How to build a Wizard's Tower?

[tarchon]

You might want to start collecting skulls and bones for the decor.
Necromancers also tend to have it easy with the labor costs.

 

[Fieari]

True... and the exterior walls make up the bulk of the tower's price - about 10k of the 15k cost.

For some reason though they only give you a discount on walls until you are higher level and the castings required are sorta screwy as well...
Wall of Stone (9th lvl caster) -15% (48 castings)
Wall of Stone (12th lvl caster) -50% (72 castings)
Wall of Stone (16th lvl caster) free (72 castings)
Wall of Stone (20th lvl caster) free (30 castings)

Also, the walls would then be hewn stone walls (3' thick, 8hard/540hp).
edit- hewn stone walls cost 2.4 times what masonry walls do.

This info from the Stonghold Builder's Guidebook btw and pertains to the 15k tower I posted above.

That is odd... I just checked my copy and you're right. I think the thought here is that even though you're getting the raw materials for free each casting, at lower levels you don't have as much control in fitting it all together and shaping it perfectly, so you still need to hire workers to touch it up, and the lower your level, the more "touching up" needs to be done. At 16th level you're assumed to have enough control to not need any help in that regard.

Does that make sense?

 

[Thanee]

Best defense is to not leave any valuables inside!

Otherwise just some basic stuff so random bypassers can't get in.

Later you can think about more specific stuff, like teleport protection and so on.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Liquidsabre]

You might want to start collecting skulls and bones for the decor.
Necromancers also tend to have it easy with the labor costs.

Damn, good point. Well usually it's the barbarian who takes heads but I better start collecting, a try to lose my sense of smell btw. You know I bet many promising young necromancers are nipped in their budding prime by being arrested on trumped up charges of petty grave robbing crimes. Where's a good necropolis when you need one?

 

[tarchon]

Oh, and research a Wall of Bone spell too - you could probably make a case for it as a 5th level spell with a little more volume than Wall of Stone, since bone isn't quite as strong. I was thinking also of some kind of necromantic spell that assembles piles of bones into structures, but that would be a little more debatable than just altering one of the standard Wall spells slightly, I'd guess 4th or 5th level.

 

[Liquidsabre]

Sweet, that's a great idea for a new spell for a necromancer, though I'd be guessing conjuration may be the place for such a spell (ala summon undead spells, just summon undead wall!? ). Thanks for the great idea tarchon, I like it alot!

 

[DM with a vengence]

Okay, if I we're making a wizard's tower, or just a generally defensible structure.

If you're the DIY yourself type, Walls of Stone are probably the best bet, but if you don't want to spend a few months casting wall of stone, it may be in your interests to animate a few teams of undead workers and have your apprentices oversee them while you go adventuring.

Walls of Stone are good for basically shaping the tower, but not so much for the volumn. If you want historic 10' thick castle walls, either get your zombies to quarry stones and fill the thin walls you've put up, or just dump a lot of dirt in their, water with a Everflowing Bottle, and get the local druid to cast Transmute Mud to Stone. Make sure to put lead, or medusa's blood, or something in the mortar to block Scrys.

For rooms, you'll want a scrying room, summoning room, crypt, and the usual run of the mill storage and living area.

Being a necromancer, you should contract with the local Church of Evil to cast Unhallow on the area, and if you're the paranoid type, a Dimensional Anchor to block teleports. Some useful spells to have on hand (which you'll need to get through Limited Wish) would be Control Weather, to block armies, and Guards and Wards. G&W is especially nice if you have a maze or similar to really mess with your enemies. Your undead should be immune to the worst effects, so they'll be really effective.

For specific point defense, setting up Wall of Force traps to block doorways, as well as the usual run of the mill symbols and glyphs of warding as well as mechanical traps should be good. Make sure to get guards with Blindsight or Tremorsense to stop assassins, and have some areas only accessable to flying creatures.

And for feats, Craft General should let you build enchantments directly into your tower. A bonus to CL would be pretty useful. Hopes this help.

 

[Sledge]

Dont forget stoneshape. One level to go before you can turn that nasty looking cliff into a wizards tower. It would still take a lot of work, but with some engineering/architecture knowledge you could accomplish things very fast. Use the spell to actually cut gaps into rocks rather than to build something of stone. Expect to spend a week or two, but in the end you'll have a cool tower for free.

 

[silburnl]

As for opposed schools: Enchantment would be one that fits, as it is so heavily aimed at the living. Illusion maybe?

Those were the two opposing schools I picked for my recent "how to f*ck with the party's collective head" necromancer cohort. I'm hoping he'll survive the Paladin's outrage long enough to wheel out his profound philosophical objections to enchantment ('mind-rape') and illusion ('nothing more than lies and deceit - I cleave to the truth in all things'), but am resigned to the strong possibility that he'll get lynched before then.

Regards
Luke

 

[Liquidsabre]

Thanks for the suggestion on opposition schools Thanee, I was already considering Enchantment but wasn't sure about illusion but what's the point of being a necromancer unless you get to show off your scary decor!? So again, thanks and I opted to take those two schools as my opposition schools.

Thanks for the suggestions DMV! Especially on rooms, I hadn't gotten that far yet so that'll help get started there.

Hmm, stoneshape, I'll have to add that to my spellbook, thanks Sledge. It'll get me started and if I am able to find a fixerupper I'd even be able to *ahem* rearrange things a bit.