Ways to destroy a compound/temple?

[c0r1nth14n]

I'm putting together a short adventure as a detour from our main campaign, and I'd like to have the party's goal be to destroy an entrenched compound or a large occult temple.

Our past adventures have allowed for the goals to be accomplished through NPC interactions, or through regular combat. This time, I want to present them with a situation where they can't solve it through negotiation, and the enemy force is far too large for them to fight head-on.

I want to have three or four different ways that they could accomplish this, so that I can drop hints if they don't think of anything on their own. So far I've thought of a couple ways:


- Blow it up. The party discovers that there's some sort of occult power source which could be overloaded to cause an explosion that destroys everything.

- Flood the whole place. The temple or town is located in a valley, with some kind of dam holding back an enormous amount of water. Destroy the dam, and the ensuing flood drowns everyone.


I can't think of much else, and I'm not sure if there are spells/summons/magic items which could accomplish this. If there are, I could plant some for the party to possibly discover, but if they're too easily accessible, the party could trivialize the adventure.

Does anyone have any suggestions for other ways to cause large-scale destruction? The party is 16th-level, so they've got some solid abilities and gear. Thank you very much!

[Unoriginal]

A trebuchets?


A few Eidolons that are sealed in the temple?

[KorvinStarmast]

Nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.


As a practical matter, the party might want to try and make a deal with an adult or Ancient Red or Blue Dragon.

Your party goes off cattle rustling, and gets the dragon a heard of cattle for a nice yummy snack or ten; in return they go all Smaug on the temple until it is rubble.

[Tvtyrant]

I'm putting together a short adventure as a detour from our main campaign, and I'd like to have the party's goal be to destroy an entrenched compound or a large occult temple.

Our past adventures have allowed for the goals to be accomplished through NPC interactions, or through regular combat. This time, I want to present them with a situation where they can't solve it through negotiation, and the enemy force is far too large for them to fight head-on.

I want to have three or four different ways that they could accomplish this, so that I can drop hints if they don't think of anything on their own. So far I've thought of a couple ways:


- Blow it up. The party discovers that there's some sort of occult power source which could be overloaded to cause an explosion that destroys everything.

- Flood the whole place. The temple or town is located in a valley, with some kind of dam holding back an enormous amount of water. Destroy the dam, and the ensuing flood drowns everyone.


I can't think of much else, and I'm not sure if there are spells/summons/magic items which could accomplish this. If there are, I could plant some for the party to possibly discover, but if they're too easily accessible, the party could trivialize the adventure.

Does anyone have any suggestions for other ways to cause large-scale destruction? The party is 16th-level, so they've got some solid abilities and gear. Thank you very much!

Options I can see:

1. There is another faction that hates that one, and will destroy the fortress if the party does a specific and level appropriate favor such as freeing their princesses soul from a dungeon in Hell.

2. They find out about an ancient super weapon they can retrieve and use once to destroy the fortress. Say a Colossus that fell into the ocean, or a sun that a wizard put into a lamp. Either way they have to find the item through dangers and bring it back to be used.

3. There are other small groups that want to destroy the temple, and the party can collect them into an army and crush the temple in normal combat. The party itself has to kill the temple's boss while the less powerful army members smash the temple's forces.

[Kane0]

Spells applicable to demolition work: Disintegrate, Stone Shape, Enlarge/Reduce, Acid Arrow, Shatter, Control Water, Transmute Rock, Arcane Gate, Reverse Gravity, Earthquake. Some may require creative use.
Alternatively, look at Temple of the Gods, Mighty Fortress and Druid Grove for ideas on potential custom spells with the inverse effect.

You can also provide alchemical solutions, like strategically placed kegs of alchemist's fire for example. If the party has access to magic items that allow them to break through walls and the like, that could absolutely destabilize and collapse a dungeon if done at the right time and place. Structural integrity is an easy thing to remove with a well equipped tier 4 party, you just have to get them thinking about it.

