Jormengand
2016-01-17, 06:52 PM
Note: This guide, while made with 3.5 in mind, contains a lot of stuff which can be carried over into other systems. Also, this guide is written from the perspective of a player, but should also be useful for DMs who want to know how they can handle armies realistically. You might also try the Fields of Blood supplement if armies are likely to be a recurring theme in your campaign.
In a recent thread, a player was asking how to defeat an army of ten thousand orcs, led by three orc sorcerers, walking up to their walls and trying to lay siege to them. I gave them the best answer I could, but something else was nagging at my mind, namely, how did ten thousand orcs get to their walls under the guidance of just three commanders, who somehow managed to levy said ten thousand orcs, without anyone noticing?
This guide is for anyone who wants to try to get, maintain, and use an army, or anyone who is trying to fight an army, with or without one of their own.
Getting Your Army
"Why should we fight for you?"
The high priestess smiled at the foolish soldier. "Because the gods will it," she replied, "And you would not want to disappoint them, now, would you?" The bandit leader threw a bag of gold into the sergeant's hands. "Because I will keep you well fed and provided for these long months." The king looked at the challenger beneath him with eyes of fire. "Because it is your duty, and I will have the royal guard arrest anyone who attempts to rebel!" The warlord waved his hand across the barren village. "Because I come to take you to a new land, rich with plenty!" The mage waved his hand and suddenly the question was forgotten. The captain looked at the assembled soldiers, sick of war and sicker of elves. "Because the elves have betrayed us for the last time!" The desperate adventurer pointed at the hills. "Because if we don't work together, the giants will kill us all!"
Soldiers don't just fight because hey, they're soldiers, that's what soldiers do! Further, they aren't going to fight for you and follow your orders just because you say so. You need some kind of motivation, or some kind of magic to force them. Offering to murder anyone who fails to comply is a possibility, but honestly, you may need something better than that if you want to get an army.
Of course, in D&D, summoning, raising or calling an army is a possible option, but none of these lack their drawbacks. Summoning spells are short in duration, and even if you spend all your spell slots using divine metamagic: persist to create a small contingent of them (which is also actually illegal due to the variable range), it won't stand up to any kind of army that you couldn't have fought yourself. Calling spells tend only to bring one creature at a time, and it is hard to get enough to call an army. Raising an army of undead is impractical because of the hit die limit: a single cleric is unlikely to get anything he can really call an army, and worse, they're probably more expensive than human soldiers.
It's usually easier to take control of an existing army, or existing people to form a new army. Use of the diplomacy skill to make them more receptive to offers and then giving them something to fight for, and possibly lobbing the odd suggestion that they might fight for it, is a good start. A good question to ask is "Why do I want to fight for this, and who else has the same interests?" If you're a typical D&D hero, trying to save the world (or a significant portion of it) from some undesirable fate, you already have a certain level of leverage over the inhabitants of said world (or said portion). If you're in service to the king, who else is loyal to the king? If you want to give the evil overlord's butt a good kicking, who else hates the evil overlord?
Gold is always a possibility, but people have this odd tendency to want more of it. If you have something like True Creation and a way to mitigate the massive XP loss (The psionic version has 1/5 of the XP cost), or if you want to abuse wall of salt, or use the rules on selling your spells for a surprisingly good amount of money, then you can probably get enough to justify it. Ditto if you use craft (poisonmaking) which gives you profit ten times as fast as any other type of crafting because progress is measured in GP, not SP.
Of course, another question you can ask is "What is there that I either have or am about to have that I don't and won't need?" For example, if there's a city full of people you don't like the existence of but you don't actually have time for a city right now, going to a town with an overpopulation problem and offering to help them move into a new city might easily be a possibility.
Very rarely do you actually need a specific group of people to help you. If you can't get an army in one place, try again somewhere else.
Classes, Skills, Feats and Spells that help you here:
The best abilities are in purple. Excellent abilities are in blue. Good abilities are in green. Spells you might want to consider are in black. Skills, feats and spells worse than this aren't listed, though there's a possibility that you might be able to use some of them. Red classes are inadvisable. If the usage of a feat, skill or spell might not be clear, a small description is provided.
Classes
Adept (You have a couple of the right spells, a few of the right skills. Nothing to write home about)
Aristocrat (All the right skills in the right places and nothing to back it up)
Barbarian (Skill list is godawful, no social ability, and not enough skill points to rectify this).
Bard (Pretty much your entire character is set up for this. You have all the right spells, most of the right skills, and some neat class features to back you up).
Cleric (Good spells, use domains to back yourself up where you lack skills)
Commoner (None of the right skills, nothing else backing you up)
Druid (Spells, but slightly odd ones. Skills leave much to be desired but diplomacy is on there).
Expert (Choose any skills you need, and enough skill points to handle it.)
Fighter (Much as barbarian. Possible saving grace is that fighter bonus feats mean that you can spend your FBFs on what you'd normally spend your level up feats on, and spend your level up feats doing something useful. Another possible saving grace inasmuch as you look like the kind of person who can lead an army, even though you can't really).
Monk (Craft, Diplomacy, Perform and Sense Motive on someone with the skill points to spend on them. That's about it. Tongue of the Sun and Moon is potentially useful, and Quivering Palm can be a risk that a ruler can't afford to take, but they come online too late.)
Paladin (Decent skills, a few of the right spells, and a big "I'm good, trust me" sign above your head, plus the fact that everyone mysteriously feels braver when you're about can't hurt. Also Command Animals Of Its Kind is a mildly amusing ability, and useful if you need a few spare horses.)
Ranger (A few of the right skills and spells, and enough spare skill points to sink into cross-class skills)
Psion (Telepath) (Good power list, good skill list with telepath; decent enough with seer or shaper, acceptable with others.)
Psychic Warrior (Bad skills; can't see a useful power on its list)
Rogue (Many skills! Now, handle it! Skill mastery isn't bad.)
Sorcerer (Good spells, bluff is on your skill list)
Soulknife (I think they just forgot to make this class good at anything. I was about to say "Anything that isn't combat", but it's bad at that, too).
Warrior (I just want to take a moment to point out that the warrior is actually even worse than the commoner. Good job, warrior, you have a terrible skill list and you should feel terrible.)
Wilder (Good skills, but not enough powers to be amazingly useful. Possibly green if you build for it.)
Wizard (Good spells, enough skill points for cross-class skills).
A few other classes that bear mentioning
Fiendbinder (A godawful class and I don't recommend it, but if you're feeling cheesy, the capstone has no duration. What does this mean? It means 1d6 randomly apparent demons every day, that don't go away until they die. Amass your army of random demons and take over the world! Sorta...)
Fiend of Blasphemy (You get to form a cult, but until fourth level the cultists don't actually have anything coercing them to do what you say. The ritual to get cultists is also time-consuming.)
Sublime Chord (You get loads of good bard, sorcerer and wizard spells).
Thrallherd (You lose two manifesting levels over the course of ten - or one over the course of nine, though the capstone is worth it - and get an army).
Truenamer (The capstone is gate. Consider for a 20th-level campaign, otherwise give it a miss. Note that conjunctive gate has a 1 minute duration but can be extended, and you need to heighten it to use more than one at once. One at a time is probably enough, though, since is practically an army on its own.)
Ur Priest (You get cleric casting fast. Of course it's worth it)
Skills
Appraise (How much is this thing I'm offering you really worth?)
Bluff (Maybe even better than diplomacy; convince people they have something to fight for.)
Craft (For money)
Diplomacy
Disguise
Forgery (Downside is that you'll probably quickly be discovered.)
Gather Information (Necessary if you want to know what people fight for)
Handle Animal (Possible army of animals? Not likely)
Knowledge (Most things) (You can probably find a use for the right knowledge.
Knowledge (Arcana, Dungeoneering, Psionics, The Planes) (Less likely to be helpful, but knowledge is power. Also, that psion might be really impressed that you actually know about what she does, and trust you a bit more.)
Knowledge (Local, Nobility and Royalty) (These are usually the real kickers as far as knowledge is concerned)
Perform (Use to make money if C (Poisonmaking) isn't allowed; easy to develop a reputation)
Sense motive (Good for not getting backstabbed)
Feats
Augment Summoning (Not a great deal of spells worth using this with, but it's there for the ones that are)
Brew/Craft/Forge/Scribe X (Someone might want a specific item, but unlikely)
Body Fuel (Useful if you have a way to recover from burn but no more useful than usual)
Delay Power (Might be useful in some cases)
Extend Spell (Some spells that take control of people, also a few useful summons. Surprisingly decent slot adjustment.)
