New OOTS products from CafePress
New OOTS t-shirts, ornaments, mugs, bags, and more
Page 7 of 9 FirstFirst 123456789 LastLast
Results 181 to 210 of 255
  1. - Top - End - #181
    Titan in the Playground
    Join Date
    Feb 2011

    Default Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter

    Originally Posted by Efrate
    …whites are the ones most likely to attempt and assault in winter and are the weakest of all dragons.
    I meant to address this earlier, and I’d like to take this opportunity to link to Blackhawk748’s outstanding post on white dragons.

    Also, I’m thinking on some of Maat Mons’ points before I respond. For now I’ll just comment on this:

    Originally Posted by Maat Mons
    On a completely-unrelated note, isn't there a spell called Suspend or something that levitates a massive chunk of rock in the air? Feels like it might be relevant to the "let's have tons of rock over our heads" plan.
    You’re thinking of Suspension, from p. 51 of Shining South. This levitates objects of up to 1000 pounds per level.

    It also has a duration of 1d4 days + 1 day per level, so not automatically permanent. Whether this spell qualifies for Permanency is a good question, although it doesn’t show up in this list of candidates.

  2. - Top - End - #182
    Ogre in the Playground
    Join Date
    Jun 2014

    Default Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter

    Quote Originally Posted by Maat Mons View Post

    Anyway, people keep saying the world's going to go all Mad Max in this situation. But I don't feel anyone's provided any sound reasoning why it should. Basically, there's need to be widespread shortages of basic necessities for that to happen. And people in this thread have outlined many ways of ensuring an abundance of basic necessities.

    For most of them, the only counter argument for why the plans wouldn't work is that everyone would be at everyone else's throat. But people will only be at each other's throats if the plans don't work. So it's really quite circular. Attempts to farm in greenhouses fail because hungry people show up and ruin things. But the only reason there even are hungry people how can show up and ruin things is because attempts to farm in greenhouses fail.

    If an average city can provide for itself in this "apocalypse" with only their internal resources, then all the cities will do that, and there will be no bands of desperate raiders. So if the only reason an average city couldn't provide for itself is desperate raiders, no problem, because there aren't any. First you need society to fail, then you get rooving warbands. Which means roving warbands can't be what causes society to fail, because they come later.
    Yell if I’m completely off-base here, but I think part of the disconnect is that our city has a dozen potential ways of saving itself. But not everyone lives in cities, and there will be other cities that don’t have high-level casters to conjure up food or make necessary magic items. (Or a horde of Playgrounders with access to obscure spells and feats, as I believe someone brought up earlier.) Ever heard of Chessenta? Very anti-wizard, probably not a lot of high level casters there. And any number of tiny villages that only have maybe a low-level Cleric or Adapt to see to their magic needs isn’t going to be able to pull off most of the feats we’ve gone over. So what are those people going to do? Their options are:

    1. Try to take refuge in one of the big cities that seems to have a working plan
    2. Try to steal what they need from said cities
    3. Stay put and starve to death as their crops fail and everything freezes


    That’s where the raiders are coming from.

  3. - Top - End - #183
    Bugbear in the Playground
    Join Date
    Sep 2014

    Default Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter

    Most of those places though go extinct very fast. Without magic to protect and provide they die. They will not be able to survive impact plus climate change. They will either panic and be a disorganised rabble when it happens, and by the time they get together defenses are in place, or they stubbornly refuse to budge on principals and perish from the inside.

    If neither of those happens, its a bunch of nearly non magical with no support people attempting in a horrid winter to assault a fortified position of multiple casters much higher level than them. Assumimg they survive the environment, figure out how to feed and keep warm their populace or fighting force, while on the march to a somewhat secluded mountain valley with no usable roads. Also contend with a bunch of cold adapted predators and monsters. And keep morale up so most do not just quit and try to find their own way.

    If they manage all of that, and get wizard city with a reasonably healthy and ready to fight army, now they need to seige. In winter with no protection. One golem or bound outsider with DR, can probably kill the entire army. Not to mention a force big enough to be a threat is very easily noticed and a few cloudkills or the like would wreck them.

    Also without magic they need to keep this seiging army fed and warm and most available nearby resources are likely already taken. So again you have issues with morale, starvation, freezing to death, etc. It breaks before it starts.

    And even if ALL of that somehow happens, you are still a bunch of mostly mundanes versus higher level casters. Fireball and flight will probably break them alone, seeing as how your wizards, maybe with wind wall if needed, can just throw fireballs from long range flying above them. Which probably causes some amount of near avalanches as a huge radius circle of snow is vaporized causing everything to shift and maybe collapse.

    edit: spelling
    Last edited by Efrate; 2021-02-21 at 07:28 PM.

  4. - Top - End - #184
    Firbolg in the Playground
    Join Date
    Oct 2011

    Default Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter

    So, my idea was that the city used *stone* buildings, and war-ready watchtowers.

    The watchtowers don't collapse when a butterfly lands on them - they're designed to hold more than just their own weight. Probably a lot more, as they're designed to hold their own weight even when they've suffered battle damage.

    *And* you're not necessarily using them "as is" - you're using them as the *basis* for your ceiling support structure.

    So, even if they *would* have previously fallen over from butterflies, they're still my arbitrary "50%" of the materials you need for support structures.

    The optimal town for this tactic would *already* have rooftop gardens.

    The reason for the dome, I believe, is to channel the melting ice / water outside the city zone.

    I'm wondering if it wouldn't be more efficient to create "Venice", with channels and rivers surrounding covered islands of civilization. Perhaps "Venice" could use simple, slanted stone "roof" / pyramids - like many "normal" houses, so trivial to engineer. Perhaps some stone "tunnels" connecting the "islands", or perhaps actual boats for transport? That way, it's harder to invade, and an attack on / fault in a single ceiling won't threaten the entire city.

    Might be a bit harder to heat, though.

    -----

    In another thread, it was commented that, the reason that beasts of burden were inefficient for travel was because they consumed their carrying capacity in food too quickly.

    What if there was a culture that understood this, and had already organized their army accordingly, crafting "not-ring" Ring of Sustenance for their War Elephant transports / cavalry? Or even for creatures more exotic than that?

    Outside warfare / raiding, would they have any advantages in this scenario?

    -----

    Anyone with enough power to threaten one of these towns… what could they possibly want to raid?

    Monsters may *some day* be an issue, but, without humanity's intelligence, magic items, sense of community, etc? They're gonna die out much faster than these Playground towns are. So things should get much *easier*… at least in the short term, until the Arctic monsters migrate South.

    Citation on how long that took with animals IRL during the ice age?

    I expect that White Dragons (which don't care about cold, can survive off eating *anything*, are intelligent, and want treasure) will be among the fastest to spread and among the greatest challenges. Of course, they're pathetically weak next to their good counterpart, so… maybe we'll hunt *them* to extinction instead.

    -----

    Why the acid rain again?

  5. - Top - End - #185
    Titan in the Playground
    Join Date
    Feb 2011

    Default Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter

    Originally Posted by Maat Mons
    Anyway, people keep saying the world's going to go all Mad Max in this situation. But I don't feel anyone's provided any sound reasoning why it should.
    I don’t think it’s a stretch to imagine that a lot of people will panic when the news first breaks. People will be seeking safety wherever they think they can find it, whether or not their hopes are justified. Some people will set out for larger cities, others for this or that rumored safe haven, and soon enough the roads and passes will be crammed with people hoping that wherever they’re going will be safer than where they were.

    It’s not rational. It’s not sensible. It’s how people behave.

