Putting this out there for some assistance from the community:
We are defending an underground temple. I'm looking for effective countermeasures against evil outsiders that don't require a lot of class consumable abilities. We are expecting a massive invasion of relatively high level demons and their allies -- We have no real numbers.
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Protection against evil, the spell "prevents bodily contact by evil summoned creatures" so if the demons are summoned you can just laugh at them faces, or at least give you good defenses against them.
Spear of purity spell from the cleric list is good low level spell against demons. Also if you are the defenders you can place some explosive runes here and there.
Set up a bunch of cold iron traps.
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Level? Resources? Party composition? Time frame? We're going to need a little more information to go on.
The Map is essentially Rappan Athuk's 2nd Temple of Orcus, but the two side entrances to the temple have been filled in with rock, so there is really only one entrance that is open -- the one to the north.
Levels is 17-19, Party Composition is extremely varied. Timeframe is about 6 hours of available prep time. We have two 19th level mages, A 18th level tactician, 19th level cryptic, about 15 15th level under equipped paladins (do not rely on equipment here). Two underequipped 15th level clerics of Thyr, 4 Ghaele Azata's, One Brijidine Azata, and a Star Archon.
We have forbiddence already in place and a area of effect teleport redirect effect that has the potential to have us control any teleportaitonal effects.
The temple itself is underground. We will need to hold off this force for approximately 14 hours before our hallow spell is cast and we at that point will have converted the old temple of orcus into a Temple of Thyr.
There will also likely be a lot of accompanied undead -- especially numerous incorporeal types for harassment purposes.
Set up a bunch of cold iron traps.
Cold Iron traps. Interesting. Anything more specific?
Note: the demons won't be "summoned" spefically, more like called. So protection from evil likely won't protect against massive numbers of them.
Out of curiosity, does anyone have a damage range for an undead or outsider that has been totally immersed in holy water?
Set up a bunch of cold iron traps.Cold Iron traps. Interesting. Anything more specific?
Note: the demons won't be "summoned" spefically, more like called. So protection from evil likely won't protect against massive numbers of them.
Out of curiosity, does anyone have a damage range for an undead or outsider that has been totally immersed in holy water?
Come now, do I really need to make suggestions? Just watch a Home Alone movie, you're the fun loveable PC main character and the break and enter bubbling thieves are fiends from the abyssal sluice.
Pit trap with cold iron spikes
Door slightly ajar with a bucket of holy water resting on top of it
Room that locks itself and begins playing that radio song "Demons" over and over until they all automatically take the effect of the Explode Head spell.
See if you can use the bathtub full of holy water to then summon water elementals.
The item Ghost Powder (Occult Adventures): does anyone think it would be beyond the power of a wish/miracle (or a few) to have that effect infused in the very walls of the temple? See that this is a good barrier to incorporeals, so if they try to invade through the walls, they'll be unable to enter via incorporeality, and if they enter into open space, they won't be able to escape via the walls either and potentially avoiding attacks.
Incense of Incorporeality (Occult Adventures) can be used as a trap as well, but they need to be lured out of the walls first.
Like what was said before, your brijidine is your best friend. First, cover up all openings with walls of stone, then slowly but surely fill in all but the most important rooms with stone shape. Avoidance is key. You do NOT want to be fighting the entire time. Get some illusions going. Stay out of sight, and focus on mending breaches. Control the battlefield. Some of you can be invisible for long times? Get a well-hidden, well-defended route to the outside, and let them go outside and keep watch for where they are almost breaking through on.
Here's something that'll sound really silly and dumb, but...
Marbles and cold iron caltrops.
Okay, so if you have a crapload of cold iron caltrops, you're forcing enemies that walk on them to move at half speed. That gives you an advantage. And I don't think many creatures (including demons) regularly train their Acrobatics skill, so marbles could make some enemies trip and fall down and shenanigans. The enemy might get smart and use Gust of Wind to blow this stuff away, but it'll slow the Horde down momentarily at the least.
Basically, marbles + caltrops is a classic middle finger to anything forced to walk on land trick. Since the rampaging horde probably doesn't know what "slow" means, they'll just bulldoze through this stuff like idiots and fall down and bleed in the feet. You could possibly make Vicious Caltrops instead of regular Caltrops, too, though that'd be more expensive. But a +4 attack bonus on the Cold Iron Vicious Caltrops might be worth it. And, y'know, you can always cover them in holy water.
Remember that for each 5 foot square covered by caltrops the enemies have AT LEAST a 1/20 chance of being damaged and slowed. Likewise, while some enemies have points in acrobatics (like the Balor and Shadow Demon), others (like Succubi) have none. And even some of those that do (the Shadow Demon in this case) still have a chance of tripping and flailing thanks to a bad Acrobatics roll.
(Seriously, just imagine a big, spooky shemhazian toppling over and flailing after slipping on some marbles.)
Also, could you fashion some Holy Water sprinklers on the ceilings or poking out from the ground?
The item Ghost Powder (Occult Adventures): does anyone think it would be beyond the power of a wish/miracle (or a few) to have that effect infused in the very walls of the temple?You could just wish for some ghost powder, right?
if ghost powder is sprinkled in front of every entrance (including chimneys, air vents, and the like) of a building, it prevents incorporeal creatures from entering the building through the walls, floor, and ceiling in their entirety.Just sprinkle some in front of the only entrances, then cover it up with stone shape so it won't be disturbed.
Also remember that just having walls more than 10 feet thick prevents incorporeal creatures from passing all the way through them.
That is a decent short term solution, and I have considered it. But these opponents have been known to burrow from other areas in the dungeon into the room and attack from that entrance. Having it infused in the walls themselves solves that eventuality.
Like what was said before, your brijidine is your best friend. First, cover up all openings with walls of stone, then slowly but surely fill in all but the most important rooms with stone shape. Avoidance is key. You do NOT want to be fighting the entire time. Get some illusions going. Stay out of sight, and focus on mending breaches. Control the battlefield. Some of you can be invisible for long times? Get a well-hidden, well-defended route to the outside, and let them go outside and keep watch for where they are almost breaking through on.
I've been doing this very thing. If you can picture the map, there are 15' stone walls covering the east and west enterances. The unworked stone rooms to the north east and north west have had their entrances filled over -- with all walls at least 15' thick. The eastern corridor to the bone room and the teleportational mazes have all been filled in with rock to mud/mud to rock.
The main north/south hallway has had it's divider torn down, and the chip corners at the northern intersection have been smoothed out so that there is no cover except into the hallways to the east and west.
I've used brown mold in the unworked NW room and covered that entire area so that anyone that arrives in that room will be hit with 27d6 of non-lethal cold damage right off the bat. The teleport redirect will help keep them there.
Hallow + Dispel Evil.
They are holding off the invasion while Hallow is being cast.
Dang it I missed that. Forgot the long Hallow time.
Wait wait wait - They have access to WISH (and limited Wish), just use that to mimic Hallow, so it's 1 round to cast, not 24 hrs.
However I acknowledge that's cheating the spirit of the concept.
They are holding off the invasion while Hallow is being cast.Dang it I missed that. Forgot the long Hallow time.
Wait wait wait - They have access to WISH (and limited Wish), just use that to mimic Hallow, so it's 1 round to cast, not 24 hrs.
However I acknowledge that's cheating the spirit of the concept.
The GM (with the support of myself, and the other players) have a "dungeon exception" in place regarding Hallow due to the link between these temples and the big bad at the bottom of Rappan Athuk that this particular tactic won't work.
If this were the case, we'd have been up and gone 30 hours ago (game time) -- we've already disconnected the Temple from the BBEG, what we are trying to do now is re-consecrate it to his Arch Enemy -- and destroy one of his minion's minor artifacts to attain mythic status.
This seems to have angered him (the BBEG) for some reason.
The GM (with the support of myself, and the other players) have a "dungeon exception" in place regarding Hallow due to the link between these temples and the big bad at the bottom of Rappan Athuk that this particular tactic won't work.
If this were the case, we'd have been up and gone 30 hours ago (game time) -- we've already disconnected the Temple from the BBEG, what we are trying to do now is re-consecrate it to his Arch Enemy -- and destroy one of his minion's minor artifacts to attain mythic status.
This seems to have angered him (the BBEG) for some reason.
Makes sense.
I'm currently running RA myself (I'm the GM), and that sounds like something the party would do.
Speaking of the possibility of tunneling, does anyone know if there is a way to detect that or other seismic activity if it is ongoing?
The problem with tremor sense is it's limited range. Was hoping for something a bit more long distance.
You said 15 15th level paldins. It sounds to me like your set to face off with demons right there. Smite chain!
I'm looking for something that allows us to take away the element of surprise from the invading army.
If we can get them while they are trying to tunnel in, we can hit them with earthquake and get them isolated and pick them off.
I like the elementals idea -- not sure if the mages have planar binding spells available/memorized.
I haven't seen any burrow speed above a 20, so if you station elementals out ~120' or so, that should give you several rounds of warning.
I've found the Lythic has a 100' tremorsense range, so I'm going to call roughly 6 of those and station them for an early warning radar system around the temple. Fantastic idea. ;)
Prismatic wall is a pretty nice trap if you can work out a way to funnel things into it.
I used reverse gravity on the entrance to a room and put the wall on the ceiling once.
Right now, we have 4 notches 10'x10' in the 4 corners of the interior of the temple that we use to enter/leave the room via teleport.
We have encountered prior creatures that could have been in communication with the invading demons. So it is possible that they know if these notches.
What would happen if we were to put in Magic Circle Against Evil diagrams in these notches? Could a demon teleport or be redirected into these notches? If so, could they leave?
Hmmm... Maybe place an inwards-facing magic circle v. evil in the notches, which would keep them inside. If you set it up like you were going to call something, with the inscribed circle, you could combine that with dimensional anchor to keep them trapped for days. It should work, if a little unorthodox.
Hmmm... Maybe place an inwards-facing magic circle v. evil in the notches, which would keep them inside. If you set it up like you were going to call something, with the inscribed circle, you could combine that with dimensional anchor to keep them trapped for days. It should work, if a little unorthodox.
Right, given that these demons are "free-willed" and not called (by us anyway), I'm not sure if the intent of the magic circle vs evil will work, as it seems to always reference calling a evil outsider just after creating the circle.
Just thought of this. Our notches are outside the area of effect of our private sanctum spells. So, if we re-direct the teleportation (if any) of our enemy into those notches, we'll have 100% concealment from those positions. Couple this with the inward facing magic circle vs evil, and we can drop them in, and waste them with no opportunity for them to attack back unless they attack blindly through the private sanctum effect.
You said 15 15th level paldins. It sounds to me like your set to face off with demons right there. Smite chain!
Seriously this is a major asset. Make sure if the group does split-up you distribute your Paladins vaguely evenly between the groups. Aura of Courage and Resolve are nice defensive buffs, and Aura of Faith is going to be pretty great.
Also remember a 15th level Paladin can Smite 5/day, which means they can use Aura of Justice 2/day (and still have an emergency smite if they need it). Give everyone a bow/sling/rock and get the Paladins to take turns doling out the justice. Everyone in the room gets a massive bonus to smite whoever they want - that's 30/day Aura of Justice. (Let's say you calculate that aura as 20 allies + the paladin, that's 21 X 30 = 630 smites. Plus the 15 smites the Paladins have left = . If any of the Paladins are actually level 16 they add an extra 20 to that number each.) Obviously you probably won't get it quite that optimal, but do you really need more than 500 smites in a day?
Also healing and Status Removal (and possibly RESSURECTION?)
Actually I don't know how much control you have over the Paladins' abilities but:
Also the HALF ELF favoured class bonus would give your 15th level Paladins a 25 foot aura. Remember those 645 smites? If they're all Half Elves that number can jump to 2 or 3 Thousand.
Basically Paladins = Win.
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EDIT: So after Glorying in how amazing high level Paladins are (I love Paladins if you couldn't tell) I realised you don't actually have 100+ people in your army to take full advantage of those aura-smites.
With 21 people in your army (+summons/etc) if you can get about 1/3 of them (7 people) in each Aura-Of-Justice you're looking at over 200 smites per day. Still more than enough for the average demon-swarm. After you run out of smites you'll have to rely on all your other characters/spells/abilities to deal with the survivors.
One more thing: If I remember correctly (and I could be totally off here so correct me if I'm wrong) summoned demons don't die when you kill them on the material plane, but called demons actually DIE if you kill them.
This means if the demons you're facing have a chance of facing true-death they might be more susceptible to intimidation ...? Just a thought.
PAINFUL ANCHOR
Absolutely perfect. A ledge 10' long off the notches that have Inward facing circles vs evil with automatic dimensional anchor effect. I like the incoming and outgoing damage effect too.
Absolutely perfect. A ledge 10' long off the notches that have Inward facing circles vs evil with automatic dimensional anchor effect. I like the incoming and outgoing damage effect too.
PAINFUL ANCHOR
It's worth noting that that ability is only available to OATHBOUND PALADINS (specifically OATH AGAINST FIENDS). Though given the setting, it's probably fairly likely that you have a few of them with you already.
It's also actually just an upgrade of Anchoring Aura, which is gonna be pretty amazing here anyway:
At 8th level, a paladin's aura hampers extradimensional travel by evil outsiders. The aura extends 20 feet from the paladin. Evil outsiders attempting to use abilities such as dimension door, plane shift, or teleport to leave or enter the aura must succeed at a Will save (DC 10 + 1/2 the paladin's level + the paladin's Charisma modifier); failure means the ability does not function, as if the outsider were affected by dimensional anchor. The aura functions only while the paladin is conscious, not if she is unconscious or dead.
Alternatively, as an immediate action, the paladin can expend one use of her smite evil ability to target an evil outsider within 30 feet with dimensional anchor. A targeted dimensional anchor persists even if the paladin is unconscious or dead.
This ability replaces aura of resolve.
Combine with:
Benefit: When an evil outsider uses a calling, summoning, or teleportation effect, or any ability that physically transports a creature to or from another plane (such as blink or etherealness) within your anchoring aura, it takes damage equal to 4d8 + your Charisma modifier. This damage comes from holy power and is not subject to damage reduction, energy immunities, or energy resistances.
If they're Half-Elves you can have an Aura that radiates 35 feet (75 foot diameter) that does all that. Pretty great stuff.
Again it depends how much control you have over your Paladin friends (and how much you can design/change them retroactively).
Ok, per the above request, here's a synopsis of our first session for the defense of the 2nd Temple of Rappan Athuk:
Episode 1:
We were already 4 hours into the Hallow casting when we got word from a former associate that was a member of a different faction (Talons) of priests within the Orcus minions of Rappan Athuk (that was politically opposed to the 3rd Temple faction) to send us a missive that somehow word got out that we were not only going to spend 24 hours to disconnect orcus but also connect it up to Thyr, which caused the 2nd of Orcus (Mephistal) to get kind of offended and come up to "punish" us for our insolence yada yada yada.
I sent out the Ghaele Azatas to do some emergency shopping for Ghost Powder to immunize the temple from incorporeals and ethereals. Our wizard decided to use Gate to bring in a married pair of Solars (which completely floored me that he was going to do that). Which we convinced to stick around for the fight due to the whole demon lord rumor.
At 5 hours and 40 minutes, we got word from our Lythic scouts that they got a ping on their tremorsense that a some unknowns were massing in the northernmost circle room (room 1). Since we had our Heironeous Paladins out on patrol (mainly because my character didn't like them and they made for good cannon fodder) with our Hound Archon/Paladin PC as their leader. We had them check it out.
First thing we saw was an invisible projected image of a marilith -- we had encountered her before -- moving down from the circle room (room 1) to do some scouting. Her blind/deaf physical body was peaking around the corner that is directly north of the main intersection of the level. She had a bunch of summoned monsters with her (wasps and ants) that had stones of silence and darkness on them)
The hound archon, being the typical paladin that he is decided to rush in and attack the marilith and got some good shots in on her, but she had support -- A Balor, a Monk, and a sorcerer were just around the corner and decided to make him their new chew toy.
The paladins that the hound archon was leading attempted to rescue their overtly brash leader, but being in full plate armor couldn't get to him in time to do any healing. So, He was at about 10% hit points when my blue tactician ("Tinyman") decided to rescue him with a networked time hop after he was ensared by the balor's whip, and full attacked and grappled by the Marilith and punched in the face by the monk out of spite. So, our blue Tactician (psionic) ("Tinyman" -- nobody knows his goblin name) rescued him with a Shared Power Time Hop spell over the network that made him go bye bye for a short bit.
In the mean time, some of the main group wanted to get in on the action, and they greater teleported from the Temple, our Ranger ("Stringfellow") -- the big gun, with smite support --,our crazy dwarf warrior ("willie" -- who has anger management issues) and a cleric/wizard Mystic Theurge and another warrior ("Joren") who has an artificial arm and a tripping leg with impulse control problems.
Willie was able to get at the marilith and hit her a lot with his +5 greataxe -- and one being a crit that did upwards of 125 points of damage. Suffice it to say that with the damage the hound archon did along with the dwarf, the marilith didn't stay around very long.
The Ranger had already acted this round, so the Mystic Theurge took care of the summoned monsters and decided to cast Time Stop to get off some needed buffs on the small group.
The Balor Company, having seen the marilith go down so quickly couldn't do more than put up a wall of fire to obfuscate their inevitable cowardly retreat -- which had yet to happen prior to us having to call it a night.
Next Episode in 2 weeks.