Don't let them escape! (How to lock down a city?)

[Gundark]

an area spell on the palace (which may already exist in order to prevent teleporting assassins, come to think of it) that will prevent her from teleporting out.

I think this is a pretty realistic option to have anti-teleporting magic already on the castle/city. Somebody already mentioned that stone thingy from a FR book. In a place where magic works there would need wards and magical counter measures put into place. She can't teleport because of this. I don't have a PHB (or any rulebook for that matter handy) but I could see something like this being placed over all the city (can't teleport armies/monsters in that way). Right there you have eliminated her getting out of the city option. Is this for a group of player characters? This could make a darn good adventure.....must steal idea....

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

I think this is a pretty realistic option to have anti-teleporting magic already on the castle/city.

True. And, even better, there are certain places in the city where that ward has been relaxed - either legally or illegally.

For instance, a powerful wizard's guild might have applied to the crown for a license to open the ward in their specially constructed, heavily warded summoning / teleportation chambers. Likewise, the Royal High Magister possesses a ring (the focus of the ward?), which allows him to ignore it.

Perhaps a thieves' guild has come upon a way to temporarily open holes in the ward for the smuggling of extremely illicit materials.

The race is now on - she's likely got her scrolls of teleport, and now she needs to make it to one of the voids. The party in chase needs to lock them all down as quickly as possible, which might mean tipping their hand to the theives' guild that they've known, all along, about the smuggling ...

 

[The_Universe]

Somebody already mentioned that stone thingy from a FR book.

Can anyone confirm what book this is in?

 

[Gundark]

True. And, even better, there are certain places in the city where that ward has been relaxed - either legally or illegally.

For instance, a powerful wizard's guild might have applied to the crown for a license to open the ward in their specially constructed, heavily warded summoning / teleportation chambers. Likewise, the Royal High Magister possesses a ring (the focus of the ward?), which allows him to ignore it.

Perhaps a thieves' guild has come upon a way to temporarily open holes in the ward for the smuggling of extremely illicit materials.

The race is now on - she's likely got her scrolls of teleport, and now she needs to make it to one of the voids. The party in chase needs to lock them all down as quickly as possible, which might mean tipping their hand to the theives' guild that they've known, all along, about the smuggling ...

Also too she has to have flunkies to back her up. Who are they? where are they? The theives guild knowing about a hole in the ward is a likely option. I think I like a race through the sewers to the rift in the magical ward. The fight would of course to keep her from getting to the open spot and teleporting. However it could also be an interesting twist to have a wizard from the said wizards guild be helping her.This wizard was promised power, etc when the new group comes to power. This wizard is in a position of trust and when the notes of the Aritificer reveal a second McGuffin goes there to obtain it (blackmail/ransom/whatever). Thus the climax is to keep the wizard from destroying the McGuffin and allowing the kingdoms enemies to overun the capital. The problem is how to involve said troubleshooters (the PCs) into the mix quickly?

 

[BlackMoria]

I will check my books when I get home later today. Offhand and going off of my swiss cheese memory, I think it was The Shining South supplement.

 

[painandgreed]

In one of the "seige" threads back a week or two ago, the poll to if defensive postions put you at a disadvantage against a similar force, mentioned some spells that stop teleport in their example of a large assault on a castle. i didn't recognise them and never checked up on the spells and can't do it now.

 

[The_Universe]

I will check my books when I get home later today. Offhand and going off of my swiss cheese memory, I think it was The Shining South supplement.

That's a good place to start. By all means, let us know if you confirm your suspicion!

 

[The_Warlock]

It doesn't appear to be on Bastion Press's website anymore, but the early on the posted a spell/article about a mile radius teleport ban spell (9th level) that was specifically designed for laying siege in a magical world. I'll look it up on my file archives when I get home...

EDIT: AH-HAAA! I found it:

http://www.bastionpress.com/Past_columns/column4.htm

 

[Umbran]

Okay, here's a big question that might make the thing easier - is the Enemy sure he wants to toss out this particular agent? She's in on a powerful council of the Kingdom, and while that spy may be less important than the McGuffin, she's herself represents a resource that isn't to be thrown away lightly. I respectfully submit that the Enemy might try to have it's cake and eat it too, and attempt to get the McGuffin without blowing her cover.

That means she cannot disappear just when they notice the McGuffin is missing. She wants to have an alibi. So, the Eleven go looking for her, and the find her! She's clearly frantically trying to cast divinations to find the McGuffin (which she has either hidden or handed off to a flunky).

Now, all heck can break loose. She has to recover the McGuffin and get it to her real masters. The Eleven are searching for it. The flunky can run into outside problems, and the McGuffin wind up in a third party's hands, and so on. If the two McGuffins are identical, certain divinatuion magics will give ambiguous or nonsensical answers when searching for it, and so on.

This reduces our nigh-impossible chase after a teleporting mage into a more merry dark comedy of errors chase through the city. Far better meat for an adventuring party, no?

 

[cthulhu_duck]

Can anyone confirm what book this is in?

According to the crystalkeep.com index of 3.5 Magic Items, it's in the Player's Guide to Faerun, page124 - the WeirdStone - 250,000 gpv, blocks dimensional travel spells in a 6 mile radius sphere.