    So panicked travelers lose their way, or discover their rumored haven doesn’t exist, or the strong castles have barred their gates. Travelers become refugees and wanderers; people steal from each other to survive; people fall into gangs for protection and those gangs grow into marauders. Some militaries may try to preserve a semblance of order, but soon enough groups of soldiers will peel off to become organized bandits themselves, and it snowballs from there.

    Originally Posted by Maat Mons
    But people will only be at each other's throats if the plans don't work.
    As Kareeah pointed out, many people are living in small communities which won’t be able to carry out any plans, full stop. They’ll try to reach somewhere else that might have a plan, but that’s not a guarantee, and they’ll be out in the world with no options to speak of.

    Originally Posted by Quertus
    I'm wondering if it wouldn't be more efficient to create "Venice", with channels and rivers surrounding covered islands of civilization…. Perhaps some stone "tunnels" connecting the "islands", or perhaps actual boats for transport? That way, it's harder to invade, and an attack on / fault in a single ceiling won't threaten the entire city.
    Interesting idea, but keep in mind that any channels will quickly freeze over, and there will still be 100-200 feet of snow on top of everything.

    I mentioned earlier the idea of building small stone yurts and growing in modular fashion from there. Your idea of tunnels and covered islands is along the lines of what I was thinking—essentially a “moonbase” style of community, with a series of small domes connected by low hemispherical tunnels.

    These would be under the snow, and expanding them would require tunneling through the snow and creating hollows from below—but these would be house-sized and easy to create in a day or two. And as you point out, a fault or collapse in one won’t be a major threat to the others.

    Originally Posted by Quertus
    What if there was a culture that understood this, and had already organized their army accordingly, crafting "not-ring" Ring of Sustenance for their War Elephant transports / cavalry? Or even for creatures more exotic than that?
    Now that is an idea.

    This might allow for slightly increased carrying capacity, but not greater speed, since a fed animal will move at the same speed no matter the source of the food. But it would mean less time required for resting and foraging, so even though the walking pace wouldn’t be affected, overall transit times would be noticeably quicker.

    Originally Posted by Quertus
    Citation on how long that took with animals IRL during the ice age?
    Really good question. For human bands of hunter/foragers at the end of the last glacial period, the rule of thumb is about one kilometer per year, but that’s general diffusion of a small population.

    But for Pleistocene megafauna…that’s another one worth looking into.

    Originally Posted by Quertus
    Why the acid rain again?
    In brief—the impact will kick up huge quantities of vaporized rock and water, which will include sulfur, oxygen and hydrogen, the ingredients for sulfuric acid. This will circulate in the stratosphere, helping to reduce global temperatures, and will also be vectored down to the surface in rain.

  6. - Top - End - #186
    Orc in the Playground
    Join Date
    Jul 2019

    Default Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter

    The Hagia Sophia dome is 100' across and is considered amazing architecture for it's time, and you want to build one over an entire city, and make it thicker and stronger and heavier, and think it would be easy?

  7. - Top - End - #187
    Firbolg in the Playground
    Join Date
    Oct 2011

    Default Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter

    Quote Originally Posted by Palanan View Post
    Interesting idea, but keep in mind that any channels will quickly freeze over, and there will still be 100-200 feet of snow on top of everything.
    The idea was a) heated dome (so no 100' of snow); b) heated (so no frozen channels); c) flowing water (ie, the channels empty somewhere - like into the underdark , or even into a ruptured bag of holding - a "cheap" portal to the Astral)

    Flowing channels probably precludes boats, though. So large open-air yurts, that can be made more quickly than their enclosed counterparts.

    What was the tech to heat the stone dome, again? I'm concerned whether or not it will work for this variant.

  8. - Top - End - #188
    Titan in the Playground
    Join Date
    Feb 2011

    Default Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter

    Originally Posted by GeoffWatson
    The Hagia Sophia dome is 100' across and is considered amazing architecture for it's time, and you want to build one over an entire city, and make it thicker and stronger and heavier, and think it would be easy?
    Very much this. Hagia Sophia is 100’ across, but the area of our city is 2000 x 4000’.

    Originally Posted by Quertus
    What was the tech to heat the stone dome, again? I'm concerned whether or not it will work for this variant.
    I’m not sure if it was ever specified—I think it was assumed that with walls of flame or other heat sources, the entire area under the dome would be toasty, and that would radiate up through the surface of the dome.

    That’s another argument against a single massive dome—most of your heated air will be rising into the uppermost air directly beneath the dome, so it’s extremely inefficient.

    Also worth remembering that a heated dome of any size that’s constantly melting off snow will be giving off a strong vapor plume, and will be far more noticeable than a few steam vents from the roof of a cave. And of course a melted pit deep inside a snowfield will attract attention from the air, if anyone or anything is flying over.

    Flyovers may be rare, but even so, feels like white-dragon-bait.

  9. - Top - End - #189
    Firbolg in the Playground
    Join Date
    Oct 2011

    Default Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter

    Quote Originally Posted by Palanan View Post
    Flyovers may be rare, but even so, feels like white-dragon-bait.
    That's the plus side: it's got a built-in XP farm!

  10. - Top - End - #190
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    Maat Mons's Avatar

    Join Date
    May 2018

    Default Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter

    Hmm, okay, so some marauders makes sense. But I feel a different part of my post still stands. The circumstances that drive people to marauding apply primarily to people without access to strong magic. So we should only have to muggle attackers.

    I think it shouldn't even be very strong or capable muggles either. One very sensible thing for any city like us to do at the start of all this is to go around recruiting the best talent we can. So good, experienced warriors are probably going to get offers from lots of communities interested in beefing up their defenses. And, naturally they'll be inclined to take the offers that come from places with really solid plans for keeping their people provided for.

    And if a city does collapse, well the high-level casters can teleport away. Surely, one of the other cities will recognize their value, and take them in. They can probably even take the low-level casters and the high-level warriors with them. It's still a compelling package-deal for anyone they'd join up with. One day, a whole bunch of low-level commoners will look around an realize that everyone who's not dead weight has just disappeared.

    Anyway, the people pounding at the gates aren't going to be the best of the best. Because the best of the best aren't going to get left out in the cold.



    How sure are we on the quantity of snowfall? I've said it before, but if the tropics hit freezing temperatures, evaporation from the ocean is going to slow down. That's going to mean less precipitation.

  11. - Top - End - #191
    Firbolg in the Playground
    Join Date
    Oct 2011

    Default Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter

    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    That's the plus side: it's got a built-in XP farm!
    I really wanted to emphasize this point: after 1,000 years of "peace", the short-lived races are going to consist of nothing but weak nobodies.

    Dragons, Warforged, Liches? They could come out of the 1,000 year winter and hit the ground running, but everyone else? It's Athens vs Sparta - if you're living a life of peace, you're not trained for war.

    This is part of why I made the decisions I did. The were-Furries contracted lycanthropy to raise the baseline power of their citizens. They have Champions execute prisoners in gladiatorial matches… sure, for entertainment; sure, to keep the population from exceeding the capacity of the caves; sure, to keep from wasting resources feeding them… but also for XP, to ensure that the defenders remain strong.

    Because, unless they earn XP when monsters walk past because they can't find / don't bother with their hideout, they might not earn much otherwise.

    I think that one of the smartest things a city could do is to send out agents to spread rumors that encourage refugees / raiders to head their way… and then execute such starving fools.

    Similarly, I think that the best plan for the Drow… is to do nothing. Wait until it starts to get warm again, when the feeble remnants of civilization begin to emerge from their vaults… and *then* invade the surface.

    All the high-level mortals will have died off. Few of the survivors should have had the opportunity to level up to the point where they pose a threat. Their numbers will have dwindled, and they won't have established communication with their neighbors yet. A blitzkrieg strategy at that point should allow the Drow to take the surface world.

    But, during those 1,000 years of patient web-building, they could be using Divinations to figure out where the pockets of civilization are, and which enclaves might prove problematic… and see what those potential problems do when the floor is lava, and the air is Cloud Kill.

    Or, in Forgotten Realms style, they could be moving their pawns into position to cause trouble for such enclaves.
    Last edited by Quertus; 2021-02-22 at 06:04 PM.

  12. - Top - End - #192
    Titan in the Playground
    Join Date
    Feb 2011

    Default Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter

    Originally Posted by Maat Mons
    Anyway, the people pounding at the gates aren't going to be the best of the best. Because the best of the best aren't going to get left out in the cold.
    There’s a vast spectrum of talent between these two sentences. The “best of the best” may indeed have a golden parachute, but that doesn’t mean that absolutely everyone else will be low-level pushovers. The slightly-less-than-best-of-the-best will still, by definition, be among the best, and there will be plenty others right below them. That’s still a significant talent pool to cause all manner of trouble.

    Originally Posted by Maat Mons
    How sure are we on the quantity of snowfall? I've said it before, but if the tropics hit freezing temperatures, evaporation from the ocean is going to slow down. That's going to mean less precipitation.
    I meant to address this earlier. The dynamics of ocean-climate interaction aren’t quite so simple, and there are cases from geological history where the tropics were glaciated along with the rest of the planet. Freezing temperatures near the equator didn’t prevent snow accumulation during those periods.

    This scenario won’t be quite that severe, and the oceans will be impacted primarily by debris and acid rain, as well as runoff from topsoil loss. Sea level will gradually drop by some dozens of feet, if not more, so any coastal merfolk communities that survive the runoff and acidification may still find themselves high and dry, and freezing.

    The additional exposed land area will also be buried under snow, which will further increase the planet’s albedo and reinforce the ice-age conditions. The exposed and snowed-over coastal areas may also have some formerly drowned ruins of interest, if anyone surviving on the glacial surface ever finds them.

    Originally Posted by Quertus
    I really wanted to emphasize this point: after 1,000 years of "peace", the short-lived races are going to consist of nothing but weak nobodies.
    Not entirely sure I agree with this. I see your logic, but I’d say there’s more to the situation, on a couple of points.

    First, those who struggle against these conditions for a thousand years will certainly not be weak at the end of it all. Those who survive will be all the tougher for having overcome every threat the glacial wastes have thrown at them.

    Second, those enclaves who have managed to preserve their original populations through a variety of means—petrification, long sleep, some form of stasis, etc.—will reanimate their populations when conditions improve, and they won’t be weaker than the pre-Catastrophe people because they’ll be the pre-Catastrophe people.

    Originally Posted by Quertus
    All the high-level mortals will have died off. Few of the survivors should have had the opportunity to level up to the point where they pose a threat.
    As I recall, either you or someone else mentioned recently that spell research would continue, and eventually access to spells beyond sixth level would be a given.

    And given the list of cold-adapted creatures that could establish empires of their own during the glaciated period, I’d say there’s plenty of challenges and plenty of opportunities for leveling.

    That said, there may not be many high-level mortals generated by that route; they may be extremely rare compared with their numbers before the Catastrophe. But I’d say there’s still the potential for some.

    And the very high-level individuals, the ones who retreated to their personal fortified mountains and private time-bubble demiplanes, will also be returning to the world once conditions improve. Again, perhaps not as many as there were before—even fortified mountains have their weak spots—but there should be some, and they may have their own plans for rebuilding “their” world that conflict with those who took the long way through the previous thousand years.

    Originally Posted by Quertus
    Similarly, I think that the best plan for the Drow… is to do nothing. Wait until it starts to get warm again, when the feeble remnants of civilization begin to emerge from their vaults… and *then* invade the surface.
    This is very likely to be the approach that most of the drow take, apart from the occasional raid on easy targets. If we take the earlier suggestion of a city trading with the drow, then the drow may be using them to take the temperature of the surface, so to speak.

  13. - Top - End - #193
    Firbolg in the Playground
    Join Date
    Oct 2011

    Default Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter

    So, in a "proper" 3e world, there are so many different ways to survive this threat, that most any larger civilization should have access to, that it is not unreasonable to expect that *most* cities not directly under the mountain should survive - and even be able to trade pieces of solutions that they aren't using.

    Still, most beings don't enjoy a "winter wonderland", so those who leave are probably the lucky ones. And… I'm not sure how many would actually want to come back, after 1,000 years. Elves, sure, but… once it's safe, how many people IRL will return to Chernobyl because it was their ancestral home? That… doesn't feel like a common human motivation, to me. So, personally, I expect very few of those who left for greener pastures to return.

    A properly sealed and hidden Vault should provide very limited opportunities for XP. The were-Furries are *hoping* for such safety, and killing their criminals for XP. The Liches of the necropolis are going out, looking for trouble. Probably the best-leveled individuals will be the faux sanctuary, slaughtering starving refugees, and the Dragon-hunters, keeping the White Dragon population in check.

    That is to say, those who are willing to leave their Vault less defended, and travel out to fight the monsters, could level up. Or those whose vault is more obvious / accessable could have XP come to them (the advantage of the "heated dome" model).

    It is difficult to balance power vs safety - and those who lean too far towards safety will, over time, lack the power to ensure that safety.

    For their part, the Liches of the necropolis are "subtly" (heh) encouraging Vault status quo, by encouraging trading (or scrounging), and providing maps of safer routes. This will, in theory, enable ongoing sets of leveled characters, to maintain their respective vaults. And, if more liches are formed in the process - or even if the Vaults are grateful for the scouting data - all the better.

  14. - Top - End - #194
    Ogre in the Playground
    Join Date
    Jun 2014

    Default Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter

    Something I keep meaning to ask: is the town’s livestock considered to be part of the two years of supply? If not is their fodder included in it, or would the vault have to grow feed for them right from the start?

  15. - Top - End - #195
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    Maat Mons's Avatar

    Join Date
    May 2018

    Default Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter

    Since we've got a pretty in-depth discussion of what a pre-existing undead nation could do in this situation, would anyone like to figure out what a pre-existing elan enclave could do?

    There are some similarities between the elans and the undead. Neither need food or water. Both have unlimited lifespans. And they both need humanity to survive so they can make more of themselves.

    But the elans have an easier time interacting with others. They don't need to use any sort of disguise to pass for human. And they already have an extensive network of hidden bases.

    Earlier, I'd speculated about elans sheltering a breeding population of humans just in case. But thinking about it more, they'd probably just use Crystalize. In a way, it's more convenient than Flesh to Stone, because restoring Crystalized people only required Dispel Magic/Psionics, and has no chance of killing the subject. But in a way it's also less convenient because, as far as I know, there's no monster with an at-will Crystalize effect.

    It would actually make sense for elans to keep a stockpile of crystalized humans even without any known impending disaster. Every elan enclave should have a cellar full of them. Just in case someone or something wipes everyone out.

    Oh, hey. Psionic Endure Elements is a thing. So I guess anyone could pick that up with the Hidden Talent feat. Might be useful for those few elans who aren't Psions. Like those who are Ardents and Psionic Artificers.

    You know, this could be an excellent time for interested parties to increase the prevalence of psionics in the world. Go around helping people retrain a feat into Hidden Talent. Lots of common folk probably have a lame feat, like Skill Focus for a Profession, or something. And maybe you can even get a decent number of people interested in actual levels in a psionic class. Sustenance is a 2nd-level power that takes care of food, at least for the person manifesting it.

    Oh sure, Goodberry's 1st level, but good luck finding freshly-picked berries to cast it on the the frozen wastes. Besides, it will probably be hard for most people to muster the reverence for nature necessary to be a Druid when nature plainly sucks for people. And yeah, Create Food and Water makes food for everybody. But that's a 3rd-level spell, which is a lot of time at the rate common folk gain levels. And widespread death and destruction is likely going to give a fair few people crises of faith. So good candidates for Cleric training might get harder to find.

  16. - Top - End - #196
    Ogre in the Playground
    Join Date
    Jun 2014

    Default Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter

    Quote Originally Posted by Maat Mons View Post
    Oh sure, Goodberry's 1st level, but good luck finding freshly-picked berries to cast it on the the frozen wastes.
    Nitpick: cloudberries. Admittedly we need to save the bees and do something to protect them from the acid rain for those.

    Sorry I don’t know enough about elans or psionics to comment other than that.

  17. - Top - End - #197
    Firbolg in the Playground
    Join Date
    Oct 2011

    Default Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter

    Hmmm… well, the Charisma penalty doesn't help the Elan socially, and I'm not sure how long retraining takes, or how long Endure Elements lasts.

    But a massive retaining effort before the mountain hits… no, wait - they'd have to choose between "Endure Elements" and "Elan Repletion" for their 1 PP / day, right? So the simple baseline citizens can't be warm *and* fed.

    It greatly reduces their dependence on solutions to those problems, and certainly could allow them to a) barter away such solutions for things that they want (which are…?); b) exist with only partial solutions in place; c) survive the failing of *either* of those solutions; d) attempt to overcome that charisma penalty with offering others survival tech.

    Of course, the big things people think when they hear "Elan" is Polymorph cheese for Beholder Mage and Illithid Savant early entry.

    The Illithid Savant is particularly interesting, as their diet of brains make the Elan enclave the one most likely to want to go the "false Eden" route.

    If faith is low, I'm thinking that Ur-Priests might become popular.

  18. - Top - End - #198
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    Maat Mons's Avatar

    Join Date
    May 2018

    Default Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter

    I went looking for how long retraining takes. This has resulted in me learning that retraining can only be done as part of level advancement. That's actually extremely limiting.

    On the plus side, it takes no time and costs nothing by default. Or it takes 2 weeks and costs 50 gp, if you're in a game where leveling up normally takes time and requires training costs.

    Maybe it will have to be Psychic Reformation instead. Though using that on a large scale might require using the stuff from the Getting Wired article to cheat the xp cost.

    Endure Elements lasts 24 hours. For both the regular and psionic version. If you take the Hidden Talent feat, you gain the ability to manifest one 1st-level power, and you also gain 2 power points per day. So with no other source of power points, you can keep yourself and one other person warm at all times.

    For those people deemed worthy of being transformed into elans, the immediate result is loosing all class levels, feats, skill points, et cetera. Then, in time, they become 1st-level characters with a class and feat that might bear no resemblance to what they were before.

    Anyway, elans gain 2 bonus power points per day. One of which they'll probably be spending on Repletion every day.

    I imagine that most elans, after being remade, will take their new 1st class level in Psion, or at least a psionic class. So they'll gain even more power points, and the ability to manifest powers. Probably they'd take Psionic Endure elements as one of their powers known. If they go Psion, they'll have 2 more powers to choose. And they'll have 3 power points per day from the class, plus the 2 from race, so 5. So 1 each day for Repletion. Another 1 each day for Endure Elements on themselves. And then 3 power points for other things each day. Maybe Endure Elements on 3 other people. If they have a 14+ in their manifesting stat, they'll have another power point per day.

    For those elans who don't take psionic classes (what rebels!), there's still the Hidden Talent feat. And since becoming an elan causes an immediate hard-reset of your entire build, they wouldn't have to wait for a level up like those chumps using retraining to get it. They'd just have to wait however long it takes to go from a blank slate to being a 1st-level character with a PC class. Being remade sure must be taxing. I wonder if they have to relearn how to walk and feed themselves the same way they forget all their old skills. Anyway, these elans would have 4 power points per day, 2 from being an elan, and 2 from the Hidden Talent feat.

    Elans have traditionally been very selective about adding new members. I guess if you go around making too many people live forever, you're going to bring on a population crisis. If they stick to their usual strategy of only recruiting a few exceptional individuals, not very many people are going to be able to benefit from Elan Repletion. Which is why I was kind of focusing on Sustenance. They wouldn't really have any issues with training more Psions.

    But the elans are facing a sharp reduction in the pool of recruits for the next 1,000 years. Maybe during the lean times, they'll have to lower their standards to hit their recruitment targets. Maybe they'll do some preemptive mass recruiting before picking get too slim to try to mitigate that.

  19. - Top - End - #199
    Titan in the Playground
    Join Date
    Feb 2011

    Default Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter

    Originally Posted by Quertus
    So, in a "proper" 3e world, there are so many different ways to survive this threat, that most any larger civilization should have access to, that it is not unreasonable to expect that *most* cities not directly under the mountain should survive….
    “Most” is a little optimistic; but it’s reasonable that higher-level casters that feel some loyalty to their homes would help them weather the crisis. If the orbs of convenient balminess do exist, then there’s a place for a kingdom-sized realm that snaps them up to maximize its own agricultural output, among other options.

    Originally Posted by Quertus
    Still, most beings don't enjoy a "winter wonderland", so those who leave are probably the lucky ones. …I expect very few of those who left for greener pastures to return.
    By leaving, do you mean departing for other planes, worlds, dimensions, etc.?

    Originally Posted by Quertus
    For their part, the Liches of the necropolis are "subtly" (heh) encouraging Vault status quo, by encouraging trading (or scrounging), and providing maps of safer routes.
    Ahh, but what if agents of the faux sanctuary are altering those maps, showing some of those “safer routes” leading right to the faux sanctuary? Bad optics for the necropolis once word gets out.

    Originally Posted by Kareeah_Indaga
    Something I keep meaning to ask: is the town’s livestock considered to be part of the two years of supply? If not is their fodder included in it, or would the vault have to grow feed for them right from the start?
    Good point here. It wouldn’t be feasible to grow enough fodder in the caves to support all of their flocks and livestock, so there would have to be some hard choices made. Probably there will be some efforts to preserve what meat they can, either through salting or smoking.

    Originally Posted by Maat Mons
    And they already have an extensive network of hidden bases.
    Is this part of elan lore? I don’t do psionics, so I don’t know a thing about elans.

    Originally Posted by Maat Mons
    It would actually make sense for elans to keep a stockpile of crystalized humans even without any known impending disaster. Every elan enclave should have a cellar full of them. Just in case someone or something wipes everyone out.
    Are these willing humans? Or kidnapped? Charmed? Mind-controlled?

    Because sooner or later, someone’s relatives will hire some adventurers to find their missing kin, and that’s where the fun begins.

    Originally Posted by Maat Mons
    Besides, it will probably be hard for most people to muster the reverence for nature necessary to be a Druid when nature plainly sucks for people…. And widespread death and destruction is likely going to give a fair few people crises of faith. So good candidates for Cleric training might get harder to find.
    I can see this to a degree, especially with druids. There will certainly be a decline in the traditional forest-loving druids, but there may also be a shift to arctic-adapted druids.

    As for clerics and faith, I can see that being more complex. At the very least, deities of both fire and ice should have plenty of adherents.

    Originally Posted by Maat Mons
    But the elans are facing a sharp reduction in the pool of recruits for the next 1,000 years. Maybe during the lean times, they'll have to lower their standards to hit their recruitment targets. Maybe they'll do some preemptive mass recruiting before picking get too slim to try to mitigate that.
    Will the elans be openly advertising who and what they are? Or will they just be vaguely promising shelter and a way to survive the coming chaos?

  20. - Top - End - #200
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    Maat Mons's Avatar

    Join Date
    May 2018

    Default Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter

    Okay, checking EPH, the word it uses in conjunction with the hidden elan enclaves is "several." So maybe their network of secret bases isn't as extensive as I'd been thinking. But yes, it's totally a part of elan lore ... except in Eberron and Faerun. In Eberron, elan are created by the quori and generally serve them. In Faerun, there are exactly 12 elan, and they're all amnesiacs. Both of those drastically contradict the lore in EPH and other non-setting sources.

    I figure the crystal creature collection would consist of people the elan needed to get rid of for various unrelated reasons over the previous centuries/millennia. Except any of the actually dangerous ones. Those guys aren't going to be dealt with in a way that makes it so easy to bring them back. There's still the risk of people coming looking for the victims. But if they already had to take that risk anyway for some other reason, may as well kill two birds with one stone and fill out the silent gardens while you're at it.

    I've always imagined that elan recruitment strategies involve being very open and forthright with the candidates they approach … and then erasing their memories if they decline. And, obviously, erasing the memories of anyone they told about any of this … whether the accept or decline.

  21. - Top - End - #201
    Firbolg in the Playground
    Join Date
    Oct 2011

    Default Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter

    Quote Originally Posted by Palanan View Post
    “Most” is a little optimistic; but it’s reasonable that higher-level casters that feel some loyalty to their homes would help them weather the crisis. If the orbs of convenient balminess do exist, then there’s a place for a kingdom-sized realm that snaps them up to maximize its own agricultural output, among other options.
    Most RAW cities should either have strong caster support, and/or a way off-world.

    Sure, one kingdom might try to pull all its casters to the Capitol. Sure, a few casters might try and find their old Master in the hopes of leaving this world behind.

    But I expect most cities will find that most of their casters remain. And spells and items seem plenty capable of solving those problem in numerous ways, as the playground has been demonstrating. Having a convenient cave system nearby is just icing on the cake.

    Quote Originally Posted by Palanan View Post
    By leaving, do you mean departing for other planes, worlds, dimensions, etc.?
    Yup. If the powerhouses who can, *don't* leave, well, hopefully my "cool cats" post shows at least enough of the tip of the iceberg to demonstrate that isolated pods don't have much hope against that level of play.

    Quote Originally Posted by Palanan View Post
    Ahh, but what if agents of the faux sanctuary are altering those maps, showing some of those “safer routes” leading right to the faux sanctuary? Bad optics for the necropolis once word gets out.
    That would be a neat trick, given that the necropolis sells direct.

    That is, when they make it to a town, they provide the most updated information about current local hazards, local trading partners (Agraria has the flu; the Dry Lich is AWOL), failed civilizations (the coastal merfolk froze to death), etc.

    If asked, they'll provide "longer range" information, or broker trade requests between cities, or similar services.

    Lying that the necropolis provided this information about the faux sanctuary… isn't likely to buy you much beyond suspicion and failure.

    (Unless you were providing it to a militant theocracy that had attacked the Liches… at which point it might buy you belief… and being burned at the stake as a heretic.)

    Quote Originally Posted by Palanan View Post
    Good point here. It wouldn’t be feasible to grow enough fodder in the caves to support all of their flocks and livestock, so there would have to be some hard choices made. Probably there will be some efforts to preserve what meat they can, either through salting or smoking.
    I'm not sure I'd eat 1,000 year old salted meats.

    Soylent Bandit: meat's back on the menu, boys!

  22. - Top - End - #202
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    GreatWyrmGold's Avatar

    Join Date
    May 2009
    Location
    In a castle under the sea
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter

    Quote Originally Posted by Jack_Simth View Post
    Right. So? Plants don't need infra-red, they need heat and light. Trapping infra-red makes greenhouses warmer than the surrounding area, sure, but it's really just a way of avoiding heat loss. You could duplicate the effect from another direction by way of a double or triple layer Invisible Spell Wall of Stone with air gaps. But then, when you have a permanent wall of fire warming the place, it really doesn't matter.
    1. I know my suggestion has permanent walls of fire, but those aren't a universal feature.
    2. Then...what's the purpose of the greenhouse? Greenhouses basically just trap heat and moisture, and moisture isn't going to be much of an issue here. (At least, we have no reason to think it would be worse than it was before.)

    A fireball still evokes a ball of fire whether anyone's in the area to get damaged or not.

    Summoning and Calling spells transport a creature - it's brought from elsewhere and controlled. Wall of Stone creates stone. They're completely different classes of spells.
    The effects of Invisible Spell don't depend on the subschool, they depend on the spell's "effect". Summon monster I's Effect line reads "One summoned creature". ("Summoned" is clearly an adjective in that phrase, unless the creature being summoned by a certain web-mangaka.) Meanwhile, teleport doesn't have an Effect line at all, and wall of stone's Effect line says "Stone wall whose area is up to one 5-ft. square/level (S)". SM1 and WoS use the same language, teleport does not.
    You have to dig past mechanics and into what you assume the mechanics are supposed to mean to get an interpretation where WoS can be made invisible but SM1 can't, and even then you have to make a specific set of assumptions about how both the spells involved and the metamagic feat are supposed to function. And while you're doing that, the DM is shaking his head and saying that you can't get a free permanent invisibility spell that easily.


    Quote Originally Posted by Palanan View Post
    These and other issues have been extensively discussed earlier in the thread.
    Then surely you have some kind of solution to them you could point to, instead of just saying "Oh, we talked about it" and ignoring the problem?

    Two points here. First, the raiders will be coming in numbers—
    From where? Where are these raiders coming from, and why are they raiding us?

    Second, spell slots used to fight off raiders are spell slots not being used to support the community in other ways. If there’s a way to avoid having to fight the raiders at all, e.g. avoiding their notice in caves, then that’s the smarter solution.
    Assuming that you aren't sacrificing even more to stay hidden. Which you would be, because:

    1. Large communities are obvious by their very nature (especially when there aren't many other people around).
    2. Unless these raiders are acting on bad video game logic, they're presumably looking for food and shelter. They would presumably be willing to work with our community if that was safer than raiding, which it would be thanks to the high-level spellcasters.
    3. Speaking of high-level spellcasters, you'd have to hide from them too (unless all high-level spellcasters are Good Guys for arbitrary reasons). This means that hiding means not only living in poorly-ventilated caves, not lighting fires (unless you can hide several thousand chimneys' smoke), never leaving the town, etc, but also casting nondetection and similar anti-divination measures on the entire town.


    Not to mention that hiding is probably impossible anyways. You would need to take 20,000 people from point A to point B; after all, anywhere 20,000 people would think to run for safety is going to be a place people know about. You need to move quickly and quietly, since you're more likely to be found the more time you spend/the more ruckus you make. And you obviously can't leave a trail, since raiders could follow your trail.
    How do you propose moving 20,000 people from point A to hidden point B without being noticed or leaving a 20,000-person-sized trail? How do you propose moving all the livestock, tools, etc they need to live? Building thousands of new houses? (You can't just occupy an abandoned town or something—that's the first place They will look!) What will you do if someone stumbles on this massive operation—chase them down and force them to submit or die? What if someone runs away/gets lost/refuses to leave, and the raiders find them?

