Royal protection: how to stop high-level magical attacks

[Ferris]

Once spellcasters reach a high enough level to have some kind of teleport/planar movement plus decent Save or Suck attacks, the risk to your average King in a RPG environment seems quite high.

You’re safe behind your castle walls, guarded by numerous highly skilled and well-armoured loyal guards - but during the middle of the night, *fwoop!* - a wizard teleports into your bedroom without warning and aims a ton of damage at your sleeping form… then just as quickly zaps off again.

So what reasonable precautions could a king (or a DM) put in place to discourage regicide and/or similar shenanigans? Think: plunder the Treasury without being seen, start an earthquake, etc.

Would a king have, say, various Alarm spells cast for him on a regular basis, or something like a Glyph of Warding? Or would most kings be already so high level that they could defeat such tactics on their own, even when surprised?

Any stories of campaigns where PC’s had the job of either killing or protecting an important NPC?

[JackPhoenix]

Forbiddance and Hallow can stop teleportation.

[Unoriginal]

Once spellcasters reach a high enough level to have some kind of teleport/planar movement plus decent Save or Suck attacks, the risk to your average King in a RPG environment seems quite high.

You’re safe behind your castle walls, guarded by numerous highly skilled and well-armoured loyal guards - but during the middle of the night, *fwoop!* - a wizard teleports into your bedroom without warning and aims a ton of damage at your sleeping form… then just as quickly zaps off again.

So what reasonable precautions could a king (or a DM) put in place to discourage regicide and/or similar shenanigans? Think: plunder the Treasury without being seen, start an earthquake, etc.

Hallow, Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum and Forbiddance all make teleporting into the area impossible.

Notably, each of those spells are of lower level than Teleport.

[kingcheesepants]

I suppose that reasonable precautions depend entirely on how much magic is in the setting. In low magic settings it isn't really reasonable to need to protect against level 5+ spells because the beings who can cast such spells are so rare that they aren't really known of and so powerful that they likely wouldn't be bothering with some regular kingdom anyways. Additionally even uncommon magic items might be national heirlooms and magic items of rare or greater rarity might not even exist.

But in higher magic settings where there are at least a handful of people in each country with tier 3 and 4 spells and very rare magic items can be found here and there, in those cases the king is presumably also able to access those spells and probably rare or very rare magic items as well.

So in addition to the teleport blocking spells already mentioned other things that might be done are using guards and wards, mirage arcane, antipathy/sympathy, and symbol spells on the treasury or other similar areas. These spells make it very difficult to find those sensitive places but can still be easily bypassed by the people chosen at the time of casting or those with a password (and of course the protocol is that those who know the password always have either Mind Blank or a Ring of Mind Shielding).

In addition to protecting the areas, the king and other high officials may have Mind Blank and Death Ward cast on them every day and they may have some defensive magic jewelry such as a Ring of Protection, a Periapt of Proof Against Poison, a Ring of Regeneration or similar.

Then to protect against shape shifters or illusions not hedged out by Hallow, you'll want a guard or two that has true sight always active. If the castle can make a deal with Mechanus and get some mono/duo/etc drones in as guards that would work well since they're dependable in terms of keeping their contracts and can't be fooled by illusions or similar. Other options would be Couatls or other celestial types. These might be willingly brought in through for example planar ally, or more forcibly with planar binding.

[lall]

Be nice. I’d like to think if I was a fairy fluttering about under the rule of Queen Titania, that if asked about my queen, I would tell you more than you wanted to hear about how awesome she is. However, if I got the “old woman” treatment that Dennis received from King Arthur, I may be more inclined to be less polite to his majesty.

[Ferris]

Some good ideas, there - thanks. Private Sanctum seems one of the most likely options, since it can be made permanent by repeated casting (at the King’s order).

I like the ‘hard to find’ approach too - hadn’t considered that but it makes sense. Plus having a ‘royal double’ of course.

[Unoriginal]

Some good ideas, there - thanks. Private Sanctum seems one of the most likely options, since it can be made permanent by repeated casting (at the King’s order).

Hallow is permanent until dispelled with one casting, so I'd say it's the most likely option if the realm has any decently powerful Clerics who accept the king's authority.

Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum could be favored by people who can just throw money at the problem and have a Wizard willing to work for them, though.

[greenstone]

Mutually Assured Destruction.

The ruler makes it known that they also have the services of high-level casters with various divination magics. You attack the ruler, their people will track you down, kill you, kill your family, kill your friends, kill your pets, and so on.

[Schwann145]

Private Sanctum is your best bet because not only will it stop both teleportation and planar travel, but it also stops the necessary work-arounds to those protections: divination sensors and vision.

You can't teleport (safely) somewhere that you aren't familiar with or can't see, and you can't dispel protections that you can't see to target.

[LudicSavant]

Forbiddance is a big one. Effective, extremely spammable (it's a ritual), extremely affordable (the component is NOT consumed), big area coverage, and takes some effort to dismantle (it can be dispelled, but you can lay down a bunch of 'em). You can cover your entire fortress in it, and even if your defenses are dismantled by numerous dispels, they can be quickly rebuilt by a singular caster in your employ. It stops people from teleporting into an area, keeps the pixies out of your castle, and also puts the breaks on unwanted hordes of undead, planar-binded armies, or the like.

Note that this spammability, coverage, affordability, and swiftness of repair is a huge difference from Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum, despite Private Sanctum being a lower level spell. More on that later.

On the more mundane side of things... say, for your castle structures, maybe consider looking at star forts -- latter era castles that were designed specifically to deal with the fact that technology at the time made breaching castle walls easy.

Clear skies, open lands surrounding you, and good, long ranged weapons are generally a good answer to threats that just want to fly over your walls and drop bombs on your palace, as these threats usually don't come en masse (especially not if Forbiddance is still up), and the nature of flying means you don't have cover, the benefit of being prone, or the like, giving your defenders the advantage. Another potential answer to fliers is to simply build dungeons. Why else have so many sprawling underground complexes? Even a Meteor Swarm won't pierce layers of solid earth.

Private Sanctum has much less coverage than Forbiddance, simply because it is not a ritual, covers a tiny area, and takes a full year of castings to make permanent (as opposed to someone being able to make a ton of permanent Forbiddances within the space of a month without even using spell slots). So while you can cover your entire fortress with Forbiddance pretty easily (and swiftly rebuild those defenses even if they're dispelled), Private Sanctum is more of a specific chamber, and even then, that year of non-ritual spellcasting can be undone with a single Dispel Magic. You may still want one, mind, but it should not be your only defense.


Mutually Assured Destruction.

The ruler makes it known that they also have the services of high-level casters with various divination magics. You attack the ruler, their people will track you down, kill you, kill your family, kill your friends, kill your pets, and so on.

This is another important one. It is very useful to give people a reason to avenge you after your death, as this will serve as a deterrent against people making you dead in the first place. It also means you can benefit from higher level guardians than you could actually pay to stand guard. They don't need to actually be at your castle, guarding your body, in order to serve as a deterrent.

Having a clear line of succession is very helpful for this. Kill the king, and the prince will want to send the message that the dynasty is not to be targeted.

Another precaution you can take is simply making it hard to fully destroy every piece of your body, so that resurrection is more likely to occur. Remember, you don't need to avoid dying, you just need to avoid staying dead. All the usual precautions against full body destruction apply.

[Zhorn]

While there are preventative spells and reactionary recovery spells that serve as answers; this is one of those areas the needs to be answered on a narrative level for your world building.

Example: High level casters as adventurers are not rare because high level casters are rare, but rather high level casters that are free-agents are the rarity.
Rulers of powerful organisations tend to approach casters once they start showing themselves as being of note, offering them positions, roles, standing contracts etc.
If they refuse to join, plans for eliminating them are set in motion as they are now viewed as potential threats.

High level wizards isolating themselves away in towers is not just some quirk, but a legitimate matter of survival.
Living life in a loud and flashing style draws the wrong sorts of attention, forcing you into either becoming someone's puppet, or having to constantly fend off assassination attempts.

So yeah; your wizard NPCs are either reclusive, or sitting on a number of advisory boards and councils to show they are on the side of [X] organisation and not against them.

Same goes for the adventuring PCs.
When your players are getting into the higher levels of play; start having NPC organisations taking note and approaching the party with offers to joining the kings guard, sign up for the war, taking a seat on the king's council, becoming agents of the royal shadow force, etc.
And when the party turn it down to keep doing their own thing, start having assassins and other high level NPCs on the random encounter tables sent specifically to eliminate the party or at least send a message

[Segev]

It is often forgotten, but large amounts of ambient magic can disrupt teleportation and scrying. Accumulate a lot of low-power (and thus relatively cheap, to a king) magic items, and line your safe room, throne room, or wherever with them.

Lead — or pewter! — plating worked into the walls also prevents scrying, at least.

But also consider hiw common these sorts of threats are. Maybe the party is the first time the king has faced such a threat, if you cannot justify the cost or the magic to defend him based on the magic level of his society. Threatening and killing monarchs can get you a lot of clout...but it also can make a lot of enemies. Even if the enemies are no match for you, their own soft power can be annoying to downright dangerous.

[GeneralVryth]

There are lots of great examples of spells that can help. But about a simple custom magic item that blocks teleporting (or what have you) in range X? If the threats are common someone is going to have come up with ideas for counters. And once in the books don't have to be the only spells and magic items that exist. Or heck go straight from OoTS comic and use inter-dimensional stone that blocks such shenanigans.

[Psyren]

but during the middle of the night, *fwoop!* - a wizard teleports into your bedroom without warning

What spell are they using to do that, Teleport? Just have a fake bedroom set up so that the enemy wizard gets False Destination, 0% success chance.

[Telok]

Npcs don't follow pc rules. They don't follow any rules on this at all. Do whatever you want. Only healing spells can be cast in the throne room? The entire palace has an antimagic field? Teleportation near the king turns the caster inside out? All this stuff stops working if a pc tries to abuse it? Go wild! There's no rules or limits to how much awesome cool magic your npcs can have.

[JonBeowulf]

Private Sanctum is your best bet because not only will it stop both teleportation and planar travel, but it also stops the necessary work-arounds to those protections: divination sensors and vision.

You can't teleport (safely) somewhere that you aren't familiar with or can't see, and you can't dispel protections that you can't see to target.
I came here to say this, but it was already said.


Npcs don't follow pc rules. They don't follow any rules on this at all. Do whatever you want. Only healing spells can be cast in the throne room? The entire palace has an antimagic field? Teleportation near the king turns the caster inside out? All this stuff stops working if a pc tries to abuse it? Go wild! There's no rules or limits to how much awesome cool magic your npcs can have.
This, too. Top-tier nobility have access to high-level casters of their own along with all sorts of counter-measures.

[Schwann145]

Npcs don't follow pc rules. They don't follow any rules on this at all. Do whatever you want. Only healing spells can be cast in the throne room? The entire palace has an antimagic field? Teleportation near the king turns the caster inside out? All this stuff stops working if a pc tries to abuse it? Go wild! There's no rules or limits to how much awesome cool magic your npcs can have.

This is true, but it's also an easy way to alienate players.

"All this cool magic exists! No you can't have it!"
~DM to PCs.

[Bohandas]

A Winchester Mystery House type strategem might work. If the place is constantly rebuilt and redecorated than it will be hard to come by the requisite familiarity with the interior

[tokek]

Dynasty.


The king is dead, long live the king!

Plus of course its high magic alternative - Clone spell

It might be so hard to take down a king without retaliation that its not worth the risk. I rather think that assassination of a king would most often happen during internal squabbles where a relative of the king was trying to take over.

[Schwann145]

King is killed.
Heir becomes new King.
King is resurrected.
Civil war begins between legit King 1 and legit King 2.

Maybe do like Cormyr and outlaw resurrecting dead monarchs? :smallwink:

[tokek]

King is killed.
Heir becomes new King.
King is resurrected.
Civil war begins between legit King 1 and legit King 2.

Maybe do like Cormyr and outlaw resurrecting dead monarchs? :smallwink:

The wars of the roses would never have ended with resurrection magic. They basically ended because they ran out of credible heirs due to killing them all.

Which could be fun world building

[Mastikator]

Having a powerful spellcaster or monster that can kill (and impersonate) the king is a common plot point. I think the answer to OP is that they aren't always stopped.

[Telok]

This is true, but it's also an easy way to alienate players.

"All this cool magic exists! No you can't have it!"
~DM to PCs.

Yeah, I end up pretty alienated by all the official adventures and some other stuff. Giving npcs neat stuff and denying it to players is kinda mandated by the current ethos and world building requirements though.

[Segev]

King is killed.
Heir becomes new King.
King is resurrected.
Civil war begins between legit King 1 and legit King 2.

Maybe do like Cormyr and outlaw resurrecting dead monarchs? :smallwink:

Probably the same thing is done that would be done if the king disappeared under mysterious circumstances, or his traveling party dropped out of contact for a time: they'd wait a certain grace period to see if the king showed back up before the coronation occurred, and, mlst likely, the heir and the king would have a private chat about who kept the throne if there was potential problem.

[Pooky the Imp]

King is killed.
Heir becomes new King.
King is resurrected.
Civil war begins between legit King 1 and legit King 2.

Maybe do like Cormyr and outlaw resurrecting dead monarchs? :smallwink:

Honestly, this feels like it would make for an interesting setting/plot.

Basically, a land where the Royal Family is functionally immortal via magic - including Simulacrums, well-paid clerics, hidden Clones etc.

Thus, to stop endless infighting and civil-wars within the kingdom, the Royal children are encouraged to instead wage wars against neighbouring lands and claim those kingdoms for their own.

[Mindflayer_Inc]

Mutually Assured Destruction.


*laughs in Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker*

Seriously, this only works if you know who is actually targeting you. If someone can fake the attack as if it came from someone else, or wipe you out before your can respond, or your people don't have the mettle to destroy the original attackers... MAD doesn't come into effect.

[Segev]

*laughs in Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker*

Seriously, this only works if you know who is actually targeting you. If someone can fake the attack as if it came from someone else, or wipe you out before your can respond, or your people don't have the mettle to destroy the original attackers... MAD doesn't come into effect.

Sure it does! If you're attacked, you will end everyone, responsible or not! Now it is everyone's goal to keep you from feeling attacked! </evil overlord>

[JNAProductions]

This is true, but it's also an easy way to alienate players.

"All this cool magic exists! No you can't have it!"
~DM to PCs.

I think it's more acceptable when it's tied to something the PCs could access, but realistically won't be able to until the epilogue.

The king's throne room has had ten years of rituals laid on it, preventing any magic except healing magic from working on it. How it was done is a secret, but the king's personal library still has the notes on how it was done-if you can get access to those notes and spend ten years working the magic, you too can have a decent-sized area blocking most magic.

If it's personal power (say, the king has permanent Truesight to make it harder to fool him with illusions) that's a lot more likely to irk players.

[lall]

Thus, to stop endless infighting and civil-wars within the kingdom, the Royal children are encouraged to instead wage wars against neighbouring lands and claim those kingdoms for their own.

Or they could just like rent an apartment.

[Pooky the Imp]

Or they could just like rent an apartment.

They could. Possibly some do.

But others might also realise that being heirs to an immortal king means that (in all likelihood) they'll never get to inherit anything.

Many probably don't want to be stuck renting an apartment for the next 400+ years. :smallwink:

[lall]

I’d be like “Less focus on possible inheritance. More focus on j-o-b. And please don’t attack the neighbors. We just had them over for dinner and plan on doing so again.”

[Mastikator]

This is true, but it's also an easy way to alienate players.

"All this cool magic exists! No you can't have it!"
~DM to PCs.

True, but I think there's a way to have your cake and eat it with just a few caveats. Don't make it unavailable to players, make it unavailable to adventuring. You can put the desired magical protections into a large arcane device, and then simply limit how it works. Perhaps it takes days to activate and instantly shuts down if moved even just a little bit, this would incidentally create a weakness in the king's defenses. A lone rogue could sneak in non-magically and just move it, then the evil archmage can teleport in and disintegrate the king.

The players could use the device, just not for adventuring. If they take up base building then this very item might be an object of interest for aspiring basebuilding murderhobos. It won't help them clear dungeons or solve mysteries but it will make their own base of operations more secure.

You can also use it as a worldbuilding and plotbuilding device, perhaps the arcane device was a gift from an archfey in exchange for something from the king, and it requires pact slots to be expended to work, so the archfey also sent a warlock liaison to work the device and make ever more unreasonable demands of the king. Plot twist the king had to surrender his firstborn and the crown prince is actually a changeling!
The queen wants the safe return of the real crown prince but the king doesn't want to risk the ire of the archfey. Now the queen can pose a quest to the players, but completing this quest puts the kingdom in jeopardy. A quest that starts with a moral conundrum and no easy right answers.

[Unoriginal]

I think it's more acceptable when it's tied to something the PCs could access, but realistically won't be able to until the epilogue.

The king's throne room has had ten years of rituals laid on it, preventing any magic except healing magic from working on it. How it was done is a secret, but the king's personal library still has the notes on how it was done-if you can get access to those notes and spend ten years working the magic, you too can have a decent-sized area blocking most magic.

If it's personal power (say, the king has permanent Truesight to make it harder to fool him with illusions) that's a lot more likely to irk players.

In my personal experience, most players are fine when a NPC has a personal power they don't have access to so long as there is a thematic/narrative logic for it.

What they don't like if when the DM makes it look like they're acting like the playground kid who goes "my special power is to have every power" or "my special power is to counter all of your powers."

To give an example from the last campaign I DMed: the players perfectly fine when they entered a place belonging to some Feys and the Feys hit the whole group + NPCs with a very powerful and hard to resist sleep effect. It also was one of the few times an Elf PC got to demonstrate their immunity to magic sleep, so it goes both ways.

[No brains]

I've been thinking about this too, trying to decide what levels of nobility would effectively be what CR of adventure to try to overthrow. There have been a lot of good points already raised in this thread concerning practical use of spells and architecture.

