Some thoughts on D&D warfare

[Yair]

In the d20 fantasy milieu, the bulk of the army is usually made up by 1st level warriors, led by low (say 3rd or 5th) level sergeants and higher (say 7th or 9th) level captains. The army's race (goblin, hobgoblin, human, etc.) may change, but the army is largely composed of low-level and low-CR warriors led by slightly higher level combat-oriented character (mostly fighters). Rouges, rangers, paladins, barbarians, and to some extent clerics may also be relatively common, but wizards, sorcerers, and druids are rarely prevalent. Occasionally, this force is augmented by mounts (warhorses, worgs), gigantic beasts or brutes (ogres, war elephants), or similar support. What all these forces share in common is that their abilities are largely confined to simple fighting with melee and ranged weapons. As such, they all operate on the same level and in mass combat can be dealt with reasonably by assessing their EL. Such an analysis will quickly reveal that it is the massive bulk that forms the spine of the army's strength: what they lack in ability, they make for in sheer numbers. Take 1000 first level warriors and pit them in a simple fight against even a 20th level barbarian, and the barbarian will lose. The mass of low-level and low-CR soldiers is the core of the army's strength.
_When special abilities are considered, however, the picture changed considerably. Let us term dreadnought a creature (or character) that is immune to being whittled down by the masses of the bulk. These are typically creatures with high DR (such as golems, or treants), or ones immune to the bulk's attacks (e.g. swarms), or ones that can operate without the bulk hitting it (an invisible flying sorcerer with a wand of fireballs, or just any aerial unit when facing foes with inferior ranged weapons). These are the army-killers, beings that can take down enemies far their superior in cold EL math with little or no casualties or expense.
_The dreadnoughts erode and destroy the bulk of the armies. To combat them, armies can equip their bulk with unique tactics and equipment to combat particular dreadnoughts (e.g. alchemist fire to combat treants, trolls, or swarms), concentrate the more powerful members of the bulk on the dreadnoughts to offset DR, or deploy high-level strike teams to eliminate them. The high-level strike teams is a good place to put PCs in: even though their direct power is small compared to the army's EL, they are the only part of the army that can defeat these particular threats.
_Of course, characters (PCs or NPCs) can also act as dreadnoughts themselves. This is harder than it would seem, as most characters are still vulnerable to the masses even at high levels. Conjuring dreadnoughts such as greater earth elementals or demons, use of high-level spells to conceal their presence, and similar tactics can, however, make effective dreadnoughts. Such an action should encounter resistance in the form of the opposing army's own strike-teams.
_An army's bulk can be held at bay with strong fortifications. Siege engines and siege warfare can erode such defenses, but only with great difficulty. Arcane magic allows for diverse anti-fortification tactics. Armies equipped with sufficient arcane support can penetrate fortifications with ease - utilizing spells such as spider climb or levitate, gaseous form, dimension door, and of course stone shape or similar effects. While some of these effects can be supplied by druids or the proper clerics, generally speaking none matches the versatility of assault tactics offered by sorcerers and, primarily, wizards. Fortifications would usually be breached by a small unit that will open the gate or create an opening for the rest of the bulk to enter, as spells for such an operation are simply easier and lower-level. Aerial or burowing units can attack and transport troops behind the fortifications as well.
_The result is that fortifications will need to be layered, with several lines of defense requiring the expenditure of significant resources to breach each. Underground fortifications also have their advantages. Ultimately, however, an enemy equipped with proper magical support or creatures will be able to bring his bulk to bear on the defenders despite the fortifications. Fortification is designed and meant to cost the attacker more resources, not to stop him.
_Other strategic advantages can also have the same basic effect of fortifications. Untouchable aerial units are, effectively, fortified. Undead enemies shooting from within a fog poisonous to the living have a similar advantage. In general, strategic advantages limit the capabilities of the opponents to effectively engage you by restricting their movement or attack options. Often they limit both sides, but one side more than the other.

To adjudicate warefare, determine the bulk's EL. Identify the dreadnoughts that can wade through it unscathed, and the strike-teams of both sides. Consider fortifications or other strategic advantages. Then, when describing the combat, focus on the dreadnoughts and strike-teams. Describe how magic is used to circumvent or create strategic advantages, how the dreadnoughts wade through the bulk or are intercepted by strike teams or brutes or tactics. Your characters will surely try to do or arrange for all those things, so you should expect to react with strike-teams and counter-tactics against them.
_Dreadnoughts that are left unchecked should slowly reduce the bulk (determine the rate by how many the dreadnought kills each round). The effect of changing the strategic advantages is simply to allow a change in the engagement. Determine engagement between bulk segments based on their EL, modified to take into account the strategic situation. (Not all situations completely block engagement by one side, some may just hinder it.) Again, it takes time to whittle down the EL, determine a reasonable damage output and apply it to decide the rate of EL reduction. Losses should slowly reduce the EL of bulk segments; consider that losing half the bulk implies losing -2 in EL.
_Thinking in terms of bulk EL, dreadnoughts, strategic advantages, and strike-teams should allow for a richer and more interesting depiction of mass combat. At least, I hope it will.

Yair

 

[boredgremlin]

War isnt that complex. The trick is to model it after vietnam. Not napoleanic wars.

With mages and monsters, summoned or otherwise who can kill 50 men in 2 minutes the focus will be on diversified defenses and small unit tactics. Probaly including heavy illusionary tactics to use up the resources of enemy casters and artillery. Soldiers in a warzone like D&D would focus on not having any single targets essential by spreading intel and officers out throughout numerous command posts. They would focus on no single battle being important by spreading out forces and using more guerrilla tactics. That limits the effectiveness of casters and higher level characters. While making magically summoned monsters almost useless.

 

[S'mon]

_Thinking in terms of bulk EL, dreadnoughts, strategic advantages, and strike-teams should allow for a richer and more interesting depiction of mass combat. At least, I hope it will.

Nice post Yair, thanks.

The D&D assumption that armies are made up of masses of War-1s is an odd one considering that D&D is normally assumed to be set in something resembling the late-medieval period, when highly equipped, superbly trained professionals dominated the battlefield. D&D's "masses of spear-carriers" seems based off a late 18th- 20th century model of mass warfare that doesn't fit the available D&D technology (including magic) all that well. A 15th century battle would involve plate-armoured knights & heavy cavalry (Fighter 2+); English longbowmen trained from birth (War 2+), professional Italian mercenaries (War 2+), fearsome Swiss pike (War 3+) and German landsknechte (War 2+) - and the "average" soldier would be maybe 2-3 levels higher than those minima, depending on demographics - if you use "half as many 2 levels higher" then the typical soldier would be ca 5th level, if you use "half as many 1 level higher" then they'd be 3rd.

 

[TerraDave]

Why its been days since we had one of these threads!

Interesting post, but of course, we really don't know what "D&D warfare" would be like...and it would depend, as always, on the DM!! If it just the core rules, and most spellcasters are the reclusive types that don't get involved in politics, or the resulting battles, warfare could work one way...if it is a high magic world with lots of non-core stuff and armies have units of casters, it could work very differently.

In any case, there have been many threads on this sort of thing, we should make an index...

 

[Endur]

Don't forget the morale problems.

A level 20 Fighter would seem like a Legendary Demigod to 1st level Warriors. Its doubtful that the 1000 lst level warriors could be convinced to fight a 20th level fighter, if they knew his capabilities or thought they faced the Legendary Demigod. If you were a raw recruit, would you want to fight Hercules?

 

[Yair]

All good points.
War in D&D will be like whatever the DM decides it will be, so it is a matter of taste as much as rules. I aim for a game in the standard D&D "mood", one including massive war1 armies, phalanxes, and so on - that's the picture I have in my head when I think "massive fantasy warefare", and that's what I want to play.

The post was part of my thought process into how to describe and play in such a war in a way that was both consistent enough with the D&D rules that it will be reasonable, and interesting enough for the PCs and me (as the DM).

Endur: I agree that no war1 in his right mind will charge a level 20 fighter. I maintain that a well-trained and well-lead unit will do anything its leader tells it to. That includes charging a demigod.

 

[Stalker0]

Dnd has the potential to be a weird mix of medieval and modern warfare.

Dnd has many of the modern "necessities"...ie special forces, artillery, air power, advanced reconaissance (scrying).

However, the dnd equivalents are a bit different. Take air power for example. A aircraft's main power is its tremendous mobility and terrifying destructive power. Its has disadvantages in that bombs and the like are very expensive when compared to arming infantry, and they are extrememly frail when fired upon.

Now let's looking at the flying wizard equivalent. Wizards are "frail" by traditional party standards, but slap on a stoneskin or a protection from arrows and they are virtually immortal to archers. So antiaircraft guns don't cut the mustard Also, while it might be extrememly expensive to recruit a wizard, his power regenerates every day...so the continual supply cost of warfare doesn't exist in the same manner.

Also take artillery for example. The fireballing sorc can be thought of as a good equivalent. However, in modern warfare the only way to beat artillery once your on the battlefield is to take it out (with men or machine) or to just have more firepower than your opponent and deal with the losses. But dnd warfare is much more defensively minded. A single spellcaster of your own can knock out those big spells with counterspelling. There is no real equivalent to this in modern warfare, offensive is in general the best defense. So that means you can often get an interesting situation...your large armies kills his large army, while the spellcasters manuever themselves and try to take out each other.

Lastly, modern warfare relies much more on technological production than population...while in the old days the size of your population usually dictated who the victor would be. In dnd, power often comes through people, not just throw tech (ie magic). Sure if your kingdom produces a lot of magic items that will definately help...but if you have a large population your bounds to have more fighter x's and wizard y's than your opponent....so again miliatry strength boils down to population numbers again.

 

[Yair]

... Lastly, modern warfare relies much more on technological production than population...while in the old days the size of your population usually dictated who the victor would be. In dnd, power often comes through people, not just throw tech (ie magic). Sure if your kingdom produces a lot of magic items that will definately help...but if you have a large population your bounds to have more fighter x's and wizard y's than your opponent....so again miliatry strength boils down to population numbers again.

It is because there are so many differences that I don't like the comparison that much. It sounds like a good idea, but the analogy just isn't close enough to be actually useful IMHO.
Interesting point about population mattering more than technology.
I do believe, however, that it isn't magic that "technology" represents here, but rather magic items. Having powerful spellcasters is part and parcel of having lots of high-level NPCs; it is in making powerful and numerous magic items that money (industry) comes to bear.

As for the level 20 barbarian: nevermind, I see you recanted.

 

[TerraDave]

Boredgremlin: I am not sure that napoleanic is automatically ruled out...they had massed muskets, cannons, explosive shells, grapeshot...one difference versus later is limited range, but that may actually be more consistent...and of course in Vietnam massed forces where also used when warrented...

Stalker0: A weird mix indeed, we talked a lot about it here. One thing, I think that with high level charecters and magic, resources remain important. Historically, the big cost was just gold to keep the troops paid. Mid to highish level charecters may be very expensive. And magic means magics items, and the use of scrolls, charges, etc...

Yair: to bad, even with all the stuff that has been produced, their is such limited support for the sort of battles you describe. Grim Tales Mass Combat and the System in Testament can be used for these sorts of battles, but are quite abstract. Cry Havoc has the problems it is famous for. The Minitures Handbook can be used, if you've got a lot of minis for a battle with a few hundred on each side. And Heroes of Battle, no help at all. If only someone would produce an update of the old Battle System...

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Random thoughts:

Personally, I've felt for some time now that the best way to handle mass combat in D&D is to not handle it as an abstract at all. Get a large patch of floor with 1" counters marked "orc", "human", or whatever. Then roll initiative. This has the disadvantage of taking a very long time but you won't have to worry about abstractions causing problems.

I agree that the dreadnaught is the key player on the battlefield with the exception of high level (13+) casters. A DR of 5 lets you plow through enemy formations with a good chance of being OK.

The key would be to get rid of High Value Units (HVU) as soon as possible. Mopping up the troopers can be done any old time. But you need to get rid of the teleporters and the dudes who can only be hit by adamantium or whatever.

This would not invalidate the concept of a large army. You still need boots on the ground to control the civilian population, build fortifications, and slow down the enemy's HVUs.

The multiple layers of defense makes sense. But that would be complimented by dredaught/HVUs that were suited for gurrilla style attacks. Haste,Improved Invisibility, then Dimension Door or Teleport in. Blast the crap out of whatever you can in two rounds, then get out.

A key defense issue, it would seem, would be to keep the enemy out of spellcasting range. Say a 500' buffer.

In high magic battles, Knowledge (Planes) would be a vital skill as spellcasters would retreat to dimensions where 1 Prime Material hour would equate with 8 alternate-dimension hours.

I don't think there's any getting around the fact that a moderate-to-high magic war would be exceptionally deadly. One solution would be to have all your high level casters generate magic items for the low-level casters to employ. So your archmage loses some exp, but it's the 1st level apprentice with a wand of fireballs or wand of wall of force that takes the heat in the field.

... just some thoughts.