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How Would You Defend A Mountain Fortress?

Kugar

First Post
Going off Numion's idea, you can set a descent trap.
Have a small shrine manned by a garrison that is slightly tougher then a standard Valoren squad. Unhallow the ground and place a Teleportation Redirector spell (from one of the BoEM - Malhavoc Press). Redirect them to a trap of your choice. Kills a responce team, demoralizes those who called, makes them rethink the teleportation support stradegy, and can give you some high level undead.

Not to shabby.
 

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mmadsen

First Post
I would use things like Alter Self or Change Self as disguise...not makeup or trying to act like the new goth crowd that has moved into town. :D
I think either (a) the enemy doesn't have a magical garrison in town, and it doesn't matter whether you're disguised or not, or (b) the enemy does have a magical garrison, and they can see through magical disguises.
I would plan on teleporting back to the fortress...I mean why not everyone else is teleporting. No need to make two places you would have to defend.
If we only send one master Vampire to each small town, that's not a lot to lose, but he can raise quite a Vampire Spawn army there (from his hidden crypt). And if he's on the scene, he can guide his proteges effectively.

Further, some small fraction of these Vampire crypts should be deathtraps for Vallorea's special forces. What if we simply collapse the ceiling in one of these deep, dark crypts when the heroes arrive?
If you have them around when the legions hit they are going to get whacked by the anti-vampire teams.
On the other hand, the Vampires can probably take out non-specialist legions fairly easily. Ideally we'd find a way to kill off their specialists early, so our Vampires can feed on the legions with ease.
 

mmadsen

First Post
Unhallow the ground and place a Teleportation Redirector spell (from one of the BoEM - Malhavoc Press). Redirect them to a trap of your choice.
The Book of Eldritch Might sounds like exactly the kind of book you need for high-level magical conflict. It's amazing how much of the high-level game revolves around teleporting.
 

Zigmutt

First Post
did you clarify that the restrictions are levels? or CR? cause a fire giant with 20 levels of cleric is a huge force himself- much less 30 of them.

But if you did not clarify, I would have all the classes be clerics. To have heal and other such devastating spells at my disposal, the castle will not be usurped... As for feats- ranged touch feats and stuff that improves range attacks. That way, you can cast your melee touch attacks as ranged (like harm)

Plus, a kingdom of clerics, all devoted to one deity, you dont think that that deity will grace its walls with protection?

If not deity intervention, I would cast runes at the edge of the kingdom (or its far reaches) as early warnings. Every couple of miles or so, there will be a safe house where the peasant farmers can retreat to- which has an undergorund tunnel to the castle. Once the tunnel is used, it will explode and cave in. Once caved in, a contingency spell will rebuild the tunnel after 10 days of its exploding.

The fire giants will have a couple lackeys with them (for heal) and will be deployed to the outer regions to guard against scouts and small raids.

The mages will be on constant scrying of the boundaries- having like 10 at a time- and they would switch off (alarm system).

Scroll will be made in off-time so that the wiz and clerics will not run out of spells during the crucial battle. Wands will be crafted for the guards to use.

Avoiding battle is the best form of protection. If it does come down to a war, then may the best side win...

my tactics would be:

Necromancers are good for creating canon fodder- and things that can distract them- or just get in the way. And Summon spells are always good for bringing in strong allies- if not just to replace the people you lost.

"summon planar ally" and "greater planar ally"- dragons and angels at their disposal- all for a price. 25HD is nothing to laugh at...

and all else fails- release the tarasque...
 
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Zenon

First Post
mmadsen said:
It's amazing how much of the high-level game revolves around teleporting.

Yeah, it seems to be what keeps coming up in all our posts. How do I get them there and back fast, how do I protect against it.
 

Broken Fang

First Post
Crowe...your right...might need to send them with a scroll of teleport from a higher level caster.

Numion...that is an excellent way to go about it. Lure them into a trap. If you can wipe them all out you could proabably use it a few times. Until they commune or something to find out what happened.

BoEM...don't have it but if it has this stuff would be worth getting!
 

Crowe9107

First Post
I took the epic spell Origin of Speci
es: Achaierai
and juggled the numbers around to come up with my version of the Galleran Beastie---the Blue Steelhorn. It is smaller, but more rideable, I found that a true Half-Dragon/Bullette was a bit overpowered.

