TRPG General Chat

1:06 AM

@Carcer That argument has been around for a while. Crawford tweeted an answer some time ago. SA just made it more official. On the upside, Natural Weapons have been clarified as officially weapons, so you can smite with them.

so a Lizardfolk paladin can smite-bite

Thomas Markov

2:39 AM

@V2Blast Do you think the new SA on compelled duel brings any clarity to my question here: rpg.stackexchange.com/q/171085/62294

Bardic Wizard

3:03 AM

I have a really weird tactical question. If you had access to magic (a 20th level wizard with all 5e wizard spells except wish in their spell book), and were basically given the palace at Versailles, how defensible would it be as a fortress?

the attackers are effectively a hundred thousand infantry and a thousand cavalry, no magic

My initial thought was the wizard should just fireball everything but that’s probably not a good option

The other idea was that the wizard casts a lot of plane shifts so all the cavalry disappears, then fireballs the rest

Would either method be a decent defense?

Miniman

The plane shift one is terrible, since it's a single target spell.

Fireball needs to be upgraded to meteor swarm to be a viable way to kill thousands but is otherwise not bad.

BESW

3:19 AM

If I were that wizard, I'd use divination magic to find the person who sent the army, and then use dream to have a nice... talk... with that person.

Bardic Wizard

Our school d&d group is doing a tactical combat thing — basically each person has the same scenario and has to figure out a viable defense, but I’m gming so I’m not involved as a competitor (which is why I’m asking about it and not planning on my own)

@BESW ... hmmmmm

BESW

Stopping an army doesn't stop the person who sent them from wanting you to be subject to the effects of an army.

Bardic Wizard

It’s a tactical simulation, so it’s not really meant to be realistic

BESW

A more direct physical response to the army itself, would just be to cast a lot of guards and wards and some judicious illusions, then let the army demoralize itself.

An army with no magic whatsoever, upon understanding that they're facing a wizard of that caliber, will not be inclined to blunder around in the fog and webs, trying to break magically warded doors, etc., while the illusions give the impression they're being stalked by a minotaur or whatever else you find amusing.

Bardic Wizard

Fair

BESW

3:30 AM

I might make the programmed illusion of a prismatic wall in front of the palace, with a programmed illusion of myself delivering a "If at any point you decide to leave, I won't stop you, but if you keep coming I will consider it an act of aggression" speech.

And then when the first brave soul tries to get through the illusion wall, I cast a real prismatic wall under it.

I don't see any completely non-magic army feeling like throwing their low-HD soldiers at a prismatic wall, it just chews them up without any benefit.

Bardic Wizard

@BESW pretty much...boom...

BESW

And that's all 6th level stuff.

With three illusions timed properly you can create an apparently uninterrupted wall illusion (each illusion lasts five minutes then resets after ten minutes; just have each one's trigger be the previous one running out) for 24 hours.

If you wanna be mean, toss a weird at them every now and then.

Part of this is a show of power: an army isn't just gonna shrug and go "Hm, guess we'll find another way in." They're gonna go "This palace has enough magic on its side to do all of this, maybe we should re-think our lives."

Bardic Wizard

3:53 AM

This gives me ideas now ... sleep is really good for low hp enemies...

Hot RPG Questions

4:29 AM

7

Q: Roleplay pacing in non-combat situations

So I am running the Baldur's gate: Descent into Avernus module and my players are taking very long to approach certain situations. To set an example: There is a gate with two guards who are checking everyone who passes through. They need to get inside (because of their own choosing and also their...

Adeptus

Maybe a few *Enemies Abound* into the crowd at random:
> You reach into the mind of one creature you can see and force it to make an Intelligence saving throw. A creature automatically succeeds if it is immune to being frightened. On a failed save, the target loses the ability to distinguish friend from foe, regarding all creatures it can see as enemies until the spell ends. Each time the target takes damage, it can repeat the saving throw, ending the effect on itself on a success.
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Feb 25 '15 at 0:01, by BESW

The second-best debuff is death. The best debuff is "He's on our side now."

2

Carcer

7:42 AM

Mirage Arcane would be very effect against an army of mundanes

it won't hurt them but you could make it basically impossible for them to get to you

V2Blast

8:26 AM

@ThomasMarkov Yeah, I saw that in checking for a relevant Q&A for each of the new entries in the Sage Advice Compendium, but wasn't sure how relevant it was there. May be worth the answers incorporating it, but it didn't seem like a topic directly asked about in the question. (May also be relevant to other Q&As on whether teleportation counts as movement... But it's a tricky issue, since we don't know how much the ruling can be generalized.)

AncientSwordRage

8:46 AM

@Adeptus Wololol

AncientSwordRage

9:10 AM

@V2Blast whats the ruling?

V2Blast

10:01 AM

> Can a creature under the effect of compelled duel teleport more than 30 feet away from the caster? No. You can’t move farther than 30 feet away from the caster of compelled duel by any means, including teleportation.

media.wizards.com/2020/dnd/downloads/SA-Compendium.pdf#page=15

AncientSwordRage

@V2Blast Ah ok, that doesn't really make compelled duel much better though, does it?

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