Causing the E6 Apocalypse

[Morof Stonehands]

So you've started a cult, with the intention of bringing about the apocalypse in your world. Other than asking Deities/Lords of Hell/Abyssal Lords/etc., how would you do it?

What kind of doomsday device could you build in E6? What concoction of spells and metamagic could one cast to get to end of times going? Any creature you could summon and unleash on the land?

Let me hear your best!

Any 3.5 source is fair game, Web/magazines/setting books/etc.

[daremetoidareyo]

I think you might want a lunch date with Tio Hexblahday: https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=22959008&postcount=58

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Locate City Wightpocalypse, I guess.

Locate City is a 1st level spell in Races of Destiny with an area of 10 miles/level. It's on the Bard, Ranger, Sorcerer, and Wizard lists.

Use Snowcasting in Frostburn to give it the cold descriptor, you can use Summon Component in CM to get the snow required for that.

Use Flash Frost Spell in PH2 to make it deal 2 damage to everyone in the area, it's a +1 metamagic.

Use Fell Drain in LM to make it inflict a negative level on anyone it damages, it's a +2 metamagic.

Use Practical Metamagic in RotD to make Fell Drain have only a +1 metamagic cost, so you can cast that from a 3rd level slot.

So a Silverbrow Human Sorcerer 6 with Cha 16 can cast that four times, and can do that immediately upon reaching 6th level. Ideally you'll be a necropolitan as well.

That deals 8 cold damage and inflicts four negative levels in a 60 mile radius over four round. The first one automatically kills any 1 HD creatures, the second automatically finishes off any 2 HD creatures, the third any 3 HD creatures, and the fourth any 4 HD creatures. A creature slain by negative levels becomes a wight by default, which should be able to kill anyone with 5 or more HD as they'll already have 4 negative levels on them.


Then you go to the next city and do the same thing again the following day, repeat as often as necessary.

[Nifft]

I mean, it's E6.

You don't need to threaten the world.

The joy of E6 is that you can have threats which are "street-level" and yet remain relevant.

I'd start with a Colossal Housecat Swarm.



Locate City Wightpocalypse, I guess.

Fortunately for every world, Locate City Bomb doesn't actually work.

[Blackhawk748]

Fortunately for every world, Locate City Bomb doesn't actually work.

Then just Fell Drain Sonic Snap a village and let the Wights do their thing. After all, they are a much bigger threat in E6

[Nifft]

Then just Fell Drain Sonic Snap a village and let the Wights do their thing. After all, they are a much bigger threat in E6

Yeah, that works.

It does require a bit of carefulness, but it works.

[legomaster00156]

Yeah, that works.

It does require a bit of carefulness, but it works.
I think any plan involving "turn everyone around me into uncontrolled undead" requires carefulness.

[Tvtyrant]

Book of Vile Darkness sacrifice rules let you get the effect of Planar Binding without casting it (so if higher level spells are banned it isn't a spell.)

Greater Planar Binding lets you call Zargon the Returner, an Elder Evil whose sign is to cover the world in a planetwide hurricane while oozes come out of the ground and eat everyone. This is I think DC 35 on the sacrifice rules, so fairly easy to make if you use all the little perks.

To even try to save the world its nations have to kill a CR18 Elder Evil that summons CR10 oozes en masse.

Edit: the Incantation rules also have options. The Animate Dead one auto-succeeds regardless of skill check, the check decides if you control the undead or not. So its easy enough to make hordes of zombies and skeletons that you push down a slide from an airship as soon as they are made.

There is another Incantation that kills the ritualists but calls a Pit Fiend, which is enough to probably conquer an E6 planet.

[Vizzerdrix]

Easy. I would use a chicken infested commoner. I would pump craft: cooking as high as I could. Then I would cook chickens until I had enough to summon Dalmosh.