Expanded Knowledge (Blue if grabbing up telepath powers)
Greater Spell Focus
Improved Familiar (Some of them can commune, which might be useful. If you and two friends grab formian workers, they can make whole at will)
Improved Psicrystal
Jack of All Trades (Not actually a good feat, but sometimes useful if you end up needing an unexpected skill)
Leadership (Free army)
Negotiator
Open Minded (For those who don't have many skill points and have feats to burn. Fighter, I'm looking at you.)
Overchannel (You don't need those hit points, you're not in combat.)
Persuasive
Psicrystal Affinity
Psionic Talent
Silent Spell (Useful to pretend you didn't cast spell)
Spell Focus
Still Spell
Twin Power (Make your power harder to resist)
A few other feats that bear mentioning
There are so many feats floating about that this list doesn't even claim to be comprehensive.
Irresistible spell
Undead Leadership
Spells
Bard 0-level
Ghost Sound (More convincing lies)
Mending (Possible Service)
Prestidigitation (Can provide minor services and make the travelling more tolerable by cleaning equipment)
Bard 1st
Charm Person
Disguise Self
Hypnotism
Silent Image (More convincing lies)
Undetectable Alignment
Bard 2nd
Alter Self
Calm Emotions
Eagle's Splendour
Enthrall
Minor Image
Suggestion
Bard 3rd
Charm Monster
Geas, Lesser
Glibness
Major Image
Speak With Animals (Possible that animals may agree to fight)
Bard 4th
Dominate Person
Modify Memory (Creative use to make someone think you've paid them already)
Speak with Plants
Bard 5th
Dream (Possible to make a creature believe that you are important if you appear in their dreams)
Persistent Image
Bard 6th
GeasCleric 0-level
Create Water (Easily good payment in a drought, during a cholera outbreak, or just if people are fed up of mud in their water.)
Cure minor wounds (Good for making death seem less likely. Not so good for making it actually less likely.)
Mending (Possible service)
Cleric 1st
Cure Light Wounds
Cleric 2nd
Calm Emotions
Cure Moderate Wounds
Eagle's Splendour
Enthrall
Make Whole (Possible service)
Lesser Restoration (Useful if population is suffering from aftereffects of disease)
Undetectable Alignment
Cleric 3rd
Animate Dead
Cure Serious Wounds
Remove X
Cleric 4th
Cure Critical Wounds
Giant Vermin (Because these last several minutes, and you have a decent level of control over them, they can be useful as a small army that costs nothing except some time spent bug catching)
Cleric 5th
Insect Plague (One of my personal favourites, these can provide you with a small army of invulnerable nasties with a couple of castings, and they last long enough to wipe out a horde of enemies. Not great against spellcasters with a decent loadout).
Mark of Justice (If you feel like being mean, you can set the curse to go off on anyone who refuses to fight for you.)
Raise Dead (Anyone important is going to owe you a big favour...)
Wall of Stone ("Tell you what, you fight for me and I'll give you a fortress.")
Cleric 6th
Create Undead (Note that you will need some way to command them, because they're not automatically under your control)
Planar Ally (By the time it has 12 HD, there's a chance that five or six of them will pretty much count as an "Army" anyway, as long as you can take the XP loss for doing that)
Quest
Cleric 7th
Control Weather (A threat or a payment, you choose)
Regenerate (Who wouldn't fight literally for an arm and a leg?)
Ressurection
Cleric 8th
Create Greater Undead (By this point, if you're careful, you don't even need to control the resulting undead in a coherent fashion).
Planar Ally, Greater
Cleric 9th
Gate (The called creatures will [I]always fight at least one battle for you, even if you don't pay anything! Except XP, but by this level you know how to get around that)
Miracle (Loads and loads of uses. The promise to protect a city from the next flood or earthquake it suffers is one thing, the promise to resurrect your entire army if they should die is quite another. Or, duplicate your choice of 8th-or-lower cleric spell or any 7th-or-lower spell for no XP cost, apparently even if the spell itself has an XP cost.)
Storm of Vengeance (The biggest threat going, but they won't thank you for it).Domain Powers
Animal Domain
Artifice Domain
Charm Domain
Knowledge Domain
Luck Domain (A pity that most of the spells it grants aren't amazing, but you will learn to love that re-roll after a few delicate negotiations).
Madness Domain (That wisdom boost for casting is mildly crazy whatever you're doing with it)
Plant Domain
Trickery Domain
War Domain (Soldiers fight harder for a lord with battle scars).
Domain (Not on cleric list) 1st
Charm: Charm person
Trickery: Disguise Self
Domain (Not on cleric list) 2nd
Artifice: Wood Shape (Possible service)
Charm: Calm Emotions
Knowledge: Detect Thoughts (What do you want, and will you betray me?)
Nobility: Enthrall
Domain (Not on cleric list) 3rd
Artifice: Stone Shape (Possible service)
Charm: Suggestion
Plant: Plant Growth (Amazingly good service, nothing to stop you stacking them to double production in three castings or triple it in six.)
Domain (Not on cleric list) 5th
Artifice: Fabricate (Craft things quickly)
Charm: Charm Monster
Domain (Not on cleric list) 7th
Scalykind: Creeping Doom (It's a higher-level version of Insect Plague)
Domain (Not on cleric list) 8th
Air and Weather: Whirlwind (The last word in threats)
Glory: Crown of Glory
Luck: Moment of Prescience (Get Guidance of the Avatar instead if it's available)
Domain (Not on cleric list) 9th
Air, Earth, Fire, Water: Elemental Swarm (A decently long-lived army of decent creatures.)
Plant: Shambler (A few castings will get you a small army.)Druid 0-level
Create Water (Easily good payment in a drought, during a cholera outbreak, or just if people are fed up of mud in their water.)
Cure minor wounds (Good for making death seem less likely. Not so good for making it actually less likely.)
Mending (Possible service)
Druid 1st
Charm Animal
Cure Light Wounds
Goodberry (Really easy to feed largeish numbers of people. The minor healing is neat too.)
Druid 2nd
Lesser Restoration (Useful if population is suffering from aftereffects of disease)
Wood Shape (Possible service)
Druid 3rd
Cure Moderate Wounds
Dominate Animal (Control an alpha?)
Plant Growth (Amazingly good service, nothing to stop you stacking them to double productivity with three of them)
Druid 4th
Cure Serious Wounds
Giant Vermin (Because these last several minutes, and you have a decent level of control over them, they can be useful as a small army that costs nothing except some time spent bug catching)
Reincarnate (Someone who wants to risk coming back as a bugbear will be thankful)
Druid 5th
Animal Growth (If you're careful, the fact you can't control them won't be an issue).
Cure critical wounds
Insect Plague (One of my personal favourites, these can provide you with a small army of invulnerable nasties with a couple of castings, and they last long enough to wipe out a horde of enemies. Not great against spellcasters with a decent loadout).
Druid 6th
Wall of Stone ("Tell you what, you fight for me and I'll make you a castle.")
Druid 7th
Creeping Doom (It's a higher level version of insect plague.)
Heal
Druid 8th
Whirlwind (The last word in threats)
Druid 9th
Elemental Swarm (A decently long-lived army of decent creatures.)
Regenerate (Who wouldn't fight literally for an arm and a leg?)
Shambler (A few castings will get you a small army.)
Storm of Vengeance (The biggest threat going, but they won't thank you for it).Sorcerer 0-level
Ghost Sound (More convincing lies)
Mending (Possible Service)
Prestidigitation (Can provide minor services and make the travelling more tolerable by cleaning equipment)
Sorcerer 1st
Charm Person
Disguise Self
Hypnotism
Mount (Spam it to summon a small army of horses)
Silent Image (More convincing lies)
Sorcerer 2nd
Alter Self
Eagle's Splendour
Minor Image
Suggestion
Sorcerer 3rd
Major Image
Speak With Animals (Possible that animals may agree to fight)
Sorcerer 4th
Animate Dead
Charm Monster
Geas, Lesser
Sorcerer 5th
Animal Growth (If you're careful, the fact you can't control them won't be an issue).
