Author Topic: I want to flood a city with Create Water  (Read 17855 times)

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Drammor

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I want to flood a city with Create Water
« on: September 03, 2011, 03:53:23 AM »
The city of Cheney (pop. ~10000) has an area of 4.1 mi^2. This translates to 6,639,469.71 gallons with 10 feet of height.

Create water is 0-level spell and takes 1 round to cast. This makes 40 gallons at level 20; the water thus created lasts 24 hours.

Creating an item that uses a command word to activate and has a 0-level spell takes 9 days. Having 6 like-minded 20th-level casters helping, you can make 14 such items every 9 days. With 100 of these items (which requires about 3 months of preparation time), you can produce enough water needed to flood Cheney in 3 rounds.

Is this right?


Also, can a command-activated item be activated via remote with Whispering Wind?
« Last Edit: September 08, 2011, 05:55:07 PM by Drammor »

veekie

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Re: I can flood a city with Create Water?
« Reply #1 on: September 03, 2011, 04:15:15 AM »
You could just use a Decanter of Endless Water...
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Kajhera

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Re: I can flood a city with Create Water?
« Reply #2 on: September 03, 2011, 10:22:42 AM »
Since when did created water start lasting only 24 hours?  ???

Bozwevial

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Re: I can flood a city with Create Water?
« Reply #3 on: September 03, 2011, 01:05:35 PM »
Since when did created water start lasting only 24 hours?  ???
It doesn't, which is good news for anyone using Sandstorm heavily. Having your water intake vanish from your body a day later isn't very good for survival.

StreamOfTheSky

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Re: I can flood a city with Create Water?
« Reply #4 on: September 03, 2011, 01:17:58 PM »
The OP is referring to the Pathfinder Create Water spell.  Since in PF, you get infinite cantrips/orisons per day, they felt the need to limit (like create water) or eliminate entirely (cure minor wounds) certain spells to keep things from getting too broken*.  PF is probably the only system where such an idea could even happen, as even if a 3E caster used all his slots from 1-9 on create water, it'd likely be insufficient.  It's still really silly and slow, but I guess if you can prevent people from leaving, it could work.

*I think it's pretty stupid to have a conjuration creation spell with the typicla instaneous duration have its creation dissapear after a day...and ONLY if not consumed (say what?!), but...it's Pathfinder.  I don't expect much rules logic from them anymore.

something random

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Re: I can flood a city with Create Water?
« Reply #5 on: September 03, 2011, 03:12:02 PM »
1)I seriously doubt ~10000 could evacuate in 3 rounds.

2)I know nothing of the geography of so what would stop the water draining away?

3)Lastly I am sure there are better ways for 3 20th level casters with 3 months of preparation time to destroy a city.

4)
Also, can a command-activated item be activated via remote with Whispering Wind?
No it can not
Quote from: Pathfinder SRD
As with magic mouth, whispering wind cannot speak verbal components, use command words, or activate magical effects.
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StreamOfTheSky

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Re: I can flood a city with Create Water?
« Reply #6 on: September 04, 2011, 11:54:28 AM »
1) He can't flood the city in 3 rounds.  It's nice he has all these devices he can activate, but he can only activate ONE as a standard action each round.

2) I was also wondering this.

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Re: I can flood a city with Create Water?
« Reply #7 on: September 04, 2011, 12:29:21 PM »
Looks like you need 99 assistants.
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Re: I can flood a city with Create Water?
« Reply #8 on: September 04, 2011, 01:22:53 PM »
The PROPER way to do this is not to make command activated items, but rather magical traps.

Make sure to set conditions for their activation such that you have the ability to set them all off in one round's worth of actions.

Hilarity ensues.

Drammor

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Re: I can flood a city with Create Water?
« Reply #9 on: September 05, 2011, 05:14:13 AM »
You could just use a Decanter of Endless Water...
I could, but that would defeat the point of using the 0-level spell items to do it. It's not supposed to be incredibly efficient, just doable.

Since when did created water start lasting only 24 hours?  ???

The OP is referring to the Pathfinder Create Water spell.  Since in PF, you get infinite cantrips/orisons per day, they felt the need to limit (like create water) or eliminate entirely (cure minor wounds) certain spells to keep things from getting too broken*.  PF is probably the only system where such an idea could even happen, as even if a 3E caster used all his slots from 1-9 on create water, it'd likely be insufficient.  It's still really silly and slow, but I guess if you can prevent people from leaving, it could work.

