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View Full Version : [3.5] Help us defend our ship



Wonton
2010-11-23, 01:35 AM
Backstory: Our party are the proud owners of an astral ship in this campaign. We had several alarms set up already, including Hallow (with Invisibility Purge) and Skullwatch (SpC) in many places. Also, our crew consisted of 17 gnomes.

Last Session: While we were away from the ship (but not too far away), we heard our skulls go off and start shrieking. I tried to Teleport us back to the ship, but the DM informed me that teleportation was blocked. It took us about a minute to get back, in which time, some sort of shapeshifter assumed the form of a gnome, killed about half our crew, and disabled our engines before Plane Shifting away.

Now: How do we defend our ship from similar situations in the future? Our DM doesn't pull punches, so if we don't find a way to defend against this sort of thing, he'll do it again.

All 3.5 books are available.

JaronK
2010-11-23, 02:02 AM
One very effective trap if you have any spontaneous casters is a Ghoul Glyph in a pit trap with water. Ghoul Glyph is unresistable and works on anything living, paralyzing it long enough for them to drop into water and potentially drown. Cast this over your traps any time you leave the ship, in key bottlenecks on the ship, and keep the crew away from these traps. That should do a decent job keeping you safe in port as a good start. Ghoul Glyphs can't move though, so you have to recast when you land somewhere.

Also consider having an open Portable Hole somewhere that you can teleport into. It should be outside of any anti teleporting effects.

JaronK

BridgeCity
2010-11-23, 02:19 AM
We once got around the whole 'defending your ship' thing by selling our ship and buying one of those ones that shrinks down to the size of a model and carrying it with us where ever we went.

I know you probably can't get astral versions of that but maybe there is a spell that can shrink items you could use on your ship? I don't know sorry, I don't really play casters.

JaronK
2010-11-23, 02:23 AM
Actually, I've found that's necessary. A lot of times the DM will just keep attacking it when you're away... shrinking it all down and sticking it in extradimensional space is the best way if you can do it. Consider asking your DM about enchanting the whole thing as a folding boat?

JaronK

Vizzerdrix
2010-11-23, 02:28 AM
Golems. Effigy Winged halfdragon starspawn Octopi type golems. ANd raise the dead crew as intelligent undead. No point in wasting them. And spellstitch them all.

Honestly I don't see how you can stop the DM from doing this sort of thing. Someone just happened to know the layout of your ship well enough to take out half the crew and disable it in a few minutes and they just happened to know that you'd taken a pit stop and they happened to have made sure you couldn't tele back. That sir, is what some might call either a quest start, or railroading. (I'm going with the first! Find this person. Make it pay. Make its family pay. Make its dog pay. Then find whoever hired it and do the same to them.)

absolmorph
2010-11-23, 02:51 AM
Golems. Effigy Winged halfdragon starspawn Octopi type golems. ANd raise the dead crew as intelligent undead. No point in wasting them. And spellstitch them all.

Honestly I don't see how you can stop the DM from doing this sort of thing. Someone just happened to know the layout of your ship well enough to take out half the crew and disable it in a few minutes and they just happened to know that you'd taken a pit stop and they happened to have made sure you couldn't tele back. That sir, is what some might call either a quest start, or railroading. (I'm going with the first! Find this person. Make it pay. Make its family pay. Make its dog pay. Then find whoever hired it and do the same to them.)
Disassemble anything they have that resembles a life. Destroy their reputation, their family, their friends, their home, their employers, EVERYTHING.
Then take them out.
Assuming you're a Neutral party (maybe with Good tendencies). Good people would probably focus their fire.

Vizzerdrix
2010-11-23, 03:00 AM
Disassemble anything they have that resembles a life. Destroy their reputation, their family, their friends, their home, their employers, EVERYTHING.
Then take them out.
Assuming you're a Neutral party (maybe with Good tendencies). Good people would probably focus their fire.

.....:smallconfused::smallamused::smallbiggrin:

We should play in a game together sometime!

absolmorph
2010-11-23, 03:12 AM
.....:smallconfused::smallamused::smallbiggrin:

We should play in a game together sometime!
I already make one of my DMs scramble to figure out what the hell he's supposed to do when I accidentally ruin his plans.
I'd hate to see what would happen if I had someone who does it as well as I do to work with :smallamused:

Lev
2010-11-23, 03:50 AM
Step 1: Fire all the gnomes.

Step 2: Trap the hell out of your ship with protective trap glyphs that will evidently blow holes in ship if they go off.

Step 3: Sell the ship, informing them of the usages of the glyphs, but not their uselessly self-destructive nature.

Step 4: After receiving massive profit, assault the new owners, blow up the ship in some shallows and then cast Submerge Ship or Standing Wave on it.

Step 5: Sit back and relax in your new fairly worthless comfort cruise vessel, no worries about gnomes needed to run it, hell you could just pass the rudder around to control the entire ship if it's submerge ship, then after resting you can come back and re-apply the spell.

Bonus XP, no liability, bonus gold, roleplaying experience, and an easier ride.

Gnaritas
2010-11-23, 05:02 AM
We once got around the whole 'defending your ship' thing by selling our ship and buying one of those ones that shrinks down to the size of a model and carrying it with us where ever we went.

I know you probably can't get astral versions of that but maybe there is a spell that can shrink items you could use on your ship? I don't know sorry, I don't really play casters.

Where do you find the ship that shrinks size?

BridgeCity
2010-11-23, 06:27 AM
Where do you find the ship that shrinks size?

It is a wondrous item in the Dungeon Master's Guide, bottom of page 249, called a folding boat. Or boat, folding as it appears in the book.

Gnaritas
2010-11-23, 06:49 AM
Backstory: Our party are the proud owners of an astral ship in this campaign. We had several alarms set up already, including Hallow (with Invisibility Purge) and Skullwatch (SpC) in many places. Also, our crew consisted of 17 gnomes.

Last Session: While we were away from the ship (but not too far away), we heard our skulls go off and start shrieking. I tried to Teleport us back to the ship, but the DM informed me that teleportation was blocked. It took us about a minute to get back, in which time, some sort of shapeshifter assumed the form of a gnome, killed about half our crew, and disabled our engines before Plane Shifting away.

Now: How do we defend our ship from similar situations in the future? Our DM doesn't pull punches, so if we don't find a way to defend against this sort of thing, he'll do it again.

All 3.5 books are available.

Get a new DM or talk to him.

Seriously, teleportation was blocked.....and he managed to kill 17 gnomes in 10 rounds. If the gnomes were lining up for him, sure.

If the DM want to "outsmart" you, he will, although the "smart" part has nothing to do with it. Anything you will think off he will counter it, probably because he will metagame the knowledge of exactly what you did to your opponents.

Biffoniacus_Furiou
2010-11-23, 07:37 AM
I'm going to agree with Gnaritas here. Your attempt to teleport back to the ship was blocked, but your opponent used Plane Shift to escape mere minutes later. Dimensional Lock lasts one day per level and cannot be dismissed. Your DM is metagaming against your characters, he knows your characters' capabilities and he is making opponents who specifically counter your tactics. Any tricks you come up with to protect your ship which you tell him about automatically won't work, because he'll use monsters which are unaffected by those tricks. The game is not being run fairly, your DM has the attitude of Players-vs-DM instead of Players-vs-Monsters, he'll make the monsters accomplish their goals to advance his story in the direction he wants it to go, and when this is happening all of your characters' actions are irrelevant. This is no longer a game, this is either DM-tells-us-a-story-time or it's DM-ego-stroking.


If that's somehow not the case, check out the feat Earthbound Spell in PH2. Put something like Dismissal on it and put them in doorways, hallways, etc. Note that it affects the next creature to enter the warded square, triggering it is not dependent on contact with the ground. Use Earthbound Summon Undead IV or V for one or two Wyvern Zombies, which have orders to grapple and kill whoever triggers it, and be sure to point out that they would get a surprise round on the intruder if the trap wasn't detected.

Liquidate the gnomes and cast Animate Object + Permanency on your ship so it pilots itself, if the ship falls within a 64 ft. length and 125 ton weight, you can do this with a caster level 16 scroll. Permanency need only be at caster level 14, and a Dispel check would be vs the Animate Object caster level.

Wonton
2010-11-23, 10:35 AM
@Lev - Yeah, but some of the party member are against killing the gnomes (let's not talk about all the gold that was spent resurrecting them. Touchy subject :smallannoyed:). Hence the point of this - how do we defend our gnomes, but also our ship, while we're away? We're on a somewhat time-sensitive quest, we can't be delayed for 3 days to repair our ship very often.

@Biffoniacus_Furiou - I kinda agree with you, but we're a fairly optimized party, and we metagame sometimes too. And if there was an organization that did want to harm/delay us, Dimensional Lock on the ship with a shapeshifter (who Plane Shifted once he was out of the ship mind you, so it makes sense that he was out of the DL) is the smartest way to do it (that's how my DM would put it, anyway. I still think it's b***s***, but it's technically right :smallwink:).

Yorrin
2010-11-23, 11:57 AM
I'm going to argue from the point that there IS something you can do about this: it sounds like your DM uses similar techniques to myself in a couple respects, so I'm going off that assumption.

This villain of his- he probably has clearly defined what he/she/it can and cannot do. This may or may not involve unlimited resources at it's disposal, but once it has approached your boat it will likely bring nothing new to the table. And it didn't have foreknowledge of your wards (or just didnt care), so evidently it's information on you isn't all-encompassing.

It likely has a way around any short-term status effect you're going to throw at it, but there are other ways to trap an intruder. Set up your own teleportation block on the ship and then set an ambush. Pretend like you're going into town on some important business and then lay in wait (or actually go into town and leave some divination to watch the ship). Or even hide on the ship and send away illusory doubles into town. Either way- bring it to direct conflict to gauge your opponent. Once you know more about him you'll be more able to counter him in the future.

Diarmuid
2010-11-23, 01:35 PM
Sorry, I'm also going to agree with Gnaritas.

In ~10 rounds, this attacker was able to:

A: Get within 90' of your ship (AoE of Skullwatch)
B: Create enough Dim Lock's for you to not be able to TP back to your ship (20' radius, not sure how big your ship is)
C: Kill 8.5 gnomes
D: Find/Disable your engines
E: Get out of the AoE of however many Dim Lock's were required to make your ship blocked
F: Plane Shift away

How you thought to put up multiple Hallow/Skull Watch spells but neglected to bother with any glyphs, arcane locks, or Guards & Wards spells is beyond me but those are good places to start. Additionally, I would say you should put up your own Dim Locks, but leave 1 small area available to Teleport into, but it puts you right into the midst of some nasty traps that will mess with any but the properly attuned/passcoded people and then lock that room/area off also.

This allows you in/out, but if someone does manage to get in they're not going to be happy about it.

bloodtide
2010-11-23, 02:07 PM
I will go with the DM is unfairly punishing you' group. It's common enough. As soon as the players get a 'soft' target like a ship, castle, tower or such...all of a sudden it will get attacked all the time. Even when it makes sense, such as the demons are attempting to destroy your ship and trap you in the Abyss, it's still just a bad move.

D&D is an adventure game. You make character to go on adventures. You want to raid the 'Dungeon of XXaz', not just 'defend our property'. Spending the rest of your character's lives just defending the ship would be boring.

So first of all, you might just want to let the DM destroy the ship. Just park the ship somewhere and leave it. Soon enough your Dm will state 'Oh an astral dragon found your ship and ate it..Muuuhahahah..I rule, you suck!'. At that point you would just ignore him and continue on with the adventure.

Should it come to the point in the adventure where you Fail because of the ship, such as you need to sail to a distant place, just give up. Say that there is no way we can do it as we lost our ship, and simply go home and look for another adventure.

----
But, if by chance, you do have a normal DM who is not simply being mean. The trick is to not protect the ship. Unless you have time to do powerful protections, they can be bypassed too easily.

What you want to do is cloak the ship. They can't attack it if they can find it. Invisibility works, as do other things.

And even better then a cloak....simply send the ship home. Use 'Planual Navigation(Stormwrack) to send the ship to the Prime plane and the safe harbor of Ood. Or have the ship simply shift away to a safe place.

nedz
2010-11-23, 03:07 PM
This could just be a random encounter, in which case you will have had several before? In this case it will be just one of those things.

Or it could be someone you've annoyed. Are you being scryed ?
If this is the case you can use the ship as bait, perhaps by using False Vision ?

If you're DM is out to get you, maybe He'll get bored ?
You should know him well enough by now to tell.

Wonton
2010-11-23, 04:25 PM
@Diarmuid - Yeah, the timeframe kinda stinks of DM fiat, I won't lie. But the DM is not 'punishing' us for anything, and he's not out to 'get' us. He's just presenting us with a difficult problem so that we all have to think and work together to come up with a solution.

As for the actual spells, we're level 9 at the moment. We thought of Arcane Lock earlier, but it only allows the caster to open the doors, which would be a problem. One good idea we came up with is Illusory Walls on top of all the doorways.

P.S. Our ship's interior is about 25'x60', 3 levels. The whole thing is made out of stone, and the engine room is physically sealed off by a stone wall (only accessible using Stone Shape).

bloodtide
2010-11-23, 04:43 PM
If your in the middle of an adventure, there is not much you can do. You can't just know a spell or have a magic item, right? And you can't take the time to put some magic effects on the ship, right?


What you can do-

1.Summon guards. by planar binding or planar ally or related spells. Plenty of creatures make good guards.

2.Charm guards. Encounter a monster and take it alive. Then charm, dominate, command it to be your guard. This can even work with uncontrolled guards that are kept frozen, stoned or such until a gnome frees them..then they attack anything that moves.

3.Give the gnomes some of your good gear. If there is a gnome spellcaster, give him a wand. Same with anything else.

4.Wall of Force over the deck of the ship?

5.Field of Resistance(PH2) for your gnomes, plus stoneskin a couple every day?

randomhero00
2010-11-23, 04:51 PM
Protect it against scrying. I'll bet that's why he went so ninja rogue on you. Then get some kind of guardian golem or two or three.

Edit. hehe, also what about docking, getting off, then have the crew move it back 30 feet or so. Then cast an illusion of a deck going to the ship. Anyone trying to board it falls....

Dr.Epic
2010-11-23, 05:23 PM
Couldn't you sleep in the ship so you'd be there in case of trouble?:smallconfused: (I'm not familiar with astral ships.)

Lev
2010-11-23, 06:19 PM
@Lev - Yeah, but some of the party member are against killing the gnomes (let's not talk about all the gold that was spent resurrecting them. Touchy subject ). Hence the point of this - how do we defend our gnomes, but also our ship, while we're away? We're on a somewhat time-sensitive quest, we can't be delayed for 3 days to repair our ship very often.
Seems you didn't read step 1 and 4.