00argopile's page

Awesome! Thank you for taking the time to check that out for me!

Here is the scenario:
Opponent casts deeper darkness on both of us. As a caster I need line of sight to target him. Would echolocation, via blindsight, grant me line of sight to my opponent?

00argopile wrote:

The realm below is a magically ravaged area from some previous epic conflict. I will have several nations camped out below in hopes of finding a way to conquer the city and use it for whatever nefarious hijinks they have planned.

You should develop this further than "air people good, ground people bad". Yes, the peoples below should have agendas of various kinds, but the island should have interactions with the nations below. The relationship with each nations is different. Some change over time, some are outright bad. Some nations have something to offer the island, others don't. Regardless, the island has things that every nation wants.

An island with a massive city will have very limited sustainability, even with magic. Of course you could cover everything with magic, but a game whose problems are all solved with NPC magic doesn't sound very interesting. The farmers provide the freshest crops, but cannot feed the entire city. The city purchases crops from below and maintains granaries. The city craftspeople must pay high prices for materials obtained from the island, as the stone, metal, and wood is in very limited supply and it is necessarily for it to remain in place for the island to remain intact. An island with no outside interactions could grow culturally stagnant. The wealthy islanders bring in exotic things from far off lands, such as pets, fabrics, artwork, and literature.

You can introduce a political aspect to the game by introducing a handful of diplomats and merchants from the nations below and from other lands. None of them are to be completely trusted, but some have more transparent agendas (I'm here to make money) compared to others (I'm here to under peaceable pretenses to infiltrate the government and allow my homeland to invade and take control).

You are 100% right. The temptation is high to just solve it all with magic, but it becomes a rather dull environment. I really like the diplomats idea, I will use that. It should really let me color the interactions between nations.

I'm slowly getting an idea of how to work out commerce and trade, and I'm pretty sure I am including Airships in this world. Thank you all for the suggestions and please keep them coming!

00argopile wrote:

It wouldn't need much area outside of the city as farms and livestock(?) could go in the subterranean sections.

You could also revert the concept by saying that since farmlands are vital, and landmass limited, the upper side of the floating island is reserved for crops and other agricultural avenues.

As such, rather than being built upward, the city is actually built downward, trough and under the land, with towers hanging below like stalactites, and giving its inhabitant a constant view (and reminder) of what they left and lost.

00argopile wrote:

The more I look at dimensional anchor area effects, the more I think this may be the way to go, which is a shame as I had enjoyed the idea of a guard force that could scry the city and pop in on trouble makers at will. But if I want to keep opposing armies/assassins out, I may have to shut it all off. Ah well.

If you want your guards to still be able to teleport whenever they want in the city (or in their assigned district), you could use the same trick than the Spellguard of Silverymoon (D&D 3.5 PrC). Each guard possess a Token. As long as he has the token in is possession, the guard can cast spells that are normally blocked by the city wards (in the case of the spellguard, it's summoning, fire and teleportation spells, but you could adapt it as you wish).

That way, your city guards have a big home advantage : They can pop in, possibly also use powerfull battle magic; and the criminals/invaders can't. That it unless someone manage to steal enough token to setup a small attack...

00argopile wrote:

For criminal offenses I am thinking of going with 3 tiers of punishment, fines -> mindwipe -> bound, gagged, and tossed off the edge. No prisons, space is precious after all....

Could you define "mindwipe" ? If it is wiping the mind of the acts (and possibly reasoning), it wouldn't make them less susceptible of recidive. And if it's more of a personality wipe, that's pretty harsh. Harsh enough that I wouldn't be...

Starting at the top,

Yeah that was kinda what I was thinking. But I love the visual concept of towers reaching into the sky with no mountains in the backdrop, just endless sky. On the other hand I think I like the idea of towers that hang down "like stalactites". This has the added benefit of allowing more potential interaction with the lands below. Something to think about for sure.

The token concept is perfect. It lets me have the effects I wanted and allows for potential shenanigans and story hooks. Fricken brilliant. I'm using this.