*I think it's pretty stupid to have a conjuration creation spell with the typicla instaneous duration have its creation dissapear after a day...and ONLY if not consumed (say what?!), but...it's Pathfinder.  I don't expect much rules logic from them anymore.
Rules logic or no, that's more or less what I'm working with.

1)I seriously doubt ~10000 could evacuate in 3 rounds.

2)I know nothing of the geography of so what would stop the water draining away?

3)Lastly I am sure there are better ways for 3 20th level casters with 3 months of preparation time to destroy a city.

4)
Also, can a command-activated item be activated via remote with Whispering Wind?
No it can not
Quote from: Pathfinder SRD
As with magic mouth, whispering wind cannot speak verbal components, use command words, or activate magical effects.
1) Why should I be worried about evacuating them?

2)On the complex basis of this question, a friend of mine and I simply decided to adapt the silly challenge we posed to ourselves and turn it into a campaign module. It's set to take place over the course of 3 in-game months and carry characters from level 1 to level 9. The antagonists are a circle of red wizards with fiendish aspirations, and the setting is an erstwhile mining town built inside a vale.

3) I'm sure there are, too. I simply see this way as more awesome.

4) Thank you.

1) He can't flood the city in 3 rounds.  It's nice he has all these devices he can activate, but he can only activate ONE as a standard action each round.

2) I was also wondering this.
It turns out that you're right. It can't be done in 3 rounds with those devices. There was a mathematical error, and it would instead take 1580 rounds, even without needing to worry about the water draining away.

It will take us a bit more time to figure out how long it will take to do, once the storm drains, sewer system and other paths of exit for the water are taken into account. The exits around the city are actually rather easy to handle, but I have an idea that will make it include an element of intrigue -- walls built by the people of the city to defend themselves in a war against a large tribe of goblins. The war itself was also engineered by the wizards. :D

Looks like you need 99 assistants.
That sounds suspiciously like giving a red wizard leadership and some feats that make the followers fanatically devout. Or possibly something to do with thrallherd.

The PROPER way to do this is not to make command activated items, but rather magical traps.

Make sure to set conditions for their activation such that you have the ability to set them all off in one round's worth of actions.

Hilarity ensues.
Yes, I agree that traps would be faster, more efficient and, most likely, generally better than water-producing magical baubles. I'm very aware that using a 0-level spell is terribly inefficient. It turns out that the ridiculousness of the proposed action is exactly why I want to do it, though.

Also, in light of a campaign arc centered around the idea... I would instead use traps, but even in the endgame, I want this situation to be something that the players can diffuse. Even if it means hunting down and breaking all of the 100 items as they pour forth hundreds of gallons of water.
« Last Edit: September 05, 2011, 05:36:17 AM by Drammor »

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Re: I can flood a city with Create Water?
« Reply #10 on: September 06, 2011, 01:10:32 PM »
Quote
Also, in light of a campaign arc centered around the idea... I would instead use traps, but even in the endgame, I want this situation to be something that the players can diffuse. Even if it means hunting down and breaking all of the 100 items as they pour forth hundreds of gallons of water.

Want to be really mean?  Make the traps activated by being underwater.  Have the plan be to have them activated by Create Water spells, but have at least some of them located where a good heavy rain might trigger them, and you can have the good guys running around tearing things up to find them (if given the right clues) even if they take the circle down.  Also, the solution to ending them would be getting them out of the water, but that might or might not be either easy or obvious...

veekie

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Re: I can flood a city with Create Water?
« Reply #11 on: September 06, 2011, 01:14:52 PM »
Well the solution for any good party is to turn a loss into an opportunity. Thats a lot of water and you can do a lot with infinite water.
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Rejakor

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Re: I can flood a city with Create Water?
« Reply #12 on: September 07, 2011, 04:21:24 AM »
Well, assuming you can move the items etc you could find a way to use them as an irrigation system, or as a water system for a city.


I'd just sell them to red wizards, but then, i'm neutral.

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Re: I can flood a city with Create Water?
« Reply #13 on: September 08, 2011, 10:45:09 AM »
How much water is needed here?

I can flood a city in 2 rounds, using either a Cleric at level 6 or Wizard/Sorcerer at level 6

Evil Wizard - saves up all his wealth by level to exact revenge.

