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| TelinArtho06-27-05, 03:37 PM | Well, here I am again working on the ideas that my character is going through in building up his army. One of the common things I've been concerned about is the combination of the initial outset and the upkeep costs of my troops. In my first campaign (as in war campaign for the character, not my first campaign personally...), I will be sending my army up against a hill giant tribe. This means that I will need a fairly high AC, high HPs, and a decent to hit modifier in order to really make a dent. My character will have no problem with this on his end, but I've been struggling to create a reasonable layer of troops equipped with a reasonable AC and HP range that won't get them slaughtered... Going back to my initial ideas of equipping the army, it occurs to me that I was blanketly ignoring a source of equipment - my current foes. In my most recent adventures, my character has been carrying most of the party treasure that we deem to take along (mostly magical treasure to be traded for later). Since my character is the only one with a bag of holding - I am definitely a likely candidate for the extra loot carrying... However, if I start gathering up extra suits of armor, weapons, and such, I will be ahead of the game by a fair amount, and it should allow me to equip my army with a higher standard of equipment (both by reducing the amount of equipment I need to buy and increasing the amount I can spend on per unit). This is an obvious idea that I hadn't really brought to light before. For instance, my character has an extra Chain Shirt +1 that probably would've sold or traded for other things. That's a +5 AC bonus that I can keep as a reward to an archer (who needs the maneuverability of the lighter armor) or to someone in the front line who has a nice Dex bonus that would've been hindered unecessarily by Splint Mail or Scale Mail. The chain shirt +1 probably wouldn't get me too far if I tried selling it and buying new, non-magical equipment. At a market value of 1250gp, I couldn't expect to get much more than 625gp by selling it - which is enough for 3 suits of splint mail, 12 suits of scale mail or a number of weapons. While it would cover a larger number of troops - it might have better use by the archer I could find along the way with an 18 Dex - as a for instance. However, the real benefit of picking up things as I go is the reduction of the low cost items that I might've needed in large quantity (and therefore needed to wait to have them created by an armorer or weaponsmith). For instance, if I can find 10 longswords along the way, I've saved myself 150gp and then if I needed 80 swords for my army and the local city only had 50 on hand - I'd need just 20 to be made for me in addition to the current supply. The only thing I then need to be careful of is the maximum capacity of the bag of holding (both in weight and volume), which to this point hasn't been an issue. Anyway, this does mean I will have the opportunity to include some limited magic items among my army, including +1 weapons and armor. Incidentally, the more an item is worth, the less likely I would be to keep it in favor of selling it for more equipment. A +2 sword (at 8kgp) would likely be more benefit to my army when sold for 4kgp and replacing it with 20 suits of splint mail or 80 suits of scale mail or a similarly large number of weapons. With that much on hand, I could even field a larger number of cavalry. Currently, these are the extra items I've got in the bag of holding: Masterworked "Blackstone" Great Axe - stat-wise, this is just a masterwork greataxe. It has special diplomatic value though, so I'll probably keep a hold of it for now. Spiked Chain +2, Spiked Chain +1, 5 MW Spiked Chains (took these off of a chain specialist. I'll likely sell them or trade them because they have limited application in a formation and they require a high level of training. If I do find a chain specialist within my army though, he has several weapon options). Huge +3 Greataxe (Flaming) - I would love to find a user for this axe, but I imagine I will end up trying to find a good trade for it. At a market price of ~50kgp - I doubt I'll be able to get even close to 25kgp in trade for it. I may be able to barter for help from a stone giant or something reasonable though. Large Chain Shirt +5 - same as for the greataxe - I need a bigger person to use it. Trident +1 - reasonable to keep or to sell. Chain Shirt +1 - probably will keep 4 Javelins - just plain javelins my character keeps for a rainy day. I can just picture having a dozen swords and axes, a few extra suits of armor and some ranged weapons on hand by the time I actually start gathering my forces. I'm open to other ideas in helping me cover the initial costs - anyone got any? |
| Derren S.06-27-05, 03:57 PM | With the D&D system it is generally better to have an army of archers than an army of melee fighters. Keep that in mind. Except your soldiers have enough HP to survive 3-4 hits but that is rather unlikely as it requires a rather high level (for NPC soldiers) |
| Phrennzy06-27-05, 03:58 PM | Make sure that all these weapons you are picking up and saving are sheathed or otherwise rendered 'non-sharp' while in the bag of holding. Otherwise, poof. |
| TelinArtho06-27-05, 05:21 PM | Phrennzy - don't worry - I've got the pointy edge of things covered (and the other holders for other shaped sharp thingys...). It is the first issue I resolve before I even mention the bag... Derren - I know you feel that a large contingent of archers is the way to go, this is something you made amply clear in the last thread I had. I'm probably still pretty much agreeing with you that they are useful. However, I also feel they are not the only answer to the problem. Plus - archers do cost more per unit than some of my other troops will - so they may not be the best choice either. In terms of finding appropriate equipment for archers, other than the melee weapons they would have in case it came down to melee, I'm probably out of luck. I don't remember the last time we fought something that used a bow... In terms of their usefulness, you have been saying that they have a much better range than the giants - so lets put them at 605ft, with a view of the hill giant tribe's village. The village is assaulted with many of the giants out of doors. The giants, being intelligent creatures, find full cover. Now - my archers are completely useless... As much as I would love to just pick them off from a great distance, I'm pretty much assuming that is not going to be the complete story (and I'm probably right there...). |
| Nom06-27-05, 07:01 PM | For the most part, lots of grunts with longspears will do. And maybe some low-grade armour. A level 1 warrior is probably going to be hit by a +16/+11 in any case, so they're better to just accept the losses and take him down fast. The longspears counter the reach advantage. However, you want a few elite fighters or warriors with you. These guys do the real fighting; the rest just provide battlefield control and Aid Another. The elites should be equipped as well as you can manage. The other issue, of course, is that D&D is designed around skirmish encounters, not battlefield. Once you get organised groups, you need to comsider formations, command & contorl, morale, and a whole lot of stuff that the basic rules don't even consider, let alone model. |
| solbergb06-27-05, 07:42 PM | It is a lot cheaper to hire one bard and one cleric of, say, 8th level and have them power up a group. bardsong+2, Prayer, GMW on their arrows and you are now at +5 to hit and +5 damage with no cost in resources beyond the arrows. Add haste and now they're doubling their attacks (1.5x if they're actually archers with rapid shot) and at +1 to hit. If you have a wizard too, you can keen edge and flame arrow their weapons. Hill giants aren't that hard to hit, so you don't really need much past that. Just need to boost the damage. You do need them to come out and play. Some cleric and bard spells tossed at their cover will probably get the job done, if the Bard's social skills can't taunt them into attacking. Yeah, an occasional boulder will flatten one of your mooks. Just hire another peasant :) Another approach is the low-level arcanist army (or caster army). Take anyone with a mental stat higher than 10 when they haven't ruined their chances by taking npc class levels (draft the 14 year olds). I'm talking "3d6 rolled in order" common people here. Train them to be clerics, wizards or sorcerers, maybe an odd bard in the mix. The arcane guys focus on truestrike and color spray, the clerics on magic weapon with a bit of bless mixed in and command from the guys who rolled high on wisdom. Equip them with crossbows. Force the clerics and sorcerers to learn scribe scroll. You now have a force that can hit anything at just about any range until the truestrike spells run out, and if something somehow closes, it gets hit with massed color sprays (this is especially good for the "Swarm of mooks" approach of closing range with truestriking archers). Command spells from the better clerics can slow down enemy leader types until the truestrike stuff hits them. As they level, enlarge spell is handy, magic missile becomes useful and acid arrow (as a very long range energy attack) is surprisingly good. Mirror image helps some with fragility. Invisibility and silence means they can set up in an optimal position. You need to disperse the troops when they are sniping to avoid enemy fireballs, but in general...they're prone and under partial cover most of the time, and closing with them is a nightmare. They do burn cash pretty quick, what with the desire to equip them with a lot of scrolls and keeping up with the spellbooks, so they need rich targets :) Generally a country has to be either very oppressive or very desperate to do a draft like this and to provide the training and evaluation needed to get whole units of baby spellcasters ready. But it isn't all that different from the modern idea of a volunteer army equipped with the latest tech stuff, provided education and where casualties are considered tragic..similar to the modern USA army. |
| mikevw206-27-05, 09:11 PM | I don't know if its possible in the D&D system, but what about war machines, ballistas most likely. It would cut the cost of having so many archers and do alot more damage. Might not be doable, but it could be worth it. |
| Owatkiam06-27-05, 09:23 PM | First off, ignore the ridiculous lists in the Arms and Equipment guide and Heroes of Battle unless you are playing in a campaign where anyone over the age of 25 (human) is pretty much always 6-8th level. There's really no reason why rank and file cav should be 8th level and still only wearing Chainmail! 600gp of gear is more in line with 1st or 2d level than 8th level if you go by either encounter or npc treasure/wealth values from the DMG. Wealth of 1st level NPC in the DMG[p127] is 900 gp, treasure of a CR2 encounter is 600gp [p51]..so at most, a 3d level warrior would be on par with that kind of gear. An 8th level warrior or fighter surely deserves better armor than Chainmail! Afterall, for that kind of experience, don't you want more protection? |
