(Cydra Rogues' Gallery-My Players STAY OUT)

Well, in my Great Conflicts SH there was a request for some spoilers as to 'what's next' for the high-level group.

Just a hint or two...

The party plans to assail the Bastion of Law again next. Unbeknownst to the pcs, the Bastion is uniquely vulnerable right now, with one of the Arrows of Law destroyed. But the others have a plan to replace Asmodeus, and meantime they are going to guard the BoL with the most serious force they can muster.

So, next up is an assault on the Bastion.

I've been heavily brainstorming the defenses that the forces of Law are going to use, but I have quite a ways to go before I'm actually ready to run this one- I've been doing tons of work on the low-magic game lately, but after the third major adventure of that group (which I'm hoping will take the party to about 4th level) I'm gonna hit the epic game running again for a bit. I'll most likely alternate 'arcs' for a little while- the low-magic 'intro' arc, followed by the epic 'Bastion' arc, etc.

Now, I'm definitely open to suggestions or ideas regarding the Bastion's defenses... a combination of magic, technology and creatures. Oh, and the potential to make the entire party join up with the forces of Law! (This happened to one long-dead pc already, a long time ago... in the Bastion of Law's first appearance imc.)
 

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I have been thinking about this, in particular the nature of modern magical warfare, and on the nature of lawful warfare.

Firstly I think you need to split the defenses into 2 categories. 1) Defenses for the common group troops, 2) Defenses against magical and supernatural attacks.

Defenses against foot soldiers can be as simple as orcs with rifles and low level mages with wands.

The second category is much harder to defend against. I would expect a Forbiddance stopping teleportation, layerd walls of force protecting from below ground, the air, and the walls, the ability to bring anti-magic to bear quickly.

I would expect Law to have excellent lines of communications, logistics, and proper triage set up. I expect they would use thier dominating Navy to block supplies and reinforcements to the forces of Chaos.

The aerial battle to me is the most interesting - who has the edge? What air defenses are in place?
 

Hmm, let me give you an idea of the basic layout of the Bastion of Order as I have always conceived of it.

First, there are seven interconnected demiplanes at work here, with layers of various defenses. Straight out warding against teleportation isn't always a good idea, as it can leave your own people in trouble when they need to escape (or arrive) in a hurry. I'm prolly gonna use a combination of forbiddance on sensitive areas, special keyed dimensional locks, teleport traps to direct incoming people into areas from which they can be easily dealt with, etc. The walls have thin lead sheets in them, preventing divinations from penetrating from one area to another, stopping attempts to pass through earth and stone, etc.

The exterior is guarded against most physical assault by some tough defenders- possibly constructs? Maybe even a dragon in disguise?

The interior is split into seven distinct 'realms,' one per Arrow of Law. If an Arrow falls, that realm is pretty well sealed off. This also throws the entire Bastion's 'balance' off, making it possible to overthrow it (which can only be done by a creature not from the great battle that takes place every day on the Field of Battle).

I intend to use the assault on the Bastion as an opportunity to pull out the epic monsters I normally don't get to use (cause they just aren't wandering around the world everywhere- they're pretty rare!). It should be good for a laugh.

Oh, and one more thing from my 'in progress- BoO' file:

CREATING A SUBLIME GUARDIAN

“Sublime Guardian” is an acquired template that can be added to any creature without the Chaotic subtype. Except where noted here, the sublime guardian uses all the base creature’s statistics and abilities.

Size and Type: The creature gains the Lawful subtype.

Speed: The sublime guardian gains an increase of +10 feet to its speed in all movement modes that it possesses.

Armor Class: The sublime guardian’s natural armor bonus increases by +4. If the base creature has a deflection bonus to AC from an innate source, this bonus also increases by +4.

Special Attacks: A sublime guardian gains the following special attack forms:

Conformance (Su): 1/day, the sublime guardian can use a special ability that causes all randomness to fall away as the odds of success determine everything in a 60’ emanation from the sublime guardian. In addition, all Lawful beings within the area gain a +2 luck bonus on all rolls while all Chaotic beings suffer a -2 luck penalty. The conformance effect lasts for one round per point of wis bonus that the sublime guardian has. While it is in effect, any time the sublime guardian or its allies attempts an action that requires a roll of 11 or lower on a d20 it automatically succeeds; if it requires a natural 12 or more to succeed, it fails. Enemies of the sublime guardian automatically succeed at any action that requires a 10 or lower to succeed, and automatically fail on any action that requires an 11 or higher.

Smite Chaos (Su): 1/day per point of wis bonus, the sublime guardian can declare a normal attack to be a smite chaos attempt. This grants an attack bonus equal to the sublime guardian’s wisdom bonus and deals one extra point of damage per HD or point of Cha bonus of the sublime guardian, whichever is greater (to a maximum of +35).

Spell-Like Abilities (Sp): A sublime guardian gain spell-like abilities based on its hit dice, as determined by the table below. A sublime guardian’s caster level is equal to its hit dice or its wisdom bonus, whichever is higher. Unless otherwise noted, the sublime guardian can use its spell-like abilities 1/day. All save DCs are wisdom-based.

HD---Spell-Like Abilities Gained
1-3---Detect chaos at will, protection from chaos
4-6---Hold person, order’s wrath 3/day
7-8---Discern lies 2/day, dispel magic
9-10--Crusade, defensive harmony
11-12-Dispel chaos
13-14-Dictum, greater dispel magic
15-16-Heal 2/day, mass hold person
17+---Mass charm monster, shield of law 2/day

Special Qualities: A sublime guardian gains the following special qualities:

Blindsense (Ex): A sublime guardian’s perceptions are sharpened so that it can perceive unseen things around it in a radius of 10’.

Damage Reduction (Su): The sublime guardian gains DR 5/chaotic if it has 5 HD or less (include all class-based HD in this calculation). If it has 6 to 12 HD, it instead gains DR 10/chaotic. If it has 13 to 24 HD it gains DR 15/chaotic; and if it has 25 or more HD it gains DR 20/chaotic. If the creature already has damage reduction, it keeps the higher number before the slash and connects all required properties with an ‘and,’ even if they were connected with an ‘or’ before. (For example, a sublime guardian gulgar gains DR 10/adamantine and chaotic, while a 12th-level fighter barbed devil (total HD 18) gains DR 15/chaotic, good and silver.)

Immunities (Ex): A sublime guardian gains immunity to mind-affecting effects and glamers. (Note that this means that it can see invisible creatures with ease.)

Overcoming Damage Reduction (Ex): A sublime guardian’s natural weapons, as well as any melee weapons it wields, are treated as magic and lawful for overcoming DR.

Spell Resistance (Su): The sublime guardian gains SR equal to its Hit Dice +8.

Abilities: Increase from the base creature as follows: Str +6, Dex +2, Con +4, Wis +10, Cha +6.

Skills: A sublime guardian gains the following racial bonuses to skills: Concentration +10, Listen +10, Sense Motive +10 and Spot +10.

Feats: A sublime guardian gains Alertness, Endurance, Final Strike and Iron Will as bonus feats.

Challenge Rating: HD 5 or less, as base creature +2; HD 6 to 14, as base creature +3; HD 15+, as base creature +4.

Alignment: Always lawful.

Level Adjustment: +5
 

All right, we're getting back to this group soon and I need to start doing a ton of work for the game. I'm probably going to run one or two 'warm up' sessions before the Bastion of Law, but then it's on.

So I've got a lot of work to do, basically. :)

So here's what I have in mind so far:

updated improved clockwork horrors
orcish guns mounted in some areas
paragon (something?)
formians, including those observer guys that give cumulative bonuses to everyone
Cluma riding Sautix


Anyone got any particularly cool ideas for me?
 

Ahh, and inevitables.

Are there any new inevitable types I haven't seen? I know the ones in MM and FF... and MotP, but they've been updated into the MM 3.5...

What other champions of law are there? Justicators (MM3)... more archons in BoED (blech, but I'll use some of the monsters in there, such as the sword archon, where appropriate)... formians from the FF... devils... what else am I missing?