[thorr-kan]

Edit: the Incantation rules also have options. <SNIP>

There is another Incantation that kills the ritualists but calls a Pit Fiend, which is enough to probably conquer an E6 planet.
The thing people forget is, the Incantation rules work both ways. Found a way to cause an E6 Apocalypse? What prevents the Forces of Good from having already discovered this possibility and developing Incantations to oppose it?

Wights? Incantation performed by regularly by wide spread churches to prevent wights from forming.

Pit Fiend invasion? Counter-Incantation to summon a Solar as a balancing force.

Cult bent on world-wide destruction? Adventurers. (Okay, that's not an incantation.)

ETA: Corrected spelling.

[Tvtyrant]

The thing people forget is, the Incantation rules work both ways. Found away to cause an E6 Apocalypse? What prevents the Forces of Good from having already discovered this possibility and developing Incantations to oppose it?

Wights? Incantation performed by regularly by wide spread churches to prevent wights from forming.

Pit Fiend invasion? Counter-Incantation to summon a Solar as a balancing force.

Cult bent on world-wide destruction? Adventurers. (Okay, that's not an incantation.)

No one forgets this, its just that cults of good guys secretly hatching spells to sacrifice an entire town to summon an angel aren't a narrative trope and undermine the concept of adventurers. If the good guys are proactive they eliminate the need for player characters, so they don't. Evil is proactive, Good reacts.

[Doctor Despair]

Necropolitan Deathtouched (LA+1) (adding on other free templates as you wish, like Magic-Blooded or Unseeley Fey or what have you)



Level
Class
Feats
Notes


1
Dread Necromancer
Versatile Spellcaster
Intermediate Fey Bloodline level tax before level 2; worship Elder Evil Attropus for flavor and get Evil's Blessing (vile); Charnel Touch gives infinite out-of-combat healing for undead, and gain Rebuke Undead for managing your hordes more easily


2
Dread Necromancer

DR 2/magical bludgeoning; +2 to hide checks (yay! /s)


3
Dread Necromancer
Fell Frighten
Buy-Off Level Adjustment, and take Necropolitan to go back down to 1; automatically get a bunch of taint (by being undead) to get two bonus feats: Corpsecrafter, and Destructive Retribution; Negative energy burst 1/day


4
Dread Necromancer

Gain Iron Will as a bonus feat; pick any 3rd level or lower cleric/wizard spell


5
Incantatrix
Fell Drain
Retrain Fell Frighten into Mother Cyst (or Chain Spell); Elder Evil worship grants an Evil Brand


6
Incantatrix
Undead Leadership
Keystone Class Feature: Cooperative Metamagic; bloodline bonus of +1 to charisma



Using Guidance of the Avatar (60gp, have your cohort cast it, or cast it yourself at level 4 if you take that spell) and the Book of All Knowledge (3000gp), we need 3 ranks to automatically know about Attropus, how he causes undead to rise up and usurp the living, and the World Born Dead - easily enough to want to serve him by ending the world, if you're depraved enough. You might seek out this knowledge as a necromancer interested in the origin of life, seeking secrets on how to empower necromantic effects. That's for in-character justification, of course.

If our DM lets us select cohort feats, we have our cohort be an evil cleric worshipping Afflux for the Deathbound domain with Snowcasting and Flash Frost. Technically you can't attract a cohort with specific feats by RAW, however, so if that is the case, you can pay for a usage of Psychic Reformation to get them the feats you need (preferable Tomb-Tainted soul, as well).

The cleric casts Snowcasted, Flash-Frosted Locate City; then, you use your Cooperative Metamagic to add Fell Drain. This is by ECL 6. You are undead, so the Wights won't take any particular issue with you (and maybe you can vouch for your cohort), and you both have extensive abilities to control the horde of undead you created. Undead Leadership lets you retain a bunch of your created undead as followers and use your control-spells elsewhere, too. I think the Necropolitan template is an oft-ignored, but necessary component of the build, as otherwise this amounts to little more than a suicide bomb, since the Wights will want you dead, too.

[Morof Stonehands]

Some great ideas in here for sure. I just came across the Killing Frost from DMG II, which would certainly be a tough potentially world ending threat.

[Buufreak]

locate city bomb

Except by the actual table, text, and function of locate city, all the meta magic applied is moot, as it doesn't work in that way.


I think the Necropolitan template is an oft-ignored

Nah. It's one of the most commonly used templates in existence. If it involves a caster, it's probably one of the first 3 suggestions.

[Doctor Despair]

Except by the actual table, text, and function of locate city, all the meta magic applied is moot, as it doesn't work in that way.

Not getting into this debate again; lots of good discussion here already (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?612812-Question-Regarding-TO-Necromancer-Making-Wights-Friendly), and I'm certain there's no new ground to cover. Suffice to say, I disagree.




Nah. It's one of the most commonly used templates in existence. If it involves a caster, it's probably one of the first 3 suggestions.

I haven't seen anyone use it with the Locate City Bomb, presumably because Snowcasting has a requirement that you have a con score. Hence, the use of Undead Leadership and Cooperative Metamagic to bypass that issue. I didn't mean that Necropolitan isn't commonly used; that'd be absolutely false.

[Nifft]

Not getting into this debate again; lots of good discussion here already (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?612812-Question-Regarding-TO-Necromancer-Making-Wights-Friendly), and I'm certain there's no new ground to cover. Suffice to say, I disagree.

Oh, I owe you a reply over in that thread.

(But the reply will be that it doesn't work, because the rules can't be interpreted to support it working.)

[thorr-kan]

No one forgets this, its just that cults of good guys secretly hatching spells to sacrifice an entire town to summon an angel aren't a narrative trope and undermine the concept of adventurers. If the good guys are proactive they eliminate the need for player characters, so they don't. Evil is proactive, Good reacts.I honestly cannot understand where you're coming from here. So I'm bowing out of this thread.

[Tvtyrant]

I honestly cannot understand where you're coming from here. So I'm bowing out of this thread.

Or you could ask for clarification so we can come to an understanding.

Basically I see it as a meta-issue. Like there are no rules for granting good free wishes without spells, but there is an evil one because you don't normally make games about stopping good cults. "The angelic sunshine cult is trying to bind an angel to drown the planet in fecund crops and ample water rights! We have to stop them!"

Evil in almost any campaign setting is proactive and good is reactive, because if the world/country/city/farm isn't in danger you don't need adventurers and heroes to save it. You would call the "Well Funded Anti-Evil Knightly Order" and it would deal with the problem. See Elminster, who is such as force but has to have his hands tied all the time for narrative reasons.

[Quertus]

Saying that it's "e6" will guarantee most people I know won't play it. That should pretty well end the world. :smallwink:

[Doctor Despair]

I'd think it's moreso that in a good setting, the Good Guys eventually are either a little complacent/comfortable, in which case the Bad Guys have an opportunity to be pro-active, or the Good Guys are paranoid and overly strict to pre-empt any chance of the Bad Guys doing things, in which case the Good Guys can end up becoming the Bad Guys by means of unjust or cruel laws that unnecessarily limit the freedom of those living there. I suppose that makes it a bit of a tautology; those that are too pro-active eventually become the Bad Guys unless there are already pro-active Bad Guys to fight, although that wouldn't be the case in a bad setting where the Bad Guys might be complacent/comfortable, having stomped out what they thought was the last of the Good Guys.

[Tvtyrant]

Saying that it's "e6" will guarantee most people I know won't play it. That should pretty well end the world. :smallwink:

Considering that most of us who liked E6 fit into 5E this is probably true at this point. There was a long time where E6 was the only D&D edition that catered to my group though.

[Blackhawk748]

Wights? Incantation performed by regularly by wide spread churches to prevent wights from forming.

Wight are naturally formed from someone dying of Negative Levels, how would you make an Incantation to stop that?

Plus it doesn't even take an Incantation to make them, just Fell Drain and a damage spell.