Setting Someone Up the Bomb

[Hammerhead]

Our group is going to be pursuing a McGuffin in Xendrik, and we know that after we find the McGuffin, the bad guy is going to try and steal it. The majority of the group cares far more about hurting said bad guy than doing anything with the artifact. So, we thought that it would be awesome if we "trapped" the McGuffin so that it would destroy itself, exploding or whatever, hopefully destroying or hurting the bad guy and his army of evil minions.

In a modern game, this would be easy: C4. In D&D, it's a little harder. What kind of spells or such we can use to booby trap an object to destroy it and everyone around it once it's opened or used. Note that we don't have the years required to make a cool trap, or the expertise. But we can handle 7th level spells or lower pretty easily. Thoughts or ideas? I'm afraid that I'm not privy to many of the details about said McGuffin, or the bad guy's capabilities.

 

[AntiStateQuixote]

Our group is going to be pursuing a McGuffin in Xendrik, and we know that after we find the McGuffin, the bad guy is going to try and steal it. The majority of the group cares far more about hurting said bad guy than doing anything with the artifact. So, we thought that it would be awesome if we "trapped" the McGuffin so that it would destroy itself, exploding or whatever, hopefully destroying or hurting the bad guy and his army of evil minions.

In a modern game, this would be easy: C4. In D&D, it's a little harder. What kind of spells or such we can use to booby trap an object to destroy it and everyone around it once it's opened or used. Note that we don't have the years required to make a cool trap, or the expertise. But we can handle 7th level spells or lower pretty easily. Thoughts or ideas? I'm afraid that I'm not privy to many of the details about said McGuffin, or the bad guy's capabilities.

Explosive Runes? Maximized and/or Empowered?

 

[Wraith Form]

Explosive Runes? Maximized and/or Empowered?

Exactly. I don't have my PHB right now (I'm at work) but what about Power Words?

 

[Zaruthustran]

Complete adventurer had magical mines and alchemical explosives.

Otherwise, you could go with a scroll of Mordenkainen's Disjunction. But it probably won't work. And if it does, be aware of this tidbit (from the same spell):

Note: Destroying artifacts is a dangerous business, and it is 95% likely to attract the attention of some powerful being who has an interest in or connection with the device.

-z

 

[SteelDraco]

Easiest would be a Greater Glyph of Warding with a spell glyph of something nasty - Finger of Death or Disintegrate would both work. Any spell of up to 6th level can be dropped in there, to take effect as though cast on the target when the glyph triggers. If you can think of something particularly cruel to do to them, by all means, be inventive. There's an article in a recent Dragon magazine about Greater Curses; that might be a fun place to look for effects to put in the glyph.

Flesh to Stone and an Alarm spell (silent version) would be a good choice, too, so that you can find 'em and teleport to the baddie when they get the item. If you want to make sure they never come back, make a Permanent Mordenkainen's Sanctum at the bottom of the ocean, toss the statue in there, and then bury it in coral. They're gone.

 

[Slife]

Barrel of explosive runes + 1 dispel magic trap at lowest possible CL. You'll set off most of them, and 6d6 force damage w/ no save per rune adds up fast.

Cost of single shot area dispel magic trap made by a level 6 wizard

50 gp × caster level × spell level

50 gp X 6 X 3 = 900 gp

The trap takes 1 day per 500 gp of the cost to craft. So if you can delay for almost two days, you're in the clear

You can probably provide the needed Alarm and Dispel magic spells yourself. But for maximal destruction, buy the dispel magic from the trapmaker.

Alarm - Spell, 1st-level Caster level(6) × 10 gp
Dispel magic - Spell, 3rd-level Caster level(6) × 30 gp
240 extra GP to the cost.


Access to 7th level spells implies at least a level 14 wizard
14 spells of 3rd level or higher/day. Not counting metamagics (which would up the damage by a lot), and assuming you spend the two days preparing the trap by making explosive runes in all your slots, you have 28 explosive pieces of parchment in your custom dispel magic box.

Dispel checks are 1d20 + your caster level
The caster level for dispel is 6th.
The DC it has to beat is 11 + the spell’s caster level.
Assuming a level 14 wizard again, that's a DC of 25.

The dispel will only work on a 20 or 19.

Rounding up, that means 3 explosive runes will be dispelled. So we have 25 spells that deal 6d6 damage, no save, to anyone who's close enough to read them.

150d6 force damage should be enough, but in case the baddy is within 10 feet, but not within reading distance, and assuming he makes all 25 of his reflex saves for half, he's still taking over 250 damage on average.



Of course, you may not have two days to prepare.