Of course, the orcs of Valonia with their guns; and the Galadorian folk... but what else? I want a good variety, including some neutral (vs. lawful or chaotic) creatures that are there to help overcome anti-lawful stuff. Is there something really appropriate for that end of things? Not rilmani, I don't think- this is not about compromise at all! :)
 

One thing to bear in mind is that I tend to run a status quo game, so I can't justify having everything in the Bastion be CR 21+. There will prolly be multiple encounters with groups of CR 10s or thereabouts- for instance, maybe an encounter with 10 orcish pistoleers at CR 10 each.

These encounters have multiple purposes.

1. They allow the lower-level guys in the party a chance to shine, since more foes typically means that they'll be around for a few more rounds.

2. They give the lower-level guys more of a chance to catch up xp-wise, since the highest level characters may not get xp for them (although I'll typically extrapolate lower and lower xp values for them from the charts, or else group them- i.e. treat every 2 CR 10 monsters as one CR 12 monster or something, so the highest-level pcs will likely get a pittance).

3. They add verisimilitude to the game. As I said above, I often have decided a long time in advance what's in a given area- it doesn't really matter when the pcs arrive. For example, Bile Mountain was first established (vaguely) as having one or more beholders in it in about 1996, and there's a hugely ancient (like, a million years old) dragon on Strogass who is probably the toughest thing I can think of in my campaign world (well, possibly excepting Galador, Bleak and other gods of very high divine rank).

So don't constrain your ideas to epic monsters (although those are fine too)!

Also, traps, strategy ideas, and ways to highlight the orderliness of the Bastion. (For instance, there will be a lot of symmetrical areas.) In fact, the strict lawfulness of the Bastion of Order may serve as a sort of back-end weakness; there will likely be a certain level of predictability to the early parts of it.
 

Random thoughts:
* How about a variant Forbiddance that is only sensitive to ethos rather than a specific alignment. If the area is not visible (okay, except to arcane sight and such) then that could also help low-level defenders channel attackers.
* Feel: Lot of sharp corners, edges, planes. Perfect circles, but no half-measures here.
* Strict standing orders to help repel attackers combined with high sycronized mobility. Some opponents may be mere CR10s or so, but at that level you do start seeing DDoor at will and teleport at will. You might have a dozen creatures like avorals (I know NG, but bear with me) appear via tport at the end of a hall, fire off a volley of empowered magic missiles, then tport away on the next turn, at the same time that another 12 tport in behind the attackers and do the same thing. The group that tported out went straight to a place where 12 heal-at-will creatures touch up any injuries. Rotate like this with four-plus groups, plus the fact that they all look alike, and you could get some big hurt on people. No one without decent SR is going to like getting hit by 12 magic missiles every round from opponents that just keep coming back.
 

Hmm, some good ideas there Greybar! :D I especially like the 'four person teleporting strike team' idea.

Here's one npc I'm debating how to design: a high-level disciple of Asmodeus. With the death of his patron, he's offered his services to the Bastion.

What I'd like to do with him is make him a high-level spellcaster... 8th or 9th level arcane spells would be nice. Part of my vision is that he's from another material plane; this avoids the whole issue of justifying why the pcs haven't heard of him before. I am also debating making him a tiefling.

If he has 10 levels of DoA, he loses 4 caster levels. This means (assuming he's 20th level and no higher) that he tops out at 8th-level spells. Though this is okay, I would like to squeeze 9th-level spells into him; however, the 10th-level DoA special ability is pretty tough to pass up, so I'm on the fence on that one.

Anyway, I'm looking for ideas on how to create a cool villain from this prestige class. Though I like the idea of using 9th level spells, I'm open to other options- i.e. making him a rogue/wizard/DoA or something.

Ideas?
 

I like the background note even more in terms of consequences for actions. I'm sure there are a lot of powerful beings that worked with/for Asmodeus that have a tough choice: bow to Lucifer and hope he doesn't swat them for playing for the wrong side, or run really fast to find a new patron.
 

Greybar said:
I like the background note even more in terms of consequences for actions. I'm sure there are a lot of powerful beings that worked with/for Asmodeus that have a tough choice: bow to Lucifer and hope he doesn't swat them for playing for the wrong side, or run really fast to find a new patron.


Yeah, that's one of my things- I really like to have the pcs see the repercussions of their actions. ;)

Any ideas for a build, though...?
 

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