D&D 5E Designing a fantasy army in 5th

[RangerWickett]

Update, see post 40-something for details on how this played out in-game.



My party knows a small army is coming to their town, led by mages who want to perform some awful ritual there. The PCs are trying to stop them before they arrive.

I want this to feel daunting, so how does a fantasy army deal with PC tactics and abilities? My party is 7th level, with a warlock, a fighter, a bard grappler, a paladin, and an abjurer.

Right now the party's plan is to set up a few hundred feet from the road the army is taking, and when they're in sight, cast improved invisibility, silence, and fly on the party grappler. She'll fly over the column, grab the mage leader, and fly him back to camp. Commense murdering.

Then the party flees. One PC activates a stone of summoning earth elementals in order to slow pursuit. The terrain is rough, and it's the party's home turf, so they should be able to outpace soldiers on foot.

If that doesn't break the army's morale (it won't), they'll swing back the next day, and reuse the earth elemental to burrow under the army, then come up and break wagons. And they have befriended a couple pixies who can go in while the camp sleeps to set things in fire and generally cause a ruckus and keep them from resting. Plus a middle of the night fireball from the sky.

They're using guerilla tactics, and have magic. How does a fantasy military respond and defend itself? My ideas in the next post.

 

[Tormyr]

Options seem like:
1. Charge
2. Flee
3. Die

In 5e they need to try to keep together and keep their numbers up.

 

[Fralex]

This is a really cool story about how a 3.5e adventuring party trained an entire town of commoners to fight an army of undead (see "The First Tale").

 

[RangerWickett]

First of all, an army isn't just infantry. A real world medieva army had cavalry and archers, scouts and a supply train. If we assume an army gets to have a few mid-level characters, that opens up a lot of options.

First, the army's mage leader can spend gold to keep a pair of planar bound erinyes, the best defense against invisibility because they have true sight. Give each a wand of magic missiles and you have elite bodyguards.

Burrowing is a danger. Can you have a bound xorn? It won't fight - too valuable - but it can warn you.

In an army of thousands, is it reasonable to have, say, one hundred 3rd level mages? Every night when camp is set up, rack of them spends an hour casting alarm rituals. If a fight happens, point them at one worrisome enemy and release volleys of magic missiles. Is glitterdust still a thing? Drop a blanket of it if you suspect invisible foes.

Have someone capable of casting divination? Every day you ask if the army will be attacked between sunrise and non, between noon and dusk, or at night. Then adjust other defenses accordingly.

What else would you suggest?

 

[Bluenose]

With an army of thousands, you can certainly afford to send out hundreds in scouting parties and pickets to seize terrain near to their line of march and/or their camps. And have a mounted force in the camp ready to move quickly towards a point where there's trouble. Rather than let the PCs determine the place they'll camp, the point which they'll engage from, make them work for it by occupying those points with soldiers/scouts who can be quickly reinforced. Have some roving patrols, so the PCs can't be sure that they won't be trying to escape through a large group of enemies while there's another large group coming after them. The PCs may want to set up a couple of hundred metres from the enemy; that enemy probably doesn't want people getting that close easily and will do the sensible things that people have done to make that harder.

 

[orangefruitbat]

Actually, I don't think it should be too hard for the army to challenge the PCs if they are using this plan. Like most PC plans, it's pretty terrible

1) The army will probably have scouts that the PCs will need to deal with before the main army arrives. Just one mounted scout who escapes can warn the enemy. The PCs probably can avoid detection, but this could cost them resources or time (i.e., they move further away to avoid being noticed). I don't know how big the enemy forces are, but if it's significant, they will also have a proper vanguard, main body and rear guard.

2) The army could have fast-moving calvary, archers/crossbowmen for ranged firepower, and troops with reach weapons to challenge different types of party tactics. They could have rangers or dogs for tracking the party. Plus one or two "specials" that no fantasy army should be without. Maybe it's a wyvern, or a pair of trolls or a bound demon.

3) The rest of the party is presumably well back of the buffed infiltrator, which should really limit their ability to help him if things go wrong. BTW, they can't see or hear him.

4) If the rest of the party attempts to confront the army (as a diversion?), you have three PCs maintaining concentration, limiting their own effectiveness. Plus if they get hurt, the buff spells can go away.

5) The range on Silence is only 120'. Also, it can't be cast on a person any more - only a specific and immovable point in space.

6) Greater invisibility only has a duration of 1 minute. So the grappler has, even if greater invisibility is cast last, only 10 rounds to fly over to the enemy, find the leader, grapple and subdue him, and escape. That's cutting it real tight.

