PCs lack of respect for the 'caste' system of your typical fantasy society

[S'mon]

20th level characters can usually afford to take their time.

Re forcing PCs to 'run away' - it's not the physical space that counts. What happened in my example was that the PCs took shocking amounts of damage and withdrew from attacking this small scout force. I'd expected them to win BTW - it wouldn't have mattered much, there were another 200,000 horse archers on the way along with their own NPC Archmage (Hakomon), high-level Fighters, Clerics etc. I was surprised how easily the PCs were defeated by a scout force.

I certainly wouldn't claim it was impossible to win this battle, merely that it was possible for not-totally-incompetent 20th level PCs to lose it.

The PC Archmage was indeed particularly unsuited to this battle, since Abjuration was an opposition school to him he had no prot fr normal missiles, so it barely mattered that the archers had some magicked arrows.

 

[S'mon]

You have a remarkably thin skin for a DM.


quote:

Many GMs have thin skins, but "I'll assume that was an attempt at humour" would annoy most people.

I'm sure you're right that in 3e a party of 4 20th level PCs can defeat 200 horse archers. Make it 2000 horse archers with some low-level magical support and I suspect they'd still probably lose.

 

[hong]

I'm sure you're right that in 3e a party of 4 20th level PCs can defeat 200 horse archers. Make it 2000 horse archers with some low-level magical support and I suspect they'd still probably lose.

A group of four people that manages to stand up to an army of 2000, even if they die in the end, is surely entitled to claim a moral victory.

 

[S'mon]

A group of four people that manages to stand up to an army of 2000, even if they die in the end, is surely entitled to claim a moral victory.

Certainly.
And in optimal conditions it's possible for a well-played PC party to defeat armies that size or larger. The typical medieval feudal army predicated on close-combat and individual heroic leadership is particularly vulnerable. Other types of army, like horse archer armies, are much less vulnerable - just as these armies regularly trashed medieval feudal armies when the two met in combat.

The majority of high-level battles I've seen tend to resolve on the achievement of air supremacy - the PCs fight the enemy aerial troops, if they win they can attack the ground forces at leisure and eventually rout them. The Mongol example is interesting as one where this standard tactic doesn't work nearly as well.

 

[Victim]

Improved invisibility would probably be an effective measure against horse archers, especially when coupled with flight. Foes without See invis would essentially be shooting at random into a potentially huge area to space allowed by flying movement. It also lasts 10 times as long as in 2e, so there'd be enough time for an II group just to shoot them all down with missile weapons. An archer character would be shooting 5 times per round for enough damage to kill a man with one shot. He'd miss on a one. With 200 rounds of improved invisibility, he could probably get them all. Heck, he can probably start shooting from 1500 ft away and still get kills, or fire during their retreat.

For horse archery, Run actions require straight line movement. So the only way horse archers will have a move advantage on flyers would be if the ground has no obstructions and there are no spell casters adding any.

 

[Ace]

Certainly.
And in optimal conditions it's possible for a well-played PC party to defeat armies that size or larger. The typical medieval feudal army predicated on close-combat and individual heroic leadership is particularly vulnerable. Other types of army, like horse archer armies, are much less vulnerable - just as these armies regularly trashed medieval feudal armies when the two met in combat.

The majority of high-level battles I've seen tend to resolve on the achievement of air supremacy - the PCs fight the enemy aerial troops, if they win they can attack the ground forces at leisure and eventually rout them. The Mongol example is interesting as one where this standard tactic doesn't work nearly as well.

True. To deal with armies of horse archers we use "Meteor Swarm and sometimes a few custom spells like 'Equine Blight and Resist Curing" to deal with them.

One thing DND doesn't take into account is fear. Horses no matter how trained are going to panic when Fireballs fll. Some horses will hold for sure but not all of them.

IMO DND style warfare would resemble World War 1 without the trenches, Horses, Artillery (err Mages) and Infantry in pitched battles.
Small units of Infantry though to prevent fireballing
.
This is however a cool and different thread entirely...

 

[S'mon]

Improved invisibility would probably be an effective measure against horse archers, especially when coupled with flight. Foes without See invis would essentially be shooting at random into a potentially huge area to space allowed by flying movement. It also lasts 10 times as long as in 2e, so there'd be enough time for an II group just to shoot them all down with missile weapons. An archer character would be shooting 5 times per round for enough damage to kill a man with one shot. He'd miss on a one. With 200 rounds of improved invisibility, he could probably get them all. Heck, he can probably start shooting from 1500 ft away and still get kills, or fire during their retreat.

For horse archery, Run actions require straight line movement. So the only way horse archers will have a move advantage on flyers would be if the ground has no obstructions and there are no spell casters adding any.

I agree that improved invis is powerful in 3e, but arrows with soot-bombs could be used, it would only take 1 hit to mark the invisible character. If the sky is full of arrows aimed in the general direction of the target a reasonable GM should allow some chance to hit any target in range, at least if they're fairly slow-moving.

Re the flying archer, most will not be able to carry 200 arrows with them! At least, not accessible in quivers. That's a _lot_.

Re run action - agreed, but horse archer armies normally operate on open plains. Fighting in forests requires different tactics - longbow archer infantry scattered & hidden could be nasty against incautious PCs.

 

[RiggsWolfe]

This concept of 'I deserve to be ranked by merit of my abilties' is modern and is generally not present in fantasy. It tends to completely rip apart any social system based on nobility or class by birth.

A society where adventurers started getting this idea into their heads would very quickly find itself rent apart in social chaos until a new order was put together without any nobility.

Actually I disagree with this quote. A more proper way to say this would be that the concept of merit-based rank was not present in History.

In fantasy, things are totally different. I'd say that quite likely, in a true DnD-like world, that society would be chaotic. People with the power of adventurers could easily lead a coup. Thankfully, my players don't think that way, but it would be possible at the higher levels.

One thing to keep in mind, these are not historical peasants, who were in many cases, little better than slaves. These are fantasy heroes, a whole new breed of creature. I could see the peasant NPCs in a campaign world acting exactly as you say, but a PC? No, they're heroes, they're different.

 

[Reprisal]

Consider this thread hijacked...

 

[hong]

I agree that improved invis is powerful in 3e, but arrows with soot-bombs could be used, it would only take 1 hit to mark the invisible character. If the sky is full of arrows aimed in the general direction of the target a reasonable GM should allow some chance to hit any target in range, at least if they're fairly slow-moving.

Where is the "general direction of the target"?