The Gaming Den

So I have this thought problem that I've been mulling over for several years, and i thought I'd share.

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Let's go on a short, high level adventure! Let us imagine that there is a antagonist, a twentieth level wizard, and that this wizard decided to cast mindblank on himself several days ago. In addition to that, he decided to chill out in his own personal mordenkainen's magnificent mansion several days ago. And in addition to that, this very morning, after eating a heaping bowl of nothing because he wears a ring of sustenance*, he decides to cast gate and call a celestial, fiendish, half celestial, half fiend, great wyrm copper dragon, for the lulz.

This great wyrm copper dragon has 39 hit dice and 19 casters levels, and as many spells known and castable per day as a sorcerer of equal level; additionally, the dragon knows the spells magic circle vs. evil, plane shift, greater teleport, mind blank, and gate.

This celestial, fiendish, half celestial, half fiend, great wyrm copper dragon is then instructed in the nature of a service demanded by the wizard to accomplish (such as brutally murder another sapient creature) and is then directed to cast magic circle vs. evil and mind blank on itself, gate in another celestial, fiendish, half celestial, half fiend, great wyrm copper dragon, explain the service they are to accomplish to the new arrival, and then plane shift + greater teleport to wherever the service is to be done.

The wizard then decides to take an two hour cat nap go to bed for eight solid hours. Refreshed, he briefly prepares his spells for the day, and then decides to do it all over again; and again; and again, with a roughly two eight hour interval in between doing it.

Astute readers will notice that this sequence of events conjures 1 celestial, fiendish, half celestial, half fiend, great wyrm copper dragon every six seconds that will continually attempt to brutally murder another sapient being for a little under twenty minutes two minutes, causing a maximum of twenty dragons to attack someone for two eight hours, after which the number of celestial, fiendish, half celestial, half fiend, great wyrm copper dragons involved in the attack increases by twenty, again and again, forever.

Now let us imagine that said wizard is merely the most recent in an uncountably long string of astral projections, with his original body safely sequestered away.

Now let us imagine that you and your party are the targets of such an attack. Other than rage quitting the session or inflicting physical harm on the DM, how would you and your party deal with it? You may also imagine yourself to be, at maximum, twentieth level.

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*Upon further consultation with page 178 of the 3.5 PHB, I was wrong. A ring of sustenance does not negate the eight hour wait for arcane spell preparation, just as an Elf's four hour trance does not negate the eight hour wait. Accordingly, the erroneous (although completely extraneous) passages have been stricken from the body of the "adventure". Also, the "payment free" calling version of gate has a duration of rounds, not minutes, and the text has been rectified with this immutable fact.

Summoning a celestial, fiendish, half celestial, half fiend is not actually possible, as those do not exist. The only way to combine the fiendish and half-fiend traits in a single creature is to breed a fiend with a fiendish creature, in this case a fiendish dragon. The same applies with the half-celestial and celestial creature templates. Even if you managed to somehow get a dragon with both the fiendish and celestial templates via some sort of crazy breeding scheme, you still couldn't breed in both the angel and fiend into the dragon. So, at best, you're getting a fiendish celestial half-fiend dragon or something along those lines.

As for a counter, you just teleport away, do a quest to figure out who is behind this, and then kill them. If he wants to pull his retarded dragon cheese during the boss fight, you show up with a wand of banishment and a stack of 101 recipes lovingly copied down from your new book entitled "How to Cook Dragons" for a delicious +202 to the spell DC.

By teleporting away, by being unscryable, or by being able to effortlessly squish half a dozen said dragons per day and enjoying the effortless xp ride. Oh, or planeshifting to exploit time differentials.

But yes, gate is broken, calling is broken, templates are broken, teleport is broken, astral projection is broken and scrying is broken. Not overpowered, but broken. As in: unfixable merely by changing numbers. You might want to work in polymorph, magic jar, wish and contigency for good measure.

The problems:

1. Recent casting limit. Spells cast in the last 8 hours count against new slots you can get.

2. You don't get to pick called creature's spell lists. The odds of getting even two with the spell list you want is very, very small.

That being said, you capture one dragon, ESP or mind control it for the Wizard's location, teleport to the area of the Mansion and dispel it and toss him on his ass, then petrify him because astral projection is a great protection from death but shitty for everything else.

Done. He lives out his existence as a coat-rack.

If you go outside of Core, it gets even easier.

Summoning has been broken for so long no one can really remember when it wasn't broken.

Well, I take that back. The Summon Monster and Summon Undead spells work at fairly low levels, but as soon as you get to the point where the critters you summon can summon other things or make more undead, you're intro trouble territory. So, call it level 3.

I always liked the idea of select summoning lists and the little abilities based on that, though.

Summoned creatures cannot summon other creatures I believe.

MGuy wrote:Summoned creatures cannot summon other creatures I believe.

no, but Called creatures can.

Yeah.

There's also the klurichur from the fiend folio, who, once a day, can automatically summon two balors.

And I don't even think we've discussed the gate taquito warriors yet.

The entire "summoned creatures cannot summon creatures" bit was put in there specifically to attempt to stem the tide of summoning BS.

I'm not sure Calling Magic even makes the top 5 of most broken magic types. I mean, you're summoning real dudes, they have friends, bosses, subordinates, enemies. Getting them involved in your fights is dangerous if they're more powerful than you are, and usually unnecessary if they're less powerful than you are.

Gate taquito warriors?

I like taquitos. Especially with Guacamole.

fectin wrote:Gate taquito warriors?

It's a Frank Trollman trick.

Step 1: Find a guy you hate.

Step 2:Go to a plane that sucks. Use protection.

Step 3:Gate in the person from step 1. Tell them to roll taquitos.

Step 4: Beat up enemy while he rolls taquitos.

Step 5: Profit.

Well, I do like tacquitos.

I thought denizens of the Prime have immunity to summons, even summons from other planes. Am I crazy, or was that a thing?

That's a trait from 2E, possibly just 2E Planescape.

Probably just planescape, the 2e PHB says NPCs can use summon monster I to summon adventurers.

Grek wrote:Summoning a celestial, fiendish, half celestial, half fiend is not actually possible, as those do not exist. [ect...]

The nature of D&D cosmology is that there are many outer planes, each infinite in size, and many of those planes have at least one if not an infinite number of separate layers that are themselves infinite in size; the classical example of this is the outer plane of the Abyss, which possesses an infinite number of layers, each infinite in size.

Now anything that could possibly exist within a bounded space does actually exist in an infinite one, no mater how implausible the thing is, and in an infinite space there are an infinite number of implausible (though possible) things that do actually exist, although I will admit that they are each a statically relevant distance from one another.

This means that the abyss possesses not just an infinite number of demons of every kind, on each of its infinite number of layers, but also an infinite number of Angels too (which are each there for an infinite number of reasons), and also contains contains an infinite number of everything else, including an infinite number of 5'9" human males named Billy who are also 7 and 498/977th level fighters with the toughness feat taken 3 times.

But all this is irrelevant as gate specifically allows you to call a particular creature based on any particular you wish to describe. And there is no rule against having more than one template with the word "Half" in it. Although if it makes your fraction bone feel better, it could be either a celestial, fiendish, half celestial, or half fiend great wyrm copper dragon; the only thing that matters is that the great wyrm copper dragon is extraplaner.

As for a counter, you just teleport away, do a quest to figure out who is behind this, and then kill them. If he wants to pull his retarded dragon cheese during the boss fight, you show up with a wand of banishmentand a stack of 101 recipes lovingly copied down from your new book entitled "How to Cook Dragons" for a delicious +202 to the spell DC.

Banishment is a 6th/7th level spell, and cannot be put into a wand. Even if it could, you can only affect 2 hit dice of creatures for each caster level the wand possess (CL 11 or 13); you could banish, at maximum, 26 hit dice of dragons, but each dragon has 39 hit dice, each, and is the proud possessor of a +27 willpower save, while a wand of banishment has a DC of 16 or 17... so... yeah. That totally doesn't work, at all.

People usually mean "Staff of Whatever" when they say "Scroll/Wand of Whatever" and care about using their own, larger spell save DCs and Caster Level. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, as I thing you ment to talk about how an Abuse Magic Device Skill Dancer with (several) Staffs of Banishment could hold off the dragon horde, for 6 seconds for every staff charge he possesses. However, he will eventually run out, as the dragons are being limitlessly called inside a private demiplane "somewhere" in the multiverse that is not where you are and /backslash plane shift + greater teleport to wherever they were told to go... so... yeah. That will buy time, but is not a solution to your current predicament of a relentless and limitlessly expanding horde of dragons that want to eat you.

K wrote:The problems:

1. Recent casting limit. Spells cast in the last 8 hours count against new slots you can get.

You are so totally right, I had to edit the OP.

2. You don't get to pick called creature's spell lists. The odds of getting even two with the spell list you want is very, very small.

The spell says "particular", and I can get pretty particular, but whatever. I'm not hung up on it being dragons and will not contest your point of unselectable spell lists, when instead the wizard could initiate a chain gate of 22 hit dice Solars, who each prepares spells as a 20th level cleric, as a single long service and then having the wizard cast mind blank on each of them from a pile of infinite scrolls.

That being said, you capture one dragon, ESP or mind control it for the Wizard's location, teleport to the area of the Mansion and dispel it and toss him on his ass, then petrify him because astral projection is a great protection from death but shitty for everything else.

Yeah... this plan hinges on mind control and divination magic. Remember when I said:

Hicks totally wrote:dragon... is then directed to cast... mind blank on itself

Because I totally said that. So... yeah. You could try to dispel or disjoin the buffs, as they only have a caster level of 19, but there are 20 of them trying to eat each of your party at the same time.

The best plan so far is actually Grek's: GTFO, Research, followed by a Brutal Murder. However, even this plan has a flaw: How do you research a dude in a moving demiplane that is immune to ALL divination and mental influences. You don't know who he is, where he is, or where he is going.

