path of evil players stay out please

[Morithias]

Alright in the "Path of Evil" Play by post, I had the story that a evil woman named "Demon king Miki" created an army almost out of nowhere, and almost took over the world.

Now her armies are suppose to be a major mystery in the world, but I do have a general idea of how she did it.

She bound an Elder evil and killed it, using it's life force to create her armies.

Now if the party wants to try the "military take over the world" style of conquest, they'll likely need to find her bases and do this again, but I've hit a bump.

What kind of limitations should I put on the creation of their forces. Even Miki's forces weren't infinite as even and elder evil had some kind of limit to their life force, but I need to pre-plan this.

I want it so they can choose to create a small group of elites, or a huge group of cannon fodder. But I'm stuck on putting any sort of "numbers" to it.

Anyone know any systems similar to this? Some kind of "make an army where your numbers are in theory infinite, but you can only make so much at a time or something"?

Anything from D20 is good, I can rewrite it if I don't like it, I just need a base line.

Also Yes, I know binding an elder evil is suppose to be impossible more or less killing one, but this is demon king Miki, a being that even the archdemons fear.

[roguemetal]

There really aren't any rules for this sort of thing in D&D. The closest you can get without using 3rd party material (and I wouldn't know where to look) are through the Heroes of Battle and Miniatures books, which handle large scale encounters in different ways, and are a generally decent guideline for balancing an army.

My side suggestion for you is to have the 'infinite' troops require a certain amount of time to be produced. They are indeed 'infinite' by definition, but if say 40HD of creatures are produced each day, and this continues for X years it would create only a nigh-infinite number of troops at any given time, less if this Miki decided to bother feeding them or not.

[docnessuno]

There really aren't any rules for this sort of thing in D&D. The closest you can get without using 3rd party material (and I wouldn't know where to look) are through the Heroes of Battle and Miniatures books, which handle large scale encounters in different ways, and are a generally decent guideline for balancing an army.

My side suggestion for you is to have the 'infinite' troops require a certain amount of time to be produced. They are indeed 'infinite' by definition, but if say 40HD of creatures are produced each day, and this continues for X years it would create only a nigh-infinite number of troops at any given time, less if this Miki decided to bother feeding them or not.

I would actually tie the process to the square of the creature CR.
A CR 10 monster is a lot more dangerous on the battlefield than 10 CR 1 ones.

Also consider that your army must be fed and equipped. Even if the "lifeforce" is infinite, your resources probably aren't.

[Morithias]

I would actually tie the process to the square of the creature CR.
A CR 10 monster is a lot more dangerous on the battlefield than 10 CR 1 ones.

Also consider that your army must be fed and equipped. Even if the "lifeforce" is infinite, your resources probably aren't.

Both good ideas. I'll crunch some numbers and see what I can do.

Of course that assumes they decide binding an elder evil is a good idea. After all they're kinda you know...elder evils.

But yeah, Miki killed Cthulu and used his life to make an army. I wonder if they'll kill Hatsur lol

[Kelb_Panthera]

Lovecraft is rolling over in his grave right now, but let's ignore that shall we?

Your party is already at a huge disadvantage. Miki there already snatched the easy pickings. IIRC, Cthulu isn't even an elder god, he's an elder being. He was the high priest of the elder gods in the city of R'yleh. Maybe they could jerk a chunk out of the ever fecund shub-*****rauth? It'd probably never even notice.

After completing the ritual (we both know there's going to be a ritual) you give them control of an army you've put together using the rules in HoB that's composed of creatures with that one template in Elder Evils that's attached to the presence of Ragnorra (who was rather clearly modeled after shub-*****rauth anway; it even says so in the book).

Edit: the filter scrubs a misspelling of the N word? That's news to me.

[Morithias]

Lovecraft is rolling over in his grave right now, but let's ignore that shall we?

Your party is already at a huge disadvantage. Miki there already snatched the easy pickings. IIRC, Cthulu isn't even an elder god, he's an elder being. He was the high priest of the elder gods in the city of R'yleh. Maybe they could jerk a chunk out of the ever fecund shub-*****rauth? It'd probably never even notice.

After completing the ritual (we both know there's going to be a ritual) you give them control of an army you've put together using the rules in HoB that's composed of creatures with that one template in Elder Evils that's attached to the presence of Ragnorra (who was rather clearly modeled after shub-*****rauth anway; it even says so in the book).

Edit: the filter scrubs a misspelling of the N word? That's news to me.

Good idea! I shall read the elder evil book from front to back to make the army....

...I'm not going to be able to sleep for weeks after making this army am I?

[Kelb_Panthera]

Good idea! I shall read the elder evil book from front to back to make the army....

...I'm not going to be able to sleep for weeks after making this army am I?

There's a template with Father Llymic that might work too, now that you mention it. Elder Evils is definitely an interesting book; might even be worth the read if you didn't have a game going.

As for the (presumably rhetorical) question; depends on your mental fortitude. I took a nap right after reading At the Mountains of Madness for the first time, no problem. Helluva creepy atmosphere to that one, btw.

[Morithias]

There's a template with Father Llymic that might work too, now that you mention it. Elder Evils is definitely an interesting book; might even be worth the read if you didn't have a game going.

As for the (presumably rhetorical) question; depends on your mental fortitude. I took a nap right after reading At the Mountains of Madness for the first time, no problem. Helluva creepy atmosphere to that one, btw.

Either way. It was more of a joke.

I'll just have to find the template and see how powerful it is. Then copy and paste it if they bind another Elder Evil.

They're going the most stealth route, they're showing interest in the earthquake generator than military might.

Either way thanks for the suggestions.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Being clever adventurers and tearing the enemy down themselves is probably a better idea than a straight-foward army V army clash anyway. With the forces at work here, the latter would have collateral that included most of the campaign world, I'd bet.

In any case, glad to help. :smallsmile:

Edit: hah! they could just get all nihilistic on you and try to wake the leviathan, destroying the campaign world (that is; literally smashing the planet to pieces) and "winning" by default. :smalltongue: