A Sword Without a Hilt: A Song of Ice and Fire/D&D 3.5 Crossover
- Thread starter DragonParadox
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- a song of ice and fire a sword without a hilt d&d 3.5 dungeons & dragons 100% high octane dragon fuel ave corvidae battle action dragon diplomacy best sister bureaucromancy delicious soul-stuff dragon dreams come true dragon ta'veren greatest uncle hubris is a coward's word in defiance of gods and men mammon's folly mutually assured mage's disjunction qm murderhobo top tier coatl
enigma1995
Gentleman Beholder
[X] Goldfish
- Location
- Chicago
[X] Goldfish
[X] Goldfish
Sadly this is not going to work, the ability Umbral Stalkers use to merge with a shadow is teleportation adjacent. That is they sort of skim the surface of the plane of shadow where it connects with the shadow the creature casts. That is why you can't target it from he material side.
You guys are going to need boots on the ground for this one.
Ouranous
Roasted Dork
Well a maximised SotD at 57th CL level would technically be undispellable by the disperal ward right?
This place is guarded very well that i think that only a small army of high CR minions and archmages can take this place
Well a maximised SotD at 57th CL level would technically be undispellable by the disperal ward right?
Nope. It does not matter of you get to CL 100. It is a basic function of the system that the wards just work as advertised, otherwise the whole thing falls apart.
Ouranous
Roasted Dork
Well if we succeed in this that ward is going to be the best loot
Well if we succeed in this that ward is going to be the best loot
These wards technically, the reason this is such a big opportunity is that there are many of them being sent out at once from a relatively unguarded central location. I mean you could always steal them from individual hard points, but the trouble is you would need to take the place somehow and even then there is the risk the defenders will destroy them as they are losing, This is a chance for a massive strategic boon.
Ouranous
Roasted Dork
Would we get a new line of research in trying to reverse engineer these wards to make more of them next turn?
If thats right this is a huge opportunity.
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
Ah, okay. Instead of boots, how about paws?
[X] Launch into intelligence gathering first
-[X] Send a dozen Vigilant Shadow Cats to infiltrate the fortress. They will each be warded by Chained Extended Energy Immunity (Fire), Chained Extended Mind Blank, Chained Extended Camouflage, and Extended Negate Aroma spells. Each will also carry a Sending Stone, plus five Explosive Bombs which have been affected by a Shrink Item spell to make them easily portable and a Magic Aura spell to hide the Shrink Item spell's aura in case it is left behind and no longer protected by the Mind Blank. The bombs can be used for sabotage purposes or to self-terminate in order to prevent capture. They will each also be dosed with an Alchemical Scent Blocker to supplement their Negate Aromas ward.
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That might work, though Garin suspects negate aroma might be on the list of spells the ward does not allow. After all its only possible use is to help infiltrators.
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
Would Life Bubble have a chance of masking scent?
EDIT: Heading to work now. Probably won't be able to contribute much for a while if today is anything like yesterday. If ya'll have any other ideas, please feel free to share. I'll edit my plan if I'm able to delegate my vote as needed.
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Hmm, thinking about it Negate Aroma would actually work better as the allowed spell, it is really low level so even if the mage manning the ward wanted to negate it he would have trouble picking it out of the static. Life Bubble on the other hand is pretty much the 'spies from another plane' sign.
Sory for waffling, I'm just getting a feel for the system myself.
- Location
- Greece
If it's magic we worry about, the effect can be reproduced alchemically @Goldfish. Further, in case Hellcat Stealth fails (due to fluctuations in light level), consider having the cats carry nice, entirely mundane Camouflage Blankets [Plane of Fire].
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
Added the Scent Blocker. That's a good find.
The blankets would probably interfere with the cats' stealth abilities, though.
Oh there is one more thing I need in the vote, how long you guys want the cats to look for. Keep in mind you are on a timer.
Interlude MCCV: Of Felines and Foulness
Of Felines and Foulness
Tenth Day of the Ninth Month 294 AC
Grey Whisper knew men made jokes about giving orders to cats, Gods of the Deep Woods knew many of his former handlers did and that was why they were former handlers. Yet Whisper and his kin were anything but unmindful to orders, they knew with the cold certainty that not even the scorching heat of the Sea of Flame could banish that. To fail here would be to die and that was if you were lucky, for there were torments of the mind and spirit that did not have to end with death. The servants of the Brazen Throne had leaned well under the tutelage of Hell.
The clanking of the brass hounds would have dissuaded them of any boldness, and if not that then the light of the watchtowers, like glaring eyes sweeping every approach from the small harbor into the fortress proper.
