How Could A Cabal of High-Level Wizards Conquer the World? [Thought Experiment]

[Destro2119]

So having never seen firsthand the "power of wizards" as I have been told by many other forumites, I submit this experiment to see if that is really true.

Suppose a cabal of 5 level 14-15 wizards (about 75 levels total) has, through some method, discovered Earth on a different plane of existence. They have only rudimentary knowledge about the Earth, ie they know this new world has no magic but many technological marvels of transit, communication, military strength, espionage, etc, and the basic info on the world's continents/some basic nation divisions/nation "power levels", but nothing like state divisions/elements of topography/political make.

They each have access to WBL for their level, in addition to resources they might logically have at their level, like being headmaster of a magical academy, executive officer of a manufacturer of magic items, advisors to royalty etc.

They will plane shift to Earth, and they arrive in a place where they are unlikely to be immediately noticed or killed (ie if they end up on Hawaii they wind up out of sight in the forest next to a tourist resort, not inside Mt. Kilauea).

Their goal is conquest, which in this case is the attainment of a position of great authority (could be anything from Overlords of Earth, POTUS, CEO of powerful corporation, power behind the throne, etc) and the ability to affect global events as they wish.

They have one year to prepare for this. Could they conquer the Earth in the way I have set down?

PS: They have access to all 3.P spells from 3.5 and before as long as they do not interfere with PF's new spell rules. Also, assume they can gain xp and level up using social encounters etc.

[Clistenes]

Well, their first step would be to kidnap and interrogate (with the help of magic, of course) some bystander in order to get more information about the world. I guess they would learn about internet during that interrogation and force their victim to teach them how to use it to find information, which would probably lead to the police finding them when they track the signal of the laptop or phone of the kidnapped person and a first squabble with the police, which would end in a hurried Plane Shift, taking their victim with them...

Afterwards they may choose to use a more conservative method and loot a well-stoked public library in order to get information about Earth. They would get valuable (if out of date) information about Earth's technology, history, geography and culture that way.

Eventually they would figure our world's police reacts quickly to kidnapping and can use tech to track victims, so they would use magic to make some people their servants/friends/informants without kidnapping them...

From that point onward they have reliable information about our world. They may use that information to find more skilled and knowledgeable people to use...

[Destro2119]

Where do they live on Earth though? How can they construct a hideout safe from law enforcement etc.? Also, what magic spells would they use to "interrogate and make friends" as you say?

[Mechalich]

Dominate Person is basically the only tool you need to take control of the world once you've passed through an initial information gathering phase (which is also conducted using Charm and Dominate effects).

Invisibility, Teleport and similar spells allow our wizards access to the ruler of an authoritarian regime, who they then dominate along with a number of key aides. Then they simply move into the inner circle of said regime and gradually transition to control. This experiment starts to touch on political factors in a hurry, but the obvious move is to pick the largest and most powerful authoritarian regime on the planet to start with.

Once you've done that you need to massively destabilize the global powers capable of opposing you through a campaign of targeted assassination, terrorism, and dominate agents to start civil wars. This frees you up to utilize your puppet regime to engage in classical military conquest, which can be expedited through domination and the outright replacement of opposition leaders with your minions (Simulacrum+Alter Self does just fine). In this way you could attain control of a superpower and subordinate states the represent a majority of the global economy and population in relatively short order, at which point the rest is just grinding down opponents and steadily growing authority.

The tricky bit is probably nuclear weapons, since while triggering a large scale nuclear exchange makes global conquest easier, it also tends to remove the planet from the habitable column. Systematic elimination of all nuclear weapons that you don't personally control is probably an important step before triggering the large-scale civil war/regional hegemony phase. That's a bit tricky, mostly because there's a very limited timeframe to hit thousands of warheads while avoiding detection before someone launches.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Mechalich
Once you've done that you need to massively destabilize the global powers capable of opposing you....

Why destabilize anything? If you can Dominate one major global figure, you can Dominate the rest. Set up your puppet regimes in every major nation, adjust global politics and economy to taste.


Originally Posted by Destro2119
Where do they live on Earth though? How can they construct a hideout safe from law enforcement etc.?

There are plenty of rugged places in the world without roads or effective law enforcement.

The real trick is building a hideout that won't be spotted on Google Earth by the hobbyists who are poring over those images. If the wizards neglect to pick up on this detail--that virtually everything is observable from orbit--then their first hideout may have a short lifespan.

But if they build smart, and camouflage their tower (because it has to be a tower) to look like one more spire of rock, then they could be anywhere from the Peruvian altiplano to the Australian Outback to the mountain forests of Tibet.

[Mechalich]

Why destabilize anything? If you can Dominate one major global figure, you can Dominate the rest. Set up your puppet regimes in every major nation, adjust global politics and economy to taste.

It's much more difficult to Dominate your way to absolute control over non-authoritarian regimes where power is dispersed across large parliaments and sudden changes in ideological behavior are unlikely to sustain a lawmakers career. So while you can puppeteer the authoritarians, you have to crush the democracies.

In addition to Dominate it is possible to use Simulacrum to outright replace people (no one on Earth will end up missing spell levels or any other ability that a Simulacrum can't handle). This won't stand up to a lot of close scrutiny, so its no good for politicians or celebrities, but you can absolutely grab elusive oligarchs or financial titans and acquire all the funds you'll ever need (generating money using magic is trivial, but it's actually someone complex to launder it into the financial system in a useable form).

[Magelyte]

Where do they live on Earth though? How can they construct a hideout safe from law enforcement etc.?

A 15th level pathfinder wizard can cast create demiplane which will give them an undetectable hideout that cannot be reached without magic. They will need to use plane shift to enter and exit the hideout, but it would be completely safe from any opposition.

[AntiAuthority]

Well, this is pretty much a slam dunk for the Wizards, as there's 5 people with superhuman intelligence and reality warping abilities. Assuming they have Permanent Telepathic Bond up as soon as they come into our world, as this would make planning between them much easier.

Good news for the Wizards that most of these spells don't require extravagant amounts of wealth, or even materials... For the ones that do require funds, that'll be pretty easy to accomplish.

First they'll need funds. I'm not doing the conversion rates of 3.P gold into USD/Yen/won/whatever. That said, they should be able to use the internet to figure out who the big hitters in the world are (assuming they don't walk into a library looking like stereotypical Wizards and/or fantasy cosplayers with the green skin/pointed ears and such) without being figured out they don't belong. Anyway, they can search up the largest companies/celebrities on the planet via their high intellect and Permanent Comprehend Language or Permanent Tongues. From here, it's pretty simple to just figure out where these millionaires/billionaires live and/or currently are. Pop a Greater Teleport and Invisibility or Ethereal Jaunt, walk in on this person and cast Extended Charm Person on them when they're alone or just use a Extended Mass Charm Person. Convince these people to start funneling their immense funds into bank accounts that the Wizards can use... Or, if that's too suspicious, create a small bank account that will have large sums of money funded into it over time from various sources... Something to this effect. Money opens many doors, and these people are potentially rich within a few hours of arriving in our world. Or they could skip this entirely and just take money from their new best friends whenever they want. Now, the reason why I mentioned conversion earlier... I'm assuming since our world's currency is a thing, there would be some conversion going on from our world's currencies into 3.P's gold, and they could hypothetically use this to fuel their spells if they so wish. Or just... Borrow resources (finances, gold, etc.) from the banks themselves via another Extended Mass Charm Person.

Second, using their funds, they can now give big news outlets in the larger countries more incentive to start reporting things their way. Or they could just do this via another casting of Dominant Person/Charm Person, but money's easier. Now the major news outlets are being stringed along by the Wizards, and the public is being shown only what these Wizards want them to. If you control the minds of the people, you don't need physical shackles. The Wizards want the people to believe X is true, a lot of the populace will put their faith into these big news outlets. Now anything that the Wizards want the public to see as good are now good, no matter the context, while the opposite is true for bad things. If they really want to do this and go far with it, they can cast Compelling Rant over a heavily broadcasted feed to force an entire nation to believe their rant, but that's a last resort type of thing because it causes Wisdom Drain.

Third, if... They can easily dominate the political landscape. Sure, they could easily use Mass Charm Person to influence the leaders of various nations to do whatever they want, but what if the action is so incredibly stupid that it borders into suicidal? Dominate Person has a shorter duration than Charm Person... So, you could just cut out the middle man and assume direct control via Extended Magic Jar. The world governments aren't expecting, at least if these super geniuses have even a fraction of common sense, someone invisible and/or intangible to walk through defenses or just teleport into their leader's bedrooms in the middle of the night. Anyway, you can directly place your mind into a world leader's body for 24+ hours at a time, just make sure one of your other Wizarding buddies keeps your meat suit well taken care of and occasionally bring it back to the your host's location for a recasting of the spell while you assume control over the world leader's life.

But long term... There's actually a much more sensible way of doing this than taking over another person's life. You can have the governments in your pocket by bribing them... But you can also do the fun thing with magic. So, start small... Create an Invisible (Permanence) Headband of Alluring Charisma +6 and couple it with someone who you don't have any use for/don't want to spend the spell slots to gain control over. So take someone who's trying to run for office in a country, cool... There are several options here. Most/all are morally reprehensible, but you're also trying to take over the world, so morals don't really factor in here.


Kill them (or just wipe their memories via Amnesia and dump them somewhere far away where nobody will ever find them) and use Extended Alter Self/Disguise Self. It has a time limit, sure, but... This is where the fun begins. See, the funds situation above and amassing access to the wealth of the world's richest people (and using that wealth to purchase gold and/or jewels for their spells) and such was just a set up for this. They should have more than enough Wealth by Level left over to go home and purchase a Scroll of Greater Create Demi-Plane, a Scroll of Permanency and a Scroll of Time Stop. Go and create your Permanent, Timeless Demi-Plane and and now go to cast Time Stop with the other scroll... The effect is, now you have a little dimension to call your own where time doesn't technically pass, aside from apparent time. Essentially, you become The Flash when you go into this demi-plane and are moving much faster than the rest of the planes. Now, go ahead and use Alter Self to go into that whenever you believe your time limit for Alter Self is about to go out... Simply excuse yourself to go to the rest room or to check on something, go inside, rest for about 8 apparent hours, rememorize your spells, and come back out after a short break... To you, it was a few hours, to the rest of the world, it was akin to the blink of an eye that you were gone. Now, with your (Invisible) Headband of Alluring Charisma, you should have absolutely no problem convincing a democratic nation to elect you as the leader of the country. Or you could just use this spell to not impersonate someone and just create your own custom appearance...

