3 Dragons Vs an Army...Help figure out how a behind the scenes situation will resolve

[SanguisAevum]

Hi Playground

I need some help working out how an npc vs npc encounter is likely to play out.

Long story short... My group of players have managed to cause a Theocratic civil war. The net result is that several large armies of Templars are converging on thier location.

The wizard of the party is a member of the "Arcane brotherhood" a neutral gathering of the greatest arcanist in the land dedicated to furthering the art. In order to even the odds, he has managed to convince / trick one of his peers (an imensly powerful but mentally unbalanced Lich-Queen) into deploying "assets" to deal with one of the armies.

These assests consist of...

Adult Blue dragon - Dracolich
Adult White dragon - Dracolich
Adult green dragon - Dracolich

One of the dragons will be ridden by a Mummy Lord.

She intends to Send them to Disrupt a church army that is currently mustering. (she believes they are mustering to deal with her...)

At the time of the assault there will be about 10.000 Church Soldiers in camp. About half are armed with ranged weapons and about 1000 of them are "elite" knights with at least 1 level of vengence paladin.

I need to figure out the ramifications of this attack on the army.

Casualties, delays, etc etc.

I am obviously not rolling 10.000 dice every round so i kind of need to work on averages here i think.

IE - 1 in 20 soldiers will pass the fear test each round, 1 in 20 soldiers will hit with a range weapon each round, etc etc

Its obvious the Dragons will be driven off at some point... but how much damage will they do first... and what will the implications be on the army and its viabilty to march on the players location.

Any thoughts?

[Nifft]

It really depends what kind of world you want to build.

Is collective power more potent than individual excellence? (This is generally how the real world works: the larger army usually wins, and exceptions like Sparta at Thermopylae are famous because they are exceptions.)

Or is the might of the great few more potent than the gathered rabble? (This is generally how mythic war and fantasy literature work: the mighty hero smashes through the line of pikes and shields, rather than ending up skewered.)



What can stand against these undead dragons?

In the former case, what stands against the dragons will be good tactics. An officer will organize a counter-offensive and it will work.

In the latter case, only a champion can stand against one of these horrors. The troops will scatter or die until such a champion comes forth.

[SanguisAevum]

It really depends what kind of world you want to build.

Is collective power more potent than individual excellence? (This is generally how the real world works: the larger army usually wins, and exceptions like Sparta at Thermopylae are famous because they are exceptions.)

Or is the might of the great few more potent than the gathered rabble? (This is generally how mythic war and fantasy literature work: the mighty hero smashes through the line of pikes and shields, rather than ending up skewered.)



What can stand against these undead dragons?

In the former case, what stands against the dragons will be good tactics. An officer will organize a counter-offensive and it will work.

In the latter case, only a champion can stand against one of these horrors. The troops will scatter or die until such a champion comes forth.

Thanks for your reply... but... this has nothing to do with world building...

The question is about D&D 5th edition maths... and the results of that maths on an army and it's ability to function.

since i cant physically run this combat... i was asking for advice on how to estimate the results.


To put it simpler...

3 Dracoliches vs 10,000 soldiers. How much damage do the dragons do before they are driven off and how does this affect the army...

[Nifft]

Thanks for your reply... but... this has nothing to do with world building...

The question is about D&D 5th edition maths... and the results of that maths on an army and it's ability to function.

since i cant physically run this combat... i was asking for advice on how to estimate the results.


To put it simpler...

3 Dracoliches vs 10,000 soldiers. How much damage do the dragons do before they are driven off and how does this affect the army... Post the full stat block for every type of soldier and officer.

We can look up the Draco-Lich math, but we'd need to know the other side as well.

[Dreadfull]

Post the full stat block for every type of soldier and officer.

We can look up the Draco-Lich math, but we'd need to know the other side as well.

yeah this seems like a fun mental exercise. But to give an estimation we will need to compaire statblocks to eachother.

Also, will these dragons fight untilll they are killed or will they bug out when they get at low health? Assuming they are intelligent undead, what kind of tactics will they apply? Will they focus on delaying the army and aim at their supplies or at weakening the army and killing as many soldiers as possible? What situation is the army in? They are mustering so are they in a keep or stronghold or something? Or are they out on an open field? Are they actively looking for threats or does the army assume they are safe until they start moving towards the battle (and thus can they be surprised?)? What kind of weather is it when the dragons attack?

Or you could just make a rough estimation that would suit you as a DM.

Also a fun idea might be to take half a session or something and you play the 10.0000 in groups. And your players play the dragons and mummy? This way they will actually feel like that battle was important and epic even though they were not in it. The unearthed arcana battlesystems document might help for dealing with the soldiers in stacks.

[SanguisAevum]

Post the full stat block for every type of soldier and officer.

We can look up the Draco-Lich math, but we'd need to know the other side as well.

Good point.

The vast majority are Templars (NCO's and troop leaders also have these stats).
---------------------------------------
Templar
Medium humanoid, any alignment
Armor Class 16 (chain shirt, shield)
Hit Points 11 (2d8 + 2)
Speed 30 ft.
STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA
13 (+1) 12 (+1) 12 (+1) 10 (+0) 11 (+0) 10 (+0)
Skills Perception +2
Senses passive Perception 12
Languages: Common
Challenge 1/8 (25 XP)

Actions
Spear. Melee or Ranged Weapon Attack: +3 to hit, reach 5 ft. or
range 20/60 ft., one target. Hit: 4 (1d6 + 1) piercing damage.
---------------------------------


There are also aproximatly 1000 Knights-Templars. The majority are used in formation as heavy cavalry. This stat block also represents the commisioned officers in the army.
---------------------------------
Knights-Templar
Armor Class 18 (plate)
Hit Points 52 (8d8 + 16)
Speed 30 ft.
STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA
16 (+3) 11 (+0) 14 (+2) 11 (+0) 11 (+0) 15 (+2)
Saving Throws Con +4, Wis +2
Senses passive Perception 10
Languages any one language (usually Common)
Challenge 3 (700 XP)
Brave. The knight has advantage on saving throws against
being frightened.

Actions
Multiattack. The knight makes two melee attacks.
Greatsword. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one
target. Hit: 10 (2d6 + 3) slashing damage.
Heavy Crossbow. Ranged Weapon Attack: +2 to hit, range
100/400 ft., one target. Hit: 5 (1d10) piercing damage.

Leadership (Recharges after a Short or Long Rest). For 1
minute, the knight can utter a special command or warning
whenever a nonhostile creature that it can see within 30 feet of
it makes an attack roll or a saving throw. The creature can add
a d4 to its roll provided it can hear and understand the knight.
A creature can benefit from only one Leadership
------------------------------------------------

At the time of the attack, the army is in full camp, in a safe territory, away from any percieved threats to it.

The dragons will be flying in low, and with the element of total surprise against a camped army that is in no way expecting to be attacked.

[-Jynx-]

You should decide how the story should play out for your world as the DM rather than trying to figure out the loser/winner of an arbitrary battle that the PCs aren't participating in. Maybe one side got lucky, maybe one side got the drop on the other.

Your army is also very... bland. Why no healers? Why no dedicated archers or mages? In a world as vast and magical as Dnd out of 10,000 people the best power they could muster to protect themselves from 3 adult dragons was a bunch of glorified peasants and a thousand level 1 paladins?

[SanguisAevum]

You should decide how the story should play out for your world as the DM rather than trying to figure out the loser/winner of an arbitrary battle that the PCs aren't participating in. Maybe one side got lucky, maybe one side got the drop on the other.

Your army is also very... bland. Why no healers? Why no dedicated archers or mages? In a world as vast and magical as Dnd out of 10,000 people the best power they could muster to protect themselves from 3 adult dragons was a bunch of glorified peasants and a thousand level 1 paladins?

Thankyou for telling me how to run my game, and not helping with the actual question at all.

Also thank you for making unfounded base assumptions about my home brew game-world... that have nothing whatsoever to do with the question i asked.

And finally, thankyou for not actually reading the origional post properly... and then commented on something utterly unrelated to the question that was being asked.

Thanks but i dont think i need you to comment further... unless your going to attempt to actually help me with the topic?


And for what it's worth... the setting is a quasi realistic version of opur world. The church is a paralell of our church, and magic is extremly rare. There are no healers because the church is the same as the churches in our world. Preists are just men, with faith in god. There are no "healers".

There are no Mages because there are no Spellcasters in the world other than the handul of high level spellcasters of the arcane brotherhood.

There are no dedicated archers because all of the troopers carry ranged weapons and i decided thats how my templars would be.

They are not "protecting themselves from 3 dragons" they dont even know dragons EXIST.. They are a templar army... mustering to prepare fro war agasint a rival templar army...

really... begining to wish i had not posted to be honest...

[Grek]

Short Answer: The Dracoliches get off 4 breath attacks total. The Mummy Lord fares considerably better, but will eventually be burned to death with torches if he does not flee.

Long Answer:
The church has 500 soldiers who can meaningfully attack flying creatures - the half of the paladins who own crossbows. Throwing a spear does not count for this purpose. They hit a Dracolich on a 17+ with a crossbow bolt and do an average of 5.5 damage per hit. The maximum non-disadvantaged range of a heavy crossbow is 150 feet and the dragon's longest ranged attack is 120 feet, so if the dragons are attacking in any meaningful sense of the word, they are in crossbow range. 500 paladins times 5.5 mean damage on a hit times 0.2 accuracy (0.1 normal hits + 0.5 critical hits that do double damage) equals an average of 550 damage per volley. That will kill two Dracoliches on the first volley and put down the third on the second volley.

