Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
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D&D has many medieval themes. Castles, keeps, and such are great base locations for the bad guys.
But those strongholds seem "less strong" in a world with teleportation, flying, spider climb, or literally turning into a spider.
How would someone wealthy enough to hire magic users protect their fortress?
Because my PCs need to get something from a rich bad guy's castle. While I’m not looking for a full siege, it needs to be at least harder than robbing the local shop.
Animatic field. Hallow. Nondetection maybe. Guards and wards. Alarm. Turesight. See invisibility. Probably a number of others.
The there’s lots of spells that can make it harder. The big problem is they all have a limited duration, so they’d need to be cast repeatedly. And the wizards high enough level to do the casting are likely rich enough in their own right that they don’t need the money.
So to keep them up, either you just say he pays the wizards to keep casting them, that’s the easy option. Or you give them some kind of relationship, friends, business partners, family, etc. Or you homebrew an item like some kind of giant stone pillar that’s the focus of antimagic field, and put it in there. You make it really big and part of the structure so the PCs can’t take it.
Other options could be secret chest, and make the replica a part of the rich guy’s kid’s dollhouse so it’s hiding in plain site.
The most secure option would probably be demiplane.
A cube of force lets you cast mordenkainens private sanctum every day. That by itself will prevent all scrying into the area and can even make it look dark if you look in from the outside with your own eyes, and will also prevent any kind of teleportation breaches. Just throw in some mundane security or a shield guardian on top of that.
Fifth Edition's spell list has become way more focused on stuff that PCs would use, we don't have the oodles of sourcebooks and Dragon Magazine articles filled with spells that no murderhobo would ever bother with. I think it's safe to say that an NPC's fortress that they've been living in for years (possibly even generations) could have more defenses like anti-scrying wards, torches that could reveal shapeshifters, rooms that are proofed against teleportation, or the like. Just don't overdo it, having the place too secure is no fun: one particular guard with a Gem of Trueseeing is a challenge, every guard with one is ridiculous.
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.
You either break into the castle or Teleport in, your choice. You encounter surprisingly little security. You find the item you're looking for, and make a quick getaway. Piece of cake, right? So you bring the item to the thieves guild (or whoever) for payment, only to be told it's a fake. And now you've got the entire thieves guild hunting you down.
Because someone rich and powerful enough to have their own castle full of treasures isn't going to just leave that stuff sitting around where people can grab it. Everything on display is a fake. All the real stuff is kept secure in a Demiplane.
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.
D&D 5th edition doesn't include a lot of stuff for how a fortress would be built, so you may need to invent some things, but there are some standard defaults:
Of course, bear in mind that this is a game, so getting past defenses doesn't have to be impossible -- just enough effort to be interesting.
Part of the question is: how common is magic, particularly mid-high-level magic? It feels common because players are exceptional, but is it? (The two easy tests IMO are: how easy is it to buy a non-common magic item, and how easy is it to buy a raise dead?)
The rarer it is, the more rich and powerful somebody would have to be to have serious magical defenses, both because they're expensive, and because they're not the threat model.
Does the owner of the structure have unusual enemies? Are they a high-level caster themselves, or do they have one or more in their service.
Where is the structure? A rich merchant's home in a major city is likely to be less protected than the fortress holding a major pass against the Empire of Enemy.
Assuming magic's common enough that the players aren't an out-of-context problem for the structure's defenses, think of some likely approaches, and decide how they're defended again.
Then, if you decide some of them are common methods, or obvious, let the players know that they can likely expect them. Then let them work their brains to come up with something. And then let that clever plan work, or at least get them into the building before it all goes horribly wrong if it's not that clever.
And if their plan is "we're tough enough to just smash our way in the front door and fight the guards... well, they should be correct, unless they're low-level and biting off more than they can chew. But anything that unsubtle is going to have consequences.
But if they're clever and subtle enough, don't stick in a new defense just to foil their plans.
Another approach, especially if your players are the sort to get bogged down in planning: steal a page from the game Blades in the Dark. Put them at the start of their break-in, and give each of them a flashback. (If you have a sneaky rogue-type, give that player two. This is Their Thing.) Whenever they're confronted by an obstacle, a player can cash in a flashback, and you hop back in time and play out a scene where they do something to neutralize that obstacle. For instance, neutralize a guard by bribing, blackmailing, or otherwise socially interacting so that the guard lets them pass, or is too drunk to pay attention, or whatever. If the flashback goes badly, they'll have to fight or improvise in the present, but it lets them Be Prepared without dithering about the possibilities forever.
This is a different style of play, and may take a bit of discussion before everybody can wrap their heads around it.
Trap the treasure, and lay down magical wards that create areas of Antimagic. Realistically, a rich enough person can pay a wizard to lay down some wards at key points that can disable other magic or entrap intruders. And if the thing that they try to grab is warded, there isn't a Spider Climb workaround to that. They have to tank the trap and escape the guards, or disable it. Getting the thing doesn't have to be just getting there, grabbing it, and getting out, but the item of the heist should be in itself difficult to simply take.
He doesn't have much besides the skin on his bones. Me: I'll take the skin on his bones, then.
"You see a gigantic, monstrous praying mantis burst from out of the ground. It sprays a stream of acid from it's mouth at one soldier, dissolving him instantly, then it turns and chomps another soldier in half with it's- "
"When are we gonna take a snack break?"