How to protect a maze/dungeon from scry/teleport and other

General questions, debates, and rants about RPGs

Moderator: Moderators

Post Reply
User avatar
OgreBattle
King
Posts: 6820
Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2011 9:33 am

How to protect a maze/dungeon from scry/teleport and other

Post by OgreBattle »

How do you guard a dungeon against the common "lolwizard" hacks of scrying, teleporting, or turning everything into mud?

To a reasonable extent, that is. What are the specific spells?

Is there a spell to force teleportation to go where you want? So they teleport into a death trap or something.
User avatar
Sigil
Knight
Posts: 472
Joined: Thu Jan 17, 2013 4:17 am

Post by Sigil »

Is this in the context of vanilla 3.5, Tome, or what?
User avatar
Kaelik
ArchDemon of Rage
Posts: 14832
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Kaelik »

I would read the Dungeonomicon. Prior to the part where 40ft blocks them is an analysis of how it works in the Raw game.
DSMatticus wrote:Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?
The U.S. isn't a democracy and if you think it is, you are a rube.

That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.
User avatar
wotmaniac
Knight-Baron
Posts: 888
Joined: Sun Mar 13, 2011 11:40 am
Location: my house

Post by wotmaniac »

The only thing that comes immediately to mind is (un)hallow -- you can attach a rider effect.

as for affecting teleport without stopping it out right, anticipate teleportation lets you know when/where it's coming, and there's a 3rd-party spell called teleport redirect, but the origin of the teleportation must be in range of the spell.
Last edited by wotmaniac on Mon Jun 03, 2013 2:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
*WARNING*: I say "fuck" a lot.
"The most patriotic thing you can do as an American is to become filthy, filthy rich."
- Mark Cuban

"Game design has no obligation to cater to people who don’t buy into the premise of the game"

TGD -- skirting the edges of dickfinity since 2003.

Public Service Announcement
User avatar
Chamomile
Prince
Posts: 4632
Joined: Tue May 03, 2011 10:45 am

Post by Chamomile »

Ban divination, use the Warp spells from dnd-wiki.org instead of Teleport, and have your dungeon walls made of something other than mud. Depending on splat saturation, your material may or may not have to be something bizarre like cloth layered several feet thick and then fireproofed or whatever. Preferably you can just make them out of metal.

Obviously the first two are more house rule suggestions than actual strategies, mostly because near as I can tell there are no actual strategies to counter scry-and-die, so my response is just to hit it with a banstick. On the one hand, this makes above-ground castles a reasonable fortification again. On the other, this means we're back to there being no reason for anyone to build a dungeon when they could build a castle (unless it's a retro-fitted mine or something).
TarkisFlux
Duke
Posts: 1147
Joined: Sun Jun 22, 2008 9:44 pm
Location: Magic Mountain, CA
Contact:

Post by TarkisFlux »

Here's the links to the relevant dungeonomicon sections Kaelik mentioned:

Teleport section
Divination section (which has some teleport foiling in subsection 2)
The wiki you should be linking to when you need a wiki link - http://www.dnd-wiki.org

Fectin: "Ant, what is best in life?"
Ant: "Ethically, a task well-completed for the good of the colony. Experientially, endorphins."
User avatar
Drolyt
Knight
Posts: 454
Joined: Sun May 19, 2013 3:25 am

Re: How to protect a maze/dungeon from scry/teleport and other

Post by Drolyt »

OgreBattle wrote:How do you guard a dungeon against the common "lolwizard" hacks of scrying, teleporting, or turning everything into mud?

To a reasonable extent, that is. What are the specific spells?

Is there a spell to force teleportation to go where you want? So they teleport into a death trap or something.
Antimagic field, dimensional lock, Mordenkainen's private sanctum, false vision, dimensional anchor, forbiddance, probably other spells. I'm not sure about stopping transmute rock to mud. There is a lot of stuff in the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook that might help you.
violence in the media
Duke
Posts: 1725
Joined: Tue Jan 06, 2009 7:18 pm

Post by violence in the media »

Transmute Rock to Mud is thwarted by brickwork and general masonry.
User avatar
Wrathzog
Knight-Baron
Posts: 605
Joined: Mon Mar 21, 2011 5:57 am

Post by Wrathzog »

Healthy amounts of Arbitrarium.

Alternatively, don't let your players play Wizards if you don't want them doing crazy shit.

-e-
Also, the more stuff you prevent, the more likely you end up tricking the group into thinking that they're going up against an epic level caster.
Last edited by Wrathzog on Mon Jun 03, 2013 3:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
PSY DUCK?
TarkisFlux
Duke
Posts: 1147
Joined: Sun Jun 22, 2008 9:44 pm
Location: Magic Mountain, CA
Contact:

Post by TarkisFlux »

violence in the media wrote:Transmute Rock to Mud is thwarted by brickwork and general masonry.
And also by building those things around a metal cage. Which you'll want anyway to block passwall.

So... rebar to support the lead sheeting around your house (to block divinations), which is then covered in brick and mortar (because wood burns) to look pretty. And then doused in copious amounts of additional magics, because fuck you i need my privacy.
The wiki you should be linking to when you need a wiki link - http://www.dnd-wiki.org

Fectin: "Ant, what is best in life?"
Ant: "Ethically, a task well-completed for the good of the colony. Experientially, endorphins."
Post Reply