Your opinion on this war (3.5)

[Adamaro]

My new campaign will be based at the very start of a massive war between two empires. This is no joke: these empires are led by extremelly powerfull casters (clerics and wizards respectively) and I would really like to get your opinion on how would things develop in this case/who wins.

Dwarven empire is far older then human - it is about 6.000 years old and is based on ways of Moradin.
Human Empire - only two large cities actually - is about 900 years old and its backbone is a small group of extremely powerful wizards.

Human empire consists of two cities: Larger and Smaller, larger being a Metropolis (about 150.000 people) and Smaller (about 50.000 people) with additional 50.000 people in occupied lands, 250.000 alltogether.
Dwarven empire consists of about ten underground mountain cities, each with about 50.000 inhabitants, thus 500.000 alltogether.

Dwarves have an edge in extraplanar contacts such as with good and lawfull felestial creatures, possibility of intervention by Moradin himself (in a sense of gods' avatar) and more powerful items and minor artifacts. Even thou wizards can produce and/or buy almost any item they desire up to minor atifact, there are far more of these items in Dwarven empire.
Humans have an ingenuity of a small bunch of optimised wizards on their side with an addition of a small number of evil clerics who reside in Large and Small City.

To put it in numbers:

Dwarven empire:
200 lvl 20 clerics
600 lvl 15 clerics
1200 lvl 10 clerics
8.000 lvl 5 clerics
100.000 lvl 1 clerics

+ maybe a dozen human lvl 20 wizards. There is a small bunch of such casters who also fight for the good but were so far too afraid to go against their brothers-in-magic due to their strenght.

Dwarves are devout religious followers and almost all of their standing army (30.000 men and women with an ability of additional conscription of nonprofessional soldiers/clerics) are also lvl 1 clerics of Moradin.

Human empire:
40 lvl 20 wizards and 40 lvl 20 evil clerics
20 lvl 15 wizards and 60 lvl 15 evil clerics
60 lvl 10 wizards and 120 lvl 10 evil clerics
60 lvl 5 wizards and 400 lvl 5 evil clerics
+ unknown allies. There are clerics of Hextor and Wee-Jas among ranks of clerics from Large and Small city and an intervention may be expected from evil gods too.

With an amazing rate of conscription and organisation human empire can place on a battlefield no less then fifth of its population - an army of 50.000 men, but these are 40% armed commoners (spearmen), 40% lvl 1 warriors and 10 % mercenaries of all kinds (mostly lvl 1-6, tier 3 classes)

Dwarves want to hit North hard and fast - nullify any high-lvl resistance (casters) and invade Smaller city with full force. Path to the south is another problem. Dwarves expect to be constantly harrased by high-lvl wizards and cleric counterparts, but army should slowly reach south and lay siege to a Large city which is expect to fall soon, especially due to the fact that Dwarves are not looters in this case, do not pillage, rape and burn. As a LG army and a nation they just want to topple the evil caster elites in both Small and Large town.

So whats' your prediction on such a conflict?

Map of these events ... very crude one ...
http://img841.imageshack.us/img841/5434/warofempires.png

[Yora]

The dwarves have almost three times as many level 20 casters as the humans and almost 10 times as many level 15 casters. With such a force, all other troops are irrelevant. They cast a lot of gates, earthquakes, and storms of vengeance and turn the human country into a barren wasteland if they wanted to.
They should also have no problem taking out all humans over level 10 within a couple of days and then there's nothing left to oppose them.

[WinWin]

The dwarves have an advantage in the number of Good aligned casters...

However. A Lawful Good Cleric has restrictions on their behaviour. Failure to uphold their code of conduct will cause them to lose abilities. If they are the aggressors in war, their power will be limited. If they were the defenders, they might have some leeway.

The evil guys on the other hand, have no such restrictions. They can rape, pillage and animate the corpses of their enemies (not neccesarily in that order). They can play dirty and condone the use of such tactics amongst the rank and file.

Simple numbers still dictate to good guys will prevail. But at what cost?
How many followers of Moradin will lose their way? How much time will be spent dealing with supernatural terrors such as Undead and Magical Disease? Not to mention lingering resistance after occupation.

[Adamaro]

I see some additional explanations (and questions) are in order. First of all dwarven attack is prompted by Moradin himself by means of signs, seeings etc. Human empire is led by LE guild of wizards, working together with powerful merchant guilds and pre-mentioned evil clerics. Southern city actually occupied northern (previously N or NG) human settlement. If human empire is to to spread further, Moradin (and Dwarves) are afraid it will slowly consume all other lands. While code of conduct is strict in lands of human empire, no depravity is punished as long as one obeys the laws. (allowing slavery, raising the dead, gladiator games and just about anything you can imagine)

Turning a human empire into a barren wasteland is really not an option for dwarves. Previously many good clerics and paladins lived in human empire, but were chased out or killed, killed, resurrected, tortured, killed again, eaten alive and resurrected, etc ... by this merry party of LE casters.

There is a strong resistance already existent in human empire - all those chaotic and good individuals, who are quite unhappy under yoke of new LE masters.

As for weeding out wizards ... I have real hard time imagining how would these wizards not present a constant threat by means of using rope tricks, mages magnificent mansions, astral projections and also wracking havoc on dwarven city. It would IMO be a very ugly and long-lasting war.

[Acanous]

Cloudkill/Plague of Undeath would be a pretty sick combo when dealing with low level dwarves. Create hot zones for a little while until some clerics can show up and turn them.


The Evil human force is much smaller and much more vulnerable. They have to go in using guerilla warfare or this will be over in a couple of rounds.

[true_shinken]

Put that map in a spoiler. Window stretching is not fun.

[zimmerwald1915]

So the human empire is smaller, with fewer resources, wracked by internal strife, held together by fear and brutality, and does not have the explicit sanction and blessing of a god? Meanwhile, the dwarven empire's well-established, is on a holy crusade, a fact which is known and appreciated by all levels of its society, and can manipulate a fifth column in the human lands? Code of conduct or no, the human empire's going down. The human wizard elite would be damned difficult to eradicate, and could potentially hide themselves away forever and emerge to harass the dwarves, but that doesn't save their empire.

[qcbtnsrm]

I have a question. Where are all the farmers? You have only listed the urban population of your kingdoms. In anything but the Tippyverse you should have about 90% of your population living outside cities.

[zimmerwald1915]

I have a question. Where are all the farmers? You have only listed the urban population of your kingdoms. In anything but the Tippyverse you should have about 90% of your population living outside cities.
Given the apparent abundence of high-level casters in both empires, this might well BE the tippyverse. Good question nevertheless.

[Elfin]

And they both have enormous populations, too; how do the dwarves sustain such huge numbers if they live in the mountains? Where do they get their food? And how does Moradin's clergy exceed 110000? That's an insanely vast number.

The dwarves definitely have the advantage, but how optimized are the dwarven clerics? Healbots? CoDzillas? Somewhere in between?

[qcbtnsrm]

The wizards will have advantages in planning (they should have more super-geniuses than the clerics will). They also have advantages in mobility and firepower. Command and control should be about equal... but the dwarves will have a massive advantage in logistics. And the wizards are terribly outnumbered where it counts i.e. high level casters.

