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paladinofshojo
2012-01-24, 06:05 PM
Okay so me and my party just usurped a kingdom(from an axcrazy tyrant so it's somewhat justified) and now have the resources of an entire nation at our disposal. The only problem is that the majority of the armed forces are staunchly loyalist so we've decided to rebuild the nation's army from scratch, removal of those pesky loyalist and put some more "progressive" minded leaders inside the warmachine so we can start to conquer and subjegate the neighboring states until we build a superpower.

For the command structure of our army we put the King's 16 year old paladin nephew as Commander-in-chief of the armed forces, hoping to placate the majority with seeing a member of the royal family supporting the new regime.

As for overall classes and training of the armed forces, (which I got stuck deciding) I've decided to have the common rank-and-file soldiers be experts, the elite commandos will be rogues, longbowmen and crossbowmen will be rangers with war dog given to them as animal companions, and finally the officer corps will compromise of bards & paladins. The rearguard and supply line will compose of several clerics incharge of experts who will be trained in first aid. Finally, military research will be outsourced to the kingdom's wizard's guild so that we'll always have the advantage.

The DM is understandably pissed that we ruined his whole story when we let the rebel leader die and took power over the nation for ourselves, so we've decided to prepare for the worst. Any comments or constructive criticism would be helpful....

Belril Duskwalk
2012-01-24, 06:45 PM
Why not use fighters as (or at least among) your rank and file? It does seem to be on the list of things they do well. Cavalry units might be a worthwhile investment as well, depending on terrain, the availability of worthy mounts, etc.

TheThan
2012-01-24, 07:19 PM
Well building a fantasy army really depends on a lot of factors.

How will recruitment be handled?

How many spell castors are available to be recruited, what levels are they?

How many intelligent monstrous creatures are there available in the vicinity?

How many mountable creatures are there in the area (gryphon’s, Pegasuses (pegasai?), unicorns etc)?

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s talk about tactics. Standard issue rank and file, block formations is not the way to go. A single wizard of fair level can destroy it with a few fireballs, or tie it up forever with evard’s black tentacles. Aside from magic users I’m willing to bet you have the capacity to deploy more advanced tactics.

Think outside the box, asymmetrical warfare is your friend here. A small group of skilled warriors can take out a larger group by catching them unaware and vulnerable. Small teams should be hitting supply lines and the like. Assassins can take out enemy spell casters before an invasion even begins. What you’re doing is hitting above your own weight. By destroying supply lines to your enemy, you starve them of weapons, food & water, medical supplies and other important supplies (warm clothing, letters from home etc). This breaks their moral and makes it difficult to keep fighting you.

All this being said, you will still need a standing army; it is as much a show of force as it is a functioning army. Air born cavalry can take out important threats (artillery, enemy casters etc), while units of giants/trolls/Orcs whathaveyou act as shock troops/heavy infantry. They‘re tougher and far more lethal than a warrior armed with a sword (baring higher level npcs and players). Heck giants can be used as a siege unit if you supply them with boulders to hurl at the enemy. spellcasters have a ton of uses, the most obvious is that of a mobile piece of artillery. But you can also use them to teleport strike teams around, assassinate other spellcasters, and generally wreck havoc.

Pretty much use what is around your characters and think outside the box. I’m willing to bet you’ll surprise yourself.

SamBurke
2012-01-24, 07:42 PM
Prerequisites:

Step 1: Assassinate every single enemy you have. Yes, even that guy. The GM seems like he doesn't have a plan of action for nations (Or at least no ward setup), so you could probably get away with mass teleportation a couple of times.

Step 2: Pass of leadership to someone. Make sure you put an artifact inside their body to blow them to shreds if you want to. Have a constant scrying effect on it: if it ever gets removed, blow everything up.

Step 3: Now that you have other nations at your knees, prepare your armies.


Army Building:
1. I'd go with semi-intelligent monsters and spell casters. Other units should only be used when absolutely necessary. Why? NPCs are designed to be fought in large groups or as high-level characters. Monsters are designed to be fought one-on-one.

2. Take out your threats from highest on down: Kill generals and any archmages possible first, then move on down the line. Should there be a Geneva convention or anything of the sort, be careful with that.

