This goes with my other post, how to combat a Nautiloid, however we have an issue with Illithid teleporting into our cities and essentially giving us the run around. Any ideas to prevent teleportation and such over a large area of a city? Or items? We don’t have a year to cast in the same spot everyday. Any help be great.
Lastly any ideas to help a city defend itself in general?
I'm not sure about say, defined player abilities or magic items. But a large city if they have access to arcane resources or skilled spell casters (or a benefactor like an ancient good dragon or deity) might perhaps be able to come up with some sort of ward to stop teleportation magic from moving into or out of the city, to stop them from just teleporting right into the city to attack. This could then lead to a quest where perhaps some agents of the Ilithid attempt to sneak into the city to sabotage the defenses and the party must find out what they're up to and thwart the attempt.
If this could be done then the Ilithid would still be a big threat but one that would have to contend with defenses such as walls/towers, maybe some cannons or other magical defenses etc.
Get a bunch of Beholders to roam the city streets projecting anti-magic fields from their eyes to interfere with enemy teleporting, of course!
Joking (or not…?) aside, Nyr_Ventus’ answer is your best bet. It should be noted that thus is less something that you’ll find in the strict rules of the game, but more in what your individual DM is going to let you do. Starting with the above approach, with a healthy dose of asking NPCs for their ideas (a great way to get a DM to provide “here is the solution I thought up” if your party is stumped), will either get you a solution that works for your DM, or there never was ever going to be a solution permitted by your DM as your DM wanted to railroad you into an invasion plot line.
Narratively you need to remember that the magic in the players handbook is not the extent of the magic in the world, it just represents some of the magic most commonly used by adventurers. It's entirely plausible that, per Nyr's answer, city-class magic rituals exist that might protect a large area from magical intrusion.
These all great!! I really appreciate the responses. Our DM is always up to wacky ideas and making them work. I’ll def have to try some magical barrier. We do have an evil old dragon near us.
Forbiddance. 6th level cleric spell. It covers nearly an acre of area (40,000 square feet, which is 91.8% of an acre), which ain't too shabby. Now sure, it only lasts a day, but if you cast it in the same spot every day for 30 days it remains active indefinitely - until Dispelled.
So just measure your city's acreage, multiply that by 30,000gp worth of powdered ruby, and convince a boatload of 11th+ level clerics to do you a favor.
Or... find yourself a tribe of kobolds and tell them there's a HUGE bounty on dead mindflayers. I mean... they won't succeed, but you'll at least get some good entertainment while you watch your city burn.
Remember that they are psionic and most characters have no real defenses against them.
So run. Its the smartest thing to do and when your DM realizes you have no intention of confronting them, no matter what, he will have to seriously rethink his campaign.
I think historically there's reasonable proof that offense and defense sort of dictate each other. Like, the enemy has figured out horse are great - so since we don't have a lot of those, we'd better get a lot of long spears.
It stands to reason that if the enemy has spell jammers, the best defense would be ... spell jammers. Or maybe ... jammissiles. I'd go with the latter, if I wasn't trying to go anywhere in jammer space. Get a pile of sticks with fireballs on the end of them, and launch them at the nautiloids. Put a pilot on them, if you have to - a flying broomstick+necklace of fireballs+pilot+ring of featherfall is still endlessly cheaper than a spelljamming vessel plus crew.
Basic military economy: If the enemy is attacking with really expensive warmachines, find something cheap that will break a really expensive warmachine, and mass produce that. It's a wonderful deterrant.
But ... I'm guessing you're looking for a less rational, more dramatic answer. Like allying with a clan of silver dragons.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
I would suggest trying to entrench in roof tops. Pretend to defend towers but when the nautiloud gets close lighting them on fire and toppling them on the nautilaud. If you are in faerun I would see if water deep could send griffin cavaliers to try to harrass and distract the nautilaud well mages blasted it with fireballs
Forbiddance. 6th level cleric spell. It covers nearly an acre of area (40,000 square feet, which is 91.8% of an acre), which ain't too shabby. Now sure, it only lasts a day, but if you cast it in the same spot every day for 30 days it remains active indefinitely - until Dispelled.