Origin of Species: Blue Steelhorn
Conjuration (Creation, Healing)
Spellcraft DC: 33
Components: V, S, DF, Ritual, XP
Casting Time: 45 days, 11 minutes
Range: 0 ft.
Effect: One constructed creature up to Medium-Size (20 cu. ft.)
Duration: Permanent
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No
To Develop: 297,000gp; 6 days; 11,880 XP. Seeds: conjure (DC21), life (DC27), fortify (DC17). Factors: +8 HD (5hp per HD)(+40 DC), +10 to natural AC (+20 DC), add three more natural attacks (ad hoc +6 DC), add DR 15/+1 (+14 DC), permanent (x5 DC). Mitigating Factors: increase casting time by 10 minutes (-20 DC), increase casting time by 45 days (-90 DC), 5 additional participants contributing 3rd level slots (-25), burn 500XP (-5 DC).

Devised by the Master of the Breeding Pits of Galleran, this spell literally creates a new creature: a Blue Steelhorn. When first created, the Blue Steelhorn is Medium-size, but it grows to Large size in 1d4 days. A created Blue Steelhorn does not possess the treasure, culture, or specific knowledge of a normal Blue Steelhorn. If released to be among its own kind, it quickly picks up Blue Steelhorn traits and alignment.

XP Cost: 500 XP.

I will post the stats for the Blue Steelhorn later, let me know what you think.

Re,

Carl Rowe
 

The_lone_gunman

First Post
Well First I have to say this is pretty damn cool stuff. A few comments though:

With the number of epic level creatures you have on the defending force (and I assume you have a similar number on attacker side or this will be over fast), you have a conflict on the scale of a small scale nuclear exchange between two superpowers in my opinion. This seems to me to be a nearly cataclysmic battle IMO.

Anyways, depending on the magical might of the defenders, since you have a place that you can retreat to, I would do this:

1). Gather all my spellcasters up and have them summon massive amounts of elementals, demons, undead, etc....whatever types of "expendable" creatures you can come up with, and simply send wave after wave of these into the enemy ranks. Constant, pressuring attacks to force the enemy to put its complete attention your way.

2) support this attack with precision attacks on specific enemy targets, in this order:

a) enemy spellcasters
b) enemy air units
c) enemy supply and logistic structure

3) The idea would be to provoke the enemy into attacking your fortress. Without seeing the terrain on the map it is difficult to do this, but here is how I would set it up if possible:

a) set up defensive positions around the fortress. Areas that you can constantly fall back to, basically a tiered defense.

b) Utilizing magic, use Hallucianary terrain and mass inv spells to position your fast moving troops on the flanks, and attempt to draw the enemy into a "fire sack". If you can get them to fix on your fortress, then flank them with your fast movers, you should be able to unleash hell into the firesack and demolish them. The key would be to ensure that they lose their eyes and ears (magic and flight assests) in the beginning attacks. If they do not attack you, simply continue to harrass them with expendable magic assests (if you get in trouble you can always fall back to your fortress).

4) some other "harrassing" attacks would be:

a) plague on the enemy army
b) highly specialized "strike" teams eliminating key players in the enemies army (high lvl generals, healers, and wizards)
c) Massive amount of "terrain adjustment". IE, if the army is split into several camps, take a large strike team, and use magic to alter the terrain to isolate them, then destroy the smaller forces with your overwealming strike team.
d) Magic altering of the weather to make the enemy army suck wind (blizzard in teh middle of summer would pretty much suck)


Just a few ideas I had here at work :).

TLG
 

Vurt

First Post
Overload the switchboard.

If the do-gooder response teams can handle 100 simultaneous ermergencies, force them to suddenly deal with 500, and then 1000. What happens when the person monitoring the instant communication has to deal with 10 calls at a time? Or the book suddenly has 30 pages of requests for help. The ball is going to get fumbled somewhere down the line, even if it affords the attacking evil an extra minute while the good guys fire off 10 teleports elsewhere with a higher priority. That's 10 times as many undead raised the rapid response team has to deal with when they finally do show up.
 

mmadsen

First Post
Damn! Gotta love the blue armoured Triceratops/Bulette things! That's thinking just like me! :)
I practically assumed you already had such a thing, SHARK. Isn't everyone already running around on Velociraptors, Mammoths, Woolly Rhinos, etc.? ;)
 

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