-
Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
Also even if you ward an area from teleportation, you still have to staff the border with enough people to protect the area from a strike. And given that because you warded the area against teleportation each outpost has to have those numbers stationed at it. Given the shown deployable army size, and the fact that most borders had posts every 1/4 to 1/2 mile that would require an insanely massive force.
-
Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
I assume one of the causes of death for a city is when someone manages to get past the defensive scrying and fire off a locate city bomb? I realize LCB might not be RAW but I'm think there are other was to create magical weapons of mass destruction.
-
Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
LCB doesn't work, so no that's not a cause. But yes, various other WMD's exist and are used.
Although being destroyed by another city is the least common method of a city falling. By far the most common is it's leadership either attempting to kill each other off in a power play and failing (which inevitably leads to civil war and a dead city) or the leadership messing around with experimental magic and doing things like creating a dead magic zone where the city is supposed to be. Or making the city strongly aligned to the positive energy plane (the poor city of Shamrock went that way when a wizard with too much power and all too little wisdom thought it would be a great way to keep all the residents healthy, forgetting about the slight fact that too much positive energy makes you explode).
-
Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
Okay... if we could make a Lair Ward (per Dreconomicon) of some sort of bigger Forbiddence effect, like the Lair Wards for protection against Scrying... would that help? I just realized that the Lair Wards DIDN'T have a teleportation version. :( :( :(
-
Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
Dig a hole and you are under the affect.
Use a Wish trap to get through the affect.
Drop a disjunction.
There are more ways to get around any anti-teleport defenses.
About the only way that actually works involves manipulating planar traits, and that has it's own downsides.
Epic magic is the only effective way to protect a large area from teleportation.
-
Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
What about Weirdstones? They block teleportation within a six mile radius. There is no reason a city can't have a couple of them.
They don't cost all that much, especially when you can wish up 25,000 gold per wish. You could gate in three Effreti a day for a week, for example. Not to mention 'Fabricate' traps and such.
-
Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
Quote:
Originally Posted by
bloodtide
What about Weirdstones? They block teleportation within a six mile radius. There is no reason a city can't have a couple of them.
They don't cost all that much, especially when you can wish up 25,000 gold per wish. You could gate in three Effreti a day for a week, for example. Not to mention 'Fabricate' traps and such.
The best anti-teleport defense but you can still get around them without too much trouble. The easiest way to get around it is to just Wish the weirdstone protecting the location you want access to away.
-
Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Emperor Tippy
The best anti-teleport defense but you can still get around them without too much trouble. The easiest way to get around it is to just Wish the weirdstone protecting the location you want access to away.
I would be very leery of allowing uses of Wish that aren't explicitly part of its power, because they come down to DM prerogative on whether they work, and it's not strictly RAW what happens either way. Monkeypawing is too easy.
Also - even if you have 1000 people using a TC in a round... what are conditions like on the other side? I can't even imagine the logistical nightmare that'd develop, but stampeding, crushing, and massive and unnecessary loss of life would almost surely ensue if you actually tried this in real life.
-
Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
Quote:
Originally Posted by
sonofzeal
I would be very leery of allowing uses of Wish that aren't explicitly part of its power, because they come down to DM prerogative on whether they work, and it's not strictly RAW what happens either way. Monkeypawing is too easy.
It's one of the listed abilities of Wish. To bring anything from anywhere on any plane to any other location on any other plane. Will save applies. Transport Travelers clause.
Quote:
Also - even if you have 1000 people using a TC in a round... what are conditions like on the other side? I can't even imagine the logistical nightmare that'd develop, but stampeding, crushing, and massive and unnecessary loss of life would almost surely ensue if you actually tried this in real life.
An actual invasion is done in a more coordinated manner, but that doesn't alter the fact that you simply can't secure a nations borders when industrial scale teleportation exists.
-
Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Emperor Tippy
LCB doesn't work, so no that's not a cause. But yes, various other WMD's exist and are used.
There's always the Wightocalypse version of the LCB. That one actually works. (Granted, it's a single negative level, but that's enough to kill a whole lotta commoners.)