Then again, i'm a little paranoid about this kind of thing because my current group features an engineer.

[nickl_2000]

A summoned Earth Elemental or Treant could do a lot of damage to a structure pretty darn quickly.

[c0r1nth14n]

Already some great suggestions, thank you!

Something that occurred to me - is there a way to temporarily make characters into giants? I could write something up myself, but if there's already a spell or item that would turn the party into 30-foot-tall giants, that would probably allow for them to trash the temple.

[nickl_2000]

Already some great suggestions, thank you!

Something that occurred to me - is there a way to temporarily make characters into giants? I could write something up myself, but if there's already a spell or item that would turn the party into 30-foot-tall giants, that would probably allow for them to trash the temple.

Maybe not giants, but the polymorph spell can turn them into Giant Apes. They are huge sized, CR 7, and can throw rocks for 7d6+6 damage on each hit (plus int 7 is enough to handle a task more than "hey you, eat that!")

[Willie the Duck]

It depends on what you mean by destroy, but in general yes--in medieval times, destroying a structure would be very hard, although making it less than really livable would be significantly easier.

Mind you, D&D worlds tend to have a lot more solid state stone structures without pillar-supported domed ceiling and other 'heavy, immovable, no real weak spot' buildings than exist in the real world. Lots of things had wooden supports somewhere that could be burned. Lots of things were supported by pillars that someone who had complete control of the place (and 50-100 person-powers or equivalent draft animals could easily pull). So if you have control of the place, your local friendly armies could probably make the place not-a-practical-compound/temple with significant but not-insane work. Erase all trace of its' existence... not so much.

I would more likely alter the win-scenario. Destroy all the evil (good?) alters, scratch off the symbols of the gods, have opposing army take control of the place--it is effectively destroyed for its original purpose.

[lunaticfringe]

Already some great suggestions, thank you!

Something that occurred to me - is there a way to temporarily make characters into giants? I could write something up myself, but if there's already a spell or item that would turn the party into 30-foot-tall giants, that would probably allow for them to trash the temple.

Legendary Potion of Giant Size appears in SKT. Not sure if that helps much since it's a module. See if a buddy has a copy?

[jiriku]

Maybe this is a silly question, but why are you worried about it? As the DM, it's your job to create a challenge. Solving the challenge is a player problem; it's not something for you to worry about. D&D is a storytelling game. But if the DM creates the challenge, narrates the world, chooses the solution, and adjudicates all actions on the road to the solution, there's not much room left for players to participate in the story. I would encourage you to step back and give them space to have their own brilliant (or foolish) ideas. Let them succeed in their own way.

Now, you might be afraid that they'll fail if you don't provide for them. There's no need to fear! The best stories involve heroes who are sometimes defeated and recover from their defeats to perform yet more heroics. So it's OK if they fail. If the players find a solution, then the compound is destroyed and gameplay continues. If they fail to find a solution, then the compound is not destroyed and gameplay continues. Either way the game goes on.

[Son of A Lich!]

In my experience?

Best way to destroy a temple, compound or any structure that is meant to have any kind of value behind it...

Is just to let the players know that it is well guarded by 'bad guys'.

They'll find the treasure, kill everyone inside, likely try to make out with something vaguely humanoid, insist a puzzle is there when it isn't and tie it all back to the main campaign for you.

The more details you know about the structure, the more real it is. The more real it is, the more brittle it becomes.

"The Sun rises in the East, right?"
"...Yes?"
"And they have a big glass statue?"
"... ... yes?"
"Okay So, here's my thought. Just before dawn, I polymorph the statue into a magnifying glass, facing west"
... *Slow clap*

I've always wanted to make a campaign where the players are like a swat team, rather then swords for hire. At the end of each session, they'd get a manila envelope with the map, objectives and things of interests. Then, I'd come in next week and see just how exactly they come in and clear it out. I don't know, I always liked the Hitman style approach, but I never got it off the ground

Never, ever, underestimate PCs. They will find a way. If you encourage it, and know how to trim it properly, it just becomes cooler and more spectacular.

