The biggest problem with this whole discussion is the gap between what an individual player does know of warfare, and what the character he / she is playing should know about warfare.
A kindgom that has stood for hundreds or perhaps thousands of years has a military and defense network born of experience with the costs of created defenses spread out over hundreds or thousands of years...and a player or DM should know all of this upfront?
In my mind, creating a standing military and defense network by a gamer without the requisite hundreds of years of expert experience isn't going to work ever...especially on a micro-level.
Keep your military / defense network deseign simple and flexible. Look at WoTC's Waterdeep and the Grey Hand Enforcers as a really good example.
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Nobody, if you look military history in the last centuries, you will see plenty of examples of outdated tactics being used because the "wisdom" of centuries had taught so, and a few subjects realizing what has clanged and trying to modernize the tactics.
The American civil war with good quality muzzle bore rifles, the first machine guns and the first repeaters used in warfare had already given the lessons needed to see that warfare had changed and anticipate what WWI would have been.
Still military commanders tried to win WWI with massed charges and tactics more appropriate for the Napoleonic wars than a modern war.
One of the reason of that, even today, is what you have already invested in weapons and structures and the need to continue to utilize the old stuff to avoid losing the investment.
In the Pathfinder and D&D world you would be seeing the same probably.
"We have already invested hundred of thousand of GP in impregnable walls. We only need some low cost modification to adapt to these new guns (sneer) [or spell, or whatever], I will not approve the expenditure of more thousand of gp for a upgrade."
Beside that, this kind of brainstorming is fun :D
In my mind, creating a standing military and defense network by a gamer without the requisite hundreds of years of expert experience isn't going to work ever...especially on a micro-level.
Its going to work better than trying to design one around medieval armies. Its not like magic is a new invention or technology in most settings, the magic has been around for a thousand years. Using medieval tactics means adapting armies to a standard that not only no longer exists in game, but has NEVER existed in game. No army has never NOT had spellcasters of some-sort.
Using medieval tactics means adapting armies to a standard that not only no longer exists in game, but has NEVER existed in game. No army has never NOT had spellcasters of some-sort.
My question would be if there are enough casters to drastically change tactics ? IMO having one low-level-casters per company/platoon, say 50 men and one mid-level per battalion 200-300 would be realistic, for a rich nation like Cheliax.
Thats enough for a salvo of fireballs before a charge and a couple of controll-spells, but not enough to turn everything upside down.
In my mind, creating a standing military and defense network by a gamer without the requisite hundreds of years of expert experience isn't going to work ever...especially on a micro-level.Its going to work better than trying to design one around medieval armies. Its not like magic is a new invention or technology in most settings, the magic has been around for a thousand years. Using medieval tactics means adapting armies to a standard that not only no longer exists in game, but has NEVER existed in game. No army has never NOT had spellcasters of some-sort.
To add to this a lot of what spell caster's do is stuff that's already been done through mundane means throughout the centuries too.
Nobody, if you look military history in the last centuries, you will see plenty of examples of outdated tactics being used because the "wisdom" of centuries had taught so, and a few subjects realizing what has clanged and trying to modernize the tactics.
The American civil war with good quality muzzle bore rifles, the first machine guns and the first repeaters used in warfare had already given the lessons needed to see that warfare had changed and anticipate what WWI would have been.
Still military commanders tried to win WWI with massed charges and tactics more appropriate for the Napoleonic wars than a modern war.One of the reason of that, even today, is what you have already invested in weapons and structures and the need to continue to utilize the old stuff to avoid losing the investment.
In the Pathfinder and D&D world you would be seeing the same probably.
"We have already invested hundred of thousand of GP in impregnable walls. We only need some low cost modification to adapt to these new guns (sneer) [or spell, or whatever], I will not approve the expenditure of more thousand of gp for a upgrade."Beside that, this kind of brainstorming is fun :D
Diego, you are right to point out the obvious time lag between technology and lessons learned or not learned on the battlefield, what I was talking about thought was th eknowledge gap between what a player (you and I) know and what the thousand year old kingdom should collectively know...thus the need for discussions like this.
...and you're right about militaries not wanting to waste sunk costs...look at the prop-jobs we flew at the beginning of the Korean War, or the Spviet made T-55's still in use today.
Semper Fi
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While a complete discussion would require knowledge that most of us don't have, a thread like this help pooling our collective mind to develop some plausible offensive/defensive scenario.
I am running a Kingmaker campaign where I want to add a lot of self made stuff and I want to interest my player into developing way to protect their cities and population against the threats of a D&D world. comments on the forum help in gauging what threats and countermeasures have been developed by other gamers.
I have always imagined the walls of D&D fortresses more similar to the walls used during the early and middle age of gunpowder that the typical medieval walls. Something meant to resist to heavy pounding for a long time more than to people trying to climb over the wall, with revelins that allow you to "shoot" from a protected position against people near your walls and all the other defensive implementations developed between the XVI and XVIII century.
The fortification used during the American Revolution are a good example of the kind of fortifications I think will be used in the D&D world.
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Diego, you are right to point out the obvious time lag between technology and lessons learned or not learned on the battlefield, what I was talking about thought was th eknowledge gap between what a player (you and I) know and what the thousand year old kingdom should collectively know...thus the need for discussions like this....and you're right about militaries not wanting to waste sunk costs...look at the prop-jobs we flew at the beginning of the Korean War, or the Spviet made T-55's still in use today.
Semper Fi
I usually resolve player knowledge gaps by writing one page summaries of information they should know (in an eberron game I published a one sheet newspaper for every game).
Sometimes I have the sheets take the form of an excerpt from a book. Imagine a war between Taldor and Andoran and the players are on the Andoran side. I might give them an excerpt that summarizes Taldorian tactics throughout the empire and emphasizing recent events. Then I could discuss the tactics of famous generals during the revolution in Andoran. I might attach a letter from a mentor noting that the new Taldoran general is a big believer in the old tactics mixed with new ones. If I was planning to use an interesting tactic I might mention it as an aside in the excerpt as something the Osirians used to do.
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A few points:
Blah blah blah
Believability is a weak argument. PCs are special. The game treats them as special. How do we know that? The game has gimped classes specially for NPCs. The normal people of the world don't get to play with the cool toys. One of those cool toys is being a bad ass fighter who can beat walls down with a plain old sword.
Hah! Foiling my own argument! Saw this while responding to another post and wanted to get it in here.
The fighter can't use a sword: Under Additional Rules-Ineffective Weapons: Certain weapons just can't effectively deal damage to certain objects. For example, a bludgeoning weapon cannot be used to damage a rope. Likewise, most melee weapons have little effect on stone walls and doors, unless they are designed for breaking up stone, such as a pick or hammer.
My question would be if there are enough casters to drastically change tactics ?
Yes. War is a matter of nations, not villages.
A local village defending itself from orcs might do the good old fashioned hedgehog of pikes. Anything bigger than that and you'll get enough casters because you won't be looking at the level distribution for a village, you'll be looking at it across the level distribution of the entire country. If say, cheliax goes to war you might get a quarter of the countries wizards involved, as well as the nations treasury funding magic items to beef up the low level ones into fearsome pieces of artillery.
Actually.... that's a good way to explain medieval vs world war tactics. Its not a matter of time its a matter of scale. If you use medieval tactics you're "fighting like a backwoods yokel"
IMO having one low-level-casters per company/platoon, say 50 men and one mid-level per battalion 200-300 would be realistic, for a rich nation like Cheliax.
One mid level caster can take out 300 people
If the enemy encampment is known a couple of well placed cloud kills in the middle of the night can be devestating.
One mid level caster can take out 300 people
One mid level anything can honestly -- if he has perfect circumstances.
Honestly I've already covered the spell limits and casting limits involved though -- they aren't going to get that lucky.
Honestly I've already covered the spell limits and casting limits involved though -- they aren't going to get that lucky.
Teleport in at night while the army is on the march, cloudkill, cloudkill, cloudkill, port out. Unless you pop in right next to a high level character, the 2-3 sentries you run into won't be dangerous.
Oh, re the walls having millions of hipoints.
Very large objects have separate hit point totals for different sections.
Teleport in at night while the army is on the march, cloudkill, cloudkill, cloudkill, port out. Unless you pop in right next to a high level character, the 2-3 sentries you run into won't be dangerous.
We all wish it was this easy. But as we all know, the other army has Leveled character too. Chances are that they are there specifically to stop things like that. Really, I would be more interested in the plan for stopping Cloudkill raids.
We all wish it was this easy. But as we all know, the other army has Leveled character too. Chances are that they are there specifically to stop things like that. Really, I would be more interested in the plan for stopping Cloudkill raids.
Teleport in at night while the army is on the march, cloudkill, cloudkill, cloudkill, port out. Unless you pop in right next to a high level character, the 2-3 sentries you run into won't be dangerous.
Teleport traps and/or lots of gusts of wind memorized.
Teleport traps and/or lots of gusts of wind memorized.
Or just the Glyphs and Wards spell -- that's still around right?
We all wish it was this easy. But as we all know, the other army has Leveled character too. Chances are that they are there specifically to stop things like that. Really, I would be more interested in the plan for stopping Cloudkill raids.
Right, but they probably don't have enough of them to cover the entire army. The standard medieval peasants walking from point A to point B are just helpless sitting ducks while en route and only marginally useful come the battle.
I always figured that it was a Deterrent thing. Sure you can hammer at stragglers and lone infantry blocks, but the threat of popping up into a Teleport Trap killzone keeps you from hitting main columns or unscouted divisions without a more substantial plan. And like you said, peasent hoards are only marginally usefull in the first place, so a Cloudkill raid only has a guarantee vs peripheral targets anyhow. Now if you could equip disposable scouts with one shot cloudkill items, then the risk becomes totally worth it again.
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We all wish it was this easy. But as we all know, the other army has Leveled character too. Chances are that they are there specifically to stop things like that. Really, I would be more interested in the plan for stopping Cloudkill raids.
Teleport in at night while the army is on the march, cloudkill, cloudkill, cloudkill, port out. Unless you pop in right next to a high level character, the 2-3 sentries you run into won't be dangerous.
1)The teleport spell teleport you to a know place. Really your caster know every piece of the country so well that he can reliably teleport there?
2) The average peasant ST against scrying is lousy, but you need to know him or to have something of his to scry him. Your spellcaster probably know enough about rulers, commanders and high level characters to scry them, but they are harder to scry and probably will be protected.
3) Unless the spellcaster know the land extremely well, seeing a 20' circle of tents in the scrying device will not give him any clue about the actual army location, so again, no teleport.
So teleport and fry don't work so well unless the GM is willing to wave away the limits of the spell.
The attacker will have a easier time using dimension door, but then they will have to be way nearer to the army to do the trick.
- * - * - * -
Helpful tricks to reduce the chances of a successful teleport (note that mundane spying will greatly help the spellcaster against this kind of defence, so the rogue become valuable):
1) don't camp near recognizable landmark.
2) make your camps as uniform as possible. If your army is camped in 4 different camps, all made in the same pattern, all with the same kind of tents and so on, it is very hard to recognize one camp from the other.
This way, even if the enemy scouts know that you have 4 camps and can give a clear indication of where the 4 camps are to the spellcaster, he will not know if the guy he is scrying is in cam 1, 2 3 or 4. So he would be teleporting to a false destination (for the same reason, a ruler should have multiple identical throne rooms in several castles and try to confuse the enemy about his current location. "I spy him in the throne room, but he is in Highcastle or Newchapel?").
3) "sanitize" what you leave behind. The manure left behind by your army can be used to scry the troops or animals. Making a nice compost heap of it will make it useless, as the caster will not get "material" from a single target.
Helpful tricks for the caster:
1) get to know your land as well as possible.
2) get an army of scout around to draw pictures of the land for the day you will get greater teleport and a description will be sufficient. Label them accurately.
3) send out those ranger/rogue to spy the army movement.
4) get to know the enemy commanders, rulers and champions. It will become easier to scry them
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Helpful tricks to reduce the chances of a successful teleport (note that mundane spying will greatly help the spellcaster against this kind of defence, so the rogue become valuable):
1) don't camp near recognizable landmark.
2) make your camps as uniform as possible. If your army is camped in 4 different camps, all made in the same pattern, all with the same kind of tents and so on, it is very hard to recognize one camp from the other.
Can you Bluff a scyer? Put up an illusion or something so they think you're in one place when you're really in another? What would the effect of this be on teleportation attempts?
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32
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New guy here, so this is possibly not something new to this discussion.
The level of changes to the tactics that nations use to defend and attack in fantasy settings only changes with the level of magic available. That much is clear. Low level magic worlds would have armies that function not unlike those before the advent of gun powder weapons on the battle field. The worlds with the highest amount of magic would more than likely work much like our modern military.
While we have things like computers, firearms, armored vehicles, and satellites, magic can either directly replace or be used to create a suitable replacement for modern tech. Why would the world progress the same way we have if it had an abundance of magic? To be honest, the spells available, the magic items listed, and the possibilities written down have only scratched the surface. For one, there are a great deal of possible magic items and spells that would just be useless in the Pathfinder game. For example, an item that shaves someone, or a spoon that stirs pots while they are on the fire. On the other hand there are spells, items, and monsters that probably would be created in this world of magic but won't be seen in print because of how unbalancing they would be.
How about a small flying golem that not only fly high and help you spy on your enemies, but can drop fireballs and lightning bolts on them as well? What about a spell that creates something not unlike a nuclear blast? Who wouldn't consider building a magic item that could act like a computer? And if a magically driven computer could be created, why wouldn't it work better and faster then the one's we have today?
What am I trying to say? Well I am trying to point out that more then likely the military of a very high fantasy world would function not unlike ours. While the nations of the world today have very large standing armies, very few use great numbers of troops in war today. Today, battles are fought with much fewer troops with much more accurate precision. In fact, technology has provided ways to keep men safe while allowing them to take down the enemy.
BUT that is only if magic is so widespread that there would be plenty of spell casters available and if the economics of magic use allows for modern type military. While factories can churn out airplanes and computers, a factory setting won't work with magic items. You need at least one spell caster who has the right crafting skills to craft one magic item. In some cases, two or even three spell casters would be needed for one item. Forming an army that relies on magic would then be foolish, if not expensive. We haven't even considered the level of the casters. Want an army full of golems? You better have at least one town full of mid to high level casters.
Last thought: In some ways warfare would even be a little more advanced than what we see today. Spells can do some really interesting things we simply can't do. Teleportation, reading minds, stoping time, and summoning monsters to back you up instantly are all great examples of that. There are ways to block and prevent those sorts of things though. Most of the methods are already in the game.
So yes, we probably wont use pure medieval tactics with even a little bit of magic. I think warfare would be somewhat like it is in our real world, but with a few twists. Instead of tanks we would have huge golems. Instead of parachuting in troops, they could be teleported, summoned, just dropped from flying mounts with a feather fall spell. Artillery wouldn't just be fireballs thrown by wizards, but also from alchemists working with catapults or archers with magical arrows. Even if we don't think of all the possibilities, at least knowing it would be different is exciting.
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Can you Bluff a scyer? Put up an illusion or something so they think you're in one place when you're really in another? What would the effect of this be on teleportation attempts?Helpful tricks to reduce the chances of a successful teleport (note that mundane spying will greatly help the spellcaster against this kind of defence, so the rogue become valuable):
1) don't camp near recognizable landmark.
2) make your camps as uniform as possible. If your army is camped in 4 different camps, all made in the same pattern, all with the same kind of tents and so on, it is very hard to recognize one camp from the other.
It is fairly complicated to evaluate as there is a dichotomy between what Scrying spell do (targeting a individual) and what most illusion do (changing the aspect of an area or person).
Even a really powerful spell like Screen cover an area, not a person.So, as I see it, if you have meet someone under a disguise or a illusion, spying him with a scry spell would be very hard. If you know him in his true form, redirecting the scry spell so that it locate some other guy under an illusion that make it similar to the first individual would require some higher level version of Misdirection.
AFAIK there aren't spells that allow you to scry a location, you always need to target a creature or use some creature eyes to look an area.
As a GM I would allow the development of spell meant to redirect a scry spell, with different levels of efficacy depending on the spell level and the similarity between the new target and the protected creature.
(redirecting to your simularon will work better than redirecting the scry attempt to toward Jim the guard)
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About the scrying tactic. - That's what scouts are for Diego. Send your stealthiest man into the enemies encampment and scry on him or her. You can hear your scrying target, so have the scout relay information about location to you as you watch him scout. This can be linked to a map already drawn.
This tactic also links in beautifully with the concept of dictating the battleground. If you can maneuvre the enemy to known areas, when you scout and scry, it's easier to pinpoint their camp and drop the cloudkills.
Cloudkill and its like are effectively world war 1 gas warfare, and I reckon armies would have some form of defense against it, even as simple as a bugle call to scatter when the first one goes up. Maybe something as elaborate as ranking officers having elemental crystals that summon air elementals to disperse it (getting expensive, but then war isn't a cheap option)
Also, as already established, armies working in a level of magic like this are going to have a huge footprint across the land, even where they bivouac. This is to minimise things like AoE spells. Really, the more one considers how magic works, the less like a medieval situation warfare is going to look.
Once again, I urge folk to read the Eberon books from the 3.5 days. They are loaded with things developed during the course of a war that lasted over 100 years. The most relevent of course is the book titled Forge of War. It even has sections detailing how the spells and crafted items developed throughout the war, purely as a consequence of the war (rise of the warforged, eternal wands, specific items that made potion use easier, the use of undead in frontline warfare, elementals bound to machinary to create flying fortress ships).
The battles in these books took place between armies in the 10 to 20 thousand mark, and according to the breakdown of units, had sergents and captains with ranks in all sorts of classes. Ranked charcters ranged from 3 through to 7, but the average soldier were just warriors. Remembering this is a high magic world though, with some very steampunk influences on it, so again campaign dictates the nature of the war.
Cheers
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We all wish it was this easy. But as we all know, the other army has Leveled character too. Chances are that they are there specifically to stop things like that. Really, I would be more interested in the plan for stopping Cloudkill raids.
Teleport in at night while the army is on the march, cloudkill, cloudkill, cloudkill, port out. Unless you pop in right next to a high level character, the 2-3 sentries you run into won't be dangerous.
Sometimes it may be that easy. In Golarian rich and powerful nations exist with weaker and poorer ones. Same with most any fantasy setting. One nation may have more or stronger leveled characters. In real life we have examples like USA vs Grenada & Panama. Iraq vs Kuwait. The list goes on.
For every war where the participants are relatively even [Start of WW I, Iraq vs Iran] there are many wars (if you can call them that) where one participant is much stronger [China vs Tibet, German vs Poland, Germany vs France].
The only 'game changers' for medieval tactics are those which cannot be countermeasured effectively.
Fireballs et al can be easily defended against by packed units using 1st level wizards with a fireball wand.
A few issues and possible frameworks of engagement;
1. Blast AOE Magic - counterspell equipment (fireball wand vs fireball wand)
2. Summoned Creatures - 'rear rank' hit squads who practice going into formations to kill those summoned inside such groups
3. Fortifications - think star fortresses like those developed to resist early era canon. Layer the walls with different materials (stone facing, wood, earth, stone, wood, earth etc.) and put packed earth behind in a big ramp to make passwall etc really hard work and destructive spells have to do collossal damage to get through
4. Flying - late medieval/early rennaisance (as per standard) - have a Leonardo Davinci/Archimedes type person (Expert/Alchemist) come up with swivel mounted barbed net throwers (Sky Claws....), autoloading scorpions, arbalests etc. make the sky a dangerous place to be - you don't need magic for that. Hell you can even train a quick reaction force of 1st level wizard/archers and give them wands of magic missiles. Not an expensive way to knock anything out of the sky when a unit of them fires in unison! When the target gets low all those suddenyl fired arrows with +20 to hit are pretty devastating too - imagine ths dragon's surprise as it loses half its hit points in one round from a single volley by a bunch of jumped up second level soldiers....
5. Battlefield Control Spells - wands of dispel magic given to mid rank fighter/wizard (1st level) specialists (Arcane Armigers?) or Myrmidarchs who get stationed as adjudants to units to deal with their dispelling needs.
Basically you layer counterspell and dispel capability throughout your army and build/equip fortifications sensibly the advantanges of magic dovetail with existing tactics (tight infantry formations, cavalry charges, flanking skirmishers) - they don't replace them.
Ok, so instead of scry/teleport you "study the area carefully" in the form of an invisible eagle/air elemental/send your familiar (not hard to accomplish) and then use teleport or DDoor or simply fly high over head invisibly and lower yourself until you're within the limits of the coloudkill spell, but not see invisiblity. 65 feet should cover that, but I'd have to check.
Edit: Point being that there are multiple ways to accomplish the same basic task.
Ok, so instead of scry/teleport you "study the area carefully" in the form of an invisible eagle/air elemental/send your familiar (not hard to accomplish) and then use teleport or DDoor or simply fly high over head invisibly and lower yourself until you're within the limits of the coloudkill spell, but not see invisiblity. 65 feet should cover that, but I'd have to check.
Edit: Point being that there are multiple ways to accomplish the same basic task.
This is of course assuming that the same thing is not being done to your army.
Or that spells of a certain level have not been made illegal in warfare by international law.
Or that the people in question are not immune to poison from the start. That's a big one. Makes a case for the conflict in eberron with warforged and undead.
Ok, so instead of scry/teleport you "study the area carefully" in the form of an invisible eagle/air elemental/send your familiar (not hard to accomplish) and then use teleport or DDoor or simply fly high over head invisibly and lower yourself until you're within the limits of the coloudkill spell, but not see invisiblity. 65 feet should cover that, but I'd have to check.
Edit: Point being that there are multiple ways to accomplish the same basic task.
This is of course assuming that the same thing is not being done to your army.
Or that spells of a certain level have not been made illegal in warfare by international law.
Or that the people in question are not immune to poison from the start. That's a big one. Makes a case for the conflict in eberron with warforged and undead.
This is of course assuming that the same thing is not being done to your army.
Generally speaking I would assume the same thing is being done to your army. Let the paranoia begin!!!
Or that spells of a certain level have not been made illegal in warfare by international law
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That only works if both sides have "big guns" (i.e. High level casters). Otherwise the one with the high level caster is just going to squish the other.Or that the people in question are not immune to poison from the start. That's a big one. Makes a case for the conflict in eberron with warforged and undead.
Naturally.
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AFAIK it is not possible to counterspell a spell with a wand of the same type.
To complete the action, you must then cast an appropriate spell. As a general rule, a spell can only counter itself. If you are able to cast the same spell and you have it prepared (or have a slot of the appropriate level available), you cast it, creating a counterspell effect. If the target is within range, both spells automatically negate each other with no other results.
Doing it with a wand of dispel magic would work.
The other suggestion Caliburn101 made are all fully functional.
Several of them have possible counters but that is the nature of the game.
Scry on a familiar/spy/ecc. all work and all require that you get the right creature in place near the enemy army, so the usual spy game.
About cloudkill:
"Effect cloud spreads in 20-ft. radius, 20 ft. high
This spell generates a bank of fog, similar to a fog cloud, except that its vapors are yellowish green and poisonous.
Unlike a fog cloud, the cloudkill moves away from you at 10 feet per round, rolling along the surface of the ground.
Figure out the cloud's new spread each round based on its new point of origin, which is 10 feet farther away from the point of origin where you cast the spell."
You keep guard with a bulge ready. If they see the cloud (and it is easily recognizable) they call the alarm. You can be sure that your soldiers will be really fast in moving away from the cloud after the first time they have seen the effects of the spell (and you can have spellcasters show it on a few pig or cows during boot camp).
So with luck you can get a few tents in a row for each casting while risking your high level spellcasters.
The spells you want are those with a very large area of effect.
Can you Bluff a scyer? Put up an illusion or something so they think you're in one place when you're really in another? What would the effect of this be on teleportation attempts?Helpful tricks to reduce the chances of a successful teleport (note that mundane spying will greatly help the spellcaster against this kind of defence, so the rogue become valuable):
1) don't camp near recognizable landmark.
2) make your camps as uniform as possible. If your army is camped in 4 different camps, all made in the same pattern, all with the same kind of tents and so on, it is very hard to recognize one camp from the other.
Anyone can spot the sensor so yeah bluffing a scryer would be possible all it shows is the person and 10 feet around him and even then it doesn't allow for the projection of magical senses either, so you have to be really trusting to simply teleport in off of a scry spell. Greater Scrying helps with this some... but again isn't fool proof (and is much higher level). This is of course baring building a thin sheet of lead into every wall and using lead crystal windows (if you have them).
As to the cloudkill the following can be made permanent:
Symbol of healing
Symbol of mirroring
Mage's Private Sanctum
Teleport trap
Gust of wind
Now granted that would be some work... but for a defender in a set environment it's going to be well worth it.
Also as to the scouts and spying... well I've already mentioned it's one good reason for limited access in the more important buildings like they do in video games.
Dotting. I'm working on a custom campaign world and am having a lot of trouble setting up a stable geopolitical situation with the kind of resources available in a high magic campaign. One thing I've considered is treating high level magic as nukes and having a sort of magical 'cold war', with nobody willing to use large-scale magic offensively due to the threat of reprisal.
I'm also replacing a lot of the more problematic spells (like teleport) with incantations.
Dotting. I'm working on a custom campaign world and am having a lot of trouble setting up a stable geopolitical situation with the kind of resources available in a high magic campaign. One thing I've considered is treating high level magic as nukes and having a sort of magical 'cold war', with nobody willing to use large-scale magic offensively due to the threat of reprisal.
I'm also replacing a lot of the more problematic spells (like teleport) with incantations.
I do like the idea of incantations. It reminds me of the buffy series.
One thing I've considered is treating high level magic as nukes and having a sort of magical 'cold war', with nobody willing to use large-scale magic offensively due to the threat of reprisal.
At least with nukes we (U.S.) knew what we were up against, and the devastation the lay ahead, thus they were a deterrent.
In a fantasy setting you must worry about ethereal invasions, burrowing monsters, summoned monsters, gated demon armies, teleportation etc, I think you're right Ioiprevisto but for a different reason...it's not fear of a nuclear response, but fear of an unknown response of unknown godly or arcane power that might be the deterrent. Thus a defensive army must flexibility to defend against anything and everything deseigned into it.
Wheras an offensive army will need to know what it's up against.
With that in mind, there will likely be more cloak and dagger stuff; spying, intel gathering, political maneauvering, back-stabbing, assassination and sabotage...IMHO. AND, there will be more factions, think Lebanon in the 80's, but with more groups and temporary alliances of convenience.
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Dotting. I'm working on a custom campaign world and am having a lot of trouble setting up a stable geopolitical situation with the kind of resources available in a high magic campaign. One thing I've considered is treating high level magic as nukes and having a sort of magical 'cold war', with nobody willing to use large-scale magic offensively due to the threat of reprisal.
I'm also replacing a lot of the more problematic spells (like teleport) with incantations.
You can use incantation or you can just make defense easier. Make forbiddance cost very little in material components and you could see whole cities with it. To get in you have to buy a special token. Small changes to defensive spells can make a lot of the more troublesome spells...less so.
How long would it take for a single high level caster to bind enough outsiders to Steamroll a Citystate? Im sure its eventually possible, if prohibitively expensive. But once a nation has such a caster, then they will probably be adding some extraplanar muscle to the ranks.
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How long would it take for a single high level caster to bind enough outsiders to Steamroll a Citystate? Im sure its eventually possible, if prohibitively expensive. But once a nation has such a caster, then they will probably be adding some extraplanar muscle to the ranks.
I mentioned this before but rich nation vs poor nation almost always ends badly for the poor nation. There are exceptions: Vietnam, Afghnaistan. But they rely on terrain and dispersed units. In this case we are talking about siege warfare.
So let us talk about rich vs rich, in fact both nations have equal resources. Anything one nation can buy so can the other.
In this scenario there are counters to extra planar creatures: spells that keep them out or send them back home. A defending nation could also have its own set of outsiders to defend. Maybe one has devils and the other has also devils or angels.
Really the trick to this whole scenario is to find one thing that one group can bring to the party that the other one cannot. Forbiddance is one such thing but requires a good vs evil dynamic.
The more I think about it, the more I realise that standard troops just would not cut it. I like the idea of the Testudo formation, but they would still be vulnerable to Fear, Summon swarm, Summon Monster III (or II), as well as a host of lower level spells that could be cast on individuals. (e.g. Lesser Confusion, Command, Magic Missile, etc.). Even Dipel magic would not be able to help against these, and you can't possibly counterspell them all. Only a Rod of Absorption would protect you from most magical threats, and at 50,000gp they would not be cost effective.
The only answer seems to be to spread out, use natural cover as much as possible, don't bunch up so that AoE Spells don't take out too many of you and shoot the enemy with ranged weapons. In short, skirmish order. This is bad news for those hoping to lead a glorious charge against the enemy, or recreate the glories of the Roman Empire. I can see no way of effectively protecting the archetypal knights band or even the Testudo. Even inspire courage only grants a +1 against fear effects, while the paladins aura of courage only kicks in at 3rd level.
This two year old thread was resurrected because.... ?
Interestingly, I think a lot of this discussion is resolved at least somewhat due to Ultimate Campaign...
It should come as no surprise that I have come to approach this sort of thing in the exact opposite direction: I start with what I want D&D warfare to look like, and then tweak the game rules to give me that result.
Item: I want the landscape to be dotted with castles and dungeons.
Therefore, stone structures need some important purpose. The various abilities to easily demolish them are too many and too ingrained to remove outright; therefore, stone walls are not meant primarily for physical defense.
Solution: Add a rule that X feet of stone and/or Y feet of earth block teleportation and scrying effects. Tailor X and Y based on actual castle wall thicknesses.
Item: I want heroic fighters, capable of slaughtering any number of recruits, to be on the battlefield leading armies.
Solution: Grant Leadership as a class feature to fighters of X level, and provide specific bonuses to troops being personally led by them.
Item: I want some heroic guys to be mounted on griffins, because that's cool.
Solution: Allow a magical beast companion as a fighter talent or archetype. Make sure magical flight and flying monsters are retained, to explain why fighters need flying mounts.
However: I don't want a few guys with brooms of flying and wands of fireball to dominate the battlefield.
Solution: Alter Fly skill so that a troop of 1st level archers has a good chance to shoot down a guy on a magic broom.
(Etc.)
I know I'm necroing an old thread, but I couldn't resist responding; Most mediaeval castles were in fact wooden. We tend to think of them as stone because those are the ones that have survived best after nearly 1000 years; while they were there to be used as strongholds in the event of war or other troubles, they were primarily administration centres for the demesnes and living quarters for the local noble (How many of you would fancy living in a bunker? even Soldiers live in a Barracks and are only in a bunker when on duty). If that is so, even with all the ways to magically destroy them in war, they would still be around (and when all is said and done, the are good enough for dealing with bandits and for most wars).
That said, Pathfinder (and other RPG's) are narrative-based enterprises, so if the narrative demands castles, there will be castles, if it demands heroic fighters, there will be heroic fighters, if it demands heroes on griffons, there will be heroes on griffons, etc.
The thread has been useful in working out what works at low levels according to the game system, but starts to come undone once you get beyond 2nd or 3rd level spells and higher level characters. maybe one day I'll start a thread about high level wars.