Another good point to consider is that in a fantasy setting is that the 'mandate of heaven' for monarchs might be an actual thing. Defenses to the king do not stop at the mortal level. There are celestials, fey, fiends, or even modrons that have a vested interest in having a king they like in a place they want. This could mean a divine intervention of angels to protect/ avenge the king.

This also means that taking down the king doesn't necessarily have the political repercussions one might intuitively want from it. The policies an assassin were trying to stop are executed on a divine level, making mortal retribution an exercise in cosmic horror. Sure you can kill a rich guy you don't like, but not only will there be another bozo appointed to the same job, but now you're getting tracked down by an angel with truesight and commune to find you wherever you hide and smite judgement upon whatever soon-to-be-tragic cause you were trying to support.

Finally, as a tip in the other direction, if you want to initiate a high-level magic attack and besiege magical defenses, be sure to Planar Bind at least one Babau. Now for the low price of just one 4th and 5th level spell slot and 1000gp, you have 24 hours of at-will Dispel Magic gives you a brute force attack on any level of forbidden hallowed sanctums that they can get line of effect on within 120 feet. I love how this works out because it thematically and mechanically underscores why demon-association is so feared and why the status quo would invest in defenses against cosmic forces diametrically opposed to the status quo. Paladin Smites are counter-bunker busters.

[Slipjig]

Simply building a thin sheet of lead into the outer walls of the palace will stop most Divination spells. Access to even the "public" areas of the palace will be tightly controlled and all guests vetted, and only the most trusted servants are allowed into the private residence, so a Wizard will have an extremely difficult time becoming familiar enough with it to port in.

Every member of the Royal Family has at least one body double (and the monarch secretly has a second that only his wife and the Head of Security know about). The doubles take his place at a majority of public events, and even some private meetings where the other party might not be trusted. There are ten different "Royal Chambers" scattered throughout the palace, and the Head of Security rolls a d10 at bedtime every night to see where the monarch is sleeping. The doubles sleep in randomly-chosen bedrooms. So even if an assassin can locate all the Royal Chambers and become familiar with them, teleporting in blind means he has a 70% chance of finding an empty chamber, and a 20% chance of finding a double.

And that's before we even get to the magical options.

[Unoriginal]

Simply building a thin sheet of lead into the outer walls of the palace will stop most Divination spells.

Which spells would be stopped by the sheet of lead but not by the lead-less outer walls?

[Slipjig]

Which spells would be stopped by the sheet of lead but not by the lead-less outer walls?

You're right, my bad. Looks like Locate Object is the only spell specifically blocked by lead. I was thinking it stopped Clairvoyance and Scrying, too.

[Witty Username]

A brief note that things like body doubles and complex floor plans can reduce the effectiveness of any infiltration, even ones assisted by teleportation.

[Sigreid]

IMO, the best defense is to not be the kind of jerk that needlessly antagonize super high level professional killers. Instead, you have scouts all over the kingdom looking for promising men and women so you can build good relationships with them before they show up riding an ancient dragon with a score to settle. Kings having to build relationships with powerful non royals to maintain their power and survival isn't new.

[Atranen]

Forbiddance and Hallow are nice in theory, but they're shockingly vulnerable to low level dispels. Each has a 1,000 gp cost and extensive cast time (to be made permanent). But, Dispel magic with a third level slot, DC 15 to break.

Your average 5th level caster is at ~50% to dispel with every slot. If they use enhance ability first (and many have access to both), they can get that to 75%. So, the archmage trying to infiltrate does that, or better brings a squad of lower level casters.

You can do many regions of forbiddance (e.g., 5 ft squares each) so it takes many casts, but this becomes extremely expensive. Hallow is spherical and the regions can't overlap--so there will be odd internal structures and some gaps.

The balance favors the offense here, mostly because the designers didn't concern themselves with changing dispel magic for extremely powerful effects. So your best bet is to rely on homebrew magic or creative internal designs (false, hidden, secret chambers).

[Damon_Tor]

Depending on the attitude of the Gods in your setting, monarchs might have a Divine Right to rule, which manifests itself as any of these various protection effects being active even if you don't decide to write in some highish level court mage whose job it is to keep them fresh.

[Witty Username]

Depending on the attitude of the Gods in your setting, monarchs might have a Divine Right to rule, which manifests itself as any of these various protection effects being active even if you don't decide to write in some highish level court mage whose job it is to keep them fresh.

That would be a fun plot twist for an evil party, get hired to kill a lord or such, end up having to fight/outmanuver a proper Archon.

Or the other way a ruller being put on the table for overthrow because they have lost Celestial support. They would probably have to do something pretty evil for that to be a short term consequence though.