Kidnap the person in question and take them to the Timeless Demi-Plane from above (really, it's not that hard if you're a 15th level anything to overpower someone who is, at max, level 6 in our world, especially with magic involved). They're kind of trapped there with no real way of escape, but just to be sure, maybe tie them up and/or summon some guard animals or something intelligent to keep them in line while you and your Wizard buddies aren't around. Now, use Claim Identity (essentially stealing their face) and assume their identity. Repeat process of the above, but this one lasts much longer, as it's 1 hour/level and you should be fine for the most part. Just make an excuse to go somewhere private for a moment and in the blink of an eye, you'll be back and fully recharged.

Kill them and take their corpse to the Timeless Demi-Plan from the above scenario. Use Assume Appearance on them, as the spell lasts 1 day/level, it's very practical, if disgusting. Using an Extended version would be even better, but whatever... Anyway, as the corpse is in a place where time is frozen and hunger, thirst, etc. are all halted, I'm willing to bet decomposition also qualifies here. If you use the Greater variant, you don't even need their corpse, just something that looks like them via a sketch. So, for however long your campaign lasts, you have a disguise that lasts for almost 2 weeks to a month or so before you need to reapply it.



But what's that? What if the opposing candidates have more votes than you? Buddy, buddy... That's not an issue. Just do the same to them if they're in the lead, but... You can also just... Have one of your Wizard buddies assume the role of someone on the opposing side with their own Charisma enhancing gear. Either way, whoever wins, your cabal gains the power.

But what's that? What if there's more popular candidates than you and too many to be possessed/impersonated by your 5 man band? Well, there's still Charm Person, but... If you really want to ruin someone, simply use Dominate Person/Amnesia/Insanity/any other spells that would cast heavy doubt onto their mental state as a potential candidate to rule a country. For Dominate Person or just possessing them or whatever, you can make them say and do things that would instantly turn their own base against them via insulting them and/or committing crimes... Especially during a rally lol. Destroy the competition until you and your other Wizard buddy are the only good looking candidates. Maybe make them commit a few obvious crimes too. Couple this with the fact that they potentially can use the news outlets to make the other candidates look even worse... Yeah, good times all around.

Also, for any legislation... Mass Charm Person does wonders if there's a checks and balances system in place. Seriously, combine Mass Charm Person/Dominate Person with the Timestopped Timeless Demi-Plane and you have an infinite duration of spells.

During this time period, the Wizards can start placing people of their choosing into positions of power for the next term until they've selected a bunch of people that are Yes Men to them and their goals. They alternate between which countries they do this to, but it's not too hard and eventually they'll have weak willed, easily controllable people at their beck and call and calling all the shots in the world. Now, you may be wondering what about the countries they're not physically in, what if Charm Person doesn't work...? Lesser Geas the other world leaders, it'll last for a few days... It's pretty much a long-term Dominate Person.

So... Between the manipulating people's minds, possessing them, controlling their wills, impersonating them, being able to funnel money into whatever they want via any of the above... Not that hard if the Wizards are even remotely competent and patient lol.

And if this (somehow) fails decide, "This was a bust, nuke it!" They can just possess/dominate the POTUS and Secretary of Defense to activate the nuclear football and cause a nuclear war that would destroy large portions of our civilization. Or launch nukes from any other country with them via possessing/dominating the minds of whoever the leaders there are. They just leave via Plane Shift before the nuclear fallout comes into play and just reappear after the radiation levels have gone down and conquer what's left of civilization.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Mechalich
…sudden changes in ideological behavior are unlikely to sustain a lawmakers career.

No need for a sudden change in policy, since the wizards aren’t up against any time pressure. Politicians are famous for pivoting, to say nothing of oiling their way around an issue when the optics begin to change. I doubt anyone would notice.

[Destro2119]

Great post! A minor nitpick however: Dominate Person has a days per level duration, and depending on the person the enchantment might be easy to spot, however, I would ad hoc a big penalty to detect enchantment for the Earthians because they have never seen magic before.

And on Compelling Rant: wow, I never realized the sheer chaos this could cause if cast at a presidential debate by a simulacrum with a scroll (pretending they are notes) or something. Especially if the topic was "black people/LGBT people are inferior and evil." shudders

[AntiAuthority]

Great post! A minor nitpick however: Dominate Person has a days per level duration, and depending on the person the enchantment might be easy to spot, however, I would ad hoc a big penalty to detect enchantment for the Earthians because they have never seen magic before.

And on Compelling Rant: wow, I never realized the sheer chaos this could cause if cast at a presidential debate by a simulacrum with a scroll (pretending they are notes) or something. Especially if the topic was "black people/LGBT people are inferior and evil." shudders

Wow, my memory was way off with how long Dominate Person lasted lol. And I forgot about Simulacrum and didn't think to combine it with Compelling Rant to negate the risk to the Wizard... Uh, yeah, so, those make things much easier than what I described for how these Wizards could take over our world lol.

