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A trap on a book
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7231671" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>The real difficulty is not how he traps the book, but how he intends his proper heir to be identified. He'd want to be super reliable. One very super-reliable way to do this is employ some utterly lawful creature that has supernatural knowledge to identify the heir by blood. That is to say, an outsider with divination powers or other supernatural knowledge could by inspection validate the heir as the true heir and be compelled to stay at this job until the true heir arrived. That way someone couldn't simply steal a signet ring or a key and pretend to be the heir. You'd have to be the heir in truth, because a powerful outsider would be in a position to know who you really were. If the true heir arrived, then the outsider could provide the heir with the information he needed to bypass the traps, and if not then the outsider could simply stand aside and let the false heir get themselves killed. An archon or an inevitable could probably be compelled to perform such a function. There are probably other less reliable but still important ways that you'd also use in conjunction in case your worried that they could trick the outsider, but I don't know enough about this wizard or what assumptions he'd make about his heir to suggest any.</p><p></p><p>Note of course that the outsider would be instructed to avoid any sort of combat, because if the outsider is killed then you've lost your heir identifying mechanism. If not an Archon, your helpful outsider might be willing to help anyone claiming to be the heir, pretending that they are the true heir, but give false information to the ones that are not. Archons of course cannot deceive anyone willingly, that being against their rules.</p><p></p><p>Obviously, in this case, the best way to bypass the trap is simply to do whatever you need to do to identify yourself as the heir successfully. </p><p></p><p>The second difficulty that the wizard has is that he does not wish to harm the book. So you wouldn't want to flood the chamber with fluids or blast everyone with fire, because it could presumably overcome protections on the book and ruin the book. You wouldn't want a crushing room trap because you might smash the book, particularly if you have a case where they manage to get the book off before setting off the trap. So the traps in question have to target creatures specifically and do no harm to paper. For example, a dehydration trap that removed water from the targets in the room, a compulsion or suggestion, energy or ability drain, disease infliction like mummy rot, poison gas, and so forth all are perfectly safe to have around a book. Also, the trap should trap the false heir in with the book. Does you no good to lose the book while killing the false heir. A symbol of fear (thus no saving throw) in or below the book that causes the person viewing to panic in to the otherwise easy to bypass spiked pit traps leading up to the room is very secure and effective, but might harm the book. Probably you need a good reset mechanism for putting the book back as well, and the aforementioned outsider would be well suited to that.</p><p></p><p>Additionally, the wizard has the risk that his heir will make some mistake or otherwise trigger the trap. You want to be careful about leaving lethal death traps around that instantly kill your heir if an accident occurs. Yet the trap also has to reliably drive off anyone who isn't the heir.</p><p></p><p>Finally, since this is a game, you have a problem that the wizard does not - the Wizard doesn't care whether setting off the trap is 'fun'. But you have to not be too devious, because some of the truly devious traps I can think of would not be particularly fun. For example, if it were me the way I'd do this was convince anyone that wasn't the heir that they'd successfully read the book, but in fact they had read a completely false entry in what may well have been a false book. If it were me, I'd put the false book in plain sight with a suitably convincing level of protection, but place clues only the true heir would understand in places that would lead to the conclusion this is not the real book. Indeed, I'd make the real book not look like a book at all, or hide it in a stain glass window or a mirror or a painting that the party would need to reach into to get the real book. (And of course the real book would have an even more devious trap associated with it). It's amazing how easily the party will dismiss things that have writing on them that don't look like a book if they have the mental image of a 'book' in their head. Then I'd have this false information send any false heir off on a carefully constructed wild goose chase that would end in their certain death. Ideally the false book can be read far more easily than it can be stolen, leading to no need to reset the trap, but again if reset is needed then a suitable outsider can probably do a major creation to recreate a book and dutifully write the false information into it whenever it needs a reset. But we want to avoid super clever and super annoying. If you can figure out a way to make losing and going on a wild goose chase fun rather than annoying, then that's find but be careful with that.