Although, actually, does the Tippyverse even have level ones in the cities? Is everyone at least, oh, third level, or is your average Joe pretty much at the same level of power as in any other setting?
-
Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
So I have a question. How do creatures that eat, disrupt, dispell or generally mess with magic (examples: Spellguants, Balhannoths, Mage Ripper Swarms, Arcane Oozes, ect.) work in this setting. It seems to me like they would either be horrible blights on the cities, one of the things that could bring a city down, or something that would be exterminated at the earliest opprotunity. So what is their role or purpose in the Tippyverse?
-
Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Gorfang113
So I have a question. How do creatures that eat, disrupt, dispell or generally mess with magic (examples: Spellguants, Balhannoths, Mage Ripper Swarms, Arcane Oozes, ect.) work in this setting. It seems to me like they would either be horrible blights on the cities, one of the things that could bring a city down, or something that would be exterminated at the earliest opprotunity. So what is their role or purpose in the Tippyverse?
To further expand on this, what about the Colossi? They, by RAW, still have that annoying 3.0 Antimagic Field rather than the normal magic immunity.
-
Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
Hey Tippy! So I have been playing around with the general idea behind the Tippyverse for my own campaign. The thing is characters stop leveling around level 10 or 11, and thus a teleportation circle wouldn't work.
So I took another approach and focused on food & poverty. I took great attention to the Goodberry spell and wanted to know how you felt about its impact on a tippyverse. As it is a trap could be build for under 300 gp and would seem to convert any single berry into a full, nourishing meal (in addition to healing 1 point of damage).
My general thoughts were this might have a radical affect on agriculture and that poverty may disappear.
Thoughts?
-
Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Gorfang113
So I have a question. How do creatures that eat, disrupt, dispell or generally mess with magic (examples: Spellguants, Balhannoths, Mage Ripper Swarms, Arcane Oozes, ect.) work in this setting. It seems to me like they would either be horrible blights on the cities, one of the things that could bring a city down, or something that would be exterminated at the earliest opprotunity. So what is their role or purpose in the Tippyverse?
You pretty much hit the nail on the head, they can be a threat depending upon the specific monster and circumstances.
One example of WMD's I mentioned earlier in the Points of Light setting was a Living Disjunction spell. Great idea, except it was a work in progress and the wizards creating it had the bright idea of turning it incorporeal and having everything inside it's area (a 30 foot cube) be disjoined. For extra unpleasantness the experiment was being done in the citadel floating about the City, which promptly fell and leveled said City.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
TheGeckoKing
To further expand on this, what about the
Colossi? They, by RAW, still have that annoying 3.0 Antimagic Field rather than the normal magic immunity.
Treated as incredibly rare weapons of War. As in a City might have a handful of them. And yes, one of them inside a city can do bad things depending on just how much the city uses persistent magic effects to maintain it's integrity (some literally need magic to not fall apart, others don't).
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Zonugal
Hey Tippy! So I have been playing around with the general idea behind the Tippyverse for my own campaign. The thing is characters stop leveling around level 10 or 11, and thus a teleportation circle wouldn't work.
Then it's not the Tippyverse, although it much be inspired by the TV.
Quote:
So I took another approach and focused on food & poverty. I took great attention to the Goodberry spell and wanted to know how you felt about its impact on a tippyverse. As it is a trap could be build for under 300 gp and would seem to convert any single berry into a full, nourishing meal (in addition to healing 1 point of damage).
My general thoughts were this might have a radical affect on agriculture and that poverty may disappear.
Thoughts?
It doesn't do much more than any of the numerous other ways to eliminate the need for food.
-
Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
Why is there even trade in the Tippyverse?
Wouldn't the ability to fabricate or create negate the material imbalances between cities that make trade possible?
By obviating the need for any sort of primary or secondary trade, it would seem natural that the economy would transcend to be entirely knowledge and information based. However, with the ability to read minds and extract information, the ability to capitalize on new discoveries before competitors would seem limited.
-
Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Doughnut Master
Why is there even trade in the Tippyverse?
Wouldn't the ability to fabricate or create negate the material imbalances between cities that make trade possible?
By obviating the need for any sort of primary or secondary trade, it would seem natural that the economy would transcend to be entirely knowledge and information based. However, with the ability to read minds and extract information, the ability to capitalize on new discoveries before competitors would seem limited.
As a result of how traps work, every item produced by them will be identical. That creates a large market for objects that aren't made with traps.
The only way to get a trap of magic item production is with a Wish Trap, and those are hideously expensive (absent using Wish abuse to get the trap for free). And you need one for each magic item. Sure, you can play tricks to get things cheaper (Wish Trap of a Scroll of Gate combined with a Shapechange Trap so that anyone can use the Scroll, get a Solar and have it Wish up whatever item you want) but it's still not cheap. And access to those kinds of traps are restricted.
A more complete answer get's into the realm of personal tweaks made to the setting to make things work better.
For example, in Points of Light, it's impossible to use Wish to create a magic trap because those types of magic items derive their power from leylines and are quite finicky to set up; wish can't handle the requirements.
And yes, a fair bit of trade is knowledge based.
-
Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Emperor Tippy
It's one of the listed abilities of Wish. To bring anything from anywhere on any plane to any other location on any other plane. Will save applies. Transport Travelers clause.
Would that work, since the Weirdstone blocks teleportation? You're teleporting something out of the Weirdstone's area.
-
Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Qwertystop
Would that work, since the Weirdstone blocks teleportation? You're teleporting something out of the Weirdstone's area.
Yep, Wish specifically ignores local affects. Just like you can Wish a person into or out of a Dimensional Lock.
-
Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
I personally like traps of unseen crafter, where some master craftsman spends some time standing on one to get a gaggle of unseen crafters following them about, and then goes off to direct their work.
-
Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Emperor Tippy
As a result of how traps work, every item produced by them will be identical. That creates a large market for objects that aren't made with traps.
The only way to get a trap of magic item production is with a Wish Trap, and those are hideously expensive (absent using Wish abuse to get the trap for free). And you need one for each magic item. Sure, you can play tricks to get things cheaper (Wish Trap of a Scroll of Gate combined with a Shapechange Trap so that anyone can use the Scroll, get a Solar and have it Wish up whatever item you want) but it's still not cheap. And access to those kinds of traps are restricted.
A more complete answer get's into the realm of personal tweaks made to the setting to make things work better.
For example, in Points of Light, it's impossible to use Wish to create a magic trap because those types of magic items derive their power from leylines and are quite finicky to set up; wish can't handle the requirements.
And yes, a fair bit of trade is knowledge based.
I see. So there still is a market for craftsmanship and specialty items. However, why would there still be trade between cities? There seems to be no reason why one particular city would have these crafting capabilities and another would not. While there's reason for trade between individuals, each city seems like it could function perfectly well in isolation.
As for knowledge, it would seem difficult to protect as magic allows anyone to have a photographic memory, firms would not only have to worry about documents and trade secrets being stolen, but their mere observation poses a security risk. This, in turn, would seem to continue to foster isolationist policies within each city, lest they give up their edge to foreign agents.
-
Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
Maybe they keep the better secrets safely hidden on few individuals who have a continual mind blank? Never writing down the secrets and using magical perfect recall when the information is necessary? (just a thought)
Kind of like corporations keeping trade secrets, they can't be patented because then they'd be public, but they're still closely guarded, and protected by the law.
-
Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Emperor Tippy
It's one of the listed abilities of Wish. To bring anything from anywhere on any plane to any other location on any other plane. Will save applies. Transport Travelers clause.
Not anything, any creature. Even ignoring that, wouldn't the Weirdstone's own effect block it? The wording of Weirstone is broad enough to include Wish's "Transport Travelers" function. The only question is what "regardless of local conditions" refers to, specifically whether "conditions" refers to purely to physical conditions, or whether it includes magical conditions and emanations under its umbrella as well. I'd be rather skeptical of any attempt to magically transport something out of an area that bans magical transportation, without stronger wording to back it up. As-is, we sort of have an IHS situation where sufficiently-broad interpretations create hilarity, but RAW is decidedly ambiguous on the subject.
(EDIT) Google revealed the weakness to me - you can only PLACE them regardless of local conditions, the caveat does not extend to TAKING them. So even with the most generous interpretation you can Wish something into a Weirdstone's effect, but can't wish the Weirdstone or anything in its radius back out.
Quote:
An actual invasion is done in a more coordinated manner, but that doesn't alter the fact that you simply can't secure a nations borders when industrial scale teleportation exists.
I still don't think you could bring army-sized populations through in anything like a timely fashion - not because the spell can't theoretically transport that many, but because the logistics involved in doing so become prohibitive at anything past a few people a round. That said, a few highly-trained and magically-powered people could wreak much havoc in a short time, so it's not that huge of an issue.
Really, the difficulty I see is that even with concentrated forces like the Cities you describe, it's actually still too easy for enemies to do huge damage if they wanted. Your forces are concentrated, but so are your other resources, all the key strategic points an enemy might want to capture or destroy. I don't think any garrison could mobilize rapidly enough without additional teleportation and instant communications, and at that point it doesn't actually matter what sort of area they service. A garrison alerted by Sending and mobilizing through a TC or Mass Teleport can potentially service an entire plane with almost equal effectiveness as their home town. At that point, Cities become almost the worst sort of eggs-in-one-basket setup... unless Weirdstones work and you can effectively turtle up.
-
Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
It could actually give utility to martial classes like rogues. HQs are protected with AMFs to keep out spies who would disguise themselves, but a clever fellow with mundane tools could try to penetrate an organization, find or otherwise witness whatever needed to be learned and then high tail it back home for a modify memory session with the company bard.
-
Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Lateral
There's always the Wightocalypse version of the LCB. That one actually works. (Granted, it's a single negative level, but that's enough to kill a whole lotta commoners.)
Although, actually, does the Tippyverse even have level ones in the cities? Is everyone at least, oh, third level, or is your average Joe pretty much at the same level of power as in any other setting?
Even if they don't, house pets, vermin (including insects) and other animals won't have enough HD to avoid it, then make quick work of the humans.
-
Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
-
Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
There are a few teleportation-proof methodologies capable of protecting a city. Also, teleportation means you only need *ONE* standing army of sufficient force to fend off any given opponent, because that one force can be deployed literally anywhere within your TC supply train.
Forbiddance is permanent, and you can use the password loophole to allow everyone to enter without getting killed off, however it is expensive. Then again, in a world in which infinite gold loops exist and are prevalent, it shoudn't be too difficult to pony up the money. Using Divine Spellpower and a whole pile of Nightsticks should be sufficient to have an effective caster level high enough that no one is going to punch through with a dispel.
Area is one 60' cube *per spellcaster level*. If you are already using Divine Spellpower to prevent dispel shenanigans, you can cover an entire city with a single casting, if you have sufficient resources. It might be expensive, sure, but it also absolutely guarantees no one will be teleporting into your city.
If this is more commonly used, then you will have a 'teleportation circle station' outside the city limits (since TC won't port you into the Forbiddance area). This is both an achelies heel and a benefit for the defender. On the one hand, this means if an opponent can capture that station, they can apply a siege and blockade. However, in doing so, the aggressor also opens himself up to having an entire army use Port n Pwn tactics on him through the permanent TC's they are occupying, or simply by more conventional means of every group being led by a wizard of sufficient level to use Teleport and being in range. This makes alliances with other city-states crucial not only for trade, but also for mutual defense treaties, since you can't port n pwn through your own Forbiddance.
The whole key here, and the reason it is worth the price tag involved, is that it prevents your scenario of 'one round, port n pwn, next round gone before defenders can respond'. You have to 'land' outside the city limits, then enter it conventionally (and I use the term loosely, considering 'conventionally' also includes Flight and other means of non-extradimentional travel). While magic still changes the battlefield, Forbiddance makes it nearly impossible for an opponent to project their entire force to a point inside your defenses instantly. At the very least, he will need to arrive to MDJ or use whatever shennanigans necessary to jack up his CL high enough to drop the Forbiddance. At which point, the defenders have an opportunity to respond.
-
Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
Alright I am not going to discuss the mechanics here. Want to discuss the fluff and philosophy.