3. Miracle is not your friend. It is your mistress. You should have tons of backup ways of activating that: one of the explicit uses of the spell is to turn the tide of a battle. It is not your instant win button, nor an emergency use item: It is your secret main weapon. Use it always and quickly. Abuse when allowed.

4. If you absolutely *have* to smash stuff, make sure that stuff isn't buffed. There are some good works on counter spelling on the WotC boards. Get some NPCs who can do that.

5. Make sure your people are fanatically loyal. Create a religion with a paradise and reward system based on works and fighting while living (Islam, Norse, majority of all fighting nations ever). Pay them incredibly well. Try not to step on their toes, and if you do have to, mind control them to like it.

6. While you're at it, bug and mine all of your important people, and leave only the main party with the keys. However, do it missile-silo style. Only when the entire party (who's alive) is present can they be activated. Use this ability (Contingent Ennervations? Choose a spell that can be spammed, and avoids saves and SR if possible.) whenever, and I mean WHENEVER there is a traitor. Make it the replacement for hanging in the court systems so that it'll be viewed as natural by your paladins.

7. All high-ranking members should have innumerable buffs up. Now that you have a city/kingdom in your hands, ALWAYS use Astral Projection and the like. Create your own private demi-plane. Use Miracle and Wish to get ludicrous amounts of gold.

8. Fewer troops with more training always win. Spend more on fewer soldiers, and you can't go wrong. Have a contingent teleport effect to bring their bodies (and magic items!) back to you when they die, and resurrect them if possible. A good item all melee troops should have is a weapon (if they have one, see 1.) is a weapon of Continous True Strike. This costs only 2k per CL, and needs a minimum of 3CL. 300 GP per + to hit for a soldier? Cheap, if you're creating Marines and Army Rangers.

Now, finally, after innumerable steps and long work, manipulation, bending, breaking, and twisting of the rules, I give you the final, most critical, always to be remembered rule.

9. Have a high AC. It's critical to dodging the DMG.

Corollary: Disregard everything we say. Check with your DM and see how peeved he is. A good DM should be able to roll with stuff like this, but rolling with it will probably mean assaults with greater and greater optimization. So, be ready to abandon the city to the hands of that Paladin-kid should he want it that way. See first, however, if there's a way to get the plot back on track without giving up the city.

paladinofshojo
2012-01-24, 08:31 PM
Why not use fighters as (or at least among) your rank and file? It does seem to be on the list of things they do well. Cavalry units might be a worthwhile investment as well, depending on terrain, the availability of worthy mounts, etc.


Well the problem with fighters is that outside of fighting, they don't really offer any advantage. They make for poor guards and sentries mechanically, also I can hardly see fighters working as cooks, clerks, and other support needed to maintain an army... Which is why I turned to experts as rank and file.


Well building a fantasy army really depends on a lot of factors.

How will recruitment be handled?

How many spell castors are available to be recruited, what levels are they?

How many intelligent monstrous creatures are there available in the vicinity?

How many mountable creatures are there in the area (gryphon’s, Pegasuses (pegasai?), unicorns etc)?

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s talk about tactics. Standard issue rank and file, block formations is not the way to go. A single wizard of fair level can destroy it with a few fireballs, or tie it up forever with evard’s black tentacles. Aside from magic users I’m willing to bet you have the capacity to deploy more advanced tactics.

Think outside the box, asymmetrical warfare is your friend here. A small group of skilled warriors can take out a larger group by catching them unaware and vulnerable. Small teams should be hitting supply lines and the like. Assassins can take out enemy spell casters before an invasion even begins. What you’re doing is hitting above your own weight. By destroying supply lines to your enemy, you starve them of weapons, food & water, medical supplies and other important supplies (warm clothing, letters from home etc). This breaks their moral and makes it difficult to keep fighting you.

All this being said, you will still need a standing army; it is as much a show of force as it is a functioning army. Air born cavalry can take out important threats (artillery, enemy casters etc), while units of giants/trolls/Orcs whathaveyou act as shock troops/heavy infantry. They‘re tougher and far more lethal than a warrior armed with a sword (baring higher level npcs and players). Heck giants can be used as a siege unit if you supply them with boulders to hurl at the enemy. spellcasters have a ton of uses, the most obvious is that of a mobile piece of artillery. But you can also use them to teleport strike teams around, assassinate other spellcasters, and generally wreck havoc.

Pretty much use what is around your characters and think outside the box. I’m willing to bet you’ll surprise yourself.

Recruitment will be easy: conscription of able bodied men from ages 18-30 under the pretenses of "self-defense".

I like the idea of abusing the magick system however, the capaign world magick is essentially monopolized by the wizard's guild.... who act as sort of a mercantile entity who's only goal is to obtain as much political power as possible, to give you an idea, they hire assassins to go out and kill sorcerers because the latter performs magic without their permission. There's a reason why we have to delegate much of our military's resources to them its because we wouldn't have any mages outside of our party if we didn't have them in the loop.

white rider
2012-01-24, 08:38 PM
Well the problem with fighters is that outside of fighting, they don't really offer any advantage. They make for poor guards and sentries mechanically, also I can hardly see fighters working as cooks, clerks, and other support needed to maintain an army... Which is why I turned to experts as rank and file.

On the other hand, 10 fighters can kill upwards of 15 experts. With more health, bonus feats, and most importantly, martial weapon proficiency, fighters are much more efficient in battle, and cross-class ranks aren't that bad.

paladinofshojo
2012-01-24, 08:44 PM
On the other hand, 10 fighters can kill upwards of 15 experts. With more health, bonus feats, and most importantly, martial weapon proficiency, fighters are much more efficient in battle, and cross-class ranks aren't that bad.

Armies are not all about going out and battling against an enemy. You also need to occupy strategic locations, aswell as feed and maintain your forces. After the battle what are the fighters going to do? Stand around for the next battle? I agree that fighters would provide a tactical boon to the army, but not a strategic one.

Belril Duskwalk
2012-01-24, 08:58 PM
Well the problem with fighters is that outside of fighting, they don't really offer any advantage. They make for poor guards and sentries mechanically, also I can hardly see fighters working as cooks, clerks, and other support needed to maintain an army... Which is why I turned to experts as rank and file.

Traditionally the clerk and cook duties are performed by different people than the actual fighting. While Fighters may not be ideal at noticing people sneaking up on the camp, they do have a better chance of handling the threat once it is noticed. I'd recommend experts for the clerking and cooking, then a 50/50 (or any other reasonable fraction) split for the actual combatants. This way you can grab the improved skill-set of Experts for guard and sentry duties, while still having some of the combat effectiveness of Fighters. Martial Weapon Proficiency and Medium and Heavy Armor proficiency can go a long way. :smallwink:

white rider
2012-01-24, 09:09 PM
Martial Weapon Proficiency and Medium and Heavy Armor proficiency can go a long way.
yes, but that is 3 feats, over at least 3 levels. whereas in that time a fighter can have: weapon focus, weapon specialization, power attack, cleave, and even mounted combat, if you wish. alternatively: weapon focus, weapon specialization, point-blank shot, rapid shot, and precise shot. experts may be helpful, but they should not be the cannon-fodder of your army.

Belril Duskwalk
2012-01-24, 09:13 PM
yes, but that is 3 feats, over at least 3 levels. whereas in that time a fighter can have: weapon focus, weapon specialization, power attack, cleave, and even mounted combat, if you wish. alternatively: weapon focus, weapon specialization, point-blank shot, rapid shot, and precise shot. experts may be helpful, but they should not be the cannon-fodder of your army.

That was my point. Fighters get those three things free, then get several more things by leveling as a Fighter. Therefore, Fighters are (not surprisingly) better at fighting than Experts.

Sidmen
2012-01-24, 09:29 PM
I always like to steal the Legion template from the Romans, altered (of course) to meet my needs. Of course, depending on the size of your army, you might only be able to field a single legion (and even then, only during wartime).

