Magic Items for an Army

[Leicontis]

I've got a touch of warfare planned for an upcoming campaign. One faction in particular is going to be making extensive use of an item enchanter with whom the PCs will have frequent interactions, so I figured it'd be a good idea to figure out what kinds of items they'd be commissioning. A stumbling point is that most magic items are likely to be prohibitively expensive.
The question to ask when looking at a magic item is: Will buying this help me more than using the money to deploy more mercenaries? My thoughts on pricing run as follows:

A common mercenary costs 2 sp per day in wages, cavalry 4 sp, officers 6 sp. Throw in camp followers (1 sp per day wages for most) and cost of supplies, and you're easily talking 5-10 sp per day per soldier to field your army. If we assume a war lasting no more than one year, that comes out to around 20k-30k gp to field an army of 1000 men (the war is going to be in a small country, with lots of factions, so armies aren't likely to be more than a few thousand soldiers unless somebody splurges on a LOT of mercenaries).

My intuition tells me that directly offensive or defensive magic items are unlikely to be worth the price. They serve a similar purpose to soldiers (i.e. killing the enemy), but you could deploy hundreds of soldiers for the same price, and they'd probably be about as effective. The big place magic seems like it would help would be intelligence gathering, communications, and logistics. An enchanted fireball-shooting ballista could win a battle, but wars are often won and lost by who has better intelligence, better coordination, and more reliable supplies.

As one further note, the army in this case is going to be placing unusually heavy reliance on elite units and small-squad tactics, so more than the normal proportion of their army is going to be basically teams of adventurer-types who aren't going to be sitting still for long periods of time.

So, any ideas for which particular items (if any) would be considered worth the price?

[Knaight]

Looking at per year figures:
Mercenary: 73 gp
Cavalry: 146 gp
Officer: 219 gp

I'll be using the standard mercenary for price approximations for magic items, noting that these figures assume they have their own equipment. The obvious contenders:

Folding Boat, 7,200 gp, 99 mercenaries. This gives you a 15 troop raiding squad which can take its boat anywhere, quickly. If these 15 are better troops, they could probably do real damage to supply trains, indirect targets, etc. Note that 15 is a low estimate, as 15 can be carried "with ease".

Decanter of Endless Water: 9,000 gp, 123 mercenaries. This eases up logistics in a big way, prevents viable poisoning of water supplies, and is generally a steal.

Marvelous Pigments: 4,000 gp, 55 mercenaries. This can be used to quickly build a bridge, or provide food, or do any number of other things.

Bracelet of Friends (1 Charm): 4250 gp, 58 mercenaries. The main purpose of this is to be able to evacuate generals. It only works once, but a good general is probably worth more than 58 troops.

Wands: Generally speaking, wands are cheap, with an individual charge being significantly less pricey than a mercenary for a year. Given that they can kill decently sized groups if they are packed in, this gives a use to wands. Eternal wands might also be viable here, but I'm not particularly familiar with how they are priced.

[Slipperychicken]

Sending Stones (1400gp for a pair). Depending on your definition of "word" (If string of number or nonsense-word= one word), you can transmit practically unlimited data by code, which is trivial for a large organization to accomplish. Either way, this will make long-distance communication trivial and allow leaders to coordinate over incredible distance with ease. A true godsend in a large-scale conflict, and even for diplomacy (have diplomats and foreign leaders hang on to these).

Linked armor quality (6,000gp). 3/day one-hour communication with wearer of other part of set. Same reason as the Sending Stones, but more uses/day.

Remember that conventional soldiers cost less than mercenaries. The bread and butter of a national army is regulars, guys willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for King and Country, not for payment (although they can get very grumpy if you don't pay them). Mercenaries are quick hired muscle: loyal to gold alone, are usually less disciplined, demand more payment/spoils than an equivalent soldier, and will turn against you the moment someone makes a better offer.


EDIT: Also, there are those 8k Mirror-sets which basically give infinite video-chat between them. I can't find the source right now, but they are massively valuable to anyone who can afford them, not just for military, but for dramatically improving commerce (have a state-run communication service, where you can instantly send messages/business-deals to the city containing the linked mirror. Like a telegraph on crack).

[Jack of Trades]

Blessed Bandages are cheap (10gp each) and makes sure that who ever is alive at the end of a battle stays alive. Greatly reduces the need for clerics.

A healing belt (750gp) can make a low level cleric out of anyone.