Starters how do the dieties react to this? Most Dieties get the power from being worshipped. Main reason for worship is to recieve aid and guidance. So if you take out the need for aid then most of the Dietie's power will dry up. Something tells me they won't associate with the people of the Cities at best. At worst this could lead to war/punishment. This would be especially true for dieties tied to harvest for example. Gating Solars so as to use their abilities may be one of the key points of pulling off Tippyverse, but…what if the Solars says no? What if the use of abilities is refused? Another one are the Wish Traps. To me Wish isn't an automatic effect since it could be granted based on the whims of some entity. Cheapening that may not go over so well said entity so another might anger.
You stated that quite a few Cities as fell over about 2,100 years or so. Well what I postulated could be responsible for some of those.
In another area stemming from certain dieties having no more interaction with the Cities they would gravitate towards the ones in the Wilds. As such while quite a few would end up as stated how many more would be empowered by this? Would those towns with so few magic other than Sorcerers, Druids, Warlocks, and some others not have an influx of certain divine magic due to those dieties? As such to me the Wilds would start to have a Nature-y Divine feel while the Cities have a substantial Arcane feel to them.
-
Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
Quote:
Originally Posted by
ShneekeyTheLost
There are a few teleportation-proof methodologies capable of protecting a city. Also, teleportation means you only need *ONE* standing army of sufficient force to fend off any given opponent, because that one force can be deployed literally anywhere within your TC supply train.
Forbiddance is permanent, and you can use the password loophole to allow everyone to enter without getting killed off, however it is expensive. Then again, in a world in which infinite gold loops exist and are prevalent, it shoudn't be too difficult to pony up the money. Using Divine Spellpower and a whole pile of Nightsticks should be sufficient to have an effective caster level high enough that no one is going to punch through with a dispel.
Area is one 60' cube *per spellcaster level*. If you are already using Divine Spellpower to prevent dispel shenanigans, you can cover an entire city with a single casting, if you have sufficient resources. It might be expensive, sure, but it also absolutely guarantees no one will be teleporting into your city.
Until one sneaky martial adept infiltrates your city and Iron Heart Surges the entire Forbiddance out of existence.
...kidding. But this does bring up a question: the OP says things are mostly by RAW, but how ridiculous does the ridiculous stuff have to be before it's been ignored by the setting? Is it just trying to account for the effects of extremely powerful spells on a campaign setting, or also for the effects of extremely poorly written rules with clearly non-RAI consequences (like IHS)? Some of these seem like they might have some serious impacts on the way a world functions.
-
Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
Quote:
Originally Posted by
TurtleKing
Alright I am not going to discuss the mechanics here. Want to discuss the fluff and philosophy.
Starters how do the dieties react to this? Most Dieties get the power from being worshipped. Main reason for worship is to recieve aid and guidance. So if you take out the need for aid then most of the Dietie's power will dry up. Something tells me they won't associate with the people of the Cities at best. At worst this could lead to war/punishment. This would be especially true for dieties tied to harvest for example. Gating Solars so as to use their abilities may be one of the key points of pulling off Tippyverse, but…what if the Solars says no? What if the use of abilities is refused? Another one are the Wish Traps. To me Wish isn't an automatic effect since it could be granted based on the whims of some entity. Cheapening that may not go over so well said entity so another might anger.
You stated that quite a few Cities as fell over about 2,100 years or so. Well what I postulated could be responsible for some of those.
In another area stemming from certain dieties having no more interaction with the Cities they would gravitate towards the ones in the Wilds. As such while quite a few would end up as stated how many more would be empowered by this? Would those towns with so few magic other than Sorcerers, Druids, Warlocks, and some others not have an influx of certain divine magic due to those dieties? As such to me the Wilds would start to have a Nature-y Divine feel while the Cities have a substantial Arcane feel to them.
Didn't the beginning add the postulate the deities are mostly (ie entirely) silent? I think that would basically answer these questions, probably not to the degree you were hoping, but I'm certainly no expert on the Tippyverse.
-
Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
Probably did. Well if dieties have little to do with the Cities then yes even more so.