2 warforged wizards, less than 20 lbs of gear between them, and the harness in weight... maybe filled with board games?)

It shouldn't take much of an investment to create a platform that can attach in a stable manner to an Immovable Rod. Once the challengers are where they want to be location-wise, press the button, and never press it again (engineer a closeable covering so it doesn't even happen by accident). Immovable Rods have no duration limit, so they can sit in the sky just fine long after the multiverse is nothing but Smith Corpses.

The cheapest and most stable way to mount it would probably be to hang from the Rod a 10 foot deep column 5 feet in diameter with a solid floor on the bottom of the cylinder and one in the middle, providing two separate 5' "squares", one on top of the other, suspended from above. With leftover scraps, this could be decorated. For thematic and entertainment purposes (anyone still reading?), it shall be Gazebo-like in form and decoration.

One of the Warforged will be an Envoy with built-in carpentry tools. Between Expertise and high Intelligence/Dex, it should be fairly easy to construct even at lvl 5.

6. Counting the Costs for the Gazebo of the Gods

Challengers:
1 x Warforged Envoy Wizard with built-in carpentry tools (School of Divination)
1 x Warforged Envoy Wizard with built-in dice kit (subtype doesn't matter)

Equipment:
1 x Immovable Rod @ 5000 gp
2 x Spellbooks @ no cost (free starting gear for wizard)
2 x Wand @ 5 gp each
2 x Common Clothes @ 5 sp each
1 x Raw Materials for wooden 2-tier platform @ 50 gp at most
1 x 50' Hempen Rope @ 1 gp

Total Material Cost: 5071 at most

As I'm trying to stay as low level as possible with as few challengers as possible, the warforged would probably just pay for information about a proper location (I'd be surprised if the Plane of Fire didn't have nice, big, deep, flowing lava lakes with some space above them, if needed, but then we'd need to start going high enough level for Planar Adaptation) and pay to be teleported/gated/planar travelled there. That could get pretty expensive, but these are naked wizards - probably best not to risk them. If they're allowed to search unmolested for a spot, there's probably somewhere in the Prime Material Plane they could find suitable conditions.

Total Kills: Practically incalculable.

If Smiths open up the portal 120 feet immediately above the Gazebo of the Gods, any that impact the impossible-for-Smiths-to-harm Tiny Hut will take 10d6 falling damage, and at best are able to do nothing on top of the Tiny Hut over the Gazebo of the Gods.

All Smiths, INCLUDING the ones that take the 10d6 falling damage from the Gazebo itself, will ALSO eventually take an additional 20d6 falling damage when they (eventually) fall the entire rest of the way down at least 220+ feet. The few that survive (again, average damage is 70) will either immediately burn to a crisp (18d10 submersion the first round) or soon thereafter (18d10 submersion the second round).

Since the Smiths that do survive (and don't somehow die from the hazard) have no way of harming the challengers, and the Smith Portals are continually forced to spew more and more Smiths each time they open, it would start becoming once per minute deluges of tens, hundreds, even thousands or tens of thousands of Smiths splattering off the Hut, ground, and/or lava. Nothing less than a mountainous island of Smith corpses would eventually result, slowly growing higher and higher as more and more corpses rain from the heavens, burying the few survivors every minute in a grotesque display of waste.

Between the two wizards who never eat, drink, breath, or sleep, and never have to long rest (they don't expend spell slots except on day 1, since Tiny Hut is a ritual and wizards are ritual casters), Tiny Hut can always be up forever both above and below the Gazebo of the Gods. No matter what the Smiths do, they can literally never get through the defense, and so literally never can cause the challenger's death.

Because the scenario has no time or Smith limit, even if all the normal methods of death don't work somehow (if the Smiths can portal more than 120 feet from the entrenchment, for example, and/or you can't find a Hazardous lake big enough), remember that the warforged are utterly incapable of being harmed by the Smiths, no matter how many there are. Any weight of the Smiths on the Tiny Hut would not apply to the weight limit of the Immovable Rod (it is a separate and distinct barrier suspended in the air by separate and distinct magic), so there is no scenario in which the Smiths, as they are equipped, could ever make the breach.

Over days, months, years, I can't emphasize how many Smiths will be created. Every 24 day has 1440 minutes. Every Minute, the amount of Smiths is equal to the previous amount +5. By the end of the FIRST DAY, 7200 Smiths explode out of the Portals every minute. 14400 every portal the next day. Roughly half a million every portal in a year.

Months. Years. Decades. The Warforged can last at least that long (30ish years, IIRC), but can the Prime Material Plane? But the Smiths just won't stop, and the oceans are all Smiths with water in the cracks. A few more decades, and every inch of the material plane is 3 or 4 layers of Smiths up. As the mass of Smiths continues to build, the lower layers begin to get crushed, forcing the Smith corpses denser and denser as the Smith mass above them only grows heavier by the minute.

Despite still doing absolutely nothing, we now have literally tens, hundreds, perhaps thousands of feet of densely packed Smith corpses.

If the Warforged don't have a maximum age, eventually the Prime Material collapses in on itself to form a Black Hole, destroying all Smiths that remain alive and all Smiths to come thereafter.

Practically Incalculable, but at least the two warforged have an integrated set of gambling dice to play with. Maybe they'll take turns being DM for solo adventures...








Post Script: So you made it all the way down, eh? The prompt suggests that Smiths start with a crossbow, and only go back to get longbows if the challengers fly for an extended period of time. But to get a longbow at all, it appears you have to "go back", which means you had to go in the first place. And Smiths don't have the option not to get longbows - they will do it, per the prompt.

That makes the falling damage a minimum of 40d6 (assuming they have to arrive by portal through the same portal mechanics as normal). Falling damage alone would kill an incredibly high fraction of the Smiths.

Edit 2: How could I miss that that the Tiny Hut would protect the Warforged inside, temperature- and weather-wise, even in the Plane of Fire!?!

Pay for the castings of Planar adaptation, or just be high enough level to cast it yourself (but i really do want to complete this with 2 lvl 5 wizards), and the planar travel necessary, and our Gazebo of the Gods now has a built-in Smith Corpse removal system in the form of the Plane of Fire's volatile and every-changing/flowing nature. Even if the Gazebo of the Gods' Tiny Huts are surrounded on all sides by magma that manages to flow over it, it is always and forever protected (as long as both warforged live).

We no longer have to rely on a Black Hole to achieve nigh-infinite Smith kills. Nifty.