[c0r1nth14n]

Maybe this is a silly question, but why are you worried about it? As the DM, it's your job to create a challenge. Solving the challenge is a player problem; it's not something for you to worry about. D&D is a storytelling game. But if the DM creates the challenge, narrates the world, chooses the solution, and adjudicates all actions on the road to the solution, there's not much room left for players to participate in the story. I would encourage you to step back and give them space to have their own brilliant (or foolish) ideas. Let them succeed in their own way.

Now, you might be afraid that they'll fail if you don't provide for them. There's no need to fear! The best stories involve heroes who are sometimes defeated and recover from their defeats to perform yet more heroics. So it's OK if they fail. If the players find a solution, then the compound is destroyed and gameplay continues. If they fail to find a solution, then the compound is not destroyed and gameplay continues. Either way the game goes on.

I may not have been specific enough in my original post! The campaign we've been playing the last several months has been the style you're describing, and we've all had a lot of fun with it. But in this particular case, I want to present them with a situation where they can't go in to the temple and kill everyone, or solve this via negotiation. The destruction of the temple should be a puzzle in and of itself.

Having played in some campaigns where the puzzles had no clues, I've seen how frustrating it can be when the party can't figure out a way forward and everything grinds to a halt. I might be worrying for nothing, but since I'm removing their standard options (kill everyone or negotiate to the win conditions), I want to make sure that I can drop some hints if they're having trouble thinking of anything.

[Kane0]

Have an NPC suggest the course of action, but not the means of doing so. Once the idea is planted the PCs can do the rest.

[kamap]

Have a sleeping volcano in the vicinity that they could reawaken and flood the place with lava.

[Corran]

Maybe this is a silly question, but why are you worried about it? As the DM, it's your job to create a challenge. Solving the challenge is a player problem; it's not something for you to worry about. D&D is a storytelling game. But if the DM creates the challenge, narrates the world, chooses the solution, and adjudicates all actions on the road to the solution, there's not much room left for players to participate in the story. I would encourage you to step back and give them space to have their own brilliant (or foolish) ideas. Let them succeed in their own way.

Now, you might be afraid that they'll fail if you don't provide for them. There's no need to fear! The best stories involve heroes who are sometimes defeated and recover from their defeats to perform yet more heroics. So it's OK if they fail. If the players find a solution, then the compound is destroyed and gameplay continues. If they fail to find a solution, then the compound is not destroyed and gameplay continues. Either way the game goes on.
I generally agree with this, but I think the situation the op describes calls for this kind of planning on the DM's part. That is because this is not a typical dnd quest, the difficulty of which would be a good match to the players' powers. The players enter this scenario at a disadvantage, and they must find an out of the box solution to win, as going head on or talking their way out of it are not valid winning options. The players can indeed do this on their own, they don't necessarily need the DM to drop hints. But if they struggle with finding a winning out of the box strategy, it will be useful for the DM to hint at something (kind of like if you are running something unconventional like a murder mystery quest; the players will probably struggle so you need to find ways to push them a little so that the game does not go into a halt). But more than that, I think the DM should think beforehand of these solutions, as that will be a good way for the DM to evaluate and handle whatever the players decide to do. Meaning that these solutions could act as approximations to what the players will do, so the DM will be more prepared and less surprised by whatever the players throw at him, meaning the DM can improvise more confidently.

@OP: Maybe you should have a back up scenario, in case your players decide to go head on against the bad guys (despite you hinting multiple other avenues of action). Maybe there are prisoners in that compound that the players can use to better their chances against the overwhelming numbers of the enemy. They might still lose, but giving them a slightly increased chance at victory might make it seem more fair from a player's perspective (even though the adventure is specifically designed not to be fair if you choose to go about it that way).