Dream (Possible to make a creature believe that you are important if you appear in their dreams)
Dominate Person
Fabricate (Craft things quickly)
Persistent Image
Wall of Stone ("Tell you what, you fight for me and I'll give you a fortress.")
Sorcerer 6th
(Lucubration) (If you're a wizard and think you might need another fifth, but don't know which one, this is for you)
Planar Binding (By the time it has 12 HD, there's a chance that five or six of them will pretty much count as an "Army" anyway, as long as you can control them.)
Wall of Iron (Standard Wall of Iron+Fabricate trick)
Sorcerer 7th
Control Weather (A threat or a payment, you choose)
Limited Wish
Sorcerer 8th
Charm Monster, Mass
Planar Binding, Greater
Sorcerer 9th
Dominate Monster
Gate (The called creatures will always fight at least one battle for you, even if you don't pay anything! Except XP, but by this level you know how to get around that)
WishPaladin 1st
Create Water (Easily good payment in a drought, during a cholera outbreak, or just if people are fed up of mud in their water.)
Cure Light Wounds (Makes death seem less likely)
Lesser Restoration (Useful if population is suffering from aftereffects of disease. Also oddly low spell level for you.)
Paladin 2nd
Eagle's Splendour
Undetectable alignment (Uhm, yes, Mr Evil Overlord, I am definitely, absolutely a blackguard)
Paladin 3rd
Cure Moderate Wounds
Remove X
Paladin 4th
Cure Serious Wounds
Mark of Justice (If you feel like being mean, you can set the curse to go off on anyone who refuses to fight for you. Since you're a paladin, you'll probably only be able to do this for a penal legion).Ranger 1st
Charm Animal
Ranger 2nd
Cure Light Wounds
Ranger 3rd
Cure Moderate Wounds
Plant Growth (Amazingly good service, nothing to stop you stacking them to double productivity with three of them)
Remove Disease
Ranger 4th
Animal Growth (If you're careful, the fact you can't control them won't be an issue).
Cure Serious Wounds
Other Spell Lists
Adept 0-level
Create Water (Easily good payment in a drought, during a cholera outbreak, or just if people are fed up of mud in their water.)
Cure minor wounds (Good for making death seem less likely. Not so good for making it actually less likely.)
Ghost Sound (More convincing lies)
Mending (Possible Service)
Adept 1st
Cure Light Wounds
Adept 2nd
Cure Moderate Wounds
Adept 3rd
Animate Dead
Cure Serious Wounds
Remove X
Adept 4th
Cure Critical Wounds
Adept 5th
Heal
Raise Dead (Anyone important is going to owe you a big favour...)
Wall of Stone ("Tell you what, you fight for me and I'll give you a fortress.")Assassin 1st
Disguise Self
Ghost Sound (More convincing lies)
Assassin 2nd
Alter Self
Undetectable Alignment
Assassin 4th
Glibness
Modify Memory (Creative use to make someone think you've paid them already)Blackguard All Levels
Cure X Wounds
Blackguard 2nd
Eagle's Splendour
A few other spells that bear mentioning
Sorcerer 9: Mind Rape
Maintaining Your Army
The army had been marching for three weeks, and already they had had enough. There wasn't enough food, there was nothing to do, and they were losing the will to fight. Nobody wanted to look at an orc, let alone fight one. The supplies that they were supposed to be getting hadn't arrived, and there was already infighting. The army would destroy itself before it ever reached its destination.
Suppose you've managed to get your army. We'll go easy on you and say you only need two hundred bog standard human soldiers. Not a massive army, true, but it's nice to have. Now, you need to get them to attack a city that's a hundred and fifty miles away. That's a few days' march. So, you can just get them to go and walk over there, and they'll be there in a few days, right? Wrong.
First, you need to know where you're going. Then you need to know how you're getting there. Then you need to get everyone there, and make sure you have enough food and water to get them there, and then you need to keep morale up, and give them something to do. Undead and Constructs mitigate many of these problems, but are generally stupid enough that you have to control their every move personally.
This sounds like a pretty hard task even getting a couple of hundred soldiers to march for a few days, but it gets worse when you have to move a couple of thousand for a few weeks. Soldiers start to try to use their initiative. Entire contingents accidentally split off from the main groups. Minor disagreements turn into blazing rows while you're half a mile away. The weather can slow down sections of your army while other sections are unaffected, making it almost impossible to move the army all at once. You can try forming your army into ranks, but someone will inevitably run into a river without you noticing. You can delegate commanders for sections of the army, but they need to be competent enough to work out what to do if they really do get lost.
This can basically be broken up into a few problems:
Supplies
As a general rule, you do not have enough clerics casting CF&W or druids casting goodberry to provide for everyone. If you have an army of barbarians or rangers who can spam survival checks, you may be able to get food as you go, but it's unlikely. Any food you want to take will need to be carried and protected.
Morale
Nobody likes spending days at a time doing nothing but walking. You're going to need something for your soldiers to do, even if it's just bringing games or instruments, or even just having a war chant going or something. It's always going to be better than nothing.
Navigation and Unit Cohesion
You need to know where you're going, and make sure everyone is going there. You need to know what stands between you and where you're trying to get. And, of course, you actually need to get there.
Defence
So you have two thousand, ten thousand, maybe a hundred thousand soldiers, carrying enough supplies to feed an army because, uhm, they're an army. They're going to need to avoid getting run over by a few hundred cavalry charging in and sweeping in from the side before they have any chance to react coherently as a unit. Worse, they're going to have to protect all of their supplies from anyone who wants to fly in while invisible and drop a quickened burning hands into dimension door on one of their carts. Or, people who are firing oil at you in slings and aiming for anything flammable. Did you ever hear the story of Tucker's Kobolds (http://www.tuckerskobolds.com/)? I give it about a 50% chance you have. Tucker's Kobolds are about your army's worst nightmare, save perhaps for Tucker's Low-Level Spellcasters. Face it, you need some kind of way to defend your army against people who can take advantage of how spread out you are.
Good Abilities to Use
In the first section, I provided long lists of spells, feats, and skills that would be helpful. This is mainly because actually getting hold of your army is the most situation-dependent of your tasks. Here, there are fewer different methods you need to consider:
Abilities that give you food/water: Survival skill, Goodberry, Create Water, Create Food and Water.
Abilities that give you something to do: Perform skill, Prestidigitation, illusions, Pyrotechnics, any of numerous instruments and games you can bring.
Abilities that make marching more tolerable: Perform skill, Prestidigitation, Control Weather
Abilities that allow you to know where you're going: Most divinations, Survival skill, Knowledge (Geography) skill.
Abilities that allow you to communicate with commanders: Message, Sending, Demand, Imbue with Spell Ability (so they can send a message to you), Animal Messenger
Abilities that allow you to bypass obstructions: Wall of Stone, Floating Disk (only one soldier at a time per disk, though as they don't obey combat spacing rules possibly more?), Disintegrate, Transmute X to Y.
Abilities that can allow you to defend areas: Liveoak, Shambler, Alarm, Explosive Runes/Symbol of X, Guards and Wards, Wall of X.
Commanding and Using an Army
"Left! Left!" Jonathan yelled at the top of his voice. The unit of cavalry slowly performed a left wheel, clumsy but effective enough. The enemy pikemen didn't have time to react as the cavalry, rather than charging in with their spears, started to launch them at the enemy lines. Lena panicked as her soldiers fell around her, and before she knew it, she was firing blasts of lightning that knocked Jonathan clean off his horse. The unit, without a sergeant to lead it, was quickly cut down as Sir Richard sailed in from Lena's right, and she smiled as Richard and ten of his men ascended to giant size and cut off Jonathan's cavalry. Lena grinned. The battle was going well.
An angel spun out from nowhere, launching its huge frame towards Sir Richard, and almost managed to hit him before one of his soldiers found her wits fast enough to block it. It spoke two words in celestial. Richard and his men didn't understand either of them, but Lena did; she cursed and averted her eyes.
"Blinding Glory".
The entire unit simultaneously lost their sight. Lena cursed again; an entire unit of swordsmen was rushing towards her position. "Front rank! Strike out in front of you! Hit anything you can!" She already knew that the battle was lost. Without another thought, she teleported from the scene.
Armies are difficult to control. Once they're actually on the field, you still need to make sure they're following some kind of battle plan, and that you can change that plan on a moment's notice if things become less favourable. You also need to deal with the possibility of an army breaking away from the field, betraying you, or trying to act on their own initiative. Oh, and don't get me started on the actual initiative in a D20 sense - basically everyone needs to delay to the lowest initiative that anyone rolls, so there's no real point in rolling for more than about 30 people.
One thing you can do is go to Cityscape page 124 and check out the mobs you can get - because a mob of random humans is far stronger than the sum of its parts (if you arrange 48 humans into the same space, the mob can literally just run over the entire squad and kill them all, and even "Killing" the mob only actually kills a third of the members). Do try to give your mob some armour, though; AC 6 is no fun.
Archers should stay on their own, and cavalry aren't even allowed to form mobs. Cavalry should be given lances and made to charge things, as you might expect. Because of the funny way melee and ranged attacks work, you might actually be best off just having a sprawling mass of archers and telling them to shoot anything over there, with some vague pointing out where "There" is.
You need to spread your army out. Units shouldn't be near other units. Each person in a unit should be 10 feet away from each other to avoid any enemy area spells. Mobs should definitely keep away from other mobs, because they do massive damage to each other just by occupying the same space accidentally.
Consider the buffs you can give. Any cleric of at least 5th level in your army needs to go in a squad of archers and throw down a prayer. Mass enlarge person is also very powerful. Paladin auras are nice, but not actually amazing.
Having a constant source of healing is also useful. You're going to lose people, yes, but you can try to mitigate that with enough people able to heal them.
Be aware of attacks coming from anywhere. Do try to control your army and prevent them all getting eaten by dragons.
Good abilities to use
Again, this is a short list of the kinds of abilities that are useful in this situation.
Abilities that allow you to move your army around the battlefield: Teleportation Circle, Greater Teleport, Animate Object (with big enough objects), possible epic uses of sleight of hand.
Abilities that stop your army running: Wall of X, Remove Fear, Heroes' Feast, Magic Circle Against X
Abilities that stop your army dying: Mass Cure X Wounds, Mass Heal, Miracle
Abilities that protect your army against being attacked: Wall of X, Spike Stones, Guards and Wards.
Abilities that make your army better: Heroes' Feast, Mass Enlarge Person, Prayer.
Destroying Armies
Kyle stood on the wall, chanting ominously. He wasn't ready to send his army into battle just yet. There was no way that they could take the encroaching undead horde head-on. He finished, and blinked his eyes open. The soldiers were already expecting something to happen, of course. "Wait ten minutes. I have a few more spells to cast." The soldiers nodded, wondering what was going to happen.
In answer, Kyle climbed down from the wall, and launched swarms of locusts at the undead army. A few of the quicker-minded leaders made the decision to throw fireballs into their own ranks before the locusts could devour any more. He shrugged - good enough - and threw down spiked stones in front of the undead hordes. They maneuvered around them, but that cost time.
Then the ten minutes were up. Driving winds pushed the entire army backwards. Several fell over through the force of the wind. The entire legion was engulfed in a storm. Kyle smiled as the necromancers' spells fizzled, and their undead creatures failed against the driving force of the wind. That army would not be moving for a day or two.
Sometimes, someone else has an army. Often, that army moves at the speed of plot and doesn't have to worry about annoying things like food or logistics. If you want to fight it, you're going to need to fight it head-on. Fortunately, that's not as hard as it sounds.
Go back to any of the steps mentioned in the last three sections and ask "How can I mess with that?" Here are some examples:
People need something to fight for. How can I mess with that?: Any ability that kills their leader, ruining their leader's reputation, destroying (with disintegrate, whirlwind, sympathetic vibration, etcetera) the thing they're fighting for.
Getting gold requires effort. How can I mess with that?: Make a counteroffer in the mean time, sabotage the moneymaking process somehow, or make gold worthless.
It's often a lot easier to summon, call or raise something. How can I mess with that?: Banishment, or just use spells such as Fireball to take out the creatures because there are likely to be very few of them.
People need supplies and entertainment. How can I mess with that? Destroy their supplies using all manner of fire spells, create water to flood supply pits, control weather to blow away supplies, or just send in your best rogue to steal all their stuff.
Low morale can screw with an army. How can I mess with that?: Send in a rogue or bard disguised as one of the soldiers to start fights. Cast confusion on everyone. Generally cause chaos everywhere. Prevent the army from getting any sleep. Make the weather horrible. Set swarms of insects on them. Use illusions to make loud noises in the camp. Even just having a single assassin moving in under cover of darkness and his own skill, killing a soldier each day, and leaving his mutilated body on display can be enough to make soldiers a bit unnerved.
An army has to know where it's going. How can I mess with that?: Abilities that wipe knowledge of, or confound, divinations, such as modify memory. Abilities to blind the army like pyrotechnics or the (unfortunately non-core) blinding glory against evil armies.
An army has to be able to get where it's going. How can I mess with that?: Abilities that deal speed-reducing injuries like caltrops (the items or the spell) or spike growth/spike stones. Wall of X. Create Water to block paths with ditches. Fire or disintegration on bridges. Soften Earth and Stone to make near-impassable mud. Guards and Wards to mislead people into the wrong place. Hallucinatory Terrain to make a large area seem passable when it's not or not passable when it is.
People need to have commanders and communicate with them. How can I mess with that?: Use something to interrupt the long cast time of sendings. Kill the commanders with your choice of method. Dominate, charm or diplomacy on the commanders. Counterspell the spell they're using to communicate. Silence to prevent commands being given. Attack sections of the army so commander is too busy to communicate.
The army needs to be defended all the time. How can I mess with that?: Choose the weakest point and throw a cavalry regiment at it. Throw crowd control to prevent the rest of the army backing them up. Summon swarms of insects to kill everything. Assassinate guards. Use confusion to make people attack their own allies.
The army needs to be commanded during battle. How can I mess with that?: Deafen or silence sections of the army. Blind them so they split up. Use Walls of X to split the army up.
The army needs room to maneuver. How can I mess with that? Use Walls of X to prevent maneuvering. Throw summoned creatures into places they want to go. Use caltrops or spike stones to slow some soldiers.
The army needs to be buffed to be useful. How can I mess with that?: Dispel or Disjunction. Kill the casters. Incapacitate buffed soldiers until the buffs wear off.
Morale is still a problem during battle. How can I mess with that?: Fear effects. Things like dragons with fear auras or frightful presence. Massacre enemy soldiers indiscriminately so that no-one is more than fifty feet from several soldiers who just went up in flames.
If none of these is possible, you go for your final tactic: Kill the enemy directly. You usually need spells of about 3rd-5th level if you even want to start doing this with magic: fireball and flame strike. At fifth spell level you get insect plague, which I have no qualms about admitting is one of my favourite army-killing spells. Here are a breakdown of the best sorts of things you can do by spell level:
1st: Burning Hands
2nd: Consecrate (Vs undead), Pyrotechnics, Sound Burst, Summon Swarm
3rd: Call Lightning (Against flying creatures), Explosive Runes, Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Quench (Against fire elementals), Spike Growth
4th: Flame Strike, Ice Storm, Wall of Fire
5th: Cloudkill, Control Winds, Flame Strike, Insect Plague, Wall of Fire, Wall of Thorns
6th: Banishment (Vs Extraplanar creatures), Fire Seeds, Liveoak, Undeath to Death (Vs Undead)
7th: Banishment (Vs Extraplanar creatures), Control Weather, Creeping Doom, Fire Storm, Prismatic Spray, Sunbeam
8th: Fire Storm, Earthquake, Prismatic Wall, Whirlwind
9th: Meteor Swarm, Storm of Vengeance
Other spells that bear mentioning
Druid 4th, Cleric 5th, Sorcerer 5th: Boreal Wind
Good spells for destroying forts include Transmute Rock to Mud, Soften Earth and Stone, Sympathetic Vibration, Earthquake and Whirlwind. Also, the tree feather token may or may not cause forts to explode if you try placing the tree under them.
If you're not a spellcaster, try maximising your reach and going for epic combat reflexes or improved whirlwind attack, then rack up a body count. Or just shoot things repeatedly. Whatever works.