Thankfully those only had the power to dispel invisibility and not see through all glamors, though it was that realization itself that almost spelled their doom for in that light there dwelt flaming spirits like onto men without features save that their arms had been replaced with the wings of great eagles and they could and did see freely through all illusion, all shadow. Most were slow and cumbersome, but the sharp eyes of the shadowcats saw much even as they hid among the quays and meager hiding places of the warehouses. There was one path of light and flame that moved almost too fast to follow, ducking and weaving between the patrols of the others and always checking in to the highest tower of the fortress with a regularity almost like clockwork. In fact, the more Whisper watched the strange fliers the less convinced he was that they were even each their own creature and not one great swarm of lights that moved in time with the searching of the watchtowers.
It only got worse from there. There was only one bridge leading from the docks to the walls of the next defensive line and that bridge spanned a pit filled with black noxious vapor begotten of the worst admixture of tar and vitriol. A sufficiently well-warded soul might be able to pass through that. Whisper certainly was not that.
Then again, maybe the smoke just hid further devilry and guards for as the cat watched with back arched and tail lashing at the ground, ready to pounce, one of the dragonstone statues along the bridge suddenly came alive and opened eyes of hellfire. The brass travel-tube that had been running along that same bridge in the manner of the new railcars, though with its whole mass set in a groove in the stone instead of being placed upon rails, halted, its enslaved elemental spirit given a moment's respite.
"Insight... Investigation... Inspection!" the thing rumbled, a sort of rough malice in its voice. Whisper was suddenly very glad he had not tried to infiltrate any of his kin onto the piston train. In what seemed the blink of an eye ifrit half-caste soldiers were swarming among the cargo. Judging from the lack of screams and from the fact that the work at the pre-bridge checkpoints continued as normal they must not have found anything too bad, either that or they were trying to lull the guilty into a false sense of security.
Safest place to be is the one your enemy just turned away from, the saying went. Hopefully it would prove true, else Whisper would be much too dead to complain about it.
***
Past the first 'wall', which as it turned out was more an enormous bunker bisecting the peninsula, there was a wide open air complex of training fields and holding pens for beasts and slaves, and beyond that another line of bunkers black and jagged, glimpsed only between the boards of a crate of 'salted' oil shark Whisper had hidden into. Well, less salt and more brimstone, but one supposed it was that thought that counted.
It really really did not.
The shadow-kin managed to map out as far as the kitchen, the mess hall and one of the barracks for the common soldiers before they could go no further. The doors were sealed with magic and from the wary ways in which even those allowed to go beyond opened, them trapped as well. Though they tried to eavesdrop the spies could not find out that which they had most wished to. Cooks and common soldiers did not know anything about wardstones or the shipment unfortunately.
How do you infiltrate the fortress and with whom?
[] Write in
OOC: Your spies actually rolled pretty well, but there are limits to what they can manage on their own.
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Evaunit02mark1
S-s-smell the Prey, S-s-start the Hunt.
Ah, competence among the command staff.
That's a rather disturbing revelation. The person in charge of this place might have actually earned their posting rather than bribing, killing, or otherwise supplanting a superior for the job.
For a place like this that's almost as bad as finding a male drow in a high position of power.
That's a rather disturbing revelation. The person in charge of this place might have actually earned their posting rather than bribing, killing, or otherwise supplanting a superior for the job.
For a place like this that's almost as bad as finding a male drow in a high position of power.
Could we cheat a little with scrolls of Replay Tracks? That divination blocking effect explicitly calls out attempting to look at the future, so if looking at the past is still fair game then we could get an idea of the patrol routes and normal activity levels of the area without needing to actually stick around and track it.
It's not clear to me if that spell has the reach to let us see a change in routine from days ago, but we can still infer things from the current status of the pions in the fort.
edit: should have refreshed the page before posting. Still, RT could be useful during the next phase.
I'm curious though, @DragonParadox would the wards on this place block Stone Walk? I'd assume that the answer is yes, but the spell does specifically go through wards like forbiddance and dimensional lock so it seemed worth asking.
It also has setup requirements that don't immediately invalidate the point of the wards, and could allow for some fun intrigue games.
Even if it only makes teleporting partially more reliable getting our people through the first layer of defenses would be very useful here.
It's not clear to me if that spell has the reach to let us see a change in routine from days ago, but we can still infer things from the current status of the pions in the fort.
edit: should have refreshed the page before posting. Still, RT could be useful during the next phase.
I'm curious though, @DragonParadox would the wards on this place block Stone Walk? I'd assume that the answer is yes, but the spell does specifically go through wards like forbiddance and dimensional lock so it seemed worth asking.
It also has setup requirements that don't immediately invalidate the point of the wards, and could allow for some fun intrigue games.
Even if it only makes teleporting partially more reliable getting our people through the first layer of defenses would be very useful here.
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Yes, they work on all teleportation effects and that has the school of teleportation. If that spell worked the stone genies would have already used it.
Ouranous
Roasted Dork
I just noticed this ward foils divination spells which have a chance of failure. Would asking a god (Syrax,Rhllor,etc) to divine the place with remote sense could work we can have one of the shadowcat speak rhllor's name in there so he could see or we can ask the old gods work?