7) The enemy army is led by "mages" - plural. There's no reason to think that they don't make use of magical countermeasures to detect invisible opponents, or things like Glitterdust, faerie fire or Invisibility Purge (don't remember if these are all in 5E or not). Plus they should have ample access to counterspells and dispel magic. And they should be able to fly after a PC - or just paste him with their own spells). The action economy of 1 PC vs even just the leader and his command staff isn't in the PC's favour.

8) The leader is really paranoid. He doesn't wear any identifying insignia in the field. Maybe he uses Alter Self to be disguised as a regular soldier. Maybe he uses illusions to make someone else appear as him, while he hangs around like a bodyguard.

My party knows a small army is coming to their town, led by mages who want to perform some awful ritual there. The PCs are trying to stop them before they arrive.

I want this to feel daunting, so how does a fantasy army deal with PC tactics and abilities? My party is 7th level, with a warlock, a fighter, a bard grappler, a paladin, and an abjurer.

Right now the party's plan is to set up a few hundred feet from the road the army is taking, and when they're in sight, cast improved invisibility, silence, and fly on the party grappler. She'll fly over the column, grab the mage leader, and fly him back to camp. Commense murdering.

Then the party flees. One PC activates a stone of summoning earth elementals in order to slow pursuit. The terrain is rough, and it's the party's home turf, so they should be able to outpace soldiers on foot.

If that doesn't break the army's morale (it won't), they'll swing back the next day, and reuse the earth elemental to burrow under the army, then come up and break wagons. And they have befriended a couple pixies who can go in while the camp sleeps to set things in fire and generally cause a ruckus and keep them from resting. Plus a middle of the night fireball from the sky.

They're using guerilla tactics, and have magic. How does a fantasy military respond and defend itself? My ideas in the next post.

 

[amerigoV]

The PCs seem to presume that (1) the army is not scouting (EVERY army scouts. And magic = advance scouting techniques) and (2) that the army would not have countermeasures in place for such tactics (its lead by a mage - they are fully aware of magic's capability in such matters). Its being lead by a mage, so presumable above average intellect. Even the mage is not conversed in mass warfare, one would presume they would get someone in position to run their army.

Have the PCs pissed off anyone in town? Any malcontents? They would be good people for the army's spies to get info on the PCs and the town defenses.

I personally would have the army as a distraction. While the PCs are dicking around with the army, the Mage teleports into town and performs the mass sacrifice on the citizens. I would make sure the mage leaves a note thanking the PCs for leaving the town undefended just to rub it in.

 

[orangefruitbat]

Since I think the party's Plan A will fail, let's look at plans B and C...

Since I think the party's initial plan will go very bad for them, I expect they will need to flee. They probably can escape the main army effectively (especially if they have an elemental to fight a rearguard action). However, there's no reason to think that the baddies won't try and track them. Scouts could use hit and run tactics against them while the main army marches forward. Long rests should be impossible, and even short rests (if you keep them at 1 hour) could be difficult.

The bad guys will probably keep at least one spell caster up front - so any fireball should be met with a counterspell.

The elementals and pixies would be tough to counter. I don't think either will be able to much damage to the army, but they certainly could slow it down, and make nights as sleepless for the bad guys as they are for the PCs.

My party knows a small army is coming to their town, led by mages who want to perform some awful ritual there. The PCs are trying to stop them before they arrive.



Then the party flees. One PC activates a stone of summoning earth elementals in order to slow pursuit. The terrain is rough, and it's the party's home turf, so they should be able to outpace soldiers on foot.

If that doesn't break the army's morale (it won't), they'll swing back the next day, and reuse the earth elemental to burrow under the army, then come up and break wagons. And they have befriended a couple pixies who can go in while the camp sleeps to set things in fire and generally cause a ruckus and keep them from resting. Plus a middle of the night fireball from the sky.

They're using guerilla tactics, and have magic. How does a fantasy military respond and defend itself? My ideas in the next post.

 

[aramis erak]

I'm seeing an awful lot of 19th-20th C assertions that don't really fit medieval troop standards.

Such as "Everyone scouts" - not historically true even into the early 18th C. Many battles were in fact entirely without scouting of note, arranged by simple sending of a message to a known location - the nearest castle. Raids benefit highly from scouting, but as often as not, were done as recon-in-force rather than scouting proper. (As in, you send enough to fight a winning battle if they're not home, and pray they are not home.)

Given the typical tech level portrayed (late medieval to early renaissance; 14th to 15th C)...

There won't be a standing army of any note. There may be a castle guard or city guard, but those will only fight at their hired location. The army will be 755 to 95% infantry. The officers will almost all be cavalry. Most of the infantry will be light infantry, mostly peasant levies. Artillery will typically be rare - few armies had them; mercenary artillerists were constantly sought for the summer fighting seasons... and starving in winter.

Wizards are likely less than 1 per 500 troops. A wizard is an ammo-limited artillery piece.