So being geniuses they do what anyone would do, they bolt and start guerrilla warfare. Avoiding any contact with the main force they use divination to find any garrison or other resource that is less guarded and not immune to teleport (you can't Dimensional Lock an entire kingdom) and raid it. Basically Scry and Die on a massive scale. Teleport in, get a surprise round, Fire off a Time Stop, let loose with a few Maws of Chaos (or other destructive type spells), and teleport out as your final action in the Time Stop.

Long term the wizards don't care what loses they take, as long as it isn't them, if they can eventually drive out the invading/liberating dwarves. The collateral damage back in the dwarven kingdom should be horrendous.

[LordShotGun]

Long term the wizards don't care what loses they take, as long as it isn't them, if they can eventually drive out the invading/liberating dwarves. The collateral damage back in the dwarven kingdom should be horrendous.

Long story short, this. Until Moradin himself (aka avatar) attempts to track down these wizards, they have a massive number of 9th level spells that can be used for destruction, anti-detection, and subterfuge (mind-rape some high ranking military dwarf and have free info for the entire war) would make the dwarf focus on taking out these wizards ASAP or else the whole war is useless as the wizards can, if all else fails, create a wightpocalypse.

[Adamaro]

@qcbtnsrm
"The empire" could also be seen as a city state of sort. (state with two cities that is) Most of its food it imports, also, tippyverse is quite strong here especially in a sense of farming constructs and undead workers.

As for guerilla tactics: Could dwarfs not in turn just scry where wizards will appear or say scry on a amount of time and place that wizards will spend outside ropetricks/mansions and teleport-one-hit them with killteams?

@Elfin
Dwarves import food but also live off subterranean plants (like hydropondics) and in part from Create food and water. They live in the mountains but all of their dwellings are in fact subterranean.
There is lots of clerics, yes, but most of these clerics do useful jobs in their lives. To be a cleric does take some time and effort, but this does not mean that they all day pray and chant.
As for optimisation: Dwarven casters are in fact much less optimized then human wizards. Still, there is a couple dozen CoDzillas.

[Mastikator]

One of the advantages the wizards have is the ability to cast greater teleport. Clerics can't scry and die. A group of high level wizards can buff up, scry, teleport in, blast like there's no tomorrow and then teleport out before the clerics can react.
Being intelligent the human wizards ought to apply this tactic. And really, only the high level casters count. Any of the top level casters have the means to kill everyone below level 10. So I'd keep the levels on the involved around the same.
Besides, anyone above level 10 should be busy with activies greater than mere wars between mere empires. They should be holding off an invading horde of demons threatening the whole world or some such.

So yeah. Scale down the levels. Severely. Other than that I have no problems.

[mago]

The dwarves would win. Let's look at the most important battle: the battle of the 9th level spells.

200 lvl 20 clerics
vs.
40 lvl 20 wizards and 40 lvl 20 evil clerics
obviously, the clerics are more than double the numbers, so at best, the wizards have a very, very very hard battle in front of them. it's not an impossible battle, but nearly.

I'd say it comes down to this: If the wizards can strike first, fast and hard, they have a fighting chance. If they take too much time, don't strike hard enough, or the dwarven clerics take the initiative, they are schrewed. For example, if they scry-and-mindrape, somehow peneltrating anti-scy barriers and mental defenses, and do it fast enough and retreat before they are harmed, they've got a chance. if they wait too long... well, 200 miracles go a LONG way.

[Ormur]

Uhh, let's see just from looking at the SRD.

The high level clerics (the rest don't matter really) buff themselves up like hell, wind walk to the cities, summon a horde of angels, earthquake all defenses and implode everyone that stands in their way.

The Wizards are mind blanked and otherwise buffed, effectively untraceable. They can teleport to wherever the clerics appear and I guess they'd disjunction or mass dispel the buffs.

Wizards are undoubtedly stronger, probably very hard for the clerics to hurt. They can choose when they want to fight even though the wind walking clerics are pretty fast too. Still a 2,5:1 advantage for 20th level casters and a 7,5:1 advantage for 15th level casters is pretty big. If the dwarfs get some divine help, manage to get lucky occasionally and down an attacking wizard and have plenty of diamonds sitting by for resurrecting the casualties then they could eventually whittle down the high level wizards so that the rest would give up.

[qcbtnsrm]

@qcbtnsrm
"The empire" could also be seen as a city state of sort. (state with two cities that is) Most of its food it imports, also, tippyverse is quite strong here especially in a sense of farming constructs and undead workers.

As for guerilla tactics: Could dwarfs not in turn just scry where wizards will appear or say scry on a amount of time and place that wizards will spend outside ropetricks/mansions and teleport-one-hit them with killteams?

Makes sense. I just wanted to understand.

As for the guerrilla tactics, yes I'm sure there would be a divination/anti-divination war. But the wizards have several advantages.

First, with their evil cleric allies they have access to every spell the dwarves have, and a ton that the dwarves don't.

Second, they have the traditional guerrilla advantages, they know where the dwarves key strategic resources are (at least to some degree), where as the wizards don't even have to be holed up in their original empire. They could be on another continent, or even plane. They are literally a needle in the multi-verse. And with access to every anti-divination spell in the book, good luck finding their bolt hole. It is a lot easier to protect a single large building/complex from divination than it is to protect every square inch of a kingdom/empire. And if the wizards go this way, nearly every square inch is a valid target. Yeah capping the general is a great thing if you get a chance, but slaughtering a village of mushroom farmers and salting their fields works too.

Third, they have the advantage of choice. They can literally place a list of hundreds of targets on the wall and spam a bunch of divination spells until they find a confirmed target that is unprotected and matches their specification. Then the strike team goes out, and returns within a minute of the target being specified. The dwarves have no way of predicting this. All their divinations to predict targets for defense will give the equivalent of "Reply hazy, try again," simply because the wizards won't have chosen the exact target until seconds before the strike takes place. The dwarves at best will be able to identify completely safe targets that the wizards aren't even considering, because they will be able to get clear replies on those subjects. But even that can be manipulated by the wizards through various means. Just because something wasn't a target this morning doesn't mean it won't be this afternoon.

Then the dwarves have three possible defensive replies. Spread the troops out and defend everywhere, which just means the wizards compile larger strike teams and wipe out the defenders wherever they go. Or they could heavily protect the handful of really important targets, but that leaves everything else unprotected. The final choice, create a mobile anti-strike force, but the wizards have teleport and the dwarves don't, at least not directly, things like miracle and planar ally obviously can help counter this. But by and large the dwarves are going to have real problems engaging the wizards.

Fourth, direct assault is just an example. As LordShotGun points out they have weapons like Mindblank, Polymorph/Shapechange, and Mind Rape in their arsenal. Spam enough crap like that, and the wizards can probably just disappear into the crowd, and get themselves appointed as regents over their original territory within a few months. If a 20th level wizard doesn't want to be engaged, you aren't going to be able to engage him.

And finally, eventually one of those 20th level wizards is going to go epic. And then the game is over, the dwarves get hit by an indoor version of the Rain of Colorless Fire.

[zimmerwald1915]

If the dwarfs get some divine help, manage to get lucky occasionally and down an attacking wizard and have plenty of diamonds sitting by for resurrecting the casualties then they could eventually whittle down the high level wizards so that the rest would give up.
This is interesting. Presumably Gate and Planar Ally would be seeing rather a lot of play in this scenario. The Clerics would have both the resources to pay off a larger and more diverse extraplanar army and could probably count on the Good-aligned extraplanar entities being well-disposed towards them: this could possibly be made manifest in the form of a discount. The wizards, on the other hand, will have their Empire swept out from under them in a relatively short period of time, will be on poor terms with the upper planes, and won't be on especially good terms with the lower planes.

[Valameer]

I see the clerics having a lot of counters to the wizards.

High Int is nice for planning and strategy, but high Wis is just as important in a war. Wis would help determine the opponent's likely strategy, weed out spies, and not make any grievous mistakes.

Scry and die is countered by hallow and forbiddance, which that many clerics should be able to have set up everywhere they need. Hallow combined with silence lasts a year, and would nerf any caster you designed it to. Say, any non-dwarf. They'd need silent spell all over the place. Which - I guess 20th level wizards would be able to do fairly easily.

Discern location will quickly weed out everyone but those level 15+ wizards - so really this whole thing is a bunch of high level wizards vs. the entire dwarven nation within a few seconds. The wizards go into hiding and plan guerilla strikes, and the clerics probably start setting up hallow spells and forbiddance spells in the human cities, and plan out governance for those cities.

How much damage can the wizards do? Tons. And they can theoretically go forever if they're cautious enough. How long can the wizards stay a unified front, though? I could see a lot of the wizards turning to strike deals against their brethren at an early point in the game. I see a few cabals of these wizards forming. A small group might ally with the dwarves to maintain a fraction of their power (probably plotting all along, but remember the dwarves have wisdom and divination.)

Within a year, I'm sure the damage just one of these cabals could inflict could cripple the economy or raze the land. But what would the human wizards goal be? A bloodless victory rather than wholesale destruction? In that case, the best bet is a long, slow, political con. It'd be like having 40 Senator Palpatines running around. The dwarves best defense against this is commune and divination - which would help some, but I don't think the humans could ever really be stopped. Not all of them. Unless Moradin started whispering where the humans were hiding to the dwarves.

tl;dr: There's no way the humans could hold onto their nation, even for a day, if the dwarves were motivated. But the chaos the high level wizards could cause is limited only to their imagination, and could go on as long as they wanted it to.

PS: If you want a real war - with troop movements and supplies and, well... warriors, you've gotta seriously rethink your demographics. 400 20th level clerics is absurd. This isn't war it's rocket tag.

[WinWin]

All it takes is one casting of Evil Weather on the dwarven captial and Team Evil wins...At least they win that battle.

Violet Rain shuts down divine magic for the duration and arcane supremacy triumphs.

No way they can take out al the clerics in one strike, but that is not the point. It's like one side fires a nuke, the other will retaliate in kind. The to and fro will continue until one side is incapable of striking back. The good guys may triumph in the end due to numbers, but it will likely be a pyrrhic victory.

[Telok]

Hundreds of castings of Greater Planar Ally with 18 HD Angels, Archons, and Inevitables against dozens of scry & die teams.

And that's just the first day. If both sides are using Mirrors of Mental Prowess and Mirrors of Opposition then things are going to get really confusing.

This is a war of magical mayhem. Troops, armies, and anything with less than 15 HD and/or no spells just won't be a factor in this. Information, divination, and massive magical explosions will rule the day. The side that locates and penetrates the defenses of the other first is the winner. Unfortunately the only way I see for that to happen is for one side to act before the other is ready. All the cities are going to be destroyed, I think we just have to accept that. Most of the civilian populations are going to be collateral damage and a significant percentage are going to become undead. The casters on both sides are going to end up in fortified or hidden strongholds sustained by Create Food and Water traps.

If this isn't decided in less than a week then it could easily turn into an undead apocalypse with nearly impenetrable fortresses constantly scrying on each other, just waiting to drop a magic nuke into the first crack they can find.

Edit: I just noticed, Talismans of Ultimate Good/Evil are minor artifacts and possibly in play here. No save vs. annihilation. Rocket tag!

[awa]

the dwarfish side also have level 20 wizards the biggest problem is optimization tier one casters are so incredible affected by optimization and what degree of broken bul s--t you allow.

a single cleric with accesses to gate can summon n number of solar to annihilate everything as a standard action. heck you have a level 20 cleric gate in 40 hd outsiders there is probably one in some splat book. Or if you really want to drop the hammer summon your god you can't force him to do anything but its already said that he divinely favors this war divine ranks are a big deal.

im sure the forces of evil could do the same thing this battle 9th level spells are stupid broken.

[J.Gellert]

...An undead apocalypse with nearly impenetrable fortresses constantly scrying on each other, just waiting to drop a magic nuke into the first crack they can find.

This has got to be made into a campaign setting, yesterday.

[true_shinken]

Troops, armies, and anything with less than 15 HD and/or no spells just won't be a factor in this.
I'm sorry, but this simply isn't right. This is not an adventuring encounter - this is war. You have to worry about people to protect, buildings to defend, crops to transport. Every resource matters during war. There is fighting all day long, so wizards won't have time to craft items and if they are on the battlefield they will run out of spells eventually. Just for making a wizard spend his spell slots low HD critters are already important.

[awa]

the troops do matter but they are a liability one shadow can destroy all the level 1 warriors in an army. the level one guys only matter if the casters are low op and are wasting magic on meteor swarm

[Yukitsu]

Dwarves very, very thoroughly outmass the humans considering how many people a level 5, a level 10, a level 15 and a level 20 are worth. The breaking factor IMO is actually the 1200 10s. A level 10 cleric can wade through essentially arbitrary numbers of 1s, so a platoon of 10s supported by 5s and a regiment of mundanes would be capable of holding down the entire 50, 000 mooks while a token garrison of 5s leading 1s prevented light raids, and the 20s and 15s clashed with their equivalents, outmassing them enough to win outright.

[Tvtyrant]

The biggest issue is that there are two human cities and ten dwarven ones. The humans would have to win 5 times as often to succeed. The best way for them to do this would be Teleportation Circle in the clerics and have the wizards teleport into the cities. Everyone is pre-greater invisbilitied, and they summon like mad once inside. The level 20's that come into the city wait for the level 20 dwarf clerics, and then disjunction them out of the sky (they aren't going to save their city on foot). Chances are fall damage kills the Clerics, if not the really high level people retreat while the mid levels hide in the city and wait for the high level Dwarves to respond to another such attack in a different city. The very large armies of commoners are sent to attack one city in a siege; the Clerics can either spend their time attacking it and getting disjunctioned or they spend time dealing with the teleporting invaders.

Basically the wizards need to keep the Clerics reacting rather then making their own plans.

[Keinnicht]

Ignoring combat, there's also other factors in winning a war. A Lawful Good Cleric, no matter what his god says, cannot reasonably do that much targeting of civilians.

On the other hand, the evil guys have no such problems. Teleport over to the farmlands, cast a flaming sphere, and pretty soon half the food supply is up in smoke. Craft Wands of Fireball, given them to a few lower level casters, and send them flying over cities on bombing runs.

Teleport near a city. Cast Meteor Swarm. Teleport away.

