- Location
- Germany
I will keep the theoretical possibility of a hypothetical use-case that has accidental and superficial similarities to the implied scenario in mind.
A Sword Without a Hilt: A Song of Ice and Fire/D&D 3.5 Crossover
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
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- Tags
- 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
- Location
- Germany
Obviously not. What gave you the idea I'd be planning anything?
*kicks the giant tentacle back behind the curtain*
- Location
- Germany
*looks down*That's not a tentacle!
Hm...
Qyburn or Elaheh then? One of the two should know what it is.
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
Funnily enough, Portable Holes are part of my plan for the attack on the City of Brass. I was going to have us start crafting a couple of them per month for the next few months before the attack.
We only have three crafters who can make them (Lya, Anu, and Qyburn), but we can probably commission them, too. They're only 2,000 IM each, so even with limited crafters, we could turn out quite a few of them if we postponed other projects. I'm not sure how many I was going to need yet, but was planning on at least four or five. That reminds me, we need to give Maelor or some of his people a minor scouting mission in the CoB.
- Location
- Germany
The annoying thing with regular PHs is that you can fit only two medium creatures or, if you squint a bit at the squeezing rules, one large one.
With an Enveloping Pit, we could fit in a whole Necro-Kraken / Zoidberg.
We should scout out air-defenses in particular, as the other option would be a flying troop transport.
- Location
- France
@DragonParadox, what happens if you destroy a Portable Hole or Bag of Holding in an area where planar travel is blocked?
I'm brainstorming how to defeat the defenses of Efreet cities, but am now concerned that attempts to use extradimensional spaces to attack might result in all our soldiers dying horribly or getting lost on the Astral Plane or something. Seeing as the first thing that could go wrong in such an assault on a secure location in an Efreet city isn't "a rapid response team squishes us" but is instead "they detect and Disjunct our attacking party before we even launch the attack" I am now wondering if doing so would kill our troops or would simply scatter them somewhere.
I'm brainstorming how to defeat the defenses of Efreet cities, but am now concerned that attempts to use extradimensional spaces to attack might result in all our soldiers dying horribly or getting lost on the Astral Plane or something. Seeing as the first thing that could go wrong in such an assault on a secure location in an Efreet city isn't "a rapid response team squishes us" but is instead "they detect and Disjunct our attacking party before we even launch the attack" I am now wondering if doing so would kill our troops or would simply scatter them somewhere.
- Location
- Germany
Normally both bags and holes spill their contents upon destruction.
Mind, I mostly wanted those to store ludicrous amounts of Undead and Constructs in a cupboard. Unless the airspace is locked down tighter then the Sultans harem, we would get better results from deploying dedicated assault landing crafts or dropping flyers from larger vessels.
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
The issue with an Enveloping Pit is that they're a Divine Relic item, meaning the price is far lower than it should be (just looked it up to refresh my memory; 3,600 IM...so cheap). Essentially, it's a Portable Hole that is five times deeper, if you don't use the Relic power.
We should be able to craft or commission our own version which only has the deeper PH and none of the Relic power. They shouldn't cost five times a PH, or require a caster level of 20th like the Enveloping Pit, though.
@DragonParadox, how much would a 50 foot deep Portable Hole cost us? A regular 10 foot deep one is 2,000 IM.
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
There is a reason we crafted a Shrink Item Chamber and Magic Aura Obfuscation Chamber last month, hundreds of Lesser False Ravens last month and even more this coming month, and are stockpiling 5,400 pounds of Explosive Packs and 14,400 pounds of Liquid Ice per month.
- Location
- France
Yeah, but can they spill their contents into an area warded against planar travel? They can't be opened or used in such an area, AFAIK.
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
The City of Brass isn't actually warded against Planar travel, though. At most, it's under the effects of a modified Teleport Trap effect which redirects people who try to use travel magic to enter the city or leave it.
We've already used various Bags of Holding in the CoB without issue.
- Location
- Germany
Neat.There is a reason we crafted a Shrink Item Chamber and Magic Aura Obfuscation Chamber last month, hundreds of Lesser False Ravens last month and even more this coming month, and are stockpiling 5,400 pounds of Explosive Packs and 14,400 pounds of Liquid Ice per month.
But I was thinking about a lander variant of the Wyvern and a Moonchaser sized troop transport to drop elite teams and a main assault force respectively.
The Moonchasers fighter bays would make a good deployment method for the bomber-ravens as the bigger vessel could fly them past the main defences before deployment, allowing them to hit tons of soft targets.
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
I'm actually extremely wary of flying the Moonchasers that close to the city. We'll hopefully have five of them and several dozen Wyverns by the time of the attack, along with whatever the Djinn and Shaitan send, so the airspace above the CoB would be a target rich environment and no matter how thorough, we'll probably miss quite a few AA defenses.
We might have to do it anyway, but I was hoping to do some long-range bombardment to attempt to draw most of the Efreeti navy past the outskirts of the CoB where they'll be vulnerable to our Teleporting Suicide Drones.
The more thoroughly we wreck their navy, the less chance of serious reprisal the attackers have to worry about, not to mention the CoB should be easier to attack without their navy overhead providing fire support.
The plan isn't fully formed, but one of the opening stages involves our people placing hidden Portable Holes close (but not suspiciously close) to strategically important facilities in the CoB (barracks, admin buildings, defense emplacements, etc), with each PH filled with hundreds of False Ravens carrying a couple shrunken bombs and a target for them in mind. There would be several False Ravens in each PH with single-use Mass Invisibility items they would use to help hide the bomber Ravens entry point to the CoB and the various flocks as they move out to their designated targets.
- Location
- Germany
There's the issue that these holes could be divined and could be found ahead of time. It would be better to have something that hides nearby and sets the holes only when it's time to deploy them, while being Mindblanked or similar.
Options:
- Pumpkin Leshy - Can protect one item in it's head from divination, but it isn't fireproof, not protected itself and kind of... an air-headed idiot.
- PCs if some sort - Risky and needs even more Mindblank.
- Lead-Plated undead of some sort - Cheap divination proofing, but they too need a handler. Maybe remote-control them with Telepathic Bond?
As for the air battle, I'd say that is even more reason for landing crafts. We won't get around having to deploy ground troops and the probability that they won't have to go in hot is zero. Better land them in a vessel with 20+cm of armor then to have them march through the gates.
- Location
- France
I'm thinking of secure areas here. We'd have to open the bags before entering the secure area, which makes an entry through infiltration difficult.
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
I asked DP a while back about the vermin of the City of Brass for exactly this purpose.
Thankfully, there are rat and other vermin equivalents in the CoB. We make some small disguised Construct versions with a tiny little Portable Hole storage compartment, then cast Mind Blank on them from scrolls or other sources before they are deployed and give them single-use Superior Invisibility items to use to help them get in place (this is one of the reasons Lya learned Superior Invisibility last month). Timing is important, but there will be a good amount of wiggle room to avoid having to rush and draw attention to the operation.
EDIT: As for landers, rather than trying to purpose build our own vessels this close to go time, I'm hoping the Djinn or Shaitan have something available already. It would probably be the Shaitan, given their abilities and temperament.
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- Location
- Germany
Small landers would be the same price as a Wyvern and a large troop transport would likely pay for itself by being pressed into service as a caravan between PoW locales. Cargo capacity in the thousands of tons and nigh instant delivery are hard to beat.
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
At best we've only got three months to prepare for the attack. We can finish another 24 to 30 Wyverns (maybe 36 if we really push it) in that time and four more Moonchasers. If we start working on troops transports and smaller APCs, those numbers will fall by a lot. Before we start making plans to cut into production, we should really talk to the Djinn and Shaitan to see what they have available and get a decent picture of what forces they plan to commit.
- Location
- Germany
Also get more reports from Maelor on the more obvious defences.
Things like obvious magical reactions to any flyer going over the Inner Wall would be common knowledge for example.
Also we have a mage who owes us his life and might know more about the defences (Order of the Wall sounds like that).
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
Can't believe I forgot...we have several captured Efreeti ships at our disposal. We captured them during one of our most recent raids (was it the raid in Valyria?). The Shaitan agreed to repair and crew them for us, at our expense, then lease them to us for 10 years, IIRC?
Why make our own landers when we can use Efreeti ships to do it? They're all very large and well protected, and much less likely to draw attention until it's too late to stop them from delivering their cargo into the CoB.
Why make our own landers when we can use Efreeti ships to do it? They're all very large and well protected, and much less likely to draw attention until it's too late to stop them from delivering their cargo into the CoB.
Crake
I AM THE STORM THAT IS APPROACHING
- Location
- USA
Big guns/anti-personnel capabilities for area denial, and maybe a Brilliant Barrier projector to provide some cover for assaulting troops. The transport then becomes a portable emplacement and low-altitude assault craft.