You said one level 3 guy. So I assumed you meant that. In the battles we used, each side had tons of low level guys, and an increasingly smaller number of higher level guys (using Leadership as a guideline for the ratios). And yes, the high level guys are easier to spot, and get picked off. You said the Level 3 guy was hacking through the army. Anyone doing that got sniped. That's how it worked.
Can you make up your mind? Are armies fighting or are you just running around with your own personal army to kill people?
The point is that finding a level 5 warrior is easier then finding a level 1 bard, or a level 1 crusader. So if your PC party is a bunch of level 1 bard with different dragonfire inspirations, then the opposition army probably has 10-20 level 3-5 characters in it somewhere who are really nailing those around them.
At which point he's killed. You said "one side would have a single person of level 3 or higher somewhere in the army, and the entire other side would run away from him of die in droves." As soon as he starts pulling off something like that, he's just painted a huge target on himself. Also, what is this guy anyway, that he can kill so effectively? For reference, the standard troopers were Human Crusader 1s with Longspears, Heavy Wooden Shields (used only when not in melee, to deal with ranged fire) and Brigadine Mail, with Extra Granted Manuever and Stone Power. Just under half use Iron Guard's Glare, most of the rest use Martial Spirit, and a few others use Leading the Charge and Bolstering Voice. All are boosted by the prismatic damage of the bard corps, plus there's two Marshals in each regiment boosting their saves abit more.
1) It's almost like I was pointing out how that level 3 guy contributes exponentially more then his level 1 opposition, leading to a proportional loss of life on your side.
2) HAHAHAHAHA. Oh, see, silly me, I thought you were talking about an army. I see now you were actually just playing theoretical "What's the most kickass force I can make without exceeding level X" competitions with absolutely no relevance to any actual campaign. See, that army sounds badass, but they can't attack anything, because as soon as they do they will realize that every single peasant farming away is actually a Druid, because Druids are the best farmers. And every single mason is actually a Barbarian, because Barbarians are the best masons (until Wizard's take over). So your super army of Crusaders would attack a comparable super army of Crusaders backed by their Barbarian Peasentry and Druid Farmers (complete with riding dogs of course).
So... what is this third level guy that makes them die in droves so fast he can't be picked out by archery fire before he's caused the whole army to flee? And have you ever done a battle like this?
Sorry, the 3rd level guy was based on the assumption you would be using Warriors, you know, like a real army might, instead of assuming you lived in some crazy super land were every single person has magic powers and is uber badass.
Those die in one hit to either the Crusaders or the Archers, and Stone Power/Stone Bones/Martial Spirt/Iron Guard's Glare makes it REALLY hard for them to actually do serious damage. For reference, the Crusaders (who just have standard array) have an AC of 13 (Fanatics), boosted to effectively 17 by Iron Guard's Glare, and can gain temporary hitpoints, healing, and DR 5/Adamantine from manuevers. They've also got reach. And more to the point, they're reasonable troopers. Where the heck did you get an army of fiendish centipedes? I mean, finding a bunch of humans and training them as soldiers, then equipping them with cheap but effective fear... that's reasonable. Army of Fiendish Centipedes though? Seriously? What controls them? Where did you get them? How did you aquire an army's worth? Have you ever played in a game where a DM gave you that? And remember, I've actually used this army, these aren't just pulled out of my arse.
1) Oh great, the "I've played this game exactly like this, and since I clearly suffered from the same misconceptions then as I do now, those misconceptions don't exist" argument. Cute.
2) Yes, if you are using highly optimized crusaders in place of NPCs like one might expect, then the appropriate equivalent of NPCs isn't so bad. But if I in turn upgraded to the appropriate challenge for those crusaders, which is to say, Huge Fiendish Centipedes with feats, such as the one that allows them all to cast fear once a day, or maybe some Chakra binding, and maybe some Ankegs interspersed in the middle, then you still get run over.
