Ideas for stronghold enchantments

[schreier]

I've read through the stronghold builders guidebook, and wanted to expand on it for a wizard's sanctum.

Things like fireplaces that light on command, faucets with heated water, prestidigitation that cleans bathrooms.

What have people used/ come up with beyond what is in the books?

Personal Oasis can produce a campfire that burns without needing fuel so could maybe be used as a base for the fireplace?

What about a bottomless bar?

Self-watering garden? Just trying to come up with ideas that are impressive and cool without really impacting play.

[Anomander]

Air conditioning throughout the stronghold, or heating if that's your thing can be done with a variety of perm spells (permanent gust of wind blowing through a Wall of Fire - permanent. Cast Coldfire on it when you want to swap from heating to cooling) Use this for your water heating needs.

There are some magic cupboards which produce food.

You can go the Trap of X Spell if you want to have some fun. Build a 3D thing and have traps of Fly around. It won't directly impact the campaign since the spell only lasts long enough to cover a mile or so around the stronghold, but it will be a fun place where everyone is flying around!

Spell Traps are a bit cheesy, though. And by "a bit" I mean "ridiculously."

[schreier]

Just found stove of everlasting flame in a&eg which might be good for the fireplace:
This enclosed metal box easily fits in the palm of someone’s hand. It has two metal flaps on one end that pop open to reveal a continuously burning flame. The heat of the flame is equivalent to a torch, although the flame’s size (and the light it produces) is the same as a candle. The metal of the box remains slightly warm to the touch, whether the flaps are open or not.

The A/c can be covered by making the rooms Chambers of comfort in stronghold builders guide: The temperature in this stronghold space is always a cozy 70°F. Additionally, the room magically circulates fresh air in and out of the room. The smoke from a fire lit in the room draws directly into the ceiling and then disappears. The place is never stuffy, always feeling like a soft breeze is flowing through the place, even if it’s airtight.

I was just thinking of pictures that adjust to the owners mood or something - like in antitrust (some type of illusion spell)

Could have a crystal ball or mirror of mental prowess to watch? Just realized the mirror has no sound though (clairvoyance)

[unseenmage]

Go check out Lair Wards from Draconomicon.
They are Wondrous Architecture by any other name. And yes, they do smell as sweet.

Additionally, magic resetting traps are likely the most appropriate wizard architecture you're likely to.find. That or Spell Turrets from DMG2 iirc.

EDIT: Theres also the Clockwork Tower (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/cw/20070423a).

[Ruethgar]

If it is immobile, Rune Circles are great for the price, especially enchanting them as magical architecture for 50% off and only 5ft circles for a severely reduced price.

[schreier]

Where are rune circles (what book?) What do they do?

[Fizban]

I've read through the stronghold builders guidebook, and wanted to expand on it for a wizard's sanctum.

Things like fireplaces that light on command, faucets with heated water, prestidigitation that cleans bathrooms.
Equivalent to 1st level spell (for creating a fire, lighting wood is 0th), equivalent to 1st level spell or existing item with added 0th level effect, already a 0th level effect. Price accordingly. You'd probably be interested in Darsson's heat/cold/breeze spells in Shining South.

What about a bottomless bar?
Depends on how magically powerful you think Create Alcohol should be. There are one or two items that can a bit, or you could find a spell in a book that does so (I don't think there's a 1st party one but there might be). 1st or 2nd if you think it should be compared to Create Water, 4th if it's being compared to Create Food and Water, or 5th or 6th if you're comparing it to Heroes' Feast.

Self-watering garden? Just trying to come up with ideas that are impressive and cool without really impacting play.
Unseen Servant does pretty much everything.

I was just thinking of pictures that adjust to the owners mood or something - like in antitrust (some type of illusion spell)
Programmed Image references Magic Mouth's trigger capability, which is one of the most powerful and open-ended in the game, with an explicit lack of limit on detail or length which can be exploited as far as the DM allows. I'd ballpark 3rd or 4th, but how much the item should cost really depends on what you mean by "adjust" and what else it could be used for, since the scope of an illusion spell is far more than making minor adjustments to a painting.

[Malphegor]

Some kind of library where you say the name of a book and it comes to you (like the handy haversack enchantment), ala Chidi's philosophy library ('summoning books like it's mjolnir!') in the current season of the Good Place.

I think Rune Circles are from Races of Stone?

[schreier]

Equivalent to 1st level spell (for creating a fire, lighting wood is 0th), equivalent to 1st level spell or existing item with added 0th level effect, already a 0th level effect. Price accordingly. You'd probably be interested in Darsson's heat/cold/breeze spells in Shining South.

Depends on how magically powerful you think Create Alcohol should be. There are one or two items that can a bit, or you could find a spell in a book that does so (I don't think there's a 1st party one but there might be). 1st or 2nd if you think it should be compared to Create Water, 4th if it's being compared to Create Food and Water, or 5th or 6th if you're comparing it to Heroes' Feast.

Unseen Servant does pretty much everything.

Programmed Image references Magic Mouth's trigger capability, which is one of the most powerful and open-ended in the game, with an explicit lack of limit on detail or length which can be exploited as far as the DM allows. I'd ballpark 3rd or 4th, but how much the item should cost really depends on what you mean by "adjust" and what else it could be used for, since the scope of an illusion spell is far more than making minor adjustments to a painting.

Programmed image sounds like an interesting way to handle it - I wonder if you could somehow incorporate read thoughts to allow the painting to try and "paint" what you see/want in your "mind's eye."

I think I'm going with a resetting trap with prestidigitation to clean out the privies, with a trigger being a wall-mounted panel. I am thinking about a variant on the decanter of endless water for plumbing using two pipers that come out of the decanter, and controlled by handles instead of command words (a hot and cold handle, with the hot going over pipes kept hot either by a stove of everlasting flame, or some other magic)

[Fizban]

To be clear, there is no need or reason to involve "traps"* or other items- if you want a self-cleaning privy, you just make a self-cleaning privy. The cost is whatever the DM decides it is, based on formula, similar items, and how useful it actually is. The wondrous architecture cost for an immobile Prestidigitation is 250gp (though I'd actually assume its based on a dedicated 0th or 1st level cleaning spell)- assuming that spell is sufficient to eliminate volumes of solid waste, rather than just wiping dirt off of things. If not, Shadow Cache (3rd level) would be an amusing base effect, ejecting it to the shadow plane where it then eventually just disappears by the original spell's random loss chance. Or just have a cute down to a permanent Wall of Fire incinerator.

If you want a magical faucet with hot and cold running water, you just make it- the price increases by some amount to get the heated function, from whatever the original was. The only hiccup is that SBG's cumbersome architecture version of the decanter is terrible and by its existence suggests a faucet must be more expensive- that is the case in which, if the DM took that route, I would recommend simply Fabricating a plumbing system with a single magically filled reservoir and heated faucets (personally I'd rule that the Everfull Basin has a good mechanic for a cl1 Create Water effect with its one bucket at a time setup, which should be 500gp, not 4,500). An immobile effect based on the decanter's price would decrease to 2,250, which we use because the decanter uses Control Water with an arbitrary price to set the bar for mass water creation, and would be able to refill the reservoir at a rate of 30 gallons per round. Prestidigitation again has "warm," but if a stream of water is not equal to an object, I can't see a "Create Warm Water" spell being anything higher than 1st level. Which would be 500gp with no actual need for a reservoir.



*The reason one should never involve infinite resetting traps, "spell-turrets," etc, is because they're basically just another way of pretending formula costs trump everything, with extra low formulas. But those are DM tools for creating harmful traps, not an exploitable magitech system (because everything must always go through the DM anyway). Actual magic items are supposed to be compared to existing items, and Stronghold Builder's Guidebook does in fact have the existing items for player use to compare to. So any "trap" that exceeds the comparable architecture is out of line, unless the DM has deliberately decided the architecture is underpowered. But most of the usual "tricks," infinite Create Food and Water, infinite Heals, etc, are already in SBG, many with limits on how they function.