Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Gauze Fireforge 03-28-05, 10:38 PM	Hello fellow DM's, I am interested in any magical means that can be incorprated into an army in any shape or form. I am mostly interested in logistics rather than using evocation magic as a form of artillery. What innovative ideas have people thought of to lessen the burden of troop movement and supplies to the front line. I remember reading a thread regarding rings of sustenance to lessen the burden of sleep and supplies for troops which was interesting to say the least. I am mostly interested in seiging and breaking into strongholds essentially as the Zhents are once again marching on the Dalelands, so what sort of magical tactics would help them? Thanks for all advice in advance.
Bloodtide_the_Red 03-28-05, 11:08 PM	All the create food and water type items can be quite useful for an army. A wand or staff fits this real nicely. Even a low level spellcaster can do wonders. All the healing and care spells to keep them all healthy. Shrink Item is a great way to get big stuff around. Levatate can nicely load wagons too. An Unseen Servant can do dozens of tiny taskes that need to be done for a large group. Summoned monsters are free labor too, and some can do other things too. Command Undead can get your army a whole bunch of undead servants. You can keep them in enclosed wagons or the such so not to scare the common folk. For a seiging and breaking into strongholds... Shatter-it can destroy any object. If if the object is too big you could go for a hinge, for example. Unseen Servants-They can plat Alchemist Fire, open doors, and general move things around. Summoned Monster Arrow Fodder. They are a great way to set off traps too. Or dig for sapping. Stone Shape does wonders, and so does Greater Stone Shape(Underdark) BT
TheChilliGod 03-28-05, 11:14 PM	I always loved the "Fireball Squad." A group of mages that cast Fireball all over the enemy troops. It looks so lovely when they all send Fireballs in a Mexican Wave style. Ah, Fireballs. a mass teleporting spell(s) is also very good for bypassing gates, surprise attacks and so on.
BladeBoy 03-28-05, 11:22 PM	[Enter stage left] Warmage! [Exit Stage right]
robertliguori 03-28-05, 11:25 PM	Shrink Item + siege weaponry. "Har har, what are you going to do with that hand crossbo-....hells." On that note, get a mage who can cast True Strike manning the catapaults. Mounting a cavalier on a charging phantom steed can be amusing, as well. "We're out of bow range. If he charges, we'll have time for at least two voll-" *Splot*
sabrewolf 03-28-05, 11:46 PM	As mentioned, the create-food-and-drink spells (heroes feast for higher level casters) can spare your troops off suppliesī weight.. A decanter of endless water can both be a source of water as it can be usefull (like, anchor it down, point it down hill and wash away the other army).. :D gets even better if you have a few instead of only one.. Walls spells can be usefull as well, specially on seige deffense (wall of fire before the city/stronghold walls, wall of force against seige engines projectiles...) Shrink can be amusing - put what you need inside bags of holding / leomundīs secret chests for safety - and be creative: boulders on catapults (use shout or something when near the target); :devil: barrels of oil + alchemist fire flasks or firetrap the barrels; or just use it to easy carrel seige engines, be that catapults, arbalests, trebuchets, battering-rams or whatever it be.. Secure Shelters and Magnificent Mansions from good`ol`Leomund can also be a weight saver.. and deppending on how many you can garrison inside a LMM you can keep your troops secret as all one can see is the front door.. Summon spells, as mentioned before, can come up handy.. and if your DM allows it, Gate can be funny if you just open one to the elemental plane of fire and pour some magma somewhere... :evillaugh And for utilities: create flame for all your firey needs.. black-flame to summon black-fire torches that shed no light except for those with darkvision.. hmm.. what else... cant think of a spell, but druids on the rear ranks could erase your troopīs tracks..
Gauze Fireforge 03-29-05, 12:11 AM	What do you think would be good abilities that a particular summoned monster could use for this sort of thing? My campaing is high levels so any spell level is applicable in this case.
Draco Strang 03-29-05, 12:19 AM	You can do wonders with a few eversmoking bottles. One of my players had a brilliant plan involving one of these babies, 5 tonnes of flour from the city bakery, and the true seeing spell. I won't reveal it simply because lesser mortals can't comprehend the genius of the plan. It threw me off for a while...thank God I had two weeks with which to plan for it. That said, a few clerics with the sanctuary spell active, running around with CLW wands can bring entire regiments back up to fighting trim in a few minutes. Excellent mobile first aid stations.
sabrewolf 03-29-05, 01:33 AM	You can do wonders with a few eversmoking bottles. One of my players had a brilliant plan involving one of these babies, 5 tonnes of flour from the city bakery, and the true seeing spell. If he did what iīm thinking... and it included the words "cloud" and "spark".. :devil: :evillaugh :devil: then that was utterly mean-er then pouring magma through a gate spell right uppon the invading army... :evillaugh trully evil, man... :evillaugh indeed...
Gedrin 03-29-05, 06:06 AM	Depending on how hard it is to get a couple (2-5xp) xp per day, you might be able to equip reasonably large numbers of troops with Sleep in the form of a single use item that anyone can use. Cash wise, it's very cost effective, particularly if you're facing 1st level warriors in combat. Certain charm spells can create "Manchurian Candidates" for you, or even just convince an innocent traveler to pay attention to things he might normally overlook. Scrolls can act as a way to project the power of mighty wizards onto the battlefiled without exposing the wizard themself. An apprentice could use a scroll of much higher level, given the proper instruction. Various communication spells give officers effecive rapid communication over vast (usually anywhere on the plane) distances. Use activated items can duplicate the effects of land mines. Divination spells can do wonders for getting around, avoiding enemy scouts, making sure the weather will be good, and generally keeping on schedule. Some of the Wall spells can provide an instant bridge over a chasm or river. Charm spells can work wonders with the natives. Use them to either make passing through a town easier, or to influence leaders to endorse your war and thereby gain more conscripts. Of course, Eagle's Splendor is a good idea for commanders addressing the troops. Control/Create weather has obvious benefits from covering an aproach to diverting a huricane heading towoard your forces. Flight is useful for all the things flight is useful for in the real world. Alchemist Fire in the hands of flying creatures/allies is a devestating weapon. Speak with Animals and a large wheel of cheese (or other suitable bribe) can give you an army of infiltrators to use against an enemy city. Industrial applications are numerous. Forges with heat metal or enchantments of expertise can speed the equiping of an army. The tireless and disposable undead have many uses in this area. Earth Elementals can be employed/enslaved to search out metals and bring them to the surface with greater reliability and speed than human miners. Given this option, traditional mines aren't particularly attractive. Fabricate and a wizard knowledgable of siege weapons is more than enough to oppen possibilites. Undead make excelent fear/terror weapons. Shadows and other undead that spawn minions are a good choice. Drop them in poor parts of enemy towns to keep them undetected as long as possible. And the list goes on and on...however... I'd advise caution in the use of magic on a large scale. If there is as much magic in the FR as the books portray, armies backed by wizards would need to be radically different from traditional middle/dark ages armies. For the cost of a single suit of chain mail, a soldier can be given an weapon that strikes, from 110 feet away, with perfect acuracy and disables 2 out of 4 regular enemy soldiers (this is the sleep spell). Create Food and Water in sufficient ammounts, when combined with healing magic and Mending, can create a perpetually moving army that only has to stop when it needs some recreation time. Of course, a few illusions provided by a bard can give you that on the road as well (with fewer concerns than a USO show). Walls and fortifications would need to have some sort of anti-magic to prevent...well, any number of very bad things from destroying them, or maybe they just don't get built. Earth spells, Disintigrate, the regular evocations... Not that you really need them when you can use Cloudkill to whipe out every soldier at the gate. Bottom line, there are lots of ideas, but just give some thought to the implications of the amount of magic being used by militaries and other national intersts. Nations have huge resources and can do things that adventurers might never have the resources to contemplate. Consider the ways your PC's might ab/use magic in combat, and then think how they would do so with the resources of an entire country.
MrkGrismer 03-29-05, 08:43 AM	Mass spells, and a good Bard (inspire courage), maybe with a megaphone :D Also, never overlook the possibility of using an Iron Golem with a wounderous item that does continuous anti-magic shell as a main battle tank.
psionichamster 03-29-05, 10:14 AM	your primary concerns for an army: 1. supplies...an army travels on its stomach, and without food/water/equip you ain't gonna be doing much. a couple clerics and apprentices can create water, food, and such...mending and make whole can repair otherwise unsalvageable equipment. a decanter of endless water is 9k, and can supply more than enough water for your entire force to drink, bathe, and cook easily 2. intelligence...get a diviner. seriously, if you know where the other guy's weaknesses are, you don't need to overcome his strengths...ambushes, troop movements, and the like become all the more easier. 2a. communication...almost, if not as important as intelligence, the ability to communicat both up and down the chain of command is vital to effective works 3. special forces...consider the following...using the medieval mindset, men are easy to replace/train. Most of the time, they are poorly trained, poorly equipped, poorly fed conscripts...thus, it takes little money/effort to get/replace them. Replace that mindset with a more modern one, and you train/equip/protect your assest much more, producing smaller units of much more powerful individuals. if you have a couple such units, almost adventuring parties in and of themselves, they can REALLY wreak havoc among your enemies basically, use your magic the way modern armies use technology...making it easier to get the average soldier where he needs to be, with more protection and lethality, then support him in his fighting. Then, when you need a particular objective accomplished (poisoning food/water, disrupting production, neutralizing high-threat targets (spellcasters, clerics, generals), or just causing dissension in the general populace of the target) you send in the Spec. Ops- the adventurers or their equivalant namaste, the hamster
Gauze Fireforge 03-30-05, 03:04 AM	Thanks for all your help thus far... Anyone else have any smart ideas? :bump:
Carn Vandoril 03-30-05, 05:05 AM	How about potions of speed (or the spell) and invisibility? That would make a nice scouting party/ spies/ messengers. How about travelling by air? Griffon supported airships/balloons with invisibility sphere's. mmm nice... maybe I am going to use some of the ideas posted.
Clawhound 03-30-05, 10:50 AM	Spider climb. Dark vision. Men in full plate. Night time assaults. The most brutal part of any seige is getting me up or through the wall. This is a huge tactical advantage if you can send up a company without ladders. Dimension door is way powerful. You can move many men through it very quickly. Again, this is to get men behind or on walls. Same for flying. Illusions is extremely powerful in mass combat. Scrying, and generally knowing where the enemy is, is massively important. Tactical information. Communication is vastly important. The ability for armies, quite seperated, to coordinate is quite powerful. Elementals have quite an advantage. Their DR makes them immune to most normal enemies. They can wreak havock.