[3.5] Making an Army Disappear

[rgrekejin]

Hello once again, fellow Playgrounders. I have an idea for a scenario I want to run on my players, but I have no real idea how to make it work under the rules.

My players are part of a scouting force that is keeping tabs on a small army of undead (2,000 or so) and their associated cleric handlers. They're all at level ten, and the party includes a druid, a scout, a wizard, a cleric, and a dragon shaman. The druid and the scout have pretty good perceptive skills, and they have access to all the normal anti-illusion spells that they should have at that level, although whether or not they will think to use them is another matter. Additionally, they're pretty far away from the army, as their orders are to track it's movements and not engage.

I want to make the army disappear on them. Preferably without them noticing that it's gone right away.

Magical and mundane methods are both fair game, and the army in question can use spells of up to 8th level to accomplish this task if need be. The best I can come up with is having the army set up camp on top of a cave system with multiple outlets, and smuggle themselves out under cover of darkness, but I'm less than satisfied with that.

Thoughts?

[LTwerewolf]

If they can use up to 8th level spells try teleporting under the cover of darkness (maybe even darkness spells or invisibility), or planeshifting.

[herrhauptmann]

Bring in mist/fog. Enough to obscure vision. Maybe have some of it be a mild debuff too. Solid fog or something.
The PCs will probably try to dispel or avoid it. So don't be surprised if you have to keep recasting it.

Have a squad attack the PCs. Don't design teh squad to kill the PCs, they're there just to distract and delay them. So high AC, HP, and Saves are a priority over high attack and damage. Once the PCs are fighting, they'll probably ignore any fog that's not directly affecting the fight.

Now that the PCs are distracted, start moving the army out. Normally that'd be pretty useless, since a 5 round headstart isn't much at level 10. But your army has access to high level magic, so 5 rounds or so could be enough to start teleporting the army out (somehow). You might be able to use that time to get the army directly to its destination (the kings palace, or capitol city?) without the PCs being able to send a magical warning to their bosses.

[Slipperychicken]

Easy Metamagic Invisible Spell Apocalypse From The Sky.

Poof, no more army. :smallbiggrin:

[Toliudar]

Army gets to a large body of water. Because they're all undead, they don't breathe. They simply enter the body of water. It's a lot harder to track underwater. Maybe they enter an underground river/sea/whatever.

[rgrekejin]

Perhaps I should clarify - they do not have unlimited access to 8th level spells. They have access to a single caster capable of casting both arcane and divine spells up to 8th level, and a number of weaker casters who can cast divine spells up to 5th level or so. Not much magical support beyond that. So, unless there's actually a specific spell that does it, I don't think mass teleportation is going to be a viable option.

The mist and fog ideas are both nice, as is the skirmishing party. I'm less inclined to pull the "walk the army through a lake" trick because I've already used it on them once before (the druid was still able to track them, he just wildshaped into a common water-borne animal and continued to follow them clandestinely.

[Cruiser1]

My players are part of a scouting force that is keeping tabs on a small army of undead (2,000 or so)Cast the 7th level Wizard spell Mass Invisibility (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/invisibilityMass.htm). It makes invisible any number of targets within 180 feet of each other. A circle 180 feet in diameter has an area of over 1000 five foot squares. Cast it twice, cast it once using a greater metamagic rod of widen spell, or have the army scootch closer together so there are two creatures in each square.

[Telonius]

Too bad there's not a "Hide from Living" spell...

EDIT: Also, what sort of undead are we talking about here? Zombie horde, or something smarter?

[Toliudar]

A scroll of Teleportation Circle would do it.

[Telonius]

There doesn't seem to be much in the way of rules for skeleton or zombie weight. Some quick googling shows a skeleton as having something like 14% of body weight. If we're figuring a 150-lb human, that's 21 lbs plus any gear they're carrying - for the Monster Manual human warrior skeleton that's 19lbs of steel shield and scimitar. So 42,000 lbs of skeletons, plus 38,000 lbs of gear. You could conceivably cast Shrink Item on the gear, since it's nonmagical, to get it down to 9.5 lbs. So if you have 28 Clerics with Type 4 Bags of Holding - plus (probably) a bunch of charges of a Shrink Item wand - you could conceal a horde of 2,000 skeletons.

