1) Explosive runes do force damage, which does full damage to objects.
2) Explosive runes detonate when read or after a failed dispell attempt (Most allow the original casters to "auto fail" on this roll, but if not just use a wand with a low caster level). WIth dm caveat they also detonate when damaged by another source (like another exploding explosive runes within the 10' blast zone)
3) I would require an engineering check to determine placement. The higher the check the fewer the runes you need because of good placement.
4) I don't have any actual math, as I am not that good, but I would allow the 10' squaare hit by the explosive runes to be effectively obliterated and based "destroyed" on how many squares are hit.
School: abjuration [force]
Level: sorcerer/wizard 3
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Components: V, S
Range: touch
Targets: one touched object weighing no more than 10 lbs.
Duration: permanent until discharged (D)
Saving Throw: see text
Spell Resistance: yes
You trace mystic runes upon a book, map, scroll, or similar object bearing written information. The explosive runes detonate when read, dealing 6d6 points of force damage. Anyone next to the explosive runes (close enough to read them) takes the full damage with no saving throw; any other creature within 10 feet of the explosive runes is entitled to a Reflex save for half damage. The object on which the explosive runes were written also takes full damage (no saving throw). You and any characters you specifically instruct can read the protected writing without triggering the explosive runes. Likewise, you can remove the explosive runes whenever desired. Another creature can remove them with a successful dispel magic or erase spell, but attempting to dispel or erase the explosive runes and failing to do so triggers the explosion. Magic traps such as explosive runes are hard to detect and disable. A character with the trapfinding class feature (only) can use Disable Device to thwart explosive runes. The DC to find magic traps using Perception and to disable them is 25 + spell level, or 28 for explosive runes.
If it were me and time permitted, I'd sap the foundation.
Got a bard? No? Get one.
The Depths of the Mountain masterpiece
Perhaps you can't find a bard. Well no matter, use this spell. Since you're probably around level 10ish if you want to destroy a castle tower, as long as the blocks weigh less than 100 each, you should be good.
Kegs of gunpowder could do the trick. Light a fuse and RUN.
Spawn of Yog-Sothoth (From Carrion Hill module) is a CR 10 aberration from the dark tapestry. They have an ability that does something like 4d6+26 points of damage against a building, as a full-round action. Bind one of those.
But Shatter is probably your second best bet. It's a DC 20 Knowledge (Engineering) check to figure out the weakpoints to a building. Use that, then Shatter them.
But the master piece is probably your best bet.
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Minor Creation. Unliving vegetable matter (no I'm not talking corn zombies here as much fun as that could be), we want crop dust. Lots of it, inside the tower. Then use Spark.
You know what scratch that -- hire a level 1 flunky wizard as an apprentice and have him cast spark on the dust.
Have you ever seen a dust explosion? Nasty stuff, don't be near it. Oh and write a letter to your apprentice's parents when you are done -- it makes you seem like not such a bad guy when you use those little touches.
Have an earth elementalist cast Wall of Fire and swap the damage type to acid. It's duration is concentration so have him stand there concentrating a couple minutes. When the blocks start dissolving, the tower will come down.
Elemental spell feat can also swap to acid.
Minor Creation. Unliving vegetable matter (no I'm not talking corn zombies here as much fun as that could be), we want crop dust. Lots of it, inside the tower. Then use Spark.
You know what scratch that -- hire a level 1 flunky wizard as an apprentice and have him cast spark on the dust.
Have you ever seen a dust explosion? Nasty stuff, don't be near it. Oh and write a letter to your apprentice's parents when you are done -- it makes you seem like not such a bad guy when you use those little touches.
I'm a city boy. Exploding corn powder? Can you explain to me what crop dust is and why it explodes? Though the first part may very well make the second part obvious.
I'm a city boy. Exploding corn powder? Can you explain to me what crop dust is and why it explodes? Though the first part may very well make the second part obvious.
Here's the Wiki
If you've ever heard of a thermobaric weapon, it's a similar principle. IIRC, the first episode of "Star Trek: Enterprise" included a corn silo explosion that was caused by an energy weapon igniting the crop dust.
I'm a city boy. Exploding corn powder? Can you explain to me what crop dust is and why it explodes? Though the first part may very well make the second part obvious.Minor Creation. Unliving vegetable matter (no I'm not talking corn zombies here as much fun as that could be), we want crop dust. Lots of it, inside the tower. Then use Spark.
You know what scratch that -- hire a level 1 flunky wizard as an apprentice and have him cast spark on the dust.