Anyway! I hope you enjoyed this little guide, or at least find it helpful to have a list of spells to refer to. Either way, have fun!
In a recent thread, a player was asking how to defeat an army of ten thousand orcs, led by three orc sorcerers, walking up to their walls and trying to lay siege to them. I gave them the best answer I could, but something else was nagging at my mind, namely, how did ten thousand orcs get to their walls under the guidance of just three commanders, who somehow managed to levy said ten thousand orcs, without anyone noticing?
This guide is for anyone who wants to try to get, maintain, and use an army, or anyone who is trying to fight an army, with or without one of their own.
Getting Your Army
"Why should we fight for you?"
The high priestess smiled at the foolish soldier. "Because the gods will it," she replied, "And you would not want to disappoint them, now, would you?" The bandit leader threw a bag of gold into the sergeant's hands. "Because I will keep you well fed and provided for these long months." The king looked at the challenger beneath him with eyes of fire. "Because it is your duty, and I will have the royal guard arrest anyone who attempts to rebel!" The warlord waved his hand across the barren village. "Because I come to take you to a new land, rich with plenty!" The mage waved his hand and suddenly the question was forgotten. The captain looked at the assembled soldiers, sick of war and sicker of elves. "Because the elves have betrayed us for the last time!" The desperate adventurer pointed at the hills. "Because if we don't work together, the giants will kill us all!"
Soldiers don't just fight because hey, they're soldiers, that's what soldiers do! Further, they aren't going to fight for you and follow your orders just because you say so. You need some kind of motivation, or some kind of magic to force them. Offering to murder anyone who fails to comply is a possibility, but honestly, you may need something better than that if you want to get an army.
Of course, in D&D, summoning, raising or calling an army is a possible option, but none of these lack their drawbacks. Summoning spells are short in duration, and even if you spend all your spell slots using divine metamagic: persist to create a small contingent of them (which is also actually illegal due to the variable range), it won't stand up to any kind of army that you couldn't have fought yourself. Calling spells tend only to bring one creature at a time, and it is hard to get enough to call an army. Raising an army of undead is impractical because of the hit die limit: a single cleric is unlikely to get anything he can really call an army, and worse, they're probably more expensive than human soldiers.
It's usually easier to take control of an existing army, or existing people to form a new army. Use of the diplomacy skill to make them more receptive to offers and then giving them something to fight for, and possibly lobbing the odd suggestion that they might fight for it, is a good start. A good question to ask is "Why do I want to fight for this, and who else has the same interests?" If you're a typical D&D hero, trying to save the world (or a significant portion of it) from some undesirable fate, you already have a certain level of leverage over the inhabitants of said world (or said portion). If you're in service to the king, who else is loyal to the king? If you want to give the evil overlord's butt a good kicking, who else hates the evil overlord?
Gold is always a possibility, but people have this odd tendency to want more of it. If you have something like True Creation and a way to mitigate the massive XP loss (The psionic version has 1/5 of the XP cost), or if you want to abuse wall of salt, or use the rules on selling your spells for a surprisingly good amount of money, then you can probably get enough to justify it. Ditto if you use craft (poisonmaking) which gives you profit ten times as fast as any other type of crafting because progress is measured in GP, not SP.
Of course, another question you can ask is "What is there that I either have or am about to have that I don't and won't need?" For example, if there's a city full of people you don't like the existence of but you don't actually have time for a city right now, going to a town with an overpopulation problem and offering to help them move into a new city might easily be a possibility.
Very rarely do you actually need a specific group of people to help you. If you can't get an army in one place, try again somewhere else.
Classes, Skills, Feats and Spells that help you here:
The best abilities are in purple. Excellent abilities are in blue. Good abilities are in green. Spells you might want to consider are in black. Skills, feats and spells worse than this aren't listed, though there's a possibility that you might be able to use some of them. Red classes are inadvisable. If the usage of a feat, skill or spell might not be clear, a small description is provided.
Classes
Adept (You have a couple of the right spells, a few of the right skills. Nothing to write home about)
Aristocrat (All the right skills in the right places and nothing to back it up)
Barbarian (Skill list is godawful, no social ability, and not enough skill points to rectify this).
Bard (Pretty much your entire character is set up for this. You have all the right spells, most of the right skills, and some neat class features to back you up).
Cleric (Good spells, use domains to back yourself up where you lack skills)
Commoner (None of the right skills, nothing else backing you up)
Druid (Spells, but slightly odd ones. Skills leave much to be desired but diplomacy is on there).
Expert (Choose any skills you need, and enough skill points to handle it.)
Fighter (Much as barbarian. Possible saving grace is that fighter bonus feats mean that you can spend your FBFs on what you'd normally spend your level up feats on, and spend your level up feats doing something useful. Another possible saving grace inasmuch as you look like the kind of person who can lead an army, even though you can't really).
Monk (Craft, Diplomacy, Perform and Sense Motive on someone with the skill points to spend on them. That's about it. Tongue of the Sun and Moon is potentially useful, and Quivering Palm can be a risk that a ruler can't afford to take, but they come online too late.)
Paladin (Decent skills, a few of the right spells, and a big "I'm good, trust me" sign above your head, plus the fact that everyone mysteriously feels braver when you're about can't hurt. Also Command Animals Of Its Kind is a mildly amusing ability, and useful if you need a few spare horses.)
Ranger (A few of the right skills and spells, and enough spare skill points to sink into cross-class skills)
Psion (Telepath) (Good power list, good skill list with telepath; decent enough with seer or shaper, acceptable with others.)
Psychic Warrior (Bad skills; can't see a useful power on its list)
Rogue (Many skills! Now, handle it! Skill mastery isn't bad.)
Sorcerer (Good spells, bluff is on your skill list)
Soulknife (I think they just forgot to make this class good at anything. I was about to say "Anything that isn't combat", but it's bad at that, too).
Warrior (I just want to take a moment to point out that the warrior is actually even worse than the commoner. Good job, warrior, you have a terrible skill list and you should feel terrible.)
Wilder (Good skills, but not enough powers to be amazingly useful. Possibly green if you build for it.)
Wizard (Good spells, enough skill points for cross-class skills).
A few other classes that bear mentioning
Fiendbinder (A godawful class and I don't recommend it, but if you're feeling cheesy, the capstone has no duration. What does this mean? It means 1d6 randomly apparent demons every day, that don't go away until they die. Amass your army of random demons and take over the world! Sorta...)
Fiend of Blasphemy (You get to form a cult, but until fourth level the cultists don't actually have anything coercing them to do what you say. The ritual to get cultists is also time-consuming.)
Sublime Chord (You get loads of good bard, sorcerer and wizard spells).
Thrallherd (You lose two manifesting levels over the course of ten - or one over the course of nine, though the capstone is worth it - and get an army).
Truenamer (The capstone is gate. Consider for a 20th-level campaign, otherwise give it a miss. Note that conjunctive gate has a 1 minute duration but can be extended, and you need to heighten it to use more than one at once. One at a time is probably enough, though, since is practically an army on its own.)
Ur Priest (You get cleric casting fast. Of course it's worth it)
Skills
Appraise (How much is this thing I'm offering you really worth?)
Bluff (Maybe even better than diplomacy; convince people they have something to fight for.)
Craft (For money)
Diplomacy
Disguise
Forgery (Downside is that you'll probably quickly be discovered.)
Gather Information (Necessary if you want to know what people fight for)
Handle Animal (Possible army of animals? Not likely)
Knowledge (Most things) (You can probably find a use for the right knowledge.
Knowledge (Arcana, Dungeoneering, Psionics, The Planes) (Less likely to be helpful, but knowledge is power. Also, that psion might be really impressed that you actually know about what she does, and trust you a bit more.)
Knowledge (Local, Nobility and Royalty) (These are usually the real kickers as far as knowledge is concerned)
Perform (Use to make money if C (Poisonmaking) isn't allowed; easy to develop a reputation)
Sense motive (Good for not getting backstabbed)
Feats
Augment Summoning (Not a great deal of spells worth using this with, but it's there for the ones that are)
Brew/Craft/Forge/Scribe X (Someone might want a specific item, but unlikely)
Body Fuel (Useful if you have a way to recover from burn but no more useful than usual)
Delay Power (Might be useful in some cases)
Extend Spell (Some spells that take control of people, also a few useful summons. Surprisingly decent slot adjustment.)
Expanded Knowledge (Blue if grabbing up telepath powers)
Greater Spell Focus
Improved Familiar (Some of them can commune, which might be useful. If you and two friends grab formian workers, they can make whole at will)
Improved Psicrystal
Jack of All Trades (Not actually a good feat, but sometimes useful if you end up needing an unexpected skill)
Leadership (Free army)
Negotiator
Open Minded (For those who don't have many skill points and have feats to burn. Fighter, I'm looking at you.)
Overchannel (You don't need those hit points, you're not in combat.)
Persuasive
Psicrystal Affinity
Psionic Talent
Silent Spell (Useful to pretend you didn't cast spell)
Spell Focus
Still Spell
Twin Power (Make your power harder to resist)
A few other feats that bear mentioning
There are so many feats floating about that this list doesn't even claim to be comprehensive.
Irresistible spell
Undead Leadership
Spells
Bard 0-level
Ghost Sound (More convincing lies)
Mending (Possible Service)
Prestidigitation (Can provide minor services and make the travelling more tolerable by cleaning equipment)
Bard 1st
Charm Person
Disguise Self
Hypnotism
Silent Image (More convincing lies)
Undetectable Alignment
Bard 2nd
Alter Self
Calm Emotions
Eagle's Splendour
Enthrall
Minor Image
Suggestion
Bard 3rd
Charm Monster
Geas, Lesser
Glibness
Major Image
Speak With Animals (Possible that animals may agree to fight)
Bard 4th
Dominate Person
Modify Memory (Creative use to make someone think you've paid them already)
Speak with Plants
Bard 5th
Dream (Possible to make a creature believe that you are important if you appear in their dreams)
Persistent Image
Bard 6th
GeasCleric 0-level
Create Water (Easily good payment in a drought, during a cholera outbreak, or just if people are fed up of mud in their water.)
Cure minor wounds (Good for making death seem less likely. Not so good for making it actually less likely.)
Mending (Possible service)
Cleric 1st
Cure Light Wounds
Cleric 2nd
Calm Emotions
Cure Moderate Wounds
Eagle's Splendour
Enthrall
Make Whole (Possible service)
Lesser Restoration (Useful if population is suffering from aftereffects of disease)
Undetectable Alignment
Cleric 3rd
Animate Dead
Cure Serious Wounds
Remove X
Cleric 4th
Cure Critical Wounds
Giant Vermin (Because these last several minutes, and you have a decent level of control over them, they can be useful as a small army that costs nothing except some time spent bug catching)
Cleric 5th
Insect Plague (One of my personal favourites, these can provide you with a small army of invulnerable nasties with a couple of castings, and they last long enough to wipe out a horde of enemies. Not great against spellcasters with a decent loadout).
Mark of Justice (If you feel like being mean, you can set the curse to go off on anyone who refuses to fight for you.)
Raise Dead (Anyone important is going to owe you a big favour...)
Wall of Stone ("Tell you what, you fight for me and I'll give you a fortress.")
Cleric 6th
Create Undead (Note that you will need some way to command them, because they're not automatically under your control)
Planar Ally (By the time it has 12 HD, there's a chance that five or six of them will pretty much count as an "Army" anyway, as long as you can take the XP loss for doing that)
Quest
Cleric 7th
Control Weather (A threat or a payment, you choose)
Regenerate (Who wouldn't fight literally for an arm and a leg?)
Ressurection
Cleric 8th
Create Greater Undead (By this point, if you're careful, you don't even need to control the resulting undead in a coherent fashion).
Planar Ally, Greater
Cleric 9th
Gate (The called creatures will [I]always fight at least one battle for you, even if you don't pay anything! Except XP, but by this level you know how to get around that)
Miracle (Loads and loads of uses. The promise to protect a city from the next flood or earthquake it suffers is one thing, the promise to resurrect your entire army if they should die is quite another. Or, duplicate your choice of 8th-or-lower cleric spell or any 7th-or-lower spell for no XP cost, apparently even if the spell itself has an XP cost.)
Storm of Vengeance (The biggest threat going, but they won't thank you for it).Domain Powers
Animal Domain
Artifice Domain
Charm Domain
Knowledge Domain
Luck Domain (A pity that most of the spells it grants aren't amazing, but you will learn to love that re-roll after a few delicate negotiations).
Madness Domain (That wisdom boost for casting is mildly crazy whatever you're doing with it)
Plant Domain
Trickery Domain
War Domain (Soldiers fight harder for a lord with battle scars).
Domain (Not on cleric list) 1st
Charm: Charm person
Trickery: Disguise Self
Domain (Not on cleric list) 2nd
Artifice: Wood Shape (Possible service)
Charm: Calm Emotions
Knowledge: Detect Thoughts (What do you want, and will you betray me?)
Nobility: Enthrall
Domain (Not on cleric list) 3rd
Artifice: Stone Shape (Possible service)
Charm: Suggestion
Plant: Plant Growth (Amazingly good service, nothing to stop you stacking them to double production in three castings or triple it in six.)
Domain (Not on cleric list) 5th
Artifice: Fabricate (Craft things quickly)
Charm: Charm Monster
Domain (Not on cleric list) 7th
Scalykind: Creeping Doom (It's a higher-level version of Insect Plague)
Domain (Not on cleric list) 8th
Air and Weather: Whirlwind (The last word in threats)
Glory: Crown of Glory
Luck: Moment of Prescience (Get Guidance of the Avatar instead if it's available)
Domain (Not on cleric list) 9th
Air, Earth, Fire, Water: Elemental Swarm (A decently long-lived army of decent creatures.)
Plant: Shambler (A few castings will get you a small army.)Druid 0-level
Create Water (Easily good payment in a drought, during a cholera outbreak, or just if people are fed up of mud in their water.)
Cure minor wounds (Good for making death seem less likely. Not so good for making it actually less likely.)
Mending (Possible service)
Druid 1st
Charm Animal
Cure Light Wounds
Goodberry (Really easy to feed largeish numbers of people. The minor healing is neat too.)
Druid 2nd
Lesser Restoration (Useful if population is suffering from aftereffects of disease)
Wood Shape (Possible service)
Druid 3rd
Cure Moderate Wounds
Dominate Animal (Control an alpha?)
Plant Growth (Amazingly good service, nothing to stop you stacking them to double productivity with three of them)
Druid 4th
Cure Serious Wounds
Giant Vermin (Because these last several minutes, and you have a decent level of control over them, they can be useful as a small army that costs nothing except some time spent bug catching)
Reincarnate (Someone who wants to risk coming back as a bugbear will be thankful)
Druid 5th
Animal Growth (If you're careful, the fact you can't control them won't be an issue).
Cure critical wounds
Insect Plague (One of my personal favourites, these can provide you with a small army of invulnerable nasties with a couple of castings, and they last long enough to wipe out a horde of enemies. Not great against spellcasters with a decent loadout).
Druid 6th
Wall of Stone ("Tell you what, you fight for me and I'll make you a castle.")
Druid 7th
Creeping Doom (It's a higher level version of insect plague.)
Heal
Druid 8th
Whirlwind (The last word in threats)
Druid 9th
Elemental Swarm (A decently long-lived army of decent creatures.)
Regenerate (Who wouldn't fight literally for an arm and a leg?)
Shambler (A few castings will get you a small army.)
Storm of Vengeance (The biggest threat going, but they won't thank you for it).Sorcerer 0-level
Ghost Sound (More convincing lies)
Mending (Possible Service)
Prestidigitation (Can provide minor services and make the travelling more tolerable by cleaning equipment)
Sorcerer 1st
Charm Person
Disguise Self
Hypnotism
Mount (Spam it to summon a small army of horses)
Silent Image (More convincing lies)
Sorcerer 2nd
Alter Self
Eagle's Splendour
Minor Image
Suggestion
Sorcerer 3rd
Major Image
Speak With Animals (Possible that animals may agree to fight)
Sorcerer 4th
Animate Dead
Charm Monster
Geas, Lesser
Sorcerer 5th
Animal Growth (If you're careful, the fact you can't control them won't be an issue).
