Help me defend an Elvish emperor

[RangerWickett]

I'd much prefer him to be a fighter. I mean, if they do get into a fight with him, I want him to be able to use all sorts of nifty combat tricks. I mean, he's an emperor and high-level, so he ought to be rich. +5 keen defending ghost-touch razorburst longswords with whirlwind attack. Maybe he could be Fighter 18/Paladin 2.

As for assassins, I won't consider doing this until the party actively gets violent against him. Right now the PCs are a low priority, even though he thinks they may have killed his daughter. There's been some campaign-specific events that have screwed with scry and sending spells recently, so he hasn't been able to keep tabs on them.

So, okay. Round the clock bodyguards, a sort of secret service of trained agents who go ahead of the Emperor, watching out for trouble. Extra elite guards who hover around nearby and are ready to take on any threats. Several contingency spells on these bodyguards, allowing them to jump onto the Emperor and teleport him to safety if he's ambushed, plus a contingency on the Emperor himself that if he's teleported, his new location will be sent to numerous allies. Finally, Shaaladel will have some manner of item that lets him teleport (and it also provides cold resistance, because of another campaign-specific thing that makes all teleportation spells try to freeze those affected).

 

[Steverooo]

Between

IFinally, Shaaladel will have some manner of item that lets him teleport (and it also provides cold resistance, because of another campaign-specific thing that makes all teleportation spells try to freeze those affected).

You've been reading McCaffrey's Pern again, haven't you? (No, that wasn't a typo... On Pern, when you go between, it is bone-chillingly cold!)

 

[RangerWickett]

Nope, no Pern. Though my game has been called a cheap rip off of Lord of the Rings. The PC who loves Shaaladel's daughter is obviously Aragorn (a human courting an Elf, and he even sings), the PC who was a lot like Boromir died at the end of last season, there's a twinkish Elf who dual-wields sickles and is a crack shot with a longbow, we have a powerful artifact that everyone's looking for, a PC wizard left the campaign after faking his death (Gandalf), and, most telling, we have a powerful old wizard who lives in a tower and is biomantically engineering warriors by combining different races, so he can have an army. They led a cavalry charge at the end of last season to try to stave off a huge army while a few PCs went to try and destroy the aforementioned artifact, and our Aragorn was rewarded with the title of Lord for his heroism (king will come next, no doubt).

Honestly, I don't consciously draw from anything. Certain parallels just seem to crop up.

I really hope they don't try to kill him yet. That will just end the campaign. But later, though, they might try and catch him off guard, in which case these defenses will prove useful.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Disinformation is always your best protection.

Body doubles, simulcra, having the servants sleep in the best bedrooms while the kind retires elsewhere, mapless corridors, a palace noone but the king knows all the secrets of, heavily guarded doors that guard nothing but more guards, hallways that shift direction, confusing mirrors and illusions, court pages who are really hired halfling assassins, guards in armor who are actually well disguised wizards and vice versa, walls that are actually tear apart doors....

I mean the simplest defense against scrying is to change the important places around so much that noone is familiar with them for more than a week.

That and the fact that he is a 20th level fighter. In the Al-Quadim thing that was also true and a large part of the defenses for public zones, such as throne rooms, was simply giving the king enough time to get buffed up to fight his own battles.

 

[RangerWickett]

It strikes me that, in a high fantasy world like a lot of core D&D is, it is hard to accept kings and such that aren't high level. I suppose if you have a long line of kings, the later ones might be more mundane folks, but the progenitors of these lines would likely all be very mighty in their own right, to have won the position of being in charge.

Simply put, George Washington would kick George Bush's ass in a fight.

 

[RangerWickett]

Okay, here's a new task for you. The Emperor is out leading his forces in war, conquering lands that are unclaimed since the fall of the Ragesian Empire. How does he defend himself when he's away from his palace, perhaps in the midst of a city of enemies? The good news is that it's harder to find him. The bad news is that he can't bring all of his crack bodyguards.

 

[Phaedrus]

When Hinkley shot Reagan the Secret Service threw him in the car, jumped on top of him, and got out of there fast.

The Emperor, when travelling, has his elite bodyguards with him at all times. If something happens, they surround him and the emperor activates his Word of Recall spell/item (or one of his guards does it) and he's back home in the midst of his wards.

Perhaps he has a group of elite fighters that look like him (either naturally or magically-altered) to pose as doubles (a la Sodamn Insane in Iraq). When he teleports out, one of them steps into his place. Perhaps he trusts them completely and allows them to command in his absence. Perhaps they have a means of communication to stay in touch with one another constantly (that explains how he is in more than one place at a time and always knows more than you think he would).