Recipe for an Army Killer

[rkanodia]

Its because of things like this that I maintain that D&D worlds don't have huge armies of low-level plebs. IMHO it'd be more like the modern military with smaller numbers of better skilled (and higher-level) troops.

Which modern military would that be? The United States still has hundreds of thousands of paid combatants. Not all of them are Navy SEALS or stealth bomber pilots.

Sure, a mid-to-high level evoker might be able to kill a couple dozen low-level characters in one shot. But so can a bomber or a piece of artillery, and that hasn't stopped anyone from using foot soldiers.

In fact, I would say that such capabilities are less of a deterrent in a D&D world, where it is possible to have a defense against such an attack other than 'kill them before they fire'. A mid-to-high level abjurer (or even another evoker) can more or less dispel/counterspell the evoker to a standstill. And then, some of the abjurer's first level warrior allies are bound to roll natural 20 against the evoker...who has nothing to protect him, since he didn't believe in armies of 'low-level plebs'.

 

[A'koss]

I've long held that LL armies just aren't going to happen in a D&D world with standard levels of magic and level demographics.

Wars will be won by coordinated strikes from high level hit squads, bring in the "army" after the war is won as "peacekeepers". Auraseeker is right, cloudkill is very, very good. Get a few wizards working in tandem, attacking at night, invisibly, while flying out of range of see invisibility spells and armed with a wand of cloudkill each you can do horrific amounts of damage to LL armies, and very difficult to retailiate against. Who's going to raise an army in a world with teleport? For fun you can drop in some summoned monsters (with gaze attacks are nice )and just let 'em go to town on the wimps. That'd be a good way to flush out enemy spellcasters as well... so many options.


Cheers,

A'koss.

 

[SteelDraco]

I've always rather enjoyed the combination of Sympathy and Cloudkill. You have to have a prepared area (Sympahty's casting time is one hour), but it's quite effective. All creatures of a specific group are drawn to a specified location. Then all you have to do is Cloudkill that location. It's... nasty.

Though... hmmm. Not having used Sympathy in 3e, the description seems a bit unclear. Is the Range of the spell how far out creatures are drawn from, or just how far the center of the effect can be from the caster when the spell is cast? If it only draws in creatures out to short range, it's not very useful at all. It will keep people pinned there, yeah, but it won't pull a large group to one location.

 

[Kweezil]

Which modern military would that be? The United States still has hundreds of thousands of paid combatants. Not all of them are Navy SEALS or stealth bomber pilots.

It's still a smaller* and more highly-trained force than the immense armies of, say, the Napoleonic era, or the archetypal fantasy medieval army with its feudal levies.
*per head of available population

Sure, a mid-to-high level evoker might be able to kill a couple dozen low-level characters in one shot. But so can a bomber or a piece of artillery, and that hasn't stopped anyone from using foot soldiers.

But it has cut their numbers down and changed the dynamics of warfare. Magic does the same to the D&D battlefield.

In fact, I would say that such capabilities are less of a deterrent in a D&D world, where it is possible to have a defense against such an attack other than 'kill them before they fire'. A mid-to-high level abjurer (or even another evoker) can more or less dispel/counterspell the evoker to a standstill. And then, some of the abjurer's first level warrior allies are bound to roll natural 20 against the evoker...who has nothing to protect him, since he didn't believe in armies of 'low-level plebs'.

Dispel/counterspell isn't automatic and requires that you see the other caster, ie. be within 120ft and have an active see invisibility, given the most common caster defences. What about the other casters? What about magic items? What about non-human creatures? There are counters for every plan, but this all changes the dynamics of battle and with all the high-damage magic and abilities that could be flying around, the average War1 is a dead man walking.

I didn't mean that all D&D armies are special forces, but that they're more like modern infantry - better trained (War1 for recruits, War2-3 for regulars who've seen some action, War4+ for NCOs and vets), better equipped, more mobile (smaller unit size), more flexible and more survivable (unit cleric with a wand of CLW).

 

[Oni]

Personally I'm a fan of subtle.

Control Weather
Contagion
Enervation (remember killed by energy drain = raising as a wight [self propagating, and intelligent should have a fieldday with in an army]).

Well you probably won't wipe out legions, but it should have a lovely effect on morale

 

[gfunk]

A real army killer is Reality Maelstrom. At 20th level it has a radius of 200 feet!

 

[333 Dave]

Meteor Swarm in the largest possible configuration. That should wipe out most of the War1s without as many saves as Weird...

 

[Olive]

Its because of things like this that I maintain that D&D worlds don't have huge armies of low-level plebs. IMHO it'd be more like the modern military with smaller numbers of better skilled (and higher-level) troops.

Or some kind of Injunction against mages participating in warfare, like I stole from Sepulchrave's story hour. It's maintained by the magical community i.e. you break it you get soul trapped.

 

[magnas_veritas]

I've long held that LL armies just aren't going to happen in a D&D world with standard levels of magic and level demographics.

Honestly, it still might wind up looking more like a modern army than anything else, but I don't think that'd quite be the case. You'd definitely disperse the units so one fireball wouldn't get everybody, but that makes melee combat harder, so your units suddenly develop a reliance on ranged weapons. You'll also start having to have more independent and quick-thinking soldiers on your side, so they won't run away and hide. So, they'll need to be higher level, and that in itself presents a problem.

First, where do you get your Ftr4s? Unless you've got a severe orc problem, you're going to wind up losing most of your initial batch of troops, and that's bad. Instead, you need to devise ways of training the troops, so it's now on to boot camp to make sure they get their EL 1 and EL 2 encounters at a steady stream. And boot camps are expensive.

Second, now you have to equip and protect them. That adds up fast, especially since a loss of a soldier will represent a loss of most of his gear, and the money you spent training him. So, you invest in healing magic to keep the soldiers alive longer, but you have to balance it where the spending on healing isn't going to outweigh the benefits of keeping the trooper alive.

Of course, this means you have to have a booming economy to afford the 10k or so GP this company of Deathstalker-grade soldiers will cost you to raise. Of course, a medieval society is not that productive, but hey, we've got magic items being made every day, so there *obviously* has to be something going on; your druids and Plant clerics are busily increasing the bounty of the fields and herds so there are fewer farmers and more specialists who make the economy go farther faster.

So, now that you have your army, and your mages and clerics to run alongside them. What do they cast? Not that much evocation, really. You've got limited slots/day, and tossing a fireball is a waste when the army's so dispersed. Instead, they'll probably concentrate more on intelligence and counterintelligence (scrying, tossing illusions, etc.), and movement and countermovement (increasing the speed of the mounts, suckering the enemy into thinking there's a bog there, etc.). Sure, they'll have a sonicball or two loaded for any big things you might run into, or for targets of opportunity, but that's why the gods gave us wands, anyway.

Hrm...it does look sort of like a modern army. Especially if the teams of artificers back home build little crystal ball networks for inter- and intra-unit communications, and the bases have portals keyed to the most heavily defended fortress in the empire, and, and...

Brad

 

[Grifter86]

Yes, it does. It means that all of the targets have to be within 30 feet of each other. There cannot be one target that is farther than 30 feet from any other target. This is effectively a circle.

Fair enough. I'm not in critical thinking mode.