Level 6 - Wealth by level = 16,000 gold I believe. This allows Xhyl to buy 18 Dusts of Dryness at 850gold each. A sorceror may be able to charisma a few more from a shop keeper, Xhyl buys these as he levels, rather than in bulk, unless offered a bulk discount.

Xhyl casts fly on himself, third level wiz/sorc spell or cleric with travel domain, both accessable at character level 6. Of course a race with wings removes this need but there's still a level requirement on the wealth really.

Xhyl begins to drop the dust into the ocean.... 100 gallons of water per dust. This takes a couple of minutes (spell lasts for 6) to gather 1800 Gallons of water, the pebbles float to the surface making them easy to retrieve.

The next Day he goes to the city finds the centre, flys up.... 200 feet to be safe and spends 1 turn throwing all 18 pebbles into the air. then 1 turn to let them fall. Xhyl then flies away to a safe high point before his spells runs out...though he can recast it if needed.

The only question is "would the wizard spend all his gold in such a way?" Well... if he's hell bent on his revenge... why not? Also I'm sure the magic item stores would have some nice returns for his investment once abandoned.

I'd like to note water breathing is also a 3rd level spell which Xhyl would have access to for terms of being first one in to loot his money back.

The upside of this plan is it all works by core rules without any fancy trickery at a relatively low level....of course if it needs more water then it needs higher level.

Level 7 = 2200 gallons
Level 8 = 3100 gallons
Level 9 = 4200 gallons
Level 10 = 5700 gallons
Level 11 = 7700 gallons

And a partner doubles it - All calculations have a few hundred spare... for food, clothes, drink, taverns etc.

Drammor

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Re: I want to flood a city with Create Water
« Reply #14 on: September 08, 2011, 05:54:36 PM »
How much water is needed here?

Well, thanks for asking. Just because I felt like double checking my math, I learned that
The city of Cheney (pop. ~10000) has an area of 4.1 mi^2. This translates to 6,639,469.71 gallons with 10 feet of height.
this is super wrong.

This is what I get for doing the math in the middle of the night, long after I should have been asleep.

As a result, I've learned that flooding a city with 0-level spells may be very difficult. I'm still going to try doing it, though. Thus, I would appreciate anyone's help with finding the point of optimum efficiency.

The purpose of this exercise is not to find more efficient ways to flood a city. Obviously, that can be done. Instead, it must be done using create water spells, and it must be done within 2 hours and 30 minutes.

The contrived reason for using only 0-level spells? A circle of evil red wizards is attempting to flood this particular city because deep beneath the spent mines this city lays over, a fiendish titan of water is sleeping. They want to wake the titan and bring destruction to the world, but know that only the sacrifice of ten thousand or more people via drowning will cause the titan to stir from its slumber. Yet using more powerful magic to achieve this task would hasten their discovery by the imperial oracles. Using these 0-level spells en masse will allow them to "work quietly," so that by the time the impending disaster becomes imminent enough that the oracles will take notice of it, the emperor will not be able to dispatch his agents and armies quickly enough to stop their plan from succeeding.

That's also where the PCs come in. As a group of relative nobodies already within the city, the player characters will be able to mingle with the townspeople earn positions of status that allow them to be in the right places at the right times that could alert them to the secret threat the city faces.

The problem? I actually need to come up with 35,056,400,100 gallons of water.
« Last Edit: September 08, 2011, 08:15:44 PM by Drammor »

Rejakor

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Re: I want to flood a city with Create Water
« Reply #15 on: September 09, 2011, 02:31:38 AM »
Chain it.  Water activates.  Lay down devices so water from initial device flows over other devices.  Have chainbound efreetis pumping out devices with their daily wish somewhere else (warded lair?).  Have each red wizard active one that activates 1000 more each turn.

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Re: I want to flood a city with Create Water
« Reply #16 on: September 10, 2011, 12:46:44 PM »
The classic way for villains to flood towns is by destroying a dam.

Your mining town is in a vale, that means there's higher ground around it, and a natural channel for the water to flow right through town, washing everything away to great devastation, particularly if it's a flash flood.

If there isn't a dam (and there probably isn't) -- your super villains can easily make one.

I'd recommend some combination of Move Earth and Wall of Stone across a narrow portion of the valley up on higher ground.  Wait for rain, or use Control Weather to encourage more rain.  When the reservoir is full... lots of easy ways to smash the dam and let out the water.