At the core of each legion would be 10 Cohorts of 5 Centuries each. Each century is composed of 100 Fighters, 1 Paladin, 10 Experts, and 9 rangers, 120 men in total - only 101 should be expected to fight at any given time, the experts exist solely to maintain their gear and keep them fed while the Rangers exist to keep watch over and trail-blaze for the Century (as well as probably help scavenge for food). The Paladin, of course, is the leader of the Cohort, and he'll probably appoint 10 of the fighters to be his sergeants.

Each cohort should be led by a good commander, with its own support staff of Experts, to organize supply from home, and support a few siege pieces - these guys probably number 100 men; its own ranger force of probably 100 men who keep watch over the entire cohort and survey the path ahead. Each cohort should also have access to ~100 cavalry (probably paladins or cavaliers).

Each legion (or THE Legion if your small) will then have its own head, which would be subservient to a General of multiple legions. Sprinkle Mages throughout if you have access to them; In my games they're rare and special so I ignore them.

The Effect is simple: your army will be very flexible. A legion can fight as its own unit, putting forth 5,000 trained Fighters, 1,000 Cavalry, 1,450 Rangers, and a smattering of siege pieces. Or, if the danger isn't that big, you can send a single cohort, which has 500 fighters, 100 cavalry, 145 rangers and a few pieces of artillery. Which can then split up into Centuries to deal with small problems like bandit camps (good for clearing newly conquered territory). All the while, the units will take care of themselves as far as supplying and maintenance goes.

That said, make sure the DM will let you have player-classes for NPCs, there is a reason why NPC classes exist - and I'd tell you that your army would be made from them - with exceptional individuals (Centurians and other leaders) being possible exceptions.

Sidmen
2012-01-24, 09:30 PM
Delete please

Need_A_Life
2012-01-24, 09:53 PM
Okay so me and my party just usurped a kingdom(from an axcrazy tyrant so it's somewhat justified) and now have the resources of an entire nation at our disposal. [...] The DM is understandably pissed that we ruined his whole story when we let the rebel leader die and took power over the nation for ourselves, so we've decided to prepare for the worst.Hopefully that's hyperbole or you won't be keeping the nation for long. GMs control the world and no amount of planning can stand up to a GM determined to make those plans fail.


The only problem is that the majority of the armed forces are staunchly loyalist so we've decided to rebuild the nation's army from scratch, removal of those pesky loyalist and put some more "progressive" minded leaders inside the warmachine so we can start to conquer and subjegate the neighboring states until we build a superpower.Alrighty, that's certainly one way to do it, though I question how you've taken control of the nation with the majority of their military forces presumably plotting to crush you.


As for overall classes and training of the armed forces, (which I got stuck deciding) I've decided to have the common rank-and-file soldiers be experts, the elite commandos will be rogues, longbowmen and crossbowmen will be rangers with war dog given to them as animal companions, and finally the officer corps will compromise of bards & paladins. The rearguard and supply line will compose of several clerics incharge of experts who will be trained in first aid. Finally, military research will be outsourced to the kingdom's wizard's guild so that we'll always have the advantage.
If I got free pick on that, it would go like this:
Rank and file: Rangers (Favoured Enemy: [Whatever the majority of the neighbouring nations are])
Elite Commandos: Swordsages
Archers: Rangers
Officer corps: Archivists
Sergeants: Crusaders
Medics: Clerics
Military Research: Artificers

My reasoning:
The rank and file benefit greatly from static bonuses and rangers have excellent skills for sentry work. Animal companions optional.
Elite Commandos: Diamond Mind, Shadow Hand and Tiger Claw are all excellent special ops disciplines.
Archers: See rank and file plus free feats.
Officer corps: High intelligence synergizes with Know: History, which according to Heroes of Battle is the War skill, they grant bonuses and are generally awesome.
Sergeants: Fighting alongside the rank and file means that their minor healing abilities becomes useful, along with White Raven to make the rank and file more effective in battle.
Medics: Hard to find better healers than Clerics. Reserve feats etc. can make them even better.
Military Research: Arcane, divine and miscellaneous. Also, buffs. "Curse" of Lycanthropy is the most broken one and few sane GMs will allow it, but suddenly turning an entire regiment into werebears would give even Miracle a run for its money.

