In order to counter a LCN, you simply LCN a place and catch all people in the vicinity of the LCN who know how to make one.


Alternatively; the only winning move is not to play, etc.

>>12875889
It only kills commoners really, because damage is dependent on distance thrown.

So to answer OP: Lots and lots of walls close together.

>>12875902

Yes, but if you kill all the commoners in a city, well you've removed a big part of the supply line for an army... it's still pretty significant strategically. True, you don't have an army-buster, but it would still be a war winner, especially if you're going to war to take land because you have too many people.

>>12875889

Right but D&D generally is Middle Ages culture and Bronze Age politics -- you'd see a LOT of mutual distruction before the various empires understand the logic of MAD. I expect the PCs to at least try to stop that. More slowly than that, at least some governments would invest in countermeasures, be they magical or mundane.

>>12875927
What I was getting at is that the LCN is unlikely to kill the people with the knowledge of how to make the LCN, because those people will probably be mid-to-high level adventurers and wizards.

>>12875927
iirc when it comes to the LCN, it doesn't just kill the commoners. It allows leaves a massive-as-balls crater. Why take land if you're pock marking it with nearly mile wide holes in the process?

>>12875953
>also leaves
I cannot into english at 1 o' clock in the morning.

>>12875947

Agree, also it's assumed that a wizard who can cast LCN can also teleport out ahead of the shock wave. The way I flavored it, a LCN causes a resonating series of shockwaves inside the city walls that basically leave the walls standing and everything within it razed -- people die of impact with, well, any old thing really. Very high level characters or very lucky people would still survive, and there is no fallout.

Also, what's the lower limit size for a city? So far the smallest settlement hit was Radlebb Keep, about five thousand souls (and very good walls).

>>12875953

Yeah it basically demolishes the city -- the walls themselves are left standing or not depending on how well they were built (they are bombarded from the inside by all manner of debris pinballing around)

>>12875989
From what I've read about it, I meant that it leaves holes so incredibly deep that the caster has to also be able to cast Feather Fall on themselves in the process of using the LCN or else they will die from the fall.

>>12875973
If you structure a city so there are walls, fences, barriers or palisades sufficient that no-one can be thrown more than ten feet then the Locate City Nuke isn't killing anything much. It'll injure a lot of commoners, and some of them will drop into negatives. Of those ones, it's inevitable that some will die before they can be stabilised. You don't need to be a "very high level" character to survive, though.

>>12875998

That's nifty actually, makes it look a lot more like a nuke... that said all the debris has to go somewhere -- pyroclastic cloud as aftermath?

>>12876004

That'd make the city a lot harder to navigate and a lot more vulnerable to rebellions though (Napoleon had a lot of city centres half-razed and a lot of wide long boulevards built so that the cavalry could charge rioters, for one). Also it'd slow down trade a lot... I like it, it adds interesting strategic implications.

>>12876036
I see every important city becoming a warren and everything else fading out into small but widely distributed minor population centres that rely on each other. Eventually even the minor damage inflicted on the important cities will lead to their dissolution. People will in general become distrustful of strangers and new immigrants will always be encouraged to found their own societies and towns on the outskirts of the established occupied area - however, trade and codependence between linked minor settlements will be vital for survival of the many.

Note that the PCs haven't seen a LCN go off; they've seen the immediate aftermath though. I figured that the "bouncing stuff and people around" would create a pinball effect that would destroy pretty much anything short of bank vaults.

>>12876049
Oooh, I like this one. "Yeah, we invented suburbia 700 years early because we didn't want to get blown up". And dwarfs would make a lot of money to move palaces and important structures underground.

Hmm, widespread distrust and paranoia, and decentralized communities... could be a nice tie-in to something like prewar Fallout if we do a fast-forward-a-hundred-years sequel to this.

>>12875873
Anti magic field on your entire city. Sure its the (irony) Doomsday option, but it is the only way to be sure. As a temporary measure, it provides essentally unbreakable protection.

