Where are hte polearms?

[matpot]

That's the author of Gardens of the Moon, right? I was asking about that book in another threat. Sounds like something I should check out.

That's sort of like what the sorcerers in Robert Bakker's "Prince of Nothing" series are like also....in those books, there is some kind of stone (Chorae?) that is like an heirloom. It's very rare, but when held against the skin, it makes the person 100% magic resistant. When touched to a sorcerer, it kills the sorcerer, basically casting "Flesh to Salt" on him.".

Off Topic sorry

If you like the Erikson novels and Prince of nothing you should check out Glen Cooks "Black Company"................

 

[Andor]

And then there is the divination aspect of D&D warfare....


Honestly there are probably two kinds of war in D&D.

The first is formal warfare by champions. Country A & B have a dispute. On an arranged day, in an arranged place the champions of the two kingdoms arrive to do battle. There may even be rules dictating classes and magic items allowed. It may even stop short of lethal combat. Or it could be a no-holds-barred gorefest. The kingsdoms abide by the results of the formal battle because the alternative is....

Total war. Knightly orders, wizard units, clerical support, peasant levies, shadowdancer assassins, teleport strikes, evening green slime bombings, blights, incorporeal undead plauges, inhuman allies, giants as artillery, manticore air support, frenzied berserkers on unicorns, warblades and marshals leading charges, elemental and xorns engaged in deep earth sapper battles, weather control, hostile wishes, helms of brilliance, iron golems on the front line, dragons battling in the skies, sauguin raiders vs merfolk defenders battling over shipping, gated outsiders, summoned godly aspects, the unleashed might of an elder Druid, werefolk hired to give quick powerups to legions of peasants, trolls used as siege weapons, artifacts unleashed, sladdi dropped behind enemy lines, deals with devils, angelic counterstikes, war elephants, doppleganger agents, alt-prime mercs, temples desecrated, half-dragon rustmonster breeding programs.....

And nobody wants that, because nobody knows who will win....

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

This very much depends upon the scale of the battle. On a even a scale of say 5000 troops per side--they actually end up making very little difference--unless you have LOTS of casters capable of using them. I played an event at a con once where our characters were leading a force of soldiers (something like 100-140 1st or 2nd level soldiers per character and six characters on our side versus a few thousand soldiers on the other side including several high level barbarians and at least one very high level cleric). In that battle, teleport and dimension door made no difference whatsoever. Sure, all of our characters could have dimension doored up onto the wall, but alone, faced with several thousand foes, we would have been cut down pretty quickly (when you're rolling 500 attacks, even if you only hit on a twenty, that's still 25 hits including one likely confirmed critical) and that's not even counting the high level foes. (With non-ablative DR granting magic like Righteous Might or Iron Body, it becomes a lot more doable but that's putting a lot of faith in your enemy failing their dispel checks). Quite wisely, we did not dimension door up to the top. (Another interesting thing in that battle was that the low level offensive spells like fireball, flame strike, cometfall, etc were not really any more effective than a unit of fifty archers--except when used against catapults. It was spells like Summon Monster VII (for a huge air elemental), firestorm, sunburst, holy word, and blasphemy that made a difference).

On a smaller scale battle--say 100 soldiers or less, a teleport or dimension door is very powerful; on the other hand, a 7th or 8th level character of any class is going to make a big difference in a battle of that size no matter what abilities they have and the dimension door definitely does not make the wall useless. The wall does, however, become useful for dividing the battlefield and controlling line of sight in a rather different way than it is in a non-magical battle.

As for create food and water, the answer is simple: Sieges work when:
1. Your opponent has more soldiers and refugees than the cleric can feed with his create food and water spells. (A third level spell in few domains, so most likely your 5th level cleric can feed 20 people 1 meal per day--higher level clerics can of course feed more).

2. Your opponents' clerics are forced to prep create food and water, leaving them without healing, dispelling, or offensive magics to aid the battle. (In this case, you're not starving them out but rather using the siege to make the eventual assault easier).

3. Your opponents rely upon create food and water for their supplies and starve out anyway when you assasinate the cleric--only they starve more quickly because they laid up fewer provisions than they otherwise might have.

Clearly, much of this is going to depend upon the power level and magic level of the campaign. However, even in a relatively high magic campaign, that might support dwarven reinforced bunkers more than castles, I think simpler traditional fortifications--the motte and bailey or the Roman fort still have a lot going for them because they offer very significant advantages against a significant portion of the enemies and aren't totally useless against even powerful flying and magical foes. (And, with move earth, wall of stone, etc, they're much easier and less costly to manufacture).

Siege warfare, though, would be VERY different. How do you starve out opponents who have "Create Food & Water?" OTOH, Dimension Door, T-port, etc. makes walls useless against a well-equipped intruder.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

For another example of what typical D&D combat might look like, how about the Illiad? It all boils down to brutal battles between legendary, magically armed and armored high level heroes? Check. The great heroes are pretty much invulnerable to the hoi polloi and Achilles or Hector cut swathes of destruction through the opposing minions? Check. The gods show up and their powers determine the fate of the battle until Diomedes goes and smacks Ares around? Check. And in the end, the heroes kill each other fighting over the magical loot? You betcha. Sounds like D&D to me. Just no fireballs. All the war wizards must be conjurers summoning the gods to fight for them instead of evokers.

 

[Storyteller01]

heck, look at the vatican guard sometime.

yeah, yeah, i know most of them have machine guns now. but still... the d00ds standing on either side of the doorways sometimes have polearms.

And they still train on actually using the weapon.

 

[darious777]

If those 10 mages are equipped with the right spells (Fireball, Wall of X, Wish, etc.) and they use them properly, that larger army is in for a rude surprise.

Okay... let me preface my section with "All other things being equal..." 25,000 men is gonna mop the floor with 15,000 men backed with 10 mages who have fireball.

I guess my point is that fireball in of itself is not that significant in massed battles. I would guess that it's main effect would be to open up holes in enemy lines so that charging troops could exploit the disorder.

But if you have 10 wish capable mages on your side, then who the heck knows what's going to happen - aside from total dominance barring your opposition having something equivalent.

A few other points:
I still think that defensive positions would be useless, outside of the occasional strategic valued building, ie a building so important that it would warrant the expenditure of the funds/magic to make it proof against well - everything.

Assasins - would be invaluable if not mandatory in this kind of warfare, but they couldn't replace the traditional combatants. They can sure make it tough for the enemy to use it's best assets to fight back with, but Assasins, like snipers, just can't take and hold territory.

Create Food and Water - might be useful but at 3 men/level you would need 3334 cleric levels to feed a 10,000 man army. Given that the min level for said cleric is 5th, that's 667 clerics casting CF&W daily. Assume some higher level clerics in there and the ability to cast the spell multiple times and you need, what - 300 or so clerics cranking out create food and water. I don't see that being a factor in DnD warfare unless it's a very desparate situation. Simply put, that's 300 clerics that could be sitting on dispel magic, animate dead, invisiblity purge, wind walls, etc. etc.

Which reminds me - healing... nothing more than heaaaling... given the way that most troops have 5-10 hitpoints, it would make sense to load up with only cure light wounds for the medical tents. This is with the assumption that you are in a situation where the number of clerics is far greater than the number of soldiers. Say 100 vs 10000. Spend just enough magic to keep a handful of soldiers from dying and use the rest of it preventing the injuries in the first place (prayer, dispel magic, augury, etc).

Divinations, augury et al - oy vey. I knew there was a reason I didn't want to think about the cleric spell list. The idea of a fantasy general planning his order of battle using risk management decision theory is too painful to contemplate.

It's a fun exercise but I have to say again that there are too many variables to contemplate. Supply, intel, mobility, firepower, stealth, psyops (will save or be my puppet),terrain - all are radically changed from anything we can contemplate. We might be able to hold to one variable and work out the results, but throwing everything into the mix like this - who knows what will come out at the end. And that's not throwing in new things like illusions or instant healing or extra-planar support.

And the whole hit point thing. There are a number of historical battles that have hinged on a lucky shot taking out an enemy leader (Hastings and Lutzen come to mind). In DnD - well - I'm just not going to bring that old argument back up.

But. It is sure fun to try and figure just what might happen.

 

[darious777]

I think simpler traditional fortifications--the motte and bailey or the Roman fort still have a lot going for them because they offer very significant advantages against a significant portion of the enemies and aren't totally useless against even powerful flying and magical foes. (And, with move earth, wall of stone, etc, they're much easier and less costly to manufacture).

This I am in agreement. Fast and cheap fortifications that don't pin the defending army in place I can see.

I guess my problem with static defenses is that, in my opinion, they leave the initiative to the attacker.

Here are my assumptions:
1) Defender has a strong defensive position, but the attacker has a stronger army (attacker had better have a stronger army, otherwise why is he attacking?)
2) Attacker can only take that position with great cost, or with magic.
3) Defender can only hold out against the attacker's magic with magic of it's own.
4) Both sides have equal magic power. Everything that one side has, the other side has available to it.

How do you, the defender, prep your spells to stop me the attacker? Do you take move earth to rebuild the walls that I brought down with my move earth? Do you take summon elemental to counter my earth elemental? What if you have an elemental memorized the day I decide to drop a cloudkill instead? What if you took 1 wind wall, 1 move earth, and 1 earth elemental and I decide to come in with 3 elementals?
I'll probably try a few change self or invisibility infiltrations, but I won't have high hopes - a proper defensive structure had better be protected against that sort of nonsense, but, still, you never know until you try.
I'm going to assume that you have dispel magics but those are unreliable and time sensitive. You can't dispel something once the magic is finished being cast. So one day I'll lob my spell offensive at 4am. The next I'll do it at 1am. And then I'll hit at noon. I can dictate the times that my offenses go off - your dispel magics and counterspells have to be available 24/7.

Even if we change the assumptions and you now have such a powerful defensive position that I can never take it. It becomes essentially a perfect platform from which to launch protected attacks on my units. Why should I stay there? I'll wander around your countryside pulling a Hannibal and wait for you to leave your defenses to put a stop to me.
That does give you the option to take the initiative back, but remember, I wouldn't have invaded in the first place unless I had a larger army (and therefore the advantage) already.

In this, I feel that magic is similar to modern combat. Putting signifigant resources into a defense that the enemy can knock down at their leisure is not effective.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

heck, look at the vatican guard sometime.

yeah, yeah, i know most of them have machine guns now. but still... the d00ds standing on either side of the doorways sometimes have polearms.

Heh, I have seen a film of one of the guards using that halberd - they know how to use them.

Contrary to D&D the guard used the haft of the weapon to do the trip, not the hook, bringing the shaft up behind the fellow's knees, and in the same motion bringing the blade to the target's throat as he hit the ground. The guy hit the ground hard. I do not think he was going to be walking anywhere quickly for some time afterwards. His head bounced.

This was not training, this was some idiot deciding that he wanted to run in the direction of the Nuncio, and discovering, painfully, that it was a bad idea.

The Auld Grump

 

[Ciaran]

Create Food and Water - might be useful but at 3 men/level you would need 3334 cleric levels to feed a 10,000 man army. Given that the min level for said cleric is 5th, that's 667 clerics casting CF&W daily. Assume some higher level clerics in there and the ability to cast the spell multiple times and you need, what - 300 or so clerics cranking out create food and water. I don't see that being a factor in DnD warfare unless it's a very desparate situation. Simply put, that's 300 clerics that could be sitting on dispel magic, animate dead, invisiblity purge, wind walls, etc. etc.

One might presume the existence of higher-level variants of create food and water with a more efficient output. Say, a 7th-level variant that created enough food and water for 100 people per caster level?

 

[Umbran]

Contrary to D&D the guard used the haft of the weapon to do the trip, not the hook...

The SRD says you can use the Halberd to make trip attacks. It doesn't specify which part of the halberd you're using.

In real lilfe, I think the hook is more to get people off horses, or to grab an opponent's shield to your buddy can get a shot in. I can verify that, in SCA melees, the latter can be quite effective.