Have you ever seen a dust explosion? Nasty stuff, don't be near it. Oh and write a letter to your apprentice's parents when you are done -- it makes you seem like not such a bad guy when you use those little touches.
Essentially, it's very fine particles of starchy (or otherwise flammable) material. When it mixes with air in the right ratio and distribution, it becomes a form of fuel-air explosive. (It doesn't really explode, but enough oxygen is available to each little speck that they can essentially burn all at once, rather than needing to burn though the pile, as would happen if you just set a mound of corn on fire.)
Historically, it's been a hazard of grain silos, flour mills, sawmills, and coal mines. Wiki link.
I'm a city boy. Exploding corn powder? Can you explain to me what crop dust is and why it explodes? Though the first part may very well make the second part obvious.Here's the Wiki
If you've ever heard of a thermobaric weapon, it's a similar principle. IIRC, the first episode of "Star Trek: Enterprise" included a corn silo explosion that was caused by an energy weapon igniting the crop dust.
So the dust burns so quickly is causes an explosion. That's cool. I think I'll use that.
You could throw a bag of holding in a bag of holding.
Or
Break a Staff of the Magi. 50/50 chance that your character is wiped form the face of the earth.
A staff of the magi can be broken for a retributive strike. Such an act must be purposeful and declared by the wielder. All charges in the staff are released in a 30-foot spread. All within 10 feet of the broken staff take hit points of damage equal to 8 times the number of charges in the staff, those between 11 feet and 20 feet away take points equal to 6 times the number of charges, and those 21 feet to 30 feet distant take 4 times the number of charges. A DC 23 Reflex save reduces damage by half.
The character breaking the staff has a 50% chance (01–50 on d%) of traveling to another plane of existence, but if she does not (51–100), the explosive release of spell energy destroys her (no saving throw).
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Side note: Tiny Coffee Golem's technique with the <i>explosive runes</i> was used to amazing effect in my old Savage Tide game for a certain stone head. I don't recall how many dice of force damage were thrown from multiple <i>explosive runes</i> going off, but I think the counting up took a few minutes. And the kitchen floor.
You could throw a bag of holding in a bag of holding.Thanks for the great input all! But...what happens when you put a Bag of Holding in another?
It's more of a joke than anything else. Back in 2nd or 3rd edition: As a way of preventing people from carrying around an infinite amount of gear there was a rule that you can not put a bag of holding inside another bag of holding. It was said that doing so would create a black hole or rift in the material plane and suck everything with in the area into an other dimension.
Not sure that this is still a thing but I do remember my 2nd edition ranger killing a beholder in this manner.
I'm a city boy. Exploding corn powder? Can you explain to me what crop dust is and why it explodes? Though the first part may very well make the second part obvious.Minor Creation. Unliving vegetable matter (no I'm not talking corn zombies here as much fun as that could be), we want crop dust. Lots of it, inside the tower. Then use Spark.
You know what scratch that -- hire a level 1 flunky wizard as an apprentice and have him cast spark on the dust.
Have you ever seen a dust explosion? Nasty stuff, don't be near it. Oh and write a letter to your apprentice's parents when you are done -- it makes you seem like not such a bad guy when you use those little touches.
Here's a small scale demonstration using flour. There were several people killed in a grain silo explosion just the other day. There's a photo accompanying the article that shows some of the damage to the structure.
Got a bard? No? Get one.
Other than that web site, what is the source of that bard spell/ability/whatever it is? What Pathfinder book was this published in?
I believe it's in Ultimate Magic.
If it were me and time permitted, I'd sap the foundation.
Removing some of the probably-less-than-hardness-16 soft earth underneath the tower was my first thought, too. You would think summoning an earth elemental would be handy, but I don't see anything in their description about actually moving earth or digging.
Kobolds come with Profession: Miner skill ranks. You might try hiring some of them if a bunch of dwarves or gnomes aren't handy.
If sapping isn't feasible, like if the tower is built on stone or muddy swamp land, maybe try and hire, cajole, charm, manipulate something big into knocking it over. Like a giant, cyclops, troll, dragon. This might be tougher than it sounds, though.
Does your world have alchemists? Could you find one willing to sell you some high-quality explosives?
I am surprised that noone has mentioned the obvious - spamming rock to mud spells on the load bearing foundation stones like the corner of the tower. At some point, the loss of support and gravity will do the work for you as the tower collapses in on itself.
It's not as easy to setup as you think. Like you can't carry a bag of corn flour and detonate it like a sack of dynamite. What is needed is a saturation of dust in the air. You pretty much would have to fill the building with it and seal it almost air tight.
