D&D 5E As a Player, How Would You Beat This?

I'd appreciate general feedback or short would-be player responses.
If you are kind enough to write responses, please answer each part before reading the next part.
This is something I'm planning for a party of 5 (fighter, 3 clerics, & artificer/gun) averaging 5th level in a homebrew Asian campaign.

part 1: Party is hired to design a high security vault with guards/monsters, traps, secret passages, etc.
They don't have to build it themselves. The design includes an existing building/structure and about 10,000 worth of salary/purchases/procurements (I'm a little unsure on how to estimate these costs for my players). It needs to last about week before needing additional funding. What's the basic design?

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part 2: Party is hired to break into the vault they created to bring out treasure. What's the plan?


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part 3: Party discovers treasure is a 9-y-o girl they must break out of vault alive. All guards try to target her. What's the exit stragedy?

Part 1: misdirection is the most powerful tool for securing an area. I'd have a simple series of rooms, containing harder and harder monsters. This convinces the intruder that the valuable MUST be beyond the final door... which is actually a sphere of annihilation. The actual entrance is through the privy in the (outside) guard's area, which does not connect to a sewer system. Beyond the privy would be a series of traps (the recent UA article would be my starting guide) which lead to the vault.

Oh, if given enough time and money, I'd suggest a vault that doesn't actually have an entrance... but a Teleportation Circle. Either a loyal mage would have to make it, or you have to kill him afterwards (since he knows the circle, and could teleport there himself). Brutal, but super effective.

Remember, whoever this vault belongs too needs to be able to access his stuff fairly easily. You can't make something foolproof, because the fool... I mean owner... has to get in there once in a while.

Part 2: I would decline, because it would be too easy (I know the trick). I'd suggest hiring a local thief instead, killing him if he somehow succeeds. If forced, I'd simply know the way to go and know when to look for the trap triggers.

Part 3: this would depend on my character, as I've had a few neutral to evil jack-wagons. If setup to defend someone though, I'd probably put them in the middle of the party, and keep the group tight. Any attacks would be with cover, possibly 3/4 cover (I'd make a case for it, anyway) and should keep her out of melee. It opens us up to AoE, but if that's used, the girl is almost certainly dead anyway.

Honestly I don't think 10,000 g would be able to purchase a sphere on annihilation, the DMG suggests a starting price for legendary items at 50,000 +.Maybe if you found a seller who was willing to put it on payment plans and was taking 5k a week. But that seems an unlikely scenario.

First, you need forbiddance, cast every day for a month, which means hiring a high enough spellcaster to perform it and burning 1k in materials. Next Guards and Wards placed over the same area.

Finally, as a last resort in the panic or vault you have a guard (or set) with ideally 3+ Cubes of force, and enough food to last a long time.

The rest of the money can be spent on traditional guards. Your panic room guards would also hopefully have a sending stone or something to call in the cavalry when they are under assault. Maybe have the structure designed so there are multiple entrance/exits to the vault, and inside is a killswitch that would completely collapse a particular side of the structure. (even a collapse doesn't instantly kill an assaulting wizard, its hard to perform somatic components while your hands are completely pinned by rubble)

As for assaulting, it would take a powerful wizard(s), (to dispel wards, and break down the cube of force before they recharge) and some muscle to clear out the guards. Surviving the collapse would require a good deal of work, but would be possible.

Ultimately, It will be extremely difficult to save the girl before the last two guards kill her when they are down to 1 cube left.

It'd help to know what that existing building looks like. It will affect a lot of design choices.

As for part 2, assuming the PCs know who hired them to do part 1, an obvious choice would be to avoid actually breaking into the vault at all, and simply leverage its owner into entering it legitimately and retrieving the item, using whatever threat, bribe or other incentive would sufficiently motivate them.

Difficult to say without knowing party level, but I would say, make sure the entrance of the compound isn't further than 500 feet from the "treasure room".

Dimension door in, grab the prize, dimension door out.

I believe there was an article in Dragon on this theme, with an emphasis on traps.

plisnithus8 said:

I'd appreciate general feedback or short would-be player responses.
If you are kind enough to write responses, please answer each part before reading the next part.
This is something I'm planning for a party of 5 (fighter, 3 clerics, & artificer/gun) averaging 5th level in a homebrew Asian campaign.

part 1: Party is hired to design a high security vault with guards/monsters, traps, secret passages, etc.
They don't have to build it themselves. The design includes an existing building/structure and about 10,000 worth of salary/purchases/procurements (I'm a little unsure on how to estimate these costs for my players). It needs to last about week before needing additional funding. What's the basic design?

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Depends. What is it supposed to defend against? What is being protected? What monsters do the PCs have access to?

My general approach would be a dungeon with fairly obvious, weak defenses along a single path, ending in an expensive and very effective deathtrap. Early in the dungeon, there would be a well-concealed secret door leading to an alternative path, where the high-powered defenses would be placed.

plisnithus8 said:

part 2: Party is hired to break into the vault they created to bring out treasure. What's the plan?

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Well, they set up the defenses, so presumably they know the passwords and hidden levers to disable the traps. (You have to have a way to disable the traps so that the legitimate owners of the treasure can get to it.)

Walk in. Get thing. Walk out.

plisnithus8 said:

part 3: Party discovers treasure is a 9-y-o girl they must break out of vault alive. All guards try to target her. What's the exit stragedy?

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Try to protect the girl on the way out? The exit strategy will depend heavily on what sort of defenses were set up, which I don't know since I don't know what's available.

Sounds like more information is needed so here goes...

The "party of 5 (fighter, 3 clerics, & artificer/gun) averaging 5th level in a homebrew Asian campaign."
The party will be asked to find, suggest, or have built a structure of some sort.
The patron for these tasks is a high-level egotistical wizard that one of the player clerics signed a magically binding contact with to obey - this patron sets up often nonsensical "tests" for his disciple to complete such as this design a vault, break into the vault, escape said vault while protecting a fragile innocent targeted by guards.
The vault is said to protect the player's valuables while they are adventuring, but the patron places the "valuable" daughter of one of the players inside.
Monsters they have encountered are mostly home-brewed as well: sumo-trolls, shark bats, bananas, tasloi, ichor flies, giant tardigrades, ovoids, infantasmordial, hopping vampire, dream eaters, erians, oni, skin smiths, Doc Cu'o'c, jun-ki, bakemotos, gibran, bonsai treats, bake-kujira, shark hengeyokai, dianoga, Nagā Nagi, swampyderm, magma genasi, murder turtles, colossal ape, hydrunculi, komainu, go-jira, wooly rhinos, daliphant, but also gibbering mothers, kaiju construct, ammutseba, rust monsters, stripes, giant octopi, warfordged, mephitis, giant vulture, swarms of rats, marrow, plesiosaurus, giant crab, giant toads, animated rugs, awakened trees and shrubs, swarms of snakes, kenny, ghosts, wolves, yeti, treat, star-spawn, mi-go, hook horror & quaggoth spore servants, weeping treants, ki-rin, incubi/succubi, flesh golems, gauth, shoggoth, morkoth, etc.

I like the responses you've given [thank you], but my players will go low-magic in their vault build; and the patron will likely alter the plans slightly so the players don't know exactly what to expect (the bastard!).

plisnithus8 said:

part 1: Party is hired to design a high security vault with guards/monsters, traps, secret passages, etc.
They don't have to build it themselves. The design includes an existing building/structure and about 10,000 worth of salary/purchases/procurements (I'm a little unsure on how to estimate these costs for my players). It needs to last about week before needing additional funding. What's the basic design?

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Depends upon what you want me to guard & what you want me to guard against.

My initial thought if this is to protect 1 specific item? I go far far away & get a scroll of Imprisonment made by someone not at all concerned or connected to anything/anyone back home. I have the scroll maker Geas myself & my companions at 9th lv to never reveal to anyone else what the dispel trigger is

I return, get a loyal underling, take them far far away (ideally just myself & the underling, but at the most the rest of the party. Absolutely no one who wasn't present when the scroll & Geas spells were setup.), give them the treasure, & cast the spell on them - choosing Burial.
I do not tell the employer the location & take all precautions vs scrying before I leave for the location I'd selected as the hiding place.

I return to my employer & tell them to contact me/us should they ever need the item.

plisnithus8 said:

part 2: Party is hired to break into the vault they created to bring out treasure. What's the plan?

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Ok. I take all precautions against scrying, make a few teleports to random far far away places (repeating the anti-scry before each jump), & then end up at the burial site.
Commence with the dispel trigger.
Return directly home/to my employer.

plisnithus8 said:

part 3: Party discovers treasure is a 9-y-o girl they must break out of vault alive. All guards try to target her. What's the exit stragedy?

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See above. There are no guards to hinder me - unless my party turns against me.

Wait, what? They get to design it?

Then have to test it?

Have them include lots of secret passages and escape routes, labelled 'Ventilation' or 'Maintenance' or whatever. Bury the back-doors under lots of details. Then they just ham up breaking in, and waltz out.

Worst case scenario - include some traps that require 300gp diamonds as bait, have all the Clerics revise Revivify, nab the stones as they leave. Three chances to bring her back to life, just in case. That alone should make any other faffing around much easier.