| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I would really take a different tack here. I would use my powers for both good and awesome. So the goal would be not only to remove the oppressive tyrant, but to undo the damage he has done over the last 30+ years.
Think in terms of what the people want. If they have one or more popular religions, Wall of Stone + Fabricate + Craft (Stonemasonry) = Cathedrals. If they are having trouble feeding themselves Plant Growth via Limited Wish or Outsider allies should fix that. If there are monsters eating the citizens a 20th level Wizard should be able to get rid of them. Lower their taxes or abolish them altogether and fund your kingdom with an infinite money loop. Bread and circuses work, use them.
Taking over should be easy, Teleportation Circle will get everyone where they need to be and outfitting them all with saps should reduce the bloodshed greatly. Keeping power after it is seized should be the real adventure here.
Rhedyn don't make me repeat myself.
You clearly didn't read my response above. It's quite easy to get supplies through a teleportation circle. You can move many tens of thousands of pack animals through the portal in any one day -- and carry supplies en masse using summoned monsters.
The dual gate idea also works quite well, or better even (although the wizard will have to be very familiar with a location near the capital) and allows for supply trains to move through just as easily.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Gate is definitely superior. You don't want to be arriving outside the city, you want to march your army through a gate straight into an easily secured defensible position inside the city walls. To secure such a location you will need soldiers spilling into the city as fast as you can get them through. Gate allows more through. Given they city will not be expecting an army to march through a hole in space/time to the city interior initial resistance should be light.
Now important to all of this is that you really want to do some prep work before you take the Capital.
You need to identify key leaders within the capital that are sympathetic to your cause, and get them to aid in securing your entry location and minimizing resistance in the Capital. Primary, of the key leaders to target will be leaders in the City Guard that are sympathetic to your cause. This can limit or even eliminate initial resistance within the city once you start marching your army into the city. Other leaders help to keep the population calm, provide intel, or help secure further supplies.
Supplies are of limited concern. Soldiers are more than capable of carrying a few days worth of supplies on their back into a potential combat environment. Once you have a secure location soldiers can drop their carried supplies of and march out to do some fighting while carrying a lighter load.
All of this should allow you to secure the capital with minimal bloodshed and add a good portion of the city guard to your forces and prepare for a siege, though there are enough ways to eliminate the enemy army that a siege should not be needed. Even if you do stand ready for a siege, the gate or a teleportation circle setup as described earlier in the thread can easily keep the city well supplied through a siege limiting its effectiveness.
Mind control. Even if you use "rule of narrative" to say it won't be a permanent fix, as a 5th level spell you're all-but guaranteed to be able to take over ALL the major players long enough to win the battle. But let's go further, let's assume that the COUNTRY has a permanent protection from evil spell effect via a mythal or something, and assassination isn't allowed because reasons.
You can get your entire army and establish a nigh-unbreakable supply chain in 1 day. This is established upthread. You can assault the capital from inside (there will, guaranteed, be at least one mostly-empty building you can do your work in, invisible wizard scout for the win), you can take the city.
But we want to bring the body count down as low as possible, and I'm feeling creative.
Step 1: Wizard uses divination magic and teleportation to find and collect a sample of Brown Mold. He uses resist energy: cold to protect himself.
Step 2: She proceeds to grow several large "seeds" which are brown mold sealed in a glass container which is surrounded with alchemist's fire.
Step 3: While flying, invisible, and still resistant to cold she drops these fire-and-ice containers over a darkened and sleeping city. As the panicked residents try to fight the brown mold with their bizarrely well-read knowledge of obscure dungeon hazards she helps foster mold growth with walls of fire, summoned fire creatures, and the occasional meteor swarm. Every time it takes fire damage it grows, so the brown mold will rapidly spread to cover the city.
Step 4: Once the entire city is covered in Brown Mold and unconscious, with enough non-lethal damage to keep them out for hours (the cold damage is non-lethal) she brings in her team of cold-resistance-equipped specialists (preferably monks, but warriors with longstrider will do) to hunt down any hiding opposition and capture any major figures....
I like how you think... but what if the 50K soldiers disagree and refuse to surrender?
Step 1: Wizard uses divination magic and teleportation to find and collect a sample of Brown Mold. He uses resist energy: cold to protect himself.
Step 2: She proceeds to grow several large "seeds" which are brown mold sealed in a glass container which is surrounded with alchemist's fire.
Step 3: While flying, invisible, and still resistant to cold she drops these fire-and-ice containers over a darkened and sleeping city. As the panicked residents try to fight the brown mold with their bizarrely well-read knowledge of obscure dungeon hazards she helps foster mold growth with walls of fire, summoned fire creatures, and the occasional meteor swarm. Every time it takes fire damage it grows, so the brown mold will rapidly spread to cover the city.
Step 4: Once the entire city is covered in Brown Mold and unconscious, with enough non-lethal damage to keep them out for hours (the cold damage is non-lethal) she brings in her team of cold-resistance-equipped specialists (preferably monks, but warriors with longstrider will do) to hunt down any hiding opposition and capture any major figures....
Definitely bonus points for creativity, but keep in mind that non-lethal damage becomes lethal damage when the target runs out of HP. In this case the carpet bombing brown mold will likely lead to a crime against humanity.
If a creature's nonlethal damage is equal to his total maximum hit points (not his current hit points), all further nonlethal damage is treated as lethal damage.
The larger army is already going to be moving much slower than the smaller army, and each time you cause part of the army to run off or take longer or something you are going to slow the entire thing down that much more.
IF the entire point is to hinder the enemy as the OP has stated and do so in a way that does not directly trace back to a wizard then I would suggest again my above list of spells, as most of them can be trace to random oddness.
After all how many times has a commander heard, "I don't know why my men are all exhausted (the horses are tired/not cooperating/got spooked/we lost our way/et al), a wizard must have did it!" after a night of hard partying or just in general? If you space them out hit different parts in different ways and keep moving it would take a while before they realize (if at all) that a wizard is screwing with them since there are already going to be things that slow them down.
Since we are also talking about the enemy army, I feel like there is probably some spell out there that will make it trivially easy to spoil the enemy army's food supplies. That would be enough to stop them dead in their tracks, the enemy army might never arrive. Alternatively, there are probably lots of good ways to cut into the enemy army's sleep which would greatly slow them and lead to high desertion rates.
Yeah, Fear in the middle of the night, or waves of exhaustion or what not would be great in my opinion. A couple of symbols or what not could help as well as some antipathy spells.
Honestly it's a great case for a lot of the spells that don't see "normal" use by PCs.
|
As long as this isn't an elven kingdom...
What about propaganda? Specifically judiciously placed adamantine signs with permanent widened symbols of sleep on them in bright colors. That should keep most of the populace (those with less than 11 HD) asleep or in their homes (or likely piled up just outside the door). You could prep them ahead of time, with some catchy slogans.
Use your desired infiltration technique from one of the many proposed by the creative commenters. Put them up in the middle of the night. Either blanket the town or just use them to create a perimeter around your target building (the castle should be undermanned with the war going on). I recommend at about 10-15ft above the ground.
Use Wall of Iron to button up the castle, and then let your agents go in and do their thing. All in all very little tracing it back to this Wizard. Who could then be out wearing down the army with illusions and delay tactics.
|
Wouldn't the city and maybe the armies of 50k have access to some powerful high level types to really throw a monkey wrench into the plan?
They may not have a 20th level type, but could they confront the arch mage with 4-6 15th level types? High priest here, master swordsman general there, high court advisor wizard types? Even throw in a few dozen types of various levels at or below 10th, and I would think this becomes much more difficult to simply have your wizard take down in one afternoon.
I know that's not the exercise here, but numbers might support a few choice high level types to challenge the wizards efforts.
What about propaganda? Specifically judiciously placed adamantine signs with permanent widened symbols of sleep on them in bright colors. That should keep most of the populace (those with less than 11 HD) asleep or in their homes (or likely piled up just outside the door). You could prep them ahead of time, with some catchy slogans.Use your desired infiltration technique from one of the many proposed by the creative commenters. Put them up in the middle of the night. Either blanket the town or just use them to create a perimeter around your target building (the castle should be undermanned with the war going on). I recommend at about 10-15ft above the ground.
Hmm, interesting. I don't know about this idea exactly, but it made me remember that not all Symbol spells have HD limits. I think Symbol of Weakness would be great to use against the opposing army, the only question is how many soldiers it could realistically affect. Definitely merits further consideration...
Wouldn't the city and maybe the armies of 50k have access to some powerful high level types to really throw a monkey wrench into the plan?
They may not have a 20th level type, but could they confront the arch mage with 4-6 15th level types? High priest here, master swordsman general there, high court advisor wizard types? Even throw in a few dozen types of various levels at or below 10th, and I would think this becomes much more difficult to simply have your wizard take down in one afternoon.
I know that's not the exercise here, but numbers might support a few choice high level types to challenge the wizards efforts.
Which is why the wizard needs to act with some subtlety. The defenders don't know that the other size has a 20th level wizard, so if she's too blatant about throwing magic around she just paints a target on her back. By acting in a more subtle, indirect fashion, potential defender spellcasters will be drawn out into the open trying to counteract the wizard's efforts. Once they've exposed themselves, they can be targeted for neutralization.
Which is also why any assassination attempts will be very carefully considered. If the defenders have a high-level cleric the aggressors don't know about, killing high-value targets is useless if they're just going to get raised.
The reality of the situation though is that the defenders don't have any high (16+) level characters on their side. They have many 10-14th level characters in their ranks, but the majority of those are martial types such as fighters and cavaliers. I figure their highest level casters are in the 10-12 range, and they probably only have a dozen or so of those. The aggressor army also has its own mid-level & low-level casters, so it's a wash.
Normally the defenders would have more higher-level characters, but the country has just recently emerged from a 32 year long civil war, so all of the high-level characters were either killed or otherwise not participating in the conflict.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Ok, for the future, you will probably get more helpful responses if you give these kinds of conditions and concerns at the beginning of the discussion.
If he doesn't want to let high level characters know there is a high level wizard around, he is basically stuck using low-mid level spells. Most anything high level and the opposition will be able to tell what it came from. Namely a very high level caster. But he can use lots of low level spells with really high save DC's. That can't easily be distinguished from a bunch of medium level casters.
However, you could still use lot of low level summoned creatures to turn dirt road into a muddy morass, temporarily flood lowlands, vipers to spook the mounts, swarms in the supplies, take out bridges/roads, etc...
Charm or dominate messengers to pass the wrong orders (but close to the right one so they think it is just a mistake).
Continual darkness or grease on bridges/tunnels so people don't want to use them. At least not quickly.
Build distractions and/or illusions that they just can't ignore. Small disposable wooden forts that they can see but not on the direct line of march. If ignored they could be a threat to the baggage train. When attacked most are empty, trapped, or filled with illusions of troops.
Charm, confuse, capture the scouts and trailers of a marching column.
At each site, leave several notes scattered around that read along the lines of, "Think what would have happened if we had collapsed the bridge with it full of troops rather than before you arrived. It would have been just as easy and killed lots of you soldiers. We're trying to save the kingdom and save your lives. Your officers are trying to save their own privileged positions and the usurper by spending your lives."
Spread similar rumors in every tavern and shop in the country.
Ok, for the future, you will probably get more helpful responses if you give these kinds of conditions and concerns at the beginning of the discussion.
This conversation's gotten a little more involved than I anticipated, lol. (Though I suppose I really shouldn't be surprised; I've been here long enough.) I was trying to be succinct with my first post so that I didn't bore people with a giant wall of text laying out all of the nitty-gritty details of the situation.
If he doesn't want to let high level characters know there is a high level wizard around, he is basically stuck using low-mid level spells. Most anything high level and the opposition will be able to tell what it came from. Namely a very high level caster. But he can use lots of low level spells with really high save DC's. That can't easily be distinguished from a bunch of medium level casters.
Not exactly. The aggressors aren't necessarily trying to hide the fact they have a high-level spellcaster; What they (not to mention the wizard herself) don't want is for the wizard to be easily identifiable - especially during the early stages of the conflict - and thus become a target for elimination. So stuff like Weather Control - the effects of which don't manifest until long after the wizard has teleported away - is great, while confronting the army directly is not. Only if things go bad for the aggressor will they have the wizard start directly engaging the enemy armies.
Though I think Teleportation circle would work just fine for todays purposes you can always use a greater demiplane for transport.
Assuming the 20th level caster didn't already have a demiplane you'd need two castings. One to create the plane with a doorway in location X. Then again to create another doorway in location Y.
Now you can move whatever you want as long as you have the demiplane. Without permanency that's something like 20 days.
Open a gate in the middle of the enemy army at night. Watch things pour through and lay waste for you.
Because the rules don't allow you to project to the material plane. And you're gambling a lot on the safety of that bunker. If anyone finds your helpless body, you'll be dead before you know it.
Yes they do.
Since the Astral Plane touches upon other planes, you can travel astrally to any of these other planes as you will. To enter one, you leave the Astral Plane, forming a new physical body (and equipment) on the plane of existence you have chosen to enter.
Transitive Planes: These three planes have one important common characteristic: each is used to get from one place to another. The Astral Plane (although technically an Outer Plane) is a conduit to all other planes, while the Ethereal Plane and the Shadow Plane both serve as means of transportation within the Material Plane, which they're connected to. These planes have the strongest regular interaction with the Material Plane and can be accessed using various spells. They have native inhabitants as well.
There is no specific prohibition against returning to the material plane. You will project to the astral plane and then can move to the material plane from the astral plane. Nothing prevents it. It will even create a new body for you.
And if you have a problem with the idea of projecting form the material plane into the astral plane and back again, explain why then you couldn't go to another plane. Say your own personal permanent demi-plane, and project into the astral plane and then to the material plane.
There is no restriction against it, and the spell definitely allows you to move to any plane the astral plane touches. Which is all of them.
Because the rules don't allow you to project to the material plane. And you're gambling a lot on the safety of that bunker. If anyone finds your helpless body, you'll be dead before you know it.Yes they do.
Since the Astral Plane touches upon other planes, you can travel astrally to any of these other planes as you will. To enter one, you leave the Astral Plane, forming a new physical body (and equipment) on the plane of existence you have chosen to enter.Transitive Planes: These three planes have one important common characteristic: each is used to get from one place to another. The Astral Plane (although technically an Outer Plane) is a conduit to all other planes, while the Ethereal Plane and the Shadow Plane both serve as means of transportation within the Material Plane, which they're connected to. These planes have the strongest regular interaction with the Material Plane and can be accessed using various spells. They have native inhabitants as well.There is no specific prohibition against returning to the material plane. You will project to the astral plane and then can move to the material plane from the astral plane. Nothing prevents it. It will even create a new body for you.
Seconding this. This is completely within the rules.
...
Not exactly. The aggressors aren't necessarily trying to hide the fact they have a high-level spellcaster; What they (not to mention the wizard herself) don't want is for the wizard to be easily identifiable - especially during the early stages of the conflict - and thus become a target for elimination. So stuff like Weather Control - the effects of which don't manifest until long after the wizard has teleported away - is great, while confronting the army directly is not. Only if things go bad for the aggressor will they have the wizard start directly engaging the enemy armies.
Ok, then all the other stuff we've mentioned that is non-lethal should still work. That also easily opens the high level summoned creatures and symbol spells.
