While DnD is all about heroes fighting monsters with magic, some other uses of this system are possible and sometimes explored, such as having a caravan (in Jade Regent) or managing a keep and a village. I'm looking for some ideas for a twist on an evil campaign.
Two kingdoms are at war. The PCs are members of a Special Task Group in Dweomer's Division. Starting level is at least 5, but could be up to 11 and not all of PCs have to be equal level. No Paladins are allowed (they have other tasks in the army) and PC's alignment should be neutral or evil (it takes a "special" kind of mind to do this kind of job). Casters are the most viable classes, but not exclusively available to PCs. Optimization is allowed, but no crazy combos with cherry-picking several prestige classes and obscure feats.
Standard rules about scaling encounter levels and rewards and level-appropriate wealth do not apply. The PCs are free to seek easy encounters, or try to bite more than they can chew. Sometimes they may make a mistake by striking at silent images or stumbling upon something more powerful than they expected, such as a Dragon in disguise in an otherwise weak hamlet or something of the sort. Captured PCs will generally face execution and possibly even trapping the soul. They all have a single resurrection for free (by having a dormant clone in the capital, forgot the spell name) and may pay for another once they die. I also think that Dragons should get seriously involved at some point.
The group is teleported into enemy territory, but can magically contact their commanding officer to report their progress and get orders, intel and requisitions. It also gives them an option to try to delegate a task to another STG. Their requisition budget grows for completing objectives and independently of their plunder, as well as for filling portable holes with captured supplies and sending to their commanding officer. This makes shopping rules sort of apply (subject to bureaucracy and availability) and item creation feats rather impractical. On the other hand, the metamagic feats to increase the spread, duration and range of spells are useful.
PCs are given a lot of freedom in how to pursue their goals. Their agenda basically boils down to sniping enemy casters and nobles and destroying the economy. The goal being that after their kingdom wins the war, it can sell goods to and "help" rebuild it's neighbour for a price. There is no good side in this conflict and they both use similar tactics, but the side the PCs are on is worse. If you are familiar with the Witcher setting, this is remotely similar to playing as a group of Nilfgaard's 5th column or the group of Witchers who assassinated kings.
Part of the goal of this campaign is to make war in a fantasy world look even more horrible than it is in ours. Plus there are bound to be some implications of success, such as the cleanup later or invasion by a third kingdom while they're still rebuilding. While there will be no formal prosecution for the winners, the war will result in general resentment towards casters in both kingdoms.
My question is, do you have ideas how to do it within the system of Pathfinder? Some of those ideas would of course be applicable to villains in any normal campaigns, but the basic question is this: "How to be utter jerks to NPCs?" The point is not so much to kill as many of them as possible as to demoralise, weaken, confuse and take away their ability to fight a war, so the army has an easier victory.
If you have some ideas about good spell combos, such as a dazing wall of fire or reverse gravity into a prismatic wall or wall of stone around a cloudkill or just general suggestions on how to ruin someone's day in DnD, post them as well. This could make an interesting field manual or a stand-in for the contents of book of vile darkness.
If you have any thoughts, how a war in DnD would look like, share them. The way I see it, it would usually end in the side with more and more powerful casters and assassins winning.
My ideas so far:
1) Scry, buff, fry is an all-time favourite. Bonus points for staying above ground and invisible while using summoned creatures to wreak havoc. Enemy should be able to counter most of this by teleporting his own casters, so make the hits and runs brief, numerous and spread randomly among different targets.
1a) Scry and fry enemy fleet. Wood is vulnerable to fire, so one small fire elemental per ship should do the trick. The only reliable defence would be magic items or casters with cold spells or water elementals and forcing the enemy to use such resources to defend supply ships is a small victory in itself.
1b) Scry and fry enemy army and supply lines. While those are likely to be heavily defended by enemy casters and archers, this is enough to make the enemy paranoid and destroy morale. Just invisibly poisoning food and drink for enemy army is worth a try, but the enemy has means to detect poison and disease and purify food and drink, so it won't be too effective.
2) Create undead. Just spamming zombies is OK, but it is much better to create either undead who can spread the curse (such as ghouls and incorporeals who can drain levels) or true horrors, like zombie versions of 10HD+ monsters. Direct them to population centres at night, then set them free to make room to control more. This will probably at least double the price of black Opal, but oh well.
3) Target civilians and food production as well as craftsmen.
3a) Poison wells - standard Pathfinder rules and poison prices make this ridiculously hard, but if the Romans could do it, I'd argue that so should the PCs. Bonus points for using a disease instead, especially one that creates undead. I think the cost of around 1000gp per well would be OK.
3b) Ditto for granaries and other food storages.
3b) Blight / Dimininsh Plants / release magically augmented pests or just burn their crops or even control weather and make it hail and really cold before harvest. Preferably do it at night, so people aren't alerted as fast.
3c) Collapse mines, preferably with miners still inside. Return later to kill the rescue expedition and animate them as undead.
3d) Target master craftsmen, artificers and casters with item creation feats, to deprive the enemy of the best equipment. Capturing them would be even better.
3e) Target nobles and bureaucracy to create anarchy.
3f) Set fire to warehouses and otherwise destroy what they can't steal.
3g) Destroy bridges and roads at chokepoints. Also ferries and boats.
3h) Target fishing boats to starve the enemy even more.
3i) Control weather to make it warm and dry, then set enemy forests on fire, especially around sawmills.
4) Planar bind evil outsiders to do as they please within the borders of the enemy kingdom.
5) Make contact with dissenting and criminal elements among the enemy and use them for even more anarchy. Spread dissident ideas among peasantry, especially one that the nobles are to blame for their suffering and this stupid war to encourage an uprisings. Nobles might turn their cloaks for a "guarantee", they will keep their land and even get some from their more loyal neighbours once their home country looses the war. Criminals can be easily lured by profit. This is a viable strategy if the group has a Diplomancer.
6) Disturb monster lairs, bribe intelligent monsters and monstrous humanoids into raiding and grabbing what they can from the enemy. Release animalistic monsters to roam the countryside. If the enemy breeds some magical beasts for profit and war, such as landsharks, wyverns, owlbears and similar, try to set them free. Spread seeds of assassin vines in gardens and fields.
7) Taking down enemy casters or even whole STGs is difficult, but very desirable and worth a lot of spoils and requisition.
8) Forge (or requisition) appropriate documents, then disguise as citizens of the enemy kingdom and move close to the front lines. Then backstab city gates garrison during a siege. Spark rebellions with rumours that a city won't be razed if it surrenders, but it's rulers insist on fighting to the bitter end (regardless if it is true or not, this would make a lot of people question the authority). Make sure enemy army isn't on time where it should be, forward enemy orders to the commanding officer, while replacing them with fakes and so on.
8) Use wands of silent image to mislead enemy into believing, there is an army in some empty field. Bonus points for requisitioning a few Rangers and Casters in the group to make it look more believable, but tell them to depart at the first sign of serious trouble.
9) If the players want to be heroes instead, well, they can certainly do some counter-espionage as well as act as "firemen" and teleport to counter enemy scry and fry.