STsinderman
2012-01-24, 09:58 PM
As it has already been pointed out, why not simply have your military ranks (fighters) backed my an admin corps (experts).

Chapter based on 10 companies, each company having:

100 Fighters
20 Commandos (ninja) [Good for hit and run for disrupting supply lines and taking out enemy commanders.]
10 Scouts
20 Admin corps (Experts) [To be distributed over the odd jobs over the camp incuding cooking, guarding ect]
25 Cavalrymen (fighters) [these could easily be replaced with another form of shoch troups if you are able to get any form of monsterous creaturess tp serve]


No doubt you will need to make changes for things that may have been left out (i didn't put any spell-casters in because i am unsure as to the numbers you could get your hands on), not to mention the many servants that will be following carrying the equipment tents ect.

Gavinfoxx
2012-01-24, 10:05 PM
3.5e

Well... the viability of armies depends greatly on what classes you have access to and how difficult they are to train. Remember, 'mundane' D&D armies tend to really suck; a spellcaster as low as 9th-11th level can often solo an entire many thousands strong army, all by themselves, at no risk to themselves whatsoever. There have been several therads on this topic in this forum.

I'm playing in an army game, and in order to make armies viable at all, we had to limit the game such that, in general, characters more powerful than tier 3 were only allotted to the control of the DM...

http://www.myth-weavers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=20155

I would suggest you join that game as a reader, and start reading all the various threads at how people have been setting up their armies and lands.

And you need to figure out how difficult and how long it takes to train different classes and different fighting techniques and to set up a cohesive officer corp to manage them. Is the difficulty of training classes by class tier? Or by something else?

Dragonfire Adepts, for example, make great soldiers...

And look at some of the threads in the 3.5e area about level 11 wizards soloing entire armies. Really, D&D worlds don't need armies to win battles or assassinate leaders. They need armies to subjugate peoples and to hold land.

Elvenoutrider
2012-01-25, 12:02 AM
Alternatively, draft commoners in times of war by the thousands, hand em a spear and send em into the thickest fighting. Then back them up with your trained fighters, warlocks, and what have you. Swarm their rank and file with shear numbers

tyckspoon
2012-01-25, 01:24 AM
If a large portion of your troops is going to consist of low-level Commoners/Experts/Fighters, institute a law that every man/family must be able to provide a combat-ready dog when called upon. Since they have access to Handle Animal anyway and will be breeding dogs for their own uses, this gives you a useful military force (for as long as the world's armies still consist of largely low-level men with weapons, at least) at very little direct cost to your/the nation's own bankroll. Similar to historical laws requiring weapons practice and ownership among the common people, this ensures that even if you have to resort to conscription your conscripts can be a valid threat- Riding Dogs/ Warbeast templated Dogs would be best, of course, but even the standard Dog who has been taught to fight is a pretty decent force on a level 1 battlefield.

(You could also have this as an option to do instead of serving a conscript period or as a means of paying taxes; instead of paying a quarter of your harvest or whatever, provide some pups of good breeding stock to the Royal Kennels to be raised and trained by the king's Beastmasters [ie, Rangers or Druids using their own Handle Animal and Wild Empathy] or an adult dog already ready to go to war as a substitute for risking your own body and being dragged away from your real livelihood. Useful political tool if you have to worry about unrest among the poorer classes of your populace, too.)

Tvtyrant
2012-01-25, 01:38 AM
I suggest that rather than treating it as a field army, you build a lot of really cheap fortifications. Have a wizard cast Wall of Stone, or Wall of Iron, or Move Earth (making trenches and valleys) across most of your realm. Lots of little fortifications that are resistant to a single wizard toppling them with move earth, and then have your troops live within little hidden bunkers.

D&D warfare boils down to three things:
1. Its really long and boring, so usually you don't want to do it.
2. Low level troops die really rapidly.
3. All injuries are effectively healed overnight, so you cannot attrition them to death.

With these in mind you want a way to teleport your entire army to whatever portion of fortification is being attacked, beat them off, and then spread out again.

