Author Topic: The War Compendium  (Read 48027 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

KellKheraptis

  • Organ Grinder
  • *****
  • Posts: 2668
  • What's the matter? I thought you had me...
    • Email
Re: The War Compendium
« Reply #100 on: June 22, 2011, 08:27:11 PM »
The familiar is still an extension of the high level wizard, not a monster that you can get by itself.

You don't need to be high level to get a mirror mephit, nor is it outside the bounds of a mid level wizard to planar bind.
BG's Resident Black Hatter
The Mango List Reborn!
My Warmage Trickery (coming soon!)
My PrC Pally Trickery (coming soon!)
The D&D Archive
-Work in progress!

oslecamo

  • Grape ape
  • *****
  • Posts: 1940
Re: The War Compendium
« Reply #101 on: June 22, 2011, 08:31:54 PM »
The familiar is still an extension of the high level wizard, not a monster that you can get by itself.

You don't need to be high level to get a mirror mephit, nor is it outside the bounds of a mid level wizard to planar bind.
Last time I checked mirror mephits aren't valid familiar choices. Summon version doesn't last enough time for the simulacrum to be casted. If you're using planar binding for bypassing costs, you may as well grab a candle of invocation and chain titans or get efreetis.


Also since aparently my edit was missed:

 90% of the point of the wight army is going online whitout anything over lv1 characters. Hopefully you can kill all enemies before they level up enough.

KellKheraptis

  • Organ Grinder
  • *****
  • Posts: 2668
  • What's the matter? I thought you had me...
    • Email
Re: The War Compendium
« Reply #102 on: June 22, 2011, 08:43:06 PM »
Just hope the level 1 cleric of Mystra doesn't take the feats to make an LCB, since they can get Explosive Spell for free.
BG's Resident Black Hatter
The Mango List Reborn!
My Warmage Trickery (coming soon!)
My PrC Pally Trickery (coming soon!)
The D&D Archive
-Work in progress!


KellKheraptis

  • Organ Grinder
  • *****
  • Posts: 2668
  • What's the matter? I thought you had me...
    • Email
Re: The War Compendium
« Reply #104 on: June 22, 2011, 08:59:57 PM »
Last time I checked locate city bombo doesn't work at all due to basic geometries. Circles don't have an height no matter how much you try to twist the wording.

I would think a one dimensional blade effect would work even better, then ;)  If it exists purely as a plane, it is by definition infinitely sharp.

NOTE/DISCLAIMER : One, we won't rehash the LCB, especially since I can get a localized version with 0 shenanigans.  And two, more importantly, I'm on my laptop, and the "L" key is fucked up, so if an "L" is missing anywhere, that's why.
BG's Resident Black Hatter
The Mango List Reborn!
My Warmage Trickery (coming soon!)
My PrC Pally Trickery (coming soon!)
The D&D Archive
-Work in progress!

nijineko

  • King Kong
  • ****
  • Posts: 887
  • two strange quarks short of a graviton...
Re: The War Compendium
« Reply #105 on: October 14, 2011, 03:18:19 PM »
i found a feat (Intimidating Presence) that allows one to intimidate (demoralize) a number of opponents equal to your cha mod with no other limitations (like range for skill trick).
arukibito ga michi wo erabu no ka, michi ga arukibito wo erabu no deshou ka?
Never game alone again!
KadoKado! Game for gifts!
The Ultimate Dice Rolling Engine

Talore

  • That monkey with the orange ass cheeks
  • ****
  • Posts: 295
  • Viking Skald
    • Email
Re: The War Compendium
« Reply #106 on: October 16, 2011, 12:04:39 AM »
i found a feat (Intimidating Presence) that allows one to intimidate (demoralize) a number of opponents equal to your cha mod with no other limitations (like range for skill trick).
Oh lawd... is that official material?
Backseat moderator (voice) -_-

nijineko

  • King Kong
  • ****
  • Posts: 887
  • two strange quarks short of a graviton...
Re: The War Compendium
« Reply #107 on: October 16, 2011, 08:15:20 PM »
absolutely 100% wotc official as per licensing agreement between wotc and athas.org. =D
arukibito ga michi wo erabu no ka, michi ga arukibito wo erabu no deshou ka?
Never game alone again!
KadoKado! Game for gifts!
The Ultimate Dice Rolling Engine

X-Codes

  • Organ Grinder
  • *****
  • Posts: 3941
Re: The War Compendium
« Reply #108 on: October 16, 2011, 11:10:41 PM »
I don't know if this has been said before, but unlike in typical D&D, AC and DR are both EXTREMELY important in mass battles.  DR because getting hit 10 times for 1d8+1 damage is approximately 20% less painful if you have even DR 1/-.  AC because very easily horde-able critters with nasty rider effects on their attacks, like Wights, will absolutely annihilate you if you if they have better than a 5% hit chance (even if they don't, they might still annihilate you).

Bozwevial

  • Organ Grinder
  • *****
  • Posts: 4497
  • Developing a relaxed attitude to danger.
Re: The War Compendium
« Reply #109 on: October 17, 2011, 12:51:25 AM »
And assuming that AC/attack bonuses aren't massively out of sync with one another, even a single point of AC can make a pretty big difference. For reference, if you're completely surrounded by creatures and they each make a single attack against you, even if they can only hit on a 20, there's still a 33.64% chance that you're going to get hit at least once.

nijineko

  • King Kong
  • ****
  • Posts: 887
  • two strange quarks short of a graviton...
Re: The War Compendium
« Reply #110 on: October 17, 2011, 12:58:23 AM »
unless aid another is being used, in which case, those percentages go up a lot.
arukibito ga michi wo erabu no ka, michi ga arukibito wo erabu no deshou ka?
Never game alone again!
KadoKado! Game for gifts!
The Ultimate Dice Rolling Engine

Bozwevial

  • Organ Grinder
  • *****
  • Posts: 4497
  • Developing a relaxed attitude to danger.
Re: The War Compendium
« Reply #111 on: October 17, 2011, 01:22:54 AM »
Not necessarily. An attack bonus of +1 to an AC of 21 has the same chance of hitting as an attack bonus of +1 to an AC of 31, which is to say 5%. That definitely might be the case, but it depends on how much your AC differs from their attack bonus.

In any case, letting yourself get swarmed is a bad tactical decision unless you're suicidally determined to use Whirlwind Attack.

Talore

  • That monkey with the orange ass cheeks
  • ****
  • Posts: 295
  • Viking Skald
    • Email
Re: The War Compendium
« Reply #112 on: October 17, 2011, 02:26:03 AM »
Not necessarily. An attack bonus of +1 to an AC of 21 has the same chance of hitting as an attack bonus of +1 to an AC of 31, which is to say 5%. That definitely might be the case, but it depends on how much your AC differs from their attack bonus.

In any case, letting yourself get swarmed is a bad tactical decision unless you're suicidally determined to use Whirlwind Attack.
I wish I was more of a tactician and actually be able to write advice for things like not getting surrounded, but it's just too much for me. I stopped working on this since school started up, but I don't consider it a dead project and I'll add anything that people submit. It'll lie in wait until I have the time and inspiration to work on it.
Backseat moderator (voice) -_-

tiercel

  • Monkey bussiness
  • *
  • Posts: 5
Re: The War Compendium
« Reply #113 on: October 17, 2011, 06:55:04 AM »
Just a thought -- if the Great Steamroller of the Wightpocalypse (or, for that matter, the Shadowpocalypse) is so easy to begin at 1st level, unless your campaign is set at the dawn of creation, someone will have already done it, which means either another someone has already discovered one or more points of failure in the plan or your campaign is a post-apocalyptic setting.

---------

I think that the "Tactical Spells" section having the picture it does is highly appropriate -- making the "fog of war" a literal battlefield presence is a useful tactic, if anything, even moreso at higher levels of magic.  Everything from arrow fire to area-effect bursts is significantly degraded if you can't easily target your enemy.  At low magic levels, equip the handful of low-level casters you can afford with wands of obscuring mist.  At higher levels, control weather can arguably take care of a entire battlefield in one shot.  Either way, the canonical War1-with-pointy-stick brigade becomes more relevant if they have some chance to actually close to melee before a rain of fire from heaven, much less a hail of arrows or old fashioned cavalry charge, obliterates them.

Also, in addition to Druid being crazy good at everything anyway, Druid spells are some of the best for the battlefield -- many of the biggest area-of-effect spells are there, and Natural Spell brokenation makes Druid nigh-undetectable scouts and weapons platforms (is your army seriously going to exterminate every squirrel and songbird they see?).

--On a more general note, unless armies have pretty high magic/power levels, PCs in most campaigns will pretty quickly outstrip all but the most elite commander/special monster units in raw personal power, and will generally be more effectively applied as a special-forces team than in a purely commanding role.  (Not to mention most adventurer PCs are effectively Chaotic with respect to authority figures, much less military discipline.)

The additional advantage of a special-forces team (conscripted, mercenary, or otherwise) is that it is much easier to integrate into a more classic D&D style, in case your players don't want to play a purely military campaign the whole time.  [Mixing your flavors can be really helpful -- I've been in, for instance, giant unending dungeon crawls with no RP/intrigue/etc breaks, and it gets really wearing after a while.]

Rejakor

  • Donkey Kong
  • ****
  • Posts: 610
    • Email
Re: The War Compendium
« Reply #114 on: October 17, 2011, 12:05:46 PM »
There's also a lot of room for the Heroic Commander archetype.  Y'know, the one that leads from the front, or, commits themselves at the key point in order to swing a close fight towards their side.

This could even describe the wizard who designs the battle plan then hands it off to his cohort before leaping onto his personal effigy of tiamat and flying off with the 101st Gryphonry to aerially bombard the enemy lines and personally destroy the enemies' magery with a few well placed Disjunctions and Permanencied Antimagic Dust bombs.

Bastian

  • Bi-Curious George
  • ****
  • Posts: 540
Re: The War Compendium
« Reply #115 on: October 17, 2011, 04:28:13 PM »
absolutely 100% wotc official as per licensing agreement between wotc and athas.org. =D
Read the licensing agreement again. It is "recognized as an official Dark Sun release on the Internet" and "The content here in is considered to be derivative work (as it is based on the intellectual property owned by Wizards of the Coast), and the articles within are jointly owned by both Wizards of the Coast and their authors."

In other words, it is 3rd party material since it is neither written nor published by WoTC. Instead it is just recognized as official by them.

nijineko

  • King Kong
  • ****
  • Posts: 887
  • two strange quarks short of a graviton...
Re: The War Compendium
« Reply #116 on: October 17, 2011, 06:01:47 PM »
recognized as official by wotc = 100% official.

same as ravenloft or kingdoms of kalamar or dragon and dungeon magazines.

3rd party licensed to produce official content = 100% official content.
« Last Edit: October 17, 2011, 06:05:29 PM by nijineko »
arukibito ga michi wo erabu no ka, michi ga arukibito wo erabu no deshou ka?
Never game alone again!
KadoKado! Game for gifts!
The Ultimate Dice Rolling Engine

X-Codes

  • Organ Grinder
  • *****
  • Posts: 3941
Re: The War Compendium
« Reply #117 on: October 17, 2011, 08:50:14 PM »
Yes, they're just not core rulebooks. :p

nijineko

  • King Kong
  • ****
  • Posts: 887
  • two strange quarks short of a graviton...
Re: The War Compendium
« Reply #118 on: October 17, 2011, 08:53:52 PM »
well, it is absolutely true that they are not core. but i never claimed so. just that it is official material. which matters to some dm's. ymmv.
arukibito ga michi wo erabu no ka, michi ga arukibito wo erabu no deshou ka?
Never game alone again!
KadoKado! Game for gifts!
The Ultimate Dice Rolling Engine