You create a ward that protects up to 2,500 square feet of floor space (an area 50 feet square, or one hundred 5-foot squares or twenty-five 10-foot squares). The warded area can be up to 20 feet tall, and shaped as you desire. You can ward several stories of a stronghold by dividing the area among them, as long as you can walk into each contiguous area while you are casting the spell.
When you cast this spell, you can specify individuals that are unaffected by any or all of the effects that you choose. You can also specify a password that, when spoken aloud, makes the speaker immune to these effects.
Guards and wards creates the following effects within the warded area.
Corridors. Fog fills all the warded corridors, making them heavily obscured. In addition, at each intersection or branching passage offering a choice of direction, there is a 50 percent chance that a creature other than you will believe it is going in the opposite direction from the one it chooses.
Doors. All doors in the warded area are magically locked, as if sealed by an arcane lock spell. In addition, you can cover up to ten doors with an illusion (equivalent to the illusory object function of the minor illusion spell) to make them appear as plain sections of wall.
Stairs. Webs fill all stairs in the warded area from top to bottom, as the web spell. These strands regrow in 10 minutes if they are burned or torn away while guards and wards lasts.
Other Spell Effect. You can place your choice of one of the following magical effects within the warded area of the stronghold.
- Place dancing lights in four corridors. You can designate a simple program that the lights repeat as long as guards and wards lasts.
- Place magic mouth in two locations.
- Place stinking cloud in two locations. The vapors appear in the places you designate; they return within 10 minutes if dispersed by wind while guards and wards lasts.
- Place a constant gust of wind in one corridor or room.
- Place a suggestion in one location. You select an area of up to 5 feet square, and any creature that enters or passes through the area receives the suggestion mentally.
The whole warded area radiates magic. A dispel magic cast on a specific effect, if successful, removes only that effect.
You can create a permanently guarded and warded structure by casting this spell there every day for one year.
* - (burning incense, a small measure of brimstone and oil, a knotted string, a small amount of monster blood, and a small silver rod worth at least 10 gp)
Could you cast this spell repeatedly to have multiple effects going at once?
You always get the stairs, corridors, and doors effects. The "other spell effects".could be stacked by casting it multiple times, as the spell doesn't require concentration and there's no limitation on what area you cast it on, other than size.
Do note that the effects don't "stack", as per the rules on "combining magical effects:"
The effects of different spells add together while the durations of those spells overlap. The effects of the same spell cast multiple times don't combine, however. Instead, the most potent effect — such as the highest bonus — from those castings applies while their durations overlap, or the most recent effect applies if the castings are equally potent and their durations overlap.
For example, a second cast should let you hide 10 additional doors (as the hidden door effect from cast 2 would override the basic effect of cast 1), but those doors wouldn't get two locks.
Though that appears to be how the rule is written, it would he up to the DM to decide if the combo resolution affects each individual door vs the effect as a whole. I could see an argument that you have to choose 1 of the 2 effects for the entire area; as in, only the 2nd cast's doors are hidden because the entire second cast's "doors" effect overrides the first cast's.
Instant-Haunted House
I suspect the best way to construct the ward to be permanent might be to have several casters alternate the castings.
yes
Does the suggestion spell fire once only or for each creature that walks through the space? If it is once, why would you ever use that option, especially on a permanent one. Certainly it happens for each creature, yes?
Any time a creature moves through the space the spell is cast on them. This could be infinite times on the same creature, if they keep walking into the space.
Each creature
While the other casters protect. Add in a few brutes.
Seems like it would be used more by DMs than players.
Is it possible to target the fog effect with dispel magic?
I would allow a dispel magic to remove the Corridors effect in a limited area if the spell has not been made permanent, getting rid of the fog and intersection confusion. If the spell has been made a permanent effect, the fog would return in 10 minutes like the stinking cloud.
Place the suggestion on the door to leave and never return.
I think a permanent Guards and Wards is a likely affect for the lair of a Lich. Liches tend to stay in their lair much of the time, and they have many years to set up permanent spells.
The question of whether to include a password when creating a permanent Guards and Wards area could be a tough one. If you go with designating specific creatures as immune, it would be tough to add any new guards or residents, or have temporary guests. If you go with a password, it only has to leak once, and then it could be spread all over and your year of hard work is ruined.
Because regularly changing passwords is such a vital part of security, as a DM, I might be tempted to rule that you can update the password on a permanent Guards and Wards by recasting the spell.
I'm totally going to make this a dungeon.
Does this feel more like a conjuration spell?
Unless dispelled, the Corridors effect is potentially deadly.
There's no check. Not even Legendary Resistance provides an easy-out; plus it's "fog", not an "Illusion", so Devil's Sight, True Seeing, etc, seem wholly ineffective against it. I'm not confident that most GMs would let anyone even perceive what went wrong, except to tell them that "the whole area radiates magic". They "believe" they are going in the opposite direction from the one they choose. I don't really see a clever verbal loophole or anything, to get out of this... ?
On a hex grid, Y-shaped intersections would mean a 50/50 chance of going the wrong way, even when backtracking... but even on a square grid, there's enough room to fit dozens of T-shaped intersections, into a 50×50 space (& it could have some verticality, too...). With just 6 intersections, the odds of reaching the end without a wrong turn, are 1.5625%. With 10 intersections, the odds drop to less than 0.1%. If the intersections don't offer wrong turns when backtracking (under an assumption that going right at a ┫ intersection results in hitting a wall), then any wrong turns may simply lead back out; but if the intersections do offer a wrong turn when backtracking (Y intersections, for instance), then a creature could become trapped indefinitely.
Putting a zig-zag corridor of Y-shaped intersections where each "wrong" turn dumps into a straight hallway with a pit at the end, & placing the constant Gust of Wind effect such that it blows down the straight hallway toward that pit, means that every wrong turn risks a 15ft push toward the pit. Laying the Y passages into a U shape around the straight hall, to create a second gauntlet, gives twice the chances to fall.
Even without the pit, just a few steps the "wrong" way into such a maze, could leave a character lost inside until they starve.
Unless & until the Corridors effect itself is dispelled, it seems to have a high potential to be made nigh-inescapable?
Needs touch and no other restrictions? Bard walks up to BBEG's lair, touches front door, casts guards and wards, profit.
Do note the casting time though. Bard has to touch the front door continuously for 10 minutes without losing concentration. It would be reasonable to imagine this hypothetical BBEG or henchmen working for them might try to stop the Bard from doing that.