Use magic jar and get the army to destroy itself.^^^THIS!!!
Magic Jar is an army breaking spell if used cleverly. It lasts for hours, can be used to repeatedly assault & supplant the souls of enemies with little way for them to defend themselves or retaliate against it. Although it could be used to some extent in the heat of battle to sow confusion and chaos amongst the ranks, it works best against entrenched armies at rest. Simply hide your body in a safe place, cast the spell at dusk and entrust the gem to your tiny, stealthy familiar. The familiar then sneaks through the encamped army under cover of darkness; surreptitiously bringing the gem within range (though not necessarily within line-of-sight) of slumbering soldiers. Possess one, quietly commit suicide, rinse and repeat. The few soldiers who succeed on the saving throw are hard-pressed to identify the source of the attack and can be assaulted repeatedly until they fail their saving throw. Since the spell lasts for hours this tactic can be attempted every few rounds for an entire evening. Come morning the bulk of the army lies dead or is fleeing for the lives.
This spell is almost biblical in scope; it turns you into an invisible and nigh unstoppable angel of death drifting through enemy ranks, reaping souls as you pass by unseen. I tried this tactic once to break an army of giants in the Rise of the Runelords AP which our party would have been hard-pressed to assault conventionally in the light of day.
Anyone passing a save against magic jar automatically succeeds at all future saves against your spell.
Without special feats, magic jar also possesses people more or less randomly, so assassinating key people via possession-suicide is right out. (Though you could possess someone else, then attempt to sabotage the enemy or assassinate one of their ranking officials in the traditional sense; then try, try again if you fail.)
Only saves against that casting, and even if they do save, theres more than enough others around to let you completely screw with them. Especially if your speced out to cast no matter what body you end up in, this spell is an insanely powerful way to take down an army. i've used it to selectively assissinate leaders, sow confusion, or even just start groups to attacking each other. So much fun!
Me too! It is!
Anyone passing a save against magic jar automatically succeeds at all future saves against your spell.
Quite right; my mistake. Still, I would expect only a small fraction of an army's rank-and-file soldiers to succeed on the initial save. You'd have try and get the survivor on a second go around later with a follow up casting of the spell.
Without special feats, magic jar also possesses people more or less randomly, so assassinating key people via possession-suicide is right out. (Though you could possess someone else, then attempt to sabotage the enemy or assassinate one of their ranking officials in the traditional sense; then try, try again if you fail.)
The spell does allow you to differentiate between targets with 4 or more levels difference between them. Also, your familiar should be sufficiently intelligent by the time you're casting Magic Jar to identify leader-types and bring your soul gem within range of them. That should be sufficient to target the leaders if that's your goal. If you succeed in possessing the leader(s), then you can outiright usurp control of the army; which might be worthwhile for awhile depending on your short term goals. But if you're aiming to outright break the army then you're probably better off skirting around the leaders (who are more likely to make their saves, figure out what's happening and take steps to stop you) and simply target the rank-and-file soldiers; they're the real backbone of the army after all and relatively vulnerable one-on-one.
this spell is an insanely powerful way to take down an army.
Yup. I find it amusing when GMs specify "core material only" for their campaigns. Truth is that the craziest make-the-DM cry sort of stuff can be found in the Core rules. :)
Result: Likely a new queen, whom all will love and despair and who will eventually face a band of plucky adventurers who grew up on the impoverished streets of her poorly managed kingdom. It's the Pathfinder circle of life!And here we see Gevaudan winning the thread. Well done.
Well, that is the nicest compliment I've gotten on the boards. Thanks!
As for Magic Jar, don't you guy's feel like it's a rather risky spell in that there are methods to block it at low level (Protection from Evil/whatever you are), your body is somewhere helpless and you die if any of the components are outside of the range of any of the other components when you transition?
One Demon grabbing the gem and porting before you can shift back to it and you are dead meat in someone else's body.
Hi!
In 3.5, my druid took out an army of giants and ogres and orcs and goblns by wildshaping into a bird, flying overhead, and raining down call lightning and flame strikes. I was probably 8th to 10th level. It was so easy, I didn't even get any XP!
In 5th Ed, we're doing RotRL, and at 6th level, we took on an army of 30+ ogres. But the terrain helped.
But magic against mooks is VERY effective!
:-D