    And when someone finds your new home, are you willing to go through all of that again?


    TL;DR: Hiding an entire city is a fool's errand.

    It’s safe to assume that prior to the impact, there was a functioning society with the usual range of kingdoms and other principalities, with military and civil resources to protect their citizens.

    With those kingdoms and principalities now gone and buried under snow, there’s nothing to prevent magical predators and other things from spreading far and wide, and those which are cold-adapted will obviously have the competitive edge. What used to be humanoid regions will now be monstrous regions, with many more monsters than there were before. By definition it’s a bigger problem.
    You're assuming A. that all the monsters survived the cataclysm and B. that the functioning society had no permanent effects on the local monster populations. I'm not sure which is more ridiculous—one suggests that monsters are unaffected by permanent winter, the other that monsters appear at a constant rate no matter how often soldiers/adventurers/etc kill them. The impression this gives is that monsters are either just a basic statistic of the land that can't be affected by anything, or that the world's ecosystems run on Final Fantasy logic.

    In reality, settlements near areas with dangerous creatures will tend to decrease the populations of those creatures, since people kill the dangerous creatures. That's how farmers deal with wolves, it's how adventurers deal with wargs, and there's no reason it wouldn't apply to every other species of natural monster. If people moved out of a region, local wildlife populations may or may not recover—except, oh wait, there's an apocalyptic winter coming, that mass extinction will wipe out the monsters before they get a chance to recover!


    P.S. The Underdark is famously full of monsters.

    Are there specific spells you’re thinking of that would harden or augment the stone from Wall of Stone?
    There's more to architecture than material science.

    Let me take one pretty straightforward problem. The main reason the sides of a dome don't fall over is the compressive strength of the dome's top. The sides want to fall in, but they would need to squish the top out of the way, and the top is too strong, so they don't. However, when building a dome, the sides have to be put in place before the top—weeks or months before the top, because ancient construction was slow. The ancients had a bunch of techniques for solving this, but it's not really a problem for magic; you can throw up temporary scaffolding on walls of basically anything but stone or iron, then stick a stable stone structure on top of them before dismissing the scaffolding-wall spell.

    And that's just something I came up with off the top of my head. I'm not an architect, but I'm willing to bet that if I was I'd be able to point out more problems that magic could solve (relatively) trivially than problems which can't be solved.

    The architects who built those cathedrals zealously guarded their techniques, so that information isn’t likely to be public.
    Yes, architects guard their unique and irreproducible techniques jealously. That's why no period or culture has distinctive architectural styles based around a set of solutions to construction problems that work and ideally look alright. Certainly there aren't any associated with the very kind of buildings we are discussing!

    I never said it was impossible, only time-consuming and very likely more trouble than it’s worth.
    Yet you think hiding an entire city in the Underdark isn't?


    Quote Originally Posted by Palanan View Post
    You’re thinking of Suspension, from p. 51 of Shining South. This levitates objects of up to 1000 pounds per level.

    It also has a duration of 1d4 days + 1 day per level, so not automatically permanent. Whether this spell qualifies for Permanency is a good question, although it doesn’t show up in this list of candidates.
    Even if it doesn't, that's roughly one spell slot per two weeks, to hold up 12,000 pounds. If the end result is going to be stable, that's probably more than you need. Sure, dispel magic or disrupting spellcasters enough will make the whole thing come crashing down, but sabotage or attacking critical workers will destroy any civilization—we just don't think about the ways such effort could destroy more familiar communities, because we dismiss it as "normal".


    Quote Originally Posted by Palanan View Post
    I don’t think it’s a stretch to imagine that a lot of people will panic when the news first breaks. People will be seeking safety wherever they think they can find it, whether or not their hopes are justified. Some people will set out for larger cities, others for this or that rumored safe haven, and soon enough the roads and passes will be crammed with people hoping that wherever they’re going will be safer than where they were.

    It’s not rational. It’s not sensible. It’s how people behave.
    No, it isn't.
    People know how people act in the moment. We have an instinctive understanding of how they react to lions, fires, flood, and other immediate dangers. But our intuition breaks down for anything long-term. The evidence is clear (and goes beyond the first links I pulled from Google searches)—people work together in crisis situations rather than going insane. Which makes sense, because humanity didn't go extinct before inventing stone tools.


    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    I really wanted to emphasize this point: after 1,000 years of "peace", the short-lived races are going to consist of nothing but weak nobodies.

    Dragons, Warforged, Liches? They could come out of the 1,000 year winter and hit the ground running, but everyone else? It's Athens vs Sparta - if you're living a life of peace, you're not trained for war.
    Aside from the fact that Sparta was average at battles and terrible at wars. In fact, this whole line of reason is based on a factually incorrect reading of history which historian Bret Devereaux terms the Fremen Mirage. I don't want to repeat a four-part blog series about military structure and history, but TL;DR hard times don't make hard men.
    Quote Originally Posted by The Blade Wolf View Post
    Ah, thank you very much GreatWyrmGold, you obviously live up to that name with your intelligence and wisdom with that post.
    Quotes, more

    Winner of Villainous Competitions 8 and 40; silver for 32
    Fanfic

    Pixel avatar by me! Other avatar by Recaiden.

  23. - Top - End - #203
    Titan in the Playground
    Join Date
    Feb 2011

    Default Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter

    Originally Posted by Maat Mons
    I've always imagined that elan recruitment strategies involve being very open and forthright with the candidates they approach … and then erasing their memories if they decline. And, obviously, erasing the memories of anyone they told about any of this … whether the accept or decline.
    Are all elans able to erase memories, or just the ones with certain feats/powers? Just curious here, since I know close to nothing about them.

    Originally Posted by Quertus
    That would be a neat trick, given that the necropolis sells direct.
    I’m thinking that once a map is sold, it may vanish and reappear with a few minor modifications.

    Going on the assumption that once a map is sold, it’s out in the world and the necropolis won’t be taking any steps to ensure it stays with the people who bought it. That’s where the faux sanctuary comes in.

    Unless the necropolis has a remote track-changes feature on their maps. Status + Amanuensis, maybe?

    Originally Posted by Quertus
    I'm not sure I'd eat 1,000 year old salted meats.
    Not likely to be an issue. Since the preserved meat isn’t self-renewing, they’ll likely run through it during the first couple of years. Although I suppose some could be petrified for longer-term storage.

    Originally Posted by Quertus
    Soylent Bandit: meat's back on the menu, boys!
    I can only salute this mashing of memes.

  24. - Top - End - #204
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    Maat Mons's Avatar

    Join Date
    May 2018

    Default Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter

    Elans have no innate ability to manipulate memories. They do, however, have a higher-than-normal tendency to take levels in psionic classes. In fact, the process of creating new elans requires some level of psionic ability. (Exactly how much is deliberately left unspecified.) So the elans directly involved in making more elans will definitely have some psionic class levels.

    Psionic Modify Memory is a 4th-level Telepath power. Not everyone is a Telepath, but psionics is kind enough to offer the Expanded Knowledge feat, which allows anyone to gain a power not on their class list (albeit one level lower than their maximum power level). This isn't a contentious thing like Extra Spell, by the way. It's explicitly stated in Expanded Knowledge that you can do this.




    If you want fresh meat, someone already suggested casting Stone to Flesh on a Wall of Stone. Though it might be more efficient to cast it on whatever rock you were planning to tunnel through to expand your caverns. Then, instead of using pickaxes and hauling off a bunch of rock, you do your excavation with steak knives, and you eat the cartfulls of material you remove. Anyway, it's about 70 cubic feet of meat per casting. Google says a cubic foot of meat weights about 55 pounds. And 650 calories per pound of meat. So at 2000 calories per day, that's ... well over 1200 people fed. Some might argue that eating nothing but meat would be nutritionally unbalanced. But others would argue that it would be delicious.

