Well, how'd YOU defend the GATES?

[HolyDraconus]

Have an Exalted Character of Good knowingly and willingly (without magical... assistance) help the greatest of Vile People, with the full knowledge that doing so is an IRREVOCABLE Evil act which will doom its soul to being utterly destroyed.


There. Outside of bs Diplomancy shenanigans, its pretty much not opening.

[DaggerPen]

Have an Exalted Character of Good knowingly and willingly (without magical... assistance) help the greatest of Vile People, with the full knowledge that doing so is an IRREVOCABLE Evil act which will doom its soul to being utterly destroyed.


There. Outside of bs Diplomancy shenanigans, its pretty much not opening.

... as, like, a sigil condition, or?

[Ehcks]

Security by obscurity. Using Move Earth and similar magic, I would work to create a mountain over the gate. Once it was fully covered, I would spread a rumor that I'm a crazy old wizard that likes buildings mountains.

When the first is completed, I would use all of my resources to hire an army of dwarven casters to help form an entire mountain range. I would then spend the rest of my life living on those mountains and creating more, to ensure other's belief that I am just a crazy mountain wizard and there's nothing here but rock.

[goodpeople25]

The defences we have seen had the gates be accessible though, is thier a tunnel or would use magic to get in? Plus obscurity could fail if the other gate defenders tipped them off to your existence. (Like writing in a diary though I doubt a gate defender would be so careless )

[Mandor]

Have an Exalted Character of Good knowingly and willingly (without magical... assistance) help the greatest of Vile People, with the full knowledge that doing so is an IRREVOCABLE Evil act which will doom its soul to being utterly destroyed.


There. Outside of bs Diplomancy shenanigans, its pretty much not opening.

Um.... Dragonlance, "Time of the Twins" trilogy? Isn't that exactly what Raistlin got Crysania to do?

[King of Nowhere]

Using the money of a large city, found an order of paladins sworn to protect the gate; those paladins will work closely with wizards, who will provide the best abiurations and illusions for it, and with druids, who will call the forces of nature to aid the gates (don't forget fire resistance!). And don't forget to guard it with a dungeon fillled with the nastiest monsters you can find.

Basically, I'm putting all the defences of the five gates into one.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

I'd probably do SOMETHING like Dorukan, in that alignment sigils would be used.

...The difference being, instead of relying on JUST purity of heart sigils, I'd mix in "a heart as black as pitch", "a heart as free as the four winds", and whatever alignment ones I could. The odds of getting a party together of, say, all 9 of the alignments, without someone trying to kill one of the others, are fairly low.

For extra good measure, the room leading to the gate would have several locks requiring the simultaneous activation of all 9 sigils... which would explode and kill each party upon activation, requiring multiple parties containing as many conflicting alignments as possible to even reach the core. And it would have to be in short order or after I died without a suitable heir, since in theory new sigils and locks could be put into place to replace the old ones.

Problem with this plan: let's pretend that I am the evil villain Gatesnatcher.

I go out and kidnap low-level villagers of the appropriate alignments, have my minions fight through whatever traps necessary to get to your sigils, and throw my villager-prisoners at the sigils--threatening bodily harm, harm to their loved ones, using mind control or whatever I need to do to get them to touch the sigils. I don't need them to work together, because they're my prisoners; they'll do what I say or I'll kill them and find someone who will. Either I or my minions will do all the trap-busting and monster slaying. And because the people touching the sigils are all cannon fodder, I don't care if your sigils blow them up; Detect Good, Detect Evil and so on are all things in DnD, I'll just go out and kidnap new ones, it won't even necessarily be difficult to find them.

And if I'm feeling less Evilly inclined myself, is anything stopping me from summoning monsters of the appropriate alignments to touch these things? 'Summon Monster I' seems to have a fairly wide array of alignments to play with all by itself, and I seem to recall a rule that summoned monsters that are slain don't actually die? Actually, that may be an easier way to circumvent your defense, assuming I can either coordinate that many summons across however-many sigils or find enough trustworthy like-minded summoners to help me.

[Tvtyrant]

If I was playing a D&D character I would make a floating tower above the gate (lots of ways to do this, probably summon a ghost wizard to make ethereal walls and stick the tower on top of it).

Inside of it would be a spelltrap of Wall of Magma which would cast it every 6 seconds, creating a waterfall of half-ethereal lava which would coat the gate and make turning ethereal to pass to the gate impossible.

To prevent the tower from being destroyed it would be coated in riverine, and to prevent things with fire immunity from burrowing into the pool of cooling rock the traps would have elementally shifted damage (yes, sonic walls of magma). To keep the rock from just piling up I would place a sphere of annihilation at the bottom, so the excess lava is slowly moved away and the whole thing stays semi-solid and hot.

[King of Nowhere]

If I was playing a D&D character I would make a floating tower above the gate (lots of ways to do this, probably summon a ghost wizard to make ethereal walls and stick the tower on top of it).

Inside of it would be a spelltrap of Wall of Magma which would cast it every 6 seconds, creating a waterfall of half-ethereal lava which would coat the gate and make turning ethereal to pass to the gate impossible.

To prevent the tower from being destroyed it would be coated in riverine, and to prevent things with fire immunity from burrowing into the pool of cooling rock the traps would have elementally shifted damage (yes, sonic walls of magma). To keep the rock from just piling up I would place a sphere of annihilation at the bottom, so the excess lava is slowly moved away and the whole thing stays semi-solid and hot.

Forgive me for being ignorant about most of what is non-core, but can't this titanic ddisplay of magic be defeated simply by a few break enchantment or something?

[danielxcutter]

Forgive me for being ignorant about most of what is non-core, but can't this titanic ddisplay of magic be defeated simply by a few break enchantment or something?

Technically, none of the ideas we've made is a perfect defense - such a thing is simply impossible. While most people won't even get close to the gates before being vaporized, every defense has one tiny weakness - and every story has either the villains or the heroes finding it.

[factotum]

Forgive me for being ignorant about most of what is non-core, but can't this titanic ddisplay of magic be defeated simply by a few break enchantment or something?

I'd say the bigger problem is that the idea would only work for the Azure City gate. All the others are either underground or at ground level, making it somewhat difficult to have a floating anything enclosing them.

[Tvtyrant]

Forgive me for being ignorant about most of what is non-core, but can't this titanic ddisplay of magic be defeated simply by a few break enchantment or something?

The magic items that make the lava are inside the riverine, which is immune to it. The tower and lava's etherealness is an intrinsic property, none-magical and so cannot be dispelled. From the Prime it would look like a waterfall of lava falling from nothing, while from the ethereal it would look like a fully encased tower within which the lava flows.

It is pretty easy for a high level wizard to excavate ground, so you could make one of these anywhere given some work.

[Valynie]

Security by obscurity. Using Move Earth and similar magic, I would work to create a mountain over the gate. Once it was fully covered, I would spread a rumor that I'm a crazy old wizard that likes buildings mountains.

When the first is completed, I would use all of my resources to hire an army of dwarven casters to help form an entire mountain range. I would then spend the rest of my life living on those mountains and creating more, to ensure other's belief that I am just a crazy mountain wizard and there's nothing here but rock.

This one gets my vote
Also make sure that no one in my group ever wrote something about the gates.

Also take the goblin race under my protection and help them become a full part of civilization so the dark one does not have to reveal to the bearer of the red cloak the secret of the gates

[durron597]

Spoiler: The Correct Answer

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As far as D&D is concerned, epic Wizard is capable of literally everything. Dorukan could've solved everything if he hadn't been ******* around; circumvent his stupid allies who don't know what they're doing (and Lirian who doesn't know what she's doing either, despite not really being stupid), and defend all the gates with epic magic...or hell, destroy the gates with epic magic. Anything's possible with Epic Spellcasting if you can bind enough outsiders to your will.

Also, it's worth pointing out that while Eugene is set up as being in the wrong regarding how important emotions should be to a proper wizard, Dorukan would've done much better if he'd been willing to delay his avenging Lirian long enough to rest and get the right spells for defeating Xykon. I'm not saying he should never have cared about her, or that he should've given up caring about her when Xykon started trying to use her against him, but I'm saying that him immediately charging out and dueling Xykon with less than full spell slots and prepared spells that weren't specifically prepared for defeating Xykon was a stupid stupid plan. Xykon's not going anywhere, and you dying to try and save your beloved would mean you would fail to save your beloved, so take two seconds to think things through rather than blindly charging out when you're not ready.

Spoiler: The Right Answer

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You have to have them working together, because it's Rich's sandbox, and things only go according to his plan. OOTS has a strong theme of "success is determined by which team works best as a team", and that's the only way this could ever have worked. Dorukan didn't fail because epic magic isn't enough on its own, he failed because he made stupid decision after stupid decision...decisions that no Wizard intelligent enough to survive to epic would make, except for the plot and moral of the story require him to make those stupid decisions.

We've had very few characters with both high Int and high Wis. Dorukan is no exception, his behavior is exactly in line with what I'd of expect of 19+ Int and no better than 13 Wis.

[dancrilis]

We've had very few characters with both high Int and high Wis. Dorukan is no exception, his behavior is exactly in line with what I'd of expect of 19+ Int and no better than 13 Wis.

Argueably only one - and he wants to give control of the gate to his god ... which come to think of it might be a fairly good way of protecting the gate if you choose the right god (possible if you can get one of the party to accend to divinity like the Dark One or Davlin they might be a good choice).

[DaggerPen]

If we're bringing the gods into things, we get a high priest to have their god directly propose a set of Gate protection interference exception legislation into the Godsmoot allowing any god to smite any interloper who attacks the Gate and then sabotage the High Priest of any god who seems likely to vote against it so only the ones in agreement attend.

I have a feeling like "get the gods involved" is probably not destined to end in cake and puppies for everyone, however.

[HolyDraconus]

Um.... Dragonlance, "Time of the Twins" trilogy? Isn't that exactly what Raistlin got Crysania to do?

Not quite. Raist led her to believe that doing so was in her best interests. What i suggested leaves no doubt that it is NOT in the paragon of good's best interest. I even stated knowing its an evil act and they know without a doubt that it is one. So then how can you open the gate now? Diplomancy is about the only way i can think of, but since it is an evil act, the good char falls immediately upon attempting it, preventing the gate from being opened. So yea, its all good.

[DaggerPen]

Not quite. Raist led her to believe that doing so was in her best interests. What i suggested leaves no doubt that it is NOT in the paragon of good's best interest. I even stated knowing its an evil act and they know without a doubt that it is one. So then how can you open the gate now? Diplomancy is about the only way i can think of, but since it is an evil act, the good char falls immediately upon attempting it, preventing the gate from being opened. So yea, its all good.

But how do you intend to set it up? Will you use some type of sigil spell with an "open in case of [x]" condition? Why not just make it "never open" instead? Does it make the spell stronger or something?

[Guancyto]

Honestly, aside from the Crazy Mountain Wizard scheme (which is glorious, and even beyond the mountains has the significant advantage of throwing a whole dwarven civilization between bad guys and the gate), you're going to be hard-pressed to do better than Dorukan did. His downfall was ultimately that the defenses relied on a human rather than a robot, which is not something I can really hold against him.

The Dungeons of Dorukan had:

-An epic wizard (the best defense against anything in D&D 3.5e)
-A defense that remained impenetrable even after the epic wizard was dead
-Complete immunity to sub-Epic scry-and-die tactics
-A constant stream of adventurers (here for the Dungeon!) to direct at threats to the Gate and/or scout for apprentices
-Sub-objectives for a bad guy who doesn't know about the super-secret Gate to loot and go home happy (like Nale)

If he had combined it a bit with Girard's/Soon's schemes and trained a bunch of other wizards to help him out and/or hold him back from going a bit nuts when Lirian was in trouble, the story of OotS probably wouldn't even have happened. The real problem was he isolated himself from the world and only kept one person he cared about, which is sort of a persistent problem for wizards.

[King of Nowhere]

If he had combined it a bit with Girard's/Soon's schemes and trained a bunch of other wizards to help him out and/or hold him back from going a bit nuts when Lirian was in trouble, the story of OotS probably wouldn't even have happened. The real problem was he isolated himself from the world and only kept one person he cared about, which is sort of a persistent problem for wizards.

Yeah, which is sort of the point for all the "epic wizards can do anything" mentality; no matter how powerful, the epic wizard is still less powerful than the same epic wizard plus a group of guys of other classes.

[danielxcutter]

Yeah, which is sort of the point for all the "epic wizards can do anything" mentality; no matter how powerful, the epic wizard is still less powerful than the same epic wizard plus a group of guys of other classes.

After all, one hundred twenty six is still bigger than one hundred, and that twenty six might be just enough to change the outcome of the battle.

[Porthos]

Technically, none of the ideas we've made is a perfect defense - such a thing is simply impossible. While most people won't even get close to the gates before being vaporized, every defense has one tiny weakness - and every story has either the villains or the heroes finding it.

Preeeeeety sure the "Getting rid of the Rifts in the first place" one is a perfect defense.

Sure that doesn't stop someone from poking new holes in reality. But I wasn't tasked with the "Get rid of the Snarl" problem.

[137beth]

I'd use Dorukan's method, except I'd make it so that only a goblin wearing the Crimson Mantle could get past the sigils.
Hey, maybe I have a different objective than the Scribblenauts did

[Prinygod]

Personally i think Dorukan had the right idea. Not the sigil idea necessarily, but personally defending it. Let's face it in DND the only thing that can stop a prepared high level wizard, is a better prepared higher leveled wizard. Now I understand that it wouldn't be a story if Dorukan destroyed Xykon, but he might have been able to if he spent less time making extra dimensional booty calls.
I mean you can still do that but spend some evenings grinding some xp, your good so long as no one is able to crack your defenses before you get back. And if they do you were never going to beable to stop the anyways, they were more prepared and a higher level.

[dancrilis]

Let's face it in DND the only thing that can stop a prepared high level wizard, is a better prepared higher leveled wizard.

I am not to sure that actually is true in game.

For example Wizards are confined in what they can do/make by XP/time/gold.

Here make a level 20 wizard, you have nothing but 760,000gp and 190,000xp and your initial stats are from the standard array - remember every spell you learn beyond the two per level costs gold to scribe and gold to purchase.
So from the SRD you would get eight 9th level spells free and would spend 75,600gp getting the other sixteen (unless you knew a friendly wizard willing to let you copy their spellbook).
The 8th level spells will add another 121,900gp.

There you have burned over a quarter of your total cash on high level magic (not counting spellbook cost) - note you haven't actually cast anything with a material component yet, and if you want to go down the route of having all the SRD spells I am not going to bother doing the rest of the maths - but you would likely end up with very little cash for other projects, and if you want to craft something you are giving yourself at least one negative level to do so.

Than we will say you get into a fight against a level 20 Sorcerer - they have Dispel magic and Greater Dispel magic on there list, so now they have more spell slots than and the ability to counterspell more or less anything you can do and also have the benefit of not having wasted lots of there 760,000gp getting spells, they have invested in protections etc.

There is a theory that a high level wizard can do anything as they should have all the spells and be able to prepare for anything - and sure with infinate resources and time why not (so can anyone else with that allowance, fighters can have use magic device etc to do what they need) ... but even if your wizard becomes an immortal they will not have infinate resources with which to prepare for everything.

We could bulk the combatants up to level 30 and thereby have much more gold - but even than Level 30 only have 3,000,000gp and I believe that if you move past SRD there are a total of 105 9th level spells for a Wizard - giving you a baseline cost of a minimum of 458,325gp (not including scrolls that might cost more due to expansive material components - which I imagine there are a few).

And again that is not an insignificant cost for just getting the spells into your book.

Are there ways around this - yea probably, but the baseline rules of the universe indicate that you are unlikely to be able to be 'super wizard best at besting can't be best cept by super wizard newest best at besting'.

[factotum]

It's kind of unreasonable to assume that a wizard of that level will only have the standard wealth-by-level, though. For a start, such a wizard could, with the right selection of spells, pop over to the Elemental Plane of Earth and come back with enough diamonds to fill a wheelbarrow!

[dancrilis]

It's kind of unreasonable to assume that a wizard of that level will only have the standard wealth-by-level, though. For a start, such a wizard could, with the right selection of spells, pop over to the Elemental Plane of Earth and come back with enough diamonds to fill a wheelbarrow!

Could they?
Worlds have ways of working - in the world of OOTS this is laid out in panel four.

Take your wizard heading over to the Elemental Plane of Earth to get diamonds to break the system - you can bet a number of things might happen, they will run afoul of some antagonist that will delay them until they level up, the current owner of the diamonds in the plane 'the elemental lord of diamonds' or whatever will step in an say 'hey no, bad wizard' and hit them with a rolled up newspaper, everything will do smoothly only for them to return and suddenly find that some crisis is taking there money away from them (in Haley's case a burning down hotel did it before she could spend anything).

Effectively from what we know of DnD and the World of OOTS (either together or seperately) the world (i.e DM/Author) will prevent people abusing the system to breach the Wealth by Level guidelines.

As such saying 'I will just do X to breach the wealth by level guidelines' isn't really a workable plan.

[georgie_leech]

Preeeeeety sure the "Getting rid of the Rifts in the first place" one is a perfect defense.

Sure that doesn't stop someone from poking new holes in reality. But I wasn't tasked with the "Get rid of the Snarl" problem.

Yeah, but that assumes that it's possible at all to permanently seal the rifts. We have circumstantial evidence that it isn't: if it was, why wouldn't the OotScribble just do that instead of dedicating their lives to guard them? They have Epic levels, after all. Their flaws were of the 'failed to cooperate and had narrow view points' variety, not 'too lazy to do the job properly.'

[Porthos]

Yeah, but that assumes that it's possible at all to permanently seal the rifts. We have circumstantial evidence that it isn't: if it was, why wouldn't the OotScribble just do that instead of dedicating their lives to guard them? They have Epic levels, after all. Their flaws were of the 'failed to cooperate and had narrow view points' variety, not 'too lazy to do the job properly.'

I just find it amusing that everyone accepts the problem stated as is, instead of applying good ol' adventurer lateral thinking. Really had no idea this board was so lawful.

More to the point, the Order of the Scribble broke apart. Who is to say that if they stuck together as a team they wouldn't have started to work on the "Ok, we've applied a bandage to the seeping wound, now lets see if we can actually close it."

Because, I have to say, never sealing the Rifts is just kicking the can down the road. Sooner or later even the most cooperative of defenses will fail, if only to time and entropy. Dealing with the actual problem would seem to be order of the day for long term planning.

That or figure out how to deal with the Snarl. Then the Rifts just become oversized portals.

[georgie_leech]

I just find it amusing that everyone accepts the problem stated as is, instead of applying good ol' adventurer lateral thinking. Really had no idea this board was so lawful.

More to the point, the Order of the Scribble broke apart. Who is to say that if they stuck together as a team they wouldn't have started to work on the "Ok, we've applied a bandage to the seeping wound, now lets see if we can actually close it."

Because, I have to say, never sealing the Rifts is just kicking the can down the road. Sooner or later even the most cooperative of defenses will fail, if only to time and entropy. Dealing with the actual problem would seem to be order of the day for long term planning.

That or figure out how to deal with the Snarl. Then the Rifts just become oversized portals.

Naturally. It's just kind of dodging the question a bit though. How would you guard the gates while you're busy working on someway of sealing them more permanently? It's still a valid question even if fixing it is really the best outcome.

For the record, my vote is for the obscurity method up thread, mixed with some construct based guardians and preferably a Cloister-type effect within all the anti divination materials. Have an automatic spell trap or something to Summon me (or whoever gets the Cloister up and running) to refresh it periodically.