Also, I realize that these technically fulfill all of your win-conditions. They're the ones making all the decisions behind big companies, they're either impersonating/possessing/controlling the minds of the POTUS and other members, are the power behind most of the world's leaders in every case and can (if they so choose) become straight up overlords after they cleanse the world with nuclear fire, since humans would be much easier prey for them with the struggling to rebuild after the end of the world.

The moral of this story... Should they deign us worthy to become aware of their existence, we should bow down to our magical overlords and hope they don't destroy us in nuclear flames should they get irritated lol.

[Destro2119]

To play devils advocate: could a squad of CIA agents do the same (ie fulfill my conquest goal) in Golarion? Also, is it really as easy to manipulate the media with money as you say? Aren't there laws against it?

[AvatarVecna]

As others have discussed a bit, it's not going to take a group of high-level wizards very long to have enough working knowledge about our world to come up with a plan.


So having never seen firsthand the "power of wizards" as I have been told by many other forumites, I submit this experiment to see if that is really true.

Suppose a cabal of 5 level 14-15 wizards (about 75 levels total) has, through some method, discovered Earth on a different plane of existence. They have only rudimentary knowledge about the Earth, ie they know this new world has no magic but many technological marvels of transit, communication, military strength, espionage, etc, and the basic info on the world's continents/some basic nation divisions/nation "power levels", but nothing like state divisions/elements of topography/political make.

They each have access to WBL for their level, in addition to resources they might logically have at their level, like being headmaster of a magical academy, executive officer of a manufacturer of magic items, advisors to royalty etc.

They will plane shift to Earth, and they arrive in a place where they are unlikely to be immediately noticed or killed (ie if they end up on Hawaii they wind up out of sight in the forest next to a tourist resort, not inside Mt. Kilauea).

Their goal is conquest, which in this case is the attainment of a position of great authority (could be anything from Overlords of Earth, POTUS, CEO of powerful corporation, power behind the throne, etc) and the ability to affect global events as they wish.

They have one year to prepare for this. Could they conquer the Earth in the way I have set down?

PS: They have access to all 3.P spells from 3.5 and before as long as they do not interfere with PF's new spell rules. Also, assume they can gain xp and level up using social encounters etc.

The year of preparation will be spent procuring very particular items, including dealing with any local politicians on their side of the dimensional divide who might take issue with things.

1) A non-epic character can't purchase an item if its market price is greater than 200000.

2) The "requires skill/class/alignment to use" restrictions reduce the actual market price.

This means that an at-will Command Word item (base 1800) that duplicates a 9th lvl spell (x9) at the minimum of CL 17 (x17), by a wizard (x0.7) costs 192780 gp on the market.

Our spell will be the 3.5 spell "Mindrape".


The caster enters the mind of a creature, learning everything that creature knows.

The caster can erase or add memories as she sees fit and alter emotions, opinions, and even alignment.

When the caster is done, she can leave the creature insane (as described in the insanity spell) or seemingly unaffected, without any memory of the intrusion.

Severe changes to personality and changes to alignment can be corrected by a break enchantment spell (although an atonement spell might be needed as well, depending on circumstances).

Alterations to memories and subtler thoughts can be restored only through use of a miracle or wish.

This can be as simple as leaving the person's mentality 100% intact except that now they're utterly incurably devoted to the wizards.

As for why they might be sold such items, the truth is that it's got rather limited use: in a world of magic, politicians will have defensive items giving them some SR and good saves (especially Will saves), and might even be flatout immune to Mind-Affecting effects. Particularly if these wizards are the head of some prestigious magical academies, them requesting some powerful mind control devices that could convert a lot of the masses is something that would raise eyebrows and probably provoke some observation, but if they go power-mad some adventurers will pop up to deal with them.

This will be extra-approved if the wizards make the local bigwigs aware that they intend to use this to secure resources and control from backwards unmagic savages in another dimension - this officially makes it not the politician's legal problem, so now they only have to object on moral grounds. Which...politician. But D&D politicians, so maybe they will? Eh. That's why you build your magic academy in a land that's less concerned with ethics, makes it easier to pull experiments.

The Initial Approach

1) Have a fairly normal day where you use up most anything except a few higher-level slots.

2) 3.5 "Superior Invisibility" on self (will last 15 minutes even while casting). This masks sight, sound, and scent, and is effective even against blindsense, blindsight, and tremorsense. You should be basically undetectable even by most advanced sensors for 15 minutes. One lvl 8 slot.

3) "Overland Flight" on self (will last 15 hours). One lvl 5 slot.

4) 3.5 "Greater Plane Shift" to arrive at the precise place and time where a fairly large gathering of influential people (celebrities, CEOs, government officials, royalty, etc) will be. Near the ceiling/high up in the air, if possible. Mindrape has a 270 ft range, make use of that if you can. One lvl 8 slot.

5) Mindrape 149 people.

6) "Plane Shift" back to other dimension. One lvl 7 slot.

7) Rest to recover lost high level spell slots.

At this point, the cabal is reshaping the minds of 745 people per day. After you convert somebody to your fanatic, you can appear to them any time without them taking issue, and it's a maybe a DC 30 to make a request of them that would be both dangerous and have potential consequences on them later down the line (something like, for example, requesting they fire up their constituents into starting a revolution). What you wanna do instead is have them gather together the up-and-coming politicians that should be in this line of work for quite some time - have your loyal bigwig arrange a meet-and-greet among these lesser influential people, to a max of 149. A wizard will attend invisibly from the air, and mindrape those people loyal to the wizards. Have your first wave of puppets coordinate to make this happen. Presuming that you started in the US, and your first round of fanatics was the House and Senate, 50 days' worth of conversions will get 149 in each state, which is enough to cover all state legislatures in the US.

I don't recommend you do this for your first 51 days, though, that's a bit US-centric. Where you start depends on when exactly the wizards arrive - Congress isn't always in session, after all. On the first day, you find up to five gatherings of influential people all around the world, and each day you have each wizard focus on a different country. If a country is particularly small, has a particularly small government, or especially both, that one can probably be considered controlled earlier than others and taken out of the rotation. Mix in companies whenever there's some kind of high-management get-together. Within a year, 54385 politicians, celebrities, CEOs, and members of royalty should be under your command and working towards your goals.

If you wanna make things go quicker, and especially if you want to control the masses, mix in a repeating spell trap of Mindrape that's been built to resemble standard pavement. Use high-level magic stuff to replace a section of crosswalk in a major city that would have both foot traffic and car traffic going over that pavement, such that anybody walking or driving over it will get Mindraped. This will run you about 76500 gp per trap, so you won't get too many unless you pull some economy shenanigans.

At item of at-will Command Word "Wall Of Iron"CL 12 that can only be used by a wizard costs 94220 gp, and creates 75 cubic feet of iron. An item of at-will Command Word "Polymorph Any Object" that can only be used by a wizard costs 151200 gp, and converts 1500 cubic feet of anything into anything else. These two items together will permanently make 1500 cubic feet of any precious metal in 2 minutes. A good example of how to abuse this: the worldwide supply of Palladium is ~9 million ounces, and this method makes 18 million ounces in 2 minutes. Palladium is worth $2344.30 per ounce. You can't expect to sell all 18 million ounces for that price - that's just how supply and demand works - but with twice as much Palladium as the world has access to, you can negotiate from a position of strength. You can do similar making just about anything using just Polymorph Any Object on random trash.

Take over the world with money, capitalism, and industry.

[AvatarVecna]

Oh, and if you'd prefer world domination via the old-fashioned "do as I say or the consequences will be severe", that's actually pretty simple:

Create Greater Undead will let you create a Shadow for 150 gp and an 8th lvl slot, and extended "Command Undead" (3rd lvl slot) will last 30 days. A shadow is incorporeal undead: it can't be affected by nonmagic attacks, it can walk through walls, its casual fly speed is faster than people's casual land speed, it never gets tired, and when it kills a humanoid, another shadow spawns within 1-4 rounds. If you drop a shadow off in a major metropolitan area and tell it create as many spawn as possible in a single hour, and assuming it takes ~3 minutes for a spawn to chase down and convert a person into a shadow, then in an hour there will be ~1 million shadows. That's you warning shot. Have all the shadows kill each other in a frenzy, while you hold a press conference where you threaten to do the same thing again if the world doesn't bend to your whims.

If you'd prefer to just end the world, just have the shadows not stop, and continue making more of them. There's 10000 cities in the world. The wizards can collectively do this about 10 times per day, so 150000 gp and 1000 days later (~3 years of work), all cities in the world will have been infected with shadows. Really, you only have to do this once - a single shadow will eventually convert the whole world to shadows - but the travel time in between victims would get a lot longer as they have to travel cross-country. It'd take a shadow 28 days to fly to anywhere else on earth...although I guess that doesn't account for the possibility of them flying through the earth? Eh.

[AntiAuthority]

To play devils advocate: could a squad of CIA agents do the same (ie fulfill my conquest goal) in Golarion? Also, is it really as easy to manipulate the media with money as you say? Aren't there laws against it?

In general, the CIA probably couldn't do the same. They'd have to contend with similar, but more numerous, varied, older and likely powerful magic users than the 5 in this scenario. Experienced wizards, clerics, druids, liches, vampires, dragons, devils, demons, daemons, etc. all would probably turn them into their pawns. They have better tech, but all it would take is one Dominate Person or some other spell and suddenly they're being monitored from within. In general, I subscribe to the theory that Real Life is E6, which... Doesn't bode well for anyone from our world.

At most, they could make some (very small) strides with their tech, but I doubt they'd dominate it the same way we could and would be facing an uphill battle. Factor in a lot of tech today works via satellites, and I'm pretty sure Golarian doesn't have those... So, that's a major strike for certain types of tech. Unless they just teleported a nuke in or something, but that would almost certainly draw the ire of much more dangerous supernatural beings than Level 15 Wizards, and they would be very interested in finding out where these people came from. So a bunch of low level Commoners/Experts with maybe some magic weapons up against a Devil... I'm placing my bets on the immortal being who had to rise up through the ranks of bureaucracy against other, ancient beings over the CIA. And there are many more things beyond this lone devil to challenge them.

Well, say there are laws against it, yes... But there's an entire TV Tropes page around this (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney), and it has a Real Life section for a very good reason. I'm not going to go into conspiracy theories, but throughout history, those with money have been able to conveniently ignore, disregard or even change the law to suit them with little repercussion. If you're paying the person who makes the and enforces the rules... Yeah, they're more a polite suggestion than anything. Then again, I'm someone named AntiAuthority, so take this with a grain of salt as I might not be entirely impartial lol.

Moving away from bribing news networks and the legality of it for these Wizard's plans... There's nothing stopping them from dominating the minds of the people who make and enforce said laws either.

[AvatarVecna]

In general, the CIA probably couldn't do the same. They'd have to contend with similar, but more numerous, varied, older and likely powerful magic users than the 5 in this scenario. Experienced wizards, clerics, druids, liches, vampires, dragons, devils, demons, daemons, etc. all would probably turn them into their pawns. They have better tech, but all it would take is one Dominate Person or some other spell and suddenly they're being monitored from within. In general, I subscribe to the theory that Real Life is E6, which... Doesn't bode well for anyone from our world.

At most, they could make some (very small) strides with their tech, but I doubt they'd dominate it the same way we could and would be facing an uphill battle. Factor in a lot of tech today works via satellites, and I'm pretty sure Golarian doesn't have those... So, that's a major strike for certain types of tech. Unless they just teleported a nuke in or something, but that would almost certainly draw the ire of much more dangerous supernatural beings than Level 15 Wizards, and they would be very interested in finding out where these people came from.

Well, say there are laws against it, yes... But there's an entire TV Tropes page around this (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney), and it has a Real Life section for a very good reason. I'm not going to go into conspiracy theories, but there's a good reason why certain news footage in today are taken completely out of context to push a certain narrative and aren't taken as real news sites by people. And the people who make and enforce those laws are only men, and every man has his price. So, with enough money, you can treat the law as a suggestion rather than a hard and fast rule. This is coming from someone named AntiAuthority, so take it with a grain of salt lol.

Also once the wizards have a working understanding of how nukes work, they can nuke better. POA will turn 1500 cubic feet of anything into 1400 cubic feet of unstable uranium. Contingency (Celerity) so you can Plane Shift into another dimension and be 5-500 miles away from the blast even if it spreads into adjacent dimensions. Speaking of the blast, that's gonna be 1.8 million pounds of uranium detonating, which is about 160 times as powerful as the most powerful nuke ever designed. You'd probably need some serious knowledge checks to make it just right via magic, but that's something wizards kinda excel at.

[AntiAuthority]

Also once the wizards have a working understanding of how nukes work, they can nuke better. POA will turn 1500 cubic feet of anything into 1400 cubic feet of unstable uranium. Contingency (Celerity) so you can Plane Shift into another dimension and be 5-500 miles away from the blast even if it spreads into adjacent dimensions. Speaking of the blast, that's gonna be 1.8 million pounds of uranium detonating, which is about 160 times as powerful as the most powerful nuke ever designed. You'd probably need some serious knowledge checks to make it just right via magic, but that's something wizards kinda excel at.

Level 15 Wizards are smarter than anyone on our planet has any right to be, so... I agree, but I realize that the fact that they can make themselves many times smarter than us leads to something worse than that.

They can bump up their Intelligence and Skills via Heroism, a Headband of Vast Intelligence, the inherent bonuses from leveling up and True Skill... Now, they have access to the internet. The second they discover what antimatter is and study up on it (especially if they take the material with them into their time stopped timeless demi-plane, so they have infinite time), with their insanely high checks, there's a very real possibility they make an antimatter weapon that makes the strongest nukes look like a bb gun in comparison.

[AvatarVecna]

Level 15 Wizards are smarter than anyone on our planet has any right to be, so... I agree, but I realize that the fact that they can make themselves many times smarter than us leads to something worse than that.

They can bump up their Intelligence and Skills via Heroism, a Headband of Vast Intelligence, the inherent bonuses from leveling up and True Skill... Now, they have access to the internet. The second they discover what antimatter is and study up on it (especially if they take the material with them into their time stopped timeless demi-plane, so they have infinite time), with their insanely high checks, there's a very real possibility they make an antimatter weapon that makes the strongest nukes look like a bb gun in comparison.

You are correct that this is a possibility, although you might be disappointed to hear that you're not the first come up with it: that's method #14 in the playground's handbook on destroying the world using 3.5 mechanics. :smalltongue::smallbiggrin:

[noob]

Max diplomacy then ask to have the world politely?

[AntiAuthority]

You are correct that this is a possibility, although you might be disappointed to hear that you're not the first come up with it: that's method #14 in the playground's handbook on destroying the world using 3.5 mechanics. :smalltongue::smallbiggrin:

I wasn't aware this was a thing until just now, but amazing lol. I was just going with spell applications, using mechanics bumps it up into something else entirely lol. That said, I do recall reading about the Wall of Force in space one some time ago, maybe I read it and just forgot... Hm. Also, forgot to ask earlier, but what does POA stand for?



I'm curious about this scenario though. Does anyone have any ideas how these Wizards could combine magic with WMD to create something even more terrifying? Or would magic not augment a nuke/antimatter bomb too much?

[noob]

I wasn't aware this was a thing until just now, but amazing lol. I was just going with spell applications, using mechanics bumps it up into something else entirely lol. That said, I do recall reading about the Wall of Force in space one some time ago, maybe I read it and just forgot... Hm. Also, forgot to ask earlier, but what does POA stand for?



I'm curious about this scenario though. Does anyone have any ideas how these Wizards could combine magic with WMD to create something even more terrifying? Or would magic not augment a nuke/antimatter bomb too much?