Dream (Possible to make a creature believe that you are important if you appear in their dreams)
Dominate Person
Fabricate (Craft things quickly)
Persistent Image
Wall of Stone ("Tell you what, you fight for me and I'll give you a fortress.")
Sorcerer 6th
(Lucubration) (If you're a wizard and think you might need another fifth, but don't know which one, this is for you)
Planar Binding (By the time it has 12 HD, there's a chance that five or six of them will pretty much count as an "Army" anyway, as long as you can control them.)
Wall of Iron (Standard Wall of Iron+Fabricate trick)
Sorcerer 7th
Control Weather (A threat or a payment, you choose)
Limited Wish
Sorcerer 8th
Charm Monster, Mass
Planar Binding, Greater
Sorcerer 9th
Dominate Monster
Gate (The called creatures will always fight at least one battle for you, even if you don't pay anything! Except XP, but by this level you know how to get around that)
WishPaladin 1st
Create Water (Easily good payment in a drought, during a cholera outbreak, or just if people are fed up of mud in their water.)
Cure Light Wounds (Makes death seem less likely)
Lesser Restoration (Useful if population is suffering from aftereffects of disease. Also oddly low spell level for you.)
Paladin 2nd
Eagle's Splendour
Undetectable alignment (Uhm, yes, Mr Evil Overlord, I am definitely, absolutely a blackguard)
Paladin 3rd
Cure Moderate Wounds
Remove X
Paladin 4th
Cure Serious Wounds
Mark of Justice (If you feel like being mean, you can set the curse to go off on anyone who refuses to fight for you. Since you're a paladin, you'll probably only be able to do this for a penal legion).Ranger 1st
Charm Animal
Ranger 2nd
Cure Light Wounds
Ranger 3rd
Cure Moderate Wounds
Plant Growth (Amazingly good service, nothing to stop you stacking them to double productivity with three of them)
Remove Disease
Ranger 4th
Animal Growth (If you're careful, the fact you can't control them won't be an issue).
Cure Serious Wounds
Other Spell Lists
Adept 0-level
Create Water (Easily good payment in a drought, during a cholera outbreak, or just if people are fed up of mud in their water.)
Cure minor wounds (Good for making death seem less likely. Not so good for making it actually less likely.)
Ghost Sound (More convincing lies)
Mending (Possible Service)
Adept 1st
Cure Light Wounds
Adept 2nd
Cure Moderate Wounds
Adept 3rd
Animate Dead
Cure Serious Wounds
Remove X
Adept 4th
Cure Critical Wounds
Adept 5th
Heal
Raise Dead (Anyone important is going to owe you a big favour...)
Wall of Stone ("Tell you what, you fight for me and I'll give you a fortress.")Assassin 1st
Disguise Self
Ghost Sound (More convincing lies)
Assassin 2nd
Alter Self
Undetectable Alignment
Assassin 4th
Glibness
Modify Memory (Creative use to make someone think you've paid them already)Blackguard All Levels
Cure X Wounds
Blackguard 2nd
Eagle's Splendour
A few other spells that bear mentioning
Sorcerer 9: Mind Rape
Maintaining Your Army
The army had been marching for three weeks, and already they had had enough. There wasn't enough food, there was nothing to do, and they were losing the will to fight. Nobody wanted to look at an orc, let alone fight one. The supplies that they were supposed to be getting hadn't arrived, and there was already infighting. The army would destroy itself before it ever reached its destination.
Suppose you've managed to get your army. We'll go easy on you and say you only need two hundred bog standard human soldiers. Not a massive army, true, but it's nice to have. Now, you need to get them to attack a city that's a hundred and fifty miles away. That's a few days' march. So, you can just get them to go and walk over there, and they'll be there in a few days, right? Wrong.
First, you need to know where you're going. Then you need to know how you're getting there. Then you need to get everyone there, and make sure you have enough food and water to get them there, and then you need to keep morale up, and give them something to do. Undead and Constructs mitigate many of these problems, but are generally stupid enough that you have to control their every move personally.
This sounds like a pretty hard task even getting a couple of hundred soldiers to march for a few days, but it gets worse when you have to move a couple of thousand for a few weeks. Soldiers start to try to use their initiative. Entire contingents accidentally split off from the main groups. Minor disagreements turn into blazing rows while you're half a mile away. The weather can slow down sections of your army while other sections are unaffected, making it almost impossible to move the army all at once. You can try forming your army into ranks, but someone will inevitably run into a river without you noticing. You can delegate commanders for sections of the army, but they need to be competent enough to work out what to do if they really do get lost.
This can basically be broken up into a few problems:
Supplies
As a general rule, you do not have enough clerics casting CF&W or druids casting goodberry to provide for everyone. If you have an army of barbarians or rangers who can spam survival checks, you may be able to get food as you go, but it's unlikely. Any food you want to take will need to be carried and protected.
Morale
Nobody likes spending days at a time doing nothing but walking. You're going to need something for your soldiers to do, even if it's just bringing games or instruments, or even just having a war chant going or something. It's always going to be better than nothing.
Navigation and Unit Cohesion
You need to know where you're going, and make sure everyone is going there. You need to know what stands between you and where you're trying to get. And, of course, you actually need to get there.
Defence
So you have two thousand, ten thousand, maybe a hundred thousand soldiers, carrying enough supplies to feed an army because, uhm, they're an army. They're going to need to avoid getting run over by a few hundred cavalry charging in and sweeping in from the side before they have any chance to react coherently as a unit. Worse, they're going to have to protect all of their supplies from anyone who wants to fly in while invisible and drop a quickened burning hands into dimension door on one of their carts. Or, people who are firing oil at you in slings and aiming for anything flammable. Did you ever hear the story of Tucker's Kobolds (http://www.tuckerskobolds.com/)? I give it about a 50% chance you have. Tucker's Kobolds are about your army's worst nightmare, save perhaps for Tucker's Low-Level Spellcasters. Face it, you need some kind of way to defend your army against people who can take advantage of how spread out you are.
Good Abilities to Use
In the first section, I provided long lists of spells, feats, and skills that would be helpful. This is mainly because actually getting hold of your army is the most situation-dependent of your tasks. Here, there are fewer different methods you need to consider:
Abilities that give you food/water: Survival skill, Goodberry, Create Water, Create Food and Water.
Abilities that give you something to do: Perform skill, Prestidigitation, illusions, Pyrotechnics, any of numerous instruments and games you can bring.
Abilities that make marching more tolerable: Perform skill, Prestidigitation, Control Weather
Abilities that allow you to know where you're going: Most divinations, Survival skill, Knowledge (Geography) skill.
Abilities that allow you to communicate with commanders: Message, Sending, Demand, Imbue with Spell Ability (so they can send a message to you), Animal Messenger
Abilities that allow you to bypass obstructions: Wall of Stone, Floating Disk (only one soldier at a time per disk, though as they don't obey combat spacing rules possibly more?), Disintegrate, Transmute X to Y.
Abilities that can allow you to defend areas: Liveoak, Shambler, Alarm, Explosive Runes/Symbol of X, Guards and Wards, Wall of X.
Commanding and Using an Army
"Left! Left!" Jonathan yelled at the top of his voice. The unit of cavalry slowly performed a left wheel, clumsy but effective enough. The enemy pikemen didn't have time to react as the cavalry, rather than charging in with their spears, started to launch them at the enemy lines. Lena panicked as her soldiers fell around her, and before she knew it, she was firing blasts of lightning that knocked Jonathan clean off his horse. The unit, without a sergeant to lead it, was quickly cut down as Sir Richard sailed in from Lena's right, and she smiled as Richard and ten of his men ascended to giant size and cut off Jonathan's cavalry. Lena grinned. The battle was going well.
An angel spun out from nowhere, launching its huge frame towards Sir Richard, and almost managed to hit him before one of his soldiers found her wits fast enough to block it. It spoke two words in celestial. Richard and his men didn't understand either of them, but Lena did; she cursed and averted her eyes.
"Blinding Glory".
The entire unit simultaneously lost their sight. Lena cursed again; an entire unit of swordsmen was rushing towards her position. "Front rank! Strike out in front of you! Hit anything you can!" She already knew that the battle was lost. Without another thought, she teleported from the scene.
Armies are difficult to control. Once they're actually on the field, you still need to make sure they're following some kind of battle plan, and that you can change that plan on a moment's notice if things become less favourable. You also need to deal with the possibility of an army breaking away from the field, betraying you, or trying to act on their own initiative. Oh, and don't get me started on the actual initiative in a D20 sense - basically everyone needs to delay to the lowest initiative that anyone rolls, so there's no real point in rolling for more than about 30 people.
One thing you can do is go to Cityscape page 124 and check out the mobs you can get - because a mob of random humans is far stronger than the sum of its parts (if you arrange 48 humans into the same space, the mob can literally just run over the entire squad and kill them all, and even "Killing" the mob only actually kills a third of the members). Do try to give your mob some armour, though; AC 6 is no fun.
Archers should stay on their own, and cavalry aren't even allowed to form mobs. Cavalry should be given lances and made to charge things, as you might expect. Because of the funny way melee and ranged attacks work, you might actually be best off just having a sprawling mass of archers and telling them to shoot anything over there, with some vague pointing out where "There" is.
You need to spread your army out. Units shouldn't be near other units. Each person in a unit should be 10 feet away from each other to avoid any enemy area spells. Mobs should definitely keep away from other mobs, because they do massive damage to each other just by occupying the same space accidentally.
Consider the buffs you can give. Any cleric of at least 5th level in your army needs to go in a squad of archers and throw down a prayer. Mass enlarge person is also very powerful. Paladin auras are nice, but not actually amazing.
Having a constant source of healing is also useful. You're going to lose people, yes, but you can try to mitigate that with enough people able to heal them.
Be aware of attacks coming from anywhere. Do try to control your army and prevent them all getting eaten by dragons.
Good abilities to use
Again, this is a short list of the kinds of abilities that are useful in this situation.
Abilities that allow you to move your army around the battlefield: Teleportation Circle, Greater Teleport, Animate Object (with big enough objects), possible epic uses of sleight of hand.
Abilities that stop your army running: Wall of X, Remove Fear, Heroes' Feast, Magic Circle Against X
Abilities that stop your army dying: Mass Cure X Wounds, Mass Heal, Miracle
Abilities that protect your army against being attacked: Wall of X, Spike Stones, Guards and Wards.
Abilities that make your army better: Heroes' Feast, Mass Enlarge Person, Prayer.
Destroying Armies
Kyle stood on the wall, chanting ominously. He wasn't ready to send his army into battle just yet. There was no way that they could take the encroaching undead horde head-on. He finished, and blinked his eyes open. The soldiers were already expecting something to happen, of course. "Wait ten minutes. I have a few more spells to cast." The soldiers nodded, wondering what was going to happen.
In answer, Kyle climbed down from the wall, and launched swarms of locusts at the undead army. A few of the quicker-minded leaders made the decision to throw fireballs into their own ranks before the locusts could devour any more. He shrugged - good enough - and threw down spiked stones in front of the undead hordes. They maneuvered around them, but that cost time.
Then the ten minutes were up. Driving winds pushed the entire army backwards. Several fell over through the force of the wind. The entire legion was engulfed in a storm. Kyle smiled as the necromancers' spells fizzled, and their undead creatures failed against the driving force of the wind. That army would not be moving for a day or two.
Sometimes, someone else has an army. Often, that army moves at the speed of plot and doesn't have to worry about annoying things like food or logistics. If you want to fight it, you're going to need to fight it head-on. Fortunately, that's not as hard as it sounds.
Go back to any of the steps mentioned in the last three sections and ask "How can I mess with that?" Here are some examples:
People need something to fight for. How can I mess with that?: Any ability that kills their leader, ruining their leader's reputation, destroying (with disintegrate, whirlwind, sympathetic vibration, etcetera) the thing they're fighting for.
Getting gold requires effort. How can I mess with that?: Make a counteroffer in the mean time, sabotage the moneymaking process somehow, or make gold worthless.
It's often a lot easier to summon, call or raise something. How can I mess with that?: Banishment, or just use spells such as Fireball to take out the creatures because there are likely to be very few of them.
People need supplies and entertainment. How can I mess with that? Destroy their supplies using all manner of fire spells, create water to flood supply pits, control weather to blow away supplies, or just send in your best rogue to steal all their stuff.
Low morale can screw with an army. How can I mess with that?: Send in a rogue or bard disguised as one of the soldiers to start fights. Cast confusion on everyone. Generally cause chaos everywhere. Prevent the army from getting any sleep. Make the weather horrible. Set swarms of insects on them. Use illusions to make loud noises in the camp. Even just having a single assassin moving in under cover of darkness and his own skill, killing a soldier each day, and leaving his mutilated body on display can be enough to make soldiers a bit unnerved.
An army has to know where it's going. How can I mess with that?: Abilities that wipe knowledge of, or confound, divinations, such as modify memory. Abilities to blind the army like pyrotechnics or the (unfortunately non-core) blinding glory against evil armies.
An army has to be able to get where it's going. How can I mess with that?: Abilities that deal speed-reducing injuries like caltrops (the items or the spell) or spike growth/spike stones. Wall of X. Create Water to block paths with ditches. Fire or disintegration on bridges. Soften Earth and Stone to make near-impassable mud. Guards and Wards to mislead people into the wrong place. Hallucinatory Terrain to make a large area seem passable when it's not or not passable when it is.
People need to have commanders and communicate with them. How can I mess with that?: Use something to interrupt the long cast time of sendings. Kill the commanders with your choice of method. Dominate, charm or diplomacy on the commanders. Counterspell the spell they're using to communicate. Silence to prevent commands being given. Attack sections of the army so commander is too busy to communicate.
The army needs to be defended all the time. How can I mess with that?: Choose the weakest point and throw a cavalry regiment at it. Throw crowd control to prevent the rest of the army backing them up. Summon swarms of insects to kill everything. Assassinate guards. Use confusion to make people attack their own allies.
The army needs to be commanded during battle. How can I mess with that?: Deafen or silence sections of the army. Blind them so they split up. Use Walls of X to split the army up.
The army needs room to maneuver. How can I mess with that? Use Walls of X to prevent maneuvering. Throw summoned creatures into places they want to go. Use caltrops or spike stones to slow some soldiers.
The army needs to be buffed to be useful. How can I mess with that?: Dispel or Disjunction. Kill the casters. Incapacitate buffed soldiers until the buffs wear off.
Morale is still a problem during battle. How can I mess with that?: Fear effects. Things like dragons with fear auras or frightful presence. Massacre enemy soldiers indiscriminately so that no-one is more than fifty feet from several soldiers who just went up in flames.
If none of these is possible, you go for your final tactic: Kill the enemy directly. You usually need spells of about 3rd-5th level if you even want to start doing this with magic: fireball and flame strike. At fifth spell level you get insect plague, which I have no qualms about admitting is one of my favourite army-killing spells. Here are a breakdown of the best sorts of things you can do by spell level:
1st: Burning Hands
2nd: Consecrate (Vs undead), Pyrotechnics, Sound Burst, Summon Swarm
3rd: Call Lightning (Against flying creatures), Explosive Runes, Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Quench (Against fire elementals), Spike Growth
4th: Flame Strike, Ice Storm, Wall of Fire
5th: Cloudkill, Control Winds, Flame Strike, Insect Plague, Wall of Fire, Wall of Thorns
6th: Banishment (Vs Extraplanar creatures), Fire Seeds, Liveoak, Undeath to Death (Vs Undead)
7th: Banishment (Vs Extraplanar creatures), Control Weather, Creeping Doom, Fire Storm, Prismatic Spray, Sunbeam
8th: Fire Storm, Earthquake, Prismatic Wall, Whirlwind
9th: Meteor Swarm, Storm of Vengeance
Other spells that bear mentioning
Druid 4th, Cleric 5th, Sorcerer 5th: Boreal Wind
Good spells for destroying forts include Transmute Rock to Mud, Soften Earth and Stone, Sympathetic Vibration, Earthquake and Whirlwind. Also, the tree feather token may or may not cause forts to explode if you try placing the tree under them.
If you're not a spellcaster, try maximising your reach and going for epic combat reflexes or improved whirlwind attack, then rack up a body count. Or just shoot things repeatedly. Whatever works.
Anyway! I hope you enjoyed this little guide, or at least find it helpful to have a list of spells to refer to. Either way, have fun!