A typical army should look like about 5-20 men at arms and sergeants (mounted MAA) per officer-type (noble and knights).
About 3-15 knights per nobleman (many had more, but appointed knights as leaders, and they basically count as noblemen except heraldically)
About 150-500 peasant levies per nobleman or knight - this represents as much as 40% of the overall population, tho typically closer to 25%
maybe 10 to 50 archers per nobleman; they replace men at arms and peasant levies.
1-2 heralds per nobleman

Note that the classical period (Roman) saw standing armies of about 5%-20% of the non-slave population. A Roman legion was mostly heavy infantry. 4000-5000 infantry, 120-300 horse and archers combined.

Wizards should be fewer still than noblemen... tho each noble might have a hired wizard, probably of level 1-3... tho the level would climb with the rank of nobleman...

 

[Quickleaf]

My party knows a small army is coming to their town, led by mages who want to perform some awful ritual there. The PCs are trying to stop them before they arrive.

Awesome! I did something similar in my campaign world with an invading Cabal. I think this will be a hit for your players.

Some questions to consider:

• Does the fantasy army have aerial support? This will make a big difference for the party's plan A!
• How committed in the invading army / nation to this mission? Can they rely on reinforcements and a constant well-stocked supply train from their nation? Recent examples of guerilla war are meant to wear down the invaders until the nation supporting them loses public will to support the war effort.
• Related to the above, what is the morale of the troops like so far? Are they accustomed to taking orders from a mage or is there resistance? Or maybe they've been indoctrinated in a magocracy to be fanatically supportive of "wizard's rule"?
• What areas has the army overtaken so far? Do they have prisoners at camp? Have they gained intelligence thru their prior conquests that influences their strategy?
• What charmed, conjured, or created forces/monsters are at the mage's disposal?
• What sort of a mage is the commander? For example, an evoker would approach the invasion effort far more directly than a diviner, and both quite differently from a necromancer!

I want this to feel daunting, so how does a fantasy army deal with PC tactics and abilities? My party is 7th level, with a warlock, a fighter, a bard grappler, a paladin, and an abjurer.

I have specific thoughts on the party's Plan A below, but I tank the most important question is what does the army know about the PCs and their ability to resist so far? If they literally know next to nothing, then consider what kind of opposition they've faced thus far. If resistance has been paltry, their defenses might seem extraordinarily lax in the face of PC magic and creativity. If there has been considerable resistance with magical support, the commander likely called in a diviner ally or monsters with true sight (as you said), or instituted classic D&D spell counters (e.g. scattering sand or fishing lines eith bells attached around base camp to catch invisible intruders & having rotating command words to catch officers who succumb to charm magic).

Right now the party's plan is to set up a few hundred feet from the road the army is taking, and when they're in sight, cast improved invisibility, silence, and fly on the party grappler. She'll fly over the column, grab the mage leader, and fly him back to camp. Commense murdering.

It's a smart use of spells.

First off, consider that at, say, 300 feet the PCs are within bow range and siege weapon range, but not spell range.

Second, greater invisibility lasts up to 1 minute and silence up to 10 minutes. That is a very tight window for the bard grappler to make her move. Even when she does, it's very likely the mage commander will be moving between tents and with a personal guard. If the timing is off by a few rounds, her invisibility could expire at an inopportune moment.

Third, even though the mage commander can't cast spells due to the silence effect, that doesn't mean apprentice / support / allied mages can't use magic to rescue him (or he might have some magic items which could help). If they can devise a way to see the bard, a simple dispel magic could ruin the bard's day, ending silence & fly outright, and possibly greater invisibility. Now the bard takes falling damage (maybe the mage commander does too, or maybe he has feather fall prepared) and she is surrounded by hostiles!

Fourth, once soldiers start targeting the escaping bard, that is a lot of ranged attacks. I would use the Mob rules in the DMG. Say the bard has AC 18, is invisible (disadvantage to attack, which I'll say translates to a +3 AC), but they know where she is because of the commander calling her out. Say the average soldier has a +3 to hit with their crossbow. According to the DMG 1 out of 5 attacks hits. Now, if she is grappling the commander and you want to give her half cover (+2 AC) that ratio goes to 1 out of 20 attacks hits. Maybe each crossbow hit does 6 damage? You can pretty quickly see that she is in for some serious hurt if soldiers start shooting.

Fifth, knowing PCs they'll want to lend artillery support to their friend. Have the army return fire with not just bows but also ballistas, cannons, mangonels, or whatever time allows, as well as sending out cavalry to assault their position (who would be stymied by the earth elemental).

Sixth, if the PCs do manage to pull it off, remember the mage commander has a high Intelligence and probably will lead with something like "Yes, you could kill me, but the prisoners from the last Chateau I conquered, I doubt they would survive long where I've put them..." or you whatever twist you feel would be good.