Rereading the text of scry, I do not believe you can scry into other planes, and Mordi's Magnificent Shag Pad is explicitly extradimensional, and you can't use find the path or all of the other divination because of the mind blank. You can't find his house to dispel it.

So you can't Research, but you can still GTFO, right? Well, kinda. You can pull the same shenanigans and have mind blank casted on yourself and plane shift away (you could teleport, but you are still susceptible to scry and die because you are still on the same plane, and mind blank does not cause a scry to fail, only omit your visage when viewing your current location), but now everyone who ever heard of you and is not currently mind blanked is going to be chased down and interrogated for your location by 20 dragons, and then eaten.

I am particular torn over the gate taquito method, as it most likely has one fatal flaw that turns a badass army of giant lizards to a slightly less badass army of winged giants: upon review of the gate spell, you probably can't call a specific individual if you do not know their actual for reals name, and a constant mind blank assures you will never get that. It is arguable that this cuts both ways; should I want to select the dragon's spell list, you should be able to gate the wizard with "whoever sent these dragons at us", and should that totally not fly because the "particular" in the gate spell description refers to a specific named individual (highly likely), I likewise cannot select the dragon's spell lists as a set of particulars defining what I am calling. It must be said that even should the wizard perish because of a gate calling him, you and your party still have a limitless horde of dragons/angels trying to find and kill you, though as a bonus the size of the horde will not increase by twenty after every eight hours.

[quote="Hicks]
Banishment is a 6th/7th level spell, and cannot be put into a wand.
[/quote]

Ah, quite right. Forgot that rule. You'll want to substitute in scrolls or staffs or whatever instead.

a wand of banishment has a DC of 16 or 17... so... yeah. That totally doesn't work, at all.

Banishment has the special spell effect of getting +2 to the spell DC for each item that you present which the target(s) of the spell "hates, fears, or otherwise opposes", making it extremely simple to get a sufficently high DC to banish any banishable foe you care to, given proper prepartion.

However, even this plan has a flaw: How do you research a dude in a moving demiplane that is immune to ALL divination and mental influences. You don't know who he is, where he is, or where he is going.

Presumably, you would do it in the same way that they researched you. After all, there's no reason (in Core at least) that you wouldn't be doing the same Mind Blank+MMMansion trick yourself if you don't have pressing business outside.

Sadly, some parties do not have access to mindblank or mordi's major shag pad: abjuration and/or conjuration could be a banned school, or the party could be composed of divine casters only without access to the protection domain. Yet all that is irrellevent, for the purpose of the OP, you are whatever you want to be as long as your levels don't exceed twenty. As previously stated, should you and your party be mind banked, the wizard will go after, interrogate, and devour your relatives, friends, aquantices, strangers who ever saw you, anyone who has ever been in the same town as you, and your enemies, any of whom which are not under the effect of a a mind blank spell, to get to you.

Presumably, your party is smart enough not to inform their friends, family etc. about their current whereabouts, and to travel in secret when going to/from their main base.

Hicks wrote:

That being said, you capture one dragon, ESP or mind control it for the Wizard's location, teleport to the area of the Mansion and dispel it and toss him on his ass, then petrify him because astral projection is a great protection from death but shitty for everything else.

Yeah... this plan hinges on mind control and divination magic. Remember when I said:

Hicks totally wrote:dragon... is then directed to cast... mind blank on itself

Because I totally said that. So... yeah. You could try to dispel or disjoin the buffs, as they only have a caster level of 19, but there are 20 of them trying to eat each of your party at the same time.

You do know that Disjunction doesn't even require a check unless it's destroying magic items and artifacts? It's completely strips all protections automatically.

So you toss up a Wall of Force around one dragon while 19 are being useless, disjoin it's protections, and mind control it. All of that happens in a single round with quickened actions and timestop.

Hell, you don't even need that step since a Wish can take you anywhere in the universe (though a plane shift from SLA or item should also be able to take you into a Mansion because you don't need a special fork). Simply wish to be taken to the person that sent the dragons after you.

On another note, how does the caster even know where to find the players? The players can just as easily have mind blank and live somewhere immune to scrying or somewhere with enough magic traps to kill any 20 massively templated dragons.

Heck, the players can just summon their own horde of things. A pile of gate scrolls can just as easily make an army big enough to kill any called army by a foe.

Third, how do you even know that this wizard has anything a dragon wants (which you need for an extended service with Gate)? Obviously, anything the Wizard can provide the dragon can provide for himself, so that doesn't leave much that a Wizard could provide as the required reward.

Do dragons want "not being stabbed in the face?"

More seriously, you could still make it work. An immediate task includes fighting in a single battle (which is not constrained by time), so it looks perfectly legal to call up a dragon and bind him to fighting "next Tuesday." then diplomacy him in the meantime into summoning allies. It's a little less crunchy, but it could still work.

Alternately, planar bind some aboleths and just win.

(edit: grammar)