So the scenario I'm building involves a high ish level spell Caster finding an item that let's him gaze into other planes, but he's worried something from those planes may come through. So he wants to be able to access the artifact, and/or ferry people to and from it, but if something comes out (whether while the wizard is present or absent) he doesn't want it to be to escape. What's actually going to come through will be the level 9 party, it turns out.
I was picturing a room without doors or Windows, which will turn out to be buried underground and only accessible with teleportation magic. (Buried about 300 feet down, so you can dimension door in and out, but won't know it's safe to do that if you just pop out with rhe spell if you just arrive there. That would be sufficient for most things... Unless someone has a borrow speed or teleportation abilities, and many outsiders have one or the other. Also, it occurs to me that a lack of air would be a problem for many things coming through, including the party. Wizard could solve that issue for himself with a simple spell or item, but I'm not sure how to feel about the party immediately suffocating upon entry.
While I could DM fiat the room to my needs, I'm wondering how a paranoid wizard could, using the rules as written, lock up such an item but still securely and still alow himself and his associates entry. Some sort of dimension lock you can bypass with a pass code? Thoughts?
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you could always have a contingent Dimensional Anchor spell for anyone that comes through. It allows a Save but fits thematically.
otherwise you could have him create a demi-plane and put the artifact there so even if something comes through they are stuck without planar travel.
only other thing off the top of my head are the protection from alignment type spells that prevent approach by beings of a specific alignment.
Forbiddance comes to mind, but it's a Cleric spell.
Dimensional lock also works, but the elegance and selectivity of unhallow/dimensional anchor is hard to beat.
That's actually perfect! Should be easy to get that cast, even if it isn't on the wizard list.
I've decided that the room won't have for them when they come in either. Simplest (and subtlest) way I could think of to do this was have the wizard port an animal or two in with food and water, then wait for it to use up all the oxygen and die of CO2 poison.
So now I'm figuring out what the mechanics for succumbing to CO2 poison should be. I'm thinking of using the suffocation rules, but over the course of 5 rounds. Once they fail their first save they become fatigued. Then if they fail another they become exhausted. Then another they pass out, and then dead in 3 rounds. (Party has the tools to save themselves, if they realize what's up, and death won't necessarily be permanent if the wizard finds their bodies.
The suffocation rules are funky though. They have rules for managing to hold your breath (which for some reason assumes they get a chance to DO that) and for actively suffocating, but not realizing that you are running out of air and what not. I'm thinking after a minute or two in the room, I ask them to start making fortitude saves, with increasing DCs. Set a time on my phone, have them roll new saves every 30-45 seconds real time, watch them start to panic to figure out what is wrong. ^_^