What to do with 100,000 commoners.

[Sardia]

Let's say you're a 20th level wizard, and have managed to take over your own country. It's about to be invaded in a few months, and you have other pressing concerns than defending it in person. You take stock of the situation and note that by freak chance, during your occupation you managed to kill off everyone but the least offensive parts of the population-- 100,000 first-level commoners.
You can presume the invaders will be a relatively mixed bunch of warriors and low-level fighters in numbers similar to your forces.
What's the best way to make 100k of grunts into an effective defensive force that can function without your constant intervention once the trouble starts?

[Attilargh]

Quick idea:

Cast Genesis and create a Demiplane of Martial Training where the terrain is perfect for a training ground and the time passes very, very slowly compared to the Material Plane. Rivers of healing potions is not a bad idea, just like soil made of platinum. Gate in an outsider and make a deal with it to train the lot. Use your newfound platinum wealth to equip your 100,000 Ex-Commoners with top-notch equipment built with a self-destruction system in case they decide to rebel.

Oh, and read the Evil Overlord Guide (http://www.sff.net/paradise/overlord.html#bad_lead).

Also, a Demiplane of Osmium is also an option. Just get the invading army in there somehow.

[Truwar]

Keep your 100,000 commoners safe, they are the economy you are going to want to survive the war.

Since the opposing army is made up of warriors and low level fighters simply fly invisibly 75 feet over the opposing army when they encamp for the night and summon 6 Hezrous and command them to start casting chaos hammer (or unholy blight, if that is the more appropriate spell for the enemy) every round until the duration of their summons runs out. That is 20 chaos hammers or unholy blights a piece which (with a radius similar to a fireball) is going to decimate large chunks of their forces.

If your DM is liberal enough to allow you to summon Fiendish (as opposed to celestial) elephants you them use Summon Monster VIII to start summoning a 1d3 of these sweethearts a round for the next six rounds. These will have more than enough DR to ignore the attacks of the foes and will be able to lay waste the army with their trample attack. Once you run out of Summon Monster VII you will have to downgrade to Summon Monster VII and just summon one Fiendish Elephant a round for the next six rounds.

After that go to Summon Monster VI and call in 1d3 fiendish Dire Apes a round to clean up now that the confusion has really set in.

Make sure to do this at night because everything you just summoned has darkvision and the odds are that the invading army does not.

Repeat this every night until the enemy army has had enough. There may be a more efficient way of destroying an army of 100,000 low level warriors and fighters, but this one ought to do the trick.

[Yuki Akuma]

Yeah, seriously, you're a wizard. You should be able to take on an army of low-level warriors easily.

[Sardia]

Yeah, seriously, you're a wizard. You should be able to take on an army of low-level warriors easily.

Nope, that was one of the conditions-- you'll have bigger fish to fry when the time comes...out shooting inevitables or taking over this other kingdom or demiplane or whatever, so you aren't in a position to intervene yourself. You just want a force that'll hold onto your territory against an assault that may happen in a few months or so.

[reorith]

take care of it preemptively by bringing the war to them on your terms.

[Ikkitosen]

Craft a few items that'll cast the summon monster spells you want that you can leave behind with the commoners. Instant super-army :)

[BCOVertigo]

Come on, you're a PC so act like one!

No quest was ever layed out to destroy the enemy army, you always go for the leaders. If you wipe out everyone with command ranks the army will be disorganized and will probably respond well to a "Go home or I'll kill you all" style Diplomacy check.

At the point where you MUST do battle with said leaderless army, I'd say the previously stated tactics are a good idea, and if you can pay off some mercenaries to play meat shield for you it wouldn't be a bad idea either.

Point being, don't fight them head on. Even if you are flying with Wind Wall, because that gives them an opportunity to pull something lame like a Special Ops. unit with anti-mag arrows that break off upon entry. Fight them with guerilla tactics and make them unsure of what/how many they are fighting, without leaders to boost morale they are much more likely to just turn tail and run when the cloudkills start flying.

On the subject of morale damage you could have illusionary flyers swoop down and horribly mangle illusionary copies of them, in the chaos from the summons (especially at night) they won't get a chance to disbelieve it. Also try to force them into a forest and get them to think its haunted, anything to play up the "this is hopeless we need to get out of here" mentality. If you can get ahold of a spawning incorporeal undead it would tear through a low level army, just make sure to neutralize the clerics somehow.

Edit: Is there a specific reason you need to outfit a swarm of commoners to take on a professional army? Cause they have trouble taking down cats.... much less a tactical group of professional warriors.

[Swordguy]

Get a massive number of quarterstaffs.

Put the commoners in a line. Start as far away from the invading army as possible and pass quarterstaves down the line using their free actions. By the time each quarterstaff hits the last guy, it will be moving at 83,333 feet per second (4.4 miles per second). Use this line as a railgun and launch your massive number of free quarterstaves at the army (whom should be pretty tough to miss).

Profit!

[martyboy74]

Or could use the coin piece accelerator bomb trick.

Put a coin in an endless fall loop, where there's no air. When you let it out, it's going NI fast, and creates a giant explosion because of the ram pressure.

Yay! Dead catgirls!

[Were-Sandwich]

HEY, thats MY trick. That I stole from someone else.

Anyway, the blast radius is too big.

[That Lanky Bugger]

Sacrifice them all to demons in Gehenna. Per the BoVD, a soul is worth 25 XP.

You're sitting on a big pile of 2,500,000 XP. Turn this XP into an epic spell which will wipe the country off the face of the planet, especially because that much XP will take you into the deep Epic levels.

Enjoy!

[Krellen]

100,000 Commoners?

Easy.

1. Tell them all their Simple Weapon Proficiency is the Heavy Crossbow.
2. Buy 100,000 Heavy Crossbows and 1,000,000 bolts.
3. Put ingredients inside fortress.
4. Wait for army.
5. Fire. Repeat until army is dead.
6. Loot bodies.
7. Profit!

[Sahune]

Let's say you're a 20th level wizard, and have managed to take over your own country. It's about to be invaded in a few months, and you have other pressing concerns than defending it in person.

Well there's your problem right there. You took over your own country with might or politics?

If you used might, then follow those other suggestions. If you used politics (c'mon, 20th level mages are pretty smart) then sort this out with politics. Bribes? Marry off a cousin? Impersonate a general yourself or using a lackey and lead the army off-course into ogre country for a month? Strike some trade agreements or something. Money is every ruler's friend...

Unless your DM wants a big battle and the invading army are one of those evil demihuman armies that can't be bribed. Sigh. In that case you'll just have to sit down and start reorganising your schedule for the next couple of months. You don't have to do it all with magic, you know. Some propaganda and a few rumours about this other country pushing grandmothers into gingerbread ovens should do the trick... peasants'll believe anything you tell them.

[Truwar]

Sacrifice them all to demons in Gehenna. Per the BoVD, a soul is worth 25 XP.

You're sitting on a big pile of 2,500,000 XP. Turn this XP into an epic spell which will wipe the country off the face of the planet, especially because that much XP will take you into the deep Epic levels.

Enjoy!


Now THAT is excellent villain thinking! Of course if you tried that a band of heroes JUST powerful enough to defeat you would come along and put an end to your scheme…

[Eldan]

Hmm. I wanted to be the one writing about sacrificing them to the Yugoloths.
Oh well, some other suggestions:
1) Create a demiplane with 100'000 typewriters and hope that one of the commoners writes a perfect defense plan by chance, instead of just shakespeare.
2) Summon Parson Gotti.
3) Turn all those commoners into zombies. You don't have to control them and you don't need an econony as a 20th level wizard. If you want to keep the country, turn half of them into zombies. That should also have the additional effect of showing them that they shouldn't start a revolution.

[Swordguy]

Sacrifice them all to demons in Gehenna. Per the BoVD, a soul is worth 25 XP.