Go into a crowded area. Cast reverse gravity. Watch it rain commoners, who are now dead. Enlarged Evard's Black Tentacles in a public area would cause incredible destruction.

Send the Clerics in! Blasphemy alone could kill a huge number of commoners if uttered in a crowded area. Plus, you were saying something about a rebellion? Guess what: All residents of the empire are now legally required to have a Mark of Justice inscribed upon them, which will curse them if they work against the empire.

The Clerics might win in theory, but their alignment would probably force them to surrender to prevent even more death.

[Yukitsu]

Historically, that's not what "good guy" nations have done to oppose legitimately tyranical rulers. Surrender to that cause will always be the last option. Second, a primarily clerical base has no need for farmlands. They can consolodate their entire population into their fortified holds, and yes, you can in fact fortify a hold against 20th level casters using teleportation attacks. DMs that let scry and teleport attacks work against anyone above 10th level haven't read the books thoroughly enough.

[Ormur]

This gets awfully messy with so many high level casters. I've been modelling the demographics of a potential war in my own campaign setting and casters are a lot less abundant.

I imagine a country of 22 million people, pretty typical for medieval/renaissance empire. This very militarized empire had a standing army of 300.000 soldiers. Most of them are low level fighters but a good enough chunk, a few tens of thousands perhaps, to make them remotely relevant are martial adepts of higher level than 3. The entire army is supported by about 5000 fullcasters of all levels and classes. So that's 1 army caster per 4000 subjects. The wast majority if them are low level. The entire nation has at it's disposal perhaps 3 casters capable of casting 9th level spells and guess what positions they fill.

These are the proportions I hope will make fielding armies at least remotely realistic.

[Tvtyrant]

Other issues include why they both don't just make a bunch of Iron Golems to send at each other, since they are mostly magic immune.

[Randel]

Can't the wizards create some kind of magic-proof construct, create a teleportation circle, and then send the construct through into the dwarven stronghold to cause trouyble. With a teleport circle they could pull off scry-and die tactics while sending whole armies of whatever they want through.

Wights, Chaos Beasts, Constructs, cows festering with supernatural diseases, etc. Or mind-raped criminals carrying Mages Disjunction bombs or whatever else they might want.

Also, if there are kobolds in the Human Empire the wizards could mindrape them to be loyal to their side, then Polymorph Any Object them into some kind of dragons, then teleport them into the dwarven lands to mess up the place. Or if there are other kinds of people/things that can be mindraped and PaO'd into something hilarious then they could do that as well.

Basically the wizards find a secure place to hide out, collect people to convert into monsters or otherwise create powerful monsters (constructs would be hard because it actually takes time to enchant them) and then teleport them wherever they want.

Also, Wizards can cast Clone and Simulacrum which give them some backup resurrections if things go south and the Simulacrum spell lets them create copies of themselves... I suppose the highest level simulacrum would be level 10 but I'm sure they could be useful.

And of course its only a matter of time before these wizards try to become Liches... if they are going to be fighting against a huge empire of dwarves with an actual GOD opposed to them then why not pull out the stops? Besides, if they ever feel the need to get their fleshy bodies back then they could make clones and... I dunno, these guys could probably use Epic Magic or Wish spells to get their old bodies back if they wanted to.

It would probably boil down to them building a bunch of secure bases of opperations, maybe having Teleportation escape route for their human population or whatever shmucks they can get their hands on, then figuring out ways to convert all those warm bodies into something horrible to send at their enemies. A thousand lvl 1 commoners are no match for high level clerics, a thousand wights/chaos beasts/eldrich vampires/polymorphed horror cubes or whatever could be a bigger problem.

Actually, scratch that... they could probably polymorph themselves into dwarves, mindblank themselves into being undetectable, then live in Dwarftown by killing and replacing people.

Basically, with Polymorph any Object a wizard can turn anything or anyone into anyrthing else they want and and then use teleportation spells to move them all over the place. Then mindrape lets them turn a person into a loyal person... you could probably start converting dwarves into humans, humans into dwarves, or rocks into dynamite, beer into poison, crocodiles into dragons, civilians into undead horrors, and then teleport them all right into the holiest temple in the dwarven empire.

[qcbtnsrm]

Historically, that's not what "good guy" nations have done to oppose legitimately tyranical rulers. Surrender to that cause will always be the last option. Second, a primarily clerical base has no need for farmlands. They can consolodate their entire population into their fortified holds, and yes, you can in fact fortify a hold against 20th level casters using teleportation attacks. DMs that let scry and teleport attacks work against anyone above 10th level haven't read the books thoroughly enough.

But the scry and die tactics, aren't intended against small caster sanctums or even holds. The targets are cities, and the rest of the dwarven empire, and eventually the human empire after the dwarves take take it over. Forbiddance over an entire city would cost millions of GPs (40 million GPs per square mile, assuming the total elevation change inside the cities is less than 60', more if they have significant depth/height). Forbiddance over both empires would cost trillions of GPs at least. All of which can be dispelled by the wizards at no cost. Simply walk in under disguise, go to some hidden warehouse or something and cast dispel until Forbidance falls. Should only take a few rounds. Now they have a hole they can use for teleportation.

And the dwarves' goal is not to simply survive the magic apocalypse, it is to launch a crusade to liberate the humans. They have to leave their holds to do that. If they hunker down defensively inside holds the wizards win. If they leave they can't cast Forbiddance on all the territory they cross as they cross it. They also need to maintain trade routes and the like.

The wizards only need to protect less than 1000 casters. That is a group you can hide and protect. And they have no reason to protect their subjects. For the all intents and purposes their subjects are hostages against the dwarves. The dwarves need to protect nearly a million dwarves and humans. Even with their ridiculous casting resources, that is a vastly more difficult proposition.
The question is not if the dwarves can win, they will... period. They outclass the wizards tremendously. What the wizards can do is make it so ridiculously expensive to force a negotiated settlement, and regain their position as the rulers of the humans.

[Yukitsu]

But the scry and die tactics, aren't intended against small caster sanctums or even holds. The targets are cities, and the rest of the dwarven empire, and eventually the human empire after the dwarves take take it over. Forbiddance over an entire city would cost millions of GPs (40 million GPs per square mile, assuming the total elevation change inside the cities is less than 60', more if they have significant depth/height). Forbiddance over both empires would cost trillions of GPs at least. All of which can be dispelled by the wizards at no cost. Simply walk in under disguise, go to some hidden warehouse or something and cast dispel until Forbidance falls. Should only take a few rounds. Now they have a hole they can use for teleportation.

And the dwarves' goal is not to simply survive the magic apocalypse, it is to launch a crusade to liberate the humans. They have to leave their holds to do that. If they hunker down defensively inside holds the wizards win. If they leave they can't cast Forbiddance on all the territory they cross as they cross it. They also need to maintain trade routes and the like.

The wizards only need to protect less than 1000 casters. That is a group you can hide and protect. And they have no reason to protect their subjects. For the all intents and purposes their subjects are hostages against the dwarves. The dwarves need to protect nearly a million dwarves and humans. Even with their ridiculous casting resources, that is a vastly more difficult proposition.
The question is not if the dwarves can win, they will... period. They outclass the wizards tremendously. What the wizards can do is make it so ridiculously expensive to force a negotiated settlement, and regain their position as the rulers of the humans.

You don't need to forbiddance. You merely need to dig in to well fortified location with lined walls. If an army of 30, 000 is considered considerate during a time of crisis, this is a kingdom with a populace of a mere 100, 000. Probably fewer if they are relying on women to fight. You can't teleport into a hold if you can't see in, and you merely need to line a few holds that are not directly protected with lead. This can be sequestered and protected fairly easily.

Second, they require fewer than half of their casters to negate the full brunt of the arcane army, the remainder can oppose them directly in offensive actions, decimating the 50K army in the fields and on the move, taking cities and turning the populace against the wizards. These can't be protected by the wizards simply because the wizards would lose any direct confrontation, which would essentially end the entire conflict.

Basically, the clerics have been given enough high level casters to hide away and protect their entire populace, and have enough left over to decimate the remaining casters in an open engagement. At worst, as they move to take the 3 cities, the clerical casters would be forced to fight 100% of the evil army, but they would still out power this force by an equivalent advantage of 2-1.

If they are reduced to 100 level 20s, this becomes a reasonable and possible encounter. However, where it matters, they have far, far more firepower.

[qcbtnsrm]

You don't need to forbiddance. You merely need to dig in to well fortified location with lined walls. If an army of 30, 000 is considered considerate during a time of crisis, this is a kingdom with a populace of a mere 100, 000. Probably fewer if they are relying on women to fight. You can't teleport into a hold if you can't see in, and you merely need to line a few holds that are not directly protected with lead. This can be sequestered and protected fairly easily.
Per the OP there are 500,000 dwarves. So that is going to be really expensive to line a hold for that many dwarves. And there are enough divination spells (like Discern Location) that aren't blocked by lead to find your hold. And Greater Teleportation also isn't blocked by lead. So for the cost of surrounding Rome with a lead bubble an inch thick, you have accomplished nothing.


Second, they require fewer than half of their casters to negate the full brunt of the arcane army, the remainder can oppose them directly in offensive actions, decimating the 50K army in the fields and on the move, taking cities and turning the populace against the wizards. These can't be protected by the wizards simply because the wizards would lose any direct confrontation, which would essentially end the entire conflict.
Yes, in a direct confrontation the wizards get spanked. There is absolutely no disagreement there. But the wizards don't care about the army, or the townspeople, or the villagers, or anyone other than themselves. They are after all Evil with a capital E and everything. So evil in fact that a god is calling for a crusade against them and two other gods are actively supporting them. But the dwarves do care about the people the wizards rule. The dwarves aren't conquering, they are liberating. Every human that dies is a loss to the dwarves as much or more than it is to the wizards.

The wizards end goal is to end up ruling their empire. As you say, they lose a direct confrontation. So their tactics have to be about avoiding direct contact with any superior dwarven force. But the wizards have superior mobility and the advantage of time. The dwarves may be willing to hunker down in a lead lined super bunker for a few weeks or even months. But the wizards can drag this out for decades, they can blast the surface of both empires to a moonscape, they can turn the dwarven cities to rubble one by one. How long are the dwarves going to stand to be at war with a force they can't bring to battle. And how liberated are the humans going to feel as the constant teleporting wizard death squads rampage across their former lands teaching the lesson of what happens to traitors?


Basically, the clerics have been given enough high level casters to hide away and protect their entire populace, and have enough left over to decimate the remaining casters in an open engagement. At worst, as they move to take the 3 cities, the clerical casters would be forced to fight 100% of the evil army, but they would still out power this force by an equivalent advantage of 2-1.

If they are reduced to 100 level 20s, this becomes a reasonable and possible encounter. However, where it matters, they have far, far more firepower.
But the wizards don't have to ever fight the dwarves in open engagements. They don't have enough power to win against the dwarves, but they do have enough power to keep the dwarves from winning. All they need to do is turn into a plague on the dwarves and get a negotiated settlement. Maybe they have to agree to moderating their rule. Maybe they slowly morph into some secret cabal and re-infiltrate and rule from the shadows. But no matter what there is no quick, easy or painless win button for the dwarves.

[Shyftir]

It's like a nuclear arms race. Nobody wins with this kind of power being thrown around the ones who win are the ones who stay as far away from this war as they can and then come own the remnants.

[awa]

you keep forgetting that the dwarves can summon their god a greater deity with one 9th level spell.

gods especially greater gods are really powerful those wizards are screwed.
a god has more raw power to throw around and his mental stats are probably through the roof as well.

[WeLoveFireballs]

Due to the sheer number of clerics the wizards will probably use their mobility with fly teleport and sumsuch to bombard armies and escape before someone can retaliate. In a straight fight they lose and they know this with high int easily.

Being Good clerics the dwarves will probably try to end the war quickly and bloodlessly. Probably via seige with loooots of dispelling or stone shape to mine under and into the wizard councils and capturing them.

What part do the PCs play in this war?

[WeLoveFireballs]

you keep forgetting that the dwarves can summon their god a greater deity with one 9th level spell.

gods especially greater gods are really powerful those wizards are screwed.
a god has more raw power to throw around and his mental stats are probably through the roof as well.

Wait what? How?

[WinWin]

I wonder what would happen if Moradin entered the area effect of a Purple Rain?

I would like to think the evil empire would send Zombie Moradin to go smash the dwarves, but that is just me.

[Jamini]

Hundreds of castings of Greater Planar Ally with 18 HD Angels, Archons, and Inevitables against dozens of scry & die teams.

And that's just the first day. If both sides are using Mirrors of Mental Prowess and Mirrors of Opposition then things are going to get really confusing.

This is a war of magical mayhem. Troops, armies, and anything with less than 15 HD and/or no spells just won't be a factor in this. Information, divination, and massive magical explosions will rule the day. The side that locates and penetrates the defenses of the other first is the winner. Unfortunately the only way I see for that to happen is for one side to act before the other is ready. All the cities are going to be destroyed, I think we just have to accept that. Most of the civilian populations are going to be collateral damage and a significant percentage are going to become undead. The casters on both sides are going to end up in fortified or hidden strongholds sustained by Create Food and Water traps.

If this isn't decided in less than a week then it could easily turn into an undead apocalypse with nearly impenetrable fortresses constantly scrying on each other, just waiting to drop a magic nuke into the first crack they can find.

Edit: I just noticed, Talismans of Ultimate Good/Evil are minor artifacts and possibly in play here. No save vs. annihilation. Rocket tag!


This has got to be made into a campaign setting, yesterday.

Done. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=179393)

I hope you guys don't mind if I take a few more ideas from this thread. The idea of the PCs living in the shadow of two near-omipotent magic organizations bent utterly on the destruction of the other rather excites me for some reason. It may be my love of apocalyptic scenerios, who knows?

[J.Gellert]

The most important question has not been asked yet. Who wins Initiative?

(I am joking, of course; Celerity, the mages win. In the beginning they are horribly outnumbered; at the end of round 1, it is they who outnumber the dwarves overwhelmingly.)


Done. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=179393)

Yes, but... you kind of missed the point by disallowing casters and starting at 1st level in this Cold-War Tippyverse. :smalltongue: /OffTopic

[grimbold]

there should be fewer lvl 1 clerics
1 in 5 people would not be clerics IMO no matter how religious the empire
the dwarves look a lot more powerful could you clarify on those allies for the humans?

[weenie]

If the wizards are based on a previous campaign we played together with the op I actually think that they have a real chance in a direct comfrontation as well. The wizzie I was playing in that campaign could take down 5 optimized lvl 20 clerics alone fairly easily. Whitin a few rounds too. The dwarves should be masters counterspellers and have some amazing antimagic tricks up their sleeves to be able to try and counter him. And if they aren't that optimized, they won't stand a chaance not even if a dozen goes after him at once.

The prc Red Wizard is pretty popular in that guild, which means that cl 40 black tentacles, auto maximised and empowered orbs, cl40 maximised maws of chaos etc get thrown around a lot. Not to mention simulacurums of 40HD beeings and all sorts of crazy magic resistant golems beeing produced daily. This combined with the option of hiding and not really caring about casualities makes me feel that dwarves may well be on a path to extinction. Localized scry and die attacks would be the name of the game here in my opinion. ALL the wizards would group together, teleport to a dwarven city and slaughter everybody but the lvl20 dwarves. Those they would capture ALIVE and take back to their base, where they would mindrape them into living zombies uncapable of tought. Then they would feed them until the dwarves eventually died of old age. Or they would level drain them into useless schmucks. This one sounds more like it actually :smallsmile:

As I see it the dwarves have no real counterstrategy to this and would pretty likely get beaten into the dirt.

Another thing to take into account is that the dwarves have been around for millenia, which also means that they must have a trillion enemies who can't wait to see them die in anguish. Kobolds, goblinoids, ogres, lizardmen, drows, they all could be bought to the side of the wizards, while the dwarves would probably never try to make such allies. So now the wizards have an additional 20 kobold sorcerers, 20 goblin wizards, 50 hobgoblin and ogre meleers, 20 lizardman druids and 20 mixed wiz/cleric drows, all lvl20. And they don't even have to pay them from their own pockets, they can just promise them a portion of the plunder of the dwarven empire, which is as explained, rich as hell. Seriously, the dwarves are going down.

[TurtleKing]

SO what role do the PCs play in all of this? Where are they located? If they are in this war they could die very easily and this campaign will be short. The players won't be too happy if where they are is suddenly targeted by a high lvl caster who uses some massive destruction spell and they are now dead. The only way to pull that off is if they have some way of reasonably surviving it. They will not enjoy being ganked.

@weenie: Should you have posted? This looks like a DM planning his campaign thread, and from personal experience the players should not see what is in the thread.

[Adamaro]

Arhg! The unholy wizard pest of my campaign popping up in my thread :smallbiggrin:

Well it seems everyone overlooked this part of initial post:


+ maybe a dozen human lvl 20 wizards. There is a small bunch of such casters who also fight for the good but were so far too afraid to go against their brothers-in-magic due to their strenght.

Not to mention mercenaries from two sources: Necropolis and Sigil. Necropolis is a large undead metropolis of lvl 20 wizard liches, as old as dwarfs (they are mostly away from home, but as good leaders intervene if nessecary). For a proper amount of money, they will lend their arcane powers and ultra-optimisation to highest bidder. There is no conflict between them and Dwarfs, because Necropolis is only interested in existence, not expansion. Several small-scale crusades were led against Necropolis in the past by zealous clerics of Moradin and paladins, but were killed, their souls trapped and individuals revived and returned to dwarven empire - for a price. Of course, some of the "Ye olde liches" would also lend a hand to wizards. For a price.

And there is Sigil, a place to be if you are a lvl 20 caster, bored of material and most other planes. "Mercenaries wanted" signs in that place demand an optimised lvl 20 caster, best being monster classes with wiz lvls. Dwarves would have to dig deep in their pockets and promise some awesome favours in the future, but would get true powah on the battlefield.

Also, there is Moradin. Problem is, some of dwarven enemies are also evil clerics and surely Hextor and Wee-Jas will not stand aside and wait for their clerics to be just pwned by some LG smuchks.

As for Weenie posting, that's quite ok with me. This is more of a "background setting planning" and I really like input from all sides.

[hunt11]

What I am trying to figure out is if you want Armageddon or an actual war. If all the casters actively engage in this conflict then all will be left will be a smoking crater. If you want an actual war then a possibility is that all casters above a certain level are stopped from directly attacking the other side and now the casters focus on buffing their respective armies with magic items and summons of various types.

[Lorin]

Hm, quite interesting topic. Ok. What have we here? Clerics and wizards. Basically, dwarfs have every single advantage over the Empire: they are better equiped, better trained, better organized, have more troops AND planar support. Empire on the over hand have just one single trump card: arcane magic. Is it so good, to turn the tables? Propably not, but they DO have a chance if they go for the sneak tactics: not just scry\teleport, no. Why don't planar bind some of the Dwarfs allies for the intel and then using it for tactical advantage? Why not target families of the generals and clerics? Also they can use same intel to target said generals and clerics? Yes, they propably coud not directly teleport to them, but few miles away if fine too. Equip some kill-teams and here you go! Also there is great potencial for the illusionists, yes, true seeing will be a pain, but some neat spells like nightmare terrain will be a great force against even the troops with a true seeing clerics. Also don't forget the evil clerics, who at least can counter at some way the dwarfs... but still dwarfs are frankly strong, so i guess Empire's chance will be roughly near 30%. Still good, if you ask me.

[Adamaro]

@hunt11
I just want to know how this would turn out. If Dark Sun setting comes out of this, then so be it.

[Tiki Snakes]

Problem is, with portfolio-sense, and the fact that the empire Moradin want's to tackle the Humans is a Dwarven one, even if the Wizards find a way to strike first, and hardest, the Dwarves, via Moradin, will know long in advance.

Between sheer mass of Clerics and the fact that they explicitely have Moradin on their side, the Wizards really don't have much going for them.

And hell, even the argument that the Dwarves are shackled by the risk of civilian casualties falls apart on examination. All they need to do is find funnel enough diamond into their economy via planar hijinks or abuse of Wish's, and spend a few months true-ressurecting people. They've got the clerics to do it!

[J.Gellert]

@hunt11
I just want to know how this would turn out. If Dark Sun setting comes out of this, then so be it.

Well, it can go any number of ways, depending on storytelling. For example, the wizards strike fast and decidedly and while their armies lose the first engagements, they kill the dwarven king. Strife between dwarves that wanted the war and those that didn't - offensive stops, back to status quo, or almost there.

Or everyone dies, the land turns into an alien landscape, the world is populated by undead and magical mutants, and several gods die in the mess, if you want to ...upset the status quo, to put it lightly.

I guess most people assume that the second outcome is more possible just by troop numbers, but really, not everyone has to fight.

Maybe the highest-level people go "Screw this, this isn't MY fight, I'm out of here" once the going gets tough.

Maybe a single ridiculously optimized wizard murders so many clerics that he levels up into Epic and rules the world alone.

Maybe some Mother Goddess is upset because of all the blood flowing on the earth and just decides to flood the world and only save 2 humans and 2 dwarves to repopulate the lands.

Whatever the DM wants, that's what happens.

----------

But yeah, with those numbers, and assuming everyone fights all-out? Dark Sun. :smallcool:

[TurtleKing]

Well considering that deities are involved then that means ALL deities entities are involved. Not just those three. The entire Dwarven pantheon, entire Human pantheon, and well everyone else. Since the humans are Lawful Evil then Hell will take notice and get involved. Demons will take part from all the chaos it causes. The other deities will either sequester their races away or lend aid to a side. Powerful merchant guilds and corporations will take part and probably serve both sides. A war of this scale does not have a neutral side to it. It may only inolve two races, but the outcome of the war will affect all. When superpowers go to war the other powers will be affected.

So how does everyone else react to this? What does the Elves, Halflings, Gnolls, Orcs, Gnomes, Ogres, Minotaurs, Catfolk, Centaurs, Kobolds, and many more do?

Edit: Expect Dark Sun. (example outcome of events) The deities in yours are probably distant to keep a very hands off approach now. The demographics of each race is probably only 5% at most of what it used to be. Civilized areas are few and far inbetween. Also magic is practically non-existant in your world. Psionics might become the most prevalent type of magic. This considering you don't have massive witch trials and burning at the stakes ... even for clergy. Since the deities took part even divine casting could even qualify for burning at the stake. If the divine casters can even get power from the deities. The only casters that might be supported are the druids and maybe rangers. The reason why is to restore the devastated world.

[dragonfan6490]

I imagine that in an effort to finally end the war, the Wizards would turn to the Lady of Pain, who would be so pissed that these mere mortals believe that they could summon her that she would simply decide to maze all of the evil wizards.

Thus, the Dwarves win.

Also, Dwarves rule a**. They have beards, and axes, AND BEARDS! And they invented booze. Also, the elves would side with the humans because they are ruled by an evil elven witch and cause cancer. I know this because my grandmother died from elven cancer. :smallbiggrin:

*Disclaimer: I actually have nothing against elves, I'm a big fan of those dirty, cheating, carcinogenic bastards. :smalltongue:

[Randel]

Old Moradin was chillin around drinking dwarven beer with his clerics in town...
When suddenly BB Sauron arrived, trying to pull off a Scry and Die!

Moradin got pissed and began to attack, but his counterspell got blocked by Enerjak
Who brought down down the house with a Psychic Blast, till Elminster ported in from the future (or past).
Elminster nuked Enerjak and taunted with 'Pwnd!" when Sauron pulled off a Locate City Bomb.

But before Sauron could port back to Mordor, St. Cuthbert and Perlor slid onto the floor.
Pelor pulled an AK-47 out from behind his back and blew Sauron away with a ratata-ta.
While Cuthbert gave a cry and raised his holy sword
To call down from heaven the angelic horde.

It was the Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny
Good guy, bad guys, and explosions as far as the eye can see.
And only one will survive, but who will it be?
This is the Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny.

As the skies turned to blood, brave men when insane... till down from Sigil decended the Lady of Pain.
Who with a icy steel smirk and a twinkling gaze... send all Epic casters straight into her maze.
The clerics and wizards and factoriums too, were speechless for a round thinking what to do.
But the Lady gave a grin that burned like the sun, and level drained them all back to level 1!

Then Conan the Barbarian and Arthur the King, Frodo the Hobbit with his One Ring, Galahad, Robin hood, Dorothy, Big Good, the Order of the Stick and the Linear Guild and every single martial PC with an optimized build...

got Natural 20's in a surprise round and knocked the Ladys hit points right into the ground.

It was the bloodiest battle across the Great Wheel and the planes rang out with spells and with steel.

The fight raged on for a session or two but atop of the mountain stood a Champion True.
The survivor who's heart and strength let him pass...
Mr. Fred Rogers with a Merciful Great-axe.

It was the Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny
Good guy, bad guys, and explosions as far as the eye can see.
And only one will survive, but who will it be?
This is the Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny.

[TurtleKing]

Beautiful just Beautiful. I love it. An Epic showdown with Epic results of could happen.

[weenie]

But would the LG dwarves really make a pact with the necro city? A city full of liches sounds kinda a greater evil than some tyranic wizards.. On sigil they could buy some significant help I suppose, but the wizards may not give them time to do so. If the wizards have both Hextor and Wee-jas on their side, the dieties could reveal Moradin's plans beforehand, giving the Empire a great advantage. While the greatest of clerics conveyed to discuss what to do next, the wizards could just take them out in one big magic super-blitz, decimating their numbers. Now the dwarves are still stronger in number, but are missing a lot of their lvl20s and are leaderless except for Moradin himself, that might actually make an apperance on the battlefield at this point. We would need some stats to see if he is actually beatable, but with the full support of two other greater dieties this mighr even be done. And stealing Moradin's powers should be something every single wizzard should want to do. Seriously! :smallsmile:

However, this is a battle of super-epic proportions and only the DM can really say what will happen. How much do the dieties get involved, how much time people have for preparations, does anybody else get involved.. Oh, and having a sample lvl20 dwarven cleric build + spells tipically prepared would also help a lot in determining if or by how much is a single wizard stronger than a single cleric.

[Adamaro]

Obviously this is in the end the question of gods getting involved. Here is how I see this would turn out:
- Moradin demands an attack from his clerics. If LE empire is to spread further, it will eventually consume entire world. Pelor joins the ride since LE human empire killed many of his followers. Corellon Larethian joins them because he is CG and loves a good fight. Since clerics will be highly carefully not to hurt land and wizs will blast away Ehlonna joins this party also with Yondalla and Kord (the latter due to a massive conflict not to be missed). Heironeous due to the fact that evil gods are engaging and his love for war against evil.

Wizs and evil clerics also have their array of gods who want to get involved in this whole affair: Wee Jas, Hextor, Boccob, Gruumsh (the latter due to a massive conflict not to be missed) and Erythnul (the latter due to a great opportunity to saw evil and misery)

Waiting in the rear and will engage anyone attempting to harm nature in way that would throw it out of balance: Obad Hai

Enjoying the show: Nerull

Sitting this one out: Fharlanghn, Garl Glittergold, Olidammara, St. Cuthbert.

[FelixG]

this is rather pointless isnt it? 0.o

The dwarfs have silly amounts of people that can over run the Humans with, they have MANY more casters than the Humans do. GODS are getting involved, which by all accounts should be running for the hills in this sort of fight, a group of adventurers can take out a god and steal their power, those evil humans kill one, BAM more godlings, same happens to the forces of good if they get ahold of an evil diety

and the idea of the good gods getting involved is even more silly as as soon as the evil ones figure that out they will just drop the god in short order and deny the cleric dwarfs their power source, no more spells for them!

I figure an all knowing diety could figure that one out and keep from getting involved even if he did say "Hey go kill these guys"

I also would be rather insulted if I was the dwarf, they have a massive number advantage over the Humans and their god doesn't think they could get the job done on their own.

In the end, if played smart and properly, good guys win, hands down.

[Adamaro]

@FelixG
Did you even glance at Weenies' posts?

[FelixG]

@FelixG
Did you even glance at Weenies' posts?
Nope but it didn't really matter.

So what if the humans have a few mean tricks? So do clerics. And the "well they have been around so must have enimies!" Doesn't really add up either. The jerk humans would have likely gained quite a few enemies themselves.

And the clerics have been around for 6000 years they should have learned their own tricks as well instead of it being assumed that they are all just idiots waiting around to be culled! Its not like they were born at level 20

They had to do something to get that experience

[Kelb_Panthera]

No one wins when faith and science clash. With the amount of magic at work in this war, the countryside of both empires will be a blasted ruin. Start thinking about your post-apocalyptic campaign for this same setting.

[Tiki Snakes]

No one wins when faith and science clash. With the amount of magic at work in this war, the countryside of both empires will be a blasted ruin. Start thinking about your post-apocalyptic campaign for this same setting.

Surviving Clerics use miracle to provide the Druid Plant-growth type spells, restoring the bounty of nature to the blasted wilderness that used to be the surface / Human cities?

[Yukitsu]

Per the OP there are 500,000 dwarves. So that is going to be really expensive to line a hold for that many dwarves. And there are enough divination spells (like Discern Location) that aren't blocked by lead to find your hold. And Greater Teleportation also isn't blocked by lead. So for the cost of surrounding Rome with a lead bubble an inch thick, you have accomplished nothing.

Yes, however that number doesn't make any sense.

Moreso, greater teleportation still requires knowledge of the location, which these individuals cannot get without divinations. As well, you don't need a full inch of lead, sheat lead is sufficient. This is not overly difficult in an underground city by contrast to an above ground one. You only need to line the main halls in which the dwarf citizens can be temporarily guarded by a ton of 5s who can provide infinite food an water. Any remainder of the populace can be directly under the supervision of level 20s.


Yes, in a direct confrontation the wizards get spanked. There is absolutely no disagreement there. But the wizards don't care about the army, or the townspeople, or the villagers, or anyone other than themselves. They are after all Evil with a capital E and everything. So evil in fact that a god is calling for a crusade against them and two other gods are actively supporting them. But the dwarves do care about the people the wizards rule. The dwarves aren't conquering, they are liberating. Every human that dies is a loss to the dwarves as much or more than it is to the wizards.

Evil isn't stupid enough to deny their own resources to no gain. Clerics come in and romp the army of normals, they can no longer spread the clerics out to deal with multiple threats. They now have to deal with an army, in addition to the clerics if they are brought to a full frontal assault. If evil means throwing away valuable assets because they can't actually win any fights, then they've already lost.


The wizards end goal is to end up ruling their empire. As you say, they lose a direct confrontation. So their tactics have to be about avoiding direct contact with any superior dwarven force. But the wizards have superior mobility and the advantage of time. The dwarves may be willing to hunker down in a lead lined super bunker for a few weeks or even months. But the wizards can drag this out for decades, they can blast the surface of both empires to a moonscape, they can turn the dwarven cities to rubble one by one. How long are the dwarves going to stand to be at war with a force they can't bring to battle. And how liberated are the humans going to feel as the constant teleporting wizard death squads rampage across their former lands teaching the lesson of what happens to traitors?

But the wizards don't have to ever fight the dwarves in open engagements. They don't have enough power to win against the dwarves, but they do have enough power to keep the dwarves from winning. All they need to do is turn into a plague on the dwarves and get a negotiated settlement. Maybe they have to agree to moderating their rule. Maybe they slowly morph into some secret cabal and re-infiltrate and rule from the shadows. But no matter what there is no quick, easy or painless win button for the dwarves.

They don't have those advantages though. Clerics have a moderate advantage in information gathering spells (since level doesn't stop arcanists from becoming useless vegetables when they use divinations, communion being much safer, the rest of the lore being somewhat useless) If 100 of the level 20 clerics, half the 15s draw a bead on the wizard's location, they can win outright by just crushing them. The wizards, even if they can find the clerics can't decisively strike them, nor can they get the populace. They basically will immediately lose their lower resources to the dwarves, and then immediately be driven into hiding. As a secret cult that can't emerge without being stomped on, their prospects of being powerful are fairly nill.

[Adamaro]

Actually, I see wizards as permanent terrorists. With their rope tricks, mages magnificent mansions and genesis-made demiplanes, they have lots of places to hide. If clerics pinpoint their arrival (not location. you can not penetrate MMM for example) onto material plane, they must burn trough two dozen contingencies which can send them hopping all over planes and even then if wizard actually gets killed (with foresight, all sorts of energy protections, veil of undeath ...), he will still pop-up in one of his many clones. And if this somehow fails, he is still a lich.
Not to mention he is packing a load of maws of chaos maximised&empowered black tentacles, enervations, timestops ...


In the end they do not need no secret cult. Only endurance to punish the dwarves, untill they surrender.

[DragonOfUndeath]

It seems the best way to settle this is to actually play it. Get 10 players (minimum) for each team and have them do all this stuff. Both sides should get 7 day warnings (even to the point of retcon) of attacks and stuff due to Portfolio Sense from the Gods on their side. maybe run it 3 times to make sure it isn't luck using the same set-up.

I think the Dwarves will win though (400 Cleric-zillas led by 10 PCs should steamroll a couple dozen God-Wizards)

[Adamaro]

@DragonOfUndeath
This would be a collosal attempt. I think it would be very hard to find 20 people ready to play in such a large arena, also judging on game rules and spell effecty would take ... epic powahs :smallbiggrin:

[DragonOfUndeath]

@DragonOfUndeath
This would be a collosal attempt. I think it would be very hard to find 20 people ready to play in such a large arena, also judging on game rules and spell effecty would take ... epic powahs :smallbiggrin:

you only need to find 19

call first dwarf player :smalltongue:

we should probably just make a generic Dwarf Cleric build and have each player customize it slightly for each of his 40 Clerics to save time making them. Oh and the 15lvl Clerics and 10lvl Clerics.

[Adamaro]

I also think we would need at least two "arbitres" or judges who really know 3.5. Spell description is at these levels a bic**.

[DragonOfUndeath]

Thread up: (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=9963714#post9963714)

I asked for 2-3 Mods and a DM is that alright?

[Adamaro]

I'll just sit here and check out that thread. This idea is mind-boggling.

[DragonOfUndeath]

I'll just sit here and check out that thread. This idea is mind-boggling.

Why not sign up? Human only needs to make 2 20th level Wizards from a Template.

[Psyx]

You realise that 150,000 people is a MASSIVE medieval city, right?
I'd look at revising the population a little more in-line with real-world comparisons. Here: http://www.io.com/~sjohn/demog.htm

[Ormur]

You realise that 150,000 people is a MASSIVE medieval city, right?
I'd look at revising the population a little more in-line with real-world comparisons. Here: http://www.io.com/~sjohn/demog.htm

Only in Europe (which are kind of limited to that part of the world in the first place) and even then D&D tech resembles the renaissance more in many ways and a high level of magic would make even greater populations plausible. Even during the high middle ages the largest European cities like Venice and Paris could very well have exceeded 150.000. In the rest of the world the capitals of great empires could reach populations close to a million during that period. There is no reason a pseudo-medieval setting should be limited to the historically small size of European cities unless it's explicitly modelled on the dark and early high middle ages.

I actually regret taking the recommendation of DMG and the site you linked to so seriously when making my homebrew setting, which is explicitly renaissance like, because the cities are too small. And the availability of magic in my setting pales in comparison to the OP's.