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Fizban
2007-07-01, 10:44 PM
So, I was watching some stargate, and I had a mostly unrelated thought: it's obvious that magic=win, and therefore a nation's military should want as much magic as possible. Aside from getting casters in the military, equipping soldiers with magic arms and devices is one of the easiest and pretty much only way to do this. But, aside from artificers, there's no real source of xp for the amount of crafting needed to equip an army, so how to go about getting some? Solution:

Prisoners. First off, go with the variant idea that allows a character to willingly (as in not affected by spell or ability) give up xp to a caster for casting a spell or crafting a magic item. Then, set up a system where prisoners are given the option of donating their spare xp in return for a lighter sentence.

Obviously it is under some duress, but they don't have to do it, and it causes them no harm whatsoever, just some of this unknown energy that magicians use to create their trinkets. The best part is, it's not really a fate that people will fear, so it won't reduce crime very much, meaning a steady flow of prisoners with varying amounts of spare xp.

So, discuss, refine, refute, and what have you.

Damionte
2007-07-01, 10:55 PM
Your crafters could just gain XP from crafting. That's how I run it in my world. I mean in the end it's an NPC mechanic so who cares how they get XP. NPC's don't need XP points anyway. They have as many as you want them too at any time period.

Mine don't even work off experience, they can do whatever I say they can.

ShneekeyTheLost
2007-07-01, 11:02 PM
OMFG the expense!

Look at outfitting even a level 5 PC. Now multiply that by a thousand. That's what you're talking about paying to outfit your army.

It's much easier to sprinkle Bards in your army to give everyone bonuses. Flute, drum, and (hehe) bagpipe were all used in armies, after all. So was the Bugle.

Let the casters take the place of your howitzers. Launch Area Effect stuff like Stinking Cloud at massed formations and watch the fun begin.

JellyPooga
2007-07-01, 11:06 PM
Yeah, considering the fact that for the price of a 'measly' +1 sword, you could buy a house, outfitting an entire army might cost a bob or two...maybe if you had a Kobold mine or 5 working exclusively for the purpose of raising enough cash for it...

Joltz
2007-07-01, 11:29 PM
hmmm. Maybe that's why most soldiers don't have magical equipment at all. If you look at whatever sections of the core books that talk about combat between armies (or anything involving lots of NPCs for that matter) it'll tell you that the vast majority of NPCs are level 1. Just look at OOTS here. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0427.html) Some of Azure city's "best soldiers" are level 5.

Anyway, back to the subject of item crafters taking exp from other people. A while ago I toyed with the idea of a wondrous item that sapped a % of exp from people it was attached to as they gained it. I never completely statted it out though.

Another idea I just had is for a spell/incantation (whichever you prefer) that saps a target's life force (xp of course) and grants it to that caster in the form of temporary xp that can only be used for crafting. You can make it so it can only be used on helpless targets by giving it a long casting time (2 hours or so). It could work exactly like the artificer's reserve points if you like. I think I'd make the xp fade if the caster hasn't started crafting an item with it (maybe after 1 day/level or so). You could have it take a given amount of xp from the target, maybe it takes exactly enough exp to reduce them to the beginning of the previous level and if they're level 1 the caster gets 1000 xp for casting and the target loses 2 con (as though by death). You could just have it kill the target and give all their xp to the caster too.

The effects of the spell/incantation can also be used to characterize the nation using it too. Maybe a LE country is using a version that kills the target to execute anyone they judge to be a criminal and using the items made with the extra xp to dominate the world. Maybe a more good-ish nation only uses the spell to drain a level (or two) in the case of incorrigibly evil criminals as additional punishment/assurance.

I'm kinda liking this idea.

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-01, 11:54 PM
Well. I've often wondered why nations keep these armies of level 1 grunts. They have to feed them.

Let's look at 2 armies.

Army Number 1

This is your standard army of level 1 warriors.

Let's go with 50,000 men.
A silver piece per day is the standard salary. Food costs another 5 SP per day if you go by trail rations (a fair price and we will assume that delivery costs are included in the price).

Lets give everyone a short spear, padded armor, and a light wooden shield. That comes to 9 GP. Lets round it to 10 to cover miscellaneous things.

So to equip your army costs you 500,000 GP up front and another 30,000 GP per day in upkeep.

Let's assume that the minimum time the army is kept around is a month (30 days). That is 900,000 GP for upkeep.

So your army costs you a grand total of 1,400,000 GP to equip and field. And that is just with basic level 1 grunts and no special units at all.


Army Number 2

Let's make a hundred man force this time. Upkeep comes to 60 GP per day. Or 1,800 GP for the month. Leaving 1,398,200 GP left to spend on equipment.

Or 14,000 GP per person.

Let's equip each with a CL 5 Wand of Fireball for 11,250 GP each. Leaving 2,750 GP left for each solider.

Equip them with a horse (450 GP each, including saddle, bridal, and food). Spend the rest of the money on guard dogs. Say 50 per person.


The second army would win every engagement. Horses allow them to run, the dogs act as a shield/melee force, and the wands of fireball need only kill 10 guys per charge (on average) to destroy the first army.

Seffbasilisk
2007-07-02, 12:01 AM
Well. I've often wondered why nations keep these armies of level 1 grunts. They have to feed them.

Let's look at 2 armies.

Army Number 1

This is your standard army of level 1 warriors.

Let's go with 50,000 men.
A silver piece per day is the standard salary. Food costs another 5 SP per day if you go by trail rations (a fair price and we will assume that delivery costs are included in the price).

Lets give everyone a short spear, padded armor, and a light wooden shield. That comes to 9 GP. Lets round it to 10 to cover miscellaneous things.

So to equip your army costs you 500,000 GP up front and another 30,000 GP per day in upkeep.

Let's assume that the minimum time the army is kept around is a month (30 days). That is 900,000 GP for upkeep.

So your army costs you a grand total of 1,400,000 GP to equip and field. And that is just with basic level 1 grunts and no special units at all.


Army Number 2

Let's make a hundred man force this time. Upkeep comes to 60 GP per day. Or 1,800 GP for the month. Leaving 1,398,200 GP left to spend on equipment.

Or 14,000 GP per person.

Let's equip each with a CL 5 Wand of Fireball for 11,250 GP each. Leaving 2,750 GP left for each solider.

Equip them with a horse (450 GP each, including saddle, bridal, and food). Spend the rest of the money on guard dogs. Say 50 per person.


The second army would win every engagement. Horses allow them to run, the dogs act as a shield/melee force, and the wands of fireball need only kill 10 guys per charge (on average) to destroy the first army.

You're neglecting the fact that level 1's activating wands of Fireball, and having to have ranks in Ride? What are they? Every class off the top of my head, that I know of that has UMD in-class doesn't get Ride.

Edit: Handle animal too? Feeding the dogs? Etc, etc.... First one's more common because it works better. Besides, where do you know where you can just thack down a sack of gold and pick up 100 wands of fireball? Maybe that would be the 'special forces' unit of a group, and have some 'scout' parties of rangers and such foraging off the land to provide rations for the soldiers. After all, most armies tended to strip the land as they progressed, so there's your food supply.

Lapak
2007-07-02, 12:07 AM
Aside from the question of 'how would you' is the question of 'do you actually want to?' The expense is one thing, the availability another. Then there's the vulnerability question: if I equip ten men with crazy magic and one of them dies (or worse, is captured) my budget just took a heck of a hit.

And then there's the flat-out question of 'do you WANT too many people to have magic handy?'

- An evil government might want to concentrate power among the ruling elite only, and keep the army at peon-status lest they rise up and overthrow them.

- A good government might want to keep dangerous magic under lock and key so it's not used for murder and robbery.

- A lawful government might want to keep magic low to prevent any one individual from having too much power over the law - certainly they might not want an army or division of magically-armed soldiers.

- A purely chaotic government probably would be fine with it, but is almost a contradiction in terms to begin with, especially if you're talking about funding an army in an organized way.

It's all very well for PCs to want more magic and more focused power, but governments have to keep some semblance of structure, and widespread magic - especially weaponized magic - isn't necessarily conducive to that.

Fizban
2007-07-02, 12:15 AM
This idea assumes that the nation has nigh infinite monetary resources, which it would in comparison to a single PC.

And I'm not talking about giving everyone NPC or PC appropriate gear, that's ridiculous. That amount of gear is meant for adventurers that have to be ready for any wacky situation that occurs. It wouldn't make sense for an army to send out boots of levitation and whatnot, that's reserved for the special forces, which are likely former adventurers themselves.

If magic is replacing technology in a world, that means there will be tons of magic items all over the place, and even artificers have a limited xp pool for crafting. The military will want stuff like tanks, and wands, and these will cost xp to craft. Thus, the idea of getting prisoners to give up their spare "energy" to lighten their sentence, since xp in a high magic world is just like a natural resource, but there is currently no way for a government to get it.

Such as Tippy's example. The wands are much more effective, but who's crafting them? There's only so many people with the skills to make those, and eventually they will run out of spare xp. After that, the only way to get them would be to send people to other planes to buy them, assuming the planes are infinite then you could always find more, but then you're relying on outside arms dealers, and have a weakness.

Anyway, I'm just trying to present a plausible way for a high magic world to actually have armies that make extensive use of magic items.

Edit: and people posted while I was typing, consider it a general statement.

bugsysservant
2007-07-02, 12:17 AM
I find the talk of giving away XP strangely reminiscent of the section in the BoVD where it discusses how you can get XP/gold to use for crafting by making elaborate human sacrifices. Only evil governments would ever allow this to occur. And where would you get so many prisoners? As death penalties go up, crime goes down, laws get more severe, citizens revolt. The government that instituted such a policy would undermine itself.

I prefer to think of d&d armies as if they subscribed to an unwritten quasi-geneva convention. You don't give magic to your soldiers, we won't give it to ours. While you can still equip the oddball army with really good weapons, as a rule of thumb it tends to work out.

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-02, 12:19 AM
You're neglecting the fact that level 1's activating wands of Fireball, and having to have ranks in Ride? What are they? Every class off the top of my head, that I know of that has UMD in-class doesn't get Ride.

Page 109 of the DMG. The Expert. It gets any 10 skills of its choice as class skills.

The best build is 100 sorcerer 1/ expert 1 guys. You don't need UMD because of sorcerer and expert covers the skills.


Edit: Handle animal too? Feeding the dogs? Etc, etc.... First one's more common because it works better. Besides, where do you know where you can just thack down a sack of gold and pick up 100 wands of fireball?
Sigil.


Maybe that would be the 'special forces' unit of a group, and have some 'scout' parties of rangers and such foraging off the land to provide rations for the soldiers. After all, most armies tended to strip the land as they progressed, so there's your food supply.
Do you have any idea how hard it is by the D&D rules to feed an army of 50,000 living off the land? And it slows you down.

The most effective army though is arming everyone with a heavy repeating crossbow.

HidaTsuzua
2007-07-02, 12:40 AM
The only use for the horde of 1st level grunts would be situations where you need lots of warm bodies (policing or patroling a long boarder). And honestly, I bet there's a magic way that's cheaper or better than this approach such as overland flight casting.

As for where you get XP, you can use traps (traps are CR encounters but aren't lethal), adventuring (go kill goblins!), or conversation (roleplaying XP). The effectiveness might vary from world to world (or rather GM to GM). This also doesn't touch the insanity of a wish based economy....

SpiderBrigade
2007-07-02, 12:48 AM
...This also doesn't touch the insanity of a wish based economy....Hoo hoo hoo, boy howdy. But forget about Wish, all you need is a certain amount of seed money to hire a high-level caster and set off one of those infinite Gate loops I keep hearing about. Go from 0 army to arbitrarily large Outsider army in a matter of hours.

And you'll probably still save money compared to the aforementioned 50,000 man grunt army.

Kizara
2007-07-02, 12:57 AM
The most effective army is a dragon.

Ruler 1: I spend 2 million gp on large army.

Ruler 2: I spend 1 million gp to hire an adult dragon to completely waste your army.

Works on any lower examples. Make any reasonably large army of 'people', and I use my "I hire a dragon for half that amount" policy. :)

And I seriously doubt any evil dragon is going to turn down 1 million gp to torch some people and loot anything they find.

Also, this works for adventures. Adventurers can counter dragons, and dragons adventurers.

So, in conclusion, wars in D&D are some combination of Dragon vs Adventurers.

horseboy
2007-07-02, 01:10 AM
Okay,
Easy way. Flying ship. On each ship there's three "cannons" Each cannon holds a bound fire elemental on this plane for a set time. It flies over army 1 dropping the three elementals.

Heck, even just a scroll of summon creature 3ish and have it call up a whale. Drop said whale 100' up onto army 1. Army 1 is crushed under whale. Note this could even be done with a "simple" griffin or other flying mount.

Summoning: The easy solution.

Capt'n Ironbrow
2007-07-02, 06:30 AM
In WFRP, magic and magic items are rare, you're unlikely to find them in the common shops and the specialists are really expensive (consider a mundane sword to be too expensive for a simple labourer). The county of Edo (one the PC-controlled armies in my group) has access to only half a dozen magical weapons, most of them found in earlier adventures and in posession of Count Boris Agramidt (dwarf templar PC), Sheriff Gerrar jean-pierre de La lune (NPC duellist), Captain Durin Ironbrow (PC-me) and Recon Sergeant Sven (NPC soldier).

I prefer magic to be rare and special and WFRP supports such preferences, though there are quite a lot of nasty creatures invulnerable to normal armaments... a great danger for all the faceless NPC privates and NCO's who'd only be helpless cannon fodder when Edo is faced by such creatures (major demons, ethereal undead etc.). Lack of magic items outside the PC-party is a good way to inspire heroics of the PC's, if neutral, lawfull or good aligned characters to safe all the poor basters who'd be obliterated by wraiths and demonic champions.
magically armed armies can be possible in the right circumstances, say, an old order of templars would have a great armoury of artefacts and magical/divine weapons to be distributed amongst the higher ranked templars for special missions or when the enemy is too powerfull to beat with natural steel, but the squires will just have to use natural steel, not considered to be ready for such great responsibilities that come with the posession of such items.

but any new order would have to build such an arsenal from scratch either requiring massive funds or a long campaign of multiple quests and incursions into forgotten territories :smallamused:

Dervag
2007-07-02, 06:53 AM
Yeah, considering the fact that for the price of a 'measly' +1 sword, you could buy a house, outfitting an entire army might cost a bob or two...maybe if you had a Kobold mine or 5 working exclusively for the purpose of raising enough cash for it...The problem is that for the cost of equipping an army with even low-power magical gear, you could probably equip two or three armies with non-magical gear and stomp all over the magical army by weight of numbers. One soldier with +1 armor and sword is no match for three soldiers with mundane armor and swords.

Magical military gear makes the most sense in one of two contexts.

In a feudal or pseudofeudal setting, the nobility will tend to have magical items. First of all, they can afford to commission such items and make up the cost by taxing their peasants. Second of all, there are probably some adventurers or successful military commanders in their family tree, and such people would have picked up lots of magic items that they could pass on to their heirs.

The other case is that a king may be able to outfit a 'special unit', say of regimental size, that makes much more extensive use of magical gear than the rest of the army. This unit gets called on for special tasks that would require way more normal soldiers to deal with (such as killing a rampaging giant).


Well. I've often wondered why nations keep these armies of level 1 grunts. They have to feed them.

Let's look at 2 armies.

Army Number 1

This is your standard army of level 1 warriors.

Let's go with 50,000 men.
A silver piece per day is the standard salary. Food costs another 5 SP per day if you go by trail rations (a fair price and we will assume that delivery costs are included in the price).

Lets give everyone a short spear, padded armor, and a light wooden shield. That comes to 9 GP. Lets round it to 10 to cover miscellaneous things.

So to equip your army costs you 500,000 GP up front and another 30,000 GP per day in upkeep.

Let's assume that the minimum time the army is kept around is a month (30 days). That is 900,000 GP for upkeep.

So your army costs you a grand total of 1,400,000 GP to equip and field. And that is just with basic level 1 grunts and no special units at all.


Army Number 2

Let's make a hundred man force this time. Upkeep comes to 60 GP per day. Or 1,800 GP for the month. Leaving 1,398,200 GP left to spend on equipment.

Or 14,000 GP per person.

Let's equip each with a CL 5 Wand of Fireball for 11,250 GP each. Leaving 2,750 GP left for each solider.

Equip them with a horse (450 GP each, including saddle, bridal, and food). Spend the rest of the money on guard dogs. Say 50 per person.


The second army would win every engagement. Horses allow them to run, the dogs act as a shield/melee force, and the wands of fireball need only kill 10 guys per charge (on average) to destroy the first army.Except that a general would have to be totally idiotic to make an army of nothing but first level mooks with melee weapons. Even in the historical Middle Ages, with no fireballs, nobody did that; there were guys with bows and crossbows on both sides. The guys with bows and crossbows are a much greater threat to the fireball-slinging horsemen than a bunch of guys with swords are. Moreover, that army won't stay bunched up as a target for fireballs for long. They will either scatter and rout if their officers are incompetent (in which case you'll have to rally and rearm them anyway), or they will scatter and start sniping at your fireball-slinging horsemen.

A case as artificial as "50,000 first level mooks with the lousiest possible armor and melee weapon" versus "100 high level fireball-slinging horsemen" is going to look very clear-cut until you realize that it's such an artificial case. In a world where generals know that fireballs exist, they won't send large groups of low-level soldiers to march at the enemy in blocks any more than they do in the real world today. They will make sure they have a mix of ranged and melee weapons and enough higher-level officers and noncoms to deal with the fireball-slingers if necessary.


The most effective army is a dragon.

Ruler 1: I spend 2 million gp on large army.

Ruler 2: I spend 1 million gp to hire an adult dragon to completely waste your army.

Works on any lower examples. Make any reasonably large army of 'people', and I use my "I hire a dragon for half that amount" policy. :)

And I seriously doubt any evil dragon is going to turn down 1 million gp to torch some people and loot anything they find.

Also, this works for adventures. Adventurers can counter dragons, and dragons adventurers.

So, in conclusion, wars in D&D are some combination of Dragon vs Adventurers.But if my army is a combined arms force in D&D terms, I will have counters for your dragon. If I'm spending so much money on an army, I'm going to spend some of it on counter-dragon weaponry. I will have mages on hand with spells that work well on dragons, such as Shivering Touch. I will have some high-level archers with arrows of dragon slaying on hand. I will have ways to fight a dragon, because I know dragons exist. I will not ignore the possibility that my army will be attacked by a dragon any more than a modern real-world commander would ignore the possibility that his army will be attacked by helicopter gunships.

Dan_Hemmens
2007-07-02, 09:10 AM
The moral of this story is: D&D is designed to model fantasy *adventures*, not fantasy *worlds*.

Funkyodor
2007-07-02, 09:24 AM
Go by percentages instead of numbers, tweak to customize.
50% of an army composed of lvl 1 soldiers
25% command structure
20% support structure (chow, medics, artillery)
5% special forces and exceptional elites (I.E. high lvl bodyguards and green beret types)

So in a 50,000 man army you might have
25,000 lvl 1 mooks armed with a variety of weapons.
12,500 higher lvl sqaud leaders through lieutenants and generals
10,000 cooks, clerics, teamsters, bards, cannoneers, etc...
2,500 mid to high level and high statted green beret types including mages, rangers, etc...

Good magic for army warfare that anyone can use to spread around.
Healing potion
Dust of Appearance
Dust of Disappearance
Potion of Heroism (who wants an army that routes)
Keohntoms (sp) Ointment
Pearls of Fireballs (anyone can use)
Bags of Holding (great for packing a wagon full of supplies for the army on the go)

Armads
2007-07-02, 09:37 AM
I will have mages on hand with spells that work well on dragons, such as Shivering Touch.

That's not anti-dragon tactics, that's cheese.

However, in Army 1 vs Army 2, Army 1's going to win. All they need to do is arm each of themselves with slings, and use the very limits of their range increments to attack, pulling through by sheer nat 20s alone.



Heck, even just a scroll of summon creature 3ish and have it call up a whale. Drop said whale 100' up onto army 1. Army 1 is crushed under whale. Note this could even be done with a "simple" griffin or other flying mount.


You must summon them in an enviroment capable of supporting them, so no summoning a whale. And it cannot crush the whole of Army 1.

If you can get one good 15th level war chanter, the whole army becomes vastly more powerful. All the warriors will get virtual Shock Trooper, a BAB of +15, among other goodies.

elliott20
2007-07-02, 10:46 AM
the one thing people have to remember about D&D magic is that it doesn't benefit from economies of scale. As such, mass production of magical items to outfit a mass army of level 1 mooks is just not cost effective. It's not like with modern day technology where a factory can quickly pump out 10,000 pistols to outfit their soldiers.

Telonius
2007-07-02, 10:57 AM
Well. I've often wondered why nations keep these armies of level 1 grunts. They have to feed them.

Let's look at 2 armies.

Army Number 1

This is your standard army of level 1 warriors.

Let's go with 50,000 men.
A silver piece per day is the standard salary. Food costs another 5 SP per day if you go by trail rations (a fair price and we will assume that delivery costs are included in the price).

Lets give everyone a short spear, padded armor, and a light wooden shield. That comes to 9 GP. Lets round it to 10 to cover miscellaneous things.

So to equip your army costs you 500,000 GP up front and another 30,000 GP per day in upkeep.

Let's assume that the minimum time the army is kept around is a month (30 days). That is 900,000 GP for upkeep.

So your army costs you a grand total of 1,400,000 GP to equip and field. And that is just with basic level 1 grunts and no special units at all.


Army Number 2

Let's make a hundred man force this time. Upkeep comes to 60 GP per day. Or 1,800 GP for the month. Leaving 1,398,200 GP left to spend on equipment.

Or 14,000 GP per person.

Let's equip each with a CL 5 Wand of Fireball for 11,250 GP each. Leaving 2,750 GP left for each solider.

Equip them with a horse (450 GP each, including saddle, bridal, and food). Spend the rest of the money on guard dogs. Say 50 per person.


The second army would win every engagement. Horses allow them to run, the dogs act as a shield/melee force, and the wands of fireball need only kill 10 guys per charge (on average) to destroy the first army.


You're forgetting an important thing there - weapons manufacturers. If they ever saw Army #2 forming, they'd temporarily cut their prices in half to Army #1. If everybody sees that kind of army can rout the first type, all the armorers will be out of a job. So Army 1 beats Army 2, word gets out that magic isn't all that terrific, and they're free to raise their prices again.

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-02, 11:00 AM
You're forgetting an important thing there - weapons manufacturers. If they ever saw Army #2 forming, they'd temporarily cut their prices in half to Army #1. If everybody sees that kind of army can rout the first type, all the armorers will be out of a job. So Army 1 beats Army 2, word gets out that magic isn't all that terrific, and they're free to raise their prices again.

If you want to really apply magic every solider on the field would be in masterwork full plate with masterwork weapons.

1 item of at will Wall of Iron and 1 item of at will Fabricate. Give them to a smith and you are turning out 1 suit of MW full plate per round, at no real cost.

elliott20
2007-07-02, 11:07 AM
yeah, my understanding is that the most cost effective way to bring magic to an army is not actually to give every soldier artillery equipment, but to replace traditional functions and maintenaces through magic.

i.e. ET was talking about upkeep through food and what not. But then, if squads were to splurge for a wand of create food and water, that cost could be mitigated in the long term.

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-02, 11:16 AM
Yeah. Although the wand, even in the long term, won't pay for its self.

At the minimum CL a wand of Create Food and Water costs 11,250 GP and feeds 5 people per charge. It has 50 charges.

Split the cost by 5 people and it comes to 2,250 GP. Now split that 50 ways for the cost per person per meal and it comes to 45 GP.

The cost to feed them rations is 5 SP per day. So the wand costs 22.5 times as much per meal.

EDIT: Magic items get cost effective for armies when they are unlimited use.

ShneekeyTheLost
2007-07-02, 11:19 AM
If you want to really apply magic every solider on the field would be in masterwork full plate with masterwork weapons.

1 item of at will Wall of Iron and 1 item of at will Fabricate. Give them to a smith and you are turning out 1 suit of MW full plate per round, at no real cost.

Neither of which exist, and are rather like one use True Strike items in that they completely break the 'custom magic item' rules.

I'll take on your army of 100 guys with fireball wands with my horde of 50,000 mooks... only instead of swords, I'll equip them with Repeating Crossbows. One volley and your army is toast. With that many bolts firing, there's no frellin' way any of your guys are going to survive, there's be more of the 1-in-20 auto-hits and 1-in-400 auto-crits alone to ensure your destruction. I loose 100 * 4 (number of squares a fireball takes up) = 400 troops. Congratulations. You made me may out a 4:1 ratio. Considering I had a 500:1 numerical advantage, you still loose.

elliott20
2007-07-02, 11:21 AM
yeah, that's what I meant. When you have a wand with unlimited usage, you can replace certain functions such as rations quite easily. Now granted, you'll need more than just one wand if you're army gets to large enough size. but if you're talking about maintaining a long standing army, between a number of create food and water rods, a number fabricate rods, and wall of iron rods, you can pretty much eliminate all normal maintenance costs for the army itself.

Narmoth
2007-07-02, 11:22 AM
I think all drow in an drow army has magic equipment and at least a +1 sword
I'm running a now high level campagin where a temple in the main city has an elite guard force of level 1-10 paladins (with magic and unlimited healing potions). So there's nothing realy keeping you from this. Just think of how such an army would change your gaming world.
The paladin army never leaves the city (which is under attack by drow from the underdark) and will never go below level 1 in the dungeon that leads to the underdark. Consequently, they will not take the place in the spotlight away from the group. An army that will win a war in stead of the chatacters on the other hand...

Well, I think it's the main reason for not letting armies be of high level and have much magical items.

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-02, 11:24 AM
Neither of which exist, and are rather like one use True Strike items in that they completely break the 'custom magic item' rules.

Yeah, and the rules don't work with armies and magic mixing at all.


I'll take on your army of 100 guys with fireball wands with my horde of 50,000 mooks... only instead of swords, I'll equip them with Repeating Crossbows. One volley and your army is toast. With that many bolts firing, there's no frellin' way any of your guys are going to survive, there's be more of the 1-in-20 auto-hits and 1-in-400 auto-crits alone to ensure your destruction. I loose 100 * 4 (number of squares a fireball takes up) = 400 troops. Congratulations. You made me may out a 4:1 ratio. Considering I had a 500:1 numerical advantage, you still loose.

Feel free to arm them with repeating crossbows. Let's assume Light repeating Crossbows because they are cheaper. And 2 things of ammo each. So those bows cost you 252 GP per solider. We will assume that the arrows cancel out with the swords and shields.

So 250 GP per solider.

That adds 12,500,000 GP to the cost to create your army.

I can drastically improve my army with that kind of money. It's an extra 125,000 GP per solider.

Arakune
2007-07-02, 11:28 AM
in some settings the XP can be traded to gold or raw special intens (such as dragons teeth, unicorn horn, demon horn, etc). SO instead for him to need XP in form of experience, he can only need XP in form of raw materials to make his weapons. It's a much more easy way to make that magical military.
Also, there are too much people in the army for an pseudomedieval campaign. Only large scale empires could hire that much people, and I don't think there more than 2~3 countrys with that much money to spare.

PaladinBoy
2007-07-02, 11:52 AM
I personally think that in some cases. it's possible to equip an army with some magical gear. Giving the entire army magical items quickly becomes inefficient for the amount of money you spend.

One of my favorite tricks to use against an army..... hmm, it really only works in Eberron. Oh well. Hire a high level Lyrandar raincaller with a magic item called a Crown of High Dominion. When he uses his dragonmark's control weather ability, you can get a hurricane in a 6-mile radius for the next 48 hours. And since the dragonmark's uses are per day, this means you can keep the hurricane going until the enemy is defeated. And a storm of that size makes army movements nearly impossible. Yet it's still possible for a skilled Lyrandar pilot to fly an airship through a hurricane, according to the rules in Stormwrack. On top of that, you can still drop large, heavy objects and expect them to land under you, provided they're large and heavy enough. So just go on bombing runs until the enemy puts up the white flag.

The total cost is difficult to determine, but let's see.....
Hiring Lyrandar heir w/greater dragonmark...... unknown. Probably a few thousand gold pieces to get one casting of control weather, more because you'll want him to stick around until the enemy dies or surrenders. Then it would increase again for hazardous duty.
Crown of High Dominion.........IIRC, 18,000 gp.
Chartering an airship..........1,000 gp per day, doubled for hazardous duty, increased yet again for a very skilled pilot....... I'll guess 3,000 gp per day, multiplied by 14 for two weeks, just to be safe, is 42,000 gp. Or, if you anticipated doing this more than once, you could just buy an airship for 92,000 gp. Hiring a pilot would be much cheaper.

So all told, it probably wouldn't cost more than 200,000 gp to use this trick. And most of those costs are charged by House Lyrandar so that they can make a profit. If the house itself tried this trick, it would cost only the money to buy (or make) the Crown of High Dominion, and the time spent by their people.

Citizen Joe
2007-07-02, 12:15 PM
I think the idea is to use SIMPLE weapons so you don't need to train the soldiers. Repeating crossbows are exotic weapons. Note that this favours crossbows over bows (which are martial weapons).

I don't know that I'd go with control weather trick since the weather options are seasonal, Hurricane only available in late winter (odd since here in Florida its late spring through early fall). Plus another caster can stop the spell. AND it isn't that big an area compared to the scope of an army. Yes you could hinder a batallion, but not the whole army.

horseboy
2007-07-02, 12:21 PM
I think the idea is to use SIMPLE weapons so you don't need to train the soldiers. Repeating crossbows are exotic weapons. Note that this favours crossbows over bows (which are martial weapons).

I don't know that I'd go with control weather trick since the weather options are seasonal, Hurricane only available in late winter (odd since here in Florida its late spring through early fall). Plus another caster can stop the spell. AND it isn't that big an area compared to the scope of an army. Yes you could hinder a batallion, but not the whole army.

Hurricanes can hit an entire state. That's more than enough room for one midevil army.

Citizen Joe
2007-07-02, 12:32 PM
Hurricanes can hit an entire state. That's more than enough room for one midevil army.

But control weather is local 2 mile radius

Kizara
2007-07-02, 02:06 PM
But if my army is a combined arms force in D&D terms, I will have counters for your dragon. If I'm spending so much money on an army, I'm going to spend some of it on counter-dragon weaponry. I will have mages on hand with spells that work well on dragons, such as Shivering Touch. I will have some high-level archers with arrows of dragon slaying on hand. I will have ways to fight a dragon, because I know dragons exist. I will not ignore the possibility that my army will be attacked by a dragon any more than a modern real-world commander would ignore the possibility that his army will be attacked by helicopter gunships.

1) Shivering touch is cheese, and requires you to 'touch' the dragon. It isn't a viable counter, its cheese and unbalanced and banned from my (and most around here) games.

2) High level archers with magical equipment are adventurers. As I said, the only counter for a dragon is adventurers.

3) It's nice that you are prepared for it, but aside from adventurers, there ISNT any anti-dragon weaponry.

horseboy
2007-07-02, 02:52 PM
But control weather is local 2 mile radius

So 40 mph winds and torrential rains go out exactly 2 miles and suddenly stops like a cartoon Transylvanian border?

Kizara: What about a hidden ballista? It'd get one shot before the dragon wiped it out with it's breath weapon. Holy, axiomatic ballista bolts of slaying, hmmm.

Citizen Joe
2007-07-02, 02:57 PM
So 40 mph winds and torrential rains go out exactly 2 miles and suddenly stops like a cartoon Transylvanian border?

Hey, I didn't write the spell, I just read it.

Kizara
2007-07-02, 04:04 PM
So 40 mph winds and torrential rains go out exactly 2 miles and suddenly stops like a cartoon Transylvanian border?

Kizara: What about a hidden ballista? It'd get one shot before the dragon wiped it out with it's breath weapon. Holy, axiomatic ballista bolts of slaying, hmmm.

1) blindsight out to a huge radius and incredible visual acuity. With the amount of skills dragons get from their huge amont of HD (and Spot is class), and the entry "dragons see 2 times as well as humans in normal light, 4 times in low-light condictions" or something similar. Good luck hiding it.

2) Good luck lining up and hitting an extremely fast (look at dragon fly speeds) moving target such as a dragon, that also has a very good AC with the aiming rules that siege weapons use (profession: siege engineer checks to hit an area). Essentially, even if you manage to successfully shoot the bolt in such a fashion that it could hit the dragon, it gets a low DC Reflex save to avoid it. Ever look at a dragon's saves?
Its like trying to hit a fighter jet doing a low-level bombing run with an RPG: its not going to work.

horseboy
2007-07-02, 04:38 PM
1) blindsight out to a huge radius and incredible visual acuity. With the amount of skills dragons get from their huge amont of HD (and Spot is class), and the entry "dragons see 2 times as well as humans in normal light, 4 times in low-light condictions" or something similar. Good luck hiding it.

2) Good luck lining up and hitting an extremely fast (look at dragon fly speeds) moving target such as a dragon, that also has a very good AC with the aiming rules that siege weapons use (profession: siege engineer checks to hit an area). Essentially, even if you manage to successfully shoot the bolt in such a fashion that it could hit the dragon, it gets a low DC Reflex save to avoid it. Ever look at a dragon's saves?
Its like trying to hit a fighter jet doing a low-level bombing run with an RPG: its not going to work.

I didn't say it would be easy. Show him what he wants to see (a dummy trebuchet or so) He breaths on it, flies by you whip off the cloak of elvenkind fire at it while blindsided (Do dragons outside their lair have 360* vision in this game system, don't remember) it gets no save and I get a to hit bonus.

Now, granted this works much better on star dragons, but stranger things have happened. Once a local farmer shot down an F-15 with his 20 ga shotgun. It's not impossible, just improbable.

Dervag
2007-07-02, 04:52 PM
That's not anti-dragon tactics, that's cheese.It was the first thing that came to mind. And while it may be cheese, it is undeniably effective against dragons. If it is effective against dragons, and if I, as a general, am worried that my army will be attacked by dragons, you may be sure that I will lay in a large stockpile of it. Who wouldn't?

If I can't use it, I'll try to find something else. I'll outfit my entire army with crossbows and hope that peppering the bloody great lizard with a few thousand crossbow bolts will bring it down. Or I'll invest in a dragon of my own, or hire a group of adventurers to assassinate any dragons likely to pose a threat. Or something.

But whatever I do, I'm not going to be a flaming moron and spend all my money on equipping the maximum possible number of first level mooks with shortspears on the assumption that no dragons or giants or wizards will attack.


However, in Army 1 vs Army 2, Army 1's going to win. All they need to do is arm each of themselves with slings, and use the very limits of their range increments to attack, pulling through by sheer nat 20s alone.Exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about.


I'll take on your army of 100 guys with fireball wands with my horde of 50,000 mooks... only instead of swords, I'll equip them with Repeating Crossbows. One volley and your army is toast. With that many bolts firing, there's no frellin' way any of your guys are going to survive, there's be more of the 1-in-20 auto-hits and 1-in-400 auto-crits alone to ensure your destruction. I loose 100 * 4 (number of squares a fireball takes up) = 400 troops. Congratulations. You made me may out a 4:1 ratio. Considering I had a 500:1 numerical advantage, you still loose.Well, repeating crossbows are very expensive and will reduce the size of the army you can field. If you have to use nothing but mooks, I would suggest slings.


I think all drow in an drow army has magic equipment and at least a +1 sword
I'm running a now high level campagin where a temple in the main city has an elite guard force of level 1-10 paladins (with magic and unlimited healing potions). So there's nothing realy keeping you from this. Just think of how such an army would change your gaming world.
The paladin army never leaves the city (which is under attack by drow from the underdark) and will never go below level 1 in the dungeon that leads to the underdark. Consequently, they will not take the place in the spotlight away from the group. An army that will win a war in stead of the chatacters on the other hand...

Well, I think it's the main reason for not letting armies be of high level and have much magical items.I would argue that such an army has an excellent place in a D&D world.

That place is at home. The army keeps the players' home base secure, which is, after all, their job. The PCs can feel confident that they will have a place to come back to and drink beer after the job is done.

Moreover, the army allows you to create large threats that nonetheless fail to spell the end of the world should the PCs fail. If there's a portal to Hell that spawns demons every ten minutes, and the PCs are the only thing that can close it, and the PCs are defeated in their battle to close the portal, the world is in deep trouble and the PCs will never get a chance to retrain and come back.

Whereas if there is an army that can (at least temporarily) hold the line against the attacking demons, then things are different. The PCs have someone in their corner now. They can fall back, recover, and return to the fight. This will give them more confidence and make it less likely that your campaign world gets destroyed because the PCs fumbled a critically important roll.


1) Shivering touch is cheese, and requires you to 'touch' the dragon. It isn't a viable counter, its cheese and unbalanced and banned from my (and most around here) games.As I said above, the fact that this specific antidragon spell is banned for cheesiness does not invalidate the basic idea. If I know I might be attacked by dragons, I'm not going to go into denial and spend all my time and money enlisting more first-level soldiers with melee weapons who stand as much chance against a dragon as so many ants.

So presenting an argument like "my million-gold-piece dragon beats your two-million-gold-piece army of mooks with swords" or "my 500 fireball-slinging horsemen beat your 50,000 mooks with spears" is an inherently flawed argument, because it assumes that the people with two million gold pieces to spend are either extremely stupid or have never heard of dragons before. Only extremely stupid people would form an entire army of mooks with melee weapons when they know that there are threats that mooks with melee weapons cannot hope to fight.


2) High level archers with magical equipment are adventurers. As I said, the only counter for a dragon is adventurers.So, in other words, anyone high level is by definition an adventurer. This strikes me as a rather odd position to take. After all, 'adventurer' denotes someone who goes on adventures and whose life is centered around going on adventures. A career military officer is likely not an adventurer, even though they are quite likely to be high level. The senior clergy of the local temples are not adventurers; they are settled down at their temples. A wizard in his tower is not an adventurer, either. These people may have gone on adventures in the past, but that doesn't make them adventurers now.

And these are the people who supply the antidragon weaponry. I can hire archers who have fought in many battles over many years and who are very experience in archery, but are not adventurers in the sense of being people who go on adventures. They are part of my army. And I can pay wizards to make arrows of dragon slaying, or perform services for them (another form of payment), or some such thing. And these wizards are not adventurers, either; they are stationary NPCs.


