Protecting Troops from Fireball

[F5]

So, here's a thought; silly, but possibly effective.

Your army of 100 War1s is accompanied by a number of human Expert 1s, with Animal Handling, Spot, Spellcraft, and Alertness. When they spot the incoming fireball bead, they use their readied actions to throw open the large cages full of pigeons they are dragging along behind them. The pigeons scatter, the fireball bead hits one of the pigeons and detonates early, and the 100 War1 unit is spared the brunt of the fireball.

I was trying to come up with a way for a support troop to use a readied action and throw up some kind of barrier, and this is the best my frazzled brain can come up with. At least the suvivors can eat roasted pigeon after the battle, so it's not a total loss...

 

[Nail]

......actually, F5's idea leads us down an interesting path:

In a typical 3.x setting, all armies should attack at night, when line-of-sight is at its lowest. Heck, even a few well-placed Obscuring Mists would do the job. Compare the outcomes: sure your troops have a variable (20% to 50%) miss-chance, but at least they are standing up an' swingin', rather than lyin' down and DEAD.

The point is: unlike RL medieval armies, the last think you want to do is attack in a wide-open area on a clear day.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Well, attack humans, dwarves or orcs at night. (60' of darkvision isn't going to be enough to mount any kind of ranged attack--then again, orcs aren't really strong in wizardry or at range anyway, so maybe you want to attack orcs during the day).

Attack elves, gnomes or enemies with elf/half-elf or gnome wizards during the day. Low-light vision would mean that darkness wouldn't hinder them much except on a clouded or moonless night so you wouldn't get anythig except a disadvantage by attacking at night.

Another possibility: simply keep engagements in mountains, forests, or other broken terrain where rolling hills, trees, etc limit visibility. Even a unit of 100 light infantry (a small skirmish) could sustain the casualties of one or two fireballs if they were able to close with the wizard and prevent him from casting after that. (Recommended weapons: nets, tanglefoot bags, and grappling). Of course, they'll still lose if they're up against a wizard and a force of heavy infantry that is roughly their equal, but they're likely to lose anyway if they're up against a force that is roughly their equal PLUS an 8th-10th level character of any class. That's not particular to the wizard or the fireball.

......actually, F5's idea leads us down an interesting path:

In a typical 3.x setting, all armies should attack at night, when line-of-sight is at its lowest. Heck, even a few well-placed Obscuring Mists would do the job. Compare the outcomes: sure your troops have a variable (20% to 50%) miss-chance, but at least they are standing up an' swingin', rather than lyin' down and DEAD.

The point is: unlike RL medieval armies, the last think you want to do is attack in a wide-open area on a clear day.

 

[Shadowbane2]

......actually, F5's idea leads us down an interesting path:

In a typical 3.x setting, all armies should attack at night, when line-of-sight is at its lowest. Heck, even a few well-placed Obscuring Mists would do the job. Compare the outcomes: sure your troops have a variable (20% to 50%) miss-chance, but at least they are standing up an' swingin', rather than lyin' down and DEAD.

The point is: unlike RL medieval armies, the last think you want to do is attack in a wide-open area on a clear day.

Isn't that just as bad for your army. The only sure fire way to keep your army together and somewhat organized would be to keep pushing forward, and even then cirtain groups (most notably cavalry) push to far and are cut down. A strike team can operate in the dark. a 10,000+ man army can not.

(Remember Chalons...)

 

[Errant]

Another possibility: simply keep engagements in mountains, forests, or other broken terrain where rolling hills, trees, etc limit visibility. Even a unit of 100 light infantry (a small skirmish) could sustain the casualties of one or two fireballs if they were able to close with the wizard and prevent him from casting after that. (Recommended weapons: nets, tanglefoot bags, and grappling). Of course, they'll still lose if they're up against a wizard and a force of heavy infantry that is roughly their equal, but they're likely to lose anyway if they're up against a force that is roughly their equal PLUS an 8th-10th level character of any class. That's not particular to the wizard or the fireball.

If you're talking about skirmish units I should hope they're keeping to cover, but wars aren't won by skirmish units. Napolean would have walked Wellington at Waterloo if Wellington was relying on skirmish units. Instead 73,000 frenchmen and 90,000 odd anglo/prussian troops met on the battlefield behind steel, muskets and canon. At day's end 57,000 lay dead or wounded. (Rough numbers courtesy of the wikipedia, any variance my bad summary).

The sad fact is large scale battles are pretty much inevitably bloodbaths and masacres. In (standard) DnD you don't have gunpowder, so no canons. Instead, you have fireballs. Same end result.

The troops don't march forward praying their protections defend them from fireballs, they march foward praying the fireballs land somewhere else.

In DnD an army's artillery is it's complement of wizards and a few heroes can make a huge difference by taking out those wizards. Cue the PCs.

 

[Nail]

In (standard) DnD you don't have gunpowder, so no canons. Instead, you have fireballs. Same end result.

Not to put too fine a point on this, but: No.

Wizards are NOT like artillery or gunpowder. We can NOT easily use early-modern-day warfare as an example. We might be able to use late 20th c. commando units as examples....maybe.

Substantial differences include mobility (ground, air, or teleport), adaptability (more than just fireballs), self-sufficiency (obvious), self-direction (also obvious), and limited "rounds" (per day).

 

[Errant]

Not to put too fine a point on this, but: No.

Wizards are NOT like artillery or gunpowder. We can NOT easily use early-modern-day warfare as an example. We might be able to use late 20th c. commando units as examples....maybe.

Substantial differences include mobility (ground, air, or teleport), adaptability (more than just fireballs), self-sufficiency (obvious), self-direction (also obvious), and limited "rounds" (per day).

Well of course there are differences. If I sounded as if I just viewed wizards as artillery that was only bad presentation. Wizards are certainly much more mobile than even modern mechanised artillery, but on average I think once you start getting large bodies of troops (read thousands of them) clashing on a battlefield those that can throw offensive spells like fireball are going to be called upon to do just that.

Isn't it the goal of a battlefield commander to break or destroy the enemy battleforce? Is there a better way to demoralise and slaughter the enemy's common soldiers than deploying spellcasters (of all types) hurling deadly mystical forces around?

Do you commit all your wizards (& by wizards I mean any spellcaster able to wield destructive AOE spells) to fire support? No, those with other skills/spells you deploy in whatever way takes best advantage of their particular abilities. But even a wand of fireballs in the hands of an junior wizard can break an enemy charge or line of defense.

Are they vulnerable and limited? Yes, but so is artillery. I think there are too many similarities in their possible effects on the battle field to discard the analogy just because they are some differences.

 

[Gneeker]

... and for those who think fireball is a pain to incorporate into large-scale battles against low level troops...

Please see Savage Species, pg. 65. Earth Reaver.

The look on my poor GMs face when I broke out that spell on a large group of infantry that was moving to engage the group of soldiers under the command of our party...

 

[Agemegos]

Any common fantasy-world depiction of war uses standard medieval formations, regardless of the presence of wizards.

Yeah. But Lord of the Rings has about eight people in the whole world with a demonstrated capacity to cast spells.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Non-skirmisher military units should always have the Mob template (from DMG2). This almost single-handedly restores them to the primacy they have on the sword & sorcery/epic fantasy battlefield, making them a significant CR challenge for heroic characters.