30th-level PC versus kingdom--who wins?

[WayneLigon]

I'm utterly unfamiliar with the Epic rules, but I'd say such destruction would last up until on average he's hit with the 20th thing of poison gas - at some point he'll roll that '1' and then go unconcious - at that point, a kid with a dagger kills him. Or he fails against some touch/aoe spell that doesn't need to bother with getting past his AC and is paralysed.

Otherwise, yeah even if he's a fighter he'll massacre everyone in most cities until you get about 10 guys rush him at once and overbear him to the ground regardless of his AC.

 

[WayneLigon]

There you go. An infinite titan loop. On round two, the entire universe has been filled with titans (if a gated creature acts immediately). Otherwise, you just have an eternal army of disposable titans.

That would be an immediate service in which case he returns to his home plane the next round. Then, since I'm pretty sure at 30th level that you are pretty well known, the Titan might even know your name. He bamfs back to his home plane the next round and tells his 55HD daddy to Gate you in. Wizard head smushing commences.

 

[green slime]

Sure, (anti-)heroes of sufficient level can conquer towns, villages, and even nations.

It is a fact that no one lives in a vaccuum. By doing so, they attract attention of others. Political power consisits of far more than just having the biggest fireball on the block. Then there are other values important within a society as well. For the sake of stability, trade must be allowed to flourish, popular religions tolerated, and allies humoured.

While a high level spellcaster may have the metaphysical power to achieve his will locally while present, how faithful are his followers when it really comes to the crunch? How many will try to usurp his power base, mismanage affairs in his name, corrupt his government, and provide assistance to the opposition-in-exile? How wise a ruler is he? How many people can the spellcaster personally scry upon in a day?

 

[Delta]

Any campaign that had a 30th level PC should have many more higher level NPCs. Because if it's possible for one player character to progress that much, surely many others have as well, some presumably even more so.

I disagree. By that reasoning just substitute any number N for the level and say "there should be many more higher level NPCs" --> end result, there must be infinite-level NPCs in any world.

More reasonable is to pick some "highest level" for your campaign world when you start out. If the PCs advance past that level, then recognize the fact that they're the most powerful figures in the world.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

If your going for PC's with no gear at all, than you are going to need a caster hands down.

But I think that an epic level warrior type with the epic feats granting flat damage reduction, and an item with sufficient fast healing could get the job done, albeit a great deal slower.

An epic fighter with Damage Reduction 20 and Fast Healing 20, and otherwise typical equipment for level 30 could do the job against a by the book kingdom lacking the services of opponents of CR 20 or greater.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Griffith Dragonlake]

That would be an immediate service in which case he returns to his home plane the next round. Then, since I'm pretty sure at 30th level that you are pretty well known, the Titan might even know your name. He bamfs back to his home plane the next round and tells his 55HD daddy to Gate you in. Wizard head smushing commences.

But as a unique being, the wizard isn't under a compulsion to enter the gate right?

Even so, I wonder how often a 21st+ level party has to deal with gates popping open calling various members of their group? Ah the price of fame and fortune.

 

[Canaan]

The biggest issue is defense against a scry-buff-teleport-assault once you get past the town level.

The best defense against that is anticipate teleportation, greater from Spell Compendium or a dimensional lock or enlarged dimensional lock coupled with a greater alarm spell. ATG gives you time to buff and prepare or leave. DL can cover a great enough area that you can buff and prepare when the little chime sounds in your head. There's also some great anti-scrying spells in some third party sources, namely Book of Eldritch Might. Of course, there's always mind blank!

 

[robertliguori]

I'm utterly unfamiliar with the Epic rules, but I'd say such destruction would last up until on average he's hit with the 20th thing of poison gas - at some point he'll roll that '1' and then go unconcious - at that point, a kid with a dagger kills him. Or he fails against some touch/aoe spell that doesn't need to bother with getting past his AC and is paralysed.

Otherwise, yeah even if he's a fighter he'll massacre everyone in most cities until you get about 10 guys rush him at once and overbear him to the ground regardless of his AC.

Common sense would dictate this. Common sense, however, is predicated on our experiences in this world. D&D completely and utterly stops simulating this world at about level 6.

For one thing, high-level or highly-optimized D&D avoid the situations in which massive numbers of rolls are necessary, for exactly that reason. Once you will only fail a save on a '1', you have a situation where you have a .95^n chance of surviving n effects in a row. If you're going to be experiencing a lot of n, you need to replace that high save with an immunity. This isn't hard; there exists magic that can render you completely immune to poison and grappling pre-epic.

Also, remember that the condition of the challenge don't involve the challengers necessarily surviving. The champions of nation X don't just need to kill the challengers; they need to do so before the challengers can blow the world to hell. This is a much more difficult proposition.

 

[pawsplay]

A cleric of 15th level can destroy a settlement of arbitrarily large size. All that is necessary is a single casting of greater create undead to create a shadow in a highly populated area of the community. Each shadow can kill dozens of people by draining strength, and each death raises as a shadow within 1d4 rounds. Within hours, a city could turn into a wasteland populated by 10,000 shadows.

An ambitious evil cleric could accomplish the same thing at 8th level by commanded a wight, or at 6th by commanding a shadow. A 3rd level wizard or sorcerer could cast command undead to take control of a single shadow or wight.

If the perpetrator wishes to survive the undead apocalypse, invisibility to undead would be a useful spell.

 

[roguerouge]

Again, as other posters have noted, it depends on the DM. The undead bomb is a nice theory, but a DM who creates a living world that's alive to how similarly DnD functions to the real one in the face of significantly different dangers is going to change matters. Any nation of sufficient size and longevity is going to have contingency plans in its bureaucracy for a LOT of these kinds of shenanigans; the same goes for the church of LG gods. If I were the DM, I'd rule that once word got out of an infestatation of undead, those contingency plans, strike squads, and scry and teleport emergency plans go into action.

Winning battle does not equal winning the war.