Capitols abruptly become places where magic is worthless, and magic items useless. Well trained conventional guards and old fashoned non magical assassins are king, it is a time of unrest and distrust, when you can not call on a zone of truth to end a despute.

LCN is divination IIRC (at the base) so ward against that.

Also huge armies are dead. Literally and as a concept. A grand army is too vulnerable to this at camp and can't fortify itself.

Who invented LCN? How many people/factions have it now, and how did they get that information?
If just a handful of people have it, there'd be a lot of room for intrigue as the rest of the world tries to steal their secrets, kill them, or both. Maybe they send out suicide bombers with scrolls of LCN, to make it harder to trace back to them?

Also, refresher on the spell's mechanics, please. Radius, how far can the caster be from ground zero, etc?

>>12876116

Definitely makes small groups of high level characters more relevant in world politics, so that's a good thng I would think :)


>>12876113

That's very interesting. Probably more wars of assassins kind of thing. I tried to keep magic low key, Discworld like, but that may be good for some ambients.


About army camps, again what's a reasonable lower limit for a LCN to work, population wise? 500? 1000? 5000?

>>12876126

The LCN was invented by (ultimate BBEG of the campaign, whose identity is suspected but not known, in case my players read this) and given away, mostly by reason of increasing entropy in the world, to some arcane casters known for their propensity for wanton evil. The first-arc BBEG (also known as the Uncertainty Lich) derived how it was done by himself, but didn't use it. Then there's one NPC acting by himself who has it and either has time-travel abilities, or has made everyone think that he has them. Finally, one of the PCs has the Uncertainty Lich's notes on the LCN and can spend some time and XP to analyze them properly and cast the spell himself.

>>12876126

The LCN is not hard to cast (4th level spell, and can be ritual-cast); few people have it so far, because figuring out how to do it required a lot of though, although it's not hard to do once the trick is known; the caster must be able to contingency-teleport away from the city (the spell has to be cast inside the city to work) or stand a very good chance of dying in the blast. Suicide nuking has happened at least once, off-camera, because a spellcaster was told The Trick but didn't work out that he'd be in the blast radius.

There is a continent-wide hunt for anyone who can cast a LCN, either to kill them or to buy it off them.

>>12876113

Most palaces, guild halls and so on already have anti-scrying measures in place (so do banks, interestingly), they'd have to be extended basically.

>>12876176

As to WHY the ultimate BBEG wants to increase entropy in the world, it's largely because he wants to eat the universe. Think about the love child of Lavos and Acererak.

>>12876113
This would be a fascinating setting. In the most important areas, magic is worthless.

It might not be obvious to us.. but in dnd to many classes would be utterly crippled. How many skills rely indirectly from magic? How would the gap between mundane and magic grow?

How would people deal without instant access to magical healing, protection, or damage long term? It would be as if there were areas in reality that suddenly lost electrical power forever. In the most crowded areas.

>>12876176
Damn liches. Don't they know every living mortal is a boost to entropy?

>>12876116
I'm not so sure. Armies on the march wouldn't be within a city, nor would there be walls to blast them into. And citywide anti-magic would make mundane troops even more effective.

>>12876307

Or you can go to an unshielded area and enjoy the benefits of magic... and know that your horizon may be flooded with frost and thunder at any given moment.

I guess in the long term it'd mean that large cities would disappear.

>>12876368

http://spirit-plumber.com/ROTUL/ If you care here's the logs for The Unlikely Rise of the Uncertainty Lich....

About armies of the march: I agree, but what if they build a roman-style walled encampment?

>apocalypse could happen at any moment
>to be safe, you need to null magic
Create a fluid capable of reacting to magical crystal in order to project an antimagic field.

Recieve final fantasy chronicles.

>>12876407

Funny you should mention that -- one of the UL's legacies to the world is a "magic battery" crystal. Sadly it's poisonous, think Tiberium crystals here.

Newb here:

Can someone link me or explain what a Locate City Nuke is?

I mean I can gather kinda from this topic but is their like an epic level seed/spell that;s been type out that I can see...

>>12876426
Locate City Nuke is, like many other D&D exploits, a finely tuned piece of read-as-written theorycrafting. By using the very specific wording in various spells and spell enhancements, you can theoretically do some crazy shit.

In the wakeo f the crisis a new organization pops up known as the Magical Security Organization or MSA for short pops up offering its services. It's solution to the LCN? Wands of detect magic. If you're carrying magic, are a magic user, or are related to anyone who has used magic within the last 3 generations it beeps and you're stunned then dragged off to be summarily tried and executed.

People can object to the wands, but are instead given horribly invasive pat-downs by over-zealous MSA agents specially trained to feel for the magic in people.

>>12876453

So it's a theoretical idea like pun pun... It is funny to look at but any DM could take a look at it and as such his understanding of one of the rules abuse stop it from working...

I would still like to read the written theory.

>>12876459
Don't think it would work. Magic is ESSENTIAL to many people in dnd. Not allowing magic users would be akin to not letting anyone in a large city who knows how to read, or has talent blacksmithing.

>>12876383
I dunno, I think they'd quit building those pretty quick. After the first few horrific massacres, anyway.

>>12876407
Nah, this is much cooler as a post-apocalyptic setting. Great domed cities protected by glittering bubbles of antimagic. Blasted wasteland outside, slowly returning to the way it was before humans ever settled there - save a few ancient, magical ruins.
Inside, a world of safety and commerce.
Outside, there is no law, but magic thrives.

Oh wait, that's every Squeenix setting ever, isn't it.

>>12876459

OMG I'm totally going to use this. But it shall be named Thaumaturgicam Securitas Advocatio. (I know, I know, it's bad Latin -- I flavored the Thyatian Imperium as Roman-ish, and no, nothing to do with the more well-known Imperium).


>>12876426

Locate City Nuke is a very nice piece of rules lawyering that allows you to raze a city using a low-level spell and some metamagic feats on top of it. Brought to you by the people who thought up Pun-Pun.

>>12876474
I'm going to go off on a limb and assume you aren't an American. It's really a pretty obvious satire.

>>12876477

Yeah, it kinda is....

Hey, we figured out how it can have come about in the first place! You, sir, are the hero of Squadalah.

>>12876485

Can I still get the link.

>>12876473

1: Take Locate City, a spell with a range of ten miles per level
2: Apply Snowcasting (Frostburn) to it, making it a [Cold] spell
3: Apply Flash Frost (PHBII) to it, making it deal 2 cold damage to everything in the area
4:Apply Energy Substitution (CArc) to it, making it an electric spell
5: Apply Born of the Three Thunders to it, allowing a reflex save to avoid the damage and changing the damage type
6: Apply Explosive Spell to it, forcing a second Reflex save to avoid being blasted to the edge of the area and 1d6(?) per ten feet traveled

Now I don't think this actually works, due to Energy Substitution, so in my setting that link in the chain is replaced with the new feat Energy Bifurcation -- which was developed specifically to allow the LCN, and it is thus the "missing link" piece of magical lore that is so ardently sought after.

>>12876507

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=72212

Here is the link. Again, the consensus was that it wouldn't work because Energy Substitution would remove the sonic modifier, hence an ad-hoc feat that allows using the LCN in my campaign at all. Again, it's a mcguffin/quest item, in a sense.

>>12876070

Instead of radioactive fallout, say that LCN abuses the fundamental laws of magic to such an extent that it produces 'backlash' or 'warp' a deadly zone that causes some things to change randomly, and most to die horribly.

hmmmm... D&D fallout....

This has possibilities.

>>12876507
Here ya go: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/856019/

>>12876498
I don't know what Squadalah is, but thanks!

>>12876546

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/squadala

>>12876543

That does have possibilities! I kinda like the "squenix genesis" too though -- let's see if anyone is interested in doing a side campaign in the future, either way!

>>12876368
The army camp counts as a city for LCN.

Uh, guys, the spell description says "ten miles per level" and "Area: circle centered on the caster."

This is a suicide weapon.