So the dust burns so quickly is causes an explosion. That's cool. I think I'll use that.
Nay, nay, good sir. Drum of sawdust+road flare+ well timed burst of air=this
Get a bigger amount, a well-timed Gust of Wind spell, mebbe some stone shapes to close the openings, and sell Michael Bay the movie rights.
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I am surprised that noone has mentioned the obvious - spamming rock to mud spells on the load bearing foundation stones like the corner of the tower. At some point, the loss of support and gravity will do the work for you as the tower collapses in on itself.
I was going to call this out too, but the spell does specify that you can't topple large buildings with it, although this might be talking about a single casting of the spell
I am surprised that noone has mentioned the obvious - spamming rock to mud spells on the load bearing foundation stones like the corner of the tower. At some point, the loss of support and gravity will do the work for you as the tower collapses in on itself.I was going to call this out too, but the spell does specify that you can't topple large buildings with it, although this might be talking about a single casting of the spell
Then go with Stone to Flesh. Same effect, no mention of big buildings being largely immune. I'd imagine bricks of meat aren't great at load bearing.
I fail to see how you came up with a hardness of 16.
I fail to see how you came up with a hardness of 16.Well, if 15 inches of stone equals a hardness of 8, I presume 30 inches of stone equals 16, no?
Incorrect; hardness is a flat determiner of how hard an object is to break without relation to size. The size of an object determines its hit points therefore how much power it takes to destroy it. Make no mistake, a 30-inch-thick piece of stone would take a lot to bust through (many hit points, since they're usually measured per inch of thickness), but regular stone wouldn't exceed hardness of 8. Using Wall of Stone as a reference, the hardness would remain 8, but a 30-inch thick section would require 450 hit points to break through.
It's hardly practical, but my favorite solution would be using the Shrink Item spell on several large metal (steel, mithral or even adamantine) "picks" that you could lodge in the walls while shrunken, then increase them with the command word. Suddenly, they become four thousand times larger, causing what I would presume to be massive damage as tons of stone are forcibly shifted around by the growth of items within that have a higher hardness rating. This could also be set as a time-delay, since the spell would expire naturally after a number of days, by which point the assailant would be long-gone.
I fail to see how you came up with a hardness of 16.Well, if 15 inches of stone equals a hardness of 8, I presume 30 inches of stone equals 16, no?
No. Look at "three foot of hewn stone" (on the table) hardness of 8, 350 HP.
Minor Creation. Unliving vegetable matter (no I'm not talking corn zombies here as much fun as that could be), we want crop dust. Lots of it, inside the tower. Then use Spark.
You know what scratch that -- hire a level 1 flunky wizard as an apprentice and have him cast spark on the dust.
Have you ever seen a dust explosion? Nasty stuff, don't be near it. Oh and write a letter to your apprentice's parents when you are done -- it makes you seem like not such a bad guy when you use those little touches.
Where have I seen this before?
(No offense meant to Abraham, just noting once again how wizards are jerks, especially to their lower level counterparts.)
Minor Creation. Unliving vegetable matter (no I'm not talking corn zombies here as much fun as that could be), we want crop dust. Lots of it, inside the tower. Then use Spark.
You know what scratch that -- hire a level 1 flunky wizard as an apprentice and have him cast spark on the dust.
Have you ever seen a dust explosion? Nasty stuff, don't be near it. Oh and write a letter to your apprentice's parents when you are done -- it makes you seem like not such a bad guy when you use those little touches.
Where have I seen this before?
(No offense meant to Abraham, just noting once again how wizards are jerks, especially to their lower level counterparts.)
None taken -- I was suggesting a jerk like activity for a fictitious character all in the name of funsies.
So "Stone-to-Mud" says it wonts work on large buildings? What if you pile on the metamagic feats?
Also, "polymorph any object?" A "masonry-to-beef-tallow" spell could work.
Or call/summon/bind an earth elemental of sufficient size.
High level druid: "Earthquake", "Reverse Gravity" or "Clashing Stones." That last one may need to be repeated a few times.
So "Stone-to-Mud" says it wonts work on large buildings? What if you pile on the metamagic feats?
Also, "polymorph any object?" A "masonry-to-beef-tallow" spell could work.
Or call/summon/bind an earth elemental of sufficient size.
High level druid: "Earthquake", "Reverse Gravity" or "Clashing Stones." That last one may need to be repeated a few times.
Soften Earth and Stone and Transmute Rock to Mud only affect natural, uncut, unworked, etc stone.