  25. - Top - End - #205
    Firbolg in the Playground
    Join Date
    Oct 2011

    Default Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter

    Quote Originally Posted by GreatWyrmGold View Post
    1. I know my suggestion has permanent walls of fire, but those aren't a universal feature.
    Was that the proposed heating solution for the original dome? If so, why?

    Quote Originally Posted by GreatWyrmGold View Post
    Then surely you have some kind of solution to them you could point to, instead of just saying "Oh, we talked about it" and ignoring the problem?
    Agreed.

    Quote Originally Posted by GreatWyrmGold View Post
    Assuming that you aren't sacrificing even more to stay hidden. Which you would be, because:
    Quote Originally Posted by GreatWyrmGold View Post
    Not to mention that hiding is probably impossible anyways. You would need to take 20,000 people from point A to point B; after all, anywhere 20,000 people would think to run for safety is going to be a place people know about. You need to move quickly and quietly, since you're more likely to be found the more time you spend/the more ruckus you make. And you obviously can't leave a trail, since raiders could follow your trail.
    How do you propose moving 20,000 people from point A to hidden point B without being noticed or leaving a 20,000-person-sized trail? How do you propose moving all the livestock, tools, etc they need to live? Building thousands of new houses?
    Depends on… the local rules.

    Being behind stone *may* render you immune to certain Divinations.

    And remember: you're hiding for 1,000 years, under 100' of snow - the tracking DC is pretty crazy if they don't find you right away

    Quote Originally Posted by GreatWyrmGold View Post
    (You can't just occupy an abandoned town or something—that's the first place They will look!)
    The Liches will actually encourage the "occupy abandoned towns" (failed vaults) scenario.

    Quote Originally Posted by GreatWyrmGold View Post
    What if someone runs away/gets lost/refuses to leave, and the raiders find them?
    That is a potential issue. Sounds like a good reason to seal the vaults.

    Quote Originally Posted by GreatWyrmGold View Post
    P.S. The Underdark is famously full of monsters.
    Quote Originally Posted by GreatWyrmGold View Post
    Yet you think hiding an entire city in the Underdark isn't?
    The primary idea was "(stand-alone) cave (complex)", not "underdark". Subtle difference (mostly lack of radiation, and lack of neighbors).

    Quote Originally Posted by GreatWyrmGold View Post
    Sure, dispel magic or disrupting spellcasters enough will make the whole thing come crashing down, but sabotage or attacking critical workers will destroy any civilization—we just don't think about the ways such effort could destroy more familiar communities, because we dismiss it as "normal".
    Yeah, most everyone is subject to disruption.

    Quote Originally Posted by GreatWyrmGold View Post
    Aside from the fact that Sparta was average at battles and terrible at wars. In fact, this whole line of reason is based on a factually incorrect reading of history which historian Bret Devereaux terms the Fremen Mirage. I don't want to repeat a four-part blog series about military structure and history, but TL;DR hard times don't make hard men.
    Simple D&D math: all couch cave potato and no XP makes Jack a low-level fod.

    Quote Originally Posted by Palanan View Post
    I’m thinking that once a map is sold, it may vanish and reappear with a few minor modifications.

    Going on the assumption that once a map is sold, it’s out in the world and the necropolis won’t be taking any steps to ensure it stays with the people who bought it. That’s where the faux sanctuary comes in.

    Unless the necropolis has a remote track-changes feature on their maps. Status + Amanuensis, maybe?
    Think less "map" (my words, my bad) and more "ranger gives you advice safe local paths". If you're in Honolulu, bad advice about the Yellowstone area… is probably meaningless. Whereas (if they visited you) the Liches warned that the Dragon in the Kilauea's volcano wasn't friendly, but the Coral Pass was relatively safe (just ghosts of disgruntled merfolk).

    Quote Originally Posted by Palanan View Post
    Not likely to be an issue. Since the preserved meat isn’t self-renewing, they’ll likely run through it during the first couple of years. Although I suppose some could be petrified for longer-term storage.
    Petrified meats. Stone cold perfection. Just add Soft. Some assembly required.

    Quote Originally Posted by Palanan View Post
    I can only salute this mashing of memes.
    What can I say, I'm prepping for a DtD40k7e game

    Quote Originally Posted by Maat Mons View Post
    If you want fresh meat, someone already suggested casting Stone to Flesh on a Wall of Stone. Though it might be more efficient to cast it on whatever rock you were planning to tunnel through to expand your caverns. Then, instead of using pickaxes and hauling off a bunch of rock, you do your excavation with steak knives, and you eat the cartfulls of material you remove. Anyway, it's about 70 cubic feet of meat per casting. Google says a cubic foot of meat weights about 55 pounds. And 650 calories per pound of meat. So at 2000 calories per day, that's ... well over 1200 people fed. Some might argue that eating nothing but meat would be nutritionally unbalanced. But others would argue that it would be delicious.
    That takes me back!

    Although I probably wouldn't allow it today, in one of my first games, that's exactly how my brother handled a castle with no clear entrance.

  26. - Top - End - #206
    Ogre in the Playground
    Join Date
    Jun 2014

    Default Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter

    If we’re using Pathfinder I think I found a way to save some livestock: the Pokéball spell! It’s only second level, so we could delegate it to lower-level casters. We don’t need a basilisk or friendly medusa for this one, it already has the shrink portion built in, and it has a command word to end it so no need for more spellcasting to reverse it - in theory we could shrink down a farmer’s entire flock, and when the pasturage exists for it again the farmer can restore the sheep completely on his own.

    Downsides are that it doesn’t work on humanoids (so pertrifing the townsfolk would still need stronger magic if we go that route) and I’m sketchy on how you could make an animal friendly, so I don’t know if the local druids could get it to work on deer or other wildlife.

    There was also this which looks like it might be useful for the Orb Cities - ploughing I think would fall under ‘heavy labor’?

    EDIT:

    Okay I found a Charm Animal spell to make animals friendly if we need it although it looks like it’s single target.

    I also found a water source spell if the caves don’t already have a spring: Oasis. It’s high level, but judging by the description it doesn’t actually wear off, it’s just susceptible to any difficulties a non-magically-created spring could run into. The big issue I can see is the line about affecting other springs within a 1-mile radius - we can’t spam these, and if the town is still using its well we’d have to put the new spring at least a mile away to keep from draining it.
    Last edited by Kareeah_Indaga; 2021-02-27 at 09:59 AM.

  27. - Top - End - #207
    Titan in the Playground
    Join Date
    Feb 2011

    Default Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter

    Originally Posted by Quertus
    Think less "map" (my words, my bad) and more "ranger gives you advice safe local paths". If you're in Honolulu, bad advice about the Yellowstone area… is probably meaningless.
    Okay, that’s fair. Based on your prior mentions I was assuming there was a physical map that would be traded around. If it’s more a question of verbal lore, that’s a different story.

    Although I’d say the faux sanctuary might still try to distort that somehow—perhaps if the necropolis becomes well-known for giving good directions, agents of the faux sanctuary might claim they had the information “straight from the necropolis, and you know how accurate they are, so you can trust me on this!”

    Originally Posted by Quertus
    What can I say, I'm prepping for a DtD40k7e game….
    …What is this?

    Originally Posted by Kareeah_Indaga
    If we’re using Pathfinder I think I found a way to save some livestock: the Pokéball spell!
    Really good find. You’d probably want some sort of cabinet or storage locker to protect against accidental breakage.