Repeat, but:

http://spirit-plumber.com/ROTUL/ If you care here's the logs for The Unlikely Rise of the Uncertainty Lich, the ones I could find anyway.

Quick summary:

PCs are hired by a dwarf/gnome consortium to clear out a mine from undead infestation.
Mine is found to harbor goblins, kobolds, and zombies that are immune to Turn Undead.
PCs help the goblins against the kobolds and undeads, discover animated skeleton based constructs, blow them up.
PCs escort goblins in their exodus as they are attacked by an apparently rogue dwarven faction, help them set up a village elsewhere with all the coexistence problems it entails.
Unturnable zombies start showing up at random places, overrun a few villages including the home of a PC.
Tomb of Horror appears under a haunted battlefield; Acererak is blamed for zombie plague. It's not Acererak and the ToH is a fake. The two big empires of the world escalate tensions.

>>12876610
Contingent teleport, prepared resistances/immunities... there are ways around that.

>>12876530
My understanding was that the LCN didn't make any craters, because Explosive Spell explicitly only "ejects any creature caught in its area". This means that anything which isn't a creature is unaffected- a successful LCN will leave a city entirely intact. This makes it ideal for invaders wishing to claim another city's wealth and goods without dealing with its populace, incidentally.

Also, since it only affects creatures and cannot destroy, say, walls, its damage is much lessened- it anyone with a wall between them and the nearest edge of the spell radius will take only 1d6 damage/10 feet traveled +1d6 for impacting the wall, meaning that for most people indoors it will be only 1d6-3d6 damage. Will still kill tons of commoners, but not nearly as lethal to high-level characters or PCs.

>>12876639

(continued)


Someone nukes a city.
All the while, people have been falling comatose and rambling about mathematical formulas.
A lead is found after the PCs raid Fort Doom to free some slaves: the originator of the zombie plague and the bone machines is also causing the comas.
The PCs travel to the Broken Lands but are shot down and have to negotiate the Bartertown-like city of Corunglain at the edge of the wasteland.
The PCs finally find the BBEG, who turns out to be an Uncertainity Lich. He has been trying to do two things, pull an Adrian Veidt on the empires to forestall war, and buy back his soul from Acererak.
The PCs do the Adrian Veidt bit themselves 35 minutes before the BBEG has the chance to (much to my surprise), figure out how to defeat an Uncertainty Lich (also much to my surprise), free the people stuck in the mathy dream world and end the spread of the plague. Bad news: Acererak's plan actuall got a boost from this.
The PCs make it home to find out that their village has been annexed by the Black Eagle Barony and after defeating a neonate cosmic horror (?), they have to deal with a regional warlord and find that numbers do matter.

All the while with a lot of other stuff going on including possibly a mad time traveler, half the plot from Terry Pratchett's Going Postal, a cold war type situation still developing, the BBEG's apprentice still on the loose (her team is played by another PC group) and oh, nukes. And in the current timeline Acererak eats the universe and answers Isaac Asimov's Last Question.

Throughout all this 40% of the PCs died, one was chopped up to bits twice and survived (apparently you can be a Warblade without any limbs!), and more madness.

>>12876645

Yep... so to make it worse, I added a bit of a pinball effect as the shockwave starts from the city center, hits the walls, and bounces back and forth a few times. Basically most anybody under level 10 would die and most structures would sustain significant damage, with things like bank vaults and maybe some fortifications surviving (remember most buildings would be wooden, or wooden with stone foundations at best).

>>12876610
It is indeed a suicide weapon if there is no contingency plan (teleport, prismatic wall, standing in just the right spot and be ready to be flung back even). One caster was "rewarded for his loyalty" by the current _real_ BBEG (Baron von Hendricks is a pushover, come on) with the knowledge of the spell... and promptly blew himself up.

>>12876599
But the damage comes from being violently shoved into things, right? So first you have to get "within the city limits" - i.e. into a camp full of soldiers on the lookout for sneaky wizard shit - and then all you get for your efforts is a slightly bruised and very angry army chasing you.
I think.

