If your intention is to reinforce the don't mess with wizards idea, wouldn't blasted mana-wastes and twisted and toxic ruins of formerly great cities be more to the point. Especially the sad stories of armies that never even found the wizards, but returned to find their homelands destroyed.
How do you none lethally incapacitate them? that seems more difficult than killing them to me.
you could just dominate the guys in charge and make them all retreat and then march and then retreat and then march over and over again giving confused mixed instructions until they're so pissed off/under-supplied/exhausted they disband, but like.. other than that xD
If your intention is to reinforce the don't mess with wizards idea, wouldn't blasted mana-wastes and twisted and toxic ruins of formerly great cities be more to the point. Especially the sad stories of armies that never even found the wizards, but returned to find their homelands destroyed.
Weren't you the one suggesting that good-aligned wizards would have issues with killing the actual members of the army that were trying to kill them? Instead, you propose that the wizards should go kill the civilians left behind in Blighty. (Sorry, no, that was Possible Cabbage.)
From a strategic standpoint, the best possible outcome is destroying the actual threat---the invading army---with minimal risk to self. If you don't destroy the army, it's still around and a possible threat. If you do destroy the army, there's no reason to go on a vengeful killing spree. And as any soldier will tell you, "the more you use, the less you lose." If you have five hundred high-level wizards available to you, use those wizards to minimize the chance that the peasant army will be able to pull off something unexpected and to make the fight longer and more costly than it need be.
How do you none lethally incapacitate them? that seems more difficult than killing them to me.
Every route that approaches the Wizards' fortress passes by a number of permanent Symbols of Sleep, and after the entire army of <11 HD of folks falls unconscious, the wizards confiscate all of their arms and armor and deposit them where they won't have to bypass any more symbols of sleep if they elect to just go home.
"The world had never seen a larger army of fools; nor will it see its like ever again."
- The last line of the children's folk story, The Last Uprising
How do you none lethally incapacitate them? that seems more difficult than killing them to me.
It is, but it's not that much more difficult. Depriving the army of their supplies would do that. Five hundred planar bound hound archons could simply teleport ten tons of supplies from the wagons, and do that over and over again until the army finds that they have no food, no bandages, no blankets, no spare clothing, and so forth.
Five hundred walls of stone would stretch nearly five miles and could easily trap the army someplace where it cannot easily escape. Or playing tag with the army -- I teleport a day's march away right after breakfast, and I continue doing this for more than a month -- would quickly tire everyone beyond the point of combat effectiveness.
So it's doable. I just don't see it being worth doing.
Disagree, OQ
Tactically, your best option is to take out the army.
Strategically, you show that the army is irrelevant, and that the Wizards will hurt you in ways you never planned on.
Tactical approach leads to tactical response, the enemy develops countermeasures.
Strategic approach, the slow learner enemy must try to anticipate any possible responses and prevent them, generally getting themselves wrapped around the wheel. Fast learner enemy realizes that it just isn't worth it.
Generally, you want a big, flashy move that discourages people from messing with you.
The more they want to avoid you, the less time they spend on trying to kill you. And as I said before- time is on the side of the people with the greater action economy.
Just generally avoid making it worth the other side's time. Make it far to costly (either in the forces to accomplish the battle, or in the possible reprisals) to make them bother.
This does not only apply to avoiding the large armies of low level soldiers. Eventually, if you make enough people angry, then they will seek elite mercenaries to assassinate you (ie- a party of players). But it also means that they won't just hire a more middling wizard to dispel various alarms and traps so that the common soldiers can attempt a coup de grace while you sleep (you do not want that; even a 'meh' lvl 1 warrior could make a threatening save against a balor, and they have 'good' fort saves).
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Simple way for the Peasant to win.
Send the knights home.
Then as leader of the 10,000 peasants I approach the 500 Wizards under a flag of truce and tell the Wizards "We are here to swear an Oath of Loyalty and pledge our lives and wealth to the Most powerful Wizard here , which one of you may that be?" .
Sit back and eat popcorn as the Wizards kill each other to prove they are the most powerful Wizard there
Show me a Wizard over 6 level whose ego does not have its own gravitational field.
And then the wizards still win because a single wizard can still kill them all. If the peasants refuse to submit to them as promised, the wizard scoffs and then uses a single shadow to win the fight.
Show me a Wizard over 6 level whose ego does not have its own gravitational field.
Er,.... the entire teaching faculty of the Arcanamirium? Or the Academae?
Hell, for that matter,.... or Hogwarts?
Magical Academies are not only a staple of fantasy fiction, they're also explicitly canonical in Golarion.
I also suspect that the fealty of ten thousand unwashed peasants is something that most wizards would pay money not to receive. I can't think of anything less likely to help my arcane studies than ten thousand mouths to feed, houses to build, and disputes to settle. Offer them knowledge of things-humanoids-were-not-meant-to-know and they might cheerfully slit each other's throats over it --- offer them temporal authority and the responsibility that goes with it and you're likely to see them run away in horror.
Given that a level 12 druid with mages tattoo and spell specialization can do it with one casting of control winds I think the wizards probably have it.
Just put a maxed out Control Winds spell into a Greater Glyph of Warding and use a Charm Person/Suggestion on one of the peasants to wander into the center of the army camp and "open up this nice box of candy to share with your buddies". One tornado later, you send in the clean up crew to collect an army worth of weapons, armor, etc. Don't even go near the army.
Barely need an army of wizards. Just a charmed guy with the right trapped box/pouch/pack and the high level cleric with the right spells/domain to do the casting.
Subsequently, go after the enemy cities with your tornado bombs.
But, if you want flashy, just drop tons of fireballs with your wizard army. Problem solved. If the peasant army is densely packed - you don't even need that many. You should easily get 40+ targets per blast. 25 blasts to kill 1000. 250 blasts to get 10,000. 125 wizards with a couple fireballs each and 12 seconds worth of work...
Level 10 wizard, huh...
Knights and commoners means bad Will saves.
Fly up to their camp invisible
Greater Invisibility, Dominate Person on highest ranking goon, his command is to make the forces hold position and make preparations for siege.
Repeat 8 times.
On the 9th day, start a civil war.
On the 10th day, the surviving leaders surrender to you, earning your mercy: you give them to the Bearded Devil (lesser planar binding), as trade for his services - to kill many stragglers, but let some escape to tell the tale.
The mechanics of this argument is stale, and really is effectively a false flag for the wizard/god fantasists.
Now OQ did identify an important point. Whyever would wizards be interested in entering into a fealty arrangement. Fealty binds both ways. Leave the cash and go away. We will put a plaque with your name on it on whatever building we decide to build with your donation. You have a long journey ahead of you, you should start now.
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the army of peasants simply hires a party of level 20 adventures and they mop the floor with the 500 wizards, peasants aren't good for fighting what they are good for is making money for a country to higher adventures to deal with problems for them
Are the lvl 20 adventures 9 level spellcasters? If not, might still give it to the wizards.
FIVE HUNDRED fricking WIZARDS. This scale is wack.
Is this not like asking who would win in a fight, 10000 mooks with guns vs 500 James Bonds?
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probably 2-3 9th 1-2 6th with am barbarian and 1 other martial for your standard 6 person partythe army of peasants simply hires a party of level 20 adventures and they mop the floor with the 500 wizards, peasants aren't good for fighting what they are good for is making money for a country to higher adventures to deal with problems for themAre the lvl 20 adventures 9 level spellcasters? If not, might still give it to the wizards.
Yeah, 2-3 20th level full casters could take them, assuming they were prepared.
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I feel like Communal Mind Blank + True Sight + Invisibility would probably set up aforementioned powerful party for that fight.
I'd like to see how many spells unraveled if your fire off a mages disjunction into those wizards base may just be enough re-calculating of stats to make whomever is running this thing rage quit xD
FIVE HUNDRED fricking WIZARDS. This scale is wack.
Is this not like asking who would win in a fight, 10000 mooks with guns vs 500 James Bonds?
More like 500 James Bonds in suped up Lamborghinis equipped with rocket launchers, flame throwers, machine guns, and bullet proof glass, paneling, and tires VS 10,000 mooks with guns.
The class of the non-wizard army is never stated.
"10,000 conscripted peasants (levels 1-2) backup by 500 mounted knights (5th level average) vs about 500 hundred elite wizards (level 10)"
While based on the word "peasants" the conscripts would likely be NPC classes (Commoner, Expert, or perhaps even Warrior).
The Knights could easily be Clerics, Paladins, Barbarian, Ranger, Cavalier, Fighter, Warpriest etc.
So if we assume the Knights use any kind of tactics and back it up with some defensive prayers it won't be as lopsided as everyone is making it seem.
A 5th Cleric could be using Wind Wall (to help stop dangerous gases), Symbols of Healing (on banners that are uncovered to help the wounded or dying), Summon Monster III (Lantern Archons; get nine to form a Gestalt), Resist Energy Communal (to help against fire, electricity etc), Dispel Magic (to attempt to counter offensive spells).
Between that and generally keeping the troops in a loose formation (to help defend against area attacks) and perhaps using Tower Shields as mobile cover in conjunction with using the Aid spell (from Lantern Archons) to bolster the conscript troops.
The conscript archers could easily be using magical ammunition to help deal with Protection from Arrows. Plus the troops could have at least silvered or cold iron weapons or ammo to deal with summoned creatures.
It's certainly not as one-sided as some would make it.
I don't see how communal resist energy would be worth the slot 10 fire resistance won't save any of the 10000 army from 10D6 fire damage. It would save the 500 level 5s for one round assuming the wizards didn't overlap their spells but that seems not that relevant honestly.
lets generously assume there are 100 clerics among the 500 that means at most 200 protections from energy among 10500 men, so if 500 wizards release a fireball spell from 800ft away 200 will survive.
Forgive me but that still seems fairly onesided.
If the wizards have any kind of information gathering they simply cast cloudkill and everything dies anyway. And the clerics can't cast their wind wall because their third level slot was spent on protection from energy.
If they lead with wind wall then the wizards open with fireballs and ever none casting of protection from energy is another dead man.
What good arrows will do against invisible targets floating in mid air 800 ft away I am unclear on.
Summoning is a Round action and lasts for 30 seconds I'm curious as to
1) why the wizards didn't see what they were doing and interrupt
2) move away and wait for their lantern archons to time out...
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The class of the non-wizard army is never stated.
"10,000 conscripted peasants (levels 1-2) backup by 500 mounted knights (5th level average) vs about 500 hundred elite wizards (level 10)"
While based on the word "peasants" the conscripts would likely be NPC classes (Commoner, Expert, or perhaps even Warrior).
The Knights could easily be Clerics, Paladins, Barbarian, Ranger, Cavalier, Fighter, Warpriest etc.
So if we assume the Knights use any kind of tactics and back it up with some defensive prayers it won't be as lopsided as everyone is making it seem.
A 5th Cleric could be using Wind Wall (to help stop dangerous gases), Symbols of Healing (on banners that are uncovered to help the wounded or dying), Summon Monster III (Lantern Archons; get nine to form a Gestalt), Resist Energy Communal (to help against fire, electricity etc), Dispel Magic (to attempt to counter offensive spells).
Between that and generally keeping the troops in a loose formation (to help defend against area attacks) and perhaps using Tower Shields as mobile cover in conjunction with using the Aid spell (from Lantern Archons) to bolster the conscript troops.
The conscript archers could easily be using magical ammunition to help deal with Protection from Arrows. Plus the troops could have at least silvered or cold iron weapons or ammo to deal with summoned creatures.
It's certainly not as one-sided as some would make it.
I dunno, dude. 500 lvl 10 wizards against 500 lvl 5 anything is pretty one-sided. The peasants don't really enter into it, the only value they have is in their action economy, and it would be trivial for the wizards to prevent that from coming into play.