You're sitting on a big pile of 2,500,000 XP. Turn this XP into an epic spell which will wipe the country off the face of the planet, especially because that much XP will take you into the deep Epic levels.

Enjoy!

Pure gold.

You were right on your challenge thread, BTW. You DO have fun with the BoVD.

[That Lanky Bugger]

Now THAT is excellent villain thinking! Of course if you tried that a band of heroes JUST powerful enough to defeat you would come along and put an end to your scheme…


That's why you have a lookalike doing all the talking in public while you use Telepathic Bond to tell him what to say as you sit back and relax from afar, probably scrying and drinking some elvish wine. Then when a ragtag band of heroes attacks him and runs him through, the contingency you cast on him which casts Wail of the Banshee when he dies kicks in and half of them drop. Then you go invisible, teleport in, and start picking them off with more spells.

Assuming they don't die or flee.

Then you just have to find another sap who looks like you.

Edit: Also, invite Kobolds, Goblins and Orcs in instead of more humans. They breed more often, are better warriors on average, and have absolutely no problem giving up their weak to you so that they can be pawned off to Gehenna at a later date.

Seriously. Kobolds = Reptilian, humanoid rabbits.

[kellandros]

Actually PAYING ATTENTION to the OP:

High level wizard is not allowed to fight this battle himself. So assume he has some time for planning and can supply magical items to his commoners. I'd guess there would be a wide variety of low powered magic items hanging around that could be pressed into service; others could be made assuming the time/XP is available.
------------

First thing is, your commoners would get slaughtered in any normal battle. If your enemy reaches melee range, most of them are either going to be killed, or run away screaming. Even before then, they probably are not willing to stand around a rain of arrows killing people left and right. The best use for them would be possibly siege type defense- somewhere with extremely high cover ratings, huge terrain advantage, and mutually supportive firing positions. That would lose at the slowest rate. Also, test your commoners and pick the 1/4 to 1/5 with the highest dexterity as your crossbow shooters. Put most of the rest behing the walls just reloading heavy crossbows, and passing them to the shooter when needed. In a pinch, everyone could pick one up and fire. This would bloody any invading army, but lacks a way to finish them off.

So exclude conventional warfare; your best hope is magical items. Looking at some of the earlier "Build me an army" suggsestions, there was a lot of magic item cheese that would seem appropriate. Invisibility, flight, etc. to keep your wimpy commoners safe first. Then create a whole lot of one shot area effect items(cast spell on impact), put them on arrows, sling bullets, etc and fling them into enemy formations or camps. If we assume only low to mid level spells(to keep costs down), a good mix of sleep, stinking cloud, and fireballs going off will cause major problems to your enemy. I'm sure others can provide a more complete list of appropriate spells and their costs.

Another idea would be to give your archers all items with protection from normal missles. Expensive, but useful. A few magical arrows kind of limits this advantage though. And make extra preparations to make sure your enemy doesn't just go charging into melee against them.

Might be able to use summoned monsters; depends on exactly how much of the wizard's attention is forced away from the upcoming battle.

[Ditto]

Take the next three months and train them all as bards. Advance slowly toward the enemy army, singing "The ants go marching one by one" and fascinating them all into submission. :smallbiggrin:

[Artanis]

Step 1: Raise a TON of money. Stealing another nation's treasury would probably work pretty well, but I'm sure a Wizard can find a way to break the world economy to his benefit.

Step 2: Find the most powerful Dragon you can a) afford, and b) keep from betraying you. Tell him there's an army coming your way, and that you will double his hoard if he makes them not come your way any longer. On top of that, he can keep any loot he wants from the army, including (but not limited to) items, gold, and livestock.

Step 3: If the army goes away (or is annihilated), pay the Dragon. If the Dragon is killed by the army, jack his hoard and go back to step 1.

[The Gilded Duke]

Deathknell.
Animate Objects.
Permanancy.


Ten minutes worth of death knelling your peasantry. Caster level in the 90s. Cast Animate Objects to create three collosal animated objects. Cast permanancy.

Repeat.

If you keep this up long enough you should have roughly three thousand collosal animated objects made by a 90th level caster.

If you run out of xp on the permanancy, just sacrifice them for more.

If you want, use the spell awaken construct. Costs a brain and some xp.

By the end you should have at least a thousand intelligent collosal constructs doing your bidding.

[ArmorArmadillo]

Have the Commoners form a Mob; it would have HD, BAB, Saves, and Grapple checks all around 100,000. They can kill anything.

[Asaris]

I liked the demiplane response. Create a demiplane where time moves very slowly, put in kobolds, and have them train against them. Replace kobolds with goblins/orcs/ogres as your commoners gain warrior, or, if the DM is generous, fighter levels.

Or, find a narrow pass and give them heavy bronze shields. Hope the enemy is using wicker shields.

Or, create loads of magic items. Bracers of armor, +5 spears and longspears of disembowling, whatever. Equipped with these, they might stand a chance.

Is there a spell you could use to create a bride for the lord of the opposing realm?


Or, try a preemptive strike. Or several. If you have time to prepare, you have time to send several dozen meteor swarms their way. That should thin out their ranks.

[Genome]

Make a 5'x5' adamantine cube with a doorway cut out of it. Place a magic mouth on the inside that will say "Stop Grappling" when the army gets close. Tell all of the commoners to grapple inside the box. Once they're all in, magically seal the box.

If the exploding cube of adamantine doesn't kill the army, they'll be too grossed out to want to take over the area.

[Payne]

Have the Commoners form a Mob; it would have HD, BAB, Saves, and Grapple checks all around 100,000. They can kill anything.

A swarm of commoners ?... ohh me likey!! :smallbiggrin:

[spotmarkedx]

Stealing this idea from... somewhere around here.

1> Create a magical item that allows Wall of Iron, at will.
Create another magical item that allows Fabricate, at will. Make the item room-sized so the armourer doesn't just steal the thing and move elsewhere.

2> Use these items to create masterwork Full Plate for your entire army.
Train your commoners to wear armour (if you have the time). Use Attilargh's demiplane idea if you are able.
Use these items to create masterwork (insert weapon type here) to equip your army with.

3> Intimidate the heck out of your enemy when you show up with an army of 100,000 dudes in full plate standing in formation. They might suck at hitting the broad side of a barn, but the armour will aid their AC more than it will hinder their attacks even if it comes to blows. If some of them got the training and are new warriors, even better.

4> ???

5> Profit.

[The Great Skenardo]

I'm thinking that a powerful Wizard should be able to craft some fairly powerful magical traps without too much difficulty. Failing that, a few well-placed summoning circles can go a long way, as well as spells like planar ally. I also like the aforementioned dragon idea; if you can contact a metallic dragon (assuming you aren't evil), then a hefty bribe and some well-placed praise should go a long ways towards getting a distraction.

[Person_Man]

March 50,000 commoners upstream of the invading army's country. Slaughter all of them, polluting the river with blood and soon to be diseased corpses. Rife with plague and without a fresh water source, the food production and economy of the enemy country collapses. The invading army no longer has the supply train it needs to maintain its force in the field, and die of thirst and hunger.

Your remaining 50,000 commoners live in peace and prosperity, except for the sudden decline of the real estate market...

[Mewtarthio]

Lesee here...

Gate in a Vampire. Once you tell him the services you'll be requiring, he'll be more than willing to help you. Just take him around the kingdom and let him drain dry as many commoners as he wishes (using spells like Sleep and Hold Person). In fact, you should actively aid him in this. Each commoner he kills rises as a Vampire Spawn. By the time the enemy army arrives, they'll be facing a kingdom filled with undead creatures that deal negative levels with every attack, cast Dominate Person as an at-will supernatural ability, assume gaseous form at will, and probably take a lot more punishment than the army given the increased HD and fast healing. This also works with Wraiths and other undead with the Create Spawn ability, but the Vampire Spawn remains humanoid-shaped.
Hold a Paladin tournament. Announce your intention to train the top twenty most brave and noble souls in the kingdom as Paladins. Once you have located the twenty most pure-hearted individuals in the kingdom, take them into your private chambers for the induction ceremony. Then, cast Quickened Rainbow Pattern and open a Gate to some high-ranking devil's personal residence. Send the pattern through the Gate and giggle like a little schoolgirl as your wannabe paladins follow it through. With any luck, the devil will repay you, particularly if you promise to send in numbers 21-40 next. It probably won't make that much of a difference, but it's lots of fun!

[Nahal]

This thread radiates unspeakable evil. The stench is like 1000lbs of stilton sealed away for 1000 years, then suddenly released.

The hilarious part is that most of the casualties suffered in this war are so far inflicted by the wizard.

[NullAshton]

Find the 10 best commoners in your kingdom. Absolute best, got lucky and have 18s in all stats.

Then have them keep sacrificing commoners until they get to level 20. By my calculation, this should leave 16,000 commoners left. If you yourself sacrifice those commoners, you can get to level 27 or so. Or you can keep them, to have you know, a country still?

Volia. You now have 10 adventurers, all at level 20, with literally perfect stats. Those adventurers then tear right through the enemy army. For even better results, make sure they have great cleave, so that 80 enemies are killed a round if they're fighters.

Afterward, you have an army of 6 level 20 people, the best that there is(barring epic levels), capable of defending an entire city by himself. In addition, you have 16,000 commoners still remaining, which can then congregate in either A. A single town or B. Seperated into 10 different towns of 1,600 commoners each, each controlled by a single one of your level 20 minions, which can then proceed to start training armies.

And eventually, your population will increase again, with you having the option to cull some of the population in order to keep you, and your level 20 army, effectively immortal. Eventually conquering all other nations, and then you and each of your 10 level 20 people splitting off and forming a nation of their own.

[That Lanky Bugger]

This thread radiates unspeakable evil. The stench is like 1000lbs of stilton sealed away for 1000 years, then suddenly released.

The hilarious part is that most of the casualties suffered in this war are so far inflicted by the wizard.

Hey, if someone's going to benefit from corpsifying the peasants, it may as well be the wizard.

Another thought... Dominate some young dragons. Cast Genesis with a slowed timeframe (say... 1 hour of time here is 1000 years there), and then have those dragons breed with a few thousand young women until each is pregnant.

Encourage a religion worshipping you. Teach this to the first generation or three. Then tell your "children" that you must leave them for a time, but they must live, learn, and be ready to fight for youi when you return to carry them forth into battle.

Now leave. When you return an hour or two later (just enough time for tea!) you'll have an army of fanatically loyal half-dragons, each dedicated to learning how to fight and aching for the glory and honor of serving you.

Go forth and conquer the world.

[Sardia]

This thread radiates unspeakable evil. The stench is like 1000lbs of stilton sealed away for 1000 years, then suddenly released.

The hilarious part is that most of the casualties suffered in this war are so far inflicted by the wizard.

I suppose that might be my fault in phrasing it "Defend the kingdom" rather than "Defend the population of the kingdom."

[Viscount Einstrauss]

Ingredients:

Salt.

Pepper.

Perhaps prestidignation.

The biggest pot you can find. Might have to chisel it out of a mountain.

Several scrolls for summoning the biggest fire elementals you can.

I'm sure you can figure out where to go from here. 100,000 commoners? You can probably host one "hell" of a party for around 500,000!

[Swordguy]

This thread radiates unspeakable evil. The stench is like 1000lbs of stilton sealed away for 1000 years, then suddenly released.

The hilarious part is that most of the casualties suffered in this war are so far inflicted by the wizard.

Eh, part of it comes from having worked in human resources. In fact, the name of that should really give it away. Human. RESOURCES.

Resources exist to be used, expended, and discarded.

*Weeps for humanity*

[Krellen]

Find the 10 best commoners in your kingdom. Absolute best, got lucky and have 18s in all stats.
Statistically, your chances of getting 1 18 are 1 in 108. The chances of getting all 18s is 1 in 108 to the sixth power, or 1 in 1.6 trillion. From a pool of 100,000 commoners, your chances of having one with all 18s is only 1 in 16 million. Not good.

And that's assuming 4d6 drop the lowest. Commoners are probably built off 3d6 organic, making the chances 1 in 216, 1 in 3.2 trillion, and one in 32 million. Even worse. You're simply not going to have even 1 "perfect" commoner, let alone 10.

[NullAshton]

Statistically, your chances of getting 1 18 are 1 in 108. The chances of getting all 18s is 1 in 108 to the sixth power, or 1 in 1.6 trillion. From a pool of 100,000 commoners, your chances of having one with all 18s is only 1 in 16 million. Not good.

And that's assuming 4d6 drop the lowest. Commoners are probably built off 3d6 organic, making the chances 1 in 216, 1 in 3.2 trillion, and one in 32 million. Even worse. You're simply not going to have even 1 "perfect" commoner, let alone 10.

Nearly perfect, then. I don't mind if one of my perfect commoners has a few 17's and 16's.

EDIT: Ooo, genesis! Do that same thing, except with no dragons, just your commoners. Later, come back... and SACRIFICE THEM ALL MUUWAAHAAHAAAAAAAA. To get a nigh-infinite amount of experience.

Then become a god, and smite the invading force in the blink of an eye before they even get the urge to invade. Then go do what you were going to do, then have tea with Ao.

[That Lanky Bugger]

That's why my plan is better.

Breed a race of fanatically loyal half dragons. :belkar:

[NullAshton]

That's why my plan is better.

Breed a race of fanatically loyal half dragons. :belkar:

I made your plan even better, with MORE XP FOR YOU(and other people!)

If you're trying to breed a race of half dragons, why not instead breed a race of DRAGONS? Why go only halfway?

[Krellen]

Nearly perfect, then. I don't mind if one of my perfect commoners has a few 17's and 16's.
Even at 16s, the chances are unlikely. Only 1 in every 25 billion organically generated characters come out with all 16s or better, making the chance of even one of your commoners being this superlative 1 in 250,000 - which is still very bad odds.

Plans working off the assumption the commoners have good stats simply aren't viable. Virtually every commoner is going to have some variation of the NPC array: 13 12 11 10 9 8 (which is functionally the same as 11 11 11 10 10 10, but has more variation for flavour).

[That Lanky Bugger]

I made your plan even better, with MORE XP FOR YOU(and other people!)

If you're trying to breed a race of half dragons, why not instead breed a race of DRAGONS? Why go only halfway?

Dragons breed slowly. Half-Dragon/Half-Human hybrids breed like rabbits, comparatively, and can gain class levels faster than a Dragon advances age categories.

Plus, an individual Half-Dragon Fighter, even high level, is little problem for a Wizard 20. An individual Dragon can prove to be quite the problem. Plus, Dragons have that racial knowledge thing while Half-Dragons can be turned into tractable little killing drones.

[Tobrian]

This thread radiates unspeakable evil. The stench is like 1000lbs of stilton sealed away for 1000 years, then suddenly released.

The hilarious part is that most of the casualties suffered in this war are so far inflicted by the wizard.

"We have to destroy the village to save it".

Congratulations to all those proposing mass-sacrificing the commoners, you managed to successfully wipe out your own populace! And without a populace, you don't have a country anymore, you just have a wasteland empty of people, but crawling with animated constructs or 100.000 zombies. By the Taint rules from Heroes of Horror, the whole country has likely turned into a haunted charnel pit filled with corrupting energy, and the wizard may now be epic level but he's probably too busy sitting in a corner of his tower giggling madly and gnawing on his own flesh (or the flesh of babies) because his sanity went completely south from depravity taint. Provided he's still recognizable as human and corruption hasn't turned him into a monstrous swollen heap of quivering flesh covered in soul-sucking orifices.

Not to mention all the poor dogs and cat and goat and cows that won't get milked. Won't someone think about the cows?!?

Sardia, when you say 100.000 commoners, does that mean 100.000 adults (including pregnant or nursing women and old people), or 100.000 adults able to be drafted into acive service? Or 100.000 souls in total?

Why does the other country's government (let's call it country B) want to take over your's (let's call it A)? Because your wiz decimated/destroyed country A's own army and now it looks like an easy picking? Or do they specifically want to kill the wizard?

If they merely want to conquer country A, well.... let them. I'm serious. Tell your commoners to surrender, and let them come. They won't slaughter unresisting peasants because in a pseudo-medieval society, land is only worth something if you have people working on it, tilling the soil, shearing sheep, digging the mines, crafting stuff, making more babies, and so on. Well, unless the enemy plans to sacrifice your populace to fiends from the Lower Planes...

But if they conquer the country they will be forced to occupy it. Your populace can then keep them occupied by low-level civil unrest or disobedience until you can return to deal with the problem. Hey, when you return, simply use shapeshift or illusions to turn yourself into the likeness of whatever governor the enemy government has put in place in country A. Then you can rule over country A, use all the soldiers and newly reconstructed infrastructure that country B is paying for, and infiltrate their country with your own spies. It's a win-win situation.

If they want to invade to get at country A's resources, well... open diplomatic relations and tell you have all the gold and cash they can dream of, and tell them they are all hired as mercenaries to defend your country against future outside threads! Or they can go home, they choice is theirs. If they still want to invade, you'd be forced to do things to them they'll regret. Throw some gold into the direction of their soldiers. Most soldiers, faced with the prospect of either a) risking their lives and limbs having to fight angry commoners with pitchforks and meat cleavers in a terrain they're not familair with for no real reason because those commoners on their own are unlikely to invade the soldiers' country, OR b) going home with their pockets full of gold, will most likely chose the latter. The enemy generals might have a full-blown mutiny on their hands in no time.

Or use high-level magic to raise the spirits of the land to defend country A. If its a coastal seafaring country, use the 9th level spell Raise Death Fleet from Mongoose Publishing's d20 supplement 'Encyclopedia Arcane: Necromancy - Beyond the Grave'.

Or spread rumours that country A is cursed, and that any conquering army entering it will fall prey to horrible something-or-other infliction. Alternatively, before you leave make a deal with some angelic outsiders who can take up station at the border and use their jedi mind tricks on the advancing soldiers to order them to go home and lead blameless lives.

[That Lanky Bugger]

"We have to destroy the village to save it".

Congratulations to all those proposing mass-sacrificing the commoners, you managed to successfully wipe out your own populace.
And without a populace, you don't have a country anymore, you just have a wasteland empty of people, but crawling with animated constructs or 100.000 zombies. And by the taint rules from Heroes of Horror, the whole country has likely turned into a charnel pit, and the wizard may now be epic level, but he's probably too busy sitting in a corner of his tower giggling madly and gnawing on his own flesh (or the flesh of babies) because his sanity went completely south from corruption taint.

Eh. Whatever works.

And of course I'd repopulate. But with something easier to sacrifice. Orcs, Kobolds, Goblins... Whatever works, really. Who needs an economy to keep me in riches and spoils when I can just trade gathered souls for stuff?

[Tobrian]

The question is why did the wizard conquer that country in the first place? Does he still have human motivations, does he still care for the people who're now his subjects, sort of thing, or does he give a damn about if the country is populated by humans, or orcs, kobolds or half-demons? I mean, if a 20th level wizard was really so powerful and so emotionally solitary that he doesn't need people or an economy in his new Utopia (which I doubt), why bother with defending the country at all?

even 20th level wizards can't cast all spells in existance simultaneously, and they can't summon good food, wine, new clothes by magic. Or even if for some twinked out reason he can, doesnt it get old after a while? there's a short story by Robert Sheckley about a man on a post nuclear holocaust Earth who finds out he's the last survivor of mankind, and for some reason he has become like a god. He is immune to radiation and damage, and he has the gift to create anything he can imagine out of thin air, and to destroy what he has made in the blink of an eye... which means he's in trouble because making things isnt as easy as he first thought, if you don't know what things work, internally. He can create food he knows, but is limited by the limits of his imagination. And he cannot create living things. He tries it once and gets a horribly mishapen corpse that just lies there.

[NullAshton]

Dragons breed slowly. Half-Dragon/Half-Human hybrids breed like rabbits, comparatively, and can gain class levels faster than a Dragon advances age categories.

Plus, an individual Half-Dragon Fighter, even high level, is little problem for a Wizard 20. An individual Dragon can prove to be quite the problem. Plus, Dragons have that racial knowledge thing while Half-Dragons can be turned into tractable little killing drones.

Racial memories, wha?

[That Lanky Bugger]

Racial memories, wha?

I'm pulling this from a 2E sourcebook so they might have changed it, but essentially a dragon is born knowing a little bit about his race, what good and evil are, knows how to talk, etc... Essentially, his or her personality is set before they're even born.

A Half-Dragon doesn't suffer from this limitation.

[Mewtarthio]

"We have to destroy the village to save it".

Congratulations to all those proposing mass-sacrificing the commoners, you managed to successfully wipe out your own populace! And without a populace, you don't have a country anymore, you just have a wasteland empty of people, but crawling with animated constructs or 100.000 zombies. By the Taint rules from Heroes of Horror, the whole country has likely turned into a haunted charnel pit filled with corrupting energy, and the wizard may now be epic level but he's probably too busy sitting in a corner of his tower giggling madly and gnawing on his own flesh (or the flesh of babies) because his sanity went completely south from depravity taint. Provided he's still recognizable as human and corruption hasn't turned him into a monstrous swollen heap of quivering flesh covered in soul-sucking orifices.

Hey, can't make an omlette without breaking a few eggs, now can you? :smallbiggrin:

Besides, even if the taint of the land corrupts the wizard so, well, you said he's "giggling madly," so at least he's a happy mindless gibbering pus-oozing lump of flesh. And in the end, isn't all that really matters whether you're happy with what you've done with your life?

[Desyth]

Before the enemy army invades, announce that a tournament is to be held for the rank of Captain in your army. Have all 100k commoners fight each other to the death (getting a few good levels in the process for the victors) until you have only .03% left.

Take these remaining warriors and strip them of all clothes and equip them with diapers, long spears, helmets, tower shields, and big red capes. Make them work out every day to make them ripped. Ensure that they do not shave during this time as bearded warriors are more intimidating. Train them to fight as a team and to compliment each other in combat (phb2?)

You're almost there! Just a few more steps and your good to go!

1. Give a rousing speach and start an internet fad on YTMND.
2. Scream alot, this adds to the effect and will churn your new warriors into a frenzied bunch of berserkers.
3. Play lots of heavy metal music, everyone loves slaughtering people to metal.
4. Make sure to scream "THIS! IS! SPAAAAARRRTTTTTTAAAAAAA!!"

[Sardia]

The question is why did the wizard conquer that country in the first place?

Let's assume the country was for some reason strategically-important territory. Where all the ley lines cross or nice trees for wand-making or whatever, but it's nice turf to have and disadvantageous if someone else controls it.
Considering the 20th level wizard might well have the power to do that sort of thing on a whim, it might just be a bar bet.

"Well, fine, Zargoz, so you could conquer a country on your own. But I doubt you could hold it thereafter when the next country over tries to kick you out."
"Really, Nimbolt? I'll wager you a ring of three wishes I can."

And assume 100,000 adults. The kids and old people didn't make it.

[Maroon]

The question is why did the wizard conquer that country in the first place? Does he still have human motivations, does he still care for the people who're now his subjects, sort of thing, or does he give a damn about if the country is populated by humans, or orcs, kobolds or half-demons? I mean, if a 20th level wizard was really so powerful and so emotionally solitary that he doesn't need people or an economy in his new Utopia (which I doubt), why bother with defending the country at all?
Because he needs some place to build his fortress of doom with en suite sacrificial pit (I mean, how else is he going to keep up appearances)? Do you know how much extradimensional acres cost these days?

[SeekerInTheNight]

Kill all of them (poison's good) and mass-raise. Keep the highest ones under your control and let the others roam free.

With the Corpsecrafter and Retributive Explosion feats you've just created an army of walking bombs that heal one another.

[magicwalker]

In the interest of protecting your own nation... I would advise using some method of diplomacy.

If there are any other nations that would consider warring on the attacking nation, then .. as a level 20 wizard with nigh endless resources.. you should be able of convincing them to come to your aid- or atleast get them to besiege their country.. and force the hard decision.

Otherwise you might have to convince some creature organizations.. tribes, hordes, whatever. I like orcs. So make a deal with an orc chieftain, tell him to raise a great and mighty army. Get him to band together all the other tribes to either defend or siege the attacking nation.. again forcing the hard decision. Similarly done with hobgoblins, but I like orcs.

If this isn't a possibility, then conjure up some permanent natural defenses. Make some constructs.. huge towering walls.. steep cliffs, deep rivers.. bottomless chasms.. frozen tundra.. rivers of lava.. anything nasty. Make it a real pain in the ass to try and do anything to you. Add in some traps and voila..

[SeekerInTheNight]

===================Serious answer now ^^===============================


Let's assume the country was for some reason strategically-important territory. Where all the ley lines cross or nice trees for wand-making or whatever, but it's nice turf to have and disadvantageous if someone else controls it.
Considering the 20th level wizard might well have the power to do that sort of thing on a whim, it might just be a bar bet.

"Well, fine, Zargoz, so you could conquer a country on your own. But I doubt you could hold it thereafter when the next country over tries to kick you out."
"Really, Nimbolt? I'll wager you a ring of three wishes I can."

And assume 100,000 adults. The kids and old people didn't make it.

^^ Didn't see this when I snap posted as I left, but its a good situation and falls to what I'd suggest for a serious defense.

This plan is relatively flexible, depending on what you want to do with it but requires a few things.

First, you need a line on the local deity of choice. Pelor's the best bet in this case because of the sun aspect.

Next you need to employ the local priesthood and any bards you can get your hands on to teach the populace a sort of morning devotion, preferably as a song. Similar to the Islamic Adhan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adhan), where people all get together and give prayer emasse at the same time for the same reason. Doesn't have to be five times a day necessarily, sunrise will do in the case of Pelor.

After you've done that you set up a ritual of sorts that on a small scale uses the prayer of devotion as a somatic component to cast something, maybe summoning an angel or invoking a protection of some sort.

Finally, hook your basic spell up with a massive focus, say a temple's bell tower or something of that nature. Have your 100,000 people direct their prayer at the focus and hook the spell up with some very basic mojo in huge quanities.

Sanctuary's a excellent choice for this spell, and one that a good god like Pelor would appreciate. Somehow I doubt that spell on a city-wide scale powered by the devotion of 100,000 commoners would be easily broken.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

This formula also works for other things, especially if you're into the Epic Levels and have yourself a Spell Seed or two lying around. You want to be immortal? Hook yourself up as a conduit to or from the focus, maybe even as the focus. Write a self-sustaining provision that the spell will constantly fix and maintain all the parts of itself as long as it continues getting constant input, literally a channeling spell that never ends as long as people sing the devotion. As part of the spell, you exist until the spell ends.

Worried that when using the above method your nation could get wiped out and you'll die anyway? Send 20,000 of your 100,000 people off to other nations as missionaries of sorts, but of gods that those people are already worshipping. It doesn't take much to get a church to adopt a new hymn or two if it follows the basic tenants of their religion already.

Now if you're really good, you put your focus in the path of the rising sun and only send your missionaries in a direction that will have people turning to face the rising sun (and coincidentally your focus) while they give the devotion.

Of course this works for all sorts of things, again it would be your perogative what the spell does exactly. Just remember that what an each individual does doesn't really matter, your spell is backed by the power of a hundred (or hundreds of) thousands.

[Sardia]

Sanctuary's a excellent choice for this spell, and one that a good god like Pelor would appreciate. Somehow I doubt that spell on a city-wide scale powered by the devotion of 100,000 commoners would be easily broken.

Pelor probably would, but he might not appreciate you. Unless you really swear you had a post-conquest change of heart.

[SeekerInTheNight]

xP Yes, that is the problem. Hopefully you were conquering as part of a Crusade or something...

Or you've got a tongue of pure diamond.

[Tacitus]

Oh yes, lets all just go and become immortal, even if it just happens to be a side effect of keeping your city/cities/nation safe from harm. Not like that would ever get an inevitable or twelve stomping towards you for extending your own life.

Oh, and if Pelor decides he doesn't like you benefitting from his followers' faithfulness? Yes, I'm sure he can throw together whatever those onethings are that are exact copies of you with a +2 Challenge Rating. Or if you REALLY piss him off I'm sure he could very easily drop a Vengeful Gaze of God on you.

[SeekerInTheNight]

Well yes, there-in lies the need for precaution and planning. ^^ Especially the kind that involves no-one knowing.

*Looks innocent*

This spell is passing a near god-level sanctuary onto every city that sings the hymn, an immensely good act. There are plenty of things a 20 or 20+ level character can do to hide the fact that s/he's getting the advantage of eternal life from it.

[Ninja Chocobo]

Well, you've got a few months. I say you surround the city with Teleportation Circles. Make them teleport either:
-Into a volcano.
-10,000 feet in the air.
People will be less willing to invade when only 1 in 20 get through an "invisible wall" without going splat. For best results, make a row of two. Someone tell me the odds of someone rolling 2 Natural 20s in a row. It's not very high. Use Permanency, and Polymorph some rats or something into big nasties you can kill to keep your xp in the "level 20" bracket.

[Nahal]

If they want to invade to get at country A's resources, well... open diplomatic relations and tell you have all the gold and cash they can dream of, and tell them they are all hired as mercenaries to defend your country against future outside threads! Or they can go home, they choice is theirs. If they still want to invade, you'd be forced to do things to them they'll regret. Throw some gold into the direction of their soldiers. Most soldiers, faced with the prospect of either a) risking their lives and limbs having to fight angry commoners with pitchforks and meat cleavers in a terrain they're not familair with for no real reason because those commoners on their own are unlikely to invade the soldiers' country, OR b) going home with their pockets full of gold, will most likely chose the latter. The enemy generals might have a full-blown mutiny on their hands in no time.


I like it. It worked for Korea for years with the Chinese (and these days a number of countries benefit from similar arrangements with the U.S. And before people start going all "Bah! America is the Devil!" look at how the rest of Western society has benefitted from America being a military superpower; if someone else handles your military then you are free to focus on improving the peasantry's standard of living. Before you know it, your economy has grown enough to pay the mercenaries without trouble, and develop a lively wizarding tradition (after all, magical education takes time and money, neither of which you can really spare if you have to concern yourself with invaders). Once you've got enough wizards, you can "renegotiate" the terms of your contract with the other nation.

Essentially the process:
Step 1) "Hire" the other nation's army to protect your borders. Avoid any arrangement like the unequal treaty system China faced by pointing out some of your more depraved options if necessary (sacrifice peasants for godhood, since this treaty will leave them better off dead kind of thing)
Step 2) Use all that extra free time to develop your infrastructure and cultivate a prosperous, educated and (ultimately) highly magical populace. Maintain a token army for safety and nationalism purposes.
Step 3) Once you've got a few dozen high-level wizards floating around, explain that you'd like to renegotiate your arrangement due to the fact that you can now turn their leadership into banana slugs without too much trouble. Bring a barrel of salt to the meeting for effect.
Step 4) ???
Step 5) Profit!

[Dervag]

Before you know it, your economy has grown enough to pay the mercenaries without trouble, and develop a lively wizarding tradition (after all, magical education takes time and money, neither of which you can really spare if you have to concern yourself with invaders). Once you've got enough wizards, you can "renegotiate" the terms of your contract with the other nation.

Essentially the process:
Step 1) "Hire" the other nation's army to protect your borders.
Step 2) Use all that extra free time to develop your infrastructure and cultivate a prosperous, educated and (ultimately) highly magical populace. Maintain a token army for safety and nationalism purposes.
Step 3) Once you've got a few dozen high-level wizards floating around, explain that you'd like to renegotiate your arrangement due to the fact that you can now turn their leadership into banana slugs without too much trouble. Bring a barrel of salt to the meeting for effect.
Step 4) ???
Step 5) Profit!

The problem is that during the intermediate phase, the army you hired to protect you may take over. This has happened to many rich societies that hired mercenaries to protect them. If the mercenaries are the main component of your military, then they have a strong incentive to take over your country and extract payment directly in the form of taxes.

[NullAshton]

Ooo, I know! Buy floating holes of doom for all of your army! Your commoners can then blow enemies up in the relative safety of a portable hole with magical guns!

[Nahal]

I'm assuming you're already paying them. Heck if they annex you all that really changes is you conduct the wizard training in secret. And are decidedly less friendly when you sit them down (perhaps turn one of them into a banana slug to illustrate the point).

[Krellen]

Someone tell me the odds of someone rolling 2 Natural 20s in a row.
1 in 400. Of the 100,000 invaders, statistically, 250 make it.

Of course, that's assuming they don't stop, employ wizards to dispel the protection, or go around/over/under.

[Deus Mortus]

Use those three months to train them into lvl 1 wizards with cooperate spell feat, voila instant destruction!

[Solo]

Train everyone possible into Wizards.

Surely it is possible to have a lot of people casting low level spells?

Diviners can spam True Strike Explosive Runes/Fire Arrow arrows at the enemy.

Conjurers can Span Summon Monster, Glitterdust, and Grease

Cast Fire Arrow/Explosive Runes on balistas for some artillery

Cast Fireball/Scintillating Sphere on the enemy from 400+ feet away.

Etc, etc.

If all else fails, make everyone become Evokers with lots and lots of Magic Missiles.....

[Thoughtbot360]

Eh. Whatever works.

And of course I'd repopulate. But with something easier to sacrifice. Orcs, Kobolds, Goblins... Whatever works, really. Who needs an economy to keep me in riches and spoils when I can just trade gathered souls for stuff?

And people wonder why I hate magic that taps into peoples souls as a resource. My understanding is that a soul is invincible and immortal and therefore inexhaustible. That, and no prison is impregible. But then again, NPCs that have been killed for the xp and the entire world revolves around the PCs (:smallsigh: )so I guess theres no reason to make an exception now just to prevent/avenge the genocide of a kingdom's population to fuel a war machine that is supposed to only fight a small army of 1st level humanoids. And people think its a ridiculous idea to impersonate someone else and sell their soul for power (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=34820&page=2), but apparently you can do the same thing with a sacrifice! :smallannoyed:

[Ramza00]

Use them as workers/extras/people that work for jobs to make a major motion picture. Film the Hobbit (wizard will use illusions for things like Smaug and the goblins). Make millions of GP, then use the money to hire a group of corporate hollywood lawyers to threaten the invading army with a cease and desist order.

[Thoughtbot360]

Train everyone possible into Wizards.

Surely it is possible to have a lot of people casting low level spells?

Diviners can spam True Strike Explosive Runes/Fire Arrow arrows at the enemy.

Conjurers can Span Summon Monster, Glitterdust, and Grease

Cast Fire Arrow/Explosive Runes on balistas for some artillery

Cast Fireball/Scintillating Sphere on the enemy from 400+ feet away.

Etc, etc.

If all else fails, make everyone become Evokers with lots and lots of Magic Missiles.....

Well, between this option and all the soul sacrificing, if I was one of these 100,000 commoners, I know which plan I would want the wizard to use.

I mean:

Hmmm....Do I want to have my soul eaten my demons and my brain used as a material component to power an animated object or do I want to study magic in a demiplane with all the materials I'd need to create my own Ray of Enfeeblement and Shield wands? (Might give the 20th level wizard some of my xp if I never go beyond 1st-4th level) Hmm.... hmm....

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

Jeez, I've been trying to think of what I'd do all frikking night and there's only two I can think of. 1: Find a way to make them all fight eachother until there's only one standing or 2: Rush into the middle of them with a greatsword and fight them all at once until they're all dead...for fun.

God I'm such a sadist.

[The_Werebear]

ZERG RUSH!!

Really, it is either that or train half of them to become PC's. And I doubt there are enough random encounters in the kingdom to do that.

[Ninja Chocobo]

1 in 400. Of the 100,000 invaders, statistically, 250 make it.

Of course, that's assuming they don't stop, employ wizards to dispel the protection, or go around/over/under.
Fine. But, assuming they get teleported into the air, some of them will fall on their comrades, thus increasing the casualties.
Or, hell. Take out the ones that get through with commoners Polymorphed into Firbolgs (MMII, I think), Dire Bears, Black Puddings, or Wyverns.

[Logic]

One. If this country is important enough to you to defend at all, why is it's defense not one of your highest priorities? It is YOUR damn country after all. Any Wizard that has bigger fish to fry has a serious problem with priority mismanagement.
Two. If you managed to kill off all of this country's offensive inhabitants, why can't you presumably do the same thing to the invaders? The invasion is a few months off after all.

[Sardia]

One. If this country is important enough to you to defend at all, why is it's defense not one of your highest priorities? It is YOUR damn country after all. Any Wizard that has bigger fish to fry has a serious problem with priority mismanagement.
Two. If you managed to kill off all of this country's offensive inhabitants, why can't you presumably do the same thing to the invaders? The invasion is a few months off after all.

1. It's on the list, but you're the one high-level wizard...and only wizard...that you have access to. Say you're trying to defend the country you conquered before this one against a much larger and more complicated attack, which will require your full attention.
2. Let's assume they're particularly strong on the defense, if weak on the attack. Naturally magic-poor region they come from, perhaps-- accounting for their lack of wizards and clerics and such.

[Sardia]

Train everyone possible into Wizards.

Surely it is possible to have a lot of people casting low level spells?


Let's see...assuming an intelligence score of 3d6, over half the population's not going to be casting more than cantrips.
The other question is getting each of those commoners the requisite XP to level up to Commoner 1/Wizard 1. Without killing them in the process. And they'll need spellbooks, and will have to learn those spells...
Admittedly, you're still going to get an awful lot of wizards.

[Orzel]

1) find a werebear, a wereboar, a wererat, a vampire, a wight, and a ghoul
2) Let them bite them all
3) Win

Undead Lycantropes!!

[Rama_Lei]

ZERG RUSH!!

Really, it is either that or train half of them to become PC's. And I doubt there are enough random encounters in the kingdom to do that.
100,000 commoners. Each duel each other. 50,000 1 vs. 1 non-lethal matches. Fin.

[The_Werebear]

100,000 commoners. Each duel each other. 50,000 1 vs. 1 non-lethal matches. Fin.

Actually, that is a good point. You only have to "defeat" your opponent to get XP, so duels would work for leveling your commoners up.

[Sardia]

Actually, that is a good point. You only have to "defeat" your opponent to get XP, so duels would work for leveling your commoners up.

Ooh. Now that changes the whole dynamic of D&D...
All of a sudden the fighter who spends all his time duelling his buddies is going to be better than the fighter who has to travel out to find a challenge, kill it, and come back. And there'll be more of the non-lethal duellists, too...since if you lose the duel, you shake hands and say "Good match", but if the dragon wins...

[Variable Arcana]

1) Cast Summon Undead V twice, summoning one shadow and one wight.

2) Take two dozen volunteers -- from among the sick and elderly of your commoners (after all, even if you're evil, you may as well pick the ones that are a drag on the economy you're taxing into the ground).

3) Two and a half minutes later, point the dozen shadows and dozen wights in the direction of the enemy army.

4) Sell tickets on pay-per-scry.

5) Profit.

(Alternately, gather all your 100,000 commoners into an arena (free beer!) and just summon the one wight. Just over three minutes later, you have 100,000 4HD LE intelligent undead who insta-kill any first level fighters with their level-draining slam attacks. A strong enough caster can more easily build a nation out of LE undead than out of commoners whose alignments are all over the map. Especially if he decides to become an immortal lich.)

[Artanis]

Ooh. Now that changes the whole dynamic of D&D...
All of a sudden the fighter who spends all his time duelling his buddies is going to be better than the fighter who has to travel out to find a challenge, kill it, and come back. And there'll be more of the non-lethal duellists, too...since if you lose the duel, you shake hands and say "Good match", but if the dragon wins...
Yes, but you don't get any loot for a duel. Not as much as killing Dragons, at any rate. So while there may very well be two or three level 17 duelist-fighters for every level 15 dragon-slayer fighter, that dragon-slayer's +3 Longsword of Stabbity Death and +3 Admantine Full Plate of Never Getting Hurt are going to make a mockery of those duelists' really really expensive Masterwork Foam Swords and Masterwork Hockey Helmets :smalltongue:



Edit: Addendum

Looking back over the thread, there's what, two suggestions that aren't completely and totally evil? Geez, I hope nobody here takes over MY country :smalleek:

[kellandros]

Hey, I TRIED(buried back on page 1).

Why is it when someone asks for an army, people create a group of 200 commoners with an ungodly amount of magical items, but when you are limited to commoners and one powerful wizard for support only they don't?

[Solo]

Intelligence boosting items and stat increases from leveling up would help, admittedly....

It only takes 11 intelligence to cast MM, Grease, RoE, Sleep, or True Strike.

(Ooh! New idea! Cast sleep on the enemy army and have a CDG festival!)

Is a +1 or +2 INT item hard to come by/make by RAW?

Assuming you can't get increases in INT, you will have a lot of wizards, and you can train everyone else to be a cleric, bard, or a soldier(fighter, barbarian, ranger, whatever.)

By the end of the process, you will have a decent sized army and a lot of magic support. And as we all know, magic is teh win in DnD.


Oh, and part 2 of my plan:

You are an 20th level wizard!

Gate in a Efritte (however you spell it) and use the three wishes per day to wish away the enemy's top generals. Repeat as necessary until there are no more leaders left in the enemy's country. Three months is 90 days. 90x3 is 270.

That is a lot of wishes. Goodbye enemy chain of command.

As for payment, you are a 20th level wizard! Kill him, use Modify memory, or just teleport the guy into the enemy's royal treasury and let him have whatever he wants.

[The Great Skenardo]

Fine. But, assuming they get teleported into the air, some of them will fall on their comrades, thus increasing the casualties.
Or, hell. Take out the ones that get through with commoners Polymorphed into Firbolgs (MMII, I think), Dire Bears, Black Puddings, or Wyverns.

Except that the form taken by polymorph cannot exceed the HD of the caster nor the HD of the subject. You can have all of the cats or orcs you want, though.

[Viscount Einstrauss]

Funny you guys mention the non-lethal dueling thing- my melee players do it all the time. The rules are simple- no using any attacks that cause lethal damage, vastly gimping casters unless they focus on buffs. The winner gets exp. The loser... well, nothing. The damage accrued, however, stays. So, dueling is mostly only done during down time and not, say, during a dungeon raid.

[Ninja Chocobo]

Except that the form taken by polymorph cannot exceed the HD of the caster nor the HD of the subject. You can have all of the cats or orcs you want, though.
Fine. Then use Polymorph Any Object, dismantle a house, and use the bricks.

[kirbsys]

Shell out some cash to get half the population trained as wizards, have them prepare magic missile. Take half the other half and train them as warriors, set the warriors up with heavy cross bows in an enormous castle (force the other side to bring it all down to a siege at your enourmous fortress that convientently has only one way to be marched towards.) Now then have the wizards out in front with half of your warriors. The wizards magic missle the fornt ranks, nearly obliterating them (at an average of 2 damage per hit it shouldnt take more than 4 per enemy, the fornt ranks will fall quickly) then have the wizards drop to the ground and have the warriors in the castle rain down some bolts on the poor invaders. Now your other warriors that are with the wizards can attack the ranks that are farther back since they are closer. After this have your wizards and warriors retreat inside the fortress and get to the battlements and rain down some more doom on the doomed heads of your doomed enemies. Leave a few Necklaces of Fireball behind and you're good to go.

I realized i left out the issue of getting the exp for training these people... umm... well its been said before, non-lethal dueling

[Orzel]

Use divination to find a Were-Megaraptor
Charm him
Have him punch every commoner

9d8+48 HP
Talons +10 melee (2d6+5) and 2 foreclaws +5 melee (1d4+2) and bite +5 melee (1d8+2)

hooray?

[Fizban]

Extrapolating from CW, combats/encounters in which neither party is at risk and knows it (non-lethal duel, jousting tourney, even a footrace), provide less than standard xp for the encounter. Most of their examples provide 1/2 the normal xp for an encounter with the CR of the opponent.

Lethal dueling will get you more xp, but then you have half as many units, and you want as many as possible.

So, assuming that the rest of your econony etc. can support the removal of those 100,000 for full-time training, go for it. I'm not even going to try and calculate their levels, but with at one fight every two days say, you should be able to level them up nicely. Use the retraining rules from PHBII to get rid of their starting commoner levels as soon as possible, and use classes like the monk, rogue, warlock, and ToB classes, things with power useable all day with little or no equipment requirements.

For yourself personally, you're a lv20 wizard, use your imagination. Besides the existing permament spells you can use to fortify the city and countryside, you can make magic items and traps, and contract extraplannar help if need be (the abilities of a few lantern and hound archons could be quite useful). Heck, with three months you could design a new custom spell specifically built to defend whatever weaknesses you have to cover (I'm talking terrain-wise), and then cast it all over the place. An arcane version of Shadow Landscape (SC)would be an effective deterrant to any mortal army.

Or you could use the lycanthrope idea. I'd choose one that's considered lawful good by the MM. Werebear is a good choice.

I would be wondering how "high tech" the enemy army is. I believe I heard they don't have magic, what about siege engines? A structured military? Are they a filthy tribe of orcs, held together only by a desire to kill things, or are they a professional army of hobgoblins, complete with assorted infantry, cavalry, siege equipment, and competent commanders?

[Tacitus]

Has everyone forgotten Wonderous Architecture? The Stronghold Builder's Guide exists for a reason, ya know. If you've got walls, stick a Prismatic Wall on the outside of said walls. No walls? Wall of Force. Infantry would have a damned hard time getting past a Wall of Force that surrounds the main point you plan to defend.

Grab a Tornado's Eye (or twelve XD), a couple Summoning Stones, an Oaken Guardian or two, and you're pretty much set. Maybe an Obscuring Veil to set up a permanent Mirage Arcana.

All you gotta do is order the stuff, pay the gold, and tell your dudes to install it. XD Maybe have then build big trenches and set up a moat or something. I'm sure they can dig a big enough moat eventually, and all you need to fill it is a decanter of endless water or two.

[Iudex Fatarum]

Make as many rods of wonder as you can, make your opponents run in fear of becoming purple.

[Bryn]

Based on kirbsys's train-half-as-wizards thing, perhaps have all the Wizards prepare sleep? Assuming one enemy makes the save for each casting, and most have only one HD, that will be roughly 3 asleep per wizard. Once the enemies are all asleep, they can all move in and coup-de-grace to their hearts content.

[goat]

Have them dig in. 100,000 commoners, with your help, should be able to build some fairly impressive and highly defendable fortifications and hiding places in three months. If possible, speed-train some clerics, you'll need fresh food and water, and purifying might be easier than growing/hunting/gathering for a while. The healing might be useful too if you're discovered by a patrol. Stockpile as much as possible. Have your people train with simple, relatively easy to make weapons (bows etc).

Get your people dug in, protect them with whatever defensive magics you have time to cast, go off and sort out whatever it is that's distracting you, and hope they survive long enough for you to come back and do your "angry wizard with the power to reshape worlds" bit.

[purple gelatinous cube o' Doom]

quite frankly, I don't think you have anything better to do than stop the army. You took over this country and it should be your responsibility, and your duty to your subjects to protect the land. If I were you, I'd start finding a way to defend the country yourself quickly.

[Wren]

Mass sacrifice them to a dark god for uber powers.

[Solo]

How...... original.

[Mr._Blinky]

quite frankly, I don't think you have anything better to do than stop the army. You took over this country and it should be your responsibility, and your duty to your subjects to protect the land. If I were you, I'd start finding a way to defend the country yourself quickly.
Since when have uber-wizards cared about responsibility? If he's got bigger fish to fry, he's got bigger fish to fry. Maybe he's dodging an Tarifmut, the Inevitable that finds people who don't pay their taxs. Whatever the case, the wizard is occupied with more important things, and that's part of the excercise.

[Attilargh]

I just noticed one has to be level 21 to cast Genesis. Oh well.

[Rumda]

first level commoners are the bulk of any army any way according to complete warrior and the dmg so all you need to do is just create a few magical items and maybe get a few trained as warriors and train the best of them in simple pc classes (barbarian rogue, Sorcerer), use non-lethal contests not only duels, but other types, athletic contests etc

[goat]

Give them all massive amounts of RP XP for roleplaying commoners so well.

[jlousivy]

cast move earth a couple hundred times and make the country on a giant plateau with an unscalable cliffside with a single narrow walkway (with walls on both sides) that leads up. Have alot of boulders that can be tripped to... clear debris from the path. On the cliffsides-- grease it up so they can't try to climb. Regaurdless, keep a watch every few hundred feet.

Buy a decater of endless water or two for their water supply -- also have a large pool of water, made from the decater, near that walkway that can be emptied into the walkway flooding anyone who tries to come up (if you run out of boulders or get bored).

Or-- if your country is self-sufficient---- mass permanant walls of force.

Granted both ideas are dependant on the time u have to do this / how large the country is

[Just Alex]

If you have a few weeks to set up, brew a bunch of potions of Invisibility and Expeditious Retreat, along with several vials of Alchemists Fire.
Then craft several Necklace of Fireballs type I.
Distraction items like Thunderstones and Decks of Illusions are also helpful.

Find a few particularily brave (stupid) and patriotic people to pull a daring midnight raid. Instruct said peasants to drink the potions, then run into the enemy camp and cause as much destruction as possible. The Alchemists Fire serves as a more explosive cyanide pill, should they be caught. Since failing a reflex save vs. a fire attack while wearing a Necklace of Fireballs detonates the whole thing, they can even cause damage in death.

Alternatively, cast Widened Death Throes on all your little sabateours to cause truly horrific damage.

[kellandros]

Why does making your kingdom on a plateau and flooding attacks make me think of playing Populous?

How far is a level 20 wizard from being a god again?

[TheOOB]

There is only one way to train an army of commoners into a fighting force in a short period of time. Watch Army of Darkness and mimick their training montage.

[purple gelatinous cube o' Doom]

Since when have uber-wizards cared about responsibility? If he's got bigger fish to fry, he's got bigger fish to fry. Maybe he's dodging an Tarifmut, the Inevitable that finds people who don't pay their taxs. Whatever the case, the wizard is occupied with more important things, and that's part of the excercise.

A ruler has an obligation to protect the people he rules, whethere hes an uber-wizard or not. The safety of his people should be most important. If he wasn't prepared to take on that responsibility, then he shouldn't have conquered the kingdom.




How far is a level 20 wizard from being a god again?

Still really really far off. Epic levels haven't even been gotten to yet.

[Sardia]

A ruler has an obligation to protect the people he rules, whethere hes an uber-wizard or not. The safety of his people should be most important. If he wasn't prepared to take on that responsibility, then he shouldn't have conquered the kingdom.


He's not after the safety of the people-- he's after the security of the physical region itself. The people we presume are just one of the available resources to accomplish that.
(Hmm...the wiz's sounding more LE all the time...)

[Tacitus]

For all we know these "bigger fish" that need frying are some sort of alternate army or force that plans to conquer the area and poses a much larger threat. Let your dudes deal with the lesser threat while you go nuke an army of 200,000 level 5 barbarians. The idea of "Bigger Fish" means that there is supposed to be something more important to validate the question, not something trivial. If dealing with the bigger fish means protecting those in his territory, then I'm pretty sure he's doing his job.

>.> That and people really need to lay off the evil. XD

[elliott20]

one of the things that I find continuously missing is the presence of a chain of command in your army. Don't forget, you're going to be gone during the actual fight, so you're going to need a general to help command your army.

The frist thing that needs to happen is that you have to go find yourself someone who can command your army for you. Seeing as the invasion force is nothing more than a bunch of low level grunts, you should be able to dispatch them very easily with the right amount of spell preparation.

So, if you have a feat available, use it to take leadership, and get yourself a general of a considerably higher level than your peasant population. Using various scry spells, figure out the enemies army configuration and try to establish communication networks. During this time, coordinate with your general on training you peasantry population into a standing fighting force. (I'm not sure how many of the 100,000 peasants can be taken in for training though, since SOMEBODY has to maintain the economy)

A selected number of individuals with some talents (meaning, with naturally high stats) will be trained to become specialists. A group of rangers, mages and rogues will act as scouts and work to establish and disturb enemy communication networks. A number of these will become fighters, barbarians, and paladins to work as shock troops to spearhead the charge. Another number of them will be trained into clerics, wizards, and sorcers to fulfill the support role. (Though, the wizards, if they can be trained to a high enough level, might be able to fill an artillery/battle field control role if needed)

You and your general, in the mean time, are also trying to figure out where to stage the battlefields. After all, you got home court advantage. might as well use it. Depending upon the enemies configuration, you and your general should be able to come up with a decent strategy to overcome them.

[okpokalypse]

Quick idea:

Cast Genesis and create a Demiplane of Martial Training where the terrain is perfect for a training ground and the time passes very, very slowly compared to the Material Plane. Rivers of healing potions is not a bad idea, just like soil made of platinum. Gate in an outsider and make a deal with it to train the lot. Use your newfound platinum wealth to equip your 100,000 Ex-Commoners with top-notch equipment built with a self-destruction system in case they decide to rebel.

Oh, and read the Evil Overlord Guide (http://www.sff.net/paradise/overlord.html#bad_lead).

Also, a Demiplane of Osmium is also an option. Just get the invading army in there somehow.

Good except for Genesis can't be used to create objects of intrinsic value. That includes healing rivers and platinum soil. You can't even create structures with it. Just a Demi-Plane where you set the parameters for the environment.

[Just Alex]

There is only one way to train an army of commoners into a fighting force in a short period of time. Watch Army of Darkness and mimick their training montage.


That's what the Genesis made demi-plane is for.

[Attilargh]

Good except for Genesis can't be used to create objects of intrinsic value. That includes healing rivers and platinum soil. You can't even create structures with it.
I said "cast" (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/spells/genesis.htm), not "manifest" (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/genesis.htm). :wink: The spell is only restricted from creating constructions or life.