On the other hand, if the only way you can seize cities is with nonmagical soldiers, and nobody can actually get an army from point A to point B without the army turning into a smoking hole in the ground... peace breaks out?
> THIS PEACE IS WHAT ALL TRUE WARRIORS STRIVE FOR.

> actually using LCN in a game of D&D
> wtf
> 3aboo
> oh

>>12876672

That (and the whole MAD mindset that would have to get into politicians'heads) would make Dune-style wars of assassins a lot more common.... which makes adventuring parties make a lot more sense as an entity, so that's a good thing, no?

>>12876685

The idea was to subvert the trope a little -- what I'm trying to figure out is, what would happen to the world? Look at how nukes changed how we think militarily and politically.

>>12876672

Actually that's interesting.... in a fortified camp / tent city there isn't that much to be slammed against, unless you are unlucky and are flung into the armory (which would happen, just not to everybody). So the survival rate would be higher.

Even so, what defines a city? Number of people? Walls? Years of tradition?

>>12876685

The PCs cannot at the moment shoot off a LCN. One of them has a scroll that explains how to master the spell, but cannot use it personally.

>>12876713
Banging into something is better. If you are ejected from the spell's radius you'll take damage that is impossible to survive.

>>12876725

Derp, you're right. Sorry.... should go to bed.

Aqually much

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/856019/ OH SHI-

>>12876689
Depends. Assassinations make the most sense in settings like Dune with hereditary rule. And you'd better believe the MSA will be watching out for that, too. Maybe you'd just end up with a lot of very paranoid city-states, waging socioeconomic warfare with each other.

>>12876477

THIS.

>>12876752

And thus we bridge into Paranoia.... Assassinations may actually be more interesting if no magic is possible within cities. Ambushing Duke Whoever on a hunting trip, for example.

>>12876530
>>12876530

>Now I don't think this actually works, due to Energy Substitution, so in my setting that link in the chain is replaced with the new feat Energy Bifurcation

I have to ask: What is Energy Bifurcation, and why does it make this whole mess of rules lawyering work?

>>12876777

Energy Bifurcation is like Energy Substitution but it leaves half the damage in the original type, only substituting the other half and giving you a spell with two types. Since the spell chain up to that point does 2 damage, it works out nicely and lets you keep all the types needed to make Explosive Spell work at all.

>>12876672
The answer is an ICBW Intercontinental Ballistic Wizard.
Geass wizard into casting the spell at a certain time/trigger
Tie wizard to broomstick or other flying implement drop wizard on city.
For a more humane version you could somehow link it into an enchanted item for a one shot use, and drop that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fT2AG7bX7nc

>>12876829

( LOADING AREA )
(---------- )

One of the current players is an artificer who hates wizards, don't give him ideas :)

>>12876829
How do you geass a wizard that can cast this though?

Gorlly Silliman's

>>12876829

loading area
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SPLAT

Hey OP. I see the logs are from FG. I would be very interested to join your game if you need any players.

>>12876876

OP here -- if you want to play either in the same session or in the same setting, email me please, spiritplumber at gmail

>>12876852
each one is a screaming wizard.
I wonder could you temporarily buff a commoner into a high enough level wizard to cast the spell?
This would make the spell cheaper and more attractive to wizards on you side?

>>12876829
BRILLIANT.

To counter that, you'd need some kind of space golem, flying down to intercept enemy ICBWs. What to call the secret golem program, though? They'd be powerful warriors ... patrolling up in the stars ... How about ... SUPER WIZARD INTERCEPTORS FROM SPACE.

>>12876799
The feat you are looking for is Energy Admixture.

>>12876909

Actually that's something, what sort of rewad should there be for getting in space?

>>12877040
so the locate city nuke works as per the RAW?

Extraordinary Spell Aim. Now you survive.

>>12880369

That's definitely another escape option -- part of the point is that the basic LCN spell is a suicide bomb though.

>>12876904

If it gets to a world war I think I would spring something like a time-freeze on the PCs and have them deal with the postapocalypse rather than make them slog through the war. If I can that is.

difficulty owisome