Best druid spells to hold off a siege.

[Havok4]

Well next week I will have to help defend a medium sized fortification in the middle of a city, holding off the army for at least half a day. The besieging army will be composed of an army of elves with elephants armed with cannon like siege weaponry. My character is a 6th level druid with a dire eagle animal companion. My feats are extend spell, invisible spell, companion spellbound, natural spell.

The ideas I have had so far involve wind wall to keep the archers useless and dominate animal to use on the elephants and get them to trample around. Any advice for good spells to pick would be welcome. 

[dark_samuari]

Is it just you holding off the army or do you have sort of militia/back-up?

Either way you should be trying to minimize entrance into that battlefield. Bottle-neck like it was going out of style.

Spells like Entangle, Obscuring Mist, Plant Growth, Soften Earth & Stone, Tree Shape and Woodshape are all core spells that can offer up some nice options for such a situation.

[The_Mad_Linguist]

Two spell combo.

[Mooncrow]

Along with what has already been mentioned;  Nature's Rampart and Briar Web (SpC) are good for setting up hazardous terrain, and then drop Arctic Haze (Frostburn) on the choke points.

[jojolagger]

Invisible Spike Growth, at CL 6, will last 6 hours and deals 1d4 damage per 5 feet moved within the area, and save or lose speed. Said area being freaking huge. And they can't see it. Cover the map with random infantry kill zones. (Some tricks with this are nasty. "Fell Draining Spike Growth"

Buff the STR of your dire eagle and have it drop heavy rocks to take out the elephants (falling damage is awesome). a 51 pound rock need only fall 600 ft to deal 20d6 damage. 800 ft for a 31 pound rock, and 1000 ft for a 11 pound rock.

Also, wildshape into another of said eagle, and focus on the siege weapons. Infantry are dime a dozen to kill with magic.

[Saxony]

Two spell combo.

That sounds sweet, but I'm getting caught on a druid infecting an animal.

I guess some non-druid scoundrel could just cast from wand.

[Kasz]

Two spell combo.

That sounds sweet, but I'm getting caught on a druid infecting an animal.

I guess some non-druid scoundrel could just cast from wand.

Use an animal that's immune to the effects of the disease yet can still carry it. Some animals in real life are "carriers" of sicknesses that don't effect them but are still contagious. Likewise some people are carriers of diseases and don't even know it.

You have time to prepare? Change Weather. Cause the approaching army to approach through heavy rainstorms and tornados, they'll lose equipment to the mud and winds.

[The_Mad_Linguist]

Two spell combo.

That sounds sweet, but I'm getting caught on a druid infecting an animal.

I guess some non-druid scoundrel could just cast from wand.

Use an animal that's immune to the effects of the disease yet can still carry it. Some animals in real life are "carriers" of sicknesses that don't effect them but are still contagious. Likewise some people are carriers of diseases and don't even know it.

Yeah.  You'll want something that's effectively a malaria mosquito, where it'll spread the disease but not personally be harmed by it.

Most birds poop uncontrollably every 30 minutes or so.  Infect a bird with something that's harmless to it, and have it hang out in whatever the enemies are using for water supplies for a couple days.  Sickly elephants aren't going to be useful.

[Cagemarrow]

Haboob (Sandstorm) and Trip Vine (Heroes of Battle) were made for this. Both are low level so can be spammed fairly easily. If you have time take a look at the Summon Monster and Nature's Ally Lists for things with Burrow Speeds and setup shallow pit traps, with optional spikes, outside the walls. All will be useful in slowing their approach and give more time for archers to pick off individuals. If you have access to SM IV or V the lantern and hound archon's get Continual Flame as spell likes so you can setup some safe permanent light sources for the defenders. Have one fill a barrel full of arrows or ammunition for your defensive siege weapons and lob light outside the walls so the enemy can't use the dark to hide their numbers as easily and make picking targets out for your archers even easier.

I've got a thread for a similar request on here somewhere that turned up some useful ideas as well.

http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=9813.0

[Nachofan99]

Molten Copper.  Get a bunch of cauldrons and cast iron pots from the populace and dump in unimportant metals.  Light some fires and get that stuff nice and molten hot.  Then commence strafing runs.  This should be psychologically horrifying at the least, but also should be quite effective.  You can cover a lot of surface area with melted metals.  You can drop it from really far up and create cooled solid shards of metal several inches long falling from hundreds of feet in the sky.  There's no need to aim.

[PhaedrusXY]

If you have access to SM IV or V the lantern and hound archon's get Continual Flame as spell likes so you can setup some safe permanent light sources for the defenders.

No... don't put these with the defenders... What you do is ring your city walls with (at least) two concentric perimeters of them, so that anyone approaching has to pass within the "brightly lit" part of them, preventing them from using stealth to sneak in, and making them easy targets for archers.

If you put them with the defenders, it doesn't keep them safe. It just makes them easy targets.

Have one fill a barrel full of arrows or ammunition for your defensive siege weapons and lob light outside the walls so the enemy can't use the dark to hide their numbers as easily and make picking targets out for your archers even easier.

This is a good way to set up said perimeters.

[Cagemarrow]

Silver coins with explosive runes cast on them tossed into the opposing camp before battle commences can be really useful to. Have it appear to be delivered as bonus pay from their own commanders and you may just turn the whole thing against them and not need to fight at all.  

[Havok4]

The opposition contains a large number of elven archers so I am somewhat disinclined to actually fly above them.

I do have a town militia to back me up and we are getting reinforcements after about half a day of siege so I just have to keep them off us for that long. Given that I do not have much in the way of prep time I will probably try to use spike growth and trip vines to keep them away from the walls and use obscuring mist to cover me when I expose myself to cast spells like artic haze and impeding stones. 

One of the big problems is that the fortification is in the middle of a town so things like plant growth will not work.


I am only 300 xp from leveling and it is really irritating me right now because I have never seen such a good time to use murderous mist (Spc) then this.

[PhaedrusXY]

I forget... is Kelgore's Grave Mist on the druid list?

[Cagemarrow]

Sand Mephits can cast/become a mobile haboob spell if you can summon them also.

[Prime32]

Do you have any allies with you? Binding a fiend with the possession ability to take control of enemy siege weapons could be nasty.

[Havok4]

No allies at the moment, they are with the cavalry, I had to race ahead to warn the town. The rest of the party consists of a fighter 2/Factotum 5 tankish type, Bard 7 buffer, Paladin2/Ranger2/Fighter1/Occult Slayer 1 archer. But they will not be there so they cannot help.

[zook1shoe]

Long term? Disease

[kremti]

I think I like the Invisible Spike Growth idea.  If you have extra day, just walk around planting some vines all around the battlefield, and Plant Growth to create bottlenecks/more plants to use to create Invisible Spike Growth sounds like a good idea.

Invisible Summon Swarms might also be good.  It's a Concentration+2 duration, so if they don't get killed (because, well, you know, they are invisible...), you can have it assaulting the army all day long...

-K

[Cagemarrow]

I love Invisible Spell.  Really wish it could be used with warlock invocations for just this situation.

Use the bat or Raven (Doves if you want them to be immune to weapon damage) swarms for Summon Swarm, so they either bleed to death or get blinded until they get professional healing. Even the most stalwart army is going to take pause if groups of them suddenly get torn to bloody shreds or have their eyes scratched out by things they can't see. The best part is the fact that they're such low level spells you should be able to keep it up all day.