The idea of mind-wipe comes from a series of books I recently read in which a city of mages would selectively wipe traits that they didn't like out of their populace. The worst punishment was to banish people into the wasteland surrounding the city, where death was considered certain. This was kind of what I was thinking, tho it would be mostly for flavor. Tho if my players are acting out...

And LOL at the...

Wow! I didn't anticipate such an exceptional turnout! Thank you my peoples.

There are quite a few good ideas to roll with, I am still digesting them.

Let me answer a few questions. The landmass is not exceptionally high, perhaps a half mile? It is rather large however, I'm intending a proper metropolis on it, population of a half million or so.

It is composed of 13 districts, each a city in its own right, each run by a governor that answers to a council of mages. Magic is VERY common in this world. Down to magical light switches that trigger orbs of light in each room and dials to trigger magical ambient heat or a cooling wind. Communication over distance is fairly common and simple. All magic, no tech. No guns.

It wouldn't need much area outside of the city as farms and livestock(?) could go in the subterranean sections.

I don't think it will have movement. Control weather type effects will be common which should prevent windstorms from sending it willy nilly.

The realm below is a magically ravaged area from some previous epic conflict. I will have several nations camped out below in hopes of finding a way to conquer the city and use it for whatever nefarious hijinks they have planned.

I really like the idea of a permanent portal to the elemental plane of water in the center of the landmass. I am going to use this.

The more I look at dimensional anchor area effects, the more I think this may be the way to go, which is a shame as I had enjoyed the idea of a guard force that could scry the city and pop in on trouble makers at will. But if I want to keep opposing armies/assassins out, I may have to shut it all off. Ah well.

I think I will simply have the city council prohibit all forms of flight, give the guard force boots of flight to enforce the prohibition, maybe instill a little bit of oppression.

For criminal offenses I am thinking of going with 3 tiers of punishment, fines -> mindwipe -> bound, gagged, and tossed off the edge. No prisons, space is precious after all.

Airships is a solid idea, and would add an interesting 3 dimensional element to the world. Undecided on this, but I am very tempted.

Stolen Chunks of Elemental realms might be the way to go as far as explaining how the city stays up. And I like the idea of pissed off elemental baddies f~~&ing with the city for revenge.

Thoughts?

Greetings!

I am next up in my group to DM a campaign, and I have decided I wanted to do a somewhat enclosed urban setting on a floating landmass/city, so that is the base of my setting. I am making the city fairly massive in scope so that there is plenty of different areas to mess around in. I am also making magic very common in this game.

I have come across some questions that I'm sure my players will bust me on, so I am looking for better and/or more informed imaginations to help me define this concept better.

Some examples:

How does the city get it's water? Could it have rivers?
What would weather be like?
Could they grow crops on the landmass over the long term?
How could a large metropolis regulate flight, teleportation, and other non-standard travel methods on a city wide scale?
How would trade with other nations, ground based or floating, work?

In some cases I could pull out the arbitrary " its a magical world" card, but I would like to have well reasoned answers.

What do you all think?

Hello all,

I play a lvl 10 arcane sorcerer. I have a fairly generic build, I tend to use summons and rays for the most part.

We are limited to the Core Rulebook and the Advanced Players Guide

We (my party and I) have started coming across enemy casters with relatively high SR more and more often. They tend to have high AC and either Blur and/or Mirror Image up as well. As I have just hit level 10 and have a 4th and 5th level spell to pick out, as well as a replacement option to use, I am looking for suggestions for vs SR targets.

My current spell list is as follows:

1
mage armor
charm person
shocking grasp (prime candidate for replacement (magic missle or mount))
shield
enlarge person
feather fall
grease
floating disk

2
scorching ray
mirror image
invisibility
hideous laughter
glitterdust
alter self
pyrotechnics

3
summon monster 3
fireball
dispel magic
fly
haste
slow

4
summon monster 4
dimension door
confusion
enervation
???

5
???

Suggestions?

Thanks in advance!