You are the Royal Wizard in charge of security. How do you prevent scry & die?

[Gavinfoxx]

So lets say you are the Royal Wizard or the Royal Artificer or whatever in charge of security of the Royal Family and important dignitaries, chancellors, advisors, court officials, and so on and so forth.  Your kingdom is at war with another kingdom, and they have wizards and such.

How do you, economically, make sure that important people are not vulnerable to a scry and die, and these important people can still do their jobs of running the kingdom?

[Lycanthromancer]

Craft traps of Mind Blank.

[/thread]

[Gavinfoxx]

Craft traps of Mind Blank.

[/thread]

So they scry the throne room and teleport in.  Or they scry the people that are BOUND to be near the king and queen, like a handservant or something, and teleport in and cause a ton of damage.  I think the idea is to prevent, yaknow, the teleport and unleashing of power...

Assume, maybe, that the trap rules aren't in the hands of the PC's... they have to use things like Spell Clocks, Schema, Eternal Wands, Spell Turrets, House Insignia, and stuff like that (am I missing anything?)...

[ninjarabbit]

Permanent Mage's private sanctums combined with dimensional lock

[Gavinfoxx]

Permanent Mage's private sanctums combined with dimensional lock

Where are the rules for permanency-ing Mage's Private Sanctum? Also won't that often prevent them from doing their work?

[Kaelik]

So they scry the throne room and teleport in.  Or they scry the people that are BOUND to be near the king and queen, like a handservant or something, and teleport in and cause a ton of damage.  I think the idea is to prevent, yaknow, the teleport and unleashing of power...

Everyone is Mindblanked, problem solved, they can never even scry anything.

Assume, maybe, that the trap rules aren't in the hands of the PC's... they have to use things like Spell Clocks, Schema, Eternal Wands, Spell Turrets, House Insignia, and stuff like that (am I missing anything?)...

Everyone is under the effect of Veil, and the entire place is under the effect of Hallucinatory Terrain. Recast when needed.

[Bozwevial]

Also, everyone's inside your own private demiplane. Much more difficult to get to you there.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Traps of Greater Anticipate Teleport (that spell from SpC which delays the teleporting for three rounds)... and maybe spell turrets of Dimensional Lock?

[JaronK]

Without knowing level or resources available, it's hard to answer this.

But one of the first things I'd do is make Simacrulums of the royal family to handle day to day basics that don't require the real family.  Basic speeches, parading about and visiting the people, and so on.  When transporting the royal family, the fake versions would go about in the official carriage while the real ones are teleported to the new location inside a portable hole.  Furthermore, I'd hide the real names of the family, using the official names only for the Simacrulums.  Thus, divination spells target the fake ones and get them killed first.

I'd also use Improved Arcane Lock on all important areas of the castle, so that only certain people could walk into restricted areas... this will keep out most skillmonkeys (as Open Lock simply fails against that spell).  Choke points would lead into the high security areas of the castle, guarded by Permanent Alarm along with Improved Arcane Lock and mundane defenses like soft squishy floors that clearly show when an invisible person walks on them.  Permanent Phase Door is worth considering too... put the actual guards guarding a real door, behind which is a ton of nasty traps (ghoul glyphs over water filled pits are amazing for defenses), while the Phase Door to the side is where people actually want to go.  Most likely the actual secure areas (where the royal family are, the treasure is, strategic points, etc) will only be accessible through a few passages, and will either be deep underground or connected by portals from far away.  Perhaps a portal set into a hole of hiding is the real way to the actual chambers.

JaronK

[Lycanthromancer]

Permanent Mage's private sanctums combined with dimensional lock

Where are the rules for permanency-ing Mage's Private Sanctum? Also won't that often prevent them from doing their work?

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/permanency.htm

[Gavinfoxx]

Permanent Mage's private sanctums combined with dimensional lock

Where are the rules for permanency-ing Mage's Private Sanctum? Also won't that often prevent them from doing their work?

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/permanency.htm

For some reason I thought it couldn't work on that spell. Silly me.

[Sobolev]

While not nearly as helpful as some of the other bits in this thread, there's an item (I wish I could think of the name) that deals a bunch of damage if someone is scrying on you.  I know it's mentioned in the Bunko thread.

[Bozwevial]

While not nearly as helpful as some of the other bits in this thread, there's an item (I wish I could think of the name) that deals a bunch of damage if someone is scrying on you.  I know it's mentioned in the Bunko thread.

Deathglance Locket, I believe. Anyone scrying on you should be able to handle a mere 10d6 damage, but it might be a bit of a deterrence.

[The_Mad_Linguist]

SBG has runes you can carve into buildings to prevent scrying/teleporting.  Easy peasy.

[Gavinfoxx]

SBG has runes you can carve into buildings to prevent scrying/teleporting.  Easy peasy.

Doesn't Draconomicon have something similar? And can't you do something like that with the dwarven rune thing?  What is the most efficient way to do this?

[Leviathan]

Draconomicon's Lair Ward: Secure Cavern
Covers an area of around 400 square feet
Entire area is affected as per Mind Blank. Note that this isn't just the people in it, it's the area itself, even divinations or mind-affecting spells etc that affect an area rather than individuals will fail.
CL15 to create, costs 60,000gp

[Gavinfoxx]

Draconomicon's Lair Ward: Secure Cavern
Covers an area of around 400 square feet
Entire area is affected as per Mind Blank. Note that this isn't just the people in it, it's the area itself, even divinations or mind-affecting spells etc that affect an area rather than individuals will fail.
CL15 to create, costs 60,000gp

I do think that this seems to be a somewhat better deal than the Stronghold Builder's one!

[The_Mad_Linguist]

Draconomicon's Lair Ward: Secure Cavern
Covers an area of around 400 square feet
Entire area is affected as per Mind Blank. Note that this isn't just the people in it, it's the area itself, even divinations or mind-affecting spells etc that affect an area rather than individuals will fail.
CL15 to create, costs 60,000gp

I do think that this seems to be a somewhat better deal than the Stronghold Builder's one!

Not sure if it's able to be made mobile, but for this application it doesn't matter.  You can apply all the SBG reducers to it, though, which is a real plus.

[Leviathan]

I do think that this seems to be a somewhat better deal than the Stronghold Builder's one!

Not sure if it's able to be made mobile, but for this application it doesn't matter.  You can apply all the SBG reducers to it, though, which is a real plus.

The Lair Wards require Craft Wondrous item, so logically the Legendary Artisan feats will work with it

[CantripN]

Somehow, I think our friendly Artificer has a lot of Dragon allies. See, they owe him for their Lair Wards.