Defending Your Wizard Tower

If you’re defending your wizard tower, there’s a number of spells that may come in handy. While this is likely more useful information for DMs doing worldbuilding, higher-level wizards might also start to dabble with these spells if outfitting their own tower.

Alarm. This one does what it says on the box. If a creature steps into the area of the alarm, the spell notifies the caster. This can be audible or silent, and wakes the caster if they’re sleeping.
Cost: 0 gp

Arcane Lock. This spell juices up the DC to break or pick any locked door, window, chest, or other object by 10. When you cast it, you can whitelist any number of creatures to pass through. You can also set a password that suppresses the spell for 1 minute. Great for making any location more secure.
Cost: 25 gp/cast

Glyph of Warding. This nearly invisible marking can be applied to areas or objects. When entered or interacted with, the glyph goes off, releasing explosive runes for 5d8 elemental damage (half on save). In lieu of explosive runes, you can also charge the glyph with a spell of 3rd level or less. Some good candidates to charge into a glyph of warding are: Dispel Magic (remove buffs), Magic Circle (trap celestials, elementals, fey, fiends, or undead), Hypnotic Pattern (disable a raiding party), Illusory Script (convey information), Major Image (sights and sounds), and Silent Image (moving pictures only). You can also upcast a Glyph of Warding with higher level spells, including these tasty options: Animate Objects (the workshop attacks!), Dominate Person (now you’re on my side!), and Teleportation (easy travel or as an ejector seat).
Cost: 200 gp/cast

Guards and Wards. This spell sets up defenses over a larger area. Whether that’s applying an arcane lock to every door, filling corridors with fog, netting staircases with spiderwebs, or emulating a host of other spell effects in duplicate.
Cost: 10 gp

Hallucinatory Terrain. This spell completely changes the appearance of terrain by superimposing an image over it.
Cost: 0 gp

Magic Mouth. This classic spell lets you put a speaking mouth on any object to deliver a short message when a condition is met. Great for conveying information remotely, welcoming adventurers to your location, or letting players know the rules of the puzzle before them.
Cost: 10 gp/cast

Planar Binding. This spell binds celestial, an elemental, a fey, or a fiend to the service of the caster for 24 hours. Great for Wizards who need a heftier stand-in for a raiding party that wants to wail on them.
Cost: 1000 gp/cast

Symbol. This is like more powerful Glyph of Warding. It creates a nearly invisible symbol that triggers one of eight harmful effects that target a variety of saving throws and impose different conditions (if you don’t opt for the 10d10 damage option).
Cost: 1000 gp/cast

Teleportation Circle. Any Wizard worth their salt needs an easy method of transportation. You can make it permanent by casting it in the same place every day for a year.
Cost: 25/cast (permanent: 6125 gp)

Wish. For anything else not covered below, you can make it happen with Wish!
Cost: 0 gp

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