I'm making an Islands-To-Water incantation...

[Koneko]

... using the rules in Unearthed Arcana. Here's what I have so far:

Making the ritual spell to sink a small island- How about, turning the land into water permanently? Each time you double the amount affected, DC goes up by 3. Here's how it works.

20 cubic feet... 2.714 feet on a side... 20*(2^0)

...

20480 cubic feet... 27.4 feet on a side... 20*(2^10)
40960 cubic feet... 34.4 feet on a side... 20*(2^11)
81920 cubic feet... 43.4 feet on a side... 20*(2^12)

...

20,971,520 cubic feet... 275.4 feet on a side... 20*(2^20)

...

21,474,836,480 cubic feet... 2779.4 feet on a side... 20*(2^30)

...

21,990,232,555,520 cubic feet... 28,016.4 feet on side... 20*(2^40)

DC + 120 to make a transmutation incantation affect a 5-mile-plus cube of matter.

Cool. Now, we need to make the duration from rounds to permanent- DC + 22.

Next, we need the spell to be cast from miles away- Range to long, then + 2 DC for each extra 100 feet of range. To affect the entire island, it all has to be in-range... So the range has to be five miles plus the distance between the island and the evil stronghold, perhaps another fifty miles. 55 miles = 290,400 feet. Let's say our caster is 16th level. His long-range spells have a range of 400 feet + (40*16) feet, or a total of 1040 feet. That leaves 289,360 feet for... A DC modifier of + 5788. Ouch.

Let's add it up:
32 (base for Transmutation)
+120 (affect 22 trillion cubic feet)
+22 (Permanent duration)
+5788 (Range to 290,400 feet)
______
5962 DC Knowledge(Arcana) check. Eight of them, in fact.

Now let's see what we can do to make this castable...

First, increasing the casting time. -1 DC for each hour between checks. This incantation will require eight checks to complete... The most we can do is three hours in between each, for -24 to the DC. Only one island disappears per day, I guess.

Next, the focus and material component. A 25,000 gp focus decreases DC by 2, and a material component worth 5,000 gp does the same. -4 to the DC.

Secondary casters? Well, 200 of them reduces the DC by 10, and each additional 100 reduces it by 2 beyond that... This person only has a little over 700 minions, so DC -20.

5962 - 48 is still 5918... It's obvious we need to decrease the range.

What is it's only five miles of range, and they're already ON the island... or beneath it? Someone with access to this spell would certainly have the resources to tunnel into the ground, perhaps with minions disguised as miners, and then put a teleportation circle down there. Link it to evil stronghold of choice, and instant way in and escape route!

Ooh, and we don't need five miles at all- Just over 3.5 if you're in the direct center.

That changes our 5788 into 350. Now our incantation's DC is 480. Still impossible for our level 16 villain...

Who, incidentally, needs the DC to be 34 or less to take 10 on it.

So, what could we do to decrease the DC by 446?

It's clearly impractical to get another 22,300 minions.

We don't want to take 892d6 of backlash. No, Sir.

Nothing else that self-stacks is listed... so maybe 480 is good enough, and he just needs to boost his intellect by 892 through magic items, etcetera? Doesn't make sense to me.


Any ideas? I was having fun doing this for a while now, but I'm stuck. Help appreciated.

[Dallerdin]

I'm not actually sure about this as I don't own Unearthed Arcana, but in the Epic Level Handbook, in the rules for creating epic spells, it has information on "ritual" spells - those requiring extra casters also contributing spell slots.

You say the guy has 700 or so minions? Say about fifty can cast level 5 or higher spells. A caster contributing a level 5 spell slot is -11 to the DC. 50x11 = 550. You can afford to make the spell have a bit longer range after all.

Of course, this is the Epic Level Handbook. Not sure how it applies to Unearthed Arcana spell research.

[Dragonmuncher]

I'd say this is one of those instances you find in fantasy literature where the question isn't "How much power do we use," but rather, "Where should we use the power."

I'm assuming the island isn't just floating on top of the water. If it's not floating, maybe just turn the bottom half of the island into water, sinking it beneath the waves.

I know little to nothing about the incantation creation rules, so these may or may not be feasible, but:

Maybe instead of directly affecting the island, enchant a pebble (or gem, statue, whatever) so that it becomes a huge land-into-water bomb. That way, do the spell wherever, then just find a way to get the pebble onto the island. Maybe have it react with a kind of plant that's only on the island?

Perhaps there's a way for the incantation to require human (or elf, or dwarf, whatever) sacrifice? I'd say killing 500 minions should give some benefit, although it might have to be voluntary.

[Hzurr]

Ahh, you're going about this all wrong. Here are several ideas if you really want to sink an island.

1) Scroll of wish. Short, sweet, and to the point, although slightly expensive

2) Get a bard (or you could possibly do it yourself) to enchant a Titan, and simply get the Titan to sink it for you.

Which brings up another point. Do you want to turn it into water, or do you want to sink the island? If you want to sink it, than you have to consider what kind of island it is. If it's a coral based island, go take a look at all the plant spells (since Coral are technically alive). If it's a volcanic based island, the island base will be significantly weaker, and you can simply go underwater and disentigrate the base until it sinks (note: depending on how much errosion has taken place, this might either take a very long time, or very little time.)

[Frojoe21]

Or you could get a sorceror to just go nuts with disintegrate. Using the weaving variant from Arcana Unearthed, a 20th level sorcerer could level at least half the island in one day.

[WhiteMonkey]

Why permanent it? If you turn an Island to water, the ‘affected’ water will dissipate within the ocean. When the spell wares off, the island will be spread across the ocean floor, (effectively sunken). OR if ocean conditions are calm, it will reform into a horridly low level wet-land of sorts, possibly submerged during high tides.

Either way you’ve decimated the inhabitants.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Where are Ramos and Belial when you need them?

[jdrich]

Why not take a look at Rock to Mud, the druid spell? At level twenty, you're effecting 2 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 20 = 40,000 cubic feet per single casting.

So if you assume that a level twenty caster could cast the spell 30 times in one day, over the course of only three minutes, you're looking at 1,200,000 cubic feet of rock turned mud. That's an area 10 x 345 x 345, so you could effectively obliterate probably about two football fields of coastal area in three minutes. Considering staffs and/or scrolls, your typical BBEG could destroy an entire island over the course of a single day. True, the land wouldn't become water, but it would evaporate into the sea quite quickly.

[sktarq]

ummm 1 minor detail. You probably wouldn't want to make it a cube. Sinple reason is that five miles down in many areas brings you to the edge of the mantle of the earth.....more actually IN the mantle if you are already on the ocean and an oceaniic plate (which a covered with an average of 2 miles of water and then only have 2-2.5 miles of rock underneath (continents can be 6 miles thick BELOW sea lvl-hense why oceanianic plates generally subduct between continental plates)-Really you just want to get it down far enough for the water level to cover it up - 500 ft works nicly - no nead to take a chunk out of the seabottom while you're at it.

[idksocrates]

When in doubt... magical aritifact to sink island!

Or... you could just make it a prerequisite that to cast the incantation you need a very rare item. Maybe there's some special rare material that your villain finds, and tests it by sinking the island, and the PC's have to stop the villain from finding a major supply of it and turning the world into ocean.

[Sacrath]

We don't want to take 892d6 of backlash. No, Sir.

Why not? At level 16 (and with 700 minions) this guy should have a couple of Clones ready and waiting incase of his unfortunate demise. Grow a few more and just die 8 times. If I understand the rules correctly, his minions should be able to keep the spell going.