D&D and war

[Storm Raven]

I suspect this is a mistake because the SRD says its only weapon base damage. Since the revised 3.5 SRD came after the books they fixed a lot of mistakes in those books.

Which SRD have you been reading?

Multiplying Damage: Sometimes you multiply damage by some factor, such as on a critical hit. Roll the damage (with all modifiers) multiple times and total the results. Note: When you multiply damage more than once, each multiplier works off the original, unmultiplied damage.
Exception: Extra damage dice over and above a weapon’s normal damage are never multiplied.

Emphasis added.

 

[boredgremlin]

I was reading the one that says the Revised 3.5 SRD. Not the first 3.5 SRD. Doesnt really matter either way though. Its a stupid rule that should be tossed. 50 damage with a sword is too much.

Lol about the wizards though. Who says your waiting to kill them on a battlefield? If you know your going to war then one of your first steps is gonna be assassinating enemy mages before the war even starts.

And clerics probably shouldnt be allowed to participate in active roles in war. Thier first allegiance is supposed to be to thier church not thier country. Odds are the country they are fighting against also has churches to thier god. So unless its a holy war the clerics should be restricted by thier church from doing anything more then healing.

 

[painandgreed]

Well, if you're going to have 8000 troops take on a 20th level party of 4, I suspect there will be some anti-hero tactics. Spread units out so there is less damge done by area of effect spells. Units of 100 fireing arrows at each person which will result in 5d6 damge every round unless they have protection against arrows since a natural 20 hits. If those archers resort to Con damage poison, that may also hurt. Other groups will rush people like the fighters with tanglefoot bags (halves movement if nothing else), alchemical fire, and other area effect weapons that is a ranged touch attack. Eventually, the spell casters will be surrounded and subjected to AoO and grapples unless they deal with those upclose rather than the large formations. It would still be a blood bath but any miscalculation by the high level party could mean their death fairly quickly.

 

[Al'Kelhar]

... try to invade a Wiz-heavy land without adequate air cover and your Fighters end up like the King Tigers at the Battle of the Bulge.

What, they run out of fuel and have to be abandoned? Guess they need the local cleric along to create food and water, then.

Cheers, Al'Kelhar

 

[S'mon]

http://www.counterpunch.org/lind11142003.html

When I was in the UK Territorial Army Reserve doing (very) basic infantry training, much of the initial field training focussed on assaulting a lightly-held position using bounding overwatch, fire support etc: basically with 8 men, 4 would be laying down fire on the position while 4 moved forward in 2 teams of two, dash-cover-fire, dash-cover-fire, then assaulting through the position. It would probably get people killed I thought, but it would probably succeed in taking out an LMG position with 25% casulaties on our side; 2 or 3 men hit. What's described in the link reminds me of Soviet army tactics - line up and walk forward slowly; surely the US Marines don't really do this IRL?

 

[S'mon]

I suspect this is a mistake because the SRD says its only weapon base damage. Since the revised 3.5 SRD came after the books they fixed a lot of mistakes in those books.

The mistake would be unclear wording in the SRD then - you need to read the actual books; AIR there's an actual discussion by Tweet or Cook of how it's vital to multiply the _whole_ damage, not just the dice as in 1e/2e, because at higher levels if you only multiply the dice the crits become irrelevant. So the intent is crystal clear. FWIW I agree with their reasoning. If you don't believe me I'll dig up the text. The SRD is not intended to be a 'patch' on the rules BTW, the rules & their explanations are in the actual rulebooks that people pay money for.

 

[S'mon]

And the random tables provide a nice well thought out logical base for society.

No they don't. What kind of reality has 1 20th, 2 10th, 5 5th, 10 2nd & 20 1st level Fighters (etc) in a city? (Yeah, I know it's x4 in metropoli). I find those tables really really stupid. The MMS:WE approach of double numbers per 2 levels lower is better but produces too many classed NPCs when combined with the dice+mod system in the DMG. The best approach is to work upwards from a sensible % for numbers of a class in the settlement.

 

[S'mon]

What, they run out of fuel and have to be abandoned? Guess they need the local cleric along to create food and water, then.

Cheers, Al'Kelhar

No, when the Wizards/PTs fireball the hell out of them!

Edit: Offensive operations by a conventional force against a wizard-heavy enemy are disastrous in D&D, if the Wizzes have air supremacy they can attrite your army almost at will.

 

[S'mon]

I was reading the one that says the Revised 3.5 SRD. Not the first 3.5 SRD. Doesnt really matter either way though. Its a stupid rule that should be tossed. 50 damage with a sword is too much.

I think I've covered this conversation.

 

[S'mon]

It would still be a blood bath but any miscalculation by the high level party could mean their death fairly quickly.

That's my experience - the biggest danger for high-level PCs is overconfidence, refusing to believe the low-levellers could be a threat.