Advice On making a Army?

[silverwolfer]

A friend of mine is dealing with high level play dealing with epic leadership and a large amount of followers. Is anyone aware of any sort of handbook for this level of or style of play, google does not seem to be aiding myself in this search.

[Phelix-Mu]

Heroes of Battle supplement had a number of sample armies in the back (page 137) for various races. Pretty easy to scale up the numbers as desired.

[Flickerdart]

Leadership is generally not the best way of getting an army - most of your followers are low-level chumps, and at Epic levels, due to the way 3.5 scales, they can't contribute meaningfully to very many scenarios that their leader could not just solve himself within a few rounds. If your friend desires an army, building constructs (using massive Epic WBL - normally they're quite expensive), raising undead, binding outsiders, or just mind-controlling useful people are all better ways of getting one. If he doesn't want to spend resources on all this stuff, his cohort can be a golem builder, necromancer, conjurer, or enchanter, and do all of that stuff for him, but the followers? Don't pin very high hopes on them.

[silverwolfer]

It is from the MM5 dragon war games, so basicly it is follower versus follower.

[karkus]

In the first several dozen pages of the Epic Level Handbook, there is a section on Epic Leadership. You can try dandwiki.com and search for it there, or ask around some more about it. There is another Epic feat in the same book called "Legendary Commander" (or something like that) that gives you ten times the number of followers.

After reading Heroes of Battle, I realized that armies are not normally composed of millions of warriors, but only a few thousand. Even if the army of Followers only amounts to a few thousand compared to the enemy's tens of thousands, remember that the leader of the former is an Epic-Level PC who could probably take on the entire army by himself without even being able to earn any XP for it.

[TuggyNE]

In the first several dozen pages of the Epic Level Handbook, there is a section on Epic Leadership. You can try dandwiki.com and search for it there, or ask around some more about it. There is another Epic feat in the same book called "Legendary Commander" (or something like that) that gives you ten times the number of followers.

Nooo~ not the dandwiki! d20SRD has what you need. Legendary Commander (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/feats.htm#legendaryCommander) and its prerequisite Epic Leadership (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/feats.htm#epicLeadership).

[awa]

a few thousand level 1 characters will die like crazy in an epic game the army would just be a vanity thing. Even monsters so weak you cant get xp from them can walk through your army basically unopposed killing as many as they want.

so they serve no function as an army becuase anyone they can take is trivial and anyone strong enough to be relevant will eat them alive.

as say a police force they could be useful taking care of all that stuff beneath your concern but that's about it.

[dantiesilva]

Making everyone an archer and let lose a volley of arrows against the enemies. Infront of archers are spartan like builds. It is a complete lockdown build for an army. Anything within 300ft is dead before it reaches you. Anything that can survive that long now needs to get through 48AC. And that is level 1 commoners and warriors. Do not get me started on higher levels.

Heroes of battle Arrow volley rules. They give even level 13 players a hard time as your AC does not matter anymore. They need to hit anywhere between a 15 to a 22 to hit you no matter what protection you have.

10 people fire at 1 person, thats 2d6 damage reflex for half. Not great, but when you are hitting on a 22 at worst? Level 1 followers look good as for every 5 that shot an arrow one hits. 100 archers fire thats 20d6 vs AC22

[toapat]

Nooo~ not the dandwiki! d20SRD has what you need.

from my experience, DandDwiki is simply more well organized (barring the specific nesting of OGL content) in presentation, and faster loading, then d20SRD. Ive only forgotten once to check the sorting tag asto whether the specific spell i was looking at was Homebrew or SRD

[awa]

that assumes your entire army can target the creature. One shadow ordered to come up below the the archers turns the entire army into dinner.

a single casting of control winds by a decent level caster kills your entire army.


by high levels conventional tactics are useless

[Gavinfoxx]

Mostly, assume that the army isn't actually useful for attacking any creature over ECL 8 or so. Seriously. They are there to hold territory, be warm bodies, and oppress peasants.

[Darius Kane]

You're welcome. (http://community.wizards.com/rumbletiger/blog/2012/12/18/maximizing_leadership-_followers)

[Hallavast]

Mostly, assume that the army isn't actually useful for attacking any creature over ECL 8 or so. Seriously. They are there to hold territory, be warm bodies, and oppress peasants.

Let's see, ECL 8 is Morghs, Mindflayers, Ogre Mages, 4 Minotaurs, about 6 Ogres, I think Hill Giants?

All of these foes can be effectively attacked by about 2 score common soldiers (even if we take the foolish notion that most soldiers are lvl 1 warriors for granted).

40 Professional 1st level soldiers (*snicker*) would be able to have crossbows with a few MW bolts, a 12 or 13 Dexterity and a weapon focus feat. That's 40 attacks at +4 each dealing 1d8 damage each per round (assuming no casualties). That is going to ruin most of these monsters on a battlefield.

----

Besides that, I have been a long time advocate of the theory that most people in a given fantasy world would be better reflected as being lvl 3-4 on average. This makes the 1st level soldier rule kind of ridiculous. It also solves the Cats > Commoners problem.

Ergo, most young recruits (16-25 year-olds) ought to be level 2 warriors - a vast improvement from level one characters. Their NCOs and veterans ought to be 3rd level warriors - even more capable. And officers should be 4th level warriors - with notable or highly capable ones being lvl 4 - 6 fighters instead. Then there's always specialty units for spying, scouting, magic doing and healing/support. Experts, Rogues, adepts and wizards make the best classes for these roles, typically.

Applying this rule obviously makes any army more powerful and thus more relevant. A 14th level party would get a lot of use out of such an army. A 20th level party may get less mileage as they move on to bigger and better things.

The Giant has labored long and hard to express how armies are still relevant to high level play. He showcased this with the Siege of Azure City.

[JaronK]

One way to make massed low level armies useful against big targets is using the indirect fire rules (Complete Warrior, page 124) that turns a volley into a DC15 reflex save or take damage area. No attack roll needed, so you can just give commoners Composite Great Bows if you like. The more commoners you have, the bigger the area of attack. What makes this effective is Bards with Dragonfire Inspiration. If you have one Bard for each elemental damage type (Fire, Cold, Electrical, Acid, Sonic) and one standard Bard, all using Masterwork War Drums (Complete Adventurer, gives a +1 bonus to the Inspire Courage bonus to damage), suddenly all those Greatbows do 1d10+10d6+2 damage, spread out over many element types, even with just level 1 Bards. And you can do this out to the maximum range of the Greatbows (1300'), though your chance of hitting against single targets drops (against massed formations, it doesn't matter). That's actually enough to outrange many high level enemies.

Consider what one group of 6 Bards and 20 groups of 25 commoners (plus 20 spotters) can do. A single 5 square by 5 square area could be forced to make 20 reflex saves at DC 15 every round (you should get at least one autofail in there), taking on average 42 damage per failed save. That actually adds up. And they can spread that fire out to hit large numbers of smaller enemies, too. Plus they can do all this while everyone but the spotters stays out of line of sight (over a ridge or something). Spotters could even be low level stealth classes (preferably with a high Int score)... even a level 4 Halfling Rogue with 16 Int can do okay against large groups (because a miss doesn't matter too much there) and can be hidden 400' away or more from the enemy making them impossible to spot (-40 to the spot check!).

Anyway, it's a thought.

JaronK

[Vaz]

Crane Clan Courtier 20, with Doji's Beauty x6 gives you +12 to Charisma. Kimono/Robe/Cloak of Charisma +6. Be venerable for a free +3. If you take Leadership as a feat before getting it as a class ability, free +3 to your Ld score. Magic Blooded Human gets +2 Cha and a free feat to take the weight off your Feat slots (you don't get many useful Bonus Feats as a Courtier); Magic Blooded Unseelie gets a +4 Cha but no Bonus Feat.

Warchief Prestige Class from the Miniatures Handbook nets you Cha +2 for a 2 Level Dip, +6 for 10 Levels.

A 5 Level Dip in Shadow Thief (PGtF) gets you +5 Leadership.

Human paragon I believe has a +1 Cha for 1 level dip.

Heroes of Battle has a Feat for Double Followers, and using the above Epic Feats, this results in a total of 11x Followers. You also gain a bonus for each Leadership Feat you take; there are 4 possibilities; so +4 there.

If you have a way to boost Strength as well; Might makes right adds your Strength to the Leadership. However you need to be an Orc, but you could ask your DM if he could apply it to other races.

Assemble the horde feat doubles your L1 Followers and gets a further +1 to Leadership.

Using Power of Faerun, you can enhance your Leadership Score even further; of course, you just need to rename/refluff the titles etc.

As an Army Commander, you gain as a Bonus to your Leadership Score your commander rating. (A General in command of 5000 Gains +7 from Heroes of Battle replaces your Charisma bonus though, +9 from Power of Faerun doesn't seem to do so)
As a Decorated Veteran, you gain as a Bonus to your Leadership Score equal your Decoration Bonus (Earning an 80pt Decoration; the equivalent of a Medal of Honour or Victoria Cross; gets you +5).

Breastplate of Command is a +2 to Leadership Score. Admirals Bicorne grants a +5 to Leadership. So you can look like a ridiculous Technicolour Dreamcoat Moulded Abdominal Muscles Armoured Admiral Nelson.

Become the Archbishop of the faith +4, be a Prophet +1, become a Saint (BoED Template LA+2 for +4 Cha and +1 Ld), take the prophet of the divine feat for +2 Leadership Score. There is something called a Shaper of the Divine but I could not find out what that requires, but it grants +10 to Leadership.

I'm a bit strapped for time so I shall just add up what I've got currently;

52 Charisma, giving +26 Bonus to Charisma, with +44 to Ld (Leadership) at greater than ECL 38 with x11 Followers and doubling your L1 Followers gives you a total of 72 Leadership Score. I know that you get around 1500 Followers at Ld40; so x11 is around 16500 Followers for ld40. . Ld72 I can only guess at.

[awa]

if im reading the massed archer rules correctly dr 10 basically makes you immune to anything a level 1 fighter can put out as does high reflex.

So it doesn't matter how many level 1 warriors you have something like demons/ devils with good saves, hard to beat dr, and at will area effect attacks is going to allow even monsters so weak as to not give the epic pcs xp the ability to devastate your army with little danger to themselves.

[Vaz]

L1 Casters contribute spells for DC0 Cost Epic Spells.

Mitigate FTW.

Or have them build you an Golem Army.

Or Polymorph Self Resetting Trap and have them just walk onto it transforming into ~50K Advanced Dragons.

[awa]

see that's not an army that's just abuse of epic magic poorly thought out rules and even if you do choose to do that just using gate abuse is faster and doesn't require an epic feat

[JaronK]

if im reading the massed archer rules correctly dr 10 basically makes you immune to anything a level 1 fighter can put out as does high reflex.

So it doesn't matter how many level 1 warriors you have something like demons/ devils with good saves, hard to beat dr, and at will area effect attacks is going to allow even monsters so weak as to not give the epic pcs xp the ability to devastate your army with little danger to themselves.

Hence the need for Dragonfire Inspiration Bards.

JaronK

[Vaz]

see that's not an army that's just abuse of epic magic poorly thought out rules and even if you do choose to do that just using gate abuse is faster and doesn't require an epic feat

An army is only a good one if it fulfils its objectives in the best way.

Modern armies aren't all about fighting men, they make up possibly 10% at the most; the rest contribute their expertise (Engineering skills/Spell Slots) to allow said fighting forces achieve their objectives.

When it comes to epic, EVERYTHING is abuse when dealing with numerical data and crunching to hit a level where you only have a 5% chance to hit.

[toapat]

Question:

Is there anything in Leadership that specifically prevents you from having your Lvl 1 Logistics Support Network go level to lvl 3 so they can get volley?

[Vaz]

Well you do have 1% the amount of your L1's (at least 200) at l3 IIRC...

[awa]

if i recall correctly dragons fire inspiration only adds fire damage so still useless against devils and dramatically reduce usefulness against demons

and if i recall correctly they still get a reflex save dc 15 for no damge

[Coidzor]

Question:

Is there anything in Leadership that specifically prevents you from having your Lvl 1 Logistics Support Network go level to lvl 3 so they can get volley?

Anything other than PCs and Cohorts leveling is a big fat gray area aside from followers who are specifically forbidden from gaining experience and leveling. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#leadership)


Number of Followers by Level
The character can lead up to the indicated number of characters of each level. Followers are similar to cohorts, except they’re generally low-level NPCs. Because they’re generally five or more levels behind the character they follow, they’re rarely effective in combat.

Followers don’t earn experience and thus don’t gain levels. However, when a character with Leadership attains a new level, the player consults the table above to determine if she has acquired more followers, some of which may be higher level than the existing followers. (You don’t consult the table to see if your cohort gains levels, however, because cohorts earn experience on their own.)


if i recall correctly dragons fire inspiration only adds fire damage so still useless against devils and dramatically reduce usefulness against demons

and if i recall correctly they still get a reflex save dc 15 for no damge

Another feat or two will change it to any other energy type. Sonic is favored as well as acid.

I don't recall anything about a reflex save DC 15 though.

[awa]

from the arrow volley not the dragons fire insperation

[Gavinfoxx]

if i recall correctly dragons fire inspiration only adds fire damage so still useless against devils and dramatically reduce usefulness against demons

and if i recall correctly they still get a reflex save dc 15 for no damge

Incorrect. There are a number of different types of elements that it can have, depending on the build. One of them even includes sonic damage.

[JaronK]

if i recall correctly dragons fire inspiration only adds fire damage so still useless against devils and dramatically reduce usefulness against demons

It depends on your draconic heritage, if you have one. If so, it does a different energy type. Fire is the default if you have none. Kobolds can pick their heritage.


and if i recall correctly they still get a reflex save dc 15 for no damge

Yes, I believe I mentioned that when I first proposed the idea. That's why you overlap the firepower. 6 level 1 kobold (or Dragonscale) bards, 6 sets of masterwork war drums, 500 commoners, and 500 composite greatbows, plus 20 spotters is a reasonably easy to assemble army (the Kobolds are the hardest part, pay them well). That gives you 20 volleys targeted on 25'X25' areas. Even if they only fail on a 1, that's still enough to hit everyone in that area for 2d10+10d6+2 damage from up to 1300' away. Or you can spread the firepower out to hit a large area. Keep firing volleys as the enemies close on you... even if 1 in 20 enemies dies each round to spread out fire, that's still going to cause some real damage (may I suggest picking decent terrain that will slow them down, so you can shoot more?).

JaronK

[SowZ]

I once made a thrallherd in an epic game. Only my cohort went with me into battle. The rest stayed in one place, with enough mid-high level characters to defend the city just fine.

I picked dwarves, mostly. Everyone had to take skill focus and put max ranks in craft. With an average int mod of 1 and masterwork tools, (and the average skill check result being slightly higher than a level one craftsman to account for my higher level believers,) each person made about 12 gold a week. I only collected 10 gold a piece, leaving the other 2 per person for living wages/city upkeep. A couple thousand extra GP a week was nice, if not game breaking.
And we had a nice, safe place to stay when we wanted a reprieve.