So just measure your city's acreage, multiply that by 30,000gp worth of powdered ruby, and convince a boatload of 11th+ level clerics to do you a favor.
Or... find yourself a tribe of kobolds and tell them there's a HUGE bounty on dead mindflayers. I mean... they won't succeed, but you'll at least get some good entertainment while you watch your city burn.
You know those kobolds probably have unhatched eggs who without their parents will probably starve or be killed or enslaved by some tougher creature
"You know those kobolds probably have unhatched eggs who without their parents will probably starve or be killed or enslaved by some tougher creature."
And...????
They're kobolds. That was probably gonna happen to them anyhow. Kobolds have expiration dates similar to skim milk.
It can not happen too frequently after all if every three years some kind of bigger meaner creature comes along and kills most of the tribe and uses the rest as cannon fodder or makes them mine until they die of exhaustion then we would have no kobolds in dnd
I don’t know if you have access to 9th level spells… If you don’t have it teleport the party to a place where you can buy one (have the government of the city you are protecting pay for it). You just need one: Gate.
Once the Nautiloid arrives dimensional-door your party on board.
Cast Gate and open a portal to the Elemental Plane of Fire or, even better, on the bottom of some very deep extraplanar ocean.
I think the deadliest option is the bottom of an ocean. You need to go in the upper Bridges of the Nautiloid. Orient the gate so that the opening of the portal is horizontal and the opening direction is: upper face to enter, lower face to exit.
Open the portal in an area lower than where you are (like the lower bridge that you can see through a trapdoor), to avoid being killed.
The water will rush out of the Portal with enough pressure to kill instantly anyone hit and to rip steel like a sheet of paper.
Get away immediately.
As per rules the Gate will stay open 1min.
On the bottom of the ocean the pressure is ≈500 bar. If the gate has a diameter of 10m in 1 min will flow ≈2Billion liters of water, something like 1K swimming pools.
Enough to flood many times over the Nautiloid and to make it crash.
Additional note: do it before the vessel is above the city, to avoid damage.
On the bottom of the ocean the pressure is ≈500 bar. If the gate has a diameter of 10m in 1 min will flow ≈2Billion liters of water, something like 1K swimming pools.
Enough to flood many times over the Nautiloid and to make it crash.
The Nautiloid would not flood--it would merely cease to exist. The flow rate of the water in this situation would be defined as Flow Rate = π(opening diameter)^2 x [(2)(oceanic depth)(gravity)]^(1/2).
Calculating gravity on D&D is a bit hard since you fall at a pretty standard rate. However, if we just look at the 0-6 second timeframe where you fall 152.4 m from a starting velocity of 0, we can use S = S0 + V0(t) + (1/2)(a)(t)^2 to calculate the rate of gravity on a D&D world. Or -152.4 = 0 + 0(6) + (1/2)(a)(6)^2. Or -152.4 = 18(a). Or 8 = -8.467 m/s^2. (which means the gravity on D&D worlds is slightly less strong than -9.8 m/s^2 of Earth).
We now know the opening diameter (6.096 m). We do not have a good figure for depth of a D&D ocean, so let us use the average from Earth - 3,700 m. And the Gravity. So, we know know Flow Rate = π(6.096)^2 x [(2)(3,700)(8.467)]^(1/2). = 29,222.706 m^3 per second in volume. 29,222,706 liters per second for up to one minute - 1,753,362,360 liters total--that is about what you wrote.
Here is why flooding is not going to come into effect - velocity = [2gh]^(1/2). Here, that means we are looking at a velocity of 250.314 m/2 for the jet of water. 559.930 miles per hour for fans of imperial units. That means the 1,753,362,360 liters (463,189,333 gallons; ~708 Olympic pools) of water are not merely cascading over the vessel - they are hitting the vessel at the cruising speed of a passenger airline. Even a quick hit at that velocity would obliterate most things--a prolonged exposure for a minute would annihilate it... and everything below it (not to mention the destabilizing effect of the flooding which, at those volumes of water, would cause substantial damage to the city itself). At that point, it really would not matter if you "do it before the vessel is above the city"--it is very unlikely you will be able to "avoid damage".