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7231671, member: 4937"] The real difficulty is not how he traps the book, but how he intends his proper heir to be identified. He'd want to be super reliable. One very super-reliable way to do this is employ some utterly lawful creature that has supernatural knowledge to identify the heir by blood. That is to say, an outsider with divination powers or other supernatural knowledge could by inspection validate the heir as the true heir and be compelled to stay at this job until the true heir arrived. That way someone couldn't simply steal a signet ring or a key and pretend to be the heir. You'd have to be the heir in truth, because a powerful outsider would be in a position to know who you really were. If the true heir arrived, then the outsider could provide the heir with the information he needed to bypass the traps, and if not then the outsider could simply stand aside and let the false heir get themselves killed. An archon or an inevitable could probably be compelled to perform such a function. There are probably other less reliable but still important ways that you'd also use in conjunction in case your worried that they could trick the outsider, but I don't know enough about this wizard or what assumptions he'd make about his heir to suggest any. Note of course that the outsider would be instructed to avoid any sort of combat, because if the outsider is killed then you've lost your heir identifying mechanism. If not an Archon, your helpful outsider might be willing to help anyone claiming to be the heir, pretending that they are the true heir, but give false information to the ones that are not. Archons of course cannot deceive anyone willingly, that being against their rules. Obviously, in this case, the best way to bypass the trap is simply to do whatever you need to do to identify yourself as the heir successfully. The second difficulty that the wizard has is that he does not wish to harm the book. So you wouldn't want to flood the chamber with fluids or blast everyone with fire, because it could presumably overcome protections on the book and ruin the book. You wouldn't want a crushing room trap because you might smash the book, particularly if you have a case where they manage to get the book off before setting off the trap. So the traps in question have to target creatures specifically and do no harm to paper. For example, a dehydration trap that removed water from the targets in the room, a compulsion or suggestion, energy or ability drain, disease infliction like mummy rot, poison gas, and so forth all are perfectly safe to have around a book. Also, the trap should trap the false heir in with the book. Does you no good to lose the book while killing the false heir. A symbol of fear (thus no saving throw) in or below the book that causes the person viewing to panic in to the otherwise easy to bypass spiked pit traps leading up to the room is very secure and effective, but might harm the book. Probably you need a good reset mechanism for putting the book back as well, and the aforementioned outsider would be well suited to that. Additionally, the wizard has the risk that his heir will make some mistake or otherwise trigger the trap. You want to be careful about leaving lethal death traps around that instantly kill your heir if an accident occurs. Yet the trap also has to reliably drive off anyone who isn't the heir. Finally, since this is a game, you have a problem that the wizard does not - the Wizard doesn't care whether setting off the trap is 'fun'. But you have to not be too devious, because some of the truly devious traps I can think of would not be particularly fun. For example, if it were me the way I'd do this was convince anyone that wasn't the heir that they'd successfully read the book, but in fact they had read a completely false entry in what may well have been a false book. If it were me, I'd put the false book in plain sight with a suitably convincing level of protection, but place clues only the true heir would understand in places that would lead to the conclusion this is not the real book. Indeed, I'd make the real book not look like a book at all, or hide it in a stain glass window or a mirror or a painting that the party would need to reach into to get the real book. (And of course the real book would have an even more devious trap associated with it). It's amazing how easily the party will dismiss things that have writing on them that don't look like a book if they have the mental image of a 'book' in their head. Then I'd have this false information send any false heir off on a carefully constructed wild goose chase that would end in their certain death. Ideally the false book can be read far more easily than it can be stolen, leading to no need to reset the trap, but again if reset is needed then a suitable outsider can probably do a major creation to recreate a book and dutifully write the false information into it whenever it needs a reset. But we want to avoid super clever and super annoying. If you can figure out a way to make losing and going on a wild goose chase fun rather than annoying, then that's find but be careful with that. [/QUOTE]
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