I think POA is PAO but written in the wrong order and PAO means Polymorph Any Object.
Usually people do not use magic to augment WMDS but instead use magic to create absurd configurations that releases absurd amounts of energy like using true creation to make a box of electrons or a box of quarks and this way destroy solar systems and other bad stuff like that.

[Destro2119]

Level 15 Wizards are smarter than anyone on our planet has any right to be, so... I agree, but I realize that the fact that they can make themselves many times smarter than us leads to something worse than that.

They can bump up their Intelligence and Skills via Heroism, a Headband of Vast Intelligence, the inherent bonuses from leveling up and True Skill... Now, they have access to the internet. The second they discover what antimatter is and study up on it (especially if they take the material with them into their time stopped timeless demi-plane, so they have infinite time), with their insanely high checks, there's a very real possibility they make an antimatter weapon that makes the strongest nukes look like a bb gun in comparison.

Don't forget: they also have access to Guidance of the Avatar (+20 bonus on one check).

[Destro2119]

I think POA is PAO but written in the wrong order and PAO means Polymorph Any Object.
Usually people do not use magic to augment WMDS but instead use magic to create absurd configurations that releases absurd amounts of energy like using true creation to make a box of electrons or a box of quarks and this way destroy solar systems and other bad stuff like that.

Wait how can PAO/Major Creation do that? Like summoning quarks/turning Walls of Iron to Palladium?

[Destro2119]

In general, the CIA probably couldn't do the same. They'd have to contend with similar, but more numerous, varied, older and likely powerful magic users than the 5 in this scenario. Experienced wizards, clerics, druids, liches, vampires, dragons, devils, demons, daemons, etc. all would probably turn them into their pawns. They have better tech, but all it would take is one Dominate Person or some other spell and suddenly they're being monitored from within. In general, I subscribe to the theory that Real Life is E6, which... Doesn't bode well for anyone from our world.

At most, they could make some (very small) strides with their tech, but I doubt they'd dominate it the same way we could and would be facing an uphill battle. Factor in a lot of tech today works via satellites, and I'm pretty sure Golarian doesn't have those... So, that's a major strike for certain types of tech. Unless they just teleported a nuke in or something, but that would almost certainly draw the ire of much more dangerous supernatural beings than Level 15 Wizards, and they would be very interested in finding out where these people came from. So a bunch of low level Commoners/Experts with maybe some magic weapons up against a Devil... I'm placing my bets on the immortal being who had to rise up through the ranks of bureaucracy against other, ancient beings over the CIA. And there are many more things beyond this lone devil to challenge them.

Well, say there are laws against it, yes... But there's an entire TV Tropes page around this (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney), and it has a Real Life section for a very good reason. I'm not going to go into conspiracy theories, but throughout history, those with money have been able to conveniently ignore, disregard or even change the law to suit them with little repercussion. If you're paying the person who makes the and enforces the rules... Yeah, they're more a polite suggestion than anything. Then again, I'm someone named AntiAuthority, so take this with a grain of salt as I might not be entirely impartial lol.

Moving away from bribing news networks and the legality of it for these Wizard's plans... There's nothing stopping them from dominating the minds of the people who make and enforce said laws either.

Even being generous and saying elite CIA agents are 10th level rogues, they are still pretty ****ed. Wiretaps can be dug up and detected and tricked, scrying cannot be stopped except by magic. Mind altering drugs need time to work and can be detected too.

[noob]

Wait how can PAO/Major Creation do that? Like summoning quarks/turning Walls of Iron to Palladium?

Major creation do not do that.
True creation (https://dndtools.net/spells/spell-compendium--86/true-creation--4320/) does allow the creation of anything within the volume provided you have a sample.
Getting electrons is not hard so you can make your box of electrons and cause absurd amounts of devastation.

[Huzuhbazah]

Step 1: Have all 5 Wizards cast Greater Planar Binding to capture 5 Viziers, and use 142 Candles of Invocation bought using all of the cabal's wealth to cast Gate to call 142 Viziers.

Step 2: Compensate each Vizier with 1 of their 3 Wishes, and use the remaining 294 Wishes to cast Greater Planar Binding to capture 294 more Viziers.

Step 3: Consistently repeat Step 2, so the cabal has a constant supply of Wishes that will be used to cast enough instances of Demand to compel all leaders of every country to act as needed to merge all Earth nations into a world government ruled by the cabal, and compel all dissidents to cease hostilities and resistance against the world government, as well as cast enough instances of all spells needed to sustain everyone's loyalty by providing them with necessities and luxuries.

[Destro2119]

Step 1: Have all 5 Wizards cast Greater Planar Binding to capture 5 Viziers, and use 142 Candles of Invocation bought using all of the cabal's wealth to cast Gate to call 142 Viziers.

Step 2: Compensate each Vizier with 1 of their 3 Wishes, and use the remaining 294 Wishes to cast Greater Planar Binding to capture 294 more Viziers.

Step 3: Consistently repeat Step 2, so the cabal has a constant supply of Wishes that will be used to cast enough instances of Demand to compel all leaders of every country to act as needed to merge all Earth nations into a world government ruled by the cabal, and compel all dissidents to cease hostilities and resistance against the world government, as well as cast enough instances of all spells needed to sustain everyone's loyalty by providing them with necessities and luxuries.

Wait, you telling me PF nerfed Polymorph, but the candle of invocation/infinite chain gate exploits remains unchanged (and even easier now)!? And CoDzilla is worse somehow!?

[Huzuhbazah]

Wait, you telling me PF nerfed Polymorph, but the candle of invocation/infinite chain gate exploits remains unchanged (and even easier now)!? And CoDzilla is worse somehow!?
Why is Polymorph needed for this? Also, not sure how the exploits are even easier, and how CoDzilla is worse somehow.

[Destro2119]

Why is Polymorph needed for this? Also, not sure how the exploits are even easier, and how CoDzilla is worse somehow.

I mean, one of the cheesiest shapechange strategies was just to shapechange into a Zodar or something and make your own wishes. Gate chaining no longer needs xp to pull off. CoDzilla is mostly because not even polymorph nerfs brought them down far enough to break linear martial quadratic caster.

Not to mention the new stuff, like Singularity Sorcerer or Painter Wizard or Dave the Commoner.

But anyways this is just a digression on my part

[Huzuhbazah]

I mean, one of the cheesiest shapechange strategies was just to shapechange into a Zodar or something and make your own wishes. Gate chaining no longer needs xp to pull off. CoDzilla is mostly because not even polymorph nerfs brought them down far enough to break linear martial quadratic caster.

Not to mention the new stuff, like Singularity Sorcerer or Painter Wizard or Dave the Commoner.

But anyways this is just a digression on my part
Oh. I just limited myself to what's in the Pathfinder System Reference Document, for simplicity's sake.

[Efrate]

Bind an angel. Convert every religious person easily enough. Greater teleport at will means your angel, or shapeshifter devil etc. can appear to tons of people and have them all work towards your vision. Actual physical proof of divinity would shake a world, and you control said proof. You get to be the chosen one or high priest or whatever religious figure you feel works best, and you have the knowledge religion check to make it all work in a way that will work best.

Use the new one true religion to guide masses as you see fit.

As for CIA in violation, they have no hope. They are bound by physics and reality, and Golarion is not. One failed save and they become useless, and all the tech kind of needs power or satellite or ammo or something and most of that does not exist. Once their toys run out of spare parts etc. they are lowish level rogues/fighters who hyper focused onto a few things that no longer function.

[Destro2119]

Well, this is pretty much a slam dunk for the Wizards, as there's 5 people with superhuman intelligence and reality warping abilities. Assuming they have Permanent Telepathic Bond up as soon as they come into our world, as this would make planning between them much easier.

Good news for the Wizards that most of these spells don't require extravagant amounts of wealth, or even materials... For the ones that do require funds, that'll be pretty easy to accomplish.

First they'll need funds. I'm not doing the conversion rates of 3.P gold into USD/Yen/won/whatever. That said, they should be able to use the internet to figure out who the big hitters in the world are (assuming they don't walk into a library looking like stereotypical Wizards and/or fantasy cosplayers with the green skin/pointed ears and such) without being figured out they don't belong. Anyway, they can search up the largest companies/celebrities on the planet via their high intellect and Permanent Comprehend Language or Permanent Tongues. From here, it's pretty simple to just figure out where these millionaires/billionaires live and/or currently are. Pop a Greater Teleport and Invisibility or Ethereal Jaunt, walk in on this person and cast Extended Charm Person on them when they're alone or just use a Extended Mass Charm Person. Convince these people to start funneling their immense funds into bank accounts that the Wizards can use... Or, if that's too suspicious, create a small bank account that will have large sums of money funded into it over time from various sources... Something to this effect. Money opens many doors, and these people are potentially rich within a few hours of arriving in our world. Or they could skip this entirely and just take money from their new best friends whenever they want. Now, the reason why I mentioned conversion earlier... I'm assuming since our world's currency is a thing, there would be some conversion going on from our world's currencies into 3.P's gold, and they could hypothetically use this to fuel their spells if they so wish. Or just... Borrow resources (finances, gold, etc.) from the banks themselves via another Extended Mass Charm Person.


A bit late, but how could they do this to the banks with only one spell? Don't banks have failsafes to keep you from just getting tellers to give you endless cash?

[Calthropstu]

greater invis, teleport to oval office. Dominate president.(No, DOMINATE. NOT SYMBOL OF INSANITY. OH GODS NO. LET'S GET OUT OF HERE BEFORE WE'RE CAUGHT)
Wash rinse repeat for each major worldpower. Within a few weeks they could take over every nation using this method.

A bit late, but how could they do this to the banks with only one spell? Don't banks have failsafes to keep you from just getting tellers to give you endless cash?

You mean like this (https://finance.yahoo.com/news/australian-bank-allows-man-withdraw-193227018.html)?

[noob]

greater invis, teleport to oval office. Dominate president.(No, DOMINATE. NOT SYMBOL OF INSANITY. OH GODS NO. LET'S GET OUT OF HERE BEFORE WE'RE CAUGHT)
Wash rinse repeat for each major worldpower. Within a few weeks they could take over every nation using this method.


You mean like this (https://finance.yahoo.com/news/australian-bank-allows-man-withdraw-193227018.html)?

Why did you even cast symbol of insanity on the president?