[sdream]

There doesn't seem to be much in the way of rules for skeleton or zombie weight. Some quick googling shows a skeleton as having something like 14% of body weight. If we're figuring a 150-lb human, that's 21 lbs plus any gear they're carrying - for the Monster Manual human warrior skeleton that's 19lbs of steel shield and scimitar. So 42,000 lbs of skeletons, plus 38,000 lbs of gear. You could conceivably cast Shrink Item on the gear, since it's nonmagical, to get it down to 9.5 lbs. So if you have 28 Clerics with Type 4 Bags of Holding - plus (probably) a bunch of charges of a Shrink Item wand - you could conceal a horde of 2,000 skeletons.

While by raw this probably would not work (as undead count as creatures not objects (they were certainly created)), it is a damn cool idea.

Perhaps there is a custome magical item or custom mechanism of animating these undead that allows them to be deadctivated, stacked like cordwood, and shrinken into a little cube of fine bone. Then they are shipped swiftly to their destination, wheeled into the city in a cart, and POW instant invasion as they are reconsituted.

[laeZ1]

Make it snow. Really, really hard. Other types of storms are good too. I forget who mentioned it, but I'm also a big fan of having the army walk into a lake, and take some secret underwater canal in there.

[Lonely Tylenol]

Give every single member of the undead army a tower shield and Hide ranks (or chain an Iron Silence spell, if that works). Have the entire army take cover behind their shields, granting them total cover (allowing them to make a Hide check). Then, have them all take 20 on their Hide checks. The undead army successfully hides behind their tower shields... And all their attended equipment hides with them--including their tower shields. Poof! Gone.

WARNING: Don't try this unless your party can take a joke. :smallbiggrin:

[Telonius]

While by raw this probably would not work (as undead count as creatures not objects (they were certainly created)), it is a damn cool idea.

Perhaps there is a custome magical item or custom mechanism of animating these undead that allows them to be deadctivated, stacked like cordwood, and shrinken into a little cube of fine bone. Then they are shipped swiftly to their destination, wheeled into the city in a cart, and POW instant invasion as they are reconsituted.

I mean shrink the gear, not the skeletons. You'd be stuffing the skeletons into the bags of holding, which is why you need so many of them. They don't need to breathe, so they wouldn't be bothered by it. If you could shrink the skeletons too, you could just stuff them all in a nonmagical bag that a single Cleric could carry.

[Slipperychicken]

Cast the 7th level Wizard spell Mass Invisibility (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/invisibilityMass.htm). It makes invisible any number of targets within 180 feet of each other. A circle 180 feet in diameter has an area of over 1000 five foot squares. Cast it twice, cast it once using a greater metamagic rod of widen spell, or have the army scootch closer together so there are two creatures in each square.

You can fit a lot people in a 5x5ft square, just look at some of the more packed crowds. And this is an army; disciplined soldiers aren't going to whine about their "personal space bubble" or whatever.


I've always wanted to make dnd armies with several soldiers per square, for both realism and difficulty (provoke 5 AoOs charging a group of mooks. Make those numbers matter).

[ILM]

I like the Screen (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/screen.htm) spell myself for that sort of thing. One casting at minimum CL15 (or even 13 with the right domain) gives you 13-15 30-ft cubes of illusion. You can dictate that the PCs see the army moving about like it's business as usual, while in reality they're packing their stuff and walking into a nearby cave network or something. Or have them teleport away. Alternatively, declare that the PCs see an empty camp even though the army is still there.

Plus, if the PCs are level 10, they don't have True Seeing readily available (unless they thought of buying a bunch of scolls).

[Baroncognito]

Have the army dig up a whole lot of earth for a couple of weeks. Just have a huge area in which they dig up and over turn the ground. After enough ground is disturbed that way, do the fog trick, then have the army bury themselves somewhere, and have an undead ranger hide the tracks of the buried army.

[Incorrect]

Army gets to a large body of water. Because they're all undead, they don't breathe. They simply enter the body of water. It's a lot harder to track underwater. Maybe they enter an underground river/sea/whatever.

Every single undead army should travel underwater at some point. Its just that awesome :smallbiggrin:
And by far the cheapest and easiest option.


Camps are mentioned, why?
Undead armies run. All the time. 24/7. Because why wouldent they.. its not like they will get tired. It is going to be really difficult to keep tabs on someone tirelessly running day and night.

[Coidzor]

I can't help but think that if you could get the Druid's player to use Blizzard(Frostburn) in this situation it'd make your job a lot easier.

[Kelb_Panthera]

There doesn't seem to be much in the way of rules for skeleton or zombie weight. Some quick googling shows a skeleton as having something like 14% of body weight. If we're figuring a 150-lb human, that's 21 lbs plus any gear they're carrying - for the Monster Manual human warrior skeleton that's 19lbs of steel shield and scimitar. So 42,000 lbs of skeletons, plus 38,000 lbs of gear. You could conceivably cast Shrink Item on the gear, since it's nonmagical, to get it down to 9.5 lbs. So if you have 28 Clerics with Type 4 Bags of Holding - plus (probably) a bunch of charges of a Shrink Item wand - you could conceal a horde of 2,000 skeletons.

Minor nitpick: the figures in the PHB would indicate an average weight for a human being to be closer to 160lbs than 150. If you want to be precise it's 157.5lbs. 175 for men and 140 for women.

[ahenobarbi]

1) Gather army in as little space as possible.
2) Lower-level guys cast some minor images (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/minorImage.htm) creating illusion of army exactly as it is.
3) Cover army with silence (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/silence.htm) and invisibilty (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/invisibilityMass.htm).
4) Army simply walks away.
5) When army is away guys keeping silent images teleport to place where the army is.
6) You might want to cover tracks somehow so the army is not too easy to find (or walk oart of the way underwater/ on solid rock/ somewhere where it won't leave obvious tracks).

[Bale Fire]

From all the ideas I've read here so far, the distraction one sounds like the best bet. Assault the team with some undead, maybe a few summons as well, try and delay them. If you want to hold them for longer, maybe have that leader come in and cast some spells like wall of stone, blade barrier, etc.

That should give the army at least a bit of a headstart.

[rgrekejin]

Camps are mentioned, why?
Undead armies run. All the time. 24/7. Because why wouldent they.. its not like they will get tired. It is going to be really difficult to keep tabs on someone tirelessly running day and night.

Sure, the undead can run 24/7, but their handlers, who are still living, cannot. And there aren't enough of them running the show to be able to run the army in shifts. The camps are not for the benefit of the undead, but for the still-living leadership.


I can't help but think that if you could get the Druid's player to use Blizzard(Frostburn) in this situation it'd make your job a lot easier.

It would, but I can't imagine a situation in which he would actually cast it. Since our campaign takes place mostly in a subtropical zone, Frostburn doesn't get looked at much. Frankly, I'd be surprised if he even knew the spell existed.

[Slipperychicken]

Sure, the undead can run 24/7, but their handlers, who are still living, cannot. And there aren't enough of them running the show to be able to run the army in shifts. The camps are not for the benefit of the undead, but for the still-living leadership.


Undead horses can drive carriages/chariots with leaders in them. Undead horse-driver controls the horses (or shifts of living ones). Living dudes sleep in beds inside carriage, like some kind of APC with bunk beds. Get more handlers so they can work shifts when needed. Either way, living handlers can push themselves if they need to hustle. They'll move way faster than any living army, and not need to worry as much about supply lines, other than things like ammunition.

You can also make the leaders Necropolitan. Think of the Ritual of Crucimigration as the ultimate test of loyalty. The ultimate sacrifice: to serve your country even after death :smallbiggrin: