Royal protection: how to stop high-level magical attacks

[Ferris]

Once spellcasters reach a high enough level to have some kind of teleport/planar movement plus decent Save or Suck attacks, the risk to your average King in a RPG environment seems quite high.

You’re safe behind your castle walls, guarded by numerous highly skilled and well-armoured loyal guards - but during the middle of the night, *fwoop!* - a wizard teleports into your bedroom without warning and aims a ton of damage at your sleeping form… then just as quickly zaps off again.

So what reasonable precautions could a king (or a DM) put in place to discourage regicide and/or similar shenanigans? Think: plunder the Treasury without being seen, start an earthquake, etc.

Would a king have, say, various Alarm spells cast for him on a regular basis, or something like a Glyph of Warding? Or would most kings be already so high level that they could defeat such tactics on their own, even when surprised?

Any stories of campaigns where PC’s had the job of either killing or protecting an important NPC?

[JackPhoenix]

Forbiddance and Hallow can stop teleportation.

[Unoriginal]

Once spellcasters reach a high enough level to have some kind of teleport/planar movement plus decent Save or Suck attacks, the risk to your average King in a RPG environment seems quite high.

You’re safe behind your castle walls, guarded by numerous highly skilled and well-armoured loyal guards - but during the middle of the night, *fwoop!* - a wizard teleports into your bedroom without warning and aims a ton of damage at your sleeping form… then just as quickly zaps off again.

So what reasonable precautions could a king (or a DM) put in place to discourage regicide and/or similar shenanigans? Think: plunder the Treasury without being seen, start an earthquake, etc.

Hallow, Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum and Forbiddance all make teleporting into the area impossible.

Notably, each of those spells are of lower level than Teleport.

[kingcheesepants]

I suppose that reasonable precautions depend entirely on how much magic is in the setting. In low magic settings it isn't really reasonable to need to protect against level 5+ spells because the beings who can cast such spells are so rare that they aren't really known of and so powerful that they likely wouldn't be bothering with some regular kingdom anyways. Additionally even uncommon magic items might be national heirlooms and magic items of rare or greater rarity might not even exist.

But in higher magic settings where there are at least a handful of people in each country with tier 3 and 4 spells and very rare magic items can be found here and there, in those cases the king is presumably also able to access those spells and probably rare or very rare magic items as well.

So in addition to the teleport blocking spells already mentioned other things that might be done are using guards and wards, mirage arcane, antipathy/sympathy, and symbol spells on the treasury or other similar areas. These spells make it very difficult to find those sensitive places but can still be easily bypassed by the people chosen at the time of casting or those with a password (and of course the protocol is that those who know the password always have either Mind Blank or a Ring of Mind Shielding).

In addition to protecting the areas, the king and other high officials may have Mind Blank and Death Ward cast on them every day and they may have some defensive magic jewelry such as a Ring of Protection, a Periapt of Proof Against Poison, a Ring of Regeneration or similar.

Then to protect against shape shifters or illusions not hedged out by Hallow, you'll want a guard or two that has true sight always active. If the castle can make a deal with Mechanus and get some mono/duo/etc drones in as guards that would work well since they're dependable in terms of keeping their contracts and can't be fooled by illusions or similar. Other options would be Couatls or other celestial types. These might be willingly brought in through for example planar ally, or more forcibly with planar binding.

[lall]

Be nice. I’d like to think if I was a fairy fluttering about under the rule of Queen Titania, that if asked about my queen, I would tell you more than you wanted to hear about how awesome she is. However, if I got the “old woman” treatment that Dennis received from King Arthur, I may be more inclined to be less polite to his majesty.

[Ferris]

Some good ideas, there - thanks. Private Sanctum seems one of the most likely options, since it can be made permanent by repeated casting (at the King’s order).

I like the ‘hard to find’ approach too - hadn’t considered that but it makes sense. Plus having a ‘royal double’ of course.

[Unoriginal]

Some good ideas, there - thanks. Private Sanctum seems one of the most likely options, since it can be made permanent by repeated casting (at the King’s order).

Hallow is permanent until dispelled with one casting, so I'd say it's the most likely option if the realm has any decently powerful Clerics who accept the king's authority.

Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum could be favored by people who can just throw money at the problem and have a Wizard willing to work for them, though.

[greenstone]

Mutually Assured Destruction.

The ruler makes it known that they also have the services of high-level casters with various divination magics. You attack the ruler, their people will track you down, kill you, kill your family, kill your friends, kill your pets, and so on.

[Schwann145]

Private Sanctum is your best bet because not only will it stop both teleportation and planar travel, but it also stops the necessary work-arounds to those protections: divination sensors and vision.

You can't teleport (safely) somewhere that you aren't familiar with or can't see, and you can't dispel protections that you can't see to target.

[LudicSavant]

Forbiddance is a big one. Effective, extremely spammable (it's a ritual), extremely affordable (the component is NOT consumed), big area coverage, and takes some effort to dismantle (it can be dispelled, but you can lay down a bunch of 'em). You can cover your entire fortress in it, and even if your defenses are dismantled by numerous dispels, they can be quickly rebuilt by a singular caster in your employ. It stops people from teleporting into an area, keeps the pixies out of your castle, and also puts the breaks on unwanted hordes of undead, planar-binded armies, or the like.

Note that this spammability, coverage, affordability, and swiftness of repair is a huge difference from Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum, despite Private Sanctum being a lower level spell. More on that later.

On the more mundane side of things... say, for your castle structures, maybe consider looking at star forts -- latter era castles that were designed specifically to deal with the fact that technology at the time made breaching castle walls easy.

Clear skies, open lands surrounding you, and good, long ranged weapons are generally a good answer to threats that just want to fly over your walls and drop bombs on your palace, as these threats usually don't come en masse (especially not if Forbiddance is still up), and the nature of flying means you don't have cover, the benefit of being prone, or the like, giving your defenders the advantage. Another potential answer to fliers is to simply build dungeons. Why else have so many sprawling underground complexes? Even a Meteor Swarm won't pierce layers of solid earth.

Private Sanctum has much less coverage than Forbiddance, simply because it is not a ritual, covers a tiny area, and takes a full year of castings to make permanent (as opposed to someone being able to make a ton of permanent Forbiddances within the space of a month without even using spell slots). So while you can cover your entire fortress with Forbiddance pretty easily (and swiftly rebuild those defenses even if they're dispelled), Private Sanctum is more of a specific chamber, and even then, that year of non-ritual spellcasting can be undone with a single Dispel Magic. You may still want one, mind, but it should not be your only defense.

Mutually Assured Destruction.

The ruler makes it known that they also have the services of high-level casters with various divination magics. You attack the ruler, their people will track you down, kill you, kill your family, kill your friends, kill your pets, and so on.

This is another important one. It is very useful to give people a reason to avenge you after your death, as this will serve as a deterrent against people making you dead in the first place. It also means you can benefit from higher level guardians than you could actually pay to stand guard. They don't need to actually be at your castle, guarding your body, in order to serve as a deterrent.

Having a clear line of succession is very helpful for this. Kill the king, and the prince will want to send the message that the dynasty is not to be targeted.

Another precaution you can take is simply making it hard to fully destroy every piece of your body, so that resurrection is more likely to occur. Remember, you don't need to avoid dying, you just need to avoid staying dead. All the usual precautions against full body destruction apply.

[Zhorn]

While there are preventative spells and reactionary recovery spells that serve as answers; this is one of those areas the needs to be answered on a narrative level for your world building.

Example: High level casters as adventurers are not rare because high level casters are rare, but rather high level casters that are free-agents are the rarity.
Rulers of powerful organisations tend to approach casters once they start showing themselves as being of note, offering them positions, roles, standing contracts etc.
If they refuse to join, plans for eliminating them are set in motion as they are now viewed as potential threats.

High level wizards isolating themselves away in towers is not just some quirk, but a legitimate matter of survival.
Living life in a loud and flashing style draws the wrong sorts of attention, forcing you into either becoming someone's puppet, or having to constantly fend off assassination attempts.

So yeah; your wizard NPCs are either reclusive, or sitting on a number of advisory boards and councils to show they are on the side of [X] organisation and not against them.

Same goes for the adventuring PCs.
When your players are getting into the higher levels of play; start having NPC organisations taking note and approaching the party with offers to joining the kings guard, sign up for the war, taking a seat on the king's council, becoming agents of the royal shadow force, etc.
And when the party turn it down to keep doing their own thing, start having assassins and other high level NPCs on the random encounter tables sent specifically to eliminate the party or at least send a message

[Segev]

It is often forgotten, but large amounts of ambient magic can disrupt teleportation and scrying. Accumulate a lot of low-power (and thus relatively cheap, to a king) magic items, and line your safe room, throne room, or wherever with them.

Lead — or pewter! — plating worked into the walls also prevents scrying, at least.

But also consider hiw common these sorts of threats are. Maybe the party is the first time the king has faced such a threat, if you cannot justify the cost or the magic to defend him based on the magic level of his society. Threatening and killing monarchs can get you a lot of clout...but it also can make a lot of enemies. Even if the enemies are no match for you, their own soft power can be annoying to downright dangerous.

[GeneralVryth]

There are lots of great examples of spells that can help. But about a simple custom magic item that blocks teleporting (or what have you) in range X? If the threats are common someone is going to have come up with ideas for counters. And once in the books don't have to be the only spells and magic items that exist. Or heck go straight from OoTS comic and use inter-dimensional stone that blocks such shenanigans.

[Psyren]

but during the middle of the night, *fwoop!* - a wizard teleports into your bedroom without warning

What spell are they using to do that, Teleport? Just have a fake bedroom set up so that the enemy wizard gets False Destination, 0% success chance.

[Telok]

Npcs don't follow pc rules. They don't follow any rules on this at all. Do whatever you want. Only healing spells can be cast in the throne room? The entire palace has an antimagic field? Teleportation near the king turns the caster inside out? All this stuff stops working if a pc tries to abuse it? Go wild! There's no rules or limits to how much awesome cool magic your npcs can have.

[JonBeowulf]

Private Sanctum is your best bet because not only will it stop both teleportation and planar travel, but it also stops the necessary work-arounds to those protections: divination sensors and vision.

You can't teleport (safely) somewhere that you aren't familiar with or can't see, and you can't dispel protections that you can't see to target.

I came here to say this, but it was already said.

Npcs don't follow pc rules. They don't follow any rules on this at all. Do whatever you want. Only healing spells can be cast in the throne room? The entire palace has an antimagic field? Teleportation near the king turns the caster inside out? All this stuff stops working if a pc tries to abuse it? Go wild! There's no rules or limits to how much awesome cool magic your npcs can have.

This, too. Top-tier nobility have access to high-level casters of their own along with all sorts of counter-measures.

[Schwann145]

Npcs don't follow pc rules. They don't follow any rules on this at all. Do whatever you want. Only healing spells can be cast in the throne room? The entire palace has an antimagic field? Teleportation near the king turns the caster inside out? All this stuff stops working if a pc tries to abuse it? Go wild! There's no rules or limits to how much awesome cool magic your npcs can have.

This is true, but it's also an easy way to alienate players.

"All this cool magic exists! No you can't have it!"
~DM to PCs.

[Bohandas]

A Winchester Mystery House type strategem might work. If the place is constantly rebuilt and redecorated than it will be hard to come by the requisite familiarity with the interior

[tokek]

Dynasty.

The king is dead, long live the king!

Plus of course its high magic alternative - Clone spell

It might be so hard to take down a king without retaliation that its not worth the risk. I rather think that assassination of a king would most often happen during internal squabbles where a relative of the king was trying to take over.

[Schwann145]

King is killed.
Heir becomes new King.
King is resurrected.
Civil war begins between legit King 1 and legit King 2.

Maybe do like Cormyr and outlaw resurrecting dead monarchs?

[tokek]

King is killed.
Heir becomes new King.
King is resurrected.
Civil war begins between legit King 1 and legit King 2.

Maybe do like Cormyr and outlaw resurrecting dead monarchs?

The wars of the roses would never have ended with resurrection magic. They basically ended because they ran out of credible heirs due to killing them all.

Which could be fun world building

[Mastikator]

Having a powerful spellcaster or monster that can kill (and impersonate) the king is a common plot point. I think the answer to OP is that they aren't always stopped.

[Telok]

This is true, but it's also an easy way to alienate players.

"All this cool magic exists! No you can't have it!"
~DM to PCs.

Yeah, I end up pretty alienated by all the official adventures and some other stuff. Giving npcs neat stuff and denying it to players is kinda mandated by the current ethos and world building requirements though.

[Segev]

King is killed.
Heir becomes new King.
King is resurrected.
Civil war begins between legit King 1 and legit King 2.

Maybe do like Cormyr and outlaw resurrecting dead monarchs?

Probably the same thing is done that would be done if the king disappeared under mysterious circumstances, or his traveling party dropped out of contact for a time: they'd wait a certain grace period to see if the king showed back up before the coronation occurred, and, mlst likely, the heir and the king would have a private chat about who kept the throne if there was potential problem.

[Pooky the Imp]

King is killed.
Heir becomes new King.
King is resurrected.
Civil war begins between legit King 1 and legit King 2.

Maybe do like Cormyr and outlaw resurrecting dead monarchs?

Honestly, this feels like it would make for an interesting setting/plot.

Basically, a land where the Royal Family is functionally immortal via magic - including Simulacrums, well-paid clerics, hidden Clones etc.

Thus, to stop endless infighting and civil-wars within the kingdom, the Royal children are encouraged to instead wage wars against neighbouring lands and claim those kingdoms for their own.

[Mindflayer_Inc]

Mutually Assured Destruction.

*laughs in Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker*

Seriously, this only works if you know who is actually targeting you. If someone can fake the attack as if it came from someone else, or wipe you out before your can respond, or your people don't have the mettle to destroy the original attackers... MAD doesn't come into effect.

[Segev]

*laughs in Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker*

Seriously, this only works if you know who is actually targeting you. If someone can fake the attack as if it came from someone else, or wipe you out before your can respond, or your people don't have the mettle to destroy the original attackers... MAD doesn't come into effect.

Sure it does! If you're attacked, you will end everyone, responsible or not! Now it is everyone's goal to keep you from feeling attacked! </evil overlord>

[JNAProductions]

This is true, but it's also an easy way to alienate players.

"All this cool magic exists! No you can't have it!"
~DM to PCs.

I think it's more acceptable when it's tied to something the PCs could access, but realistically won't be able to until the epilogue.

The king's throne room has had ten years of rituals laid on it, preventing any magic except healing magic from working on it. How it was done is a secret, but the king's personal library still has the notes on how it was done-if you can get access to those notes and spend ten years working the magic, you too can have a decent-sized area blocking most magic.

If it's personal power (say, the king has permanent Truesight to make it harder to fool him with illusions) that's a lot more likely to irk players.

[lall]

Thus, to stop endless infighting and civil-wars within the kingdom, the Royal children are encouraged to instead wage wars against neighbouring lands and claim those kingdoms for their own.

Or they could just like rent an apartment.

[Pooky the Imp]

Or they could just like rent an apartment.

They could. Possibly some do.

But others might also realise that being heirs to an immortal king means that (in all likelihood) they'll never get to inherit anything.

Many probably don't want to be stuck renting an apartment for the next 400+ years.