I made my own thread regarding this topic a while back. might help to check it out.
Storm of vengeance Druid/ cleric/witch/ shaman 9 from the core rule book might do the trick.
Etheric Shards
Alot actually.
Horrid Wilting has a 60foot radius.
Fire storm can make up to 40, 10 foot cubes.
Meteor Swarm has 4, 40foot radius blasts.
Cursed Earth allows several choices of possibly lethal plagues in a one mile radius.
Control Winds that was already mentioned is medium level. It takes quite a while to get to lethal levels.
Low level ones are a problem as that would be "unfair". Fireball has a 20 foot radius.
a squad of Arcane Archers shootin' fireballs and giant patches of greater black tentacles just has that amazing flavor. Or a tsunami.
Cursed Earth is pretty cool if you catch the enemy's fortification. Slimy doom and zombies... mmm....
Honestly, very few things can beat a simple Wish or Miracle. Demand a natural disaster, a volcano, a massive earthquake, a full-fledged F5 tornado, instead of using a spell that emulates one.
Gate to a hazardous plane, right over the army. Drown the army in murky ocean, or molten magma. a 20-foot wide hole can empty a looooot of water.
Simulacram a giant monster for yourself. Dragons and tarrasques.
Favorite method, given planning, would probably be the symbols of insanity.
Best pathfinder spells have already been mentioned so
3.5 Spell
Apocalypse from the Sky :)
Good times
Wish'll do ya just right.
Quickened Pit Spells. Make it hard or impossible for the enemy army to maneuver anywhere.
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As a side note: Kineticists, while being 'average' to 'fairly good' in normal adventuring (a few small scale, intense battles in a day), they are AMAZING for sustained, direct battles against armies when they get high level.
Kineticists are highly effective at spamming AoE spells that can easily wipe out the 'quantity over quality' nature of soldiers. Also, with ride the blast, they can be the fastest thing around all day long (480' movement in a round, plus more with regular move actions), which can allow them to withdraw miles away before you can even make an order to pursue.
Earth users are particularly deadly. Their DR is highly effective against bows (which are just about the only thing that you could hope to use effectively on something moving around that fast). Their AoEs are good for area denial (because they can make a multiround AoE with deadly earth... that also grapples anyone that enters, making sure that you can't just run through). If they are ever in actual trouble, they can earthglide down to escape. Heck, even their summoning power is better for this (since they can earthglide, summon, and send earth elemental after earth elemental to assassinate general until they can get a mage over to deal with you).
I just like bringing this up since I like the flavor of it. With a kineticist villain, you can make it so they could actually be the individual scourge wiping out the kingdom's army, personnally wiping out the troops directly (Rather than the 'summon natural disaster' spells you tend to see in this thread). And adventurers actually would be a plausible solution (well, assassins that can sneak in and force a direct confrontation in the guy's lair; as stated, adventurers are great at small scale intense fights, and kinticists are only 'good' at it).
Nah...a bard with Glibness is truly a scary thing...whisper just the right thing in their ear and they'll destroy each other. :)
Mesmerist. Literally better for this role in every possible way. I absolutely love their spell list, if you have not seen it I highly recommend it.
Depends on the base wind level. There are 7 wind strengths: Light, Moderate, Strong, Severe, Windstorm, Hurricane, and Tornado. To get a tornado from light winds, you'll need CL 20 - probably 20th level casting and a CL booster.
15th level druid, using Control winds (a 5th level spell) (possibly with a rod of maximize spell or incense of meditation).Note, that's a 600' radius tornado at that point. (or a diameter roughly the length of 4 football fields)
Give it an updraft, and anyone that does get ejected, gets sucked right back in.
Won't be much of an army left after that, typically.
Except not.
It's 3 caster levels per wind strength.If you start at light wind (less than 10 mph), you need to be CL 18 or more to make a tornado.
If you start at moderate wind (less than 20 mph), you need to be CL 15 or more to make a tornado.
And moderate wind is not that rare. You can even probably trigger such wind with other spells (such as Control Weather).
While it does not do damage and is a druid spell Entangle will devastate an army. A Widened Entangle is covers even more area and will probably shut down almost any army. Simply cast entangle and have your own archers play shoot the fish in a barrel.
Fireball, Nuclear Winter
•Spells are memmorized or prayed for in advance and use verbal, material, and somatic components. All of your favorite spells are present, as well as a few of the less-serious ones mentioned in the KODT comic, such as the various (and numerous) Fireball spells: the Skipping Betty, the Lava Yield, the Proximity Fused, the Show-No-Mercy, and others. The spell descriptions note that the "Fireball, Nuclear Winter" has been "rescinded for 4th edition."
The spell has a 2 mile blast radius.
Elemental Purist Kineticist 20 gets you a 360ft. radius of minion-death from a mile away. Twin that, and you're pretty much done. It's a once-per-day deal, but it's pretty persuasive.
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The #1 anti-army spell?
Glibness. (Combined with Clarion Call & maybe Dragonvoice so that they can all hear you.)
"The man on your left is really a doppleganger in disguise who is planning to kill you in a few minutes! The only way to save yourself is to kill them first."
If you already have max ranks in bluff, the Glibness will cancel out the -20 penalty for it being an outlandish lie, and the army will instantly tear itself apart.
Done.
A set of permanency-ed Symbol of Insanity on your town walls.
Sympathy into permanency-ed Symbol of Insanity works as well.
These are awful options, they'll be dispelled from outside their effective range. Symbols only work as hidden traps that you can't see or effect until you're already within their 60' effective range.
Elemental Purist Kineticist 20 gets you a 360ft. radius of minion-death from a mile away. Twin that, and you're pretty much done. It's a once-per-day deal, but it's pretty persuasive.
Once per day... and then you run away with ride the blast and just wait to do it again tomorrow.
In the ages where movement was based on hoof, boot, and sail... you can get to repeat this quite a few times before the enemy gets anywhere. And that is ignoring the normal AoE blasts you can fire off to shave off their numbers.
Generally speaking, kineticists are just fantastic artillery. Most magic users tend to only nuke (one big, disasterous effect) with the occasional chemical attack and such. Kineticists can give a pounding over and over to apply continuous pressure.
With a two mile radius and up to a 2 day duration, Control Weather can cripple or destroy most armies.
Anything from a suffocating heat wave (lethal to an army marching in armor) to tornadoes, blizzards, and hurricanes.
Control Weather has a duration line, so it's subject to Dispel Magic. And you get 10 minutes of it manifesting to notice and do something about it before the effects kick in.
A 2 day duration isn't relevant, how fast you can march out/across it is the limiting factor. Worst case you have to march right across the maximum length, which is 6 miles if a Druid casts it. That takes about an hour and a half. Better case you march around it, dispel it, or take a shortcut that lessens how far you have to go.
Only tornados or hurricanes are really a theoretical problem, you can easily march 6 miles through a blizzard or heat wave in heavy armor.
(All weather effects and marching speeds based on real world army experience, I don't know what the Pathfinder rules are for weather inflicted nonlethal damage and probably slightly slower marching speed if they expand on the 30'x2 move action per round.)
Control Weather has a duration line, so it's subject to Dispel Magic. And you get 10 minutes of it manifesting to notice and do something about it before the effects kick ing.
A 2 day duration isn't relevant, how fast you can march out/across it is the limiting factor. Worst case you have to march right across the maximum length, which is 6 miles if a Druid casts it. That takes about an hour and a half. Better case you march around it, dispel it, or take a shortcut that lessens how far you have to go.
Only tornados or hurricanes are really a theoretical problem, you can easily march 6 miles through a blizzard or heat wave in heavy armor.
(All weather effects and marching speeds based on real world army experience, I don't know what the Pathfinder rules are for weather inflicted nonlethal damage and probably slightly slower marching speed if they expand on the 30'x2 move action per round.)
How fast do your think an army is going to march through a blizzard, hurricane or tornado?
They are not. Even hunkered down and stationary an army will be torn apart. On the move? You'll kill more soldiers than make it out.
As for 10 minute casting time? Sure, if you can find the invisible caster floating a half mile up somewhere within a 4 mile radius you might be able to stop him. Doubt See Invisible, Blightsight, or any other standard means of seeing through invisibility will help. Their range is far too limited to be useful on that scale.
For reference, refer to the weather rules.
Hurricanes blow away people, tornadoes deal 6d6/round (with a 4-48 hour duration), blizzards combine up to 3' of snow with extreme winds and extreme cold.
I'm not talking about the 10 minute casting time.
It takes 10 minutes to cast the spell and an additional 10 minutes for the effects to manifest.
"Wow, the weather sure is starting to act weird. [Makes Knowledge Arcana check.] Oh, Control Weather! Well, call up that sorcerer with all his unused Dispel Magic slots, I'm sure he can get a success before the effects kick in."
As far as weather effects, I guess it's a good thing that so many traditional real world campaigns happen in the Summer and Autumn when the really nasty stuff isn't available. But you're going to dispel it anyway.
Great spell if the enemy has no minimally competent magical support, though.
I'm not talking about the 10 minute casting time.It takes 10 minutes to cast the spell and an additional 10 minutes for the effects to manifest."Wow, the weather sure is starting to act weird. [Makes Knowledge Arcana check.] Oh, Control Weather! Well, call up that sorcerer with all his unused Dispel Magic slots, I'm sure he can get a success before the effects kick in."
As far as weather effects, I guess it's a good thing that so many traditional real world campaigns happen in the Summer and Autumn when the really nasty stuff isn't available. But you're going to dispel it anyway.
Great spell if the enemy has no minimally competent magical support, though.
1. As a counterspell you must target the caster. (The invisible guy somewhere within a 4 mile sphere)
2. Once cast, Dispel Magic is not automatic. Chances are based on difference in caster levels.
3. Once cast, anyone attempting to dispel the Control Weather is almost certainly within the area of effect of the spell. Adverse conditions require Concentration checks, the more adverse, the higher the check. That is separate from the concentration check from sustained damage, e.g. hit by a tornado. The default DC of the concentration check is the DC of the Control Weather spell + the level of the Dispel Magic.
I appreciate that you managed to write something true, on topic, and irrelevant at the same time. Again, you have a tenn minute window between casting and effects manifesting. You target the existing spell energy, you aren't counterspelling during casting. Spell is cast but has no rules effects for ten minutes. Clouds start to gather, the temperature shifts, the wind slowly rises, etc and after 10 minutes of that the full force of the weather hits. That's when you dispel, before there is any effect on your concentration.
Yes, Dispel Magic can fail. That's why I envisioned a sorcere with several slots available and specified minimally competent magical support. Your odds of success after multiple castings are good. And you've got 10 minutes to walk to the edge, that's either 4000' or 6000' (over a mile), limiting the targeting parameters of the caster.
Are we on the move? Spread out our units with a cavalry screen to give warning if you need to concentrate against a larger enemy, then you can't get everyone in the area of effect. Are we about to fight? Advance on the enemy, they can't get just one army. All of this is basic tactics against artillery.
That's a good question. And an army with magical threats but without magical defenses would likely have to adjust tactics, like loose skirmishes formations rather than phalanxes to limit the impact of area and wall spells.
Modern infantry tactics include trying to force your enemy into a dilemma between dropping prone to escape direct fire (especially machine guns) or running to escape from indirect fire. You'd expect similar tactics with respect to concentration against mundane forces or dispersion against scarce magic attacks.
Question that one no one has asked: Is this a mundane army r one where you would a mix of PC classes and Martial and Mundane? Would there be enemy Spellcasters?
I feel like we are assuming there are no counter measures.
I would assume an army would be predominantly made up of low level NPC classes, with a few specialized troops and maybe a small collection of highly regarded decent spell casters close to the command that get sent out as needed. (not high level, necessarily, but enough that they might have some defenses)
if there are spell casters mixed in with the regular troops, assume they are also low level and just provide the occasional minor problem solver (such using create pit vs. an oncoming cavalry charge) or medic service. As in not really worth considering as opposition to the 9th level spells and such that are getting thrown around this thread.
I appreciate that you managed to write something true, on topic, and irrelevant at the same time. Again, you have a tenn minute window between casting and effects manifesting. You target the existing spell energy, you aren't counterspelling during casting. Spell is cast but has no rules effects for ten minutes. Clouds start to gather, the temperature shifts, the wind slowly rises, etc and after 10 minutes of that the full force of the weather hits. That's when you dispel, before there is any effect on your concentration.
How do you know the spell is cast before the effects manifest? It is highly unlikely the caster was seen casting the spell. He was miles away, invisible, and possibly very high up.
Yes, Dispel Magic can fail. That's why I envisioned a sorcere with several slots available and specified minimally competent magical support. Your odds of success after multiple castings are good. And you've got 10 minutes to walk to the edge, that's either 4000' or 6000' (over a mile), limiting the targeting parameters of the caster.
Assuming you know the spell is coming and where the center is. Neither is likely.
2 mile radius = 10,560' from the center to the outer edge.
Once the spell completes you are looking at a minimum DC 23 concentration check, up to upper 30's depending on the caster, without playing any tricks with the rules.
Assuming the Dispel Magic goes off, it is still only a baseline 50% chance of success, assuming equal caster levels. The person with [I]Control Weather, however, has a 100% chance of his next Control Weather spell going off. That's not in the favor of the dispeller.
Are we on the move? Spread out our units with a cavalry screen to give warning if you need to concentrate against a larger enemy, then you can't get everyone in the area of effect. Are we about to fight? Advance on the enemy, they can't get just one army. All of this is basic tactics against artillery.
Dispersing your army so unites are not within four miles of each other is a very unsound strategy. That is what it would take.
How do you know the spell is cast before the effects manifest? It is highly unlikely the caster was seen casting the spell. He was miles away, invisible, and possibly very high up.
I believe the ten minute time between casting and effects manifesting shows weather build up, as I described. It's not stated in the spell description, but it makes sense as a "build up" period and balancing factor to keep druids from sneak attacking cities with this as hurricanes spring up out of nowhere.
So my contention is that (1) you cast the spell over 10 minutes, (2) for the next 10 minutes the weather conditions slowly build (clouds gather, wind starts fitfully gusting, temperatures/rise fall, etc.) and during this period you can identify what is happening with Knowledge (Arcana) and dispel the spell, (3) after those ten minutes the building weather breaks, and you have the spell effects for the duration. You can still dispel as normal during this, albeit with a potential concentration check.
If you disagree with the ability to identify building weather during phase (2) above there's really nothing to discuss. I think it's pretty clearly a necessary implication of how it should work as a practical and balancing matter, though.
If you don't accept option (2), then I suggest it's worth having a level 1 Wizard in a wagon constantly maintain detect magic. Three rounds after the spell is cast he detects a single strong transmutation aura that fills every square that he scanning. He knows it's probably Control Weather, so he tells the real magicians about it and they dispel it in the 97 rounds they have available before it does anything.
Assuming you know the spell is coming and where the center is. Neither is likely.
I covered how you know the spell is coming with phase (2) above. You don't need to know the center, if you cast dispel on any part of the area subject to the spell you are dispelling the entire spell. Same with a wall spell, if you can range any end of a Wall of Fire you dispel the entire thing if you succeed.
Assuming the Dispel Magic goes off, it is still only a baseline 50% chance of success, assuming equal caster levels. The person with [I]Control Weather, however, has a 100% chance of his next Control Weather spell going off. That's not in the favor of the dispeller.
It's a lot easier to spam 3rd and 6th level spells with a standard action than 7th level spells with a 10 minute casting time and 10 minute lag until they do anything useful.
Dispersing your army so unites are not within four miles of each other is a very unsound strategy. That is what it would take.
You don't need to disperse them that much, just ensure that not all parts of your army can be caught in the area, and not all units are the maximum distance from the edge of the area.
With Telepathic Bond for communication and flight for scouting and spotting approaching armies, dividing your army into widely dispersed formations actually gives you really useful maneuver options if you can win the reconnaissance battle. It's what armored forces do today, helicopters/airplanes/drones find the enemy, different fast moving units approach from different angles, using terrain to mask their approach and choose the optimal angle of attack. With proper timing you flank or cut off their retreat with one unit while the other attacks to freeze or destroy them.
Let's directly get back on topic, I'd like to talk about Etheric Shards some more and why it's good.
You get a 10' cube per level, so for a phalanx you can effect up to 4xCL people, or shape it to have stacked cubes in front of an advancing (or behind a retreating) enemy. First, it's invisible and halves movement, so an approaching force doesn't know its there and if they charge they're going to fall short of your lines and lose a turn, great way to protect archers.
Then each 5' square they move through (or fight/defend within without movement) they take 1d8 damage and have to pass a Reflex save for stacking 1 bleed damage. For low level soldiers that's brutal. If they have the heal skill to stop the bleed they have to either flee (Where? you can't see where it ends! Do I advance further and hope it's shorter in front of me, run backwards and risk they thought of that, or what?), which risks stacking it and dying if you run through more affected squares, or stay in the same square and Reflex save to avoid more damage and bleed while you try to stop the existing bleeding. And how many low level soldiers have enough Heal skill to stop the bleeding? Do you have enough Mass Cure Light Wounds to treat them all?
The practical effect of this in a real battle would be mass chaos and disintegration in your ranks unless you trained for this particular spell, in which case your best bet would be to freeze (taking missile/spell fire that triggers a Reflex to avoid all damage) and scream for a Dispel. (Did the dispelling caster see it cast? Did the unit effectively communicate what they want dispelled? If not, he can't target an invisible spell effect he doesn't understand and you're going to need an area Greater Dispel.) As soon as it is dispelled you'd need to withdraw behind a screen of friendlies and try to staunch all the bleeding or your low level guys will be dead within a couple of minutes.
Higher level fighters (4+) can likely charge through and fight somewhat effectively, but they're slowed, hurt, and have a timer ticking down their health, knowing that if they don't quickly and effectively apply healing after they win they're dead anyway.
My preferred shaping if I was using this on a battlefield would be to use it to cut an advancing unit into three parts. Layer it down the middle, with multiple squares in front and behind. Your middle is slowed, your flanks advance independently and unable to support each other without spending some time recombining, allowing them to be mobbed and defeated in detail. The middle part either advances and gets cut to ribbons, or retreats and gets cut to ribbons, or stays in place and slowly bleeds while watching their flanking buddies get surrounded and killed.
Spells in the game are generally not geared to take out an entire countryside at once.
They however can be powerful tools in doing the most deveastating thing you can do to an army... taking out it's leadership. They can enable stealth, and bring down long term damage or assist in useful deception.
I support the effectiveness of Etheric Shards.
Cloudkill, despite the OP's example estimation, could kill a whole army if given the proper terrain. If your enemy needs to get through a mountain pass or a canyon to get to you, they're f%&*ed.
Polar Midnight could be very effective, as well. First of all, it's guaranteed to deal 5d6 Cold damage per round; the save is only for the Dex damage, and soldiers are likely to fail that anyway. They also can't see into the area, so they don't know what exactly is in it and probably won't know what happens to any of their troops that pass into it; there's a good chance they'll assume it's a Deeper Darkness spell and try to sprint through it to avoid combat within it. Combine it with basically any sort of Wall spell and/or position your troops on the opposite side of it and they won't be able to advance toward you and will freeze to death. better yet, put Etheric Shards or Black Tentacles inside Polar Midnight.
Telekinetic Storm has a huge radius with no target limit, though you're required to be in the middle of it. Fly and Greater Invisibility ought to take care of that, though.
For a more elegant solution, Greater Possession on the army's leader will probably stop them pretty nicely.
Earthquake could be devastating in a cave or tunnel.
Reverse Gravity could stop an entire army it its tracks.
Song of Discord or Mass Hunger for Flesh could definitely have a huge effect on troops as suddenly a load of troops right in the middle start lashing out at anyone around them.
An Entended Magnifying Chime could really ruin an army's day, too. Bonus points if you can pull off a Widened version on top of that. Other metamagic to increase the damage directly could also work. You could cast it on the head of a Flight Arrow or something and get someone to shoot it into the middle of the enemy forces to wreak havoc.
This might do it if you're lucky: Summon the Godspawn
Re: Control Weather, if you're playing a witch it's a supernatural power - thus cannot be dispelled.
Good catch on the Witch. The 1 hour casting time is really inconvenient, though. You can't take a move action while casting 1 round+ casting time spells, so you'd better pick the right place to hover where you think the army will be in an hour. You also are going to have a hard time staying invisible for a full hour. You can't spend actions every 3 minutes to renew a ring of invisibility. The only 10 min/CL invisibility effect I know is from the Groetus divine obedience in Inner Sea Gods.
Animate dead? Plague Zombies? Just kill some with a blast spell and let then eat each other.
I see a lot of ninth level spells being suggested, the opening post specifically asked for non-Druid spells that are lower level than Cloudkill.
Deeper Darkness can actually be really good if you fire it as ammo, assuming you can get an archer with See In Darkness. Blind/slow/disrupt the enemy in a good radius while they find their way out of it. (Some non game statistics stuff here, admittedly.)
Deeper Darkness can actually be really good if you fire it as ammo, assuming you can get an archer with See In Darkness. Blind/slow/disrupt the enemy in a good radius while they find their way out of it. (Some non game statistics stuff here, admittedly.)
Oh, it could be great to get them to continually walk into a trap without realizing what it is. Perhaps you could set up a nice, high capacity trap (a deep pit?) and do a darkness spell on the area so they continuously run in after the screams of their comrades. Of course, if every dark area has a trap, everyone would avoid it. You would need numerous areas without any actual dangers, and a few with ambushes (so everyone reasonably assumes the screaming is due to an attack).
Of course, with this amount, you would optimally need something like a maze, or cave system, to limit movement and view distance. The twists an turns could also work great as a defensive measure and...
...darn it, now I am thinking like an evil wizard. I am basically designing an evil lair.
I see a lot of ninth level spells being suggested, the opening post specifically asked for non-Druid spells that are lower level than Cloudkill.
So spell levels 1-4 (cloudkill is a 5th level spell). That...is VERY hard. If your definition of 'army' is more than 100, then it is hard for a spell caster to really fight an army with only that level of magic. They are great for more individual fights, and maybe firing a few off in guerrilla warfare before running... but largely, no, it is hard to do much. This system was build for small fights, so it actually places a VERY heavy emphasis on number of creatures and action economy. To the extent that it would be hard for a single caster to every do much against 50 enemies.
Your actual best bet is to use some magic to disguise yourself or go invisible, and then just poison their rations. Even if very few enemy soldiers die from it, they would be hard pressed to continue after their supplies are ruined (...which might lead to robbery of the local villages in an attempt to get food...)
Lower than 5th-level spells, huh?
Haunting Mists sounds okay if you're on the front line.
Ash Storm, Waves of Blood, and Creeping Ice would work pretty well to impede them. The various Wall spells would also be something to look into.
Etheric Shards, mentioned earlier, is 4th-level for Occultist and Spiritualist (though 5th-level for Psychic, same as Cloudkill). Black Tentacles is also 4th-level.
Deeper Darkness can actually be really good if you fire it as ammo, assuming you can get an archer with See In Darkness. Blind/slow/disrupt the enemy in a good radius while they find their way out of it. (Some non game statistics stuff here, admittedly.)Oh, it could be great to get them to continually walk into a trap without realizing what it is. Perhaps you could set up a nice, high capacity trap (a deep pit?) and do a darkness spell on the area so they continuously run in after the screams of their comrades. Of course, if every dark area has a trap, everyone would avoid it. You would need numerous areas without any actual dangers, and a few with ambushes (so everyone reasonably assumes the screaming is due to an attack).
That was basically what my earlier suggestion of Polar Midnight was, but that's a 9th-level spell.