On an early bridge put a symbol of fear (or other non-killing). Set it to go off when a horse walks across it.
Later put a symbol of weakness set to go off when anyone in breastplate armor walks on it.
Have a thousand guys putting things that look like they might be symbols all over the route.
The army will have to stop at every single one of them to check it out because it might be real.
You can summon a T-Rex from the other side of a hill. If that charges at the army's flank, it will throw things into disorder even if it doesn't get close enough to do any damage before it goes away. Next time make it an illusion that does get within the army before it goes away.
Summon a Glabrezu on the headquarters officer corps since you will have to purge them anyway.
I gotta second the Brown Mold plan. That's the kind of stuff that happens when you give a Wizard prep time.
On the whole though, this seems like a pretty easy "challenge". Especially since, without any restraints on the wizard besides assassination being a no-no for some reason, he has what I assume is full WBL, which he probably used to buy every spell in the book. If the king is that much of an awful person, you could probably enlist some Good outsiders on the cheap as long as the new regime is less terrible. Good outsiders are scary as hell.
Someone upthread mentioned that this would actually be more difficult if we were trying to find the lowest level spellcaster that could handle this situation, because 20th level is overkill.
Personally, I think a Bard could do some pretty miraculous things especially with an already despised king in place.
Assuming the big army is mostly mooks, the archmage could probably buff up then walk into the enemy camp with a ring of telekinesis and cause mass devastation.
TCG, need to read a bit more of the later posts.
He doesn't actually want to kill much of the army. He wants them to switch to his side once he is in power.
TCG, need to read a bit more of the later posts.
He doesn't actually want to kill much of the army. He wants them to switch to his side once he is in power.
In fairness, I did state in my first post that they're trying to limit casualties. I'd edit it to include the stuff I mentioned in later posts if I could, but alas...
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Indeed Andreww, that's why I included that quote in my previous post.
It literally says a conduit to all other planes.
And even if it didn't, it touches the material plane. So you could go back to the material plane even if it didn't touch all planes.
At worst you would have to start on a 3rd plane that the astral plane touches by your reasoning. But such an action is trivial for a 20th level wizard.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
1. The goal of the aggressor is to win the war with as few casualties as possible on both sides. So directly attacking the enemy armies with stuff like Metor Swarm, Tsunami, and other similar spells is off the table unless it's absolutely necessary.
-Using Control Weather to manipulate battlefield conditions to the benefit of the aggressor.
-Using wall spells (mostly Wall of Fire) to create favorable battle conditions.
What else can a wizard do to stack the deck in her side's favor, both during and outside of the battle?
You are at odds with yourself.
You don't want to nuke the enemy soldiers due to some kind-hearted but misplaced ideal of reducing casualties. Fine. I'll grant you that. But then you want to create favorable battle conditions so that your soldiers can kill the enemy soldiers. I'm pretty sure that this will create casualties. Probably on both sides.
This is what the USA did wrong in the Korean Conflict and the Vietnam War. They did not commit, and the end result was that the USA lost those wars and a lot of American lives were lost for no reason.
Political grandstanding aside, anybody who thinks it's possible to fight and especially to win a war without casualties doesn't understand war and shouldn't be fighting one in the first place.
So you need to decide - is it or is it not acceptable to spill enemy blood?
If the answer is "It is not" then you better forget all about favorable battle conditions and start looking at political solutions. Leave your army behind and get to the capital as quickly as possible, then use your magic to "convince" the existing political leaders to abdicate in your favor. Dominate them if needed, or bribe them, or simply make them disappear (for now - bring them back later when you're coup has prevailed and there is nothing they can do about it).
Then bribe the population - improve their quality of life so much that they love you and don't want the former government to regain power. Pay particular attention to the families and relatives of any defender soldiers who might still be marching to the capital to defend it from you - win the families and have them influence the enemy soldiers for you.
Win the people, win the nation.
All without spilling a drop of blood.
On the other hand, if "favorable battle conditions" are acceptable to you, then you're clearly willing to let your soldiers spill enemy blood on the battle field, so why not just do the job yourself and nuke them by the thousands to save your own soldiers from inevitable loss and attrition?
|
|
I still can't think of who decided to dedicate a force to a suicide charge when out numbered 5-1. The aggressor sound as if their position is horrible.
The idea of launching a surgical strike is reasonable, but stage 2 and 3 of the plan are where I see the wheels falling off.
Unless the kingdom's already at war (and it might be what with a standing army of 50,000 men), there's still liable to be a sizable garrison force in the capital proper (old warfare ethos was captured capital = you win. Its one of the reasons the british got cheesed at the americans in the war for 1812).
So the heroes come in, kidnap the king (which they'd need to do in a dramatic fashion or else the remaining old power structure will put on their 'things as ordinary' faces,) and then the aggressor force marches its butts across the entire kingdom to get there before presumably the other army sections trickle back in.
If the local rulership gets straight up decapitated and the Aggressor army marches in, the likely response from the people is going to be to run for vantages less likely to be under trebuchet fire in 24-48 hours (since apparently the defending force is pretty dang fast).
There's also the issue that the other military forces aren't (I presume) comprised of orcs, goblins and the worst scoundrels in the country. They aren't going to want to burn their own capital down, and the people in the capital aren't going to want to fend off their own people, so your wizard might find himself dealing with people inside the walls doing mundane stuff to screw the defenders. One fishwife leaving a door open or dropping a ladder in the right place can make all the boiling oil in the world meaningless.
I'd be honestly more inclined to have the wizard (or a cleric) use some communication or teleportation spells to try to get the PCs to convince some of the commanders of the various other army sections to join them.
The civil war looks a lot more palatable to the average guy when its more of a 50-50 as opposed to 90-10 split.
Alternately, I'd have him use some planar bindings to get some lillend azatas (assuming his alignment works) to help out by providing healing and bardic support.
You are at odds with yourself.
You don't want to nuke the enemy soldiers due to some kind-hearted but misplaced ideal of reducing casualties. Fine. I'll grant you that. But then you want to create favorable battle conditions so that your soldiers can kill the enemy soldiers. I'm pretty sure that this will create casualties. Probably on both sides.
This is what the USA did wrong in the Korean Conflict and the Vietnam War. They did not commit, and the end result was that the USA lost those wars and a lot of American lives were lost for no reason.
Political grandstanding aside, anybody who thinks it's possible to fight and especially to win a war without casualties doesn't understand war and shouldn't be fighting one in the first place.
So you need to decide - is it or is it not acceptable to spill enemy blood?
If the answer is "It is not" then you better forget all about favorable battle conditions and start looking at political solutions. Leave your army behind and get to the capital as quickly as possible, then use your magic to "convince" the existing political leaders to abdicate in your favor. Dominate them if needed, or bribe them, or simply make them disappear (for now - bring them back later when you're coup has prevailed and there is nothing they can do about it).
Then bribe the population - improve their quality of life so much that they love you and don't want the former government to regain power. Pay particular attention to the families and relatives of any defender soldiers who might still be marching to the capital to defend it from you - win the families and have them influence the enemy soldiers for you.
Win the people, win the nation.
All without spilling a drop of blood.
On the other hand, if "favorable battle conditions" are acceptable to you, then you're clearly willing to let your soldiers spill enemy blood on the battle field, so why not just do the job yourself and nuke them by the thousands to save your own soldiers from inevitable loss and attrition?
You're creating a false dilemma by presenting a binary of 'zero casualties' vs. 'total war'. There's a middle ground which is the goal.
How is the opposition feeding 50,000 people? That right there can end the war in a week. Steal their food and they stop being an army and start being 50,000 desperate looters, which you can then save by giving the food back to anyone who surrenders. Who are they going to follow the unpopular guy who almost starved them to death or the guy with the food?
I still can't think of who decided to dedicate a force to a suicide charge when out numbered 5-1. The aggressor sound as if their position is horrible.
The idea of launching a surgical strike is reasonable, but stage 2 and 3 of the plan are where I see the wheels falling off.
Unless the kingdom's already at war (and it might be what with a standing army of 50,000 men), there's still liable to be a sizable garrison force in the capital proper (old warfare ethos was captured capital = you win. Its one of the reasons the british got cheesed at the americans in the war for 1812).
So the heroes come in, kidnap the king (which they'd need to do in a dramatic fashion or else the remaining old power structure will put on their 'things as ordinary' faces,) and then the aggressor force marches its butts across the entire kingdom to get there before presumably the other army sections trickle back in.
If the local rulership gets straight up decapitated and the Aggressor army marches in, the likely response from the people is going to be to run for vantages less likely to be under trebuchet fire in 24-48 hours (since apparently the defending force is pretty dang fast).
There's also the issue that the other military forces aren't (I presume) comprised of orcs, goblins and the worst scoundrels in the country. They aren't going to want to burn their own capital down, and the people in the capital aren't going to want to fend off their own people, so your wizard might find himself dealing with people inside the walls doing mundane stuff to screw the defenders. One fishwife leaving a door open or dropping a ladder in the right place can make all the boiling oil in the world meaningless.
I'd be honestly more inclined to have the wizard (or a cleric) use some communication or teleportation spells to try to get the PCs to convince some of the commanders of the various other army sections to join them.
The civil war looks a lot more palatable to the average guy when its more of a 50-50 as opposed to 90-10 split.
Ehh, there are other factors at play which make it not so bleak as you're putting it. I just have to work out a few minor details in order to make sure it all holds together. (Well, as together as things can be until the PCs do what PCs do -_^ )
How is the opposition feeding 50,000 people? That right there can end the war in a week. Steal their food and they stop being an army and start being 50,000 desperate looters, which you can then save by giving the food back to anyone who surrenders. Who are they going to follow the unpopular guy who almost starved them to death or the guy with the food?
Interesting. But that's a lot of food spread out over a lot of locations; without simply destroying the food stores how would you go about stealing them in an efficient manner?
Also, the opposition is supplementing their own supplies by plundering the country they're currently invading.
How is the opposition feeding 50,000 people? That right there can end the war in a week. Steal their food and they stop being an army and start being 50,000 desperate looters, which you can then save by giving the food back to anyone who surrenders. Who are they going to follow the unpopular guy who almost starved them to death or the guy with the food?Interesting. But that's a lot of food spread out over a lot of locations; without simply destroying the food stores how would you go about stealing them in an efficient manner?
Also, the opposition is supplementing their own supplies by plundering the country they're currently invading.
Probably by working with CG outsiders or fey. This is the kind of prank they would go for. Outsiders are much easier for a Wizard to come by. Gating in good outsiders in general will be much more effective. Who wants to fight against angels? Good outsiders also will be easier to convince, the goal is to overthrow an evil tyrant and restore peace to at least two kingdoms, and most of them will be jumping at the chance to help. They will also be seen as an outside force rather than "your army" by the rank and file, even if the commanders know better.
It depends on how you want to play it out. Played to his full potential the other realm has no chance in hell. Wish loops and s#%$ could go down here, Simulacra of high level creatures, etc
Just Dominating the leaders minds will easily take over a kingdom. If necessary use Disjunction beforehand to get rid of protective artifacts.
I'd go for less overkill ways instead. An Adamantine Golem would be pretty impossible for a normal army to deal with and could pretty much wreak havoc there.
You are at odds with yourself...You're creating a false dilemma by presenting a binary of 'zero casualties' vs. 'total war'. There's a middle ground which is the goal.
I still don't see how "Use walls of fire to give favorable battlefield conditions" (implying that my soldiers defeat the enemy soldiers in a battle) is any better than "Use meteor shower to slaughter the enemy without a battle".
In both cases you're using magic that results in dead enemy soldiers.
I'm not creating a false binary. Actually, I think YOU did: In your OP you said "The goal of the aggressor is to win the war with as few casualties as possible on both sides. So directly attacking the enemy armies with stuff like Metor Swarm, Tsunami, and other similar spells is off the table unless it's absolutely necessary" and you also said "Using wall spells (mostly Wall of Fire) to create favorable battle conditions".
Since "favorable battle conditions" means conditions by which your soldiers can kill their soldiers, these two quotes contradict each other.
Do you want to kill enemy soldiers or not? Make up your mind.
I'm suggesting that if you're OK with dead enemy soldiers, then it doesn't matter if they died in your fire or died by your soldiers' swords - they're still dead. However, in the second case, probably some of your own soldiers died making them dead so the favorable battlefield actually seems LESS desirable than simply nuking the enemy armies. Me, I'd prefer zero allied casualties as the most desirable outcome.
So if killing enemy soldiers is acceptable to you, then why the arbitrary restrictions of "I'll use magic to let my guys kill their guys but I won't use magic to kill their guys"?
But if killing enemy soldiers is NOT acceptable to you, then it seems that no amount of favorable battlefield conditions would make you happy, except maybe harmless conditions that completely and absolutely prevent the enemy soldiers from engaging you or your ally soldiers (and that's not really favorable battlefield conditions as much as absolute battle prevention).
If this is the goal, then I gave some generic hints in my previous post.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Low level spell I really like is minor creation for dust. Dust explosions in confined spaces are nasty.
I still don't see how "Use walls of fire to give favorable battlefield conditions" (implying that my soldiers defeat the enemy soldiers in a battle) is any better than "Use meteor shower to slaughter the enemy without a battle".
In both cases you're using magic that results in dead enemy soldiers.
I'm not creating a false binary. Actually, I think YOU did: In your OP you said "The goal of the aggressor is to win the war with as few casualties as possible on both sides. So directly attacking the enemy armies with stuff like Metor Swarm, Tsunami, and other similar spells is off the table unless it's absolutely necessary" and you also said "Using wall spells (mostly Wall of Fire) to create favorable battle conditions".
Since "favorable battle conditions" means conditions by which your soldiers can kill their soldiers, these two quotes contradict each other.
Do you want to kill enemy soldiers or not? Make up your mind.
I'm suggesting that if you're OK with dead enemy soldiers, then it doesn't matter if they died in your fire or died by your soldiers' swords - they're still dead. However, in the second case, probably some of your own soldiers died making them dead so the favorable battlefield actually seems LESS desirable than simply nuking the enemy armies. Me, I'd prefer zero allied casualties as the most desirable outcome.
So if killing enemy soldiers is acceptable to you, then why the arbitrary restrictions of "I'll use magic to let my guys kill their guys but I won't use magic to kill their guys"?
But if killing enemy soldiers is NOT acceptable to you, then it seems that no amount of favorable battlefield conditions would make you happy, except maybe harmless conditions that completely and absolutely prevent the enemy soldiers from engaging you or your ally soldiers (and that's not really favorable battlefield conditions as much as absolute battle prevention).
If this is the goal, then I gave some generic hints in my previous post.
The war has to be won in the correct fashion in order to create the desired political climate once the war is over. Can the wizard simply slaughter the enemy armies before they even have a chance to engage with the aggressor army? Sure. But the aftermath creates a more difficult situation for the aggressors once the war is over. The perception will be that the wizard won the war, not the aggressors, which paints a big target on the wizard's back and diminishes the perception of the aggressor.
Furthermore, there are important factions not directly involved in the conflict whose allegiance must be won. The good aligned faith organizations for starters. Minimizing - which, again, is different than eliminating - casualties and limiting collateral damage shows them that the aggressors simply aren't the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss.