Excavating a City/Moving tons of sand (Brainteaser: Lots of Math/Physics needed)

[orcmonk220]

This may take a while but:

#1 Get a bunch of 1st level Gold Dwarf Druids with Terran as a language and cross-classes Knowledge (the planes) 1 rank
#2 Get them to take Elemental Companion from Complete Mage
#3 Take them out adventuring to roughly level 4, to their elementals become medium-sized.
#4 Take them back to the excavation site
#5 Put them elementals to work, shifting earth.
#6 Destroy walls of force and get through to the city via destruction of walls in whichever cruel way you see fit (hey, you've practically force-laboured loads of dwarves and their planar friends).
#7 Loot!
#8 Repent (optional).

.... What?



Chris

 

[Nail]

"Disintegrate immediately destroys it"... so I'd assume the whole Wall.

-Hyp.

That kinda nix-es the "airlock" idea, doesn't it?

 

[Hypersmurf]

That kinda nix-es the "airlock" idea, doesn't it?

Why? The OP specifies multiple walls, and the area of a Wall of Force is one 10ft square per level... so even at caster level 20, you're only having to seal off 200 square feet...

-Hyp.

 

[Pyrex]

Not necessarily. Assuming 20th level casters, each Wall of Force represents 20 10'x10' sections of wall. You just have to figure out where the overlapping plates are and build a big enough airlock.

Edit: (curses! beaten by seconds! )

You're off by a 0 there Hyp, 20 10x10 sections is 2000sqft.

 

[Nail]

Why? The OP specifies multiple walls, and the area of a Wall of Force is one 10ft square per level... so even at caster level 20, you're only having to seal off 200 square feet...

-Hyp.

Covering twenty 10x10ft squares makes for a rather big airlock.......and besides, the wall of force might be a higher level spell, that covers a larger area.

 

[Patlin]

Burrow underneath the city and then come up, disintegrating a wall of force towards the center bottom of the city. I don't think the sand is likely to rush up from beneath, but you could probably seal the hole behind you with stoneshape just to be sure.

Edit: On a reread, this was allready said, but it was buried amongst several good ideas in the same post...

 

[Hypersmurf]

You're off by a 0 there Hyp, 20 10x10 sections is 2000sqft.

True.

Covering twenty 10x10ft squares makes for a rather big airlock.......

Remember, an alternative was excavating the entire city...

It's small in comparison!

... and besides, the wall of force might be a higher level spell, that covers a larger area.

One that allows horizontal planes, too, presumably.

So we use a higher level Disintegrate, that can selectively zap holes in a Wall

-Hyp.

 

[Nail]

So we use a higher level Disintegrate, that can selectively zap holes in a Wall

Right.

If this were me (as DM), I'd have it set up that the "Wall of Force" is a large bubble, formed all at once by a high level spell with ritual casting times and multiple spell casters, yada, yada, yada.

Would a higher level Disintegrate work? Maybe so.

 

[Pyrex]

If I was an epic wizard crafting an epic Dome of Force covering two square miles of area I certainly wouldn't leave it vulnerable to a simple 6th level Disintegrate.

In which case we're back to my original suggestion:

Find the front door.

 

[Neijin]

Edited the original post; added more information



Bad Paper-The Move Earth spell explicitly says it can't be used for tunneling.
Javcs- Dim door shunting is a nice idea, but won't work. Incorpeality is barred as well.
Pyrex- The "front door" is rumoured to be a massive barred gate.
Hypersmurf- Please flesh out your airlock idea. How does one build tunnels through sand? I just thought about using "Sand to Glass" and then creating a passage in the middle that would go straight down.

All readers: I'd love to hear you ideas of how to excavate or raise the entire city in less than three months.