You assume no higher level guys facing this Wizard. Why? Why isn't his smaller army killed off by other cloud kills from my side, considering that more bodies wins in a back and forth blasting scenario? How come you get 10th level Wizards and I don't?
1) You can have your own level 10 Wizard. And then, the fight becomes 90% about the Wizard and 10% about the losers dieing in droves, and those bards behind a hill can just piss off, since the Wizard benefits from the save bonuses, but not much else.
2) The statement, "more bodies wins in a back and forth blasting scenario" is exactly my point. You are wrong. More bodies doesn't help at all. More Cannon Fodder is pretty much useless. And you'd know that if you actually played intelligently under the actual rules of D&D.
Yeah, the Bards don't have to be exposed to enemy fire. The troops just have to hear them, so they pretty much stay behind battlefield fortifications, ensuring that enemies don't get line of sight or effect. If the marshals go down, then great, you're concentrating fire on level 1 troopers while my archers are targetting your higher level troops.
No one is concentrating fire. The Marshals go down in a single attack, and so each high level person can take out multiples of them, assuming the high level character is some kind of warrior, instead of something awesome like a Wizard or Cleric, who can just run around with a comparable minion storm in addition to killing things way faster.
Really, you're just pulling out random ideas, but I'm actually talking about a scenario that occured... and yes, the Bards were a huge asset, providing +1 to hit, +2 to damage, and +1d6 of each element in damage to all attacks from one side. That, combined with the insane durability of 1st level Crusaders, is awesome.
It is awesome. For level 1. But once you realize that those Crusaders might be facing Balors, you realize they actually just generally suck.
Meanwhile, you keep having to bring up higher level characters (a level 10 Wizard against level 1s!) while assuming I only get 1st level guys. Clearly, you can't win a fair fight against Crusaders backed up by a few 1st level Bards, so clearly, 1st level Bards are rather potent.
No, I could kill an army of Bards and Crusaders with an equal army of Barbarians and Bards, or Barbarians and Druids, or Just Druids. But as soon as one side is smart enough to hire a high level Wizard, then the entire level 1 army becomes obsolete. The fact that you like to pretend high level characters don't exist when you are talking about level 1 "armies" (that cost more then a single level 8 Dread Necro which is all it takes to annihilate them) doesn't actually make those high level characters cease to exist.
You need to reread the Diplomacy rules... and stop assuming that any epic dragon is going to take the 1 minute out of his day to listen to some random Expert 1. Do Dragons in your games just go about listening to first level characters all day long? Do they have nothing better to do? Are they all friendly to start? REALLY? And if so, why don't they all work for Diplomancers already, since anyone with a few ranks can get their attention?
1) I like how you can tell me I need to reread the rules, but you can't actually point to anything that is wrong. It's almost like you have no idea what you are talking about and just wish the rules actually made sense. (Hey look, I can coach my insults behind the word almost and then pretend I'm not actually insulting you too. I personally prefer to be blunt about it, but whatever.)
2) Yes, that is correct, somewhere there is an epic dragon enjoying some leisure time where someone could walk up and talk to him. Hell maybe he's actually the ruler of the kingdom you were trying to invade with your "army" and he just spit you for your trouble. But anyway, the fact that some Epic character or monster somewhere might at one time speak with one or all of the several hundred experts, and many of those experts may be diplo speced does in fact mean that the they would be diplosized if you started your world under the assumption that diplo actually works like that.
And why does your NPC class character have a starting charisma of 20 with two feats? What the heck point buy and race is he?
Well offhand, it would appear he is a Spellscale or Star Elf, seeing as Hellbred don't actually have NPC classes, because only special people get the second chance. As for PB, he could be 16 PB and have that 18, but he's probably more then that since 25 is the general min for anyone important and rolling would probably not give him mins in all his other stats.
But just to be clear, what do you think there are more of in a fictional D&D world, people with an 18 natural Cha, or people with levels in Crusader. Because the very idea of finding more then 5 level 1 Crusaders in any 2000 mile radius area is to me so laughable in and of itself that I honestly haven't been able to take anything in your post seriously since reading it.
5 Ranks, Skill Focus +3, Negociator +2, Charisma twice to the skill (+8 is the most we'd actually see on a level 2 character), that puts him at +18. Where do you get +26? And you do realize you need a 40 to make someone a fanatic follower, assuming they were helpful to start with, right? So, you're not getting minions, just people willing to give you discounts on gear. I'm not seeing it. I get the distinct feeling you have no idea what you're talking about and you're just making stuff up in hopes of winning an arguement, despite the lack of information.
Well first of all, there are races with +2 to Cha, so we could expect a +10 very easily. And second of all, you forgot the +6 in synergy bonuses. Maybe between the 2 classes the don't actually have all 3 skills as class skills and you need to be level 3 to get some other class with sense motive as a class skill, but a single level difference in breaking the game isn't terribly important.
The level 1 army actually happened. 5 PCs (level 8), 200 level 1 troopers, 20 level 2 troopers, 10 level 3 troopers, 5 level 4, 2 level 5. Rules as written (including using Diplomacy to whip the melee troopers up to Fanatic levels so that they gained +2 Str, +2 Con, -1 AC, and +1 Will saves). And you know what? It was awesome. Also, not pulled out of my arse. But the important point is that the 7 Spellscale Bards, despite being level 1, contributed the most of all the non PC troopers.
Hmm, so every single one of your PCs had Leadership, and the average Cha modifier of your party was +10 (all charisma based spellcasters with greater then average WBL?) Yeah, I don't think those number work the way you think they do.
Because you see, the most logical way to handle something as silly as that is that those 5 PCs are actually just a continuation of the follower chain, and then you would in turn need level 20 cohorts and Epic level people with the actual Leadership feat to get those followers. Which of course would make all those followers largely irrelevant when fighting a Solar.
But since you refused to use any sensible system, I'll just compute the EL of said army:
5 CR 8->4 CR 9->2 CR 10->1 CR 11-> EL 11 encounter.
2 CR 5->~14 CR 6->7 CR 7->~3 CR 8
5 CR 4->25 CR 5
10 CR 3->45 CR 4
20 CR 2->60 CR 3
200 CR 1->100 CR 2
So your army is about EL 11 encounter. So you could expect to face a level 11 Cleric/Wizard/Fighter (Ha)/Rogue. Do you think your army could handle that? I reserve the right to use appropriate minions, since you've optimized to hell and back on your army. So you can expect, assuming standard party, a Glabrezu or two throwing confusions around, four Ettin Skeletons, a Rogue you can't even see, Hercules, a Wizard casting EBT left and right while invisible, and a Cleric doing whatever he choose to do today (I'm a big fan of Cleric Archers, but that's just me).
Or, if we assume that your "army" (made up of zero conscripts for some reason) was treated as a PC party, and I wanted to give them a challenge they should theoretically beat half the time, I could have them face one of the following:
8 vroks or
an Astral Deva (don't even pretend you can win this, if you are attacking one or being attacked by one, then Holy Word is an insta kill on an 80ft diameter circle of your army every round, and this while flying and invisible) or
a pair of Glabrezu or
an Adult Red Dragon or
A Cornugon
How well do you think you would do against any of those?
(You'll notice these are primarily from the outsider/dragon families, generally considered stronger then average, that's because I'm away from my books and the SRD does not have an easy to review CR list, so I picked those categories that provide a range of CRs. Feel free to suggest your own appropriate CR 15 challenges.)
Once again, you made that up. Half the army due to a level 5 Wizard? And you assume we didn't have Dispel Magic ready? Really? How does your level 5 Wizard stop the army? Like your expert who got lucky because a Dragon happened to want to spend a minute chatting with him and already had a great attitude and then afterword was so impressed that, despite not being fanatic or anything, was totally willing to go smash some people without hope of decent pay?
If you have a dispel magic that will be coming from a level 5 caster, and if half your army makes or breaks based on a level 5 caster then they really don't matter as much as that level 5 caster.
I used absolutely no house rules in making the tier systems, for exactly the reason that other people won't use my rules. And yeah, your Expert example totally failed because it requires massive luck for the Expert to unreasonable degrees, including Dragons that just sit around waiting for people to chat with them (especially first level Experts who for no reason seem to be on a really high point buy).
So are all classes equal because any class can buy a Candle of Invocation or did you decided to ignore broken power sets? Because you spend half your time arguing that infinite followers several levels higher then you is okay, and the other half talking about how your abilities actually effect anything.
Really? See, in all my years, I've found that most high level opponents attack you first instead of chatting about their oppinions. In fact, a lot of them don't speak your language.
Who said anything about opponents. See, if you weren't trapped in your videogame mindset, you'd realize that anyone can find someone more powerful then them to talk to who is not an opponent, whether that involves walking into the nearest tavern at level 1 and talking to the guy with a glowing axe or planeshifting to the home plane of your god at level 9 and chatting up the nearest solar.
By the way, you're being a douche, which is against board rules.
No, you were being a douche when you implied my stupidity in your little offhand comments, or questions, or catty remarks, or repeated assertions that I am making things up.
I'm just doing the only polite thing, and telling you what I think about you.
See like this:
Are you so stupid that you can't imagine how that might work?
I'm not going to phrase this as a question, I know that you are too stupid to understand that I am being a nicer person by telling you exactly what I think to you instead of posturing for your board fanboys. Please have the decency to be up front with me instead of indirectly insulting me.
Only if those followers are Wizard 17s (or Sorc 18s) which are incredibly rare.
And yet, no matter how rare they might be, you can still find them at level 15, and certainly at level 17. So if your Wizard character can cast Genisis, then my Diplo abuser already got his friendly wizard to do it a level ago. That's why infinite free minions who can be higher leel then you if you want is a game breaker.
Interesting note: you can use Planar Binding without getting infinite wishes. You can create undead without getting an infinite shadow army. And you can use Diplomacy to unite people behind your banner and rally your troops without turning absolutely everyone into your instant friend.
Interesting note, you can do all those things, but they require realizing that you have to not use certain abilities. And while you may think it's fine to pretend that Diplomacizing people of lower level is okay, and that the player will be nice enough to respect the level limit, it doesn't change the fact that you can't say "Bard's can make friends of merchants! They are awesome!" without someone asking why they don't also use that to make friends with a nearby solar, or in one round turn any enemy into a friend.
But hey, I'm just an idiot, so the fact that I did it in a fun campaign isn't relevant. You, being so much smarter, know that my campaign didn't really work and that I wasn't actually having fun... I'm just so dumb I thought I was (and that my party and DM were having fun too... the first time an Orc charges you and you respond with "wait wait, how does this make you feel" is priceless). Truely, your way of playing is the only right way, and your house rules, which include nerfing Diplomacy so much that you can't even rally friendly troops or make alliances, should be used in all power tier discussions.
Remember what I said about being upfront with your opinions instead of trying to score points with the imaginary crowd? This sort of thing would be a good thing to look over in light of that.
JaronK
By the way, in the spirit of honesty, Signing everything with your username at the end of every post is stupid. It's right there on the side, we all know who typed it.
Oh, and just as a PS, this whole conversation is rather pointless, because the actual question was not: "Does a level 1 Bard support an army well?" It was: "Is a level 1 Bard a fun and/or useful PC class when you are playing D&D?" To which the answer is quite clearly no.
Unless you think sitting there watching the DM roll dice for his two imaginary armies while your character hides behind a hill not actually doing anything is the height of good gaming. In which case, I give up.