This goes with my other post, how to combat a Nautiloid, however we have an issue with Illithid teleporting into our cities and essentially giving us the run around. Any ideas to prevent teleportation and such over a large area of a city? Or items? We don’t have a year to cast in the same spot everyday. Any help be great.
Lastly any ideas to help a city defend itself in general?
Large numbers of peasants with crossbows. As soon as an illithid is found to have teleported in, sound the alarm, and people grab their crossbows. They can keep out of range of the mind flayer's attacks, Yes, some of them will be killed, but I assume that they're killing the people anyway, and a bunch of peasants, even without proficiency, will kill a mind flayer faster than you might think.
I don’t know if you have access to 9th level spells… If you don’t have it teleport the party to a place where you can buy one (have the government of the city you are protecting pay for it). You just need one: Gate.
Once the Nautiloid arrives dimensional-door your party on board.
Dimension Door only has a 500 foot range and if you can't see your destination you risk choosing a spot that's already occupied, in which case the spell fails and you take damage.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Depends how far you are from the city when you open the gate and if the Nautiloid is coming from up-hill, down-hill or if the city is on a plane.
If the Nautiloid is coming from down-hill maybe you will flood some countryside, but the city itself should be safe. If the city is a harbor, the Nautiloid may be coming from direction of the sea and you would have no damage whatsoever. (Besides a few fishes killed by the pressurized water falling from above).
If the city is in a plane you could flood a little bit the surrounding countryside, but after all 1.7B liters are just 1.7m cubic meters, which is a 17cm thick layer of water in a 10km2 (square area with ≈3.3km side).
If the Nautiloid is coming from uphill … that may be a problem.
In that case the party may decide for a less drastic option, opening the portal at a depth of a just few hundred meters. You may have enough pressure to destroy the vessel without so much collateral damage.
Overkill anyway
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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This goes with my other post, how to combat a Nautiloid, however we have an issue with Illithid teleporting into our cities and essentially giving us the run around. Any ideas to prevent teleportation and such over a large area of a city? Or items? We don’t have a year to cast in the same spot everyday. Any help be great.
Lastly any ideas to help a city defend itself in general?
I'm not sure about say, defined player abilities or magic items. But a large city if they have access to arcane resources or skilled spell casters (or a benefactor like an ancient good dragon or deity) might perhaps be able to come up with some sort of ward to stop teleportation magic from moving into or out of the city, to stop them from just teleporting right into the city to attack. This could then lead to a quest where perhaps some agents of the Ilithid attempt to sneak into the city to sabotage the defenses and the party must find out what they're up to and thwart the attempt.
If this could be done then the Ilithid would still be a big threat but one that would have to contend with defenses such as walls/towers, maybe some cannons or other magical defenses etc.
Get a bunch of Beholders to roam the city streets projecting anti-magic fields from their eyes to interfere with enemy teleporting, of course!
Joking (or not…?) aside, Nyr_Ventus’ answer is your best bet. It should be noted that thus is less something that you’ll find in the strict rules of the game, but more in what your individual DM is going to let you do. Starting with the above approach, with a healthy dose of asking NPCs for their ideas (a great way to get a DM to provide “here is the solution I thought up” if your party is stumped), will either get you a solution that works for your DM, or there never was ever going to be a solution permitted by your DM as your DM wanted to railroad you into an invasion plot line.
Narratively you need to remember that the magic in the players handbook is not the extent of the magic in the world, it just represents some of the magic most commonly used by adventurers. It's entirely plausible that, per Nyr's answer, city-class magic rituals exist that might protect a large area from magical intrusion.
These all great!! I really appreciate the responses. Our DM is always up to wacky ideas and making them work. I’ll def have to try some magical barrier. We do have an evil old dragon near us.
Forbiddance. 6th level cleric spell. It covers nearly an acre of area (40,000 square feet, which is 91.8% of an acre), which ain't too shabby. Now sure, it only lasts a day, but if you cast it in the same spot every day for 30 days it remains active indefinitely - until Dispelled.
So just measure your city's acreage, multiply that by 30,000gp worth of powdered ruby, and convince a boatload of 11th+ level clerics to do you a favor.
Or... find yourself a tribe of kobolds and tell them there's a HUGE bounty on dead mindflayers. I mean... they won't succeed, but you'll at least get some good entertainment while you watch your city burn.
Anzio Faro. Protector Aasimar light cleric. Lvl 18.
Viktor Gavriil. White dragonborn grave cleric. Lvl 20.
Ikram Sahir ibn-Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad. Brass dragonborn draconic sorcerer Lvl 9. Fire elemental devil.
Wrangler of cats.
Remember that they are psionic and most characters have no real defenses against them.
So run. Its the smartest thing to do and when your DM realizes you have no intention of confronting them, no matter what, he will have to seriously rethink his campaign.
I think historically there's reasonable proof that offense and defense sort of dictate each other. Like, the enemy has figured out horse are great - so since we don't have a lot of those, we'd better get a lot of long spears.
It stands to reason that if the enemy has spell jammers, the best defense would be ... spell jammers. Or maybe ... jammissiles. I'd go with the latter, if I wasn't trying to go anywhere in jammer space. Get a pile of sticks with fireballs on the end of them, and launch them at the nautiloids. Put a pilot on them, if you have to - a flying broomstick+necklace of fireballs+pilot+ring of featherfall is still endlessly cheaper than a spelljamming vessel plus crew.
Basic military economy: If the enemy is attacking with really expensive warmachines, find something cheap that will break a really expensive warmachine, and mass produce that. It's a wonderful deterrant.
But ... I'm guessing you're looking for a less rational, more dramatic answer. Like allying with a clan of silver dragons.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
A Mythal could do it. Or if you are really desperate an antimagic field could work
I would suggest trying to entrench in roof tops. Pretend to defend towers but when the nautiloud gets close lighting them on fire and toppling them on the nautilaud. If you are in faerun I would see if water deep could send griffin cavaliers to try to harrass and distract the nautilaud well mages blasted it with fireballs
You know those kobolds probably have unhatched eggs who without their parents will probably starve or be killed or enslaved by some tougher creature
"You know those kobolds probably have unhatched eggs who without their parents will probably starve or be killed or enslaved by some tougher creature."
And...????
They're kobolds. That was probably gonna happen to them anyhow. Kobolds have expiration dates similar to skim milk.
Anzio Faro. Protector Aasimar light cleric. Lvl 18.
Viktor Gavriil. White dragonborn grave cleric. Lvl 20.
Ikram Sahir ibn-Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad. Brass dragonborn draconic sorcerer Lvl 9. Fire elemental devil.
Wrangler of cats.
It can not happen too frequently after all if every three years some kind of bigger meaner creature comes along and kills most of the tribe and uses the rest as cannon fodder or makes them mine until they die of exhaustion then we would have no kobolds in dnd
Plus kobolds are as smart as humans
Kobolds are as smart as humans?
You obviously haven't met many humans, or you'd know that's not exactly a compliment.
Anzio Faro. Protector Aasimar light cleric. Lvl 18.
Viktor Gavriil. White dragonborn grave cleric. Lvl 20.
Ikram Sahir ibn-Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad. Brass dragonborn draconic sorcerer Lvl 9. Fire elemental devil.
Wrangler of cats.
If there is just one Nautiloid…
I don’t know if you have access to 9th level spells… If you don’t have it teleport the party to a place where you can buy one (have the government of the city you are protecting pay for it). You just need one: Gate.
Once the Nautiloid arrives dimensional-door your party on board.
Cast Gate and open a portal to the Elemental Plane of Fire or, even better, on the bottom of some very deep extraplanar ocean.