Other items that provide a day's food are good deals.
Field Provisions Box (2,000gp) feeds 15 people or 5 horses.

One decanter of endless water can easily be used to fill up your water tank wagons. Just point and say the magic geyser word. A replenishment skin for 1,000gp isn't nearly as cost effective when considering people served.

Eternal wands (2x/day usage) with wide area destruction are good. But low level wands are a better bargain. 460gp for 0-level. 820gp for 1st level.

I would suggest going thru the MIC. With most items reduced to three times per day usage you could probably find some bargin items.

Have a wizard casts multiple continual flame/light spells on objects so that they can see at night. Other permanent spells can be useful.

[Rubik]

Lyre of building. Not only does it make fortifications insanely fast, it also makes numerous siege tactics completely impossible. No sapping walls, no battering down doors, no Disintegrating ceilings or floors.

[NichG]

One way to do this calculation is to say 'what items would I need to make a single character able to take out an army?'. Incorporeality is a game-changer for this kind of thing. Someone who could summon, control, and survive an Allip would also change the field significantly.

[Slipperychicken]

Have a wizard casts multiple continual flame/light spells on objects so that they can see at night. Other permanent spells can be useful.

A Continual flame (50gp component) is only cost effective compared to torches after 5,000 hours of use, and is vulnerable to dispelling...

Get Liquid Sunlight (Complete Adventurer or Scoundrel, 20gp market price), and put it in lanterns. It's an alchemical item which shines as a torch until thrown, is much cheaper than Continual Flame, and not vulnerable to dispels.


You might want to check out Shax's Indispensable Haversack, or Bunko's Bargain Basement.

[jaybird]

Create Food and Water trap, with an At-Will item of Prestidigitation. An army marches on its stomach, after all.

[Leicontis]

Found another item that could have military application: Sphere of Awakening - you can fit a LOT of troops into a 60' radius burst, and being able to wipe away all their fatigue and give them a brief immunity to fatigue could allow something like covering way more ground than the enemy expects (march until exhausted, use the sphere, then run all-out while the immunity lasts, then slow to a normal pace for the rest of the day). Depending on how you did it exactly (and how much nonlethal damage you're willing to let your troops take), you could easily get several miles per day of extra movement out of your army, which is a significant advantage. Not bad for an 1800gp item.

That's the kind of item I'm looking for - relatively cheap, but capable of having a significant effect. Also, I'd be open to suggestions for homebrew items (though they'd have to be in balance with existing stuff, so no "just like X but half the price" items).

Edited to add:
Also, what's the general distinction between "magic trap" and "magic item"? I would assume it to be that traps are immobile, and therefore unsuited to military magic except as part of a fortification, but if there's an official rule somewhere that I'm missing, that would help...

[Tyger]

A good old fashioned set of Masterwork War Drums and the bard to play them. Seriously, giving every single member of your army the equivalent of a +1 magic weapon is priceless. Bonus points if that bard has the Dragonfire Inspiration feat. Find a way to protect said bard from the hail of arrows they will draw though - they will be a target.

But on the magical notes, a lot of the really good ones have been mentioned - armies need two things to stay functional, good logistics and good communications. The Decanter of Endless Water, the various communication devices (don't forget a couple of wands of Sending as well) solve a lot of the problems, and open a lot of doors.

[Leicontis]

The wand of Sending idea has potential, but it's a bit expensive - one could theoretically buy 15 pairs of Sending Stones for the same price. Unfortunately, other than huge numbers of Sending Stones or several very expensive wands, I can't see any item(s) that would allow multiple parties to communicate in any way other than using a central hub. Of course, it's not necessarily a bad thing that your army's magical communications all have to be routed through headquarters, but it does increase both the effectiveness of a decapitation strike and the value of a well-placed spy.

So, perhaps Sending Stones to allow rapid but limited 2-way communication between high command and disparate field units? Based on the pricing guide in the DMG, it also looks like a 1/day command-word-activated item of Animal Messenger could price out as cheaply as 720gp, which would allow field units to send reports in to a prearranged receiver location (mostly sending in to high command, but if one group arranged for another to pick up a message at a certain location and time, messages could be sent between field units that way on occasion).

[TuggyNE]

The wand of Sending idea has potential, but it's a bit expensive - one could theoretically buy 15 pairs of Sending Stones for the same price. Unfortunately, other than huge numbers of Sending Stones or several very expensive wands, I can't see any item(s) that would allow multiple parties to communicate in any way other than using a central hub. Of course, it's not necessarily a bad thing that your army's magical communications all have to be routed through headquarters, but it does increase both the effectiveness of a decapitation strike and the value of a well-placed spy.

Use multiple hubs that communicate directly with each other. (For more complication, relay messages through several tiers: each squad has one link to company hub, each company hub in a regiment links to its hub, and so on.) Basically, replicate telecommunications.

Bonus points: include packet rerouting tricks to massively increase reliability. :smalltongue:

[Wise Green Bean]

Not exactly related, but still, a rather serious concern...A 5th level wizard casts fly and darkvision. He has a 11,250 gp item. Wand of fireball. Flies over your camp in the middle of the night, laying down a fireball every round. If he's worried about retaliation, maybe he throws up protection from arrows. That's probably unnecessary, as the archers probably can't even see him. Or a level 1 wizard pixie(uses greater invisibility and it's natural flight). Either way, I'm pretty sure that's the end to any threat the army poses. Half the people are dead, most of the supplies are gone, etc, etc. It's cheaper and probably more effective than rustling up an opposing force for any extended amount of time.

[Umbranar]

The Heroes of Battle book has some pretty good magical banners, like one that gives sanctuary to unarmed allies within radius. Used for healers to move across the field. I dont know the details but there is some good stuff in there...like lightning bolt shooting balista`s and animated siege weapons.

[NichG]

Not exactly related, but still, a rather serious concern...A 5th level wizard casts fly and darkvision. He has a 11,250 gp item. Wand of fireball. Flies over your camp in the middle of the night, laying down a fireball every round. If he's worried about retaliation, maybe he throws up protection from arrows. That's probably unnecessary, as the archers probably can't even see him. Or a level 1 wizard pixie(uses greater invisibility and it's natural flight). Either way, I'm pretty sure that's the end to any threat the army poses. Half the people are dead, most of the supplies are gone, etc, etc. It's cheaper and probably more effective than rustling up an opposing force for any extended amount of time.

Thats pretty cost effective I'd say. It depends on how experienced the army is at dealing with such things - salt in say six high level characters amidst the low level mercenaries and it might neutralize the threat though.

Ironically, dousing all the lights in the camp might be the best response, as then your wizard can't see them either without coming into range of the enemy's darkvision scouts (and why wouldn't they also have Lv3 Wizards/etc). That means if they scatter or otherwise perform ruses, they can get the attacker to waste their fireballs. It also means the pixie would have to fly low, so there'd be some hope spotting it with a sentry with See Invisibility (another likely case if the army has Lv3 Wizards) and responding.

Still, if you manage to kill 4 soldiers per shot you've come out ahead monetarily. I guess the question though is, how many of these 'mercenaries', 'officers', etc would survive 5d6 damage - thats 17 damage on average, so anyone with 8hp or more would on average just be bleeding out on a failed save, not actually dead.

So I don't think thats so much an army killer as it is a potent tactic that discourages open-air army camps and requires some action on the part of each army to neutralize. It may still be a quite valid tactic to employ against an army without necessarily being an instant win. Especially if you follow it up with an attack using massed manpower while the enemy is already wounded - turn all those -1s on a failed save into -10s.

[Slipperychicken]

Not exactly related, but still, a rather serious concern...A 5th level wizard casts fly and darkvision. He has a 11,250 gp item. Wand of fireball. Flies over your camp in the middle of the night, laying down a fireball every round. If he's worried about retaliation, maybe he throws up protection from arrows. That's probably unnecessary, as the archers probably can't even see him. Or a level 1 wizard pixie(uses greater invisibility and it's natural flight). Either way, I'm pretty sure that's the end to any threat the army poses. Half the people are dead, most of the supplies are gone, etc, etc. It's cheaper and probably more effective than rustling up an opposing force for any extended amount of time.

And the army mages don't have anything to say about that? Protection from Arrows does nothing against spells. Not to mention that they still need an army to fight the survivors (and Team Wizard blew half its budget on a Wand).

Enemy 5th level Wizard can throw Dispel Magic on him, which would ruin his day, and possibly his Wand. That alone makes the attack very risky.


That wand costed about as much as fielding an army for a year, and a level 5 Wizard is a truly invaluable asset. It's actually pretty dumb when you consider that Wizard will most likely die when spotted (Protection from Arrows only gets him 50 damage against the arrows, and nothing against spells), and drop the Wand which costed you half an army's salary.