[Knaight]

I wouldn't worry about it. "Break things" is just under "kill everybody" in terms of expected PC skills, and you've left deliberate vulnerabilities. That said if you want to leave more deliberate vulnerabilities the obvious ons is fire, especially as anything in the path of a river can also be in the path of lots and lots of flammable oil. If it's not flammable smoke is still generally a good option, so either way that's helpful (particularly as there's plenty of building materials that aren't flammable but still don't do well in intense heat). Depending on party level there's also a whole host of destructive spells, with stone to mud and similar being a real standout, and by 16th they're all but guaranteed to have some of them unless there's been some truly bizarre multiclassing. There's just hiring a bunch of sappers and troops and letting everyone in the compound come to you. You can weigh down the roof until it collapses somehow (spells are standard here, but there's a certain style that comes from sneaking up in the dead of night and building a massive lip around the edge right before a severe blizzard or similar).

On top of all this one of your suggested solutions involves breaking a fairly large dam. I'm not sure what tools the PCs have that let them easily do that, but whatever they are they almost certainly transfer just fine to the temple.

[Unoriginal]

There's also creating a landslide, sabotaging the plumbing/water evacuation system, buying elephants, unleashing beasts or oozes, ...

[Xetheral]

There are real-world chemicals that will set stone on fire (https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2008/02/26/sand_wont_save_you_this_time). The reaction only lasts until the chemical is consumed, but the PCs could still use something similar to destroy or weaken a key structural support. Figuring out how such a blaze would interact with magic would be a little tricky, but with a chemical that ignites stone on contact there is a decent argument that it would reignite even if magically extinguished.

Figuring out how to acquire such a substance, and how to safely transport it, would be an interesting adventure.

[iTreeby]

There are real-world chemicals that will set stone on fire (https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2008/02/26/sand_wont_save_you_this_time). The reaction only lasts until the chemical is consumed, but the PCs could still use something similar to destroy or weaken a key structural support. Figuring out how such a blaze would interact with magic would be a little tricky, but with a chemical that ignites stone on contact there is a decent argument that it would reignite even if magically extinguished.

Figuring out how to acquire such a substance, and how to safely transport it, would be an interesting adventure.

Yo, I heard you like alchemist fire.

[c0r1nth14n]

I generally agree with this, but I think the situation the op describes calls for this kind of planning on the DM's part. That is because this is not a typical dnd quest, the difficulty of which would be a good match to the players' powers. The players enter this scenario at a disadvantage, and they must find an out of the box solution to win, as going head on or talking their way out of it are not valid winning options. The players can indeed do this on their own, they don't necessarily need the DM to drop hints. But if they struggle with finding a winning out of the box strategy, it will be useful for the DM to hint at something (kind of like if you are running something unconventional like a murder mystery quest; the players will probably struggle so you need to find ways to push them a little so that the game does not go into a halt). But more than that, I think the DM should think beforehand of these solutions, as that will be a good way for the DM to evaluate and handle whatever the players decide to do. Meaning that these solutions could act as approximations to what the players will do, so the DM will be more prepared and less surprised by whatever the players throw at him, meaning the DM can improvise more confidently.

@OP: Maybe you should have a back up scenario, in case your players decide to go head on against the bad guys (despite you hinting multiple other avenues of action). Maybe there are prisoners in that compound that the players can use to better their chances against the overwhelming numbers of the enemy. They might still lose, but giving them a slightly increased chance at victory might make it seem more fair from a player's perspective (even though the adventure is specifically designed not to be fair if you choose to go about it that way).

I think you really nailed it - I'd like to have some things planned out that can be quickly modified to whatever they come up with! I do have a backup scenario to prevent TPK if they massively screw up, since this is meant to be a fun diversion from the main story and I don't want to wipe the party on a short sidequest.

Thanks to everyone for all the advice! I think I've got a number of possible solutions now that should let me hint at things through NPCs if they're having trouble, or give me a pre-determined set of events I can use for whatever they think up. It's easy to change the plans for acquiring alchemical fire to the plans for acquiring reagants for whatever wacky scheme they think up.