The Mummy Lord, on the other hand, is immune to mundane weapons. It is not, however, immune to torches. As a torch deals 2 damage to a mummy, it can survive 49 torchings before it dies. That's not a lot of torchings when everyone who gets a torch can hit you on a 14+ (12+ for paladins). It will probably run away after dropping a few Insect Plagues and Guiding Bolts to murder paladins.

[SanguisAevum]

yeah this seems like a fun mental exercise. But to give an estimation we will need to compaire statblocks to eachother.

Also, will these dragons fight untilll they are killed or will they bug out when they get at low health? Assuming they are intelligent undead, what kind of tactics will they apply? Will they focus on delaying the army and aim at their supplies or at weakening the army and killing as many soldiers as possible? What situation is the army in? They are mustering so are they in a keep or stronghold or something? Or are they out on an open field? Are they actively looking for threats or does the army assume they are safe until they start moving towards the battle (and thus can they be surprised?)? What kind of weather is it when the dragons attack?

Or you could just make a rough estimation that would suit you as a DM.

Also a fun idea might be to take half a session or something and you play the 10.0000 in groups. And your players play the dragons and mummy? This way they will actually feel like that battle was important and epic even though they were not in it. The unearthed arcana battlesystems document might help for dealing with the soldiers in stacks.

Hi, and thanks for responding...

Some answers to your questions...

Will these dragons fight untill they are killed or will they bug out when they get at low health?
They are under orders not to risk destruction. (Animating dragons is a costly business... and the Lich-Queen doesnt want the hastle of doing it again :) )


Will they focus on delaying the army and aim at their supplies or at weakening the army and killing as many soldiers as possible?
The White has been tasked with attacking the supplies
The Green and Blue (with Mummy Lord rider) have been told to attack the troops directly. All of the assests are very intellegent (The dragons retain their int scores, and the Mummy Lord is a 4000 year old vetran of war (he conquered this contenant in ages past)


What situation is the army in?
Camped in the open a few miles outside a city. They are deep in friendly territory and are camped while the muster is complete. They are not expecting any threat, and most arent even aware that Dragons (let alone dracoliches) are real "thing" (low magic world - dragons are like legends to most people in this world)


Weather
It is late autumn / early winter... in a temperate climate similar to norther europe.

The idea to actually play this out is not something i had considered... but... it does sound like it might be fun... if i can figure out how to approximate using 10000 troops...

[Demon Prince]

Have you thought about restatting the bulk of the army as one creature, a la the mob template, but with different attacks?

Heroes of Battle could supply some information for what this could look like, as well--the hail of arrows rules provide a good example of how one could represent lots of littler attacks.

[SanguisAevum]

Have you thought about restatting the bulk of the army as one creature, a la the mob template, but with different attacks?

Heroes of Battle could supply some information for what this could look like, as well--the hail of arrows rules provide a good example of how one could represent lots of littler attacks.

Oh... great idea, thanks... i will look into it!

[SanguisAevum]

Short Answer: The Dracoliches get off 4 breath attacks total. The Mummy Lord fares considerably better, but will eventually be burned to death with torches if he does not flee.

Long Answer:
The church has 500 soldiers who can meaningfully attack flying creatures - the half of the paladins who own crossbows. Throwing a spear does not count for this purpose. They hit a Dracolich on a 17+ with a crossbow bolt and do an average of 5.5 damage per hit. The maximum non-disadvantaged range of a heavy crossbow is 150 feet and the dragon's longest ranged attack is 120 feet, so if the dragons are attacking in any meaningful sense of the word, they are in crossbow range. 500 paladins times 5.5 mean damage on a hit times 0.2 accuracy (0.1 normal hits + 0.5 critical hits that do double damage) equals an average of 550 damage per volley. That will kill two Dracoliches on the first volley and put down the third on the second volley.

The Mummy Lord, on the other hand, is immune to mundane weapons. It is not, however, immune to torches. As a torch deals 2 damage to a mummy, it can survive 49 torchings before it dies. That's not a lot of torchings when everyone who gets a torch can hit you on a 14+ (12+ for paladins). It will probably run away after dropping a few Insect Plagues and Guiding Bolts to murder paladins.

Really interesting. Bounded accuracy really stings now days huh?

Does this take into account the element of surprise? and the fear auras of the dragons?

[Nifft]

They're not really risking destruction, because of how the gem-phylactery works.

All the lich-queen needs is another dragon corpse, and the "destroyed" draco-lich is back in action.

How common are dragon corpses? That's going to be setting-specific. Might be a hassle, but presumably it's less of a hassle than creating a whole new dracolich.

[SanguisAevum]

They're not really risking destruction, because of how the gem-phylactery works.

All the lich-queen needs is another dragon corpse, and the "destroyed" draco-lich is back in action.

How common are dragon corpses? That's going to be setting-specific. Might be a hassle, but presumably it's less of a hassle than creating a whole new dracolich.

As far as anyone knows (including the arcane broterhood) the PC's just killed the last remaining dragon (they gave the corpse to the lich queen in return for this "favour")

I had forgotten about the phylactory thing for sdracoliches. So it actually requires a corpse now? and doent just "reform" the body?

[tieren]

I would assume an aerial assault at night while most of the army is asleep.

I would expect to get off a full round of breath attacks as a surprise round. On that attack assume the alarm is raised and all the soldiers start to flee their tents and arm up. Fear may get most of the mundanes but I would probably have most of the paladins resist.

I think range becomes a big factor too, how much area do 10,000 soldiers occupy, how many of those crossbowmen are going to be within 150 feet of the dracoliches? If they do a flyby then land to attack one side of the camp does the other side of the camp even know where they are or what is going on? How many rounds does it take to get the frightened army organized and fighting back properly? If the skies are dark and there are camp fires below are the soldiers at disadvantage?

Maybe treat divisions of the army as swarm creatures instead of multitude of individuals and deal with squads or battalions at a time.

[SanguisAevum]

I would assume an aerial assault at night while most of the army is asleep.

I would expect to get off a full round of breath attacks as a surprise round. On that attack assume the alarm is raised and all the soldiers start to flee their tents and arm up. Fear may get most of the mundanes but I would probably have most of the paladins resist.

I think range becomes a big factor too, how much area do 10,000 soldiers occupy, how many of those crossbowmen are going to be within 150 feet of the dracoliches? If they do a flyby then land to attack one side of the camp does the other side of the camp even know where they are or what is going on? How many rounds does it take to get the frightened army organized and fighting back properly? If the skies are dark and there are camp fires below are the soldiers at disadvantage?



These are the kinds of questions i was asking myself and struggling to come up with realistic answers for as i have little expeirence or knowledge of medevil armies and how they function...

hence the origional post :)

[tieren]

These are the kinds of questions i was asking myself and struggling to come up with realistic answers for as i have little expeirence or knowledge of medevil armies and how they function...

hence the origional post :)

Well lets work it out, lets say a tent is 10' by 10' and houses 2 soldiers and their gear. A 200 soldier brigade would need 100 tents, space each tent 5 feet apart and that brigade would need an area 10 tents by 10 tents or 145 feet by 145 feet. Maybe then a larger command tent with 2 of the paladins in it.

You then need 500 of these brigades to form your army of 10,000 with 1000 paladins. Lets say you arranged them in groups 25 across and 20 deep and separated each by a 20 feet for supply carts and troops movements. Then that area would be about 4200 feet by 3300 feet, not allowing for extra spaces for camp fires and mess tents and things.

I am away from book so I don't know the fly speed, but it could take you a couple of rounds to fly across the whole thing, and you may get several breath attacks off before the alarm reaches the side you are flying to.

Until they form up and get organized I would say you are never simultaneously in the range of more than 4 brigades and usually no more than 1 or 2, with only the paladins likely to hit you in flight.

I would expect you may be able to get 2-3 fly-bys before there was a real threat to your destruction. Once organized into fighting units I would not engage and either stay out of range of the mustered troops and just destroy the camp in other areas or flee.

[HoarsHalberd]

The problem is there are too many variables.

If the paladins are grouped up into a single unit and the dragons arrive in range of them then it will be somewhere between one and four turns. If they arrive and cast frightful presence they may well end up slaughtered before they get a chance to use any aoe breaths.

Whereas if the knights templar are spread out like officers and the dragons attack from a side in unison they could roll up a flank.

Then we need to know how tightly packed the forces are when they're attacked. Are they spread out in tents, or are they in rank and file.

Once the knights templar are grouped up and advancing on the dragons, they'll spend their last turn before entering range all using the leadership action.

If they get to attack before moving into range. The average of 1d4 to hit bonus is 2.5. So 1000(0.2(5.5)) = 1100 damage. Even more if they focus on the white dragon first. Needless to say, this annihilates all three dracoliches.

As soon as the Knights can bring their force to bear it's over in a turn.

So the best tactic would be to attack from three sides, firing off breath weapons then retreating into the air and circling until they can use them again. Doing this tactic they could do considerable damage before the knights mustered and slaughtered a dragon with ranged weapons. Then the other two would flee.

Seeing as the mummy lord will regenerate from jars and is immune to most damage sources (including bludgeoning from falling) it would probably jump off the dragon when it is flying high above the command tent and crash down in the centre, then cast Harm on the general if he can see him. Almost certainly killing him outright.

