#contingency nuke

I've talked about the magical girl transformation chamber strategy, which I think is fun and balanced (because of the cost and the time it takes to set up and then the time it takes to activate). This is not that fun.

To be frank, it might not even work. It's complicated and involves a tiny bit of word twisting.

This is the contingent nuke.

As soon as you have a 7th level spell slot, upcast glyph of warding at 7th level to spell glyph store a contingency spell which triggers when a creature walks over the glyph of warding's glyph (I imagine you have to place the contingency component on the glyph and the creature walking over it would have to collect it). This is where it gets complicated, a contingent spell remains active for 10 days but "you can use only one contingency spell at a time. If you cast this spell again, the effect of another contingency spell on you ends." But by using a glyph of warding to subvert the self target requirement, because the glyph casts the contingency spell (not you, per se), and the contingency spell is no longer being cast on you (the glyph setter-upper) and so it can stack.

But then there is the matter of the contingent spell. Contingency only allows spells which target the "caster", as in spells with a range of self. And there's a few good spells for this. I really like destructive wave for this (because it a big aoe), but that's a difficult spell to get on a character that also knows glyph of warding and contingency. But the very easy solution is lightning bolt.

So. A 13th level wizard. One 7th level slot to glyph, one 6th level slot to contingency, and one 5th level slot to store a contingent lightning bolt (upcast) or a destructive wave if you can manage that.

And this is why it's a nuke, if you haven't put the pieces together already. For every set of three slots you use (as outlined above) you create a glyph on the ground which lasts until dispelled. Walking over that glyph causes it to stack one stored lightning bolt or destructive wave (which will trigger on your preferred condition, such as "the creature stands within range of and faces a specific creature"). You can walk over... a lot of those over the course of 10 days. So, say, you spend months prepping glyphs in a warehouse and then walk over them all at once, you have that many contingent spells which will trigger all at once on their shared trigger.

Just imagine. You stand in front of the king. You turn to face him. 80 5th level lightning bolt spells erupt from your body all at once. 800d8s of lightning damage. An average of 3,200 lightning damage to everything in a 150 foot line in front of you. Assuming average damage and all successful saves, that's still ~1,700 damage. And bare minimum (assuming your target doesn't have evasion) that's still 400 damage.

You would rip a hole through space time.

Total gold cost: 136,000 gold in materials and a trenchcoat big enough to hold 80 small figurines in the pockets.

Reasons this would not work:

There's a couple of reasons your GM might not allow this rules wise. Here are the ones I see right away.

+ "You can use only one contingency spell at a time." This line is the contingency spell is not particularly clear. The structure of the paragraph would lead you to infer that you can only benefit from one contingent spell at a time, however the phrase "contingent spell" could also refer to the spell being stored for later use and "use" may refer to the act of casting. Under the circumstances outlined above, you might end up sputtering out one lightning bolt every round for 80 rounds if they can only go off one at a time rather than all at once. However, this contradicts the prior paragraph of the contingency spell which states that the contingent spell activates immediately when it's conditions are met.