    Originally Posted by Kareeah_Indaga
    There was also this which looks like it might be useful for the Orb Cities - ploughing I think would fall under ‘heavy labor’?
    I’d say plowing would definitely count as heavy labor where animals are concerned. Although that spell would probably need several castings per day, unless you want to tie up a higher-level caster on the fields.

    As an alternative, there’s the Phantom Plow spell from Lords of Darkness, which might or might not work out to be more efficient.

    Originally Posted by Kareeah_Indaga
    I also found a water source spell if the caves don’t already have a spring: Oasis.
    Another good catch. That’s a fairly low rate of flow, but still has possibilities.

    A lower-level option could be Sweet Water, from Defenders of the Faith. The main benefit is that it creates a well shaft up to 100 feet deep to an existing water source—and it doesn’t specify a soil type, so there’s a case to be made that it could tunnel through solid rock.

  28. - Top - End - #208
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    shaikujin's Avatar

    Join Date
    Dec 2011

    Default Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter

    I had a plan drawn out for a scenario similar to the OP.

    More than 1 poster have already mentioned using Everfull Larder, Decanter of water and several magical enhancements for Stronghold spaces. That would take care of the food/water/air/warmth aspects.

    To flourish, have crafters build self resetting mechanical traps of various DCs for the population to overcome/survive. The population will earn XP for surviving the traps, and can start taking levels.

    While the traps are being built, higher level folks can party up with low level folks. The lower level folks can then use Pathfinder downtime rules to gain XP until they reach the XP of the highest level party member.

    Pathfinder also has Kingdom rules that grant XP for exploring areas and for establishing settlements.

    After a while, even if the highest level townsfolk is still capped at 12, you'll still have a 20,000 strong army of lvl 12 NPCs.

    Additionally, activate the population to make a dungeon Stronghold large enough for them. (Dungeons have no max size). Give the Stronghold mobility enhancements like burrow, fly, teleport etc.

    My plan was to model the Stronghold into something like a Battletech dropship. After it is completed, the dropshop can emerge out of the mountains if resources run out or if the current location becomes unsafe.

    Or look for other survivors/enclaves etc.
    Last edited by shaikujin; 2021-02-27 at 11:35 AM.

  29. - Top - End - #209
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    GreatWyrmGold's Avatar

    Join Date
    May 2009
    Location
    In a castle under the sea
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter

    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    Depends on… the local rules.
    Being behind stone *may* render you immune to certain Divinations.
    Detect X spells, sure. But not scrying, commune, contact other plane, hindsight, potentially locate object/creature or lay of the land...oh yeah, then there's locate city, which supposedly can be used for things other than carpet bombing. That's a first-level spell accessible to bards, rangers, sorcerers, and wizards which would be able to find your city unless you enclosed it thoroughly enough that it's physically impossible for people to enter or leave. Which is not going to be fast, especially if we assume these potential raiders wouldn't wait to look for targets until you actually scout out a new location and move there. (Awfully impolite, but raiders aren't noted for decorum.)

    And remember: you're hiding for 1,000 years, under 100' of snow - the tracking DC is pretty crazy if they don't find you right away
    "Right away" is the time I'm talking about. Speaking of which...

    That is a potential issue. Sounds like a good reason to seal the vaults.
    ...you can't seal the vaults before you bring the people inside. I'm talking about the inevitability of being noticed before you have the vault set up, because that's the time you are both most visible and most vulnerable.


    I'm not convinced that the dangers that sealing everyone in a vault would actually be significant, but if they are, sealing everyone in a vault wouldn't save you. There are too many ways for your new city to be discovered before you've finished hiding it, too many ways for the information to leak out while you're moving there, and even when you're done there will still ways for Them to find your settlement. Perfectly mundane methods might work, depending on how exactly you turn some random shallow caves into a sealed bunker-metropolis, but even if you leave no trace on the surface world, anyone who would be a concern to a town protected by high-level magic would have access to divination magic that would let them find you. As far as I know, no magic available to a 12th-level caster can hide your city from any of the asking-questions divination spells. (Not all of which are limited to yes/no questions!)

    And the cost of sealing everyone in a vault isn't zero. You have to expend considerable resources to get enough light and fresh air for the population, constructing new buildings is ridiculously more difficult, farming goes from difficult to infeasible, etc. Oh yeah, and you have to build a whole new city underground, or else force everyone to just sleep in a raw cave.
    Quote Originally Posted by The Blade Wolf View Post
    Ah, thank you very much GreatWyrmGold, you obviously live up to that name with your intelligence and wisdom with that post.
    Quotes, more

    Winner of Villainous Competitions 8 and 40; silver for 32
    Fanfic

    Pixel avatar by me! Other avatar by Recaiden.

  30. - Top - End - #210
    Ogre in the Playground
    Join Date
    Jun 2014

    Default Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter

    Quote Originally Posted by Maat Mons View Post
    If you want fresh meat, someone already suggested casting Stone to Flesh on a Wall of Stone. Though it might be more efficient to cast it on whatever rock you were planning to tunnel through to expand your caverns. Then, instead of using pickaxes and hauling off a bunch of rock, you do your excavation with steak knives, and you eat the cartfulls of material you remove. Anyway, it's about 70 cubic feet of meat per casting. Google says a cubic foot of meat weights about 55 pounds. And 650 calories per pound of meat. So at 2000 calories per day, that's ... well over 1200 people fed. Some might argue that eating nothing but meat would be nutritionally unbalanced. But others would argue that it would be delicious.
    There are apparently man-eating sheep in Pathfinder so if you end up making enough extra meat you can have wool and milk (and possibly butter, cheese and so on by extension) too.

    Fair warning, the sheep are Evil aligned.

    Quote Originally Posted by Palanan View Post
    Really good find. You’d probably want some sort of cabinet or storage locker to protect against accidental breakage.
    You mean...we should put them in Box Storage? *ducks*

    But yes having the farmers put their livestock in a lockable, padded chest or something would be wise. (And if we need to petrify said farmer later, make sure they have the key on them for their chest - hopefully that will make it harder to steal.) I’d want to have a few castings of Mending at the ready too, but it would be better not to need them.

    Quote Originally Posted by Palanan View Post
    I’d say plowing would definitely count as heavy labor where animals are concerned. Although that spell would probably need several castings per day, unless you want to tie up a higher-level caster on the fields.
    My thought was this might be a good use for casters whose spells aren’t necessarily useful for the other things on the list - EX: if your clerics, druids and wizards are Stone Shaping a huge wall around the field, I don’t see that on the spell list for bards or paladins but those two DO get Animal Purpose. As for the recastings...how big a threat are the plow teams under? If your perimeter defenses are keeping most of the bad stuff out, a few low-level casters who recast the spell a few times per day might be doable. Might be able to to use the utility to convince some of those farmers to take some spellcasting levels too.

    Quote Originally Posted by Palanan View Post
    A lower-level option could be Sweet Water, from Defenders of the Faith. The main benefit is that it creates a well shaft up to 100 feet deep to an existing water source—and it doesn’t specify a soil type, so there’s a case to be made that it could tunnel through solid rock.
    I’ll have to look that one up; I’m curious if doing both would work - sink a bunch of wells with Sweet Water and if there isn’t any water 100 feet deep, create the spring.

    EDIT: Looks like the spell just fails if there’s no water to reach, but still useful. If the lower level casters can find something it would save a higher spell slot.
    Last edited by Kareeah_Indaga; 2021-02-27 at 02:40 PM.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •