Stronghold spells

[Chronos]

D&D has, for ages, had a variety of spells for defending a stronghold, that do various things to hinder those who shouldn't be there, and are permanent or can be made so: Guards and Wards, Hallow, Forbiddance, Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum, etc. Now, players don't often end up using these spells, because of the whole murderhobo thing: PCs tend not to have a stronghold that they settle down in.

But PCs do tend to spend a lot of time in other folks' strongholds, and there are whole books describing those strongholds they spend time in. So you'd think that, even despite not using them themselves, players would still encounter these spells a lot, right?

Except they don't. I don't think I've ever seen a published adventure where the bad guys used any of these spells. Why is that? And if nobody ever uses these spells, why do they exist?

Have you ever used a spell like this as a player? Have you ever adventured through someone else's stronghold that used them?

[Mastikator]

Have I ever encountered such spells as a player? No.
Have I ever used such a spell as a player? No.

Have I ever populated a fortress with such a spell as a DM? Yes. An everbright lantern lit with a Continual Flame is cost effective within a month for example, it would be stupid to use normal torches if you have access to Continual Flame.

For higher level spells I ask myself "Was a high level wizard ever available to this fortress", sometimes the answer is yes and then I'll put in things like Private Sanctum if it makes sense. Fortresses are expensive to build, so it may be within the budget to Private Sanctum a room should that room need it. Teleportation Circle is also a clever (and risky) thing to put inside a fortress, it can serve as a secret exit, or the possibility to reinforce it.

If the fortress was in part constructed by a wizard (using for example Wall of Stone) then it would be strange to not have such permanent defenses.

[PallyBass]

It has never came up for me as a player or as a DM. I think it is most likely to come up on the player side if they are heavily encouraged to basebuild and they are around level 9-11 as most of the notable spells are higher level, in short basebuilding would need to feature prominently in a Homemade D&D game ( I don't know of any modules/ adventures that would otherwise lead to this scenario)

[Chronos]

OK, I'll grant that Continual Flame and Teleportation Circle do come up fairly frequently in adventures: The former because they need to specify lighting somehow anyway, and anything nonmagical is implausible for many dungeon locations, and the latter because it's a convenient way to get the party to wherever the next part of the adventure is. Neither one of them is really something that protects a stronghold, though.

I did include a Hallow spell in a homemade adventure I DMed, because it made sense as a spell that the Big Bad would have, and if he had it, of course he would use it. It left the party scratching their heads for a good while as to what sort of invisible forcefield was stopping the familiar from scouting out the site.

[MrStabby]

As a DM I use them a lot. I find you can Telegraph a lot of magic and theme that way.

Mechanically some are important - forbidance and hallow (and an arcana check to understand which creature types are excluded can indicate a lot) are a big deal. Teleportation circle is a nice way to bring in reinforcements etc..

As a DM I also don't find the need to be restricted by existing spells. You want the sound of a divine choir to lift the spirits of someone in a room? You can have that. A spell that permanently provides sunlight? An aura that casts heat metal on everything within it? You can do what you like - any magical antagonist can be well expressed though these kind of spells and foreshadow what the PCs will meet.

[Sigreid]

Get used a lot on both sides in my experience. I've also encountered them in modules, but usually the older TSR ones.

[Unoriginal]

D&D has, for ages, had a variety of spells for defending a stronghold, that do various things to hinder those who shouldn't be there, and are permanent or can be made so: Guards and Wards, Hallow, Forbiddance, Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum, etc. Now, players don't often end up using these spells, because of the whole murderhobo thing: PCs tend not to have a stronghold that they settle down in.

But PCs do tend to spend a lot of time in other folks' strongholds, and there are whole books describing those strongholds they spend time in. So you'd think that, even despite not using them themselves, players would still encounter these spells a lot, right?

Except they don't. I don't think I've ever seen a published adventure where the bad guys used any of these spells. Why is that? And if nobody ever uses these spells, why do they exist?

Have you ever used a spell like this as a player? Have you ever adventured through someone else's stronghold that used them?

I'm fairly certain I've seen those spells be used at least in Tomb of Annihilation and Dungeon of the Mad Mage.

Halaster certainly is a master of the Symbol spell and uses it liberally in his dungeon.


As to why they're not used more, well, those spells tend to have conditions of use that makes them not always desirable, not to mention that it's not because a spell exist that the bad guys want to invest in it when they need their spell selection for something else.


EDIT:

Just checked, Rise of Tiamat has more than one use of Glyph of Warding.

[Chronos]

Glyph of Warding really isn't what I'm thinking of here, since it's not permanent. It'll last indefinitely, but only until it's triggered once.

[LudicSavant]

Have you ever used a spell like this as a player? Have you ever adventured through someone else's stronghold that used them?

I encounter them on a semi-regular basis. For instance one obstacle in a recent adventure was trying to get a fey party member through an area protected by Forbiddance.

Another recent adventure had a ship rigged with Glyphs of Warding to scuttle it in the event of capture (the ship's government was denying they were active in those seas, too).

Another had a Wizard's tower with encounters designed around stuff like Guards and Wards.

Another had an entire room full of Symbols. Ten of them. At the same time.

[Unoriginal]

Glyph of Warding really isn't what I'm thinking of here, since it's not permanent. It'll last indefinitely, but only until it's triggered once.

Perhaps you could make a more complete list of the spells you're thinking of, and I'll check if they're mentioned in the various adventures?

[Chronos]

The spells I'm interested in are spells that cover a significant area, can be made permanent (at least until dispelled, not just until triggered), and can be used to defend an existing location. From the PHB, that would be the spells I mentioned, plus arguably Programmed Illusion. Mirage Arcane and Antipathy/Sympathy get an honorable mention, because despite not being permanent, they have a long enough duration that it's almost as good, so long as the caster is still around to refresh it. Glyph of Warding and Symbol don't count because they're expended once triggered. Continual Flame and Magic mouth don't count because they don't really do anything to defend the place. Demiplane doesn't count because it's not a pre-existing location. Wall of Stone would sort of count, except that once it's in place, there's no way to distinguish it from a wall produced in any other manner.

Outside of core, the spells Mighty Fortress, Temple of the Gods, and Druid Grove would also count.

[Unoriginal]

The spells I'm interested in are spells that cover a significant area, can be made permanent (at least until dispelled, not just until triggered), and can be used to defend an existing location. From the PHB, that would be the spells I mentioned, plus arguably Programmed Illusion. Mirage Arcane and Antipathy/Sympathy get an honorable mention, because despite not being permanent, they have a long enough duration that it's almost as good, so long as the caster is still around to refresh it. Glyph of Warding and Symbol don't count because they're expended once triggered. Continual Flame and Magic mouth don't count because they don't really do anything to defend the place. Demiplane doesn't count because it's not a pre-existing location. Wall of Stone would sort of count, except that once it's in place, there's no way to distinguish it from a wall produced in any other manner.

Outside of core, the spells Mighty Fortress, Temple of the Gods, and Druid Grove would also count.

In that case:

- Tomb of Annihilation has a ward with an effect similar to the Antipathy/Sympathy.

- Ghost of Saltmarsh has an effect working like a 9th-lvl Hallow.

- Dungeon of the Mad Mage has a caster with Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum in their spellbook, but I don't think they have used it.

- Out of the Abyss has a sidequest where someone uses a spell gem to cleanse a temple with Hallow.

That's the little stuff I have found, though it's by no mean exhaustive or covering all the published adventures yet.


Of course there are many instances of "this place has X effect permanently on" or "Y spell applies there permanently" or "there is Z ward that makes that specific thing happen" in published adventures.

[solidork]

Many big name Wizard NPCs in our games have anti-scrying and teleporation protection in their important places. Same with some of the bigger organizations.

[ProsecutorGodot]

We have in our Mad Mage campaign. There's a lot of potential to make good relations with high level mages so we spent a hefty sum of money on some magical defenses for our tavern. Once our Sorcerer got access to Wish the process became a bit easier and more affordable.

Outside of that campaign we haven't frequently encountered or used the spells though, very few of our other campaigns have a base of operations or a real need for one.

[thorr-kan]

As a player I have not.

As a DM, some are used in the 2E Al-Qadim games I'm running. So we see them every now and then.

As a content creator, I used to build a lot of dungeons/strongholds/towers that used them. That was part of the Fun of Endless Graph Paper.

[rel]

If the GM is permissive you can drop guards and wards on the enemy stronghold to disrupt their defences prior to attacking.

I've used hallow on occasion as a GM to add interest to a location.

private sanctum can be used by the players to block eavesdropping although it hasn't really come up at the table yet.

Honestly, most of this stuff should probably be esoteric magic similar to 3.5 incantations rather than simple spells.

[Aaron Underhand]

I've used both Hallow, and Forbiddance to good effect as a player