D&D 5E Some thoughts on Warfare in DnD

[Tony Vargas]

You sure?

Historical/mythic & D&D Druids, yes.

Thus the New Age reference.

Almost every time I have an NPC druid they come off as a stoner hippie. I never intend to, but when I open my mouth the first word is usually "Duuude".

That's, like, totally un-cool, man.

Only if stoner hippies often turn into Velociraptors or Apes and then proceed to rip their opponents throats out...

Some familiar images from the 60s'd've looked very different.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

If my PC is an archer who shoots a burning arrow against valyrian fire on the water and I destroy a ship or more... how many XPs...or the reward is for the warlord gnome who gave me the order?

Usually the magic is too expensive to be used in the battlefield but sometimes in the right place and time is worth.

A war wagon with a magictek motor could cause the end of the chavalry, or a thrown stone with a summoning rune could cause a lot of troubles for the defenders for a castle siege. Ilusory magic could be used for effects as smoke grenades, or mind-control magic could be used to war beasts replacing soldiers.

And low spellcasters could be helped by groups for certain rituals causing more powerful effects, for example summoning planar allies or swarm monsters.

A shapesifter could change to a fly creature, for examle a crow or a bat, to infiltrate in an enemy stronghold to open the door to the attackers.

 

[Salthorae]

Until you go epic, number trump adventurers.

Especially in 5e bounded accuracy. Even a 20th level fighter needs fear the army of orcs now (unlike 3e days).

I'm waiting to see how Colville's newly funded Kingdom's and Warfare rules handle this very question of large scale warfare from a rules mechanic.

I like the Red Hand of Doom methods of handling it.

For my games it depends a lot on the societal structure I'm playing within a given world. sometimes it'll be a king calling his banners. Other times it'll be a standing army of some size (a la Rome).

Almost everyone is NPC/standard NPC stats, PC's are rare. That said, each army will have some specialists (sappers, scouts, cavalry, healers, wizards) to some degree, but much rarer than standard troops.

Until you get to 8th and 9th level magic, effecting a whole army is very hard for NPC or even PC wizards, as has already been pointed out.

 

[Beleriphon]

I'm gong to refer use Avernum 3 (awesome old school CRPGs) as my guideline here. In the games there are lots, and lots of wizards. The PCs (ie, your party) can learn a bunch of spells, generally all combat related, but the NPC wizards are working on stuff that the characters can't ever learn. It is generally described as setup that way because the other spells are esoteric and weird. For example X (yes the letter) want to learn how to summon anvils, by the last game he succeeds and summons and anvil field above a combat to do exactly what you think it would do.

As for large scale warfare using wizards. Look at Eberron. Wizards are best used for their non-combat abilities for the most part. Fog clouds, wind walls, magical research. Rising introduced Eberron's version of WH40K titans (that never saw use in battle mind you). That might not be your cup of tea, but wizards are probably better used for more than part time artillery.

 

[aco175]

2 you dont need an army of mages to break morale - just a couple using cloudkill or chain lightning or such should be enough, not to mention create undead etc etc

I read this and was thinking of WW1 trench warfare, like in the 1917 movie. Cloudkill as chemical warfare and the no-mans-land bodies rise to attack as undead.

I think there is also a relationship in older editions where components cost more or were rare on some spells and how 5e lost most of this.

The OP talks about noble houses training in various classes such as one house making fighters and one known for mages and such. I'm not sure if this would work unless there was a very strong overlord since each house would fin the others as possible enemies and would need to some of each class in their family.

 

[Horwath]

Let's say that 1 in 1,000 people in an army are wizards. How many of those are high enough level to cast spells like fireball? Is it 1 in 2? Or is it 1 in 10? Because if it's that latter you now have only 1 wizard per 10,000 troops. You aren't going to even notice them.

But let's say they can all cast fireball. Assuming you don't use the alternate long rest rules like I do, the odds are you're still only going to have 2-3 fireballs you can cast per day.

Furthermore let's be generous and say the caster is close enough to the front lines to get full effectiveness. I'm not sure how often that would really happen, but we're talking best case or close to it.

According to the DMG TOTM rules you'd only get 4 targets so I ignored that and instead counted out on a hex grid to get 30 assuming tight formation. So every day in the best of circumstances a wizard could fireball 30-90 targets.

That's a drop in the bucket and assumes the wizard is in the right place at the right time. Remember, that wizard is not going to be able to contribute much else to the fight.

At the same time, a wizard will be a prime target for the enemy. So while they would have an effect, it would likely be less than that of other units such as heavy cavalry.

in 3.5, in City of Silverymoon, there is 37.000 people, standing army size is 830, including 31 member of Spellguard( wizards and sorcerers from level 5 to level 12), so about every 27 member of the army can shoot fireballs.

 

[Oofta]

in 3.5, in City of Silverymoon, there is 37.000 people, standing army size is 830, including 31 member of Spellguard( wizards and sorcerers from level 5 to level 12), so about every 27 member of the army can shoot fireballs.

Yes, but that's FR where every 3rd person is a spellcaster of some sort.*

It's going to depend on the setting and the nation in that setting. 1 in 27 soldiers being level 5-12 anything seems awfully high.

*Yes, I know that's an exaggeration, but not by much.

 

[Fenris-77]

The average fireball damage is what, 28 points? Toss in saves and most of those guys don't care much about the fireballs (the plebs do, but that's a different thread). Counterspell also takes a lot of the wind out of this whole argument too.

 

[Oofta]

For every military tactic, there will be a counter. At least in the long run.

 

[jasper]

For every military tactic, there will be a counter. At least in the long run.

Run Run I am a dragon rider. Running is for Sailors, Jarheads, and Warriors.