I’m trying to set up a valuable item that has security that my party can try to steal. How would you design a security system in Dnd? It would belong to someone with a lot of money and resources, so make it tough.
Absolutely this. And I'd say not just on the item, but in a large sphere around it. This is a world where teleport makes walls and doors irrelevant as a means of security. By all means, they'll still need walls, and doors with locks, and guards and all the things to keep out the riff-raff. But the big trick is keeping out high level casters, who can teleport, astral project, stone shape, etc. and bypass all those mundane security measures.
I'd also look at using Forbiddance, particularly the part where you cast it in the same place every day for a month, so it lasts until dispelled.
Or use Demiplane, and put it there. Others can access it, but its tough, and depends on a DM interpretation of "nature and contents." Though, if I were a caster doing that, in addition to the super secret thing I'm trying to keep safe, I'd throw in something else, and not tell anyone what it was, so no one else would truly know the contents.
Leomund's Secret Chest is another good one. Technically, someone could try and find it on the ethereal plane, but, well, good luck to them.
You put it at the bottom of a dungeon full of monsters and fiendish deathtraps where only a party of brave and clever adventurers can hope to recover it.
More realistically, it depends on what it is and you want it for; there are plenty of ways of making things that are very hard to reach, but they tend to make it hard for you to reach as well. Plenty of valuable things may be sitting around your house as decorations, because that's why you have them.
Leomund's secret chest is a 4th level spell. In any but the lowest of magic campaigns, it is likely to be used to protect a valuable magic item.
Each casting lasts at least 60 days. To retrieve an item you need a) the wizard that cast the spell and b) the tiny replica.
A wizard can easily make money by you pay him, he casts the spell but YOU keep the tiny replica.
Ways to retrieve the larger chest.
Obtain the tiny replica and convince the wizard to retrieve the item.
Go to the Ethereal Plane, hunt down the chest, and break in there.
Wish Spell
Note that the spell is instantaneous, Dispell Magic does nothing.
The spell 'ends', leaving the chest in the Ethereal plane and the Wizard is unable to retrieve it if a) Wizard casts the spell again, b) you roll poorly after the 60 day limit, c) someone destroys the tiny replica, or d) Wizard spends an action to end the spell.
Make a regular dungeon, with all the traps and encounters contained within. Then reflavor it all to be guards and animated armor instead of monsters, rooms of a mansion instead of caves, and you've got yourself a security system.
I don't remember where I heard it, but I once read:
The difference between a dungeon crawl and a stealth/heist mission is whether or not the players know the layout of the dungeon. Once they know the rooms, traps, encounters, etc, they'll be able to try to be sneaky through the whole thing and it'll change the dynamic a lot. Whether that's a good or bad thing is up to you and your table.
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I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
Firstly you need to decide what the person would want to happen to potential thieves.
An arrogant noble or wealthy merchant might want their vault to be impregnable. A wizard or trickster might want to capture any possible thieves for later processing. A necromancer might want to kill thieves, also for later processing. A crime boss might prefer to know the identity of the thieves so that they can use this infromation to control them. A hive-mind may want to infect the thieves. Someone who wants to appear inept might try to trick the thieves into stealing something else. Someone hiding an artefact that nobody should know about might go full indiana jones and try to destroy the entire place, with the item and thieves still inside.
To make it impregnable, you want antimagic, lead linings, and so on. Thick adamantine doors and complex magical locks. To make it capture people for later processing, consider paralysis and petrification based traps. Allows the vault to be checked every few months to see if anyone has been caught. To kill people, you've got your usual traps - pit falls, darts, spells, scything blades, lasers, spikes, drills, rabid kobolds, boulders, drowning, and so on. Illusions and charm spells will be an effective option to convince the thieves that they have stolen something when they actually haven't.
Don't forget that you aren't confined to the spells in the PHB as a DM - you can say "this water petrifies whoever it touches" and nobody is going to be saying "there isn't actually a spell for that".
The solution is whatever you can imagine. It’s like asking us how to plan the perfect holiday. It is going to be utterly dependent on your campaign, the players, you npc’s, the item itself. Securing an adult is completely different to securing a tiger, or a dagger, or a dragonlance. There is no one answer. You would need to provide significantly more information for people to give you appropriate suggestions
Non-detection cast on the item somewhere else, and then the item is brought to its final destination.
or
Permanent Anti-magic shell centred on the object.
Twisting that second idea a bit, make it an anti-life shell. The guards are all constructs, and are thus able to go near the item without any problems, but a real boy? No chance!
I'd also consider some kind of illusion that creates a bunch of "duplicates" of the object so that there's a 1-in-8 chance of somebody grabbing the real one.
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Being gender-fluid and pansexual makes roleplay a lot easier!
I’m trying to set up a valuable item that has security that my party can try to steal. How would you design a security system in Dnd? It would belong to someone with a lot of money and resources, so make it tough.
Non-detection cast on the item somewhere else, and then the item is brought to its final destination.
or
Permanent Anti-magic shell centred on the object.
Absolutely this. And I'd say not just on the item, but in a large sphere around it. This is a world where teleport makes walls and doors irrelevant as a means of security. By all means, they'll still need walls, and doors with locks, and guards and all the things to keep out the riff-raff. But the big trick is keeping out high level casters, who can teleport, astral project, stone shape, etc. and bypass all those mundane security measures.
I'd also look at using Forbiddance, particularly the part where you cast it in the same place every day for a month, so it lasts until dispelled.
Or use Demiplane, and put it there. Others can access it, but its tough, and depends on a DM interpretation of "nature and contents." Though, if I were a caster doing that, in addition to the super secret thing I'm trying to keep safe, I'd throw in something else, and not tell anyone what it was, so no one else would truly know the contents.
Leomund's Secret Chest is another good one. Technically, someone could try and find it on the ethereal plane, but, well, good luck to them.
You put it at the bottom of a dungeon full of monsters and fiendish deathtraps where only a party of brave and clever adventurers can hope to recover it.
More realistically, it depends on what it is and you want it for; there are plenty of ways of making things that are very hard to reach, but they tend to make it hard for you to reach as well. Plenty of valuable things may be sitting around your house as decorations, because that's why you have them.
Leomund's secret chest is a 4th level spell. In any but the lowest of magic campaigns, it is likely to be used to protect a valuable magic item.
Each casting lasts at least 60 days. To retrieve an item you need a) the wizard that cast the spell and b) the tiny replica.
A wizard can easily make money by you pay him, he casts the spell but YOU keep the tiny replica.
Ways to retrieve the larger chest.
Note that the spell is instantaneous, Dispell Magic does nothing.
The spell 'ends', leaving the chest in the Ethereal plane and the Wizard is unable to retrieve it if a) Wizard casts the spell again, b) you roll poorly after the 60 day limit, c) someone destroys the tiny replica, or d) Wizard spends an action to end the spell.
Make a regular dungeon, with all the traps and encounters contained within. Then reflavor it all to be guards and animated armor instead of monsters, rooms of a mansion instead of caves, and you've got yourself a security system.
I don't remember where I heard it, but I once read:
The difference between a dungeon crawl and a stealth/heist mission is whether or not the players know the layout of the dungeon. Once they know the rooms, traps, encounters, etc, they'll be able to try to be sneaky through the whole thing and it'll change the dynamic a lot. Whether that's a good or bad thing is up to you and your table.
I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
Firstly you need to decide what the person would want to happen to potential thieves.
An arrogant noble or wealthy merchant might want their vault to be impregnable. A wizard or trickster might want to capture any possible thieves for later processing. A necromancer might want to kill thieves, also for later processing. A crime boss might prefer to know the identity of the thieves so that they can use this infromation to control them. A hive-mind may want to infect the thieves. Someone who wants to appear inept might try to trick the thieves into stealing something else. Someone hiding an artefact that nobody should know about might go full indiana jones and try to destroy the entire place, with the item and thieves still inside.
To make it impregnable, you want antimagic, lead linings, and so on. Thick adamantine doors and complex magical locks.
To make it capture people for later processing, consider paralysis and petrification based traps. Allows the vault to be checked every few months to see if anyone has been caught.
To kill people, you've got your usual traps - pit falls, darts, spells, scything blades, lasers, spikes, drills, rabid kobolds, boulders, drowning, and so on.
Illusions and charm spells will be an effective option to convince the thieves that they have stolen something when they actually haven't.
Don't forget that you aren't confined to the spells in the PHB as a DM - you can say "this water petrifies whoever it touches" and nobody is going to be saying "there isn't actually a spell for that".
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The solution is whatever you can imagine. It’s like asking us how to plan the perfect holiday. It is going to be utterly dependent on your campaign, the players, you npc’s, the item itself. Securing an adult is completely different to securing a tiger, or a dagger, or a dragonlance. There is no one answer. You would need to provide significantly more information for people to give you appropriate suggestions
Twisting that second idea a bit, make it an anti-life shell. The guards are all constructs, and are thus able to go near the item without any problems, but a real boy? No chance!
I'd also consider some kind of illusion that creates a bunch of "duplicates" of the object so that there's a 1-in-8 chance of somebody grabbing the real one.
Being gender-fluid and pansexual makes roleplay a lot easier!
Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum will also help a lot, I guess.