Annulus attack

[alex1g]

the players have an artifact called the "annulus" (https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Annulus) the party prepares to ambush a meeting of elder brains with a greater teleport spell and the artificts primary function. one the first round they declare the targets of the artifacts attack: "elder brains and mind flayers". then on the 9th round they teleport the party to the destination with greater teleport, and on the 10th round the artifact activates, oblerating the room of any of the declared targets. is this legal?

[rediridesence]

reading the description of the item in question (how did they find this by the way? lol), looks like by RAW, its perfectly legal, but they wont be able to do that again for a whole year. so yes, while that is extremely powerful (vs psionic things only), it will probably only come into play maybe one or two times in most games.

At least that is my interpretation of it..

[Lord Torath]

I would say the targets need to be within 100' of the annulus at the time the targets are selected.
Once per year, the wielder can trigger this effect as a special action requiring 10 rounds of continuous concentration to complete. The wielder specifies a target or targets within a 100-foot radius, ranging from a specific psionic individual or item to a group of psionic beings that share the same philosophy.I would say the target selection occurs at the beginning of the concentration, not the end, which means the targets must be within 100 feet of the annulus for the entire 10 rounds.

[AthasianWarlock]

For spells you don't have to specify until you finish using the effect:

Target or Targets
Some spells have a target or targets. You cast these spells on creatures or objects, as defined by the spell itself. You must be able to see or touch the target, and you must specifically choose that target. You do not have to select your target until you finish casting the spell.

[Glimbur]

Sure would be a shame if the elder brains had any sort of protection against that kind of thing. Anticipate teleport, any divination type of effect to see it coming. Were I a powerful psychic I would want to know where the annulus was. This feels too easy.

[Blackhawk748]

Sure would be a shame if the elder brains had any sort of protection against that kind of thing. Anticipate teleport, any divination type of effect to see it coming. Were I a powerful psychic I would want to know where the annulus was. This feels too easy.

Being fair would they even know what the Annullus is? But yes, they should have some sort of Teleportation defenses up.

[Thurbane]

the players have an artifact called the "annulus" (https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Annulus) the party prepares to ambush a meeting of elder brains with a greater teleport spell and the artificts primary function. one the first round they declare the targets of the artifacts attack: "elder brains and mind flayers". then on the 9th round they teleport the party to the destination with greater teleport, and on the 10th round the artifact activates, oblerating the room of any of the declared targets. is this legal?

Just as an FYI, always beware of using dandwiki: they mix in homebrew with official material, and its not always clearly labelled which is which.

This is a much safer link to use: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/items/psionicArtifacts.htm

[Telok]

Some possible issues: "same philosophy" is ill-defined, a dissenting elder brain could be unaffected. All regular divination and teleport denial methods function just fine. Line of effect could be an issue, the meeting may not be in a large open space.

Knowledge of the existance of artifacts is relatively common at artifact levels, about 25 to 35, and people try to keep tabs on instant death, no save, kills-demigods, items. If the party has been using the annulus before this then there's a chance that people know you have it and will take precautions.

Elder brains aren't stupid. Expect teleport denial, contingencies, assistants and/or constructs with readied actions to defend/interrupt, etc. I'd actually expect the participants to attend via image, simraculum, or astral projection. Even planning on recovering from being disentegrated is possible, astral seed and clone are available. Immedate interrupt spells and powers may also be an issue.

[CoCoPuffy]

How exactly do Elder brains meet up?
They can't even survive outside their brain pools and aren't known for polymorphing.
Technically according to RAW they could, but in all the descriptions they're essentially trapped and totally reliant on their subjects for everything.

[Telok]

How exactly do Elder brains meet up?
They can't even survive outside their brain pools and aren't known for polymorphing.
Technically according to RAW they could, but in all the descriptions they're essentially trapped and totally reliant on their subjects for everything.

I would presume that they use their at-will astral projection, find the appropriate color pool in astral space, and form a shell body at the meeting site.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Yes, this would work, if the elder brains were unprotected. They should not be. Greater anticipate teleportation would be the minimum defence expected from something as powerful as an elder brain, let alone a convocation of elder brains. Each elder brain should have psionic contingency, schism, anticipatory strike, temporal acceleration, synchronicity, and perhaps hustle (via Expanded Knowledge) available, allowing each elder brain to take a dozen (potentially devastating) actions before the wielder of the Annulus has a chance to act. Hell, a simple application of time hop will buy them enough time to destroy the party, if the Elder Brains are smart enough to recognize that the Annulus is about to go off--and with Knowledge (psionics) and Psicraft bonuses at +38 and +42 respectively, they probably will--and reckless enough not to simply take off with psionic dimension door.

tl;dr Yes, but no.

[Drackstin]

Being fair would they even know what the Annullus is? But yes, they should have some sort of Teleportation defenses up.

The description itself says if anyone holds it, they know exactly what it is and how to use it. so yes, they know what it is. but when they first found it, it was probaly just a fancy chakram.

[Psyren]

There's a lot of obstacles to this premise. A bunch of Elder Brains being within 100ft of each other is quite a stretch, as is the notion of scrying on such beings without them being aware of it, or having countermeasures. And if a major artifact like the Annulus truly exists in that campaign/setting, the idea that the PCs can acquire it without tipping off not just the Flayer Sovereignty but every psionic organization in the world is also a bit tough to swallow.

Assuming you contrive a way past all of those obstacles however - yes, I would say mind flayers and elder brains have a similar enough philosophy to all be hit; "we are inherently superior to all races from the current era" or "sunlight should not exist" for example.