[Pathfinder] Help with an army

[Sir_Ophiuchus]

Hello all, hoping you can help me out with something. Last session of the game I GM (Pathfinder, currently two PCs, level 10) the players found out, while on a diplomatic mission, that a five-thousand strong army was about to be launched at their home city.

They decided ... to send a message home, stay in hostile territory, and fight a guerilla war. *facepalm*

Unfortunately, I'm honestly not really sure how to go about playing through that. I was planning a city assault, not a guerilla campaign. In particular, I'm not certain what level of force such an army might be able to bring to bear. So I'm turning to the GiantITP boards and their ineffable wisdom.

Relevant information:

- The army's general is a 14th-level half-elf fighter.
- The other high-level enemy is a 14th-level lich necromancer.
- Most of the army are conscripts, but they're well-trained well-equipped conscripts since they're from a dictatorial militaristic culture on a wartime footing. I'm placing them at 1st-level warrior.
- The PCs just kicked the necromancer's ass and he teleported to the army base and is probably raising high alert.
- Army wasn't planning to move out for another week or two.

What I'm wondering is how many lower-level folks might such an army have, ie healers, camp mages, scouts, etc?

Also, can you suggest a reasonable way for me to pre-plan the army's responses to guerilla attacks / precautions in case of an attack on the command structure by the PCs?

Part of the problem is that my PCs are sorta too powerful and I'm finding it hard to judge appropriate encounter levels. They're a druid and a sorcerer, and combat tends to involve: buff the wolf, point the wolf at enemies, win.

Since the necro nearly got himself eaten by that same wolf, he's well aware of what she can do now. He's from a culture with no druidic magic, hence his original overconfidence.

Help me GiantITP forums, you're my only hope!

[Cartigan]

I don't know how an animal companion nearly ate a CR+3 encounter for a party of four people. And if they did that, and your army is made of level 1s, you can just give up the city assault now because they are going to just fly around and destroy the army one 5' square at a time.

[Tyndmyr]

I don't know how an animal companion nearly ate a CR+3 encounter for a party of four people. And if they did that, and your army is made of level 1s, you can just give up the city assault now because they are going to just fly around and destroy the army one 5' square at a time.

This.

And yeah, the first response of PCs to ANY hostile in D&D is usually an attempt to kill it. Running doesn't happen except in the face of ridiculously overwhelming odds.

Grab the RHoD campaign book. It is basically the kind of campaign you'll be running now, so it'll be immensely useful.

However, odds are fairly significant that the army is doomed at this point. Masses of low level troops are not a threat to optimized level 10s

[Sir_Ophiuchus]

Yeah, you see the problem. The wolf does ridiculous amounts of damage, got in close and got the lich tripped very quickly, and he kept failing his rolls to cast defensively. All the druid does is buff the wolf. She's stupidly powerful. :(

They're not *all* level 1s, just the rank and file. What I'm trying to figure out is what proportion of higher-level NPCs such an army might have, and how they might use their resources effectively to stop such an assault.

[Infernalbargain]

Well the issue with armies vs PC's is that the PC's can go "Oh an army of 15000 level 1 orcs? Can't I just beat them all?" Since the army is aware of the PC threat, then they should probably use the Risk strategy. Aside from scouting, they need to act as one. Now if you make the average guys in the army level 3-5 it'll be significantly more difficult for them to go Rambo on the entire army.

As far as precautions, Alarm spell + men = time for someone important to come in case of raids and what not. What is needed is for you to put some additional decent level people in the army. Make sure that there's very likely to be at least one in any group that breaks off from the core of the army. This will make sure that the PC's don't slog through a few hundred men each day whenever they make a move and it will still make it feel like they're doing damage. Since the PC's will mostly be fighting on their terms, the random important people will likely need to be around level 7-9 with the pile of mooks. As far as breakdown of mages etc. I'm not sure.

[Tyndmyr]

Aright. Well, disregard the level 1s. They are effectively meaningless. Also disregard anyone with non-casting NPC class levels. Those are relatively unimportant.

The logical response of this army will be to find whoever attacked them. What happens afterward depends on their motivation, but a very likely desire will be finding out who these people are, and why they attacked. Also, if this army values secrecy, who else knows of this.

Stat out bodyguards for the leaders. Do it now. It's almost invariably the first response of players if they think they can pull it off.

[Cartigan]

Aright. Well, disregard the level 1s. They are effectively meaningless. Also disregard anyone with non-casting NPC class levels. Those are relatively unimportant.

The logical response of this army will be to find whoever attacked them. What happens afterward depends on their motivation, but a very likely desire will be finding out who these people are, and why they attacked. Also, if this army values secrecy, who else knows of this.

Stat out bodyguards for the leaders. Do it now. It's almost invariably the first response of players if they think they can pull it off.

I don't know why you would have a solo Necromancer encounter to begin with. He should at least have two zombie somethings with him.

Also, I don't think there would be very high level people in an army led by two level 14s. Maybe some 8s somewhere at most.

[cylch]

I don't know if it will help enough but if you have access the 3.5 book Heroes of Battle has rules for creating armies (lower levels mostly but should give you a place to start) as well as some ideas for guerrilla warfare and again samples of different types.

[Ducklord]

You could make the mooks a few levels higher. 200 lvl 5-6 soldiers should be ok. And make the army try to track the down in groups of 100 people. With bows. Or wands of magic missile. Things that hurt reliably.

Also, how did they manage to take on the lich by themselves?

[Another_Poet]

You could make the mooks a few levels higher. 200 lvl 5-6 soldiers should be ok. And make the army try to track the down in groups of 100 people. With bows. Or wands of magic missile. Things that hurt reliably.

This.

Also, the reason you are having a difficult time balancing encounters for the party is that there are just 2 of them. Consider giving the sorcerer a minion (friendly NPC they can rescue from the army's brig?). The minion should be about 8th level and should probably be a melee rogue/melee ranger type to balance out the party composition.

Minion x1, Wolf x1, & 10th level PC x2 should equal about a 9th level party.* Aim for EL 7 - 11 encounters and have fun. You can throw a lot of CR 4 mooks into an encounter to make EL 11, so you should be able to do some interesting stuff.

*I know that technically the wolf counts as a class feature and not a party member, but let's get serious.... it's a druid

[Sir_Ophiuchus]

Thanks for all the feedback! Yeah, I'm statting all the level 1s with bows, so they have at least a chance of doing some damage with volleys. I experimented with an ambush that way last game - it didn't work, but it still freaked them out to see low-level mooks still be somewhat effective as a group.

How does this breakdown sound?

- four fully-statted level 10 bodyguards for the warlord (3 fighters, one assassin)
- necromancer spends the next while raising some undead bodyguards for himself (he had a couple of elemental spheres for backup, which he broke to cover his escape) and blocking scrying on the commanders
- an army of 5000 should have about 500 sergeants (level 3 fighter), 300 lieutenants (level 5 fighter)
- basic half-squad of ten men is led by a sergeant, full squad of 20 has sergeant + lieutenant + spellcaster (lvl 5 sorcerer OR lvl 5 cleric)
- standing orders to signal for backup if attacked, all officers carry message tokens

So they might catch a few groups posted on watch, but the bulk of the army is camped together, and if led effectively could marshal a pretty nasty defence if the PCs assaulted it.

Thoughts?

(Edit re minion: Oooh no. They're already stupidly overpowered re stats -sorcerer has a Con of 18. Never letting players roll stats again. Longer-term she's planning to make a shield golem companion, so that should have the same effect.)

[Boci]

However, odds are fairly significant that the army is doomed at this point. Masses of low level troops are not a threat to optimized level 10s

Mob template from DMG II says hi.


Thanks for all the feedback! Yeah, I'm statting all the level 1s with bows, so they have at least a chance of doing some damage with volleys.

Were you using the volley rules from Heroes of Battle, or just volley in the sense of multiple shots?

[Sir_Ophiuchus]

Were you using the volley rules from Heroes of Battle, or just volley in the sense of multiple shots?

The latter. I'm reading Oslecamo's revised mob rules at the moment, and they look very interesting.

[Grelna the Blue]

The necromancer should have all the relevant (i.e., possible) spells made permanent on itself at this level (what high-level caster doesn't?), so if its Arcane Sight indicates that the party is heavily spelled up, one of the first orders of business should be to Dispel, hopefully getting rid of multiple buffs with one spell.

You could give the necromancer some item or ability that forces the PCs to consider whether it's worth it to kill mooks, as every kill strengthens the lich. Perhaps an item allowing the use of the divine spell Consumptive Field, Greater. Then all those mooks just become fodder the necromancer may kill itself (they can be animated later, as desired.

Also, if the druid is wild shaping into an animal, the druid is making herself vulnerable to Junglerazer (Spell Compendium p.127). Unless she has evasion, she won't like that. That spell is as powerful as it is precisely because it normally can't affect PCs or villains. Edit: Don't know how I misread that, but an animal companion is somewhat vulnerable to that spell although (dammit) it does have evasion.

Using the volley rules from Heroes of Battle is a great idea, btw.

[Bibliomancer]

an army of 5000 should have about 500 sergeants (level 10 fighter), 300 lieutenants (level 1 aristocrat)

Fixed that for you.

Anyways, I would recommend having the core of the army mobilize as close to immediately as makes no difference. Have a strike force that you're confident the PCs can't wipe out head into their territory within a few days, lead by a competent lieutenant commander (level 10 or so, skilled at not dieing). This encourages the players to react to the attackers or risk them taking down their city without them, and an army of 5,000 should have a standing force of at least 500, of which probably half could be sent out with little or no warning, especially if they were already on war-footing. The core force would probably have an average level closer to 5 for the standard solider (precedent: the Races of Destiny gives a stat block for a normal professional human soldier as warrior 5), with more casting support and scouts.

When the main army mobilizes, have casters standing by to counterspell area effects (especially fireball and cloudkill, and important fact: if you have the right spell prepared, a CL min spell have dispel a CL 20 copy of the same spell, so a few first level wizards with scrolls could shut down area effects hard). This leaves the conscripts alive to act as a meatwall between the wolf and anyone important while its health gets whittled away by arrows.

For squad based tactics, a group of 8 archers can all get a +7 bonus to attack rolls with ranged weapons if they all fire at the same time at no cost other than one week of (free) training. (PHBII 161 'Missile Volley'). With this, a group of level 2-3 archers have a chance at hitting the wolf.

Above all else, use superior numbers effectively. Hem in the PCs, prevent them from flying (if at all possible), and use archers. Phalanxes are possible if you supply casters to block fireballs. The look on the sorcerer's face when an apprentice wizard counterspells him should be priceless.

[Tyndmyr]

Yes. Using aristocrats for Lts is good. Now, the officers above them would likely have PC classes in addition to those officer levels, but green leaders aren't great at combat.

[Sir_Ophiuchus]

Yes. Using aristocrats for Lts is good.

I did actually consider that, but it's a military meritocracy, not a satire of the British army in its Empire years. :D

The strike force idea is *excellent*, as is the counterspelling caster phalanx. Splitting the objectives for the PCs will work very well indeed.

Excellent advice Bibliomancer. Have a copy of Dirk Allen's 333. :)