Protecting Troops from Fireball

[Saeviomagy]

Attack at night. 400ft range isn't any use at all when you can't see past 60.

 

[Shin Okada]

"... that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." - Inigo Montoya

OOPS. I was very sleepy when I wrote it

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Have a bard in the group of warriors. Reaonable, as the bard could serve as herald bearer, musician, or some other morale-boosting type job. As the troops advance, have the bard continuously ready his bardic music to fascinate someone who tried to attack (before the attack is carried out, obviously). Wizard goes to attack with fireball, has to make will save vs. the bard's perform check. That's tough, even for a wizard. So, he fails (likely) and not only doesn't kill everyone, he is now standing there in awe of the bard's beautiful song. Threat removed. At least, that is, until a large squad of archers all fire on the wizard simulataneously, consequently ending the fascination effect...as well as the wizard's life. ^_^

 

[glass]

First appeared in CW......good option....CW also has idea on wether to use magic and monsters in battle or not......if you do then your 100 solidures will be one to a 10' square at least anyway just to try and protect themselves.

Oh I might be thinking of Complete Warrior (I have both). You're right, there is a good section in the back of CWar about how battles might play out.


glass.

 

[moritheil]

2. Give them all evasion capability.

Door #2 is outrageously expensive. Rings of evasion are pricey.

Another simple solution is just spreading out. Fireball has a finite radius of coverage and the wizard doesn't have 40 castings of it (I hope). Sacrifice a few for the good of many and all that.

Just some ideas, nothing too exciting I guess.

[Edited to change the name of a spell to the correct one.]

Nah, it's not that expensive - just have them gain two levels in rogue. It does take time, though.

I think spreading out is indeed your best option, either way.

 

[NimrodvanHall]

Im not sure I understand the problem. People using Tower Shields can easily block a fireball, cant they ?

When using a tower shield for full cover you get to select one "side" of your square that you gain total cover from. Like this (x = people, | = shield):

_____|x
---> |x F
_____|x

If the arrow is the fireball its line of sight and effect is blocked by hard cover. Doesnt this mean the fireball fizzles ?

<edit : ignore the _'s. Stupid formatting>

The fire ball would not fizzl, but it would burst against the cover and than you start to determine the effects of the fireball.

if ppl would use towershields against my fireball i'll just target the fireball at F, if needed about 6feet above the ground, or i would make an attack roll and cast the seed true one of the openings in the turtle, whether below the shields, or between the shields, somone has to leave a hole to look true so they can see wheer they go. and thus use the rules for shoting into an arrowslit.

on an other note:
a good way to protect your troops would be to digg in. get a solid roof over the trench get in the trenches, and have mages with see invisibility shoot anything that flies.

In D&D 3.x i cant see war beeing fought in teh medival /ancient way. the way war will be fought will be more akin to modern wars, starting with WW I and procesing towards more recent wars, with genarals always trying to win the last war, casters continually developing better tactics to massacre troups, and rogues assasinating mages in their towers when they sleep. the task of teh mellee combatants will be that of paratroopers in a teleport raid, and the rangers comparable to seals etc. normal War1 will get use but not to conquer an area, but to occupy the land and act as eyes, think Iraq here, the war was won by the Airforce and the navy, true air superiority and bombing (teleportraids), sabotage destroyed ground to air defence (rogues and rangers, killing the enemy mages b4 the war) the Iraqi army was scattred by tanks (warriors, priesrs, druids) and the lvl 1 warriors occupy Iraq now and are killed on a dayly basis.

 

[IcyCool]

Not fizzles, no. It detonates when it strikes the solid object.

And then spreads around the shield.

Although as someone noted, it does give you a +4 to your reflex save against it.

 

[dcollins]

In D&D 3.x i cant see war beeing fought in teh medival /ancient way. the way war will be fought will be more akin to modern wars...

This is a reasonable (and not uncommon) analysis, but I come at it from the other direction. Any common fantasy-world depiction of war uses standard medieval formations, regardless of the presence of wizards. This is how it appears in Lord of the Rings, in the illustrations in any D&D books (like the 3.0 DMG), in Gary Gygax's Greyhawk novels, etc., etc. I'm assuming there should be some reasonable way to replicate these fantasy swords & sorcery battles in D&D, with wizard magic flying overhead while armies in formation battle it out.


Anadargor, thanks for the additional spell research (I think my favorite is legion's fire shield). I'm kind of surprised that even in all the supplement books, no one has created a simple mass/legion protection from elements...?

 

[kigmatzomat]

In D&D 3.x i cant see war beeing fought in teh medival /ancient way.

This is something that will be debated until the sun turns cold and the last RPG supplement disintigrates into ash.

It all depends on the setting's standards. I run a mixed level setting, where I expect a fairly large number of low level casters (1-3rd level) with higher level casters being exponentially more rare. In an army of 5,000-15,000 (which is not out of the "historic" norm), I might have as many as 200 2nd level casters but less than a dozen casters of higher level. Combats are fairly close to historical medieval war b/c the fronts are just too large for the few powerful casters to have an impact beyond that of, say, cannons.

My games aren't as gritty as those who run Middle-ish Earth games where there are less than a dozen casters available, and those are so powerful they spend most of their effort countering each other.

Nor is my game as "modern" as those FR/Eberron games with skyships, units of archers on flying carpets, War Golems, et al.

In short, the flavor of magical combat is, and will always be, setting specific. Arguing it beyond any specific, well defined setting is an exercise in frustration.

 

[andargor]

Anadargor, thanks for the additional spell research (I think my favorite is legion's fire shield). I'm kind of surprised that even in all the supplement books, no one has created a simple mass/legion protection from elements...?

*slaps forehead*

Yep, mass resist energy, CA, Clr3, Drd3, Sor/Wiz4, Wu Jen 4, 1 creature/level. With fire resistance 20 at 7th level, they get a good chance of surviving...

Andargor