Assault on Pandemonium - Looking for Epic Spell

[andargor]

We are curently playing the Rod of Seven Parts, and our party level is around 24.

Our group is considering an assault on Pandemonium and the Citadel of Chaos with an army of perhaps 10,000-25,000 soldiers (perhaps more, we don't know yet). We don't hope to defeat the hordes of spider-demons we will encounter, the army being there as a diversion to allow our group to enter the Citadel of Chaos by subterfuge and retrieve the last piece of the Rod from the clutches of the Queen of Chaos.

Epic, no?

Our problem is twofold:

- How to transport the army to Pandemonium?
- How to protect them from the plane's effects?

I'm looking for a spell with a Spellcraft DC of 44 or less. Why 44? Because we use my epic spellcasting variant, and this equates to an 11th level spell. That's what I'm looking for.

This spell ideally would not have an XP cost to cast, nor backlash damage. However, we will have access to other high-level or epic casters to help us, so they can contribute spell slots in a ritual.

What am I envisioning is a gate-like spell with a large opening, say 100 ft. wide, that would last several hours, or days. The gateway could be unidirectional. This is actually a plus, since it prevents anything from crossing back to the Prime... And of course, the troops using the gateway would be protected (a.k.a avoid planar effects or planar tolerance that lasts a few days)

Any suggestions?

Andargor

 

[DanMcS]

Our group is considering an assault on Pandemonium and the Citadel of Chaos with an army of perhaps 10,000-25,000 soldiers (perhaps more, we don't know yet).

- How to transport the army to Pandemonium?

In the Dungeon adventure Incursion, about the githyanki invading the prime, the lich-queen uses gate spells to get her troops to the prime.

It works something like:
- Have them all line up in a column 4 men wide (the gate will have a 20' diameter.
- They run through in formation. 120 feet of column will make it through the gate a round, which is 24 men long by 4 men wide. You can keep the gate open for rounds equal to your level, so 24 rounds. Each gate spell will transport about 2300 men, and cost no XP. How many gate spells can you pull off?

Then you only need a spell that will ward them all from planar effects.

 

[sullivan]

He might also want to look into a Mass Charm spell capable of enthralling 10's of thousands of able bodied people that are willing to die in a foreign plane as cannon fodder.

 

[Jack Simth]

He might also want to look into a Mass Charm spell capable of enthralling 10's of thousands of able bodied people that are willing to die in a foreign plane as cannon fodder.

Oh, that's easy - you pay them, and give them a month's pay in advance (also don't tell them they have no chance!!! Important!!!!); when negotiating with my DM (he was planning a siege-type situation, us attacking, only level 2-3 for the smallish party), I started looking into hired mercs - he told me base was 2 sp/day, but that it struck him as way too cheap. I suggested that's for level-1 npcs, and that it would be reasonable for it to scale as most enchantment effects (base*level*level); he still thought it too cheap, so I suggested that it would be difficult, under most circumstances, to hire someone for a day (barring safe duty contractors - which warriors in a siege is most definately NOT), and suggested a month's minimum pay for soldiers (30 days). Also supplies for a month (trail rations are 5 sp/person/day) and a 20 level 1, 1 level 3(sergant, base 6 sp/day as a leader - one per 20 soldiers) worked out to 315 gp for food, 120 gp for soldiers, and 162 gp for the sergant; 597 gp total; round to 600 gp for miscealaneous expenses. As Trail Rations are "decent" food, and all a level-1 soldier would be able to afford is "poor" food (on his salary) my DM ruled that they would have very good morale.

A mercenary company is fairly expensive for the effect. Of course, 20 CR 1's and 1 CR 3 make for a ECL 9 by An Online Encounter Calculator I found)

For the Gate/Protection, just house-rule that any doubling of a standard spell, and/or combining of two standard spells makes a DC 5 per (cumulative; a combined, doubled spell takes 5 (combine) + 10 (2 5's for doubling)). Gate is standard, there is a hour/level adaptation spell in the Manual of the Planes, so a Gate with, say, a * 8 duration, with a *8 duration on an Adaptation spell for anyone who goes through the gate would make a DC of 35. Assuming a caster level of 43, the gate could stay open for 344 rounds, and the protections on the travelers would last 344 hours, or a little over two weeks.

