The Greatest Thing In Life is to See Your Enemies Driven Before You

[Elricaltovilla]

Last night, I had a dream/fantasy/nightmare of a tribe of barbarians waging war against a city. Not just any barbarians though, among the normal tribal warriors were scattered what were clearly Bloodragers, Skalds and Bards.

Obviously, this inspired me, so Playgrounders give me a hand and help me design an encounter where the enemies are made up entirely of Barbarians, Bards, Bloodragers and Skalds. I'm thinking it should be a Difficult Encounter for a group of 15th level Characters, so around CR 17-18. And then I want your help turning things up to 11 with tactics and strategies that these classes can use together :smallamused:

[Oudyn]

Assuming Pathfinder, because of Bloodragers. This encounter would have no real magic to speak of, so I'd recommend building at least some of them towards mage-slaying. I'll suggest six enemies, if you want something challenging. 2 Barbarians, Built to hold the line in combat. Two Bloodragers, designed for DPR (If you feel REALLY cruel, make them Dragon Disciples.) One Skald, designed for buffs that don't overlap with rage. One Bard, Ideally an Archer with anti-magic capabilities.
Don't know much about encounters with no casters, but this is the best I've got.

[Ssalarn]

Last night, I had a dream/fantasy/nightmare of a tribe of barbarians waging war against a city. Not just any barbarians though, among the normal tribal warriors were scattered what were clearly Bloodragers, Skalds and Bards.

Obviously, this inspired me, so Playgrounders give me a hand and help me design an encounter where the enemies are made up entirely of Barbarians, Bards, Bloodragers and Skalds. I'm thinking it should be a Difficult Encounter for a group of 15th level Characters, so around CR 17-18. And then I want your help turning things up to 11 with tactics and strategies that these classes can use together :smallamused:

For your bards, use the Thundercaller archetype so you can slam down some control and area effects. Have your skalds specialize in the Beast Totem so the barbarians get to be one charging wall of indestructible death. I think there's also a Skald archetype for half-orcs and orcs called the Belkzen Wardrummer (or something like that) that is pretty solid.

What's more important for this barbarian horde, thematic consistency, or raw power? Abyssal Bloodragers are obviously pretty nasty, but you could go with the Air bloodline ones instead and have a whole "raging storm" theme going on. Wardrummers and Thundercallers bring the "thunder", Bloodragers and Barbarians bring the "lightning".

[Oudyn]

As far as tactics go, Have them fight in a field where the barbarians can physically block some sort of entrance that leads to higher ground (IE path up a cliff). Have the Bard and Skald sing and ranged attack from said higher ground. For the Bloodrager/Dragon Disciples, they can fly. Let them fly around, picking off the back lines of the party. If they don't have Dragon Disciple, perhaps give them flying mounts of some sort, or just let them enter from behind the PC's.

[Elricaltovilla]

For your bards, use the Thundercaller archetype so you can slam down some control and area effects. Have your skalds specialize in the Beast Totem so the barbarians get to be one charging wall of indestructible death. I think there's also a Skald archetype for half-orcs and orcs called the Belkzen Wardrummer (or something like that) that is pretty solid.

What's more important for this barbarian horde, thematic consistency, or raw power? Abyssal Bloodragers are obviously pretty nasty, but you could go with the Air bloodline ones instead and have a whole "raging storm" theme going on. Wardrummers and Thundercallers bring the "thunder", Bloodragers and Barbarians bring the "lightning".

Thematic consistency is always good, but I'm not too concerned with it. The raging storm idea seems really fun though. I imagine that with Pounce from the Animal Totem and fly speed from the Bloodline, you could do some massive damage with ease.

[Ssalarn]

I'm unclear as to whether or not a barbarian can benefit from both his Rage powers and those granted by a Skald if they both choose to expend Rage rounds. If they can, then you could have your Barbarians go dragon totem (works with the lightning metaphor I mentioned earlier) while the Skalds provide Beast Totem, and then you've got flying, pouncing, high AC, energy resistant death ragers.

Assuming that works (or that you're willing to houserule it to work for the encounter), this is what I'd do:

Whip up a tribe whose main offensive force is a warband of a dozen 11-13th level bards, skalds, barbarians, and bloodragers, probably 3 of each.

Your Bards should all be Thundercallers with Quicken metamagic rods, and during the first round of combat you'll have them use their Thunder Call performance as a standard action, swift action cast exquisite accompaniment to maintain it, then move action start another performance for their Call Lightning ability. That will have them putting out 5d8 sonic and 3d6 electricity every round with a chance to stun their opponents. At that level, this can be maintained indefinitely as a free action and you're unlikely to run out of performance rounds before the fight is over, so feel free to move and buff/debuff as appropriate. These guys will be responsible for casting glitterdust to reveal hidden enemies and things like that, so pump their Perception and Spellcraft as much as possible.

Your Barbarians should all have the dragon totem line. Blue is thematically appropriate, but the real goal here is to give them all built in flight, resistances, and boosted DR. They'll be up front with your bloodragers.

Your Bloodragers can go a couple ways, but if you want to keep with thematic appropriateness, give them the Air Elemental bloodline. This will also give them free flight, so now all your bruisers have built in fly speeds that will be hard to take away.

Your Skalds should be War Drummers. These are the tribe's version of siege weapons and would make perfect thematic sense in a mobilized horde (and can make it easy to take down cover). Have them all learn the Beast Totem rage powers so they can share them with their raging song. They'll spend the first round casting in-combat buff spells like haste, then initiate their raging song on the second round so they can pounce into the fray with their boosted greatclubs. Note that their built-in crafting ability means you can also sneak extra WBL into the encounter without raising its CR.

They'll generally work in units of 4, with 1 of each class in a given unit. As attrition whittles important roles out of each group, they'll try and roll back into another group so they can maximize the benefits of their area buffs. Pounce will be really useful as a way for them to shift into another unit without sacrificing DPR. If the War Drummers are 13th level, I strongly suggest saving Spell Kenning so they can use breath of life to bounce downed allies back into the fray.

Now you've got an elite war party of raging savages who can be accurately described as a "storm of destruction" rolling towards whatever town or city the party is supposed to protect.

[Elricaltovilla]

I'm unclear as to whether or not a barbarian can benefit from both his Rage powers and those granted by a Skald if they both choose to expend Rage rounds. If they can, then you could have your Barbarians go dragon totem (works with the lightning metaphor I mentioned earlier) while the Skalds provide Beast Totem, and then you've got flying, pouncing, high AC, energy resistant death ragers.

Assuming that works (or that you're willing to houserule it to work for the encounter), this is what I'd do:

Whip up a tribe whose main offensive force is a warband of a dozen 11-13th level bards, skalds, barbarians, and bloodragers, probably 3 of each.
Your Bards should all be Thundercallers with Quicken metamagic rods, and during the first round of combat you'll have them use their Thunder Call performance as a standard action, swift action cast exquisite accompaniment to maintain it, then move action start another performance for their Call Lightning ability. That will have them putting out 5d8 sonic and 3d6 electricity every round with a chance to stun their opponents.
Your Barbarians should all have the dragon totem line. Blue is thematically appropriate, but the real goal here is to give them all built in flight, resistances, and boosted DR. They'll be up front with your bloodragers.
Your Bloodragers can go a couple ways, but if you want to keep with thematic appropriateness, give them the Air Elemental bloodline. This will also give them free flight, so now all your bruisers have built in fly speeds that will be hard to take away.
Your Skalds should be War Drummers. These are the tribe's version of siege weapons and would make perfect thematic sense in a mobilized horde (and can make it easy to take down cover). Have them all learn the Beast Totem rage powers so they can share them with their raging song. They'll spend the first round casting in-combat buff spells like haste, then initiate their raging song on the second round so they can pounce into the fray with their boosted greatclubs. Note that their built-in crafting ability means you can also sneak extra WBL into the encounter without raising its CR.

Now you've got an elite war party of raging savages who can be accurately described as a "storm of destruction" rolling towards whatever town or city the party is supposed to protect.

This is beautiful. It brings tears of joy to my eyes. Thank you.:smallbiggrin:

[Ssalarn]

No problem!

To be honest, I really want to use that myself now too, I hadn't actually ever put those all together like that before.

Also, updated my prior post to note that you can get a lot more out of those Thundercallers than just the storm damage and stun attempts.

And I realized that even if the barbarians can't benefit from the skald's rage powers and their own simultaneously by having both expend rage rounds, it doesn't change the effectiveness of that encounter much. The bloodragers can still get the Beast Totem feats from the skalds and Dragon Totem is really good on the barbarians anyway, so I'd probably do the exact same thing regardless of how that works out.

[StreamOfTheSky]

The man who uttered the thread title wasn't some dumb barbarian, he was an innovative tactical genius that eagerly implemented as much practical technology into his army as possible and finding ever new ways to integrate that tech with how his forces waged war.

In a D&D game the forces of Genghis Khan aren't a bunch of barbarians and bards. It's an army composed of many different units and embracing magic to as great an extent as it's available.

/threadjack :smallwink:

[Ssalarn]

The man who uttered the thread title wasn't some dumb barbarian, he was an innovative tactical genius that eagerly implemented as much practical technology into his army as possible and finding ever new ways to integrate that tech with how his forces waged war.

In a D&D game the forces of Genghis Khan aren't a bunch of barbarians and bards. It's an army composed of many different units and embracing magic to as great an extent as it's available.

/threadjack :smallwink:

Smart tactical use of Skalds and Bards is one of the best ways to smartly utilize resources and tactically influence a battlefield. They're some of, if not the, best force multipliers in the game.

[Elricaltovilla]

The man who uttered the thread title wasn't some dumb barbarian, he was an innovative tactical genius that eagerly implemented as much practical technology into his army as possible and finding ever new ways to integrate that tech with how his forces waged war.

In a D&D game the forces of Genghis Khan aren't a bunch of barbarians and bards. It's an army composed of many different units and embracing magic to as great an extent as it's available.

/threadjack :smallwink:


Smart tactical use of Skalds and Bards is one of the best ways to smartly utilize resources and tactically influence a battlefield. They're some of, if not the, best force multipliers in the game.

Yeah, going to have to agree with Ssalarn here. Also, I was pulling from Conan the Barbarian, not Ghengis Khan. Anyway, the idea occurred to me because I realized that Skalds give free rage rounds (plus no fatigue!) to barbarians and bloodragers, and that their Inspire Rage stacks with Inspire Courage for some really powerful bonuses to Attack and Damage.

Now, Conan was no idiot either, but he was a barbarian. And I did ask for tactical advice on how to build and play these guys effectively, which Ssalarn and the other posters did an excellent job of providing.