D&D 5E World Building: Army building

[cbwjm]

There's also mislead which lasts an hour, puts up an illusion of the caster, and makes then invisible for an hour. Plenty of ways to do it.

I also think that in the chaos of a large battle, it would be unlikely that the general is going to get targeted by 100 archers at once, but this is also why I abstract the armies, 5e isn't the best for large scale combat.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

If no one else has mentioned it already, Eberron has gone into a certain amount of detail about war in that setting. It makes the point that fireball isn't actually a good spell for war use, since it has a high level, small area and deals way more damage than is necessary to kill 4HP conscripts or 11 HP troopers.

 

[greg kaye]

If no one else has mentioned it already, Eberron has gone into a certain amount of detail about war in that setting. It makes the point that fireball isn't actually a good spell for war use, since it has a high level, small area and deals way more damage than is necessary to kill 4HP conscripts or 11 HP troopers.

I'd hope that 4hp commoner fodder might at least bee given some training. 11 hp guards would certainly have a different standard but they are still a way short of rarer 52 hp knights or 58 hp veterans.
The reference I saw in Eberon talked up magic.

Certainly the problem for AoE casters in D&D warfare is that troops may not clump together.

 

[greg kaye]

Following Cap'n Kobold's comments, I'm reconsidering views about the relative influence of magic in open-field combat. Even if archers were to stand 50 ft apart so that one fireball could only hit one of them. with longbow range of 600ft, many of them could still target a caster.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

I'd hope that 4hp commoner fodder might at least bee given some training. 11 hp guards would certainly have a different standard but they are still a way short of rarer 52 hp knights or 58 hp veterans.
The reference I saw in Eberon talked up magic.
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Certainly the problem for AoE casters in D&D warfare is that troops may not clump together.

There was more in Exploring Eberron, with details of a lot of the special items used in the war, and a sidebar about the scale of damage.

Eberron, while it has very wide magic, is a fairly low-power, PC-centric setting: Most of the war was fought between normal humans with 4hp or trained soldiers with 11hp. People with 50+hp are rare.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Exploring Eberron has a couple of spells specifically designed for battlefield use, and others to do tasks like cooking and cleaning. The spell lists in most D&D books are largely based around adventuring. If we have a society where magic is common, one has to assume that spells will be developed for other purposes that are not of interest to PC casters.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

The warmage was an official class in 3.5. and also in 5e by Hand Mage Press. Maybe warmages can spend "spell slots" to load "runic stones" and these be thrown with slings.

Some times I imagine the warmage like a variant of swordsage, with arcane ranged "maneuvers".They could use the "technique", a concentration check to "reload" and casting again.

Magic is very powerful but expensive. A kingdom with enough money could start a complete genocide and other hostile raider groups.

Players with enough experience with strategy videogames (Warcraft III, Age of Myths, Total War: Warhammer, Spellforce, Heroes of Might &Magic) could find "weak points" in the power balance, and discover the best "combos" to be used in the battlefield.

"Cheap" constructs could be used to carry tower-shields or to reload crossbows.

Mind-affecting magic could be used to control war beasts.

Druids could use magic to create plant monsters with a bulletproof skin to defend their forests.

 

[jmartkdr2]

One of the things that bugs me about 5E is longbow long range. The range they list is volley range, not actual range that you would use to target an individual. Probably wouldn't be all that terrible (it's fantasy after all) but then you get people with sharpshooter and they insist they can shoot someone from 600 feet away that's peeking out of an arrow slit.

That fits the fantasy: Robin Hood could totally do that, therefore my hunter ranger should be able to try.

But that’s because 5e rules are not even trying to simulate what we’re talking about here, hence a lot of people discussing houserule options.

 

[Baron Opal II]

I am actually having an issue with the map to be honest

Part of the mandate of the USGS is to map the planets and moons of our solar system. Many of these maps, either by them or others, have false colors based on elevation. Venus and ... a moon I can't remember can make a great campaign setting.

 

[kigmatzomat]

Part of the mandate of the USGS is to map the planets and moons of our solar system. Many of these maps, either by them or others, have false colors based on elevation. Venus and ... a moon I can't remember can make a great campaign setting.

Mars has some very interesting locations. Olympus Mons is like if the state of Arizona was on a 15-mile high pillar. There is a pit the size of Connecticut that is several miles deep.