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Military tactics vs. high-level spellcasters
- Thread starter RangerWickett
- Start date
Pielorinho
Iron Fist of Pelor
I like the Destroy the Spellbooks option. How much would it cost to get a group of five high-level rogues to assist your army? Cast a permanent Detect Magic on each of them, give them some powerful magical items, and send them in to destroy spellbooks in a coordinated assault: all spellbooks should be destroyed within two minutes of one another.
The main problems with this plan are the first-level spell Alarm (which is pretty difficult to get around) and discovering the spellbooks in the first place. Several castings of Ethereal Jaunt and Locate Object could solve these problems, but then you're getting into some very high-level magic. Alternately, if the names of the wizards are known, Locate Object scrolls, combined with rapid force attacks, could work pretty well. Zip in, get the spellbooks, and destroy them.
Note that a thin sheet of lead blocks the spell. How many wizards have you ever seen in any game who keep their spellbooks behind a thin sheet of lead?
Daniel
The main problems with this plan are the first-level spell Alarm (which is pretty difficult to get around) and discovering the spellbooks in the first place. Several castings of Ethereal Jaunt and Locate Object could solve these problems, but then you're getting into some very high-level magic. Alternately, if the names of the wizards are known, Locate Object scrolls, combined with rapid force attacks, could work pretty well. Zip in, get the spellbooks, and destroy them.
Note that a thin sheet of lead blocks the spell. How many wizards have you ever seen in any game who keep their spellbooks behind a thin sheet of lead?
Daniel
Pielorinho
Iron Fist of Pelor
If you got ninjas, of COURSE hire ninjas 
. I wanted to make the idea as core as possible.
Daniel
. I wanted to make the idea as core as possible.Daniel
Black_Swan
First Post
Infiltrate and destroy
After getting a better idea of the scenario..this is what I'd suggest.
1. Don't split up your army...while a 10,000 man army is a large easy target..it's also a strong force. Splitting into smaller groups will allow the enemy to use magic to confuse, destroy, and wittle down your army.
2. Since the point of the mission isn't to kill the casters I'd use the 10,000 troops as a hammer to destroy the keep. Invest in a bunch of low level healing items to help recover after each assault. Make sure to make any attack as painful as possible on the enemy if you can.
3. 10,000 troops is a very large distraction. The enemy will be focused on you as soon as you amass and start marching towards the keep. Your enemy may mistakenly concentrate all it's attention on you. They may even get lazy because they will have the ability to strike at you while you march. This is what you can capitalize on.
Dispatch a group of infiltrators who's job is to access the keep before your army arrives and gather any documents and information they can. This is the real goal of the mission. Destroying the keep is the secondary objective to remove the hardpoint from the peninsula.
Once you have the information and plans of your enemy, you can use it against them to hunt them down later, find other hiding places, and hopefully destroy them.
Notice how everyone is so confident that the wizards will win. Why wouldn't the wizards think the same thing? Use that confidence against them to strike at the heart of their organization while they mistakenly attack your troops. They'll probably even let up on magical security because they'll want to save spell slots to attack you, making it even easier for your infiltrators to gain access to the keep and the important documents within.
Win the scenario by destroying the keep, dispersing the enemy, and taking any and all information that you can.
It makes a great scenario for a group of adventurers that are willing to risk it all and infiltrate the keep, as well.
After getting a better idea of the scenario..this is what I'd suggest.
1. Don't split up your army...while a 10,000 man army is a large easy target..it's also a strong force. Splitting into smaller groups will allow the enemy to use magic to confuse, destroy, and wittle down your army.
2. Since the point of the mission isn't to kill the casters I'd use the 10,000 troops as a hammer to destroy the keep. Invest in a bunch of low level healing items to help recover after each assault. Make sure to make any attack as painful as possible on the enemy if you can.
3. 10,000 troops is a very large distraction. The enemy will be focused on you as soon as you amass and start marching towards the keep. Your enemy may mistakenly concentrate all it's attention on you. They may even get lazy because they will have the ability to strike at you while you march. This is what you can capitalize on.
Dispatch a group of infiltrators who's job is to access the keep before your army arrives and gather any documents and information they can. This is the real goal of the mission. Destroying the keep is the secondary objective to remove the hardpoint from the peninsula.
Once you have the information and plans of your enemy, you can use it against them to hunt them down later, find other hiding places, and hopefully destroy them.
Notice how everyone is so confident that the wizards will win. Why wouldn't the wizards think the same thing? Use that confidence against them to strike at the heart of their organization while they mistakenly attack your troops. They'll probably even let up on magical security because they'll want to save spell slots to attack you, making it even easier for your infiltrators to gain access to the keep and the important documents within.
Win the scenario by destroying the keep, dispersing the enemy, and taking any and all information that you can.
It makes a great scenario for a group of adventurers that are willing to risk it all and infiltrate the keep, as well.
I suspect that the keep and wizards/spellcasters might be the players and/or their allies. And the attacking force is the reaction to annoying PC's inteference with the lawful rulers of the attacking country.
RangerWickett. Could you elaborate about the scenario and the PC's place in it? And possibly also your thoughts about the response so far.
Pielorinho
Iron Fist of Pelor
Ooh, that's an interesting point. Which makes us, what, the wizards' advisors?
Daniel
Daniel
Reynard said:
Not really. The wizards sleep in shifts under the area of silence spells. Or use rope trick. I don't think the "wizards running out of spells" option is a tactic you want to rely on!
One thing which might make a difference, too, is clerical or druidic magic. As rangerwickett has presented it, it sounds like they're all arcane casters, but with a couple of divine casters, the situation gets much worse for the attackers. The defenders sudddenly have an infinite supply of fresh food and pure water, for example.
RangerWickett
Legend
Alright, so let us now assume that the military commander has ten thousand troops, plus 20 mid- to high-level mages of his own (or clerics, druids, bards, etc.). He has numeric superiority in normal troops, and is evenly matched against the enemy in the magic department. All he needs to worry about is making sure he keeps the enemy mages from disrupting his army too much.
What sort of techniques should the military commander use? How should he order his troops, and what should he use his mages for? Basically, are magical defenses sufficient to stop magical offense, or at least minimize it?
What sort of techniques should the military commander use? How should he order his troops, and what should he use his mages for? Basically, are magical defenses sufficient to stop magical offense, or at least minimize it?