From there he'd walk out, wait for his opponents to inevitably surround him in a crushing weight of troops to try and avenge their general. Then cast insect plague to eviscerate a good chunk of troops, the vast majority would fail their saves, and the few who don't can be killed with legendary action attacks as they march closer. Then he'd cast spiritual weapon, and spend his turns blasting with sacred flame and swinging with spiritual weapon. Perhaps occasionally casting animate dead to sow more confusion. Any who charge forwards only have a 25% chance of surviving their first turn in the insect swarm. So only a few brave souls probably would, but the more who do the more who die.

By the time his insect swarm is out he could definitely have killed a few hundred. And then, foolishly, they'll press forward again, torches in hand, get a few good hits in, and then he'd cast insect swarm again and slaughter them once more. From there it's a slow press. But finally, after the insect plague goes down, he should die fairly quickly.

[SanguisAevum]

Well lets work it out, lets say a tent is 10' by 10' and houses 2 soldiers and their gear. A 200 soldier brigade would need 100 tents, space each tent 5 feet apart and that brigade would need an area 10 tents by 10 tents or 145 feet by 145 feet. Maybe then a larger command tent with 2 of the paladins in it.

You then need 500 of these brigades to form your army of 10,000 with 1000 paladins. Lets say you arranged them in groups 25 across and 20 deep and separated each by a 20 feet for supply carts and troops movements. Then that area would be about 4200 feet by 3300 feet, not allowing for extra spaces for camp fires and mess tents and things.

I am away from book so I don't know the fly speed, but it could take you a couple of rounds to fly across the whole thing, and you may get several breath attacks off before the alarm reaches the side you are flying to.

Until they form up and get organized I would say you are never simultaneously in the range of more than 4 brigades and usually no more than 1 or 2, with only the paladins likely to hit you in flight.

I would expect you may be able to get 2-3 fly-bys before there was a real threat to your destruction. Once organized into fighting units I would not engage and either stay out of range of the mustered troops and just destroy the camp in other areas or flee.


This is really usefull! thankyou!

Combining this with the math from Grek's post might reveal a slightly different outcome than he predicted... give me a few mins.. :)

[tieren]

I believe the end result would be about 3-4000 troops would just flee into the countryside and the officers would need to several days gathering them up again.

I think about 2-3000 troops would die along with 100-200 paladins, including probably the highest leadership, and I think the supplies would be destoyed causing the army to have to go into a foraging mode slowing them down more waiting for resupplies and reinforcements.

Therefore a core of 3-5k troops would survive along with a lot of low to mid level officers to start reforming and mobilizing. In a week they could probably gather up most of the runners and be back to about 75% strength and heading on towards their goal.

[SanguisAevum]

As soon as the Knights can bring their force to bear it's over in a turn.

So the best tactic would be to attack from three sides, firing off breath weapons then retreating into the air and circling until they can use them again. Doing this tactic they could do considerable damage before the knights mustered and slaughtered a dragon with ranged weapons. Then the other two would flee.

Seeing as the mummy lord will regenerate from jars and is immune to most damage sources (including bludgeoning from falling) it would probably jump off the dragon when it is flying high above the command tent and crash down in the centre, then cast Harm on the general if he can see him. Almost certainly killing him outright.

From there he'd walk out, wait for his opponents to inevitably surround him in a crushing weight of troops to try and avenge their general. Then cast insect plague to eviscerate a good chunk of troops, the vast majority would fail their saves, and the few who don't can be killed with legendary action attacks as they march closer. Then he'd cast spiritual weapon, and spend his turns blasting with sacred flame and swinging with spiritual weapon. Perhaps occasionally casting animate dead to sow more confusion. Any who charge forwards only have a 25% chance of surviving their first turn in the insect swarm. So only a few brave souls probably would, but the more who do the more who die.

By the time his insect swarm is out he could definitely have killed a few hundred. And then, foolishly, they'll press forward again, torches in hand, get a few good hits in, and then he'd cast insect swarm again and slaughter them once more. From there it's a slow press. But finally, after the insect plague goes down, he should die fairly quickly.

I really like this line of thinking... The bolded line is, i think the most important point. As soon as the knights can arrange a forcefull response... the dracoliches have to leave...

Leaving our Mummy Lord Man-Dropping down into the command structure to assasinate the commanders and then wading through the rank and file untill he is either clear of the army, or destroyed and regenerating in his tomb.

That being the case... how long do we give the the attackers before the Kights are in position to bring there force to bear?

If we assume MOST of them are camped together at one end of the army... Is 2 or 3 minutes realistic... or far too long?

[-Jynx-]

Thankyou for telling me how to run my game, and not helping with the actual question at all. I wasn't telling you how to run your game, you asked a question about how a battle should play out in which your PCs aren't participating. I said it seems trivial and you should just RP out that one encounter.

Also thank you for making unfounded base assumptions about my home brew game-world... that have nothing whatsoever to do with the question i asked.
Your army is still bland. No siege weaponry (especially in a world where magic is so very scarce) no archers I mean you did state this army is going to war. Sure they don't know its dragons I guess, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't have the appropriate arms of war. That's not a base assumption that is an opinion based off the facts you are giving. You literally have 2 types of fighters in your army of 10,000 people, and 9000 of them are just 1 type. It makes for a bland arrangement for an already horribly one-sided fight.

And finally, thankyou for not actually reading the origional post properly... and then commented on something utterly unrelated to the question that was being asked.
Read above.

Thanks but i dont think i need you to comment further... unless your going to attempt to actually help me with the topic?
Short answer? Dragons stomp. Between breath attacks every few turns, legendary actions (if you are allowing them, but lets say you aren't), dragon fear (a huge disadvantage to your basic army) and the surprise attack being given to the dragons in the first place.

Even from an RP standpoint you've already said that this world has very little spellcasters. So for an army to suddenly have 4 dragons (magic powerhouses mind you) suddenly come to the battlefield instead of a mundane army like they expected it would be absolute chaos. Fear and disorganization would run rampant while the dragons opened with a volley of breath attacks obliterating waves of soldiers at a time.

And for what it's worth... the setting is a quasi realistic version of opur world. The church is a paralell of our church, and magic is extremly rare. There are no healers because the church is the same as the churches in our world. Preists are just men, with faith in god. There are no "healers".

There are no Mages because there are no Spellcasters in the world other than the handul of high level spellcasters of the arcane brotherhood.

Totally fine, that wasn't stated earlier so I'll say that you should have siege weapons then since magic spellcasters aren't present. This can make a difference in any war, but ballistas, catapults, trebuchets while all not the best options against a dragon, are better than nothing. Especially trained dedicated archers who can handle flying opponents better.


There are no dedicated archers because all of the troopers carry ranged weapons and i decided thats how my templars would be.

Again then why is this even a fight? You lack all the things that someone should have to fight dragons in the first place. You have glorified foot soldiers with crossbows so why are they standing to fight opponents that are clearly demolishing them? Why wouldn't they retreat and regroup under more favorable conditions and better preparation now that they know they are fighting dragons?

They are not "protecting themselves from 3 dragons" they dont even know dragons EXIST.. They are a templar army... mustering to prepare fro war agasint a rival templar army...

All the more reason for them to run and not fight. Even if they let arrogance get the better of them, and aren't overcome by dragon fear, after a few waves of breath attacks and heavy casualties, coupled with the dragons high health/AC I'm sure they would have the presence of mind to realize they were unprepared and retreat.

really... begining to wish i had not posted to be honest...
You clearly are (almost overly) upset that I'm challenging the why, but do remember that this is a forum and you are asking opinions.

[tieren]

I really like this line of thinking... The bolded line is, i think the most important point. As soon as the knights can arrange a forcefull response... the dracoliches have to leave...

Leaving our Mummy Lord Man-Dropping down into the command structure to assasinate the commanders and then wading through the rank and file untill he is either clear of the army, or destroyed and regenerating in his tomb.

That being the case... how long do we give the the attackers before the Kights are in position to bring there force to bear?

If we assume MOST of them are camped together at one end of the army... Is 2 or 3 minutes realistic... or far too long?

If you concentrate the paladins in a few of their own brigades I would have them respond faster than if they are spread out throughout the army.

I do not subscribe to the school of thought that you can be surprised in bed one round and six seconds later choose to move 30 feet and perform a complicated action. If you treat them as combat rounds though and give even a full minute (ten rounds) to the dragons to attack freely I think the devastation will be too high.

I would say if you start with a surprise round and the sentries blow horns or ring bells or something that will travel at the speed of sound to raise the alarm, then you have the officers wake the following round, grab their weapons and be rushing out the tent and can start to respond the round after that. Now their response may be taking a few rounds to get the defense organized and moving towards the threat (if you attack the other side of the camp you could be more than 4000 feet away which will take time for them to reach).

I wouldn't recommend concentrating the paladins too much, that leaves many brigades with none and that will cause more rank and file to flee if not well supervised. And as described the threat could be more than half a mile a way decimating the rank and file. Maybe keep at least 1 paladin with each brigade and concentrate the other half into three groups, 200 on each flank and 100 in the center with the command.

If you go that way I would still fly-by and then attack a flank (dropping the mummy lord on the command tent). the group of paladins on the flank attacked would almost surely die but the dracoliches would be driven off a minute or two later when the organized resistance starts to arrive.

[Ralanr]

http://media.wizards.com/2015/downloads/dnd/UA_Battlesystem.pdf

I think this might be very helpful.

[SanguisAevum]

tieren - That makes a lot of sense. I am inclined to go with your assessment of the situation. Thankyou for your thougts :)

Ralanr - Thankyou! that will almost certainly be useful when the party and its army finally faces of against the Templars.

[-Jynx-]

IE - 1 in 20 soldiers will pass the fear test each round, 1 in 20 soldiers will hit with a range weapon each round, etc etc



Examining things further there are some other factors to consider.

Each dragon gets its own 'brand' of fear. So Soldiers don't have to worry about saving against just 1 dragons fear, they should technically be trying to save against all 3 (well, at least whenever they are within 120ft of a dragon they will need to save against that one) and dragon fear lasts a minute (or 10 rounds) so your forces cut from 9,000 to 450 soldiers who save against fear on 1 dragon (let alone all 3 which brings it down to about 150). Again their frightful presence only stretches 120ft so they can actively cover 360ft of the battlefield in fear. Your regular templars only have spears which won't reach the dragons in the air, assuming you give them crossbows to avoid a situation where the dragons just fly around and breath until everyone dies, then out of your 450ish soldiers willing to stand and fight for the first 10 rounds 1/5 hit (+3 to hit w/ ranged at 19 AC) or about 90 soldiers or 30 hits per dragon or about 120ish damage per round. A caveat to this however is that due to battlefield congestion not all 450 soldiers could throw spears given their range limit, but if you use crossbows... Even if they could form a perfect circle to volley their bolts at the dragon, each miss should run the risk of hitting an ally (but that's just me thinking of realism so lets leave that out)

Your knights fair slightly better, out of 1000 of them they still need to beat a fear save of 19 Wis (with +0 to wis) but they have advantage so 1/10 make their save or 100 knights to be exact. Say theoretically they split off as well so now you have 33 on 2 and 34 on 1. They have +2 to hit with their crossbows so about 5 hit per turn on each dragon for 5 dmg each or 25 dmg per dragon per round.

Totally their damage output per round of active soldiers you're looking at 145 dmg per round. Now this is where many other variables come into play. Are you giving your dragons a surprise round? Seeing that the army wasn't expecting them, and dragons can quickly approach/descend from the sky with a swooping attack it makes sense that they would, but you may disagree. Secondly is who wins initiative. It stands to reason that the dragons would, coupled with the surprise round they'll be able to breathe, Fear, and make 3 attacks (4 with a legendary action) most likely against the knight templars who aren't running from fear. This obviously cuts the damage potential of the army significantly, and so long as the dragons change up their battlefield positions every 10 rounds to cycle fear, they can crowd control the army very well.

This doesn't take into consideration the mummy whom I don't have the stats for since I'm away from my book, so he also makes matters worse for the "good guys".

I am bais toward the dragons, so take that for what you will, but since you wanted a direct answer to your question this is how I would see things playing out.

[EvilAnagram]

A lot of people here make excellent points. I would add that the majority of the army will not be armed with bows if it's a surprise attack. They'll have their sidearms (swords), and the guards along the periphery will be fully armed.

As HoarsHalberd said, the Mummy Lord will be important. I would drop the Mummy Lord from high above, then attack with the Dracoliches. The Mummy Lord will act as a strike force, killing high value targets and causing commotion in the center of camp, while the Dracoliches fly down and use their breath attacks on the largest concentration of foes. The green and white can hit up to 144 enemies, while the blue (whose breath is a line, not a cone) can only hit 18.

At this point, the army's ability to deal with the Dracoliches should be negligible. The Knights Templar who are ready should already be busy with the Mummy Lord, and those that aren't shouldn't have crossbows readied. Once the Dracoliches use Frightful presence next round, 75% of the Templars should start to scatter, while half the Knights Templar do the same. The Dracoliches can then fly out of crossbow range before any organized defense can be put together, having inflicted around 300 casualties and scattered thousands (don't bother with saves, even on successes the Templars die and Knights Templar become severely wounded). The Dracoliches will probably get another chance to use a breath attack, and should probably target the largest group of Knight Templar that has managed to organize itself (By 8 rounds, they should be fully organized). This time, they should be inflicting about 150-200 casualties on the Knights Templar, then turn back while Mummy Lord covers their retreat. The Mummy Lord will be key to disrupting the Knights Templar attempts at organizing crossbowmen.

And remember, after that first Dracolich round of attack, there will be plenty of corpses for a fourth or fifth level casting of Animate Dead. And as intelligent creatures, you're allowed to give Dracoliches spells, so more castings of Animate Dead are also acceptable.

EDIT: Also, the 120' radius of Frightful Presence is 14,400 square feet, which is enough room between the three Dracoliches to affect 1,728 people. The chaos caused by their fleeing should send a panic through the rest of camp.

[Raphite1]

... I would add that the majority of the army will not be armed with bows if it's a surprise attack.
...
The chaos caused by their fleeing should send a panic through the rest of camp.

These are good points. So many feeling soldiers will cause pandemonium, meaning that even soldiers who made their saves may require a couple of rounds just to acquire and prepare their ranged weapons.

Also, they're not all standing in a circle taking unobstructed shots at a dragon. Many (most?) will be firing over the heads of their fellows. I'd give the dragons +2 partial cover against many of the soldiers, and +5 full cover against a few.

[Kajorma]

Also, they're not all standing in a circle taking unobstructed shots at a dragon. Many (most?) will be firing over the heads of their fellows. I'd give the dragons +2 partial cover against many of the soldiers, and +5 full cover against a few.

I was going to say something like this.
If there are 500 soldiers that have the ability to strike the dragons well, it is really unlikely that all 500 will be able to attack every turn.
And on the other side of that coin, the soldiers will be pretty spread out when it comes to calculating how many get hit with each breath weapon attack.

With the way you have it set up, it seems like the dracoliches have complete control over how the encounter goes. Their best strategy may be to just do hit and run attacks on the army as they see fit. The first could be a middle of the night, pearly harbor style attack (and it would be a good idea to focus on horses and supplies, which an army is likely to keep all tightly packed together)
But my point is that their focus may not be staying as long as they can. It could be to do a quick strike and get out with little damage. Then come back after a short or long rest when their resources are replenished. Sure, they would not be as successful to get a surprise round, but they should still be able to get in and out with an effective air strike. Also, just because the army knows that an attack is coming doesn't mean that it would be able to respond instantly. The soldiers do still have to sleep sometimes.

And all of that is dependent on how urgent the queen thinks that destroying the army is. If she has several months of travel before the army gets to her doorstep, then she could much more easily set up a harassment campaign.

[tieren]

The green and white can hit up to 144 enemies, while the blue (whose breath is a line, not a cone) can only hit 18.



I was thinking about this too, OP said the white was tasked with attacking the supplies, I think I would swap that and send the blue after the supplies. Freezing breath the food might not destroy it (might actually preserve it), but lightning down a line of wagons would be good, and the white's wider cone is better for strafing the troops.

If the green gets off a bunch of breath attacks I would think about how that is going to affect such a closely packed field as well. Are there drifting clouds of poison gas moving through the camp (maybe not potent enough to kill but enough to make sick or just frighten away troops that see them blowing their way).

[SharkForce]

it wouldn't just be about hitting the supplies, but also about hitting the stuff that carries the supplies. no horses or mules means that your supplies aren't going anywhere any time soon, and supplies that are in a different place than the army won't do you much good.

plus, i'd expect barrels to burst, and the cold might not shatter things so easily but it will cause them to shrink unevenly and that might be bad enough damage to cause problems later on when the wagon's axle snaps because it was weakened earlier.

still, it might be a good idea to have the blue attack the wagons regardless.

(on a side note, technically the lich can probably just make dragon corpses with true polymorph; they're either creatures or objects, so you can make one either way. of course, that doesn't make for quite as impressive storytelling... )

[saeval]

Originally posted with the wrong statblock assumptions (3.5 autopilot mistake) corrected with 5 edition guestimations.

being dracolichs, I assume they have access to minor magic spells? a level 1 protection from good/shield or a level two blur... 3rd level Haste/Stinking Clioud/wind wall/blink rather drastically changes how this plays out. and would be within their casting ability if you were using the Variant.

even them having a item/scroll that helps them get access to this... seems more than reasonable for the task being undertook. asset protection and all.

You could also weigh in morale checks based on the dragon's intelligently picking off those reacting. sure, they save once against the dragonfear, but when 400ish of their elite paladins get wiped out in the surprise round... they may need to check again. you'd also have to account for friendly fire, for most attacks that are aimed at fly-by dragons, even if it hits the scales and bounces off... is now falling toward the ground, covered by their allies.

The amount of confusion, and crazy amount of success they would have with globes of darkness causing confusion, or a wind wall keeping bolts at bay, would cause quite a bit of damage. even if the Darkness doesn't last, they snuff out light sources in that area, and its already going to be dark.

What I'm saying is, they can easily use the night and some not too terribly powerful spells to really sow confusion among those troops. What normal trooper, would willingly bumble through the darkness towards the horrifying sounds of his compatriots being rended apart? with light sources snuffed, you also have most soldiers rolling with disadvantage against the dragons, who see perfectly. soldiers on the other side of a darkness globe/stinking cloud couldn't fire without possibly thinning their own ranks, a wind wall forces them to march through it before they can even participate. they wouldn't even need protection spells for that.

which, flavor wise, if you prefer them to be non-casters the ice dragon could breathe on some templars, and suddenly its a winter wonderland there with no light sources... the green dragon's breath weapon could act as a stinking cloud, at least obscuring vision and any of them could pound their tattered wings and blow up a gust.

If they wanted to play it passive they could utterly destroy the largest catche of supplies, and just plain outhunt them and force them to send massive foraging parties, which, the dragons could coordinate and pick off in unison. I mean, they don't need to eat, but they can still spite kill and drive off all the game, and create forest fires. the soldiers would be eating their horses and be in full on mutiny within a month.

[KorvinStarmast]

and I think the supplies would be destoyed causing the army to have to go into a foraging mode slowing them down more waiting for resupplies and reinforcements.
From the DM's explaining a few things ...

Weather
It is late autumn / early winter... in a temperate climate similar to norther europe.

This gets interesting, the foraging, considering the season.


Therefore a core of 3-5k troops would survive along with a lot of low to mid level officers to start reforming and mobilizing. In a week they could probably gather up most of the runners and be back to about 75% strength and heading on towards their goal. Seems a good estimate, if the foraging gets enough supplies to keep moving to the originally planned battle.

[tieren]

it wouldn't just be about hitting the supplies, but also about hitting the stuff that carries the supplies. no horses or mules means that your supplies aren't going anywhere any time soon, and supplies that are in a different place than the army won't do you much good.

plus, i'd expect barrels to burst, and the cold might not shatter things so easily but it will cause them to shrink unevenly and that might be bad enough damage to cause problems later on when the wagon's axle snaps because it was weakened earlier.

still, it might be a good idea to have the blue attack the wagons regardless.



I'd figure the horses to be tied in horse lines which would be the perfect targets for the line breath attack.

[KorvinStarmast]

One of the tactical things I find questionable is any assumption of a surprise round, unless the attack is on a moonless night. Or overcast.

You can see a flying dragon from farther away than he can breath.

Presuming an army on campaign does not have sentries posted seems a bit much.

Yes, "nobody believes in dragons arriving here" is understood, and I get how the Pearl Harbor attack achieved a lot due to surprise.

A lot of good ideas on how this plays out, hope it works out well for the campaign.

[EvilAnagram]

One of the tactical things I find questionable is any assumption of a surprise round, unless the attack is on a moonless night. Or overcast.
The thing is, the camp will have fires blazing and plenty of them. It will be much better lit than the surrounding area, even if it's a full moon.

And that will kill everyone's night vision.

The sentries at the edge of camp will be able to see much better, but the fact is that a moving pile of bones at night with a lot of light pollution mucking up people's night vision wouldn't be very noticeable. Hell, history is full of instances in which entire armies have been able to sneak up on encampments. Three creatures who can fly will have no trouble, especially since everyone assumes dragons to be extinct in this setting.

Besides, most nights have several hours in which the moon is not in the sky. As long as it's not particularly gibbous or full, they should have plenty of darkness to conceal them, especially with 5e's rules governing sight in dim light.

[saeval]

derp derp 3.5 nonsense, derp. mcderpington.

[HoarsHalberd]

I may just be impatient, but has nobody factored in the Damage reduction? it does make them Nigh invulnerable, right, or do I have that wrong? barring a few men who presumably might have relic swords in the low magic setting... Which means, without some sort of dragonslaying crossbow/legendary arrow they can fire off their sons shoulder... They basically are routed, by mythical beings right out of dark fairy tales, right?

Are you perhaps on the wrong board? This is 5e. Dracoliches don't get damage reduction.

[saeval]

Are you perhaps on the wrong board? This is 5e. Dracoliches don't get damage reduction.

Yeah no, I was at work, I wiki'd it and got 3.5, didn't notice. my bad. I checked the book when I got home. It seemed like a large oversight to the numbers in play. haha.

[MrStupendous]

Why wouldn't the dragons drop boulders/giant logs/assorted livestock from above?

I mean.....they rule the air....nobody can touch them at a certain height

[KorvinStarmast]

I mean.....they rule the air....nobody can touch them at a certain height
Welcome to the world of those guys fighting for Saddam Hussein, twice, against American led coalitions.

Uncontested air power, be it dragons, Fokker DR 1's, or Stukas make life on the ground hell ... literally.

[MrStupendous]

Welcome to the world of those guys fighting for Saddam Hussein, twice, against American led coalitions.

Uncontested air power, be it dragons, Fokker DR 1's, or Stukas make life on the ground hell ... literally.

exactly! if I am the DM no punks with bows are hitting those dragons....not even close

[Mara]

There are mass combat suggestions in the DMG. I would just play through the fight using those rules.

[Ketiara]

It could be fun to factor in the various fires all around the massive tent camp with panicked soldiers running round knocking tents into campfires and dropping torches etc. And once a fire gets going there has to be soldiers used to put those out, as they might create even more damage.

Just a thought.

[KorvinStarmast]

There are mass combat suggestions in the DMG. I would just play through the fight using those rules. Or the Unearthed Arcana 'When Armis Clash" which now that I have reviewed it, is more meant for battles on the field than an air raid, so never mind.

[KorvinStarmast]

exactly! if I am the DM no punks with bows are hitting those dragons....not even close
Actually, longbowmen could be well within range once the dragon comes into breath range, but will they shoot or run?

Most would run, depending upon how dragon fear is adjudicated by the DM.

Further the other point, from the OP's remarks, this is a low magic setting and apparently, the army about to be subject to death from above will hot have trained against flying enemies such as dragons.

This scenario is dealing with what amounts to technological surprise here. See what happened to the Union ships in Hampton Roads when the Merrimac showed up during the Civil War. They got sunk. What happened in Ethiopia when Italian planes appeared and began bombing(1935)? Didn't go well.

The more I think of it, the less I think this ought to be gamed out. The army will be routed/dispersed, the only thing to roll for is how many rally and how long it takes before they press on ... or, if finding that the opposing force has such a nuke available, this army/kingdom doesn't abandon the campaign altogether.

[1Forge]

well these dragons would be devistating at first killing about 36 soldiers in the first round (assuming they are all clumped together, the dragons start with a breath attack, and that all soldiers in the breath attack die) And assuming all the melee have at least chain mail and a shield when they scatter and find cover it will be harder. Templars with holy anything will do extra damage to dracoliches (they're undead) also soldiers will have a hard time closing with swords so some will probobly have to try to pin the beasts with nets & spears. the largest disadvantage the army will have is that the dragons will probobly stick to the air, the archers will help, but without some siege weapons or ranged spellcasters they have no chance.

Assuming they ground the dragons early, and templars deal holy damage like paladins then the dragons will lose quickly, but if they stay airborn and take out the holy infantry first then they will last much longer, possibly even winning. You'll have to determine how long it will take the army to disable the dragons wings, after that you just calculate how much damage the dragons will deal on average and multiply it by the turns they have till they die (and same for the army) I dont have the MM tjhough so i dont know the stats.

The key is how long will it take to ground 3 dragons?

[MrStupendous]

Actually, longbowmen could be well within range once the dragon comes into breath range, but will they shoot or run?

Most would run, depending upon how dragon fear is adjudicated by the DM.

Further the other point, from the OP's remarks, this is a low magic setting and apparently, the army about to be subject to death from above will hot have trained against flying enemies such as dragons.

This scenario is dealing with what amounts to technological surprise here. See what happened to the Union ships in Hampton Roads when the Merrimac showed up during the Civil War. They got sunk. What happened in Ethiopia when Italian planes appeared and began bombing(1935)? Didn't go well.

The more I think of it, the less I think this ought to be gamed out. The army will be routed/dispersed, the only thing to roll for is how many rally and how long it takes before they press on ... or, if finding that the opposing force has such a nuke available, this army/kingdom doesn't abandon the campaign altogether.

I agree with everything except the notion that dragons would have to even use their breath attack....until cleaning up possibly.....its silly to be uncontested in the air and able to drop anything you want from above and yet get into longbow range unless you've already done most of the damage and routed the enemy already

[1Forge]

I agree with everything except the notion that dragons would have to even use their breath attack....until cleaning up possibly.....its silly to be uncontested in the air and able to drop anything you want from above and yet get into longbow range unless you've already done most of the damage and routed the enemy already

The problem is they can only hold so many boulders or barrels (or explosives) at a time, also after the first volley (which would only be able to kill 30-40 combined) the army would scatter into nearby woods, or rock shelf. While they would be scattered for a few days most of them would escape and eventually re-group.

by opening with an air ranged attack but staying low enough to corrall the army, it prevents them from fleeing.

[georgie_leech]

The problem is they can only hold so many boulders or barrels (or explosives) at a time, also after the first volley (which would only be able to kill 30-40 combined) the army would scatter into nearby woods, or rock shelf. While they would be scattered for a few days most of them would escape and eventually re-group.

by opening with an air ranged attack but staying low enough to corrall the army, it prevents them from fleeing.

A few days wherein they're pinned down and not on the offensive, giving time for reinforcements to arrive, sabotages to be made, or even for prominent leaders to be assassinated. If any groups break away to flee, they can be attacked much more safely than the entire army at once, whittling the army down. And if they regroup, the Dragons can just do it all again. Air superiority is kind of a big deal in war.

[MrStupendous]

The problem is they can only hold so many boulders or barrels (or explosives) at a time, also after the first volley (which would only be able to kill 30-40 combined) the army would scatter into nearby woods, or rock shelf. While they would be scattered for a few days most of them would escape and eventually re-group.

by opening with an air ranged attack but staying low enough to corrall the army, it prevents them from fleeing.

where are you getting nearby woods or rock shelves? that wasn't mentioned in the initial scenario

[Alejandro]

Instead of actually destroying the army, the dracoliches, etc might do better to destroy its ability to fight (as some probably already said.)

10,000+ soldiers need a lot of food, water, transport, and so on. If there are no spellcasters in the world other than a certain few, they can't use magic to provide these supplies, so if the dragons concentrate their destructive force on the army's supplies, especially given that each one is essentially an assault bomber in this situation, the army will be in dire straits pretty quickly. If they can cause some disease to break out in the camp (maybe with the Mummy Lord's help) it will get even worse.

[Demonic Spoon]

How much time do the dragons have? Their main advantage is in their mobility.

I'd imagine they could just swoop in at an inopportune time - such as when the majority of the soldiers are sleeping, and drop some breath attacks. Even assuming that every soldier equips themselves and can shoot before the dragons fly away. Dragons fly off and mend their wounds with either magic or a short rest then come back.

It would take awhile to kill the whole army, but it would be very safe for the dragons and morale would break long before all the soldiers were dead.

[-Jynx-]

The problem is they can only hold so many boulders or barrels (or explosives) at a time, also after the first volley (which would only be able to kill 30-40 combined) the army would scatter into nearby woods, or rock shelf. While they would be scattered for a few days most of them would escape and eventually re-group.


Yes flee into the woods, where I can let my ensuing forest fire kill all of you.

Even better, file into a rock shelf where your numbers and ranged weapons count for nothing and let me breathe weapon you to a flesh heap.

Best soldier tactics 2015.

[1Forge]

where are you getting nearby woods or rock shelves? that wasn't mentioned in the initial scenario

Eh they were likely cover scenarios that the soldiers might find. And the deal with the smaller groups is that though they are easier to kill their harder to find, and if they re-group in a city the dragons cant do much (cities tend to have seige weapondry and archers)

While opening with some boulders could be handy, the dragons will have to sweep down to keep them from scattering (if they want to eradicte all of them, if not I guess they could just constantly scatter the army) But even if the dragons are content with routing an army of that size over and over again while causing less than optimal damage, the army will eventually learn and either A) bring something to challenge the dracolyches (I hear gold dragons are into helping paladins) or B) create some sort of strategem , machine, or magic to defend them. I guess what I'm trying to say is that they can rout them for a while to buy large amounts of time, and possibly destroy much of the army, but many (anywhere from 3/4 to 1/2) of the soldiers will escape, and that is still alot of soldiers the dragons could kill only so many before it became too difficult, and the templars re-grouped farther away and with a plan. Or they could open with boulders then swoop in with fire and lightinging corraling the army and killing the archers first, then flying out of sword range and destroy them with swooping dives and breath attacks.

[SharkForce]

one of the earlier posts indicate there are no gold dragons around to attack the dracoliches. and in fact, probably not many monsters in general; the world is described as being medieval earth for the most part. that would imply a shortage of winged monsters that have been tamed for army use, for example.

[Chadamantium]

As far as anyone knows (including the arcane broterhood) the PC's just killed the last remaining dragon (they gave the corpse to the lich queen in return for this "favour")

I had forgotten about the phylactory thing for sdracoliches. So it actually requires a corpse now? and doent just "reform" the body?

IIRC When a dracolich finds a new corpse to possess, he can either revert to his old dragon form or the new dragon. My dracolich kept his phylactory inside a vault containing various dragons he had killed himself.

What about siege weapons? I imagine that templars with bring some extreme range equipment, cannons if they have them, trebuchets, catapults, horse drawn towers to increases archer range plus tacticians to survey the battles. These would not necessarily turn the tide of battle in the army's favor but it's something to consider.

[MrStupendous]

Eh they were likely cover scenarios that the soldiers might find. And the deal with the smaller groups is that though they are easier to kill their harder to find, and if they re-group in a city the dragons cant do much (cities tend to have seige weapondry and archers)

While opening with some boulders could be handy, the dragons will have to sweep down to keep them from scattering (if they want to eradicte all of them, if not I guess they could just constantly scatter the army) But even if the dragons are content with routing an army of that size over and over again while causing less than optimal damage, the army will eventually learn and either A) bring something to challenge the dracolyches (I hear gold dragons are into helping paladins) or B) create some sort of strategem , machine, or magic to defend them. I guess what I'm trying to say is that they can rout them for a while to buy large amounts of time, and possibly destroy much of the army, but many (anywhere from 3/4 to 1/2) of the soldiers will escape, and that is still alot of soldiers the dragons could kill only so many before it became too difficult, and the templars re-grouped farther away and with a plan. Or they could open with boulders then swoop in with fire and lightinging corraling the army and killing the archers first, then flying out of sword range and destroy them with swooping dives and breath attacks.

I'm sorry but the original post said nothing about terrain so the part about likely cover scenarios is just you making things up...the dragons get to pick and choose when to hit the army.

It is just as likely that the army will have to cross miles of open terrain.....how long does it take an infantry based army to cross open terrain? The dragons can drop whatever they like that entire time. If the army scatters it is going to lose its effectiveness as...well...an army. If it is scattered to the four winds it isn't going to be building some kind of anti-dragon war machines.That army is supposed to be going somewhere and attacking...any time that it stops and has to do anything except progress towards its goal is a LOSS for the army and a WIN for the dragons' side.

[Nifft]

What about siege weapons? I imagine that templars with bring some extreme range equipment, cannons if they have them, trebuchets, catapults, horse drawn towers to increases archer range plus tacticians to survey the battles. These would not necessarily turn the tide of battle in the army's favor but it's something to consider. Good call on siege weapons.

I think that trebuchets and catapults would not be very useful against a moving target, but ballistas are a plausible threat.

[Mellack]

Siege weapons are difficult to transport and set up. They would likely be dismantled for travel, meaning they would be destroyed in any attack on the baggage, and probably be abandoned by fleeing troops. This is if they were planning for siege weapons at all. If they we planning for an open field battle rather than fighting a castle they may decide to skip the expense. Also assuming they were not planning to build them on site, as was often done.

[1Forge]

I'm sorry but the original post said nothing about terrain so the part about likely cover scenarios is just you making things up...the dragons get to pick and choose when to hit the army.

It is just as likely that the army will have to cross miles of open terrain.....how long does it take an infantry based army to cross open terrain? The dragons can drop whatever they like that entire time. If the army scatters it is going to lose its effectiveness as...well...an army. If it is scattered to the four winds it isn't going to be building some kind of anti-dragon war machines.That army is supposed to be going somewhere and attacking...any time that it stops and has to do anything except progress towards its goal is a LOSS for the army and a WIN for the dragons' side.

Yes true but the issue is that these soldiers will be trained to meet at a rondevue point in case of routing, and while many would die and the dragons could attack over grassy feilds they would still have to come down sometime to prevent the army from fleeing to far and scattering to thin to eradicate, and while this will grab them weeks of time eventually those survivors will get help.

And also if the army scatters It would become to difficult to use boulders effectively, thats why you scatter them a bit with boulders (enough that they start routing) then swoop closer encirclining the terrified soldiers (who might no longer put up a rallyd fight in fear) wher they finish with high speed swooping that drops the survivors form hundreds to fiftys. Also the dracolyches cant be killed anyway because they'll just re grow at the phylactery. As long as one stays alive and routs them the other two will have weeks to regen.

[Archonitp]

Well lets work it out, lets say a tent is 10' by 10' and houses 2 soldiers and their gear. A 200 soldier brigade would need 100 tents, space each tent 5 feet apart and that brigade would need an area 10 tents by 10 tents or 145 feet by 145 feet. Maybe then a larger command tent with 2 of the paladins in it.

You then need 500 of these brigades to form your army of 10,000 with 1000 paladins. Lets say you arranged them in groups 25 across and 20 deep and separated each by a 20 feet for supply carts and troops movements. Then that area would be about 4200 feet by 3300 feet, not allowing for extra spaces for camp fires and mess tents and things.

I am away from book so I don't know the fly speed, but it could take you a couple of rounds to fly across the whole thing, and you may get several breath attacks off before the alarm reaches the side you are flying to.

Until they form up and get organized I would say you are never simultaneously in the range of more than 4 brigades and usually no more than 1 or 2, with only the paladins likely to hit you in flight.

I would expect you may be able to get 2-3 fly-bys before there was a real threat to your destruction. Once organized into fighting units I would not engage and either stay out of range of the mustered troops and just destroy the camp in other areas or flee.

CAMP SIZE
Hi guys! I have no familiarity with 5.0 but I love large scale problems / scenarios like these. This isn't meant to be a definitive answer, but it at least gets the OP a little closer to maybe what he's looking for. So I am just going to throw out how I would analyze this and maybe it helps people who know the system even better tweak the analysis and narrow down on the accuracy.

I really like what tieren did here (quoted above), but there was one BIG miscalculation. Keeping with the 200 man brigades in 2 man tents, that gives 100 tents per brigade in a 10x10 alignment taking up 145 feet. The difference though is that 5 brigades of 200 is a 1,000 man unit and the army would have 10 of those units (10x5=50 brigades, not 500 brigades).

So rather than lining them up in a 20x25 alignment, I just assumed a 5x10 line (though a 7x7=49, close to square if you wanted it tight). I am continuing with the exclusion of the mess tents & camp fires, ect, though space was given for supply carts.
5x10 brigade arrangement = 805x1630 foot camp
7x7 brigade arrangement + 1 = 1135x1135 foot camp + 145x145

The main difference is that this camp would take up 5% of a square mile and not 50% of a square mile. That makes a huge difference in the reactionary time it would take to form up into meaningful units. Basically a 1/4 mile by a 1/4 mile camp.

BRIGADE COMPOSITION
Next thing to take into account is brigade composition. You said your army was roughly 1000 Knights Templar (KT) and the rest just templar (~9000). Assuming an even distribution between brigades, that would mean 20 KT per brigade and roughly half of those carrying crossbows (another poster had said something about this, I am not sure if it was a clarification from the OP or not, but if all of the KT have crossbows, simply double my avg dmg to dragon numbers). If a dragon was attacking a brigade in the middle of camp, each of the 8 surrounding brigades would be within lethal range (8+1) x 10 = 90 paladins capable of attacking a dragon per round. Assuming 20% of those hit (17-20), that's 13.5 normal hits and 4.5 crits. =13.5x5.5+4.5*11 that's an estimated 124 damage on average per round (per dragon) once the CLOSE KTs assemble enough to start firing.

There would also be around 410 KT not in "close" range, but many of those may also have another dragon that is closer to them, so let's say that 3 groups of 90 KT (270 of the 500) are attacking each of the dragons at close range (once mustered) and they are all well spread out (so a localized attack never takes out more than a few of them). That leaves 230 KT spread out and attacking at a longer range (within 400, my thought is they hold their shots for a dragon to fly within 150, otherwise they are risking friendly-fire for a very unlikely hit)... that's 76.7 KT attacking each dragon at a long range, because they are disadvantaged, only 3 could be expected to hit, maybe an extra 13.5 damage to each dragon if all of the 230 KT were attacking at long range, but that would also mean 227 more bolts possibly coming down on allies each volley, so more likely to kill an ally than hit a dragon.

So if every KT fired in a round, I would assume an average damage of 124 to each dragon. Now that does not take into account frightful presence, but I don't have the information to crunch the numbers on what % of the paladins will fail that save. Because they have advantage against fear though, I would assume it is safe to say it is a small population.

The Templar however would be attacking in numbers 9 times greater than the KT, however they are severely limited in range (trying to hit a dragon in flight, with a thrown spear that at best your are throwing about 60 feet). That means they would have to be within 12 squares in order to attack (the "in-range" box would be a 25x25 square centered around the dragon, area of 625 total squares, so at most that many templar, but likely less than half of that b/c of tents, etc). Now attacking at that range they are disadvantaged (almost all of the attacks will miss). Plus, if they are throwing spears like that at the dragon... they will destroy themselves with all the missed shots.

So let's just assume that those templars will not throw if over 20 feet away, so at most you'd have 81 firing (9x9 box centered around dragon) and only ~4 of those hitting for about 18 damage, assuming they weren't frightened, assuming every square contained one of them.

MY CONCLUSION
Without the KT, the regular templar would be 100% slaughtered by the dragons even if they tightly formed into an army and prepared for the dragons (that is not even taking into account the terror they will be in from the frightful presence).

Due to the lack of meaningful ranged weapons (spears with range of 20, they can do almost nothing to the dragons, at range of 60 you have a couple hundred throwing, but still only an extreme few hitting, the rest would be raining spears on their allies!!!). Also, I did not see you state it anywhere, but how many spears do they carry? Spears as a method of ranged attack is just thoroughly unreliable for an army like this, as this fight will demonstrate. (An army of 6-8k archers with 2-4k fighters, mixed 50/50 pikemen and swordsmen, would shred this army). I imagine that after word of this fight makes it around, the economy will change significantly for fletchers (bows being in much higher demand).

If every man in this army had a bow or crossbow, they would probably suffer some friendly-fire casualties, but the dragons would all be brought-to-ground in a manner of seconds (1-3 rounds). The only saving grace for this army is the Knight Templar carrying crossbows. The dracoliches advantage here is surprise and the lack of preparedness of the army to deal with dragons. As such, I think they would get in several rounds of fly-by attacks as the alarm is raised. If a knight-templar was sleeping in his tent, how long would it take him to wake up out of his bedroll (to the sound of alarm, screaming, chaos, etc), then peek out to see what is going on, the there is still the chance that some of them will panic, then they have to get out their crossbow and quiver and load them before they even begin to threaten the dragons. Do they sleep in their armor? If not, do they pull it on before they rush out?

I don't have military discipline, but to wake from a dead sleep to doing all of that, I would estimate somewhere between 5-10 rounds until the paladins start offering any meaningful resistance. However, once you rule the majority of them are up (and firing a crossbow every turn at the nearest dragon), it should only take them 1 turn to repel the dragons (each of which would be leaving around half life). Also, from the time the dragons fly in, how long does it take to sound an alarm loud enough that everyone within a quartermile is woken up? A yell probably wouldn't suffice. I mean, they probably have some lookouts, but what if those lookouts suffer from frightful presence?

So then you just have to figure out how much damage the dragons could do in that amount of time. Now the other thing to take into account is that the dragons will cause massive panic among the common soldiers. Many may cower on the ground in sheer terror. Some will flee. Those that flee would be easy pickings for the dragons once they retreat from attacking the main camp.

ESTIMATE
My best estimate formula = Dragons (D=3) x Rounds (R) x Avg Kills/rd (K) = Dmg

I would estimate at least 5-10 rounds of surprise before resistance is mounted, and then 1-2 turns to chase them off, maybe 1-2 turns before the alarm is raised.

D=3, R=5, K=5 = 75
D=3, R=5, K=10 = 150
D=3, R=5, K=20 = 300
D=3, R=5, K=50 = 750
D=3, R=5, K=100 = 1500

D=3, R=10, K=5 = 150
D=3, R=10, K=10 = 300
D=3, R=10, K=20 = 600
D=3, R=10, K=50 = 1500
D=3, R=10, K=100 = 3000

D=3, R=14, K=5 = 210
D=3, R=14, K=10 = 420
D=3, R=14, K=20 = 840
D=3, R=14, K=50 = 2100
D=3, R=14, K=100 = 4200

That is the estimated amount of templar that the dragons could kill in a surprise attack before being chased off, however, they would be able to destroy hundreds more that fled without hardly any risk to themselves.

Someone else can do a little analysis for you on the lethality of the dragon's breath weapon. But that's my thought process. One poster said that the white & green dragons can each hit up to 144 but the blue could only hit 18. If that is true, I would assume them killing 100 per round to be a bit on the high side and maybe 50 is closer to a good average. Also, the white dragon was tasked with destroying their supplies, so he may kill fewer units than the other dragons. So my conclusion would be that they could kill somewhere between 1k & 2k templar in camp. Plus several hundred (or maybe thousands more) of those fleeing from the camp, depending upon how/where they flee (run in every direction? rally? terrain?).

But how are the supplies stored? Is there a supply caravan on the outside of camp? In the middle of camp? Does each brigade have its own supply wagon (makes it easier to split up the army into smaller divisions if that is deemed tactically wise)? Because if all the supplies were in one place, the white dragon could very quickly destroy the vast majority of them.

Also to take into account is the damage that will be done to the army outside of just morale, templar lives, & supplies. Horses will also be killed and a lot more tents will go up in flames than people dying too (probably).

OTHER FACTORS
I saw another poster comment on this, but if the army was composed as I theorized above, the Knight Templar portion would be so well spread out that the dragons could not meaningfully eradicate that population. They are just 1 man in 10 and spread out throughout the army (as opposed to 1 elite unit of 1000). However, if they were 1 elite unit of 1000, and the dragons attacked on them first (they wouldn't likely know which tents were theirs), they could thin those ranks quickly and the threat to the dragons because almost non-existent. Also, they could just simply avoid that group, and at long rang, they would still be able to attack 70-80% of the camp and those crossbow bolts would fall on allies more often than dragons most likely.

I saw another poster comment on this, and I think it is a HUGE point. One thing that could play a major factor into this combat is if the dracoliches had spells. I don't know if they do in 5.0 (or specifically in the OP's world), but even with a level 1 shield spell, if it could increase their AC by +2, that would cut in half the amount of crossbow bolts the dragons were hit by, so they would only be taking 74.25 damage per round instead of 124. That would allow them to fight a little longer, and that would just be a level 1 spell. I am sure there are lots of other shenanigans that could be arranged. Level 2 blur would give them even more time. Level 3 wind wall could also give them more time. The Dracoliches don't need spells for damage, they just need to reduce the effectiveness of the hail of bolts they will eventually be getting in order to increase their effectiveness.

AFTERMATH
The army will be in chaos. The common soldiers will be terrified. Thousands of friends dead when 3 mythological creatures appear out of nowhere. They didn't even kill one! (most likely). Many of their tents are burned, their supplies are devastated. Even many of the horses of the knights are dead or dying. There are no "healers" around to deal with the injured (most of the templar will die from dragons, but the knight templar hit will just be left charred, screaming in pain).

There are still a lot of variables I have not addressed, so your situation will have to determine or justify the results, but I would say it would be easy for them to kill 1000 and destroy the majority of the supplies (if they were all in one place). I think it is more likely they kill 2000-3000, and if they get greedy or have spell support, they could probably kill in the 4000-6000 range... and that is just the damage they will do in camp. Many will flee and those are easy fodder.

One other thought... some of the templar may rally enough to try throwing spears. But there will be hundreds of KT's shooting bolts, of which 80% will miss. Besides the dragons killing 1-6 thousand... I wouldn't be surprised if the sunrise revealed a couple hundred (or maybe even around 1000) people dead with spears or crossbow bolts sticking out of their chests, necks, heads, arms, backs, etc... at an upward angle. What does that do for morale?

Plus now they need to pack up and move camp. How fast do they do that? I mean... do they pack up all the tents and salvage what supplies are left? Do they bury the dead? Do they burn them? Do they loot them for their gold & weapons & armor? Or do they just leave them there for the next band of theives and highwaymen to loot enough steel to arm and army? While there are some rational decisions that could be made... how much of that is affected by the terror and morale of the army and even just the threat of the dragons returning. How far is the army from the nearest city / fort? Are they in friendly territory or do they have a long march? How many men do they post on guard? Do they give the crossbows from dead KTs to some lesser men? (Not nearly as many, but some KTs will die and many will be left injured).

[tieren]

Good catch

Sorry for the miscalculation OP.

[1Forge]

Gotta say arch that is some serious dedication and math. Remember though that most soldiers will wear no armour and might not have weapons while traveling, or at night. It will take them a few rounds to organize a real threat. Also If the blue dragon hits the individual units oil or alchohol supplies fire would explode from them adding to the casualties.

But really excellent work on the math and the theorys on the armys response.

[Archonitp]

Gotta say arch that is some serious dedication and math. Remember though that most soldiers will wear no armour and might not have weapons while traveling, or at night. It will take them a few rounds to organize a real threat. Also If the blue dragon hits the individual units oil or alchohol supplies fire would explode from them adding to the casualties.

But really excellent work on the math and the theorys on the armys response.

Thanks for the compliment on my work! I really do enjoy these kinds of problems. Like, trying to take the game mechanics and model how things would work on a grand scale is actually fun to me. (I don't do that for a job persay, but what I do is similar enough that there is a lot of skill overlap).

I once spent a couple days modeling out (using excel, with which I am fluent) how a disease would affect an entire city's population when used as a biological weapon in one of the games I am running. The town had a population of ~168k, and I broke that up into 3 sub-populations (soldiers, militant townsfolk & non-militant) and came up with average stats for each group, and ran the disease modeled out on a timeline daily with some crazy formulas. If that kind of work really interests anyone, shoot me a PM with you email and I would love to share my excel doc and talk about my calculation, or for a more brief overview, you can see "The Gray Slug (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/The_Gray_Slug_(4e_Disease))" info I published online to share with everyone. The conclusion was I killed off about 60% of the capital city of the empire... (and I did not tweak the diseases DC or checks once I started modeling it or after). Basically it turned into Cholera. But I liked the idea of modeling it and if it had only killed 20% or had killed 80%, I would have dealt with that in game as need be. Part of me wanted to say "This is what happened, because it makes sense." Rather than saying, "This is what happened, because I said so." For that same reason, I consulted with a friend who is a doctor regarding the disease, how it would work biologically (what it would attack, how it would be fought off, the symptoms, cause of death, etc). That was 6-8 months ago or so and was a super fun project. And my PC's really enjoyed it. The only problem is they all keep wanting to bring more of their friends into the game and the party is getting big. Anyway... here's a toast to all the awesome DM's InThePlayground!

I enjoyed working on the OP's scenario and did the best I could with the info I had. I tried to ask a lot of questions in my post that would help the OP think through some of the remaining variables, but I am proud of the answer I gave and think of it as a good starting point. (If it were my project, I would consider the work ~50% complete and just make small tweaks here and there).

Anyway... if the OP comes back and answers all the questions in my post with his preference on how things would go, I could make a few tweaks to my work, but I think there is enough there for him to go on now.

The other crazy thing to think about is that the dragons will be in camp somewhere from 10-30 turns... so that is several thousand soldier dying, in the middle of the night, to a surprise attack, somewhere in the 1-3 minute range. The dragons will be in, killing, and out in less than 5 minutes, possibly killing anywhere from 2-8k. While this whole interaction will be fun, I like the thoughts on the aftermath even more. This is definitely a game changing event for that world.

[Mith]

The scary thing about your analysis Archotip, is that you didn't even take the Mummy Lord into account. He could potentially take out some of the KTs surrounding the one dragon, making it even more to the dragon's favour.

[HoarsHalberd]

A big problem with the math presented is it seems to assume Dragons can breath attack every round. Whereas their breath recharges on a 5-6.

So the average turn structure will be attacking with their breath once every 3 rounds.

If they want to do anything else they run the risk of landing, or swooping in, attacking, and proccing the mother of all opportunity attack swarm on the flyby.

So if they last 15 turns and kill an average of 50 people every breath attack. You're looking at 150*5 for 750.

[SanguisAevum]

Just wanted to say I am still around and reading all your replies with interest.

On holiday in Spain at the mo so will respond properly when I am back home.

[PoeticDwarf]

If the dragons use their breath, and the soldiers are guards, like 500 soldiers or more can be destroyd easily, without their breath weapons they become weaker, and all those ranged attack rolls are hurting the dragons even with the high AC they get each 50 damage per round at least. So maybe 1000 soldiers are destroyed at the end.

[Archonitp]

A big problem with the math presented is it seems to assume Dragons can breath attack every round. Whereas their breath recharges on a 5-6.

So the average turn structure will be attacking with their breath once every 3 rounds.

If they want to do anything else they run the risk of landing, or swooping in, attacking, and proccing the mother of all opportunity attack swarm on the flyby.

So if they last 15 turns and kill an average of 50 people every breath attack. You're looking at 150*5 for 750.

Thanks for pointing that out (I was unaware of the frequency with which the dragons could use their breath attacks). So the 750 kills is a good conservative kill number.

As Mith pointed out, that analysis is giving no credit to anything the Mummy Lord could do which may reduce the effectiveness of the KT resistance.
Also, that 750 is assuming no spells from the Dracoliches. Which the OP has yet to clarify if they have any casting.
But even if the 750 conservative figure is all you use for the raid on the camp, there is still the rout that will happen with all those fleeing when the dragon turn away from the camp. And that could mean a lot more. So there is still a lot of wiggle room.

So the most conservative of assumptions would probably be around 1,000 dead.

[SharkForce]

Thanks for pointing that out (I was unaware of the frequency with which the dragons could use their breath attacks). So the 750 kills is a good conservative kill number.

As Mith pointed out, that analysis is giving no credit to anything the Mummy Lord could do which may reduce the effectiveness of the KT resistance.
Also, that 750 is assuming no spells from the Dracoliches. Which the OP has yet to clarify if they have any casting.
But even if the 750 conservative figure is all you use for the raid on the camp, there is still the rout that will happen with all those fleeing when the dragon turn away from the camp. And that could mean a lot more. So there is still a lot of wiggle room.

So the most conservative of assumptions would probably be around 1,000 dead.

plus a bunch of other casualties (relatively few wounded in the panic due to being trampled, executed for cowardice, or beaten up for trying to execute someone for cowardice, etc, and a heck of a lot missing, some of whom have no intention of ever coming back to face the dragons again but many of which will ultimately want to return).

and a severe battering of their morale after a total rout like that.

[Doug Lampert]

Is collective power more potent than individual excellence? (This is generally how the real world works: the larger army usually wins, and exceptions like Sparta at Thermopylae are famous because they are exceptions.)Um, the Spartans lost at Thermopylae. The Greek histories are pretty clear on this.

Their assigned mission was to hold the pass. The Spartan military survey had said, "That will take 25,000 men, there are too many ways to bypass the main pass for fewer to hold all the points that need to be held, oh, and it's pointless unless the navy can hold our flank".

The assigned defending force was 10,000 men on land (300 of them Spartan citizens); and the combined naval force at sea. Only 40% of the men claimed to be necessary to attempt a serious defense.

The Persians went head on into the main fortifications for 3 days, that didn't work. They then bypassed via a side pass (as predicted).

As soon as the immortals were reported in the pass, the Spartan commander ordered everyone but the Spartans, Thebans, and Thracians to flee for their lives, which they did; and the Spartan force was destroyed to the third from the last man (two men from the force survived the battle, one later committed suicide out of shame, the other was held to have largely redeemed himself for living at Platea where the Persians actually were defeated).

[Nifft]

The Persians went head on into the main fortifications for 3 days, that didn't work.

That's exactly the victory to which I refer.

Obviously, it didn't save them, but it was something of an achievement.

[Doug Lampert]

That's exactly the victory to which I refer.

Obviously, it didn't save them, but it was something of an achievement.

A three day delay is only a victory if delay is a win or costs the other side something significant or gains something significant for your side. The Greeks did nothing with the extra three days, the cost to the Persians was so negligible that the Greek historians glorifying the Greek defense make not a single mention of the number of Persian casualties at the pass or in the assaults. We can reasonably assume there were some, but the assaults were led by the Immortals, who were still at at least nominal strength and able to spearhead the successful assault on day four.

Taking three days to take out a significant fortification that the other side spent significant time and effort improving to get ready for you is not a defeat. Fortifications that are badly outnumbered routinely hold for longer than that.

The Alamo is a vastly better example (Mexican casualties were clearly much greater than the defending force's numbers, and the delay was of great use to Sam Houston and the Texas Convention).

[Nifft]

A three day delay is only a victory if delay is a win or costs the other side something significant or gains something significant for your side.

Well, they did get a movie deal out of it.