 

[andargor]

In the Dungeon adventure Incursion, about the githyanki invading the prime, the lich-queen uses gate spells to get her troops to the prime.

That's interesting. A bit clunky but interesting. We should have a bunch of clerics able to cast 9th level spells, so it could be in parallel.

He might also want to look into a Mass Charm spell capable of enthralling 10's of thousands of able bodied people that are willing to die in a foreign plane as cannon fodder.

Oh, that's easy - you pay them, and give them a month's pay in advance (also don't tell them they have no chance!!! Important!!!!)

They're not cannon fodder.

I'm going to speculate here, because I don't know the exact composition of the army (yet).

The army is to be provided by the Triad, a lawful good organization headed by paladins, clerics and monks. From what I know, it's a professional army. So no commoners or simple warriors. At the least, the bulk of the army is made up of fighters. I fully expect a couple of thousand "elite" troops which are composed of mid-level paladins, clerics and monks. Their commanders are probably in the teens, and the generals epic or close to it. Other than the clerics, there is support from a contingent of wizards and sorcerers. Their composition is unknown, but we've encountered a couple that seem epic.

The bulk of the opposing forces will probably be Kakkuu spider-demons, a 4HD/CR6 beastie with a few nasty surprises. Their bosses are a mix of the higher level spider-demons, but I assume most will be in the Citadel guarding the Queen of Chaos and the last piece of the Rod (my group's main targets) with just a few to direct the hordes in the field.

So we want to establish a well-protected bridgehead on the plane and engage the enemy there, to attract attention, while we infiltrate the Citadel. We've been using discern location to verify the location of the last piece of the Rod, and will continue to do so up until the assault to ensure it is still there. Currently, the protection envisaged are a mix of dimension lock (since spider-demons can greater teleport at will) and zone of law (which is an epic spell I've developed, a mix of dictum and magic circle against chaos), plus of course whatever the clerics and paladins in the vanguard can set up.

On a side note, since there will be a large pool of paladins and clerics, they can participate in a ritual spell.

Andargor

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

That sounds really, really cool.

 

[ruleslawyer]

How long do you have?

You can create a portal, using the Craft Portal feat (FRCS), instead of using an epic spell. Now, technically, "any number of creatures can pass through the portal each round," but I'd say that's stretching things a bit. You can build a portal with a radius of 20 feet for a mere 100,000 gp. That makes it 40 feet wide at the widest point, easily wide enough to accomodate 16 men moving in close formation. The portal stays open as long as you like, and is one way by default, so no worries about bad things flowing back to the Prime through it. So, you can transport a force of 16,000 men in 1 hour 40 minutes, which is pretty good. If you have real money for this, you can build a 100' radius portal (80 men per round, or your attack force in 20 minutes!) for 500,000 gold. Now, this takes WAY too long by normal standards, but there are ways of cutting down on the time, including the Efficient Item Creation feat. That requires 100 days lead time, which is not bad. Moreover, you only have to have visited the destination once; no time there is required during portal creation. The problem is that you need two feats, one epic, to do this. Do you know an epic-level portal crafter, by any chance? Perhaps you have Halaster Blackcloak's number...

Otherwise, you're SOL using existing epic seeds. A possibility would be to use the mythal seed (see Lost Empires of Faerun), and create a mythal with just one power: A vanguard spell that works as a superior version of the plane shift spell, transporting the target creature to an exact destination on the desired plane. Assuming that such a spell is 8th level, the component cost is 8 x 15 x 25, or 3000. Divide by 1000, add to the mythal seed, and you get a DC of 28, which is darn easy. You need to allow the mythal to encompass an area large enough to include your army: 16,000 soldiers probably occupy a space of about 300,000 square feet, for a total radius of about 350 feet (generously). Assume +12 to the DC, for a total of 40. You can even make the mythal corruptible (you need it only once, hardly for 100 years), allowing you to multiply the DC by 3/4, for a total Spellcraft DC of 30. There's your mass planar travel spell, for super-cheap! Now, I wouldn't approve it, but your DM might!