[KorvinStarmast]

There's also creating a landslide, sabotaging the plumbing/water evacuation system, buying elephants, unleashing beasts or oozes, ...
Ooh, yeah, Mammoth Stampede! Good call!

[JakOfAllTirades]

The Animate Object spell is a quick and dirty way to create some powerful constructs. Maybe they can find some Huge statues in the temple?

[TristanLeo]

Why only have one? people have made a few reasons, put 2 or 3 into play and see what the party do. One I'll suggest is maybe have some parts of the compound/temple look worn and cracked then add a level below it. In that level there are foundations that are crumbling but are undergoing repairs and reinforcement. All it would take is for the load bearing structures to be destroyed and the already damaged foundations to be toppled to compromise the structure. Then the party has to figure out how to do it without the place crumbling on their heads.

[Damon_Tor]

1. Be a high level spore druid. You also need a sneaky guy.
2. Pet a small cactus and hand it off to the sneaky guy.
3. Sneaky guy sneaks into the enemy base and leaves the cactus someplace.
4. Buy a herd of 500 goats.
5. Kill one goat every round for 50 minutes. Each time, use your class feature to make them a zombie goat.
6. Once you have 500 goats cast animal shapes on all the goats, turning them into rhinoceroses.
7. Cast transport via plants on a nearby tree, linking it to that cactus.
8. Order the rhinoceroses to go through the tree portal and destroy the building on the other side.

Not only will the tempo be destroyed, you don't even have to be there. The only evidence of your crime is the presence of 500 dead goats and a cactus.

EDIT: You don't actually need another guy, druids are plenty sneaky.

[Kane0]

The only evidence of your crime is the presence of 500 dead goats and a cactus.


That's a sig quote waiting to happen :smallbiggrin:

[PandaPhobia]

I'm putting together a short adventure as a detour from our main campaign, and I'd like to have the party's goal be to destroy an entrenched compound or a large occult temple.

Our past adventures have allowed for the goals to be accomplished through NPC interactions, or through regular combat. This time, I want to present them with a situation where they can't solve it through negotiation, and the enemy force is far too large for them to fight head-on.

I want to have three or four different ways that they could accomplish this, so that I can drop hints if they don't think of anything on their own. So far I've thought of a couple ways:


- Blow it up. The party discovers that there's some sort of occult power source which could be overloaded to cause an explosion that destroys everything.

- Flood the whole place. The temple or town is located in a valley, with some kind of dam holding back an enormous amount of water. Destroy the dam, and the ensuing flood drowns everyone.


I can't think of much else, and I'm not sure if there are spells/summons/magic items which could accomplish this. If there are, I could plant some for the party to possibly discover, but if they're too easily accessible, the party could trivialize the adventure.

Does anyone have any suggestions for other ways to cause large-scale destruction? The party is 16th-level, so they've got some solid abilities and gear. Thank you very much!

make a quest for an earthquake spell scroll or an NPC that can cast it. the bane of dope underground pads everywhere: the thing it's built in moving.

[JackPhoenix]

1. Be a high level spore druid. You also need a sneaky guy.
2. Pet a small cactus and hand it off to the sneaky guy.
3. Sneaky guy sneaks into the enemy base and leaves the cactus someplace.
4. Buy a herd of 500 goats.
5. Kill one goat every round for 50 minutes. Each time, use your class feature to make them a zombie goat.
6. Once you have 500 goats cast animal shapes on all the goats, turning them into rhinoceroses.
7. Cast transport via plants on a nearby tree, linking it to that cactus.
8. Order the rhinoceroses to go through the tree portal and destroy the building on the other side.

Not only will the tempo be destroyed, you don't even have to be there. The only evidence of your crime is the presence of 500 dead goats and a cactus.

EDIT: You don't actually need another guy, druids are plenty sneaky.

The plant for Transport via Plants needs to be large or larger. Small cactus doesn't qualify.

Circle of Spores Fungal Infestation has a limit of Wis mod uses per long rest.