Of course, if they're trying to avoid discovery by "imperial oracles" -- the whole thing can be done without magic spells (until the last minute) by using their orcish slaves to build the dam with rocks and shovels, and actually waiting for rain rather than using magic to call it.  No spells necessary at all.  Until someone from town notices the construction project...

Fun fact: Even if the party stops the evil villain... disposing of all that water safely is an extremely challenging engineering problem.  You could poke a small hole in the dam to let the water out slowly -- but the stresses could crack the dam and cause the exact problem you were trying to avoid.  So now you've got a town constantly living with a flash flood looming over them like the Sword of Damocles...

Amechra

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Re: I want to flood a city with Create Water
« Reply #17 on: September 11, 2011, 04:13:39 AM »
Hmm... Are these wizards recognizably evil?

Or could they, say, sell a couple of these trinkets around.

You know, have it so they can only be activated at a certain time of the day, but create water an unlimited number of times in that time frame (a very well planned spell trap.)

Then, get neighborhoods to buy one or two, to serve the neighborhood. Then, see if you can get the people in charge to allow you to build magical fountains...

Hell, you could sell more than one of those trinkets; maybe a "magical" juice making device (throw Prestidigitation on there as well), that activates at the same time as the device.

Because, if we assume that your town of 10,000 people consists of families of 3.5 people (to allow for children and such), and that you sell a "liquid maker", with outlets for both water and "juice" (two Create Water cantrip traps), as a single unit, you could sell 2,857 units; if you set it so that activating it one way activates it at CL 1, and the actual "event" is CL 20...

That's 228,560 gallons in a round; going for 1,500 rounds would net you 342,840,000 gallons, which is, sadly, less than 1% of the water you need.

At CL 20, you would literally need 3,505,640 devices for every man, woman, and child in the place; 2337 (about) if they continuously create water over 2-1/2 hours.

Now, if we go into metamagic shenanananananigans, we can make those Create Waters Twinned and Repeating to end up only needing 585 devices for each. Person. In. The. Town.

5,850,000 such devices is going to be a little pricey... also, where would you put them?

Now, is the 2-1/2 hours thing truly necessary? Because it would be far more tenable then, due to the smaller number of devices necessary.

To put this into perspective, an individual spell trap of a CL 20 Create Water is (to read the SRD, it would be free, but this is stupid. Therefore, we will take the standard "cantrips are 1/2 spell level for the purpose of crafting") 5000 gp. To have enough, it would cost you 116,850,000,000 gp.

That is the WPL of 153,750 20th level characters; you can bring this down to a mere 5870 20th level characters by using EVERY COST REDUCER IN THE BOOK.

Seriously, I know that there are easy ways to break WBL, but the Imperial Oracles will notice anyone making/moving around that much wealth.

To emphasize, I probably undercalculated that, due to not having a full understanding of trap pricing.

Tl;Dr: It isn't feasible to do. At all. And by not feasible, I mean that you need billions of gp and a bit over twenty-three million such trinkets to pull it off.

However, this is just if you are trying to do this as a player; if you are a DM, the players won't be doing this math.
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Drammor

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Re: I want to flood a city with Create Water
« Reply #18 on: September 11, 2011, 06:42:08 AM »
Hmm. Okay then.

I'll report what you've found to the other guy in this project, and let him know that it just isn't realistically possible... even in this fantasy world. Thanks, Amechra.

I guess the challenge becomes finding the next cheapest way to produce the desired effect, using the lowest level spell possible, while still maintaining the desired efficiency.

I suppose creating a dam is one option... but still not the sort I'm going for. I'll have to do some thinking.

Littha

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Re: I want to flood a city with Create Water
« Reply #19 on: September 11, 2011, 09:20:57 AM »
Hmm. Okay then.

I'll report what you've found to the other guy in this project, and let him know that it just isn't realistically possible... even in this fantasy world. Thanks, Amechra.

I guess the challenge becomes finding the next cheapest way to produce the desired effect, using the lowest level spell possible, while still maintaining the desired efficiency.

I suppose creating a dam is one option... but still not the sort I'm going for. I'll have to do some thinking.

It is certainly possible with higher level spells... druid spells in particular. Tsumami creates 160,000 cubic feet of water at caster level 20, if you are using red wizards you could probably pump the caster level high enough to wipe out a whole city at once with circle magic

of course counting metamagic to enlarge the spell you still need a caster level of around 40,000 to flood a whole city with one spell
« Last Edit: September 11, 2011, 09:24:58 AM by Littha »