Author Topic: The War Compendium  (Read 48010 times)

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Kajhera

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Re: The War Compendium
« Reply #80 on: March 15, 2011, 11:49:51 PM »
At first level? CL 1 is 2 gallons, unless I'm making some sort of mistake.

Yea, you need the Artifice and Creation domains to pull off CL 4 Create Water.

Bozwevial

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Re: The War Compendium
« Reply #81 on: March 15, 2011, 11:53:38 PM »
Yea, you need the Artifice and Creation domains to pull off CL 4 Create Water.
Hmm. True. You could also theoretically spend 1000 gp to snag an item of it at will. Yeah, those are pricing guidelines, but if your DM actually lets you pull this stunt off, he's probably not going to balk at that price. Anyway, I'm dragging things off-topic.

JaronK

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Re: The War Compendium
« Reply #82 on: March 16, 2011, 12:22:02 AM »
Yes, the CR 3 wights march longer and have better stealth than 1st level Commoners... you sound shocked by that fact.  But they also will kill you, because we've established that you're trying to use low level Experts to try and hit a DC 35 diplomacy check (and if they fail, all wights under that wight are happy to eat you).  Plus, you seem to have forgotten that Friendly just makes them friendly towards that Expert... not the rest of your population.  At the end of the day you've created a stealthy force of self reproducing killers that is just as happy to eat you as the enemy and you have no real defense against that... even the control spells you wanted to use are just charming effects, so they only make the wight friendly to the caster.  One way or another, you're asking for a wightocolypse that you can't stop (because you haven't put together another army).  And depending on single target effects that just make the wights friendly to a single member of your population (but happy to eat the rest) is absolutely foolish.

And to be clear... as long as ANYONE in the opposing army can see some movement where the wights are (perhaps with basic bell and twine traps because wights don't have the search score to find traps?) the commander can fire at the general area with massive area attacks, vaporizing even an army he can't see.

To be clear, we're not playing by custom army rules.  I tend to use the rules from Heroes of Battle and Complete Warrior for army battles, because those are the official rules.  But in a big army, you have scouting groups who deal with enemy stealth troops... you don't have entire armies getting surprised all at once (unless somebody REALLY screwed up and walked into an ambush).  And good scouts can easily avoid wights, who are decent at stealth but not amazing at detection... a single scout with a Shirt of Wraith Stalking is completely invisible to them, for example and can walk around among them reporting their position back to the main group without fear.

As for Kobolds, Races of the Dragon is not "clearly made by a kobold fanboy" or "random supplement fluff" from a specifical "Races of the Dragon setting."  It's the primary source for Kobolds... an entire book devoted to them (along with other dragon races like the Dragonborn).  It's not third party, it is indeed the primary source.

And Warforged?  Yes, they're common in Eberron.  They're still not the only troops in Eberron, just pretty common.  Even in Eberron you'd still want to mobilize other soldiers, and outside Eberron they're not NEARLY as common.  Eberron has a higher population in general and highly militarized countries with easy access to magical forges... that's not standard.  If you can get them great, but if not, no way.

But to sum up the problem with the wight army:

1)  You've only made some wights friendly to some specific people.  They're still fully happy to eat the rest of your people.
2)  Newly risen wights aren't friendly to any of your people.
3)  Since you're not actually controlling the wights, just influencing them to like individuals more, you can't be sure they'll actually follow your orders.  There's plenty of farmers out there who really like some of their pigs... but they'll still send those pigs to the slaughter when the time has come, and they'll definitely eat that pig's friends.  That's how the wights see you... mobile snacks.  And that's how they see the rest of your people.
4)  Wights can still be controlled by enemy characters, so if you set up any chain of command it can be quickly compromised.
5)  Without very high level characters of your own, the whole "bunch of bards buffing an army" thing doesn't work so well on wights, so they end up doing less damage than first level commoners.
6)  It's pretty much standard practice during any sort of war time to clear the area around any fortification, wall, or village, so stealth only gets you small raids.  At some point you're fighting enemies that can see you, and then commoners will indeed be vaporizing your troops.

All in all, far too much risk of your army trying to kill you, and they can be countered by commoners.  That's bad.  At least other stealth types you can actually trust.

JaronK

Felix Underwood

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Re: The War Compendium
« Reply #83 on: March 16, 2011, 01:11:03 PM »
Here's another thought on the wight army... the leadership can be wights themselves.  This doesn't have to be the case of one PC as a tyrant.  A wight army can be organized by a cabal of wights.  Any human population involved at that point can be slaves, herded like pigs.  The leaders could develop laws to protect their breeding stock.

I think it's fine to point out level restrictions on things like Requiem, but I don't think we should dismiss an idea based on the level that it comes into power.  This isn't like the race for pun-pun where the first one to the goal eliminates all other builds.

While a PC can try his/her hand at army building, I think it's more likely that ideas in this thread will see more use by DMs for use with NPC armies.  At this point, level doesn't matter.  The DM will dictate whatever level for the NPCs involved that he/she feels appropriate.

I'm a big fan of the DMG demographics section.  I've goofed off with plotting the numbers in excel to generate estimates for population out to a million for kicks.  But even going with the numbers out of the books, large communities can have many 16th, 18th and 20th level NPCs running around.


Nations without competitive armies, (see: poland, eastern europe) have historically had their shit handed to them.  And then been conquered.  It's literally HARD to find even semi-modern examples because every country learned from the example.
 I don't think it's that hard to find examples... everyone who's not a super-power.  Every nation that has a police force, defensive militia, etc, could be erradicated if a super-power were determined to conquer them.  My stance is that even armies that cannot compete, are still armies, and should be considered for the purposes of this thread.

Post war, yeah, only the survivors matter.  My impression of this thread is that it should apply to all aspects of war.  If a DM is storytelling a campaign involving war, then the armies involved likely have yet to be wiped out.


People with average intelligence generally aren't the people who create the armies of countries that don't get conquered and absorbed.  Those people are generally the smarter ones.
I'm probably more than a little biases on this point.  In the eight years I spent in the military, I've seen some brilliant stuff and some... not so brilliant.  We had sayings like, "hurry up and wait" and "remember your equipment was made by the lowest bidder".  When it comes to civilian command, politicians add to the 'intillectual diversity' of the populace (I thought that was a nice way to say some are smart and others are dumb as dirt).  When it comes to military commanders, they are at least tested to some extent... but we're all people, and we're not perfect.  But some times one side of the fence has their hands tied by the other.

Also, I don't think enough can be said for superior numbers.  Intelligent leaders can be a force multiplier.  Smart people can do amazing things with small numbers, but huge numbers can make up for a lot of deficiencies (sufficiently large arrow volleys or enough natural 20's can bring down high level PCs or high CR monsters).


I'm not saying you wouldn't have armies of peasants with longbows and knights on horses.  I'm just saying that you would also have armies of wizards on wyverns, and the wizards would win.  Socio-economic or geo-political reasons might let the knights on horse armies exist, but in DnD there are BETTER options.  Just because afghanistan has an army with 23 modern aircraft and armed mostly with ak-47s and robes, it doesn't mean that having an army like that is what they want to have, or even the most common choice.
But it doesn't have to be the wizards vs. peasants... the wizards can be allied with the peasants.  We don't have to look at this as a royal rumble where everyone must fight each other until there is only one army standing.  In your example, the wizards on wyverns likely cannot be everywhere at once.  If they have a desire to defend a large area, they would likely need support units like peasants and knights to keep the peace, or to garrison outposts (hence your geo-political reason).  In this example they both exist, so lets aknowledge that and do something about it.  We can move to optimize them like JaronK suggests.

Your Afghanistan example is perfect.  They exist; they are an army.  They might not stand a chance against a super-power, but knowing that doesn't stop them from living their lives.  They have families and homes to defend.  Just being there legitimizes their government, and makes neighboring governments pause before annexing them.


There are lots of 'viable' armies.  And lots of non-viable armies. But the idea that a setting would have only nonviable armies that all conform to a medieval type is just silly.  And more than that, it's boring and not interesting.
I definitely think there needs to be a middle ground.  I think examples of both need to exist.  Peasants will form militias to protect their home against low CR threats common to them.  Wizards and Necromancers will do their thing.  Before a war breaks out, I think all types of forces will likely exist.  If non-viable armies start taking heavy casualties... well hey, somebody had to be on the losing side, right?  ;)
« Last Edit: March 16, 2011, 01:16:58 PM by Felix Underwood »

oslecamo

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Re: The War Compendium
« Reply #84 on: March 16, 2011, 09:05:11 PM »
Yes, the CR 3 wights march longer and have better stealth than 1st level Commoners... you sound shocked by that fact.  But they also will kill you, because we've established that you're trying to use low level Experts to try and hit a DC 35 diplomacy check (and if they fail, all wights under that wight are happy to eat you).  Plus, you seem to have forgotten that Friendly just makes them friendly towards that Expert... not the rest of your population.  At the end of the day you've created a stealthy force of self reproducing killers that is just as happy to eat you as the enemy and you have no real defense against that... even the control spells you wanted to use are just charming effects, so they only make the wight friendly to the caster.  One way or another, you're asking for a wightocolypse that you can't stop (because you haven't put together another army).
Says who? The best of the wight army it's that I can totally still copy your commoner army for home defense!

And why stop at friendly? Fill their heads with propaganda untill they're fanatic to your cause!

And depending on single target effects that just make the wights friendly to a single member of your population (but happy to eat the rest) is absolutely foolish.
That's why I'm using them for attacking. You don't keep your more psychotic soldiers near the big populations, neither will I keep the wights.

And again, wights are not mindless. They are actually wiser/more charismatic than your average human, and they'll quickly learn they have more to gain from just eating their quota than going into a rampage and scattering, ending up as easy prey for the average party.

And to be clear... as long as ANYONE in the opposing army can see some movement where the wights are (perhaps with basic bell and twine traps because wights don't have the search score to find traps?) the commander can fire at the general area with massive area attacks, vaporizing even an army he can't see.
Once per day, since that's how many times your bards can sing. Never heard of decoy attacks/diversions/sacrificing a pawn to capture the king? One wight will trigger your army to waste hundreds of arrows and all their 1/day abilities. Then the real army moves on.

Also by RAW no, you can't make basic bell and twin traps. You'll need some special Prc or pay horrendous GP costs. Otherwise just give me a minute to develop gunpowder, fire weapons and armored vehicles and we'll talk again.

To be clear, we're not playing by custom army rules.  I tend to use the rules from Heroes of Battle and Complete Warrior for army battles, because those are the official rules.  But in a big army, you have scouting groups who deal with enemy stealth troops... you don't have entire armies getting surprised all at once (unless somebody REALLY screwed up and walked into an ambush).
There's plenty of examples of armies being ambushed trough history. Very rarely do you get to just walk to the enemy army and bash away whitout any nasty suprises in the middle.

And good scouts can easily avoid wights, who are decent at stealth but not amazing at detection... a single scout with a Shirt of Wraith Stalking is completely invisible to them, for example and can walk around among them reporting their position back to the main group without fear.
That's 6k gold per scout for an item that only works against undead. You really can afford that? Why doesn't the scout just deserts and retires happily after selling it?

Well, first it doesn't block LifeSight, so he gets wightified anyway, and your treasury takes a nasty hit.

Meanwhile my wraiths shall be equiped with eternal wands of Wind Wall. Your arrows can't touch them now.

Or eternal wands of fireball for sniping your lv1 bards for the lulz.

Really, if 6K specialized items are common piece, then your lv 1 army is gonna be raped. There's so many ways all that GP can defeat a lv1 army by itself I could write a guide with it.

As for Kobolds, Races of the Dragon is not "clearly made by a kobold fanboy" or "random supplement fluff" from a specifical "Races of the Dragon setting."  It's the primary source for Kobolds... an entire book devoted to them (along with other dragon races like the Dragonborn).  It's not third party, it is indeed the primary source.

Actually in a closer look it says nothing about kobolds being a calm race that just wants to be left alone. Here's an actual excerpt from the kobold chapter:

This paranoia and oversensitivity means kobolds often enter conflicts where none need have occurred. Other races regard kobolds suspiciously at best, since more than one diplomat has never returned from kobold-held territory.becomes raw hatred in the presence of fey or gnomes.

So we're talking about a race that shoots the messenger and will start wars if you look at them in a funny way. If you can make an alliance with those, I damn well can get wights to work for me.


And Warforged?  Yes, they're common in Eberron.  They're still not the only troops in Eberron, just pretty common.  Even in Eberron you'd still want to mobilize other soldiers, and outside Eberron they're not NEARLY as common.  Eberron has a higher population in general and highly militarized countries with easy access to magical forges... that's not standard.  If you can get them great, but if not, no way.
Your side can craft highly specialized 6K items for every scout. You already admited you have some damn good magic forges to keep up with that.

1)  You've only made some wights friendly to some specific people.  They're still fully happy to eat the rest of your people.
That's why I'm offering them a mutual benefit agreement. They can either eat my enemies and enjoy my support, or eat my people and eventually run out of food and be slaughtered by somebody else. Wraiths are not mindless. They'll make the right choice.

2)  Newly risen wights aren't friendly to any of your people.
They're however under command of the dude who raised them, who'll tell them how to behave. Or to sit down and listen to the propaganda show untill they're fanatic as well.

3)  Since you're not actually controlling the wights, just influencing them to like individuals more, you can't be sure they'll actually follow your orders.  There's plenty of farmers out there who really like some of their pigs... but they'll still send those pigs to the slaughter when the time has come, and they'll definitely eat that pig's friends.  That's how the wights see you... mobile snacks.  And that's how they see the rest of your people.
Still, the farmer is not foolish enough to blindly slaughter his pigs, and he keeps them protected from the other predators and even feeds them.

In the end, the pigs endure, and all the other nearby wildlife either submits to the farmer or is hunted down to extinction.

4)  Wights can still be controlled by enemy characters, so if you set up any chain of command it can be quickly compromised.
You do realize that there's also mind-control spells for the living don't you?

5)  Without very high level characters of your own, the whole "bunch of bards buffing an army" thing doesn't work so well on wights, so they end up doing less damage than first level commoners.
I don't really need the requiem bards, because I'm facing a simple bunch of lv1 dudes. Heavy crossbows will do just fine for one-shoting them at distance, and then level-drain in close combat.

6)  It's pretty much standard practice during any sort of war time to clear the area around any fortification, wall, or village, so stealth only gets you small raids.  At some point you're fighting enemies that can see you, and then commoners will indeed be vaporizing your troops.
Again, 1/day only. Sacrifice one wight to trigger the alarm, and then your army reverts to bunch of commoners.

And wight raids are that much more effecient because they produce instant reinforcments. You can't afford to let a single one slip, but you can only do the music show 1/day.

Or I could just burn and salt the fields, intercept the supply lines and laugh while your army starves to death inside their fortifications.

All in all, far too much risk of your army trying to kill you, and they can be countered by commoners endless hordes of pimped  PCs and tens of thousands GP worth of equipment 1/day, then they get slaughtered anyway.  That's bad pretty good.  At least other stealth types you can actually trust. can also be charmed/dominated or simply bought off.

Fixed. You keep insisting it's just commoners, but remove the bards and crusaders and your 6th level scouts (how high they would need to be to afford a 6K item) and the highly specialized expensive gear, and what's left? Meat for the slaughter.






Felix Underwood

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Re: The War Compendium
« Reply #85 on: March 16, 2011, 11:56:23 PM »
I'm stepping out of this discussion for a while.  I'll come back if things cool down.  If anyone wants to toss ideas around, please feel free to PM me.

Kajhera

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Re: The War Compendium
« Reply #86 on: March 17, 2011, 12:03:58 AM »
I find it interesting that being a pig is considered winning a war...

I for one welcome our new wight overlords. Least one of them actually is co-ruler of a powerful nation in our campaign world.  :)

Bloody Initiate

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Re: The War Compendium
« Reply #87 on: March 17, 2011, 12:33:05 AM »
The Legion Devil on page 122 in Fiendish Codex II has some pretty awesome potential as an NPC tactical unit with which to challenge PCs. Gotta change their weapons and feats around though. Ditch Weapon Focus for Power Attack, Iron Will for Mindsight, and longswords for two-handed reach weapons.

Even better is to give them ranged weapons, and as long as they stick close enough to enjoy Legion's Battle Skill they can release very effective volleys.
« Last Edit: March 17, 2011, 12:41:38 AM by Bloody Initiate »
I don't employ memes. Mass-produced ammunition, even from reputable manufacturers, tends to malfunction on occasion.

JaronK

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Re: The War Compendium
« Reply #88 on: March 17, 2011, 01:36:34 AM »
Please note the following:

1)  Bards have no duration limit on their song.  They can play indefinitely.  This is not some tiny once/day ability... it's however long you wish/day.

2)  Wights cannot become fanatics.  That's mind affecting.

3)  Even at helpful, you're still tasty lunch to the wights.  A wight who feels helpful to you sees you just as a farmer who really likes one of his pigs sees you.  He might not eat you.  He's not going to order all his friends never to eat pigs... including pigs near you.

4)  The 2nd level undead control spell only makes them like you.  It does not cause blind obedience.  And you're still lunch.

This is the primary difference between a wight army and a more normal one... the danger of being eaten by an ever growing swarm.  You've yet to pull up a decent control mechanism better than "try to get them to like you and thus go kill your enemies."  Getting people who don't want to eat you to like you is one thing.  Getting people who think of your knights as canned chili is a whole other issue, especially when they're a self reproducing swarm.

Though I have to say, the idea of a campaign against a wight army would be fun.  I think the first thing that happened was after they conquered one nation they ate the people they're working for and proceeded to spread... think terminator, D&D style, except it's living survivors vs the wight army, all of whom are now very hungry and haven't had enough to eat...

JaronK

Rejakor

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Re: The War Compendium
« Reply #89 on: March 17, 2011, 10:46:23 AM »
*snip*

The primary mistake you are making here is the assumption that the campaign world didn't exist before it was created.  This world, unless it has some ODD fluff, did have people living in it before the PCs were born.  Those people, probably, had some kind of wars.

Thus it isn't just 'whatever armies' until 'the war' happens.  There HAVE been wars, probably.  There has at least been skirmishes.  People have followed whatever military evolution, from sticks to rocks to bronze to iron to heavy infantry to heavy cavalry to light bow cavalry to vast conscript firearm militias.

I'm not saying you couldn't have peasant militias or knights or buff based armies or WHATEVER.  I'm saying that you would not, categoricaly, get armies that are historio-realistic across the board.  You.  Would.  Not.  It would be versimilitude-breakingly unlikely that no-one would ever think to craft constructs or animate the dead or tame wyverns or take one high level fighter with supreme cleave, make him huge, stick 50 buffers/healers in his backpack and a couple of focused abjurerers on his shoulders to counter spells and go to town.

Armies that are more successful than other armies get copied.  Peasants with spears is easy, but it's also stupid compared to wyvern cavalry or clockroach armadas.  The 'higher magic' your setting is, the more crazy it gets, but even at low or middle magic (dnd norm), it gets pretty damn crazy.

So while your society may have less viable army concepts hanging about, it would also have more viable army concepts hanging about, and it would be common knowledge that the viable army concepts are more fearsome/better.  It's not 'medieval europe', it's 'modern day but crazier'.  Nations spend money on armies.  Even if towns don't have running magic water and magical refrigeration and magical teleport circles, they will have wizards in the army and trained wyverns or magical horses or whatever.

Talore

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Re: The War Compendium
« Reply #90 on: March 25, 2011, 08:35:24 PM »
Right, I've been swamped with schoolwork and haven't paid this much attention, but I did just finish the rest of the leadership feats.

NOTE TO SELF: Complete this in the summer
« Last Edit: May 18, 2011, 01:05:57 PM by Talore »
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Talore

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Re: The War Compendium
« Reply #91 on: June 22, 2011, 03:24:00 PM »
I fixed some of the horrid formatting, and I'm working on the Tactical Spells section. Please feel free to contribute your own thoughts on spells, or on any unfinished section of the compendium!
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oslecamo

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Re: The War Compendium
« Reply #92 on: June 22, 2011, 03:42:47 PM »
Hmm seems like I missed one of Jaronk's replies here.

1)  Bards have no duration limit on their song.  They can play indefinitely.  This is not some tiny once/day ability... it's however long you wish/day.
Great, you've given away any atempt at stealth. Your enemy can hear you coming before there's eye contact.

2)  Wights cannot become fanatics.  That's mind affecting.
They still need to blindly obey the master wight, and command undead takes care of that one.

3)  Even at helpful, you're still tasty lunch to the wights.  A wight who feels helpful to you sees you just as a farmer who really likes one of his pigs sees you.  He might not eat you.  He's not going to order all his friends never to eat pigs... including pigs near you.
Hell yes he is. In medieval times you could probably get hanged for trying to steal/eat the pigs from that noble. But moot point because wights don't have any carving for humanoid flesh. That's ghouls.

4)  The 2nd level undead control spell only makes them like you.  It does not cause blind obedience.  And you're still lunch.
Ahem

It will not attack you while the spell lasts.


So yes the original wight cannot attack you, and the others cannot disobey their master.

This is the primary difference between a wight army and a more normal one... the danger of being eaten by an ever growing swarm.  
Whoever said kobolds won't eat other humanoids if they're hungry? Unlike wights, they actually need to eat to survive.

You've yet to pull up a decent control mechanism better than "try to get them to like you and thus go kill your enemies."  Getting people who don't want to eat you to like you is one thing.  Getting people who think of your knights as canned chili is a whole other issue, especially when they're a self reproducing swarm.
I already have. Chain of command inherent to the swarm. All I need to do is win a charisma check to order the first wight for one of its creations to obey me. Then from there I can freely chain orders for all other wights. Again with contigent orders for enemy atempts to try to disrupt it. If your commoner rabbles have perfect discipline that would make most modern armies envious, I damn well can order enslaved wights as well.

Heck, where does it even say they like to eat humanoids? No bite attack, their text says they attack with their fists, and then when their prey dies it rises as a wight in 1d4 rounds. There's no time for eating anything. You've just been mixing them with ghouls all along.

So, irony of ironies, it's the army that allies with the kobolds (which have a bite attack and are closely related to an humanoid-eating species) that have a bigger chance of being nomed!

Talore

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Re: The War Compendium
« Reply #93 on: June 22, 2011, 04:34:07 PM »
I still don't understand the point about an inane arguement about wights.
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oslecamo

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Re: The War Compendium
« Reply #94 on: June 22, 2011, 04:41:56 PM »
I still don't understand the point about an inane arguement about wights.
-They're undeads, thus not needing to eat, sleep, rest and a lot of other nifty immunities.
-They're extremely easy to mass produce (all you need is a holy arrow to start).
-They're easy to keep in control.
-Solid combat stats, certainly much superior to 1 HD humanoids.
-Anything they kill raises as wights, even if they use ranged weapons to kill.
-Excellent basic army for almost free  that doesn't need supply lines and can replenish itself from the enemy numbers!

Hazren

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Re: The War Compendium
« Reply #95 on: June 22, 2011, 06:13:15 PM »
I still don't understand the point about an inane arguement about wights.
-They're undeads, thus not needing to eat, sleep, rest and a lot of other nifty immunities.
-They're extremely easy to mass produce (all you need is a holy arrow to start).
-They're easy to keep in control.
-Solid combat stats, certainly much superior to 1 HD humanoids.
-Anything they kill raises as wights, even if they use ranged weapons to kill.
-Excellent basic army for almost free  that doesn't need supply lines and can replenish itself from the enemy numbers!

From a DM's point of view  that would never happen. Either I'd give you the vison of EVERY divine being that has living worshipers coming together to remove you from the world (which would be very reasonable) or I'd give your opponent the same type of army (if yours is that great he'd do his best to join the undead arms race) and thus end the campaign with the undead taking over.

After all it only takes removing the head of the chain to have an uncontroled undead mob on your hands. I don't care what orders you gave wight 1 to give to the rest, he no longer controls them once he is destoyed and so those orders ended when he was destroyed.

Overall it's a bad idea for any undead controled chain to be used in mass.

: Rebuke one of the chain leaders and take control of part of your enemies army. Regular humans are not going to be following orders to slaughter their on people like a controled undead army would.

:Someone finds and rebukes your wight #1. Now the army is under their total control and your are screwed. Humans might not be so eager to conquer their on country for the enemy even if the general tells them to.

: An army that can end all life on the planet is going to draw divine attention, the regular squable between the taking monkeys and the other races not so much.

: Wights are like farmers and the living are like their pigs just doesn't hold up to the material in LM on page 40.
Quote
WIGHT
The wight is an undead creature given a semblance of life
through sheer violence and hatred. It is spiteful and cruel,
seeking only to destroy all living creatures. Even those rare
few that overcome their pure hatred of all living things remain
jealous of such creatures.


However you have given me an idea for a campaign. The players will have to find this guy whose country is on the losing side of a war before he makes such a terrible mistake.
"My solution way too often is to press the red button and see the world burn, which brings us back to the fiery pits of Hell..."
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KellKheraptis

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Re: The War Compendium
« Reply #96 on: June 22, 2011, 07:03:26 PM »
Sims>wights.  1001 better available abilities, and no worries about the little bastards turning on you.
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oslecamo

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Re: The War Compendium
« Reply #97 on: June 22, 2011, 08:13:23 PM »
Hazren:Already discussed some pages ago. Of course the top wight gets put into some dark dungeon/alternate plane with all possible security. Puting it on the frontline for the enemy to rebuke/destroy would be retarded.

Now if the whole world unites against the undead army... What's the need of adventurers again? Big necromancer appears, everybody ganks on him, there goes the adventure. Or how can there be war in such a world where everybody instantly unites against the biggest threat in perfect union? How can a proper BBEG set up a plan if everybody is magically informed of said plan in advance? What about the other dude opening a portal to the Abyss or the slaad assimilators?

Sims>wights.  1001 better available abilities, and no worries about the little bastards turning on you.

They also demand an high level wizard, exp, gold, time and are a pain to repair. Not really that cost-effective.

If you do use cheese to bypass all the costs, well, then the campaign breaks a lot more than any undead apocalypse.  :p

KellKheraptis

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Re: The War Compendium
« Reply #98 on: June 22, 2011, 08:23:04 PM »
Hazren:Already discussed some pages ago. Of course the top wight gets put into some dark dungeon/alternate plane with all possible security. Puting it on the frontline for the enemy to rebuke/destroy would be retarded.

Now if the whole world unites against the undead army... What's the need of adventurers again? Big necromancer appears, everybody ganks on him, there goes the adventure. Or how can there be war in such a world where everybody instantly unites against the biggest threat in perfect union? How can a proper BBEG set up a plan if everybody is magically informed of said plan in advance? What about the other dude opening a portal to the Abyss or the slaad assimilators?

Sims>wights.  1001 better available abilities, and no worries about the little bastards turning on you.

They also demand an high level wizard, exp, gold, time and are a pain to repair. Not really that cost-effective.

If you do use cheese to bypass all the costs, well, then the campaign breaks a lot more than any undead apocalypse.  :p

If an even moderately high level wizard is involved, armies are the least of your concern.  And yes, I usually bypass most if not all of those costs, and for mooks, a singe familiar can mass produce them for me :)
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oslecamo

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Re: The War Compendium
« Reply #99 on: June 22, 2011, 08:24:46 PM »
That's 90% of the point of the wight army. It goes online whitout need of high level characters. Hopefully you can kill all enemies before they level up enough.

And the familiar of an high level wizard is still an extension of the high level wizard, not a monster that you can get by itself.