Author Topic: you against an army  (Read 6500 times)

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jameswilliamogle

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Re: you against an army
« Reply #20 on: March 22, 2009, 07:12:35 PM »
Wouldn't the army have flasks of alchemist's fire or acid?
Same thing as the caster v. non-caster thread: need to define parameters before this has any significant meaning.

Here's what I propose -
Army: 5000 strong, each with at least 5' spacing between them on average.

20% are archers (ave Dex of 14, each w/ 2 quivers, can use crossbows too)
30% are spearmen (or 2-handed reach weapon non-shield users, ave Str of 14)
30% are sword 'n board (or 2-handed non-reach melee users, ave Str of 14)
20% are specialty (a schmattering of casters, siege weapon operators, and scout types)

None are > L3.  On average, only the specialty characters will have acid flasks et al (and less than 10 each), and then only the scout types will have more than 5.

How does that sound?

BowenSilverclaw

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Re: you against an army
« Reply #21 on: March 22, 2009, 07:14:04 PM »
a line of energy bolt-spamming astral constructs
I'm AFB right now, but how'd you get them to use Energy Bolt? I'm working on some new NPCs :smirk
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mans0011

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Re: you against an army
« Reply #22 on: March 22, 2009, 08:19:25 PM »
...But they can buy wands of true strike?

Honestly, It depends on too many things. A monk (with really good stats) might be able to last a while, and a barbarian with tireless rage wouldn't be too bad. something like a rogue will always be screwed, just because a rogue focuses on DMG to a single target. Casters will still win, cept maybe warmage. I mean, a Dread Necro would just make his own army. A Beguiler would too, but he would use the armies own troops.

Lets take a simple example. Redgar is a Human meleeX which can't be hit accept on 20's. he has 150 hp, and when he gets hit he takes 5 damage. this is oversimplifing it way too much, this means that every 20 attacks he takes 5 damage. Assuming an arbitrarily large number of foes, he will die after 600 attacks. Mialee is a Human casterX. She is Flying, teleporting all over the place, and can only be hit on a 20 by an arrow, but she only has 60 hp. Each arrow that hits her will do 5 damage. This means she takes 5 damage every 20 attacks. Even with all her spells, it still only takes 240 attacks to kill her. She might kill more troops on her way to the grave, but she still would die eventually. This example uses max hp for level 15, not counting any constitution and things like that. And, a critical might do a little more than 5 damage, etc etc etc.

I don't know if this has been ninja'd but the Caster probably has access to wind wall or whatever that spell is that stops arrows. Good luck getting an arrow through that....
OOC-well for that matter he could just ride on my sword, that's about 15' ;)
OOC - That's what SHE said!  But, otherwise, that works for me, if you guys are willing.

Prime32

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Re: you against an army
« Reply #23 on: March 22, 2009, 08:31:50 PM »
a line of energy bolt-spamming astral constructs
I'm AFB right now, but how'd you get them to use Energy Bolt? I'm working on some new NPCs :smirk

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mans0011

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Re: you against an army
« Reply #24 on: March 22, 2009, 08:54:51 PM »
There's the ol' Locate City nuke:
#1: Locate City.
#2: Add Snowcasting (Frostburn)
#3: Add Flash Frost (PH2) (raises spell level by 1)
#4: Add Energy Substitution (Lightning) (CArc)
#5: Add Born of Three Thunders (CArc)
#6: Add Explosive Spell
#7: Everything gets knocked to a distance of 30 miles from where you stand, suffering 1d6 points of damage per 10 ft. travelled.

A 6th level wizard can get all of these feats if he gets a bonus feat because of his race, and if flaws are allowed he can get it by 3rd level.
A 6th level focused specialist diviner can cast this spell 9 times per day not counting bonus spells from high INT or magic items like pearl of power. That's more than enough to take out an army.

Sorry, how does this work? Explosive spell says that it can only be added to a spell that allows a reflex saving throw. Am I missing something?
OOC-well for that matter he could just ride on my sword, that's about 15' ;)
OOC - That's what SHE said!  But, otherwise, that works for me, if you guys are willing.

Arcane-surge

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Re: you against an army
« Reply #25 on: March 22, 2009, 09:03:26 PM »
Snowcasting adds the cold descriptor, Flash Frost adds damage. Energy sub. qualifies it for Born of the Three Thunders, which adds a reflex save. Then apply explosive spell. Take 15 minutes to prepare, and serve with cheese. Lots of cheese.
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mans0011

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Re: you against an army
« Reply #26 on: March 22, 2009, 09:05:54 PM »
Snowcasting adds the cold descriptor, Flash Frost adds damage. Energy sub. qualifies it for Born of the Three Thunders, which adds a reflex save. Then apply explosive spell. Take 15 minutes to prepare, and serve with cheese. Lots of cheese.

That's right! I forgot to re-read born of three thunders. Wow that's cheesy. It reminds me of a recent Naruto chapter where Pain destroys Konoha. Delicious. So if you stand near a city and cast this spell, it is basically destroyed, eh?

Edit: Wow. That's ridiculous. You don't even need to be standing near a city. Anything within 10 miles/caster level goes bye bye. This is super cheesy. :-/ Are you subject to the save?
« Last Edit: March 22, 2009, 09:19:29 PM by mans0011 »
OOC-well for that matter he could just ride on my sword, that's about 15' ;)
OOC - That's what SHE said!  But, otherwise, that works for me, if you guys are willing.

CannibalSmith

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Re: you against an army
« Reply #27 on: March 22, 2009, 09:26:06 PM »
How does that sound?
As good as anything.

But I'm not looking for specific builds against specific armies. I started this thread to ascertain the point where characters become really superhuman. Like Master Chief or Serious Sam. When they become largely immune to conventional threats, and as long as they don't run out of ammo or fall over from fatigue, can kill any number of normal humans.

rubberduck

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Re: you against an army
« Reply #28 on: March 22, 2009, 09:31:35 PM »
cleric2/ binder1/ master of shadows2
would own the army... summon shadows wich are totally immune to anything not magical
the killing begins
the more shadoes you get the faster the army dies

at the end of the day there is nothing left but 100000 shadows
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The_Mad_Linguist

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Re: you against an army
« Reply #29 on: March 22, 2009, 09:47:43 PM »
How does that sound?
As good as anything.

But I'm not looking for specific builds against specific armies. I started this thread to ascertain the point where characters become really superhuman. Like Master Chief or Serious Sam. When they become largely immune to conventional threats, and as long as they don't run out of ammo or fall over from fatigue, can kill any number of normal humans.

Depends on the class.
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Bauglir

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Re: you against an army
« Reply #30 on: March 22, 2009, 09:48:46 PM »
Well, those spells were actually for the caster to use on the army to wipe out huge chunks at once. They're not good tactics against a caster.

Generally speaking, melee fighters are forever vulnerable until they have more hit points than the army can deal with 1/20th of its attacks before they're annihilated. Actually, so is anyone without casting or a similar ability that allows them to manipulate the battlefield in such a way that they become invincible. If escape is valid, then I'm going to need a race for said army; a sufficiently fast character can simply outrun them, and the speed of the army is going to be either their base race's speed or else that of warhorses. For a safe bet, Druid 5. Your standard ikea tarrasque or other TO build, of course, will vary and become capable of surviving at exactly the level they qualify for their amazing trick.

EDIT: Make that Warforged Druid 5. No need for sleep.
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Heliomance

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Re: you against an army
« Reply #31 on: March 22, 2009, 09:56:51 PM »
Snowcasting adds the cold descriptor, Flash Frost adds damage. Energy sub. qualifies it for Born of the Three Thunders, which adds a reflex save. Then apply explosive spell. Take 15 minutes to prepare, and serve with cheese. Lots of cheese.

That's right! I forgot to re-read born of three thunders. Wow that's cheesy. It reminds me of a recent Naruto chapter where [spoiler]Pain destroys Konoha[/spoiler]. Delicious. So if you stand near a city and cast this spell, it is basically destroyed, eh?

Edit: Wow. That's ridiculous. You don't even need to be standing near a city. Anything within 10 miles/caster level goes bye bye. This is super cheesy. :-/ Are you subject to the save?

mans0011

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Re: you against an army
« Reply #32 on: March 22, 2009, 10:33:54 PM »
Snowcasting adds the cold descriptor, Flash Frost adds damage. Energy sub. qualifies it for Born of the Three Thunders, which adds a reflex save. Then apply explosive spell. Take 15 minutes to prepare, and serve with cheese. Lots of cheese.

That's right! I forgot to re-read born of three thunders. Wow that's cheesy. It reminds me of a recent Naruto chapter where [spoiler]Pain destroys Konoha[/spoiler]. Delicious. So if you stand near a city and cast this spell, it is basically destroyed, eh?

Edit: Wow. That's ridiculous. You don't even need to be standing near a city. Anything within 10 miles/caster level goes bye bye. This is super cheesy. :-/ Are you subject to the save?

Meh. You REALLY need to read the manga. So much better than the anime. onemanga.com for free manga reading.
OOC-well for that matter he could just ride on my sword, that's about 15' ;)
OOC - That's what SHE said!  But, otherwise, that works for me, if you guys are willing.

Anklebite

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Re: you against an army
« Reply #33 on: March 23, 2009, 07:53:47 AM »
ways of beating the army:
-black sand (cast once per army)
-opelecent glare (cast once, ever)
windwall+fly+rope trick+greater invis to survive
assuming caster is only human (and not necropolitan or mineral warrior or.... ect)

or, if you have 8th levels, blackfire (or whatever it was called) pwns the army, hard, in the face. a spreading CON damage AoE = win.

or hell, grab a shadow however you please, with spells or rebuking or with create undead or, for extra lulz, a master of shrouds.  lowbie armies are pretty easy to beat in DnD.
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Heliomance

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Re: you against an army
« Reply #34 on: March 23, 2009, 10:30:24 AM »
Whichever spell it is that allows you to summon/create a Bodak. It's like a zombie plague, but worse.

Risada

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Re: you against an army
« Reply #35 on: March 23, 2009, 10:32:41 AM »
I guess it's Bodak's Glare (?) from Spell Compendium... but this spell is quite high in level (7th or 8th)....

woodenbandman

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Re: you against an army
« Reply #36 on: March 23, 2009, 10:57:03 AM »
Binder with Geryon and Balam will get all around vision and 4d6 of gaze attacks per round... Nobody approaches within 30 feet of him.

ErhnamDJ

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Re: you against an army
« Reply #37 on: March 23, 2009, 11:18:50 AM »

If we assume the mass combat archery rules from Heroes of Battle are in effect, anyone not immune to arrows is going to die very quickly if surrounded by thousands of archers.

But, I see no reason why combats in this world would involve masses of men moving about in formation over a battlefield. Even a few low-level wizards and sorcerers with Fiery Burst ruin the day.

For the cost of equipping all those men, you can purchase Real And Ultimate Power. Hiring high-level wizards is much less costly than taking on a hundred thousand soldiers.

mans0011

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Re: you against an army
« Reply #38 on: March 23, 2009, 12:27:31 PM »
That's sorta like Full Metal Alchemist. You've got some grunts and then several, very powerful supernatural people that just destroy the opposition. Then again, in FMA, there wasn't much in the way of equal opposition....
OOC-well for that matter he could just ride on my sword, that's about 15' ;)
OOC - That's what SHE said!  But, otherwise, that works for me, if you guys are willing.

sombrastewart

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Re: you against an army
« Reply #39 on: March 23, 2009, 12:37:19 PM »
Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems to me that a rogue with Hide in Plain Sight and high stealth skill modifiers would be gravy.  Sure, it'd take forever and a day to kill all of them, but hide from them, kill them, rinse, repeat.