D&D Army Optimization (3e and/or Tome)

[OgreBattle]

How about we look at some historic battles and see what difference level 1 casters could make. Say Agincourt. If you're on the French side, how many level 1 wizards would you need to turn that defeat into victory? What spells would you use?

[Grek]

No. If you had first level wizards, Agincourt wouldn't have happened because warfare would be completely different. Most spells ignore armour. Thus, armoured knights and traditionally anti-armour tactics are totally irrelevant.

[violence in the media]

No. If you had first level wizards, Agincourt wouldn't have happened because warfare would be completely different. Most spells ignore armour. Thus, armoured knights and traditionally anti-armour tactics are totally irrelevant.

Or, you could go with the spirit of what OgreBattle suggested and just pretend you're an extra-planar wizard from the D&D dimension with a whole lot of minions to dump and an inexplicable desire to help the French.

Everything about the battle, and the events leading up to it, are the same. What is the minimum number of level 1 wizards that you need to insert on Game Day to turn the tide? What do you need to have them do?

[Nebuchadnezzar]

The unsatisfying answer is that it's a function of charm person slots, with the goal of either getting the English to waste enough time in that morning's parley such that additional French forces could arrive, or to instead convince the French to usefully deploy their own bowmen. I don't know of any first level spells that could help the French deal with the morass of the battlefield, which seems perhaps the intended question. Perhaps a bunch of use-activated Prestidigitation items could dry out the area.

[angelfromanotherpin]

In terms of actual battle magic, I think you'd use carefully-placed Silent Images to provide concealing screens for the main French foot assault (protecting them from missile fire), and then tactical Sleeps to turn the tide in the melee. I don't have a good grasp of the scale involved, though, so I can't guess how many it would take.

You could probably get really disproportionate mileage out of even one guy with Expeditious Retreat and Ghost Sound on an English flank. If you could bluff them into thinking you'd gotten soldiers into those woods, they might redeploy a significant force to face a useless direction.

[Grek]

Everything about the battle, and the events leading up to it, are the same. What is the minimum number of level 1 wizards that you need to insert on Game Day to turn the tide? What do you need to have them do?

One. He casts Disguise Self on himself, disguising himself as a generic Englishman. Then he casts a Silent Image of a 50' tall skeleton holding a sign with the words "The English Will Die This Day, For King Charles Is The Chosen of God" in in blood red letters above the English camp. The English, rightly freaked the fuck out by his omen, will go away and not fight.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Pathfinder clerics are so invaluable to armies at the low end (especially those of deities that have sweet weapon proficiencies like bastard swords and glaives and longbows) that I find it hard to believe that people would choose to mostly staff their armies with anything else if they're available.

Their biggest advantage, right off of the bat, is their ability to channel energy to heal fools.

And then there's the militarily useful 1st and 2nd level spells:
Recentering Drone
Restore Corpse + Purify Food And Drink
Abundant Ammunition -- use it on specialty ammunition.
Lesser Animate Dead
Augury
Defending Bone
Masterwork Transformation to make specialty ammunition when all you have are a bunch of carved sticks.

Also, because Pathfinder spellcasters can cast orisons and cantrips an unlimited amount, they can engage in projects impossible for 3.5E D&D casters. Like, oh, filling up a moat or a swamp. Archetypes that are marginal in the hands of PC clerics such as the Undead Lord are much more useful in the hands of NPC jobbers. The Crusader is a marginal choice for PCs but excellent in the hands of 1st-level NPC jobbers, since they can get Tower Shield Proficiency right off of the bat.

Finally, clerics do have two domains to pick from. You'd want to keep your eye on the ones that are agnostic towards how many allies you target, of course. Or you could also do stuff like, oh, have human clerics with the Plains druid domain take up the Mounted Combat and Mounted Archery feats and use the Mount spell to (in addition to their domain ability) have a 4 hour level light horse that can be deployed anywhere. Or, hell, you could use that Undead Lord ability I mentioned above to have creepy skeleton warhorses for your dudes to ride on. Not bad for first-level cannon fodder.

[radthemad4]

You might want a few Marshals. You could save a lot of money on equipment and get a lot of nifty bonuses.

[RadiantPhoenix]

Well, I guess a couple 2nd level Marshals could give:

• DR 1/-
• Speed +5ft
• +1 AC
• +1 to hit in melee
• +1 to hit at range
• +1 damage

But that's six dudes, and it only buffs allies within 60ft.

AFAICT, Marshals are ass, but maybe possibly part of a perfectly-optimized army.

[radthemad4]

Minor auras can add CHA bonus to initiative (Motivate Dexterity) or any one save at level 1. Motivate Wis and Dex are nice for scouting parties. Motivate Int is nice for crafting. Not a huge difference, but it's probably a lot easier to train a marshal than a caster.

[TheFlatline]

How about we look at some historic battles and see what difference level 1 casters could make. Say Agincourt. If you're on the French side, how many level 1 wizards would you need to turn that defeat into victory? What spells would you use?

2-300 if they have 3 first level spells and you're up against 1st level archers. I believe magic missile has a longer range than the longbow.

That'd probably be the baseline, and you probably wouldn't kill all the archers, but you'd kill most of them.

The real trick is to find out how to solidify the muddy ground so that you could get armor across the field.

[Lago PARANOIA]

That'd probably be the baseline, and you probably wouldn't kill all the archers, but you'd kill most of them.

No. Not really. The longbow waaaaay outranges magic missile. Remember, it has a range increment of 110 ft, which is exactly the maximum range of the spell. And longbow users can fire from 10 range increments back. Granted, it'll be at a whopping -20 to hit, but wizards and AC... not so good.

And even if you were in range, you'd do an average of 3.5 damage per magic missile and even if you had three of them to use (which requires specializing in evocation, yuck) it's unlikely that one wizard will actually get to kill an opposing archer. Remember, the archers will at least be first-level warriors and have 8 hp for you to chew through, not to mention the negative hp. You can get them into negative hp per wizard you have and end up not even killing many of them as they're treated thereafter by the reserves. And it seriously will take one arrow to drop an average wizard.

[fectin]

Obscuring mist, silent image look most promising once you're into it. Before it starts, charm or true strike might work, if you can single out a leader.
Otherwise, maybe disguise self and pass bad orders?

[tussock]

Wizards work a lot like hardened close air support, airborne engineers, airlift MBTs, and AWAC units all in one, so formation tactics probably don't happen in D&D, or at least irregularly where you have to close with the enemy before forming up, and then quickly scatter if you win.

Foxholes, really. If you ever form up on some signal or another the enemy can copy that signal and just fireball the result. Disguised folk sneaking around in enemy zones will abound, as will tougher friendlies trying to keep a lid on that.

Clerics are omniscient information gathering, and illusions mean eyes-on recon is less reliable than initial planning. Which is weird, the plan says you walk across this field of fire and demons, so you just do.

Pretty much everyone has to pretend to be a War1. There's always a bigger fish out there, no matter how much damage you can do by sticking your head up there's someone four levels higher who can instantly decapitate you when you do. Encouraging folk to give their position away without getting hurt too bad in the process would be interesting, as would strategies for melting away again in the face of divination magic. At least True Sight is short range.


To some extent the strength of small super-teams working to assassinate the people in charge is promoted by the primacy of skirmish-adventure in D&D. Once their top end casters are dead, they really have no choice but to accept terms or be further reduced in peak strength. The armies are just there to force the peasantry to follow along, give the real targets someone to hide amongst, be bait to make someone worth killing stick their head up for.

[Reynard]

TheFlatline:
> I believe magic missile has a longer range than the longbow.
No. Even if you use DnD rules (as Lago pointed out) that would be wrong.


Moreover, real longbows were not precision weapons, but an "artillery". I.e. archers were targeting not individual people but areas/squads. It doesn't matter who gets shot by any individual arrow, as long as someone does. And, unless you get really good, Obscuring Mist or illusions could only make archers target larger area thereby reducing total number of arrows falling on each individual Wizard, not make them immune to ranged attacks.


As I already mentioned - IRL Welsh archers (in medieval armies, not as individual marksmen) were shooting well over 1000 ft. And that distance is not limited to Welsh or even longbows. Even untrained peasant with crossbow could send bolts over 1000 feet. Of course, real crossbow took longer to reload (~4 rounds IIRC).

If you want to make trouble for archers while they turning your squad of casters into a squad of hedgehogs, you'd need Enlarged long-range spells. And I can't name a single long-ranged 1st level spell that would be useful. Well, except Entangle, but that's hardly a permanent solution. So, even with Sudden metamagic or rods you'd need 3rd level casters (Acid Arrow). Fireball is even better, but that's hardly optimal use of 5th or 7th level casters.


tussock:
> Wizards work a lot like hardened close air support, airborne engineers, airlift MBTs, and AWAC units all in one
How exactly?

IMO, if high-level caster acts like MBT, he is not being an ICBM, while low-level casters don't have the range or mobility to be anything else but forlorn hope/shock troops (with all the life expectancy that entails).

[RadiantPhoenix]

If you successfully conceal yourself with Silent Image, they have to spread their arrows over everywhere.

If you also send in some Silent Images of attackers, they'll shoot that for a bit, and waste a bunch of arrows.

Then, once they've stopped shooting at your illusions, you send in some real soldiers.

[Reynard]

> Silent Image
Oh, come on. This not on a Mending Cornucopia level of retardation, but close.

Pound to pennies there will be troops dedicated specifically to disbelieving every damn thing on battlefield: "Fifth squad! Disbelieve everything in sector 5-13! Third squad! Concentrate on the troops moving in our direction!"

Remember - only one action (standard or move) is necessary to attempt a disbelieve, and disbelieved illusion becomes "a translucent outline".

[JigokuBosatsu]

I'm pretty sure a couple of Lawrence Watt-Evans' (he of the original hobgoblin samurai cheese) books deal with low level wizards (and sorcerors and warlocks and shit) being put into play on a relatively conventional battlefield[EDIT: The Unwilling Warlord]. Later books dealt with the fallout of high level as well. [EDIT: The Vondish Ambassador]

Will edit to link the titles if and when I remember.

[EDIT: from the same universe, The Misenchanted Sword deals with a low-level fighter stuck with a cursed artifact sword- it delves into some of the military applications as well.]

[Username17]

> Silent Image
Oh, come on. This not on a Mending Cornucopia level of retardation, but close.

Pound to pennies there will be troops dedicated specifically to disbelieving every damn thing on battlefield: "Fifth squad! Disbelieve everything in sector 5-13! Third squad! Concentrate on the troops moving in our direction!"

Remember - only one action (standard or move) is necessary to attempt a disbelieve, and disbelieved illusion becomes "a translucent outline".

Your AD&D is showing, you should zip that up. "Disbelieving" isn't a thing that you take actions to do or not do. And it hasn't been for like a decade and a half. I could explain how the system actually works, but it is complex and dumb. Suffice to say your specific objections are completely incoherent. You might as well be talking about demi human level limits.

-Username17

[Reynard]

All About Illusions (Part Three) By Skip Williams
> For game purposes, we can define "studying" an illusion as taking an action (which DMs can choose to make a move action since this is an extrapolation of the rules and not an actual rule) to observe an illusion effect and note its details.


You can argue that this is not written in PHB (or any real book), or that Skip is a moron, but AD&D? Seriously?

[Username17]

All About Illusions (Part Three) By Skip Williams
> For game purposes, we can define "studying" an illusion as taking an action (which DMs can choose to make a move action since this is an extrapolation of the rules and not an actual rule) to observe an illusion effect and note its details.


You can argue that this is not written in PHB (or any real book), or that Skip is a moron, but AD&D? Seriously?

Studying isn't disbelieving. You take the observe in detail action. Doing it doesn't imply that you don't believe the thing you're looking at, just that you want to study it. It's basically not a thing you do in battle, and even if it was, it wouldn't actually do anything except give you a saving throw. Passing that saving throw wouldn't do dick diddly for anyone else in your army.

-Username17

[RadiantPhoenix]

Since it's an extrapolation of the rules, we can try to apply common sense.

I would say that you would have to be close enough to the illusion to make out the details in order to have a chance of seeing through it. How close depends on how much detail, so let's do some numbers.

20/20 vision allows you to distinguish features of about 1.75mm at 20ft, so at 110ft, you would expect to be able to make out features 1cm in size, and at 440ft, 4cm.

A 4cm error would be something on the order of your illusory knights looking like Miis, including having ball-hands, or your illusory bush being a speckled sphere.

Thus, at the range at which Silent Image can be cast, they will not be able to discern the details, or absence thereof, of the illusion, and thus can't study them.

[Reynard]

FrankTrollman:
If it's studying with intention to ferret out illusions, it is an attempt to disbelieve, no? In any case I don't really understand what is your problem with the word.


It is correct that passing saving throw against illusion would do nothing. But passing it and communicating result to the other people will automatically grant them saving throw at a bonus. That's RAW in PHB.

On top of it, dubious web article also grants automatic success at disbelief, if sufficient proof is presented. IMO, message from disbelief squad that "those soldiers aren't real" constitutes sufficient proof. But that is irrelevant, since personally disbelieving illusion is unnecessary for commander.

As long as "disbelief squad" informs him that coming troops are not real, the trees to the left are enemy ambush, and to the west there are hidden foxholes, commander can give orders. Even if he fails his own saving throw and still sees illusions.

Archers themselves also don't really need to pass saving throw. They just need to get an order to ignore coming tropps and to make those trees look like a pincushions. And commander can give this order.

[Reynard]

RadiantPhoenix
> Since it's an extrapolation of the rules, we can try to apply common sense.
You surely meant "Since rules do not say what I want them to say, I can homerule stuff however I want to".

But whatever. Lets kill some catgirls. It's Friday.


> I would say that you would have to be close enough to the illusion to make out the details in order to have a chance of seeing through it.
Provided illusions behave the way you want them to behave. Not providing an onlooker with the level of detail impossible for objects observed from such distance, for example: "If you can see colour of their eyes from a mile and a half away - those are not real soldiers, lad!"

Or becoming too smudgy/blurry, if wizard doesn't get expected perception right.

You see where I'm going with this, right? Wizard creates not a holographic image, but a "false sensation". That's what illusions (figments) are literally called in the most holy PHB, btw. And it is further extrapolated: "Those who perceive the figment perceive the same thing, not their own slightly different versions of the figment."

So a strong case might be made that "details" do not degrade with distance granting illusion total invulnerability. A strong case might be made that details are defined by the caster. And if he doesn't get those details right, illusion will look fake, even if you observe it from far away.

There you go. Alternative extrapolation of the rules with some common sense applied.

[RadiantPhoenix]

You see where I'm going with this, right? Wizard creates not a holographic image, but a "false sensation". That's what illusions (figments) are literally called in the most holy PHB, btw. And it is further extrapolated: "Those who perceive the figment perceive the same thing, not their own slightly different versions of the figment."

So a strong case might be made that "details" do not degrade with distance granting illusion total invulnerability. A strong case might be made that details are defined by the caster. And if he doesn't get those details right, illusion will look fake, even if you observe it from far away.

There you go. Alternative extrapolation of the rules with some common sense applied.

Given the absence of a rule saying that distance makes it easier to disbelieve illusions, I think that's bullshit.

In common speech, if I'm standing a foot away from a telephone pole and my friend is standing fifty feet away, we would generally say that we're seeing the same thing, not different things.

Further, in context, it's pretty clear that it's supposed to contrast with [Phantasm]s, which look like different things to different people -- i.e., a Silent Image can be of a dragon or a vampire, but not both at once, while a Phantasmal Killer can look like a vampire to one person and a dragon to another.