| tiercel06-27-05, 09:47 PM | Part of your strategy depends on the disposition of the enemy - if you are only facing a moderate number of fair-CR creatures (e.g. all hill giants) then defense doesn't matter as much... your average Joe soldier will get hit and splattered 90-95% of swings in melee. (Armor will help a bit more against thrown rocks, which are less accurate.) At this point you should be probably looking mostly at highly mobile skirmishers; have them disperse anywhere a giant charges, while others continue to pepper them with ranged attacks. If the giants hole up under full cover, thats what you big guns are there for... set their village on fire with a fireball or three, or a wall of fire, or even just fire-arrows, drop a cliff face with soften earth and stone, scatter and kill their livestock, attack their food stores, generally inflict unacceptable collateral damage, if not structural damage, until they come out to play. If the giants have their own catapult fodder (ogres, orcs, wolves, dire wolves) then you will need different layers of troop types to handle the various challenges. If you have spellcasting superiority then get yourself together a handful of tanks and set them in a defensible position. Inflict damage as above until they sally forth to meet you, and when they bunch up to engage your tanks call fire from heaven. If they don't bunch up, your bunched-up tanks should be able to cut through their fodder, and if they do, you can nuke an awful lot of them at once. In general you should probably aim for mobility -- that way, if they spread out to avoid nukes, you can bring strength to bear at individual points and defeat them in detail; if they bunch up, you can hammer them with spells. In particular, for giants, you're probably better served by scattering them with fear and confusion, debilitating them with slow, glitterdust, even ray of enfeeblement, and controlling the battlefield with wall of fire, stinking cloud, web, illusions, etc than just hitting them with damage. If you can slow them and split them up and keep them from working together, your army, whatever its composition, will have a lot better time picking them off in detail. Skirmishers are quick to concentrate at a point where they're needed and fairly cheap to outfit. You can make them quicker with a wand of haste. Don't forget about command-and-control; while rary's telepathic bond is awesome for this, the humble message spell can carry a lot of this burden. (If necessary, Enlarge it with the feat or a lesser metamagic rod.) Cavalry are expensive, and if you're going to be fighting in hilly, rocky, or mountainous terrain, they may not even be that useful. If you're on open plains / low hills though, they could be invaluable, especially if they are light cavalry archers with lances for backup. If nothing else, cavalry can turn an enemy's retreat into a last stand or a massacre, so you don't have to keep fighting the same battle over and over again. Just a bunch of random ideas.... |
| Aneul06-27-05, 10:14 PM | In order to give you the most acurate advice possible, I'd be much ablidged if you could post your estimates of the gaint's rescources, numbers, fortifications, and spellcasting power etc. As it is, I'd be enclined to higher a small contigent of highly skilled melee warriors (and equip them with the especialy nice armour and weapons you've got in the bag) to help you and the rest of the party hold the giants fighting in one place for a decent lenght of time. Use the rest of your money to higher archers to pepper the giants while your melee crew holds them back. Ambushes might also prove highly effective, even more so if they are magicly enhanced (think wall of fire in a narrow cannion). If you don't have much magic at your disposal, siege engienes, such as balistea, set up in well protected locations will go a long way twords picking off any giants you can lure away from the main group. Most importantly, you must not fight the giants on their home turf- lure them AWAY from their town, and force them to divide their forces. Your eleite melee force backed by archers and balistea/mages can probably take two or three hill giants while suffering minimal casualties- and then they can make a hasty retreat behind some fortifications (Walls of Stone, Fire, Force, rows of pikes, bails of burning hay etc) to heal. However, if you engage sya 5-8 giants, and some of them are throwing boulders at your archers, you might as well bid your army fare well. There is no way that a force of less then around 200 mid level mercenaries can defeat a good sized force of hill giants without massive losses, losses which you can't afored at this point. A few of the ambushes I'd employ in this situation: -Deep spiked pits, with flamable substances lining the bottom, so that once a giant falls in, you can use flame arrows to turn the pit into a barbeque. -Caneons/Steep vallies with archers and balisteas hidden along the rims, or better yet, wizards. -Stone to mud on their boulder supplies. -Archers in trees, infantry with longspears on the ground to lure them into the woods. -Illusions- hill giants are stupid. Any of the Image spells (major, minor, silent) are sure to confuese them. I'd be inclined to go with illusionary dragons- it'll only work once, but it will be worth it. Illusionary walls might make good fortifications in a pinch too. |
| Maerdash06-27-05, 10:39 PM | Troops are already relatively cheap to hire so I don't really worry about that aspect, what gets expensive in my experience are the costs of weapon/armor upkeep which is best solved in different ways depending on your alignment (slave labor smiths for an evil pc for instance) and the cost of feeding and housing your troops. The feeding can be fairly cheap if you allow the army to plunder the land, but then you have to rely on the enemy not burning their fields, try beans and bread as the staple of your army its cheaper and about as effective as a meat based diet. Housing your army is the really expensive part but can also be cheapened fairly easily using a Lyre of building, the wall of stone spell can also greatly reduce building costs. Keep in mind that your army doesn't have to be garrisoned in a fortress they can be housed in longhouses which will be much cheaper to build than a major castle. As to troop type, I find that longbowmen or heavy crossbowmen supported by pike (any of the reach weapons that can be set vs. charge work) formations and small squads of lightly armored swordsmen provide a slow moving wall of steel that is hard to crack. Heavy calvary should be used mainly for crushing standard infantry, use them to break up formations before sending in your hedgehogs (pike formation surrounding archers). Light calvary is best suited to taking on archers, they make excellent troops to send after retreating foes to add a little more mayhem to their day. Calvary archers. Without a doubt my favorite unit, arm them with composite longbows, train them for distance (farshot) and when you can afford it buy them comp. longbow of distance+1, give them lances (lances don't have to be carried in the hand while your riding), longswords, and morningstars. For armor I advise that you go with a heavier armor like full plate (yes it hurts your ride checks but there shouldn't be a lot of reason for your cav archers to make the higher dc ride checks and they would likely fail them anyway. I also reccomend a heavy shield since both donning and removing the shiled will be a move action, you can take the shield off and stow it on your back in one round. This tends to give you a highly mobile archer/heavy calvary combination, the trick is to know exactly how to have youyr weapons set up so that you can put aside your bow and get out your lance while remaining logical. |
| Maerdash06-27-05, 10:48 PM | My advice for attacking a town of giants with low level troops is don't, but if you have to I suggest using either magic or infiltration to start 3-4 lerge fires in wildly different areas of the town, it should cause a lot of confusion and disorder as well as probably pulling gaurds out of position. The confusion and being out of position is key, a small group of well led giants can wreak havoc on almost any force, but when they are moving as individuals even in small groups they will tend to throw rocks and then charge, the rocks your going to just have to take, but a giant charging and overlapping wall of polearms is going to be in serious trouble, add in archer support and you shouls have no problems (just remember to keep the archers protected by the spearmen) Calvary with ride by attack can also be a great weapon against giants by using hit and run attacks to wear them down then finishing them off with a massed charge. I would try the calvary myself since it gives the best chance of pulling out your forces in one piece if something goes wrong. |
| braindead34506-28-05, 02:42 AM | I don't know if its possible in the D&D system, but what about war machines, ballistas most likely. It would cut the cost of having so many archers and do alot more damage. Might not be doable, but it could be worth it. War machines are hard to move and forget about sneaking up on the giants' village with one. The cost of a ballista compared to 5 crossbowmen or archers is not really worth it; especially if you consider you only have one potential hit per attack (vs 5 potential hits for the archers for more damage) and only one target for the giants to aim at. As for catapults, why give them ammo to use on you? Telin, have you considered hiring smiths to fix up all of your armor & weapons? A smith costs 4 SP per day and many would jump at the chance for steady employment. Also, an 8th level cleric should be able to do more than a bless spell for the troops. It's just a matter of finding the right cleric. Spiritual Hammer comes to mind. And for the archers, volley fire is going to win the day. |
| delroland06-28-05, 06:04 AM | leather armor: 10gp mercenary warrior's pay in one week: 2sp so for the price of one suit of leather armor, you could hire 50 more warriors just an observation... |
| Derren S.06-28-05, 06:29 AM | leather armor: 10gp mercenary warrior's pay in one week: 2sp so for the price of one suit of leather armor, you could hire 50 more warriors just an observation... 50 warriors which you have to equip. |
| JadeSpider964306-28-05, 07:58 AM | If your seriously concerned about the lives of your minions, I suggest you look more into a few minion upgrades than into 150 sets of armor. A few level 2 Marshal's with good charisma can do wonders for an army. (Much more than those silly bards) Other than that, I can tell you that Hide Armor and Heavy Wooden Shields carry the best bang for your gp. Hide Armor gives you +3 AC at a rate of 5gp per AC(15gp) while the Heavy Wooden Shields grant +2 AC at a cost of 3gp 5sp per AC (7gp). Your Chain shirt LOOKS tempting, but your losing money there, that shirt costs 25gp per AC, compared to the 5gp per AC of Hide, and even the 12.5gp per AC of Scale mail. Look at it this way...if you use a regular Chain Shirt, you get 1 soldier +4 AC, or you can sell it off at half market price and turn around and buy 3 Hide Armor's giving 3 soldiers +3 AC for a total gain of +9 AC, and you still have 5gp leftover. Or if you sell the Chain and buy Heavy Wooden Shields, you can get 7 of those, for +2 AC to 7 soldiers - a total gain of +14 AC. |
| TelinArtho06-28-05, 11:45 AM | Wow - a decent number of replies this time - and now I don't have the time to respond to them all. Excellent ideas from the lot. As to the nature of the tribe itself - I don't have an idea yet, so I've been going with the maximums listed under hill giants in the MM - 30 hill giants, 30 dire wolves, 4 ogres, and 22 orcs. This is just an arbitrary amount, and I am guessing that at least one of the giants has class levels - probably several do though. In terms of magic, I expect they will be lacking in a severe way - though hopefully my reconnaisance will reveal anything of that sort when I get to that point. In terms on my own magic availability - my character is currently a Fighter 6/Wizard 3/Spellsword 2. By the time this battle occurs I will probably have access to 3rd level spells - as I'm expecting to get things going in 2-3 levels. Also in the party is a Barbarian 6/Sorcerer 6 and a full Sorcerer 9-11(? - not sure the exact level). Occasional other party members include a Fighter with a polearm and a Monk/Barbarian/something (don't know really what he is - grapple monkey...). Notice the lack of a rogue type or a cleric... yeah - its been fun... My character has also taken on a Dwarven Bard (might have fighter levels) to help in spreading my character's fame and to help marshal the troops when it comes down to it. He, essentially, is helping my character overcome a Cha 8... Nom - I think the general idea of using reach weapons with the infantry was my first line. I am fully aware they will take heavy casualties, but unless I am able to get a line of 6th level warriors (man, I wish...), that's pretty much expected. I'm also assuming I'm not going to be able to support the wage of even moderately experienced NPCs with PC classes (Fighters, Wizards, etc), so I am likely restricted to Warriors, Adepts, and Experts - and probably 2nd-3rd level at best (with some exception). My hope is to field a good amount of infantry with modest equipment (splint mail, buckler, glaive, long sword, light mace and dagger) and some magical protection (bless, area effect AC booster - custom magic item or otherwise) and some morale boost (bard's singing). Then if my character and the other members of the party can use spells to whittle down the opposition - slow spells, ray of enfeeblement, sleep on the lesser enemies. solbergb - not sure just how much higher level cleric magic I will have - so I doubt Prayer will be available to me (unless in scroll form and I manage to find a cleric who will come along on the cheap...). I already mentioned the bard above. As to using higher level magic - I don't really know that is much of an option unless the sorcerers have them on their spell lists (which at this point, they don't). I also don't have the benefit of having my own country so rearing a group of kids to my class likings isn't possible (nor would it be in my character's mind to even attempt something like that). Also, since I intend on making this happen sooner than later - the time for such a task would be too great. Owatkiam - I'm not using A&E or the Heroes of Battle to formulate anything at this point - the equipment I have chosen is based both on cost effectiveness and the likelihood of having people who could use them efficiently. This is why I only include martial weapons at best and a very limited number of armor types (that generally don't allow for a large max dex). Obviously higher level individuals will be able to get better equipment if I buy it for them, but I have a feeling I will only be able to support 3rd level at best in this respect. Using full plate for any number of people in the army is probably not going to happen (mostly because it is largely unable to be transferred to another if that person dies...). delroland - as Derren has already pointed out - I need to be able to afford to equip the people I hire - and then pay them a decent wage (which incidentally is more than is listed in the DMG...). JadeSpider9643 - as much as I'm interested in keeping costs low and AC up, I can't see making Hide Armor and Hvy. Wooden Shields working. In order for an infantry to use a Hvy Wooden shield, I would need them to move through a giant's threatened area (provoking AOO). The best way to avoid this is using a reach weapon - that is - something that is 2-handed for a medium size humanoid. Hide armor is an acceptable armor type though, but I think I'd choose Splint/Scale/Leather as my primary 3 choices (depending on the unit type) and Bucklers are mostly used for the infantry (though the cavalry make use of lances with heavy shields...). Also, someone commented on making highly mobile units and had made an allusion to ride by attack. I actually did some thinking about this and here's the net of it: Ride by attack against something with a move > 30 or a move of 30 and reach is going to be practically impossible... Here's why: If I start off at the longest range out of reach of a charging giant in hide armor, I am at least 70 feet away. At the end of my ride by attack, I need to be 70 feet away again. Therefore, my ride by attack needs to have a total move of 140 feet... The move of an unencumbered Light Warhorse is 65ft - or 130ft max... If the giant didn't have reach, the light warhorse still wouldn't be able to move in and out of range in a single round. A charging giant with a greatclub will come in with +18 to hit and 2d6+10 damage (excluding possible power attack...) - in short, probably enough to take out the cavalry unit (or at the least his horse...). Also, as far as using ballistae or other siege engines, I will probably not be able to make effective use of them (though given my character, a squad of ballistae are pretty likely ANYWAY... he's obsessed about them...). Catapults and the like are not effective against moving targets, and I don't think I am taking out a castle or other significant fortification for THIS task (my next task will be, but hopefully, I'll have better funds by then...). I know there's more I want to respond to, but that's all I have time for right now. Thanks again everyone. |
| Phrennzy06-28-05, 01:39 PM | I've been going with the maximums listed under hill giants in the MM - 30 hill giants, 30 dire wolves, 4 ogres, and 22 orcs. This is just an arbitrary amount, and I am guessing that at least one of the giants has class levels - probably several do though. You're going to need more men. According to the Encounter Calc, that's an EL of 17.6. You need a few teleport scrolls, and stage a hit and run attack with your core PC group. Normal warrior1 will be slaughtered, and that's assuming half don't break and run the minute the giants show up, much less start casting spells or throwing rocks. A single hill giant will kill 4 men a round. That's two hits, and two cleaves on each. His 20 AC makes him near impossible to hit by the low level fighters. Use divination magic to locate the chieftain, teleport or sneak in, and attack him - killing him as quickly as possible. Then teleport away. A small, mobile group is much better for this than some large army made up of frail warriors. |
| solbergb06-28-05, 02:40 PM | With the situation you describe, your mooks need to be missile troops, no exception, moving at a minimum speed of 30. They need to RUN if any giant charges them. They need to make best use of cover against the rocks. Crossbow troops are especially cost effective, they can fight prone (another +4 vs the rocks) and will spend about half their time moving and reloading under full cover if you use them as skirmishers. The archers can move and shoot but that exposes them to fire every round with only a +4 to defense instead of +8 for being prone. Bardsong will help. It is a pity your sorcerer doesn't have GMW, but what can you do? Your beefy melee types should be out there trying to engage the enemy melee troops and drawing fire from the rockthrowers. They should be running interference for your steady stream of missile fire from all directions. Any concentration of enemy forces should be hammered by the sorcerer (I'm assuming he has fireball or something similar in the area vein, like Evards, stinking cloud, ice storm, shadow conjuration, etc by level 9) The bard can probably do some disruption depending on his level. At a minimum he's good for a glitterdust or two, or silencing an enemy spellcaster with a readied action, assuming you chose combat oriented spells known. If you have CV access, inspirational boost is a spell that bumps the inspire courage up a notch, turning +1 into +2 or +2 into +3. That will help your mooks. The sorcerer is also where you go to create diversions and such, although the bard or you (depending on your spellsword spells) can do similar things with illusions perhaps. Done correctly, your missile fire will do most of the killing but the giants may not be able to do much about it. If they hole up, your heroes and sorcerer go dig them out. If they come out to fight the heroes and sorcerer, if those guys just keep their attention and stay alive, the archers will eventually get the job done. If they focus on the archers, the archers scatter and your heroes have a field day with unopposed attacks while the giants try to chase them down (they're faster than the archers, but can only chase one at a time) If you're worried about expense, crossbows are about 40gp to have 50 shots, and you can just ignore armor, or maybe spend another 25gp or so on leather if it helps morale :). You might be better off though just to spend 50gp apiece and get 150 shots+light crossbow and forget about anything else. You can equip anyone with it, since strength is unimportant (nearly anyone can lift a crossbow and 15 cases of bolts...that's like 18lb, 9lb if size small) but of course some dex and BAB+1 would be nice. Assuming 12 dex and BAB+1 (warriors), weapon focus xbow and bardsong support, you will hit 1/4 of your shots, more if they focus on enemies that are charging or have been mildly incapacitated (entangled, blinded, etc) from your arcane spellcasting. If you have 60 guys, that means 15d8+15 each round. It will get the job done, one giant at a time. The hit rate goes up by 50% if you have greater magic weapon at level 8 to make some nice +2 crossbow bolts that you share around, and the damage boosts too, so it is a shame that isn't an option. |
| Aneul06-28-05, 06:09 PM | How big an army are you anticipating being able to higher? 30 hill giants alone is a force probably capable of butchering 200 normal soldiers with practicaly superficial injuries. You MUST find a way to isolate small groups of them. Prehaps ambush hunting/raiding parties. |
| Maerdash06-28-05, 08:04 PM | I'll reiterate. Composite longbow range + Farshot= 165' range increments. On a horse you can fire while your horse runs at a -8, with the speed of your troops you can afford the -8 as it will keep your troops well outside of the enemies range and you can out maneuver them at will. Hill giants aren't know for using bows of any sort, but if they do have a large number of bowmen then your best bet becomes using ambushes. The advice you need really depends on the armaments and tactics of the giants forces. |
| cypherx06-28-05, 08:19 PM | a lot of really great ideas have been posted here, most sensible and useful for my campeigns. there are however 3 things to keep in mind. first level human warriors can be equipped with mounted combat and spirited charge feats, combine that with decent armor, a masterwork lance, and a heavy warhorse with barding, you are at the peak of what nonmagical enhacment can do to a low level warrior. never underestimate the power of stealing a large dumb beast and herding it toward your enemies. any resistance on the giants part can make for a pretty ****** off dire bear. i once summoned a dire bear, amped it up (some spell doubles size and hit dice, fifth level druid spell is all i remember), put in magic fang for damage reduction penetration, and run for cover, the best thing to protect yourself from uncontrolled beasts is an illusion to make your army seem like bramble bushes (noone likes a sticker or two). lastly, for those of you with relics and ritual two, there is a spell, summon specific monster. you learn one for every type you need too summon, the level is half the cr of the monster, rounded down. my favorite is the first level summon oger, a cheap wand that produces fifty ogers for 1 hour, long enough to seriously do some damage, or you might only summon ten if you are on a tight budget. keep in mind your soldiers will want to keep a part of the loot as well. and you must feed them all. in that light, your expiditions will be expensive in long term travel, make sure you maxamize every day of travel. have fun though, or there is no point to the game! :) -cypher |
| TelinArtho06-29-05, 10:38 AM | More responses - I think this is the most I've ever gotten. Let me start by saying thank you! Phrennzy - 17.6 eh? Sounds like fun. Care to share where that calculator is? Remember, I am at this point completely guessing in the dark about the actual size of the hill giant tribe. Hopefully, I am estimating high and the situation isn't quite as bad as it seems. However, given my character's experience, it probably is much worse. As to whether a giant can take out 4 people in a single round there's some argument I will put up here. I don't have the exact numbers in front of me, but against the AC I was working with (a dwarf with splint and buckler I believe), a giant would only take down a Level 1 warrior about 50% of the time in a single round of attacks. With two attacks and only regular cleave - it is impossible for a regular Hill Giant (as statted in the SRD anyway) to take out 4 on average. A minor point, but it is a point that needs to be made. solgerb - I may have to think some more on the possibility of using crossbows. Up to this point, I have favored using human longbowmen with PBS and Rapid Shot (so I have twice the number of shots with fewer people). However, using a crossbow unit seems to reduce my overall initial cost by more than half (35gp for a light crossbow, 75gp for a long bow). Granted the range increment is slightly worse - but that is not the major issue at hand. As to the sorcerer - yes she has a plethora of direct damage spells - but not much with battlefield control or anything like that. I have no control over the spells known by the dwarf (and for that matter, he and I just became acquainted during the last adventure - so I don't know all of his spells yet - I just know he doesn't have any cure spells). My own spell list can be added to, since I am a wizard, so spells that I might need have been noted as purchases in the future. Maerdash - I'm not arguing that ranged troops aren't necessary, but I do want to offer some counterpoint to your statement. Take two examples: 1. A human warrior lvl 1 - PBS, Farshot (per your post) and a composite long bow (100gp) - 165ft range increment, +1 BAB, Dex 15, +3 hit overall up to 165ft, +1 to hit up to 330ft, -1 to hit up to 495ft, -3 to hit up to 660ft, -5 to hit up to 825ft, etc. Since we are, in general shooting at Hill Giants (AC 20), but staying out of range of their thrown rocks (>600ft), you are usually at -3 or -5 to hit. Against AC 20 - you have a 5% chance to hit and a 0.25% chance to critical with each shot. 2. A human warrior lvl 1 - PBS, Rapid shot and a regular long bow (75gp) - 100ft range increment, +1 BAB, Dex 15, +3 (+1/+1) to hit up to 100ft, +1 (-1/-1) to hit up to 200ft, ... -7 (-9/-9) to hit up to 600ft, -9 (-11/-11) to hit up to 700ft, etc. Again, against giants, staying out at beyond 600ft, they are hitting 5% and criticalling 0.25% of the time with each shot. However, they get twice as many shots per round - and save me 25gp per unit. To make this more complicated, solgerb has pointed out the possibility of using crossbowmen - possibly with far shot as well... Human warrior, lvl 1 - PBS, Far shot and a light crossbow (35gp) - 120ft rage increment, +1 BAB, Dex 15, +3 to hit up to 120ft, +1 to hit up to 240ft, ... -5 to hit up to 600ft, -7 to hit up to 720ft. Now I'm still hitting 5% of the time and criticalling 0.25% of the time with each shot. I'm at a slower rate of fire than the 2nd scenario, but I'm at less than half the cost per unit (and almost 1/3 of the cost of a unit with a composite long bow). Adding in warhorses for mounted archery just isn't going to work, as the horses just add too much expense (both in terms of initial cost and upkeep). If I do have a mounted unit, they will be very well protected in order to protect the investment on the horses... cypherx - First level knights with spirited charge is a great combo, but is also limited in application. Since I'm not sure the terrain will make it even possible, I can't consider it as a viable option at this point (in previous examples, I did almost exclusively rely on them - but they are simply too expensive per unit to have. Summoning creatures is obviously an option with the spellcasters in my group (I don't have a summon spell in my list, though I could get one), but I'm not sure how powerful the spells are (I know the Barb/Sorc has Summon Monster I or II - not sure about anyone else though). As to soldiers keeping some of the loot - that is definitely part of the perk of being in my army - but they will be paid a fair wage beyond that as well. While my expeditions will be expensive long term, I am planning that in my estimations right now. Never heard of the summon specific monster spells - as no one in my group has Relics and Rituals II - so I can't really comment on it. |
| Arshes06-29-05, 12:23 PM | I'll reiterate. Composite longbow range + Farshot= 165' range increments. On a horse you can fire while your horse runs at a -8, with the speed of your troops you can afford the -8 as it will keep your troops well outside of the enemies range and you can out maneuver them at will. Hill giants aren't know for using bows of any sort, but if they do have a large number of bowmen then your best bet becomes using ambushes. The advice you need really depends on the armaments and tactics of the giants forces. and for a few extra, you can have a dragonbone longbow (which counts as a composite) and have a range of 195. far enough where your foes will never even be able to touch you. if you have mounted combat and mounted archery as well, then all the power to you. you can now make legolas look like a wimp who doesn't know how to fire a bow. |
| DDogwood06-29-05, 02:15 PM | Don't bother buying them equipment, just recruit an army of Monks carrying quarterstaves and slings :) Seriously, though, you should consider hiring a number of Experts to supply your army. You will need cooks, paymasters, quartermasters, and craftsmen (for repairs) anyways... might as well find a few talented weapon/armorsmiths to equip your troops. Buying a new item costs full market price, but forging one costs 1/3rd of the material price plus whatever you are paying the weaponsmith for his time. Because you will be providing forges and paying the overhead, you get an economy of scale on this operation that the small guys can't keep up with. I like the idea of keeping magic items to equip your elite troops. It may also be worthwhile to require your troops to pay for their own equipment, either bringing it with them, or via payroll deductions. You might have to give them more base pay to cover this, and you will have to buy the materials for any gear that you need to have made, but it solves issues of "it's not my size". |
| TelinArtho06-29-05, 02:29 PM | DDogwood - Given that right now, my character is without land, setting up some weaponsmiths/armorsmiths may not really be possible. If I had land upon which I could set up a few smithies, then yes, I would definitely agree that this would be a cheaper alternative (provided I could come up with a reasonable wage for them as well...). At this point, however, it probably isn't possible. I'm not too keen on forcing my hired troops to buy their equipment, though my reasoning may not entirely be sound either - essentially, if a troop dies, I want to be able to keep his given equipment for the person who takes his place. Obviously, if a person or persons wanted Full Plate - that skews things a little - and I would definitely allow them to use their own stuff if they wanted to risk it - but I certainly wouldn't expect them to pay for it. Picture, if you will, that I outfit my light infantry with a long spear, a long sword, a light mace, a dagger, 2 javelins and leather armor. That's 47gp. I pay him 1gp/day for his service, but extract half of that for the cost of his equipment. To even earn his pay, he has to stay on staff for 94 days (or 13.5 weeks or so). That's just a light infantry... For a medium infantry (glaive, long sword, light mace, dagger, 2 javelins, scale mail and a buckler), its 105 gp. At the same rate, that's 210 days or 30 weeks. For a heavy infantry with 255gp of equipment, its well over a year. However, even if the person died, I would expect the equipment to be passed to his/her family regardless of how close it was to being paid off (otherwise, why would he agree to pay for it in the first place?). If I pay for all of the equipment, there's no question - no argument. If/when a soldier dies, his equipment stays in my barracks. |
| Arshes06-29-05, 02:36 PM | Picture, if you will, that I outfit my light infantry with a long spear, a long sword, a light mace, a dagger, 2 javelins and leather armor. That's 47gp. I pay him 1gp/day for his service, but extract half of that for the cost of his equipment. To even earn his pay, he has to stay on staff for 94 days (or 13.5 weeks or so). That's just a light infantry... For a medium infantry (glaive, long sword, light mace, dagger, 2 javelins, scale mail and a buckler), its 105 gp. At the same rate, that's 210 days or 30 weeks. For a heavy infantry with 255gp of equipment, its well over a year. However, even if the person died, I would expect the equipment to be passed to his/her family regardless of how close it was to being paid off (otherwise, why would he agree to pay for it in the first place?). then don't give them so much stuff. go with whats in the stronghold builders guidebook, light infinitry has scale mail a large wooden shield and a longsword. thats 72 gp. i would suggest getting tronghold builders guidebook, and heroes of battle. both have present stuff. (i don't know what exactly is in heroes of battle though. i'm trying to get that next) |
| TelinArtho06-29-05, 02:51 PM | Ah but Arshes - take into account the primary opponent I'm going to deal with first - giants. If I equip my army with long swords, heavy shields and scale mail - the first wave will get slaughtered as they move in to attack - because the giants have reach... I actually have the SBG (just got it on Friday - haven't read it yet), so if there's useful material in there you wish to highlight, please feel free. Also, regarding equipping my infantry with such an array of equipment, there's distinct purpose behind it - Sundering and disarming. Picture, if you will, a group of orcs attacking a group of warriors. The orcs have greataxes and the warriors have swords, maces and daggers. The orcs charge in and make their attack - connecting on some instances, missing on others. The warriors, keen on their observation that the orcs only have greataxes and daggers - take the opportunity to sunder the opponents' weapons or even disarm them. What effect is that going to have on the orcs? Its going to be very disheartening. In the case of giants, picture judicious use of warp wood, shatter, and grease to help the situation. Part of what makes opponents so tough is their array of weapons. If I equip my army with a nice array - they can deal with more situations. Since I am expecting to keep the bulk of the equipment within my army, I have no problem giving them an extra bit of offensive versatility. |
| Gedrin06-29-05, 04:49 PM | I recomend building your army on maneuver and high firepower at range. Your typical soldier is dead if the giant swings at him. First attack giant hits on a 2, second, giant hits on a 4. The vast majority fold on the first hit, even if they aren't outright killed. Heck, all Hill Giants get Cleave, and it's a no brainer that an advanced Hill Giant for melee would get Great Cleave. I don't care what your melee weapons are. Just picture ten foot long telephone poles sweeping like a scythe through your troops and you'll have the picture of what it looks like when LVL 1 characters get in melee with hill giants. If you think that you need front line soldiers to hold ground, consider how effective they would be in doing that. Aside from the fact that you're loosing about 3 per round (baring great cleave) per giant, the giants may just bull rush or such through your ranks. They're huge and they know it. Depending on your enemy's fortifications, you may be able to use griffons with alchemist's fire or such to just whipe out the structures. Combine with elves/dwarves for night bombing which increased accuracy and decreases risk to your troops. Don't invest in troops that can't damage your enemy. Grunt soldiers can't significantly harm the giants. Imagine the damage that a single giant with Great Cleave (a no brainer feat for a classed giant) would do. How often are your LV 1 Warriors even hitting AC20? Archers aren't a good solution because the giants, all of them, out range you with thrown rocks (120' range increment). Also, they are better with their rocks (+8) and each hit is a kill (2D6+7). It might also be worth noting that, depending on environment, they have limitless ammo. Hill Giants will likely close rapidly with your melee troops (even if unwise), and I don't think you want your LV1 archers firing into melee. Using normal archers is confronting the hill giants in another area where they have almost all the advantages. However, archers will fare better due to the fewer attacks and lack of Cleaving, providing they can stay at range. Maneuver speed of foot soldiers is about 20 feet, maybe slower in formation. The giants are also faster than your troops, much faster. Thirty feet per round as their move in armor. You're lucky that they probably won't take full advantage of this. Given the limited funds, I'm not sure you can get enough numerical superiority to win against them. I'm thinking you need 18 to 1 more, assuming the specials balance out. I'm certain you can't win a toe to toe infantry and archer fight if they've got a few guys with Great Cleave, because the numbers break down at that point. The main point is, don't fight them with a set piece army. Just run some numbers and see how many LV 1 warriors (give them a LV 3 leader) it takes to kill 1 Hill Giant. Hitting about 15% of the time, dealing about 7HP per hit...you need about 100 rounds of attacks before you can kill a giant, which means you need about 20 soldiers, some of which are archers to pepper them up ahead of time. Of course, these numbers assume that your troops fight to the bitter end and don't break after round 5 and 75% DEAD. For non-magical solutions... Horse Archers. Faster than giants, and they still allow for attacks from range. Further, the ideal environment for horse archers is on an open field, where there would be less ammo for the giants. The problem being, the giants don't likely live in an open field. Fortunately they're dense, and could probably be drawn out. If you can get eastern longbows, all the better. Trapped battlefield. Again, you need to get the giants away from their home terrain to a place of your choosing. With time and effort, you can construct some massive traps that could isolate and perhaps even seriously harm giants. In this scenario, you're trying to even the odds with traps. I'd try for a forest environment here, think Ewoks. Other options I can think of involve deceptions designed to isolate giants and then kill them, but these only seem like ideas that will work for starting off the conflict and whittling them down. Without magic, and even with, your options for asymetric warfare are limited simply because the giants have 100+ HP. It's hard to kill one without a committed attack. |
| solbergb06-29-05, 04:57 PM | Well...versatility is good if you face a variety of threats. For your situation though, buying a warehouse full of crossbows and issuing them to every peasant in the area will probably work better than a nice mix of armor and various weapons. That said...there is no reason to equip your troops with light maces when you can equip them with clubs, unless you think they'll be using the maces in a grapple or unless you are doing some kind of cold iron/silver thing where you need your bludgeon weapon to be metal. You've got a sword as insurance against warp wood... clubs are free, and they are also short-range missile weapons. They're plenty for dealing with the odd skeleton or as a backup weapon. Daggers...are about as versatile as clubs, but their main function is as a tool or as a concealed weapon. As a grapple defense, a spiked gauntlet just works better for only a little more money, because you don't have to win a grapple check to equip it. The glaives, javelins, buckler and sword are all decent calls, although that's kind of pricey and requires martial weapon proficiency. There is a reason real-world armies tended to have a lot of spear troops when operating on the cheap. Your scale+buckler+light mace+dagger+sword+glaive+2 javelin infantry costs 50+15+5+2+15+8 = 95gp each just for weapons and armor. A leather+club+sickle+longspear+2 javelin+sling infantry covers the same damage bases, light/onehand/reach weapon bases needs only simple weapon and no armor proficiencies, has a better ranged attack and costs a mere 10+0+6+5+2+0 = 23gp. Downgrade the sickle to a dagger and it drops to 19gp. Four or five of these guys could take one of your expensive light infantry guys every time...they do one less point of damage with their simple weapons, they have 3 points less AC but have the option to open the range up a bit with their slings. Warp wood vulnerable yes, but 4x the targets to affect helps, and they can still use slings and have 3 weapons each that would have to be warped, lowering the odds they'll be completely disarmed. Commoners only get one weapon proficiency, so you'd probably just give them longspears and leather for 15gp and be done with it, maybe a club as backup. |
| Arshes06-29-05, 04:58 PM | if you have magical support than have a majority of your units be spellcasters with horse archer backup. i would say 1 sorcerer per 2 mounted rangers. and then give your rangers fav enemy giant. if you can, try and recruit dwarves and gnomes into your army.they are enemies of giants ad i am sure they would gladly help. |
| TelinArtho06-29-05, 05:36 PM | solgerb - hmmm - I suppose I could downgrade the armament of my troops, but that throws survivability out the window. Granted, most people are saying that I'm already doing that by sending my troops against hill giants... but hey - let's take a look a little bit. One of the things I've been wanting is to make sure I've got enough money aside at the end of hiring to support the troops for a while. By reducing the overall cost of a single troop, I'm reducing my costs significantly, but by hiring more I'm driving up my weekly upkeep by a fair amount. (Just a small correction, commoners get proficiency in one simple weapon - so longspear is out). I don't really see myself using commoners for this task though, so the whole weapon proficiency is probably a non-issue. I'd like for my real force to be mostly warriors (and some PC classes if I can manage it - but I think its pretty unlikely). I guess in essence I need to rewrite my light infantry (as I still feel having an upper echelon for more experienced troops) to have a less expensive suite of items. So instead of long spear, long sword, mace, dagger, 2 javelins, leather armor (39gp) maybe long spear, sickle, club, dagger, 2 javelins and leather armor (25gp). I've always had light infantry in my equations - usually 1/3 of the overall number. Then 1/3 was long range units and the rest were heavier armor infantry and the support units. With a smaller cost per light unit, I am definitely going to be able to field more units overall, but I'll have to see how long I'll be able to support them. Gedrin - you do address one of the issues with the giants. While Great cleave isn't on their standard list, it is not a far stretch for even wizard giants... Hopefully, my character and the rest of the regular party will be able to handle the special cases on their own - for that matter, my hope is that the army will mostly take care of the other units and the party will be responsible for the bulk of the giant force. Until I get some reconnaisance done - I just don't know the feasibility of this though. As I've said before, high level troops and flying creatures would be a nice option if available - but frankly, I just don't think they will be available to me. While most of the solutions have either been - get more troops or get more experienced troops - I am eager to find a way to do it with what I think is my likely skill pool. May seem like a dire situation, but I am going to do my best regardless. Actually, ranged weapons are a solid option against the giants since the rocks are thrown. Although they have a 120ft range increment, as thrown objects, they top out at 5 range increments (or 600ft in this case). A bow or crossbow can be usable to 10 range increments and can usually be fired just as well at 800-1000 feet as at 600 feet. /d |
| solbergb06-29-05, 05:41 PM | It all comes down to cash and numbers. Weirdly just last night I was in an archery duel with low level characters vs a hill giant under cover with rocks. It went badly for the hill giant, as it took damage from 3 characters in 4 each round, and only managed to hit one. A hill giant can kill one prone crossbowman some of the time yes. +8 to hit vs a naked guy prone and under cover is only 50/50 chance of success, and it goes down rapidly if you can afford a little armor or add range mods. Lets talk about how we'd really do this. Assume giants under cover, returning fire from crossbowmen under cover. Since we're needing 20s to hit anyway, no reason not to back the crossbowmen up to extreme range, 800'...or more realistically, the range is whatever open ground there is around the hill giant town, period, whatever the edge of that is. Lets say we have 30 hill giants, 102 hit points each. Assume the leaders cancel out with your leaders and we look strictly at an archery duel, mooks to mooks. It takes 23 hits crossbow hits to kill one giant, 460 shots to get those 23 hits. On the flipside, the giants have +8 to hit, but if the xbowmen start out at only half their extreme range away (400ish feet), the giants also need a 20 to hit if the crossbowmen have leather armor, are prone and under cover. However it only takes one hit to remove a crossbowman. Lets bump that up to an 18 to hit, either naked crossbowmen or shorter range or whatever. With 30 giants, 15% hit rate, that is 4.5 guys dead a round. With 500 crossbowmen, you will lose about 100 guys and kill all the giants. You lose maybe 20 less if you can concentrate fire and not spread the damage around on all hte giants. 20% casualty rates aren't going to cause your troops to break when standing up to run multiplies their chance of getting hit by a boulder by a factor of four....troops pinned down and firing in the general direction of the enemy...tend to keep doing that. Each archer will need 30 crossbow bolts. Cost of this army: 19,000 in equipment, and with a 20k budget you have enough left over to pay them 2gp each for one day work. If the giants break cover to charge the crossbowmen, the numbers start going against them fast. Assuming 300-400' away, it will take the giants 5 or 6 rounds to close the range, assuming some of the stretches are suitable for running. In that time, the archers will be able to concentrate fire, and they will hit more often than 1 in 20, and the archers aren't taking casualties. A typical warrior type has a +3 to hit (Bab+1 dex+1 weapon focus+1) but lets say +2 for a scratch army gathered in a hurry (either commoners with 14 dex or warriors with 12 dex). They'll get at least 4 rounds where they need a 20, one where they need a 19, one where they need a 18 and after the charge, they'll need 16s, those that weren't killed. What that means is the giants lose one guy a round, then two guys, then three guys before they close, down from 30 to 21 attackers, and some of the 21 are wounded. They then kill 20 archers (somebody rolls a 1 to hit) and the remaining 480 kill at least 5 of them, probably 6. Now they're down to 15. (archers should not be close packed for cleaving, but even with a braindead commander, they'd have 460 archers still shooting, which does in fact kill 5 giants. So now the giant numbers are halved. Lets say each giant kills 2 more crossbowmen a round till all giants are dead and THEY have perfect morale, and that all damage over what it takes to kill a giant is ignored, overkill or panic, and that the giants no longer have to charge now that they are among the archers. This is ideal for the giants, since they've just knocked the archers below a kill breakpoint. The numbers look like this: 460xbow, 16 giant 428xbow, 14 giant 400xbow, 12 giant 376xbow, 10 giant 356xbow, 8 giant 340xbow, 6 giant 328xbow, 4 giant 320xbow, 2 giant 316xbow, 0 giant 40% casualties for the xbowmen, but if terrain was more favorable or they weren't in cleave range, the numbers are really different. Lets say all they do is stay out of cleave range from each other, you get something more like this: 480xbow, 15 giant 465xbow, 12 giant 453xbow, 10 giant 443xbow, 8 giant 435xbow, 6 giant 429xbow, 4 giant 421xbow, 2 giant 418xbow, 0 giant or about the same as you get from concentrating fire on barracaded giants returning fire with rocks. So...the lesson here is 500xbow can beat 30 hill giants, assuming the commander can set up a fight with some range to it. You need FAR fewer crossbowmen if you can get them out of the "need a 20 to hit" range via buffs and can put the giants into that range (via better armor perhaps, or debuffs). But...20k gp can get it done, with no leadership help, beyond convincing the crossbowmen to stay in position and keep shooting. The best way is to have a high AC hero type out front to draw the boulders, while the xbowmen send a hail of ammo. This is especially useful if the hero has powerful ranged attacks himself. (this is in macro what we did in micro in my battle last night. Our best archer also had the best AC. He stood with just "cover" for the whole fight, while everyone else took single shots and dropped prone behind full cover (stand up, fire spell/shoot, drop prone, you can do that every round). The giant only had one target, and that target had hurt him the most, and it was also clear that only the cover was preventing the giant from getting killed even faster, so it was not inclined to spend the 3 rounds it would have taken to close. (although we had a plan for that...whomever it headed toward would move away, even running if he had to) The approach would have worked better if the cleric had started out near our hero-archer, to undo any hits, but it worked well enough. |
| tiercel06-29-05, 08:01 PM | Don't forget to use lots of illusions -- heck, a wand of silent image could buy your army breathers. You don't get a save until you interact with the illusion, so if you have some kind of terrain with cover/concealment you can constantly have skirmisher/archer units move into cover, then a unit leave cover in one direction and illusionary unit leave cover in another direction. A charging illusionary infantry or cavalry unit (you may need at least minor image, for sound) could draw giants out of position. Silent images aren't a real problem when we are talking about bow-and-boulder range, though. Ideally, you will fight at least some of the giants / giants' minions in detail, rather than in a single pitched battle. Let a few small units approach the giants visibly, while the rest hide in ambush. If you get a couple squads of orcs backed up by a giant or two, you could probably take that out yourselves, without your army; if most or all of the giant force comes out to meet you, at least you have chosen the terrain for the battlefield, rather than fighting them in their home ground. If they do entrench it's basically up to you as PCs to rattle them out, with structural and collateral damage. Your army's going to have a hard enough time with giants without charging into giant-held fortiifcations, even if they are just ditches and houses. In terms of actual infantry, as opposed to skirmishers/archers, you should probably seek to hire dwarves where you can. Chances are you'll be giving them heavy armor anyway, and remember dwarves get that tasty dodge bonus vs giants. It won't save them in melee, but it will greatly increase their survivability against boulder barrages. Just keep a wand or a few scrolls of haste around to facilitate extraction if giants are moving to melee, not just orcs. Note that a fully-charged wand of fire will run you 21 000gp. Depending on your overall budget for your army, if you are willing to give up a unit of elite troops being able to control the battlefield with up to 50 walls of fire may well be worth it. If that's a bit out of your budgetary reach, you should try to get at least a couple of low-level rangers -- they will be useful scouts for your army, and you can equip them wands of entangle (which are VERY nice on a battlefield, and only 750gp each). If you need to move across an exposed area where you may be under boulder fire the whole way, wands of obscuring mist can help significantly (you just need a handful of low-level casters - even adepts can use these). If the terrain is appropriate (or you are going to have to go house-to-house inside the giant village), adepts can also use wands of web. (Web is a bloody nuisance even if you make your save and you have a high Strength.) |
| TelinArtho06-30-05, 10:08 AM | Illusions - actually, this isn't a bad idea, especially if I couple it with a few other effects (like summoned monsters to charge down on the giants to keep them at a reasonable distance. solgerb - 500 crossbowmen... heh heh heh... that might be a bit out of my reach though, especially if I am looking for a sustainable army. However, with the use of illusion and appropriate cover, I think it may be possible to have the giants attack other areas than my troops. If I am going to do this at range, I'll still need to draw the giants out from cover - and that might just be the purpose of my character and his spells. If I can get a Stoneskin spell cast on me before the battle, that'll help absorb a lot of the damage I'll take while out in the open, though the giants would need a 20 to hit me because my AC is so high. Just looking at some other spells - confusion would be a nice one to use, though I doubt I'll be able to cast 4th level spells at this point. Still, a scroll might be worth it as the will save is still reasonable (DC16 vs. the +4 will save of giants). Summon Monster IV gives me a nice creature in the Lantern Archon - DR 20/+1 that the giants wouldn't be able to cover unless they manage a critical. Since it has ranged touch attacks, the +2 to hit isn't that bad (vs. the giants' touch AC of 8). The damage isn't a huge deal, but even one lantern archon might keep the giants pretty busy since it would only be 30ft away from the giants. Its aura of menace probably won't do much, but it might keep it alive a little longer too. |
| Arshes06-30-05, 01:41 PM | tell them you seccede to thier overwhelming power and wish to speak with thier leader. then have all of you men attack the giants leader at the same time. :D cowardly, yes. effective, most likely. |
| TelinArtho06-30-05, 01:59 PM | Just did some number crunching regarding the lantern archons - DR20/+1 with 1d8 hps and AC 15 (17 against evil giants...). Since they have a ranged touch attack that is good up to 30ft, there is no reason for them to get into melee with the giants. Against 30 giants who are throwing rocks, the lantern archon will be killed 67% of the time if all of the rocks are thrown at the archon(s). This is 60 attacks (half at +8, half at +3). Each archon will deal 5.25 damage per round with its two attacks, which is not a lot, but the main benefit is the ability of it to not take damage. Suppose, for instance, that my character gets 2 scrolls of Summon Monster V for the combat (at 1125gp each). From these two scrolls I get 2d3 archons to work with. Just looking at this, I summon 1 archon 1/3rd of the time, 2 archons 1/3rd of the time, or 3 archons 1/3rd of the time with the first scroll. They last for 9 rounds and can start off nearby. If I start at 600 feet from the hill giants, with teleport, they can appear right next to the giants for the next round of attacks. Round 2 - I summon more archons who will teleport to attack on round 3. The first group deal 5.25 damage/archon. The giants have a 66.57% chance of taking one of the archons down. If they all fire upon the archons. Rounds 3-10 are similar in nature, with the archons dealing 5.25/archon/round. If the giants decide to ignore the archons wholesale, the archons will deal 84-262 damage (depending on how many appear). If I have 40 crossbowmen, they will deal 9.45 damage/round from 600ft or 94.50 damage over the ten rounds. Anyway, the main benefit of the archons will be as a distraction. |
| TelinArtho06-30-05, 02:39 PM | Arshes - I don't think that would be a very effective method at all. While I might be able to lure them around me when I surrender, they will very likely not let their guard down until my company is disarmed and tied up (and likely a few beaten just because...). This means that I would be forced into a melee situation with them and I would be surrounded. Doesn't sound like a very good idea... |
| Arshes06-30-05, 02:42 PM | then start recruiting dwarves and gnomes. and mybe find a few war troll mercenaries. |
| Gedrin06-30-05, 02:47 PM | I think we need to know how many giants you're dealing with. Also, you won't know which one's have great cleave until they've used it once. It's so natural and so in reach that their "sergeants" could have it. As for crossbows, I think you'd need to lure the giants out of their normal environment to take full advantage of the extended range. In the hills, you loose any range benefit. Also, if you've got a 1=botch rule in your game, you're just as likely to botch and loose an archer as you are to hit until the giants are within two range increments. Of course, the giants are likely better served just charging your archers, where they can quadruple (2+cleaves) their attacks and eliminate the primary weapon of the archers. Come to think of it, the desire for the giants to close rapidly with archers, forms a fairly predictable tactic. Seeding caltrops (cavalry caltrops) strikes me as a pretty good idea. If you use melee/archer lines, have the front lines drop the trops behind them as they advance. This will also discourage those units from retreating through your archers. Not that nice, but possibly effective. Just a thought. Another thought, try to train your troops to the idea of giants having such a long reach that isn't impeeded by men in front. They threaten all those squares, and can take advantage of an AoO if offered. |
| TelinArtho06-30-05, 03:37 PM | Confusion will be great to use - even in scroll form. The DC to resist will be at 16 - which will affect a giant 55% of the time. The radius is 15ft, so I would expect a single casting could probably find 2-3, maybe even four giants. This would cause widespread confusion among the giants as some giants start walking around aimlessly or failing to act at all. The downside to it is the range - which is only 170ft at the minimum caster level. I suspect with Stoneskin or Protection from Arrows that my character would be able to get to that range without too much risk. Slow is another great one to use, but its limited range makes it difficult to pull off effectively. At 5th caster level, its range is only 35ft. With enlarge and a 8th caster level, the range would be 90ft - which is respectable. I'm not sure of the feasibility of this though - as my character would not be at that caster level. Still, it could probably work out to affect 2-4 giants. -2 AC, to hit, dmg, and reflex saves will be quite nice. The real benefit though is the fact the giants would only be able to make one attack per round instead of two. Shatter would be effective in removing a giant's club just before melee - but otherwise would have limited application. Since its range is so close - I don't really see it being used except if a particular giant seems more powerful than the rest and you want to take out his weapon. Grease, I think is actually a more useful method of distracting a single giant - because he will still try to retrieve an item after it falls from his hands in most cases - plus it would have no problem affecting magical weapons. Its range is also too close to be used comfortably unless the battle was getting close. Glitterdust has obvious benefits in taking out a couple of giants (probably 2 at most) for a few rounds by making them blind. The range of glitterdust is a bit of an issue at 130ft at the minimum caster level, but is a spell I have access to (I think) - so it is an option. |
| TelinArtho06-30-05, 03:56 PM | Gedrin - Caltrops are definitely an option I have considered in order to slow the approach of the giants if they start to come after the archers/crossbowmen. I'm not sure that they'd make much of a difference, but I think right now I'm looking at the little things hoping that they will make a big difference when they are all added up. Caltrops in combination with sleet storm or even grease could prove interesting. Magical walls will also help prevent the giants from coming after the ranged troops in a last ditch effort. We don't use botches or critical fumbles in the game I play, so this is not an issue to worry about for me. I definitely agree that great cleave is essentially within reach. It is a real concern, so I'll take it into account for any melee I allow. |
| solbergb06-30-05, 04:27 PM | Note..unless the giants have "quickdraw" they can not throw more than one rock in a round. This is reflected in the monster manual statblocks, showing only one rock in a full attack, vs multiple iterative attacks with their melee weapon. |
| Gedrin06-30-05, 04:47 PM | I'd be careful about relying on walls. The giants need a lot of wall to stop them, and they've all got climb +7. The height vs width issue could be problematic. Wall of Fire, which relies on fear to stop people, seems like a better choice for holding them at bay than, Wall of Stone, which they could likely climb over. |
| Drachasor06-30-05, 05:24 PM | I'd be careful about relying on walls. The giants need a lot of wall to stop them, and they've all got climb +7. The height vs width issue could be problematic. Wall of Fire, which relies on fear to stop people, seems like a better choice for holding them at bay than, Wall of Stone, which they could likely climb over. Wall of Thorns would delay them longer. Wall of Fire doesn't do much damage (especially do a giant), but even many giants are going to have a hard time hitting a DC 25 strength check. -Drachasor |
| DDogwood06-30-05, 05:52 PM | DDogwood - Given that right now, my character is without land, setting up some weaponsmiths/armorsmiths may not really be possible. If I had land upon which I could set up a few smithies, then yes, I would definitely agree that this would be a cheaper alternative (provided I could come up with a reasonable wage for them as well...). At this point, however, it probably isn't possible. You shouldn't need land... buy a couple of carts, and put portable smithies inside them. The cost savings will easily pay for the setup. However, even if the person died, I would expect the equipment to be passed to his/her family regardless of how close it was to being paid off (otherwise, why would he agree to pay for it in the first place?). What are you, Lawful Good or something? You will need paymasters and quartermasters (preferably a cohort, or someone you can trust with a big chest full of gold); they can keep track of how much each soldier has paid off on his equipment. If he dies, the equipment that is functional goes back into the quartermaster's stores, and the family is reimbursed half of whatever the soldier had paid off. Remember that if your own craftsmen are making the gear, you are buying it for 1/3rd the list price plus the cost of the tradesmen. So the 47 gp gear suddenly becomes 16 gp gear, and the soldier can have it paid off in a month. I don't have my DMG here, but I think that a typical peasant earns something like 1 sp/day, and a skilled worker earns 3/day. Paying a soldier 1 gp/day should be pretty attractive wages, at least for a level 1 Warrior. If you want to add to the incentive, you can offer prize money too - every victory earns the soldiers a bonus of 10 gp. Half of this, of course, goes to paying for their equipment. If you're commanding an army, and you lead them to fame, glory, and riches, then there won't be much argument about you taking back your equipment. The promise to send a lump sum of gold back to the soldiers' families upon death may be a better condolence than some dented, rusty weapons and a suit of chainmail that was last used as a strainer for the poor soldier's mangled innards. |
| Arshes06-30-05, 06:14 PM | i took a look at the hill giant stats in the MM. you'll have more than just gaints to face, you'll have ogres, orcs, and dire wolves to face. you also need to take those into account. the least amount you'd be facing (if you go by the MM) would be 21 hill giants, 12 dire wolves, 2 ogres, and 12 orcs. thats 47 foes total. how many soldiers do you have? |
| TelinArtho06-30-05, 09:42 PM | Arshes - I'm fully aware of the extent of what the tribe might have - and I feel it is probably on the low side as well (though I'm purely speculating on that part). In all honesty, the orcs and ogres are not a threat - but the dire wolves are in terms of speed and damage. Luckily they are easy to hit and probably can be averted with proper application of fire or some similar primal threat. Ddogwood - well I'm neutral good - but yes, I still don't very much see the point in inflating the soldiers wages just so I can take a portion of it back to pay for the equipment. That means paying money out and then taking money in. I'd much rather just pay the money out. According to the DMG a 1st level warrior garners 2sp/day, my starting wage is going to be 5sp. For every level above 1st is a 2sp raise. PC class members are going to be given their level squared in gp/day - so 1st level is 1gp, 2nd is 4gp, etc. Needless to say keeping a PC around is going to be much higher maintenance. Getting portable smithies probably wouldn't be as efficient as a regular I would imagine (I'm speculating again), and I'm not sure that local merchants would be too keen on my creating my own wares that, while I'm not selling them, I'm not giving them their "rightful" profits. In other words, my character is not one to step on too many toes... Gedrin and Drachasor - yes Wall of stone would indeed be a rather poor choice unless I was able to get it to block a narrow canyon or something, wall of fire and wall of thorns would definitely be more suitable I would imagine. solberg - that's funny. I hadn't really thought of it as quickdraw applicable. For instance, I bet you are looking in the 3.5 MM - in the 3.0 MM - they do have 2 attacks listed for thrown under full attack. However, you are probably right - so they'd be doing less throwing - which is good for me - I imagine... Have I mentioned that I really appreciate all of the help so far. Its too bad the game this is in doesn't run very frequently... |
| solbergb07-01-05, 02:32 PM | Well, with respect to quickdraw, rocks on the scale of giant rocks are thrown weapons and it is a move action to draw or pick up thrown weapons. The 3.5 statblocks support this opinion. i took a look at the hill giant stats in the MM. you'll have more than just gaints to face, you'll have ogres, orcs, and dire wolves to face. you also need to take those into account. the least amount you'd be facing (if you go by the MM) would be 21 hill giants, 12 dire wolves, 2 ogres, and 12 orcs. thats 47 foes total. how many soldiers do you have? Ok that's irresistable. I have to look at my crossbows again with that opposition. I think they'd shoot at the softer targets first, and the faster ones. For simplicity I'll put the crossbowmen back at 300' and see where that gets us. We already know the result of a missile duel (the ogres, dire wolves and orcs together are less effective than 9 more hill giants at ranged combat) so lets assume they try to close the range. The crossbowmen are +2 to hit (+1 BAB, +1 dex, no useful feats) to 80', +0 at 160', -2 at 240', -4 at 300' Giants are with rocks +8 to hit at 120', +6 to hit at 240', +4 at 300'. Lets assume the crossbowment give up initiative hoping to get "better" shots, for simplicity, and don't try to ready to shoot folks while running. I will assume run actions work for 240', but the last 60' is broken terrain, forcing "hustles" (dug out by the 500 crossbowmen as they entrenched last night, if not provided by nature). Lets also assume the giants start out by throwing rocks, while letting their minions charge. Crossbowmen are prone, under cover and have leather armor. (net AC21 with 12 dex). Orcs have falchions and javelins, so can do ranged combat if they want when they get closer. Round 1 12 Dire wolves 100' (run action, 200' from start) 2Ogres, 12 orcs 180' (run action, 120' from start) 21 giants 270' (move and throw rock) One in four giant boulders hit, so 5.2 crossbowmen die. I will round up for all xbow casualties, and round down on xbow divisions and hits, to give the bad guys a bit more of an edge, so there are now 494 xbowmen. Since the minions are all in range, I will assume an even spread of crossbow bolts by size (4 orcs = 1 dire wolf or ogre) in the first salvo. That means 17 targets, 29 crossbow bolts each for size large guys, 7 for each orc. Orc, AC13, is hit 30% of the time, average 7*.3*4.5 = 9 damage each, all 12 orc warriors are down (5 hp each, max 8 hp if you roll instead of using average). Ogre, AC16, is hit 15% of the time, 29*.15*4.5 = 19 damage, both ogres are still on their feet, but not by much. Dire wolf, AC14 is hit 45% of the time, 29*.25*4.5 = 58 damage, all dire wolves are dead. Now we have 21 giants and 2 badly wounded ogres vs 494 crossbowmen. To keep the ogres from fleeing the giants now charge. No crossbowmen die this round. We've also demonstrated that the xbowmen can kill 30 giants under these conditions, if it stays a long range missile duel, so charging is a better option. 2Ogres, 60' (run ) 21 giants 150' (run action) The xbowmen should now concentrate fire. To make the numbers simple, lets assign 8 each to the two ogres, and 480 on the lead giant. They still need a 20 to hit the giant, but the ogres get hit 45% of the time. Each ogre takes another 15 points of damage and drops (34 damage vs average 29). The lead giant takes 108 points of damage from 480 shots and drops (hill giants are 102, and when you are talking this many shots, the statistics don't vary much from the average damage). Now we have 20 giants, and at least 2 rounds before they can close with the crossbowmen. This time instead of reloading, the crossbomen stand up and 5' step forward. This will facilitate scattering later, vs a melee threat or will encourage the giants to throw rocks, which means they'll get more shots at range. If giants "just charge, the, xbowmen reload, 5' step forward and are within short range (80'), so they can kill 3 giants (as they hit 3x as often). Giants move up 60', and the crossbowmen scatter. so there will be no cleaving. One round later, the giants presumably chase some of them, and lose 3 more as the xbowmen stop, reload, fire. Now the fun part. ONLY The crossbowmen being directly charged run...this means the giants can't ever quite get to anyone. The rest of the xbowmen (still about 480, but if the giants stay in a pack, maybe as low as 400) kill 2-3 giants a turn, say 2 to be conservative. So that's a losing strategy. Instead the giants move 30' closer and throw rocks at the now AC13 instead of AC21 targets. They hit on a 4, so 16 crossbowmen die. The crossbows back up 5' and fire, and 3 giants die (they hit 80% of the time (107 dmg each). Giants are now at 55' Giants move up 30' more and fire, 14 more crossbowmen go down. Those more than 40' from a giant after a 5' step fire, those closest to the giants back off 30' and reload. 2 more giants die. (only 320 need to fire to kill two giants, so a third of the group can be in motion). We can now repeat this forever..the crossbow guys are as mobile as the giants, and the giants can't do any damage unless they throw rocks. To play it out, the giants go down in numbers 17 15 13 11 9 7 5 3 1 and the crossbowmen have 464, 452, 441, 432, 426, 422, 419, 418 people, always well over 300 to shoot each round, close enough to be in no range increment but far enough away that melee with giants isn't going to happen. The mixed group comes out the same as the "30 giant" model, but requires less range to work with. This also assumes they don't have the benefit of a bardsong+1, which would greatly increase their kill rate in the first two range increments. (and bless+prayer would more than double it) A big advantage of bow archers over xbow archers is they can move and shoot in the same round when the battle switches from a long range duel to a mobile skirmish battle. The doubled rate of fire is nice if you can find 500 warriors with rapid shot, but the real advantage of the xbow army is any goon with simple weapon proficiency and a +2 to hit somehow (dex, bab, dex+bab, weapon focus, whatever) can be signed up. And THAT means it is cheap to both equip them and to pay them, because they are not specialists. Bow troops need a real feat investment, and are a lot more effective man-per-man but when facing giants, you do not WANT half the bodies with twice the power, because it means each rock thrown takes out more of your offense. |
| Drachasor07-01-05, 03:45 PM | If the Giants have just one 5th level Cleric or Druid, then you'll do horribly. One Wind Wall provides total defense to the Giants, but doesn't block their boulders. I don't think it is unrealistic to assume of divine caster of that power. You best be prepared for it. -Drachasor |
| Arshes07-01-05, 04:05 PM | If the Giants have just one 5th level Cleric or Druid, then you'll do horribly. One Wind Wall provides total defense to the Giants, but doesn't block their boulders. I don't think it is unrealistic to assume of divine caster of that power. You best be prepared for it. -Drachasor they'd more likely have an adept. |
| solbergb07-01-05, 05:43 PM | If the Giants have just one 5th level Cleric or Druid, then you'll do horribly. One Wind Wall provides total defense to the Giants, but doesn't block their boulders. I don't think it is unrealistic to assume of divine caster of that power. You best be prepared for it. -Drachasor It is the job of the PC's to deal with the enemy leaders. If the army can deal with the minions on its own, you've accomplished your objective. You can do it the other way around, but not with the PC's he's described, and not with the army he's described as capable of building. (first level arcanists with scrolls of truestrike and magic weapon can do a pretty good job of killing leaders when massed). There are some groups of PC's around level 8-10 that could kill any number of hill giants if they didn't have to worry about leadership. Take a party that can actually hit things from 600' away and can fly..they're immune to anything the giants can do, so it is simply a matter of getting them out from cover. Or, a party with uniformly high AC on all visible members, enough to only get hit by a boulder on a 20, and enoug mobility to never get caught by being chased. They could do the battle from within 70'. But they can't be confident of success if leaders exist, which can do magic or have higher-than-expected hit modes, etc. Although..wind wall only lasts 5 rounds. That only kills about 25 crossbowmen if they're prone and under cover and that also assumes they can't take total cover and wait it out. The wind wall will have to be near the giants, not the xbowmen, or they'll just walk through it. If near the giants, the ogres/orcs/etc still get slaughtered as they try to close. There is a reason civilized areas are civilized. 500 troops are a formidable obstacle when equipped and trained to fight monsters. The "hit on a 20" mechanic combined with "10x projectile weapon range" mechanic means you do not want to be caught in the open on a battlefield. |
| Calibron07-01-05, 11:36 PM | Can you chose what Feats the soldiers pick at first level? If so get(assuming human) Point Black Shot and Far Shot. Start the Crossbowmen out as far as possibble(maximum range would be 1600 feet), litter as much of the space between the soldiers and the giants with caltrops as possible and you'll suffer very few casualties. Fire upon the Giants from say(guesstimating what the maximum range would be for the closest guys) 1200 feat. Now allowing that the enemy forces manage to immediately asses the threat and organize, if the give chase they can, at best, double move at half speed through the caltrops while your guys move back 30 feet and fire off a bolt every turn. Assuming every 20th roll is a crit and roughly average damage is rolled, if your crossbowmen can concentrate on the Dire Wolves all the canines will be disabled in roughly thirty seconds(actually a bit longer since some of the damage will be wasted) and the slower moving Giant forces will still be 1200 feet away and have another 1050 feet of caltrops to walk through. The Giants will eventually figure out that this isn't working and retreat, so you start advancing. With this setup you won't lose any men at all. Now if only you were fighting Perfectly Flat Plain Giants instead of Hill Giants. :P Well if you can get the high ground this'll still work, just not as efficiently, and if you can't it'll still work, but even more inefficiently. And if you for some reason can't withdraw it'll still take the Giants 20 Rounds to get into rock throwing range, an additional 20 to get into melee with you front lines, but only 24 rounds for the Dire Wolves to reach melee(not that there'll be any Dire Wolves left after twenty four rounds if you've got a clear shot 10% of the time(D*mned hills). 30 Dire Wolves will go down quick against 500 level 1 Crossbowmen, so will the 22 Orcs, the 4 Ogres are hardly a factor. So I think you might well get out of this with very minmal, or even zero, casualties if you can seed the battle field with caltrops and start from at least 1000 feet away. If you can't pick their feats then the Giants will be able to get in rock range fairly quickly and you'll suffer some losses if you can't withdraw. |
| TelinArtho07-06-05, 12:29 PM | Calibron - Well, if I am going to pick my races and feats - yes, I'd probably pick human with PBS/Rapid Shot (with a bow) or dwarf with PBS. In all honesty, I don't foresee having a 1200ft range of clear terrain to fire at the giants from - probably even less than 600ft - which of course puts me in range of the giants' boulders. Also, I believe Far Shot only increases ranged weapons by 1.5 times the regular range increment (2 times for thrown weapons). This may have changed for 3.5 I guess - but I'm using 3.0 for this situation. Staying outside of boulder range would be nice, but I don't foresee it being a reasonable option (if it is - obviously I will take it). As such, I plan on having some losses, but I what I don't want is a pyrrhic victory (one where although I have defeated the giants, they have sufficiently defeated me as well to make the losses outweigh the gains). solgerb - it is a fine (as in good not small...) point that you have brought up and hopefully this will be translated into the battle itself so I don't have to deal with two boulders/giant/round... You have also stated some good reasons why crossbowmen would be a better option than hand-picking bowmen or something similar. Although it would be nice to have control over the feats they choose, it will be cheaper for me in the long run if I am able to have an army that is functional without high requirements. I still think 500 crossbowmen would be beyond my logical means to hire, but with some well placed spells and magic items, I'll try to make up for this difference. /d |
| Gedrin07-06-05, 09:20 PM | I think, regardless of the troops used, you'll have to get the giants out of the hills. You don't want to have massed bowmen maneuvering through the hills with the giants attacking. The more I contemplate this, I don't think you want to build an army specifically to take on the giants. It seems that you'd like to have a versitile army that you can make use of after this conflict. Your solution may be to build an army that suits your long term purposes, and then, with great care, hire mercenary specialists to help deal with the giants. Raise a normal army that you would use to patrol and maintain your holdings, but hire a company of mercenary archers (or horse archers, or whatever) specifically for the giant fight. It's normally cheaper to hire mercs than to raise, equip and train soldiers yourself. Plus, it takes less time. You may even be able to find a veteran mercenary company that has fought giants before. This could give you valuable insight and the benefit of advice from an experienced commander. Plus, if you shop right and pay well, you might even get troops that have been to battle before. Naturally, there are concerns about mercenaries such as loyalty and double dealing. In the D&D world, you've got some ways, which I'll leave you to imagine, to remedy or prevent those issues. One of the largest concerns is normally that the mercs will take over your land, but if you're only hiring an auxillary force, they won't have the full support and troops needed to actually take over anything. Done right, you can be in the position where the mercs are relying on your troops for supplies and logistics, while your troops relly on the mercs in the fight. Mutual dependency could be used to your benefit. I hadn't seen this option mentioned before, and it may be something that could allow you to have both the right tool for the job agianst the giants, without compromising the future versatility of your standing forces. |
| Arshes07-07-05, 04:20 AM | get a few potions of enlarge person for your 2nd lvl and up soldiers. i ean, shouldn't, from what the DMG says, they have thier own gold? If they are at 2nd level, then they would surely have gathered atleast thier own armor and weapons..... |
| Derren S.07-07-05, 04:37 AM | When they have their own equipment, you have to pay them more. |
| TelinArtho07-07-05, 03:08 PM | Gedrin - I'm kind of thinking of that method too. Getting 500 crossbowmen (or even half that) seemed a little unreasonable, especially considering it would only really work out if I am able to get the giants out of cover. Plus, then I'd have 500 crossbowmen for the future, when I probably only want ~100 well-trained people in the current time frame. With the use of summon spells (for Lantern Archons), I think my own party could probably take on the hill giant tribe as long as there was a method to take out the lesser creatures. Here is where my small band of trained individuals come in and do their job. While I probably have them over-equipped, they should have no problem taking out the dire wolves, ogres and orcs the giants may have with them... Also, I think I might try to go after my own castle before I attempt the hill giant tribe (though if the hill giants have their own fortification, I might choose to take it rather than destroy it...). This way what troops I decide to use will have some practical experience with my character at the helm. This will also give my character an opportunity to purchase a few ballista (which is always in the back of his mind...). |