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Story Hour
Shilsen's Eberron SH (Finished - The Last Word : 9/20/15)
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<blockquote data-quote="Rackhir" data-source="post: 3818767" data-attributes="member: 149"><p>Fighting an army is actually a lot tougher than it seems. Most spells have area effects that are "big" for a dungeon consisting of 10' wide hallways. However, when you're talking about an army spread over a mile or more, 20' radius doesn't really cut it and there aren't a lot of spells that cover more than that. Those few that do (almost all from the Spell Compendium) are what become your real killers, such as Blistering Radience (50' radius) or Firestorm (two 10' cubes/lvl). I think Wall of Fire is the only PHB spell with a really large area of effect (20'/level length). You don't actually need that much damage as much as you need area for fighting an army.</p><p></p><p>Also there's the simple problem of numbers. If 1% of an army of a thousand is casters then you've got 10 guys casting at you a round, with potentially 10 saves you've got to make. Characters probably only fail on a 1, but if you're rolling 10 of them a round... If 20% is missile troops and 1 in 20 rolls a natural 20 then you have 10 people a round scoring a hit and a 50% chance of taking a crit as well. Spells like Protection From Arrows or Reverse Arrows (SC) definitely are your friends here.</p><p></p><p>If you're DMing an encounter like this, the numbers issue is where you really need to think things through. A horde of low level casters tossing debilitating spells at PCs can be far more devastating than you might think, IF there are enough of them. Likewise with the archers and such. Never underestimate the ability of 300 attack rolls to inflict damage.</p><p></p><p>The most important role that the guardians (or similar foes) perform in an encounter like this, is to give the melee (non-caster) characters something to do and a chance to shine. Since the ability to kill even a handful of grunts each round, doesn't make much of a difference and the fighter types simply can't wipe out large swaths of enemies the way the casters can.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Rackhir, post: 3818767, member: 149"] Fighting an army is actually a lot tougher than it seems. Most spells have area effects that are "big" for a dungeon consisting of 10' wide hallways. However, when you're talking about an army spread over a mile or more, 20' radius doesn't really cut it and there aren't a lot of spells that cover more than that. Those few that do (almost all from the Spell Compendium) are what become your real killers, such as Blistering Radience (50' radius) or Firestorm (two 10' cubes/lvl). I think Wall of Fire is the only PHB spell with a really large area of effect (20'/level length). You don't actually need that much damage as much as you need area for fighting an army. Also there's the simple problem of numbers. If 1% of an army of a thousand is casters then you've got 10 guys casting at you a round, with potentially 10 saves you've got to make. Characters probably only fail on a 1, but if you're rolling 10 of them a round... If 20% is missile troops and 1 in 20 rolls a natural 20 then you have 10 people a round scoring a hit and a 50% chance of taking a crit as well. Spells like Protection From Arrows or Reverse Arrows (SC) definitely are your friends here. If you're DMing an encounter like this, the numbers issue is where you really need to think things through. A horde of low level casters tossing debilitating spells at PCs can be far more devastating than you might think, IF there are enough of them. Likewise with the archers and such. Never underestimate the ability of 300 attack rolls to inflict damage. The most important role that the guardians (or similar foes) perform in an encounter like this, is to give the melee (non-caster) characters something to do and a chance to shine. Since the ability to kill even a handful of grunts each round, doesn't make much of a difference and the fighter types simply can't wipe out large swaths of enemies the way the casters can. [/QUOTE]
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