Anxe
2012-01-25, 01:40 AM
Your rank and file troops are going to be warriors. Experts fighting in the army seems a little ridiculous to me. They don't even have proficiency in shields or swords! Fighters is also ridiculous. There simply aren't enough in your kingdom to constitute an army.

Your officer and commandos can be pretty much anything and those seem like good choices. Clerics can be the officers that control the supply lines. There aren't going to be enough clerics in your kingdom for them to be the sole members of the supply lines. We have to go back to NPC classes here. Experts, commoners, or warriors are what its going to be.

Biggest problem is a 16 year-old leader. He has no military experience. He has no life experience really. Even if he does, most people aren't going to trust it. He'll be laughed at if he gives any commands that wouldn't be followed if he didn't give them. Appointing him as supreme commander is going to reflect badly on you as well. It makes it look like you don't care about the people's safety.

The dog thing sounds really cool.

Finally, gathering an army in medieval times is very much a political action. You need to gather people to you with a message or with money. Drafting sends the message of, "Risk your life or I'll end your life." While that message is fine, you should really couple it with a positive one as well. Something like, "Risk your life and your children's lives will be improved." Also, the money thing. Soldiers react well to better pay and better food. It sounds like the DM is going to be ready to set the NPCs against you at every turn and you need some arguments for why the commoner should like YOU (And not just like you because you are not a crazy tyrant).

Reading Art of War or The Prince should actually give you quite a few ideas.

Tvtyrant
2012-01-25, 02:02 AM
Oh, and grant everyone voting rights, citizenship, freedom from serfdom, and an acre of land if they join the army. Offer that to Mercs to, and watch your army swell.

Golden Ladybug
2012-01-25, 05:53 AM
I have a suggestion, that I'm surprised hasn't been mentioned yet; Mounted Archers

The Bow was, for quite a big stretch of time, the most powerful weapon in the world. With it, you can hit your opponent before they can hit you. Put Bows on Horses, and have your army harry any invading force with bursts upon bursts of Arrows, hitting them hard when their forces are moving; you don't want to have a group of 100 horsemen with longbows appear out of the blue when you are marching.

Until any enemies you are fighting actually get to a point where they can meet you in combat or threaten a major city, they are forced to either sit where they are and wait it out, try and chase down your Mounted Archers or Return fire, or spread the body of their army out dramatically (maybe other stuff, I'm sort of ad-libbing here), all of which limit how threatening they are to you in general.

Archers in general, not just Mounted ones, are a powerful force in Medieval Stasis warfare, and their usefulness is often curtailed when the battle turns into a Melee. If that never happens, they're great forever, and with the right application of feats (Precise Shot, Improved Precise Shot) those problems are a thing of the past.

So, just outfit about 30-40% of your Army as Archers/Scouts, 10-20% as Auxillaries and non-combat peoples (Cooks, Blacksmiths, etc) another 30-40% as Pikemen and the remainder as Cavalry. A Charge of Lance Wielding Horsemen solves most problems.

The Classes don't matter too much, because the brunt of it comes from Tactics and Feats, which aren't limited by what classes you can take. Supplying your Army with Cheap Gear doesn't matter so much if they aren't in range of the Enemies sharp pointy sticks very often, and being as they're likely low level characters, they're probably relying on Nat 20s and Volleys anyway.

On the topic of Wizards? Use your own Wizards to counter the enemy ones, because thats pretty much the only reasonable way to deal with that problem. Hope your Wizards are better >.>

Anxe
2012-01-25, 09:41 AM
I'd agree that mounted archers are great, but they usually come from societies where having a horse is the norm for every commoner. We don't know if the kingdom taking over is like that.

Paladinofshojo can you give us some background on your newly acquired kingdom? Terrain features? Economy? Religion? More about the past dictator? That sort of thing.

ClothedInVelvet
2012-01-25, 10:04 AM
This has been hinted at a lot, but not said. What magic level is the world? Will your enemy have 1 5th level wizard for every 50 troops? Or will the entire army be levels 1-3 with a small cabal of higher level wizards? That's going to make a big difference.

Also, remember how important supplies are. Movies don't make it a big deal, but imagine how much food you'll need for just 1000 men eating three meals per day, walking all the way to your enemy's homeland. Or how much they'll need. You could easily slice their supply line and leave them to starve somewhere between your land and theirs.

While you're going with the Roman Legion (which I also recommend), take more lessons from the Romans. Conquered people could serve in the military (or were forced to serve) to gain citizenship (which was highly prized). Of course, don't let them serve in their homeland or you're just arming the resistance movement.

mint
2012-01-25, 10:52 AM
Most soldiers will be very low level. The best way to model this in 3.5 as relevant side by side with the PCs is by using the mob template for melee and the archer formation rules for ranged combatants.

If a situation where the PCs fight alongside the army never comes up, modelling and giving stats to the army is pretty pointless.

Fearan
2012-01-25, 11:50 AM
I fail to see, why SPAAAAARTA (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=4963.0) hasn't been put in the tread yet

paladinofshojo
2012-01-25, 03:22 PM
I'd agree that mounted archers are great, but they usually come from societies where having a horse is the norm for every commoner. We don't know if the kingdom taking over is like that.

Paladinofshojo can you give us some background on your newly acquired kingdom? Terrain features? Economy? Religion? More about the past dictator? That sort of thing.



Certainly.... the kingdom is called "Norman-Gaulia", as you can probably see, its a thinly vieled expy for medieval France..... Terrain is mostly forests inhabited by orcs and goblinoid tribes aswell as human barbarians who do not worship Pelor, the main god of the campaign. The country to the West of Norman-Gaulia is called "Espanola", which has pretty much a mixed population, and is abundent of half elves, due to high elven invasions centuries ago. The Land to the West is another human country called the Empire of Reichschlande.....which is an expy of the Holy Roman Empire, it has a militaristic monarchy whose Emperor has a very draconian view on rulers and peasants. Finally there's Albiona, which is a great island nation originally inhabited by dwarves (Scotsman) & wood elves (Welsh). However Norman-Gaulia had conquered and anexed the entirity of the isle over 200 years ago. The previous king decided to commit genocide against any non-human on that island 20 years ago for "settlement" space. This lead to a very disgruntled dwarf druid chieftain to vow vengeance against the humans, said dwarf finds his way to Norman-Gaulia and then begins to recruit disgruntled members of the peasantry into a Resitance and commits acts of terrorism to scare the populace (such as taking on his animal form of a direwolf and terrorizing the country-side with murders, smuggling explosive runes into buildings whether civilian or government, even mutilating entire villages) So essentially it was boiling down to a showdown against a vengeance driven druid or an ax crazy king, so we decided it was best to kill them both and have the Resistance's less crazy members yield authority of the organization to us and have the kingdom's top beauracrats work with us, a little Charm spells help here and there if you get my drift. :smallamused:

Anxe
2012-01-25, 10:35 PM
Alright. So horse archers is probably not the best strategy. The next question is what are your goals? Defensive? Expansionary? If you want to expand then in which direction? You've presented us with three different options.

As for terrain, I suppose if these are actually the size of their real-life counterparts then there's going to be a big variety. Same for economy.

I got the impression from your post that religion was not important to the Norman-Gaulians. Sound right? What about the other countries? Is it something that you could exploit there?

Studoku
2012-01-26, 09:03 AM
I can't remember what books they're in but get a bard with an alpine horn. The alpine horn extends the range of bardic music- including inspire confidence- to a couple of miles. Better, get two bards- an inspire confidence and a dragonfire inspiration.

Perfect for massed battles where you can give a significant buff to your entire army.

The Random NPC
2012-01-26, 11:29 AM
Wouldn't a few Marshels sprinkled throughout the army help? If I remember correctly that class is all about making everyone else better. For the best can't be stopped army google ikea tarrasque, such as The Emerald Legion (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=101587).

Glimbur
2012-01-26, 07:37 PM
If levels in PC classes are no problem, consider Rangers as your rank and file. They get the skills you want, also full BAB and martial weapons. There is somewhat of a lack of armor proficiencies, and some class features will go to waste, but they do skills and fighting.

Coidzor
2012-01-26, 07:53 PM
Well, if you haven't read this discourse on leadership mechanics (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=3065.0), it's a place to start.

If we're actually talking D&D 3.5, it's even more pertinent.

If that's the system in question then...Bards can have every flavor of dragon heritage and dragon fire inspiration as well as regular inspire courage.

So that's +X to hit and damage backed up by +Xd6 of sonic, fire, cold, acid, and electric damage. On every single attack made by friendly troops who can hear the bards.

Inspire Courage Optimization (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=9830) (look here (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=399.0) for successor handbook index) can make that X get a fair bit higher. If the bards are undead or warforged or otherwise tireless, they can pretty much keep their music up indefinitely over a large area.

With a cohort with levels in warchanter, they can even end up with BAB that is a lot higher than their HD in addition to inspire courage benefits.

Which can lead even 1 HD creatures like skeletons to be able to reliably hit the Tarrasque

Also, if you're preparing for the worst, why did you fire all of the trained soldiers so that they'd be jobless, angry at you, and forced to either fight against you or turn to banditry?

Grimm34443
2017-05-30, 11:03 PM
You could just have a GM like mine who let my character become a king, gave asylum to my people (dhampirs and dragons), bully the other nations into giving me land and cities, arrange my daughters marriage to the militant powerhouse combining our nations under my flag, and eventually he let me become an Egyptian god of creation

Mechalich
2017-05-31, 01:24 AM
It should be kept in mind that, in a standard faux-medieval world mass conscription is not a thing you can do. The feudal system is set up to make such a thing almost completely impossible and conscript armies at the medieval tech level aren't particularly useful anyway (because they don't have the right weapons/armor/horses/training/etc.) even if you have an administration capable of producing them. This is doubly so in D&D, in which many of the standard medieval tactics are turned on their head and armies can, depending on the precise situation with regard to level and number of spellcasters, be less than useless (ex. if an army needs to concentrate to be tactically effective, which most medieval infantry and cavalry did, and concentrating just means that fireball mows them down like wheat, and fireballs are abundant, then armies are nothing but resource drain).

Lvl 2 Expert
2017-05-31, 02:35 AM
Oh, and grant everyone voting rights, citizenship, freedom from serfdom, and an acre of land if they join the army. Offer that to Mercs to, and watch your army swell.

I'm not sure you can afford this much for every soldier. Or rather, I know you could if we're thinking about professionals here, who will earn there retirement after X years of active duty, like how the Roman legions or the French foreign legion handle(d) it. But for conscripts, which there are more of and who serve for a shorter time, it's less suited.

Still, even for conscripts a reward system could be a good idea. Every family has to have a man (or a woman, this is D&D with modern players, there's no reason not to have the armies mixed) ready to join the army when called upon. That's a requirement, and they're not getting anything for that. But if they bring a suitable dog (I really like the dog idea), even if it's just a guard dog or even a ratter (pests can be a big problem in huge improvised war camps) they get some sort of small reward, on top of (usually) increasing their own chance of survival, either by going to war with a war dog or by being delegated to behind the lines duties their dogs are useful for. A donkey or a pair of strong goats could be useful in logistics, they also give a minor bonus. If they bring a decent suit of armor, same thing. They are now useful front line soldiers. If they bring a horse, big bonus. If they bring their own sergeant (knight-servant) or squire or just any second person, both having a horse and a suit of armor, you can probably grant them some minor noble title or something. Doing more than your plain duty becomes incentivized and if the system is set up well it becomes a status symbol. A dog owner gets a sack of grain when he goes to war, enough to at least feed his family while he can't help them work the land. That's the guy you want to be, so you want a dog, which in turn brings more breeders into the war dog game.

Plus, what might possibly be the coolest thing: if you ask for your people to volunteer material like that, it's up to your GM to judge how good your system is. If he thinks "that's pretty good, if I was a farmer in that country I would absolutely start training my best horse for war", he will have to give you a bunch of horses, and he will enjoy it, and enjoy warring against them. You're back to cooperating with the GM rather than sitting at a mild versus situation where he just wants to take your kingdom away without it seeming unfair.

Lazymancer
2017-05-31, 04:38 AM
This thread practically begs for someone to suggest undead.