I think the deadliest option is the bottom of an ocean. You need to go in the upper Bridges of the Nautiloid. Orient the gate so that the opening of the portal is horizontal and the opening direction is: upper face to enter, lower face to exit.
Open the portal in an area lower than where you are (like the lower bridge that you can see through a trapdoor), to avoid being killed.
The water will rush out of the Portal with enough pressure to kill instantly anyone hit and to rip steel like a sheet of paper.
Get away immediately.
As per rules the Gate will stay open 1min.
On the bottom of the ocean the pressure is ≈500 bar. If the gate has a diameter of 10m in 1 min will flow ≈2Billion liters of water, something like 1K swimming pools.
Enough to flood many times over the Nautiloid and to make it crash.
Additional note: do it before the vessel is above the city, to avoid damage.
The Nautiloid would not flood--it would merely cease to exist. The flow rate of the water in this situation would be defined as Flow Rate = π(opening diameter)^2 x [(2)(oceanic depth)(gravity)]^(1/2).
Calculating gravity on D&D is a bit hard since you fall at a pretty standard rate. However, if we just look at the 0-6 second timeframe where you fall 152.4 m from a starting velocity of 0, we can use S = S0 + V0(t) + (1/2)(a)(t)^2 to calculate the rate of gravity on a D&D world. Or -152.4 = 0 + 0(6) + (1/2)(a)(6)^2. Or -152.4 = 18(a). Or 8 = -8.467 m/s^2. (which means the gravity on D&D worlds is slightly less strong than -9.8 m/s^2 of Earth).
We now know the opening diameter (6.096 m). We do not have a good figure for depth of a D&D ocean, so let us use the average from Earth - 3,700 m. And the Gravity. So, we know know Flow Rate = π(6.096)^2 x [(2)(3,700)(8.467)]^(1/2). = 29,222.706 m^3 per second in volume. 29,222,706 liters per second for up to one minute - 1,753,362,360 liters total--that is about what you wrote.
Here is why flooding is not going to come into effect - velocity = [2gh]^(1/2). Here, that means we are looking at a velocity of 250.314 m/2 for the jet of water. 559.930 miles per hour for fans of imperial units. That means the 1,753,362,360 liters (463,189,333 gallons; ~708 Olympic pools) of water are not merely cascading over the vessel - they are hitting the vessel at the cruising speed of a passenger airline. Even a quick hit at that velocity would obliterate most things--a prolonged exposure for a minute would annihilate it... and everything below it (not to mention the destabilizing effect of the flooding which, at those volumes of water, would cause substantial damage to the city itself). At that point, it really would not matter if you "do it before the vessel is above the city"--it is very unlikely you will be able to "avoid damage".
Large numbers of peasants with crossbows. As soon as an illithid is found to have teleported in, sound the alarm, and people grab their crossbows. They can keep out of range of the mind flayer's attacks, Yes, some of them will be killed, but I assume that they're killing the people anyway, and a bunch of peasants, even without proficiency, will kill a mind flayer faster than you might think.
Dimension Door only has a 500 foot range and if you can't see your destination you risk choosing a spot that's already occupied, in which case the spell fails and you take damage.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Yeap. Obliteration!
Depends how far you are from the city when you open the gate and if the Nautiloid is coming from up-hill, down-hill or if the city is on a plane.
If the Nautiloid is coming from down-hill maybe you will flood some countryside, but the city itself should be safe. If the city is a harbor, the Nautiloid may be coming from direction of the sea and you would have no damage whatsoever. (Besides a few fishes killed by the pressurized water falling from above).
If the city is in a plane you could flood a little bit the surrounding countryside, but after all 1.7B liters are just 1.7m cubic meters, which is a 17cm thick layer of water in a 10km2 (square area with ≈3.3km side).
If the Nautiloid is coming from uphill … that may be a problem.
In that case the party may decide for a less drastic option, opening the portal at a depth of a just few hundred meters. You may have enough pressure to destroy the vessel without so much collateral damage.
Overkill anyway