3) It's nice that you are prepared for it, but aside from adventurers, there ISNT any anti-dragon weaponry.Moreover, if your argument that all high-level characters are adventurers is both true and relevant, then it also presents a solution to the problem. If I have enough money to outfit an army, by your argument, I am an adventurer, because I have lots of money. Wealth-by-level implies that I am therefore high level, and therefore, by your reasoning, an adventurer. In which case I am antidragon weaponry, and I can presumably hire others like me

Kioran
2007-07-02, 05:20 PM
1) Shivering touch is cheese, and requires you to 'touch' the dragon. It isn't a viable counter, its cheese and unbalanced and banned from my (and most around here) games.

2) High level archers with magical equipment are adventurers. As I said, the only counter for a dragon is adventurers.

3) It's nice that you are prepared for it, but aside from adventurers, there ISNT any anti-dragon weaponry.

You can hit dragons with things that hurt, even low-lvl. First and foremost, thereīs natural twenties with your archery - theyīre bound to hit eyes, mouth or other weak spot. Secondly, thereīs the chance to hit a Dragon with alchemical munitions if he hasnīt buffed against it and itīs always worth a try. If you have lvl 5 Wizards on hand, use Ray of Exhaustion - itīs bound to slow them down and seriously puts a cramp in their style. Use bane arrows or debuff the dragon. Use raw quantities of cheap poison - every natural one means ability damage. As soon as the dragon lies there helpless, torture it to death. Every dragon that dies takes centuries to replace. A few hundred dead humans takes fifteen years.
Third, Dragons are big Lizards which are stupid in a most unique manner(since they donīt think about the mechanics of violence - They donīt need elaborate violence to win). They might be master manipulators, Arcane sages, philosophers - but never Warlords. That is the domain of those who have had and will have to fear for their lives if they screw up. Humans, in short. For all their Intelligence, few Dragons ever even thought about using the landscape as weapon or employing mass tactics.
Did I mention I have a strong dislike for dragons?


As for Tippy - why do the mundane weapons have to be that expensive? Why repeating crossbows? Itīs not like they had +5 BAB anyway, and they donīt need their move action every round. Give them normal crossbows. Or, even better, give them Javelins and hide them. They are bound to his sometimes. If range is a problem, give īem shortbows. Take Humans, they have the feet for the proficiency if they arenīt already warriors.

The main reason for mundane armies is the availabilty, however. High lvl Characters tend to fight and kill each other a lot, so if you start out with a hundred at lvl 1, the crowd will have thinned considerably by the time they reach lvl 5, the lvl necessesary to make the tools you want. And by then, they donīt necessesarily want to give mooks the ability to kick their asses by handing you their exp in easy-to-use packages.
As for Sigil: they will just as likely beat your ass and take your gold because without the wands you donīt have a legion of mooks to defend you. Something that can manufacture or distribute rw quanitities of magic items also has little problems with petty warlords. The mundane army is the basis for negotiation. You need some Power before you can bargain with Wizards or dragons (mainly, especially with the latter, the ability to kill them slowly and painfully, even of at a high cost). You donīt need that much power to whip up a force of peasants. So that force of mooks is the beginning, basis and core of your operations, totally indispensable.

PaladinBoy
2007-07-02, 07:48 PM
I don't know that I'd go with control weather trick since the weather options are seasonal, Hurricane only available in late winter (odd since here in Florida its late spring through early fall). Plus another caster can stop the spell. AND it isn't that big an area compared to the scope of an army. Yes you could hinder a batallion, but not the whole army.

Actually, the magic item I mentioned, the Crown of High Dominion, basically applies Widen Spell to the larger radius that a druid gets, making the radius 6 miles. And there are options for any season that will make army movements difficult at least, impossible at worst.

I'm not as worried as I could be about dispels, because what I can do with a 9th level character gives a 15th level caster with greater dispel magic only an even chance, and that 9th level character can still do it twice per day.

I'm not sure why you say that the area is not that big; I think it would be more than enough to hamper an army that's camped out on a plain, particularly if the caster at the center is on an airship a few hundred feet above the center of the enemy army. Even if it can only get part, that part would have to be pretty stupid to try to advance, since it would allow my troops to face a divided army whose part's can't really help each other.

Dervag
2007-07-02, 07:56 PM
Use raw quantities of cheap poison - every natural one means ability damage. As soon as the dragon lies there helpless, torture it to death. Every dragon that dies takes centuries to replace. A few hundred dead humans takes fifteen years.Well, I'm not sure I'd say 'torture it to death'; on the contrary I would want to kill the beast as fast and efficiently as possible so that it doesn't get back up. But I think your main argument is totally right, and it ties in very well with what I was saying.

I do, however, wish you used a little less in the way of acronyms, because there are a few places where you write things like "rw quanitities of magic items" and I'm not sure precisely what you mean. How many magic items, precisely, are there in a rw quantity? What does rw mean in this context? I would really like to know.

Kioran
2007-07-03, 01:49 AM
Well, I'm not sure I'd say 'torture it to death'; on the contrary I would want to kill the beast as fast and efficiently as possible so that it doesn't get back up. But I think your main argument is totally right, and it ties in very well with what I was saying.

I do, however, wish you used a little less in the way of acronyms, because there are a few places where you write things like "rw quanitities of magic items" and I'm not sure precisely what you mean. How many magic items, precisely, are there in a rw quantity? What does rw mean in this context? I would really like to know.

Oh, these are typos - but If i were to present numbers, I think of fightinmg an adult dragon. These have Con 21 and just as many HD, sometimes 22 or 23. Thus, the have a base Fort Save of +16. Getting to them requires a natural one on their save or very expensive poison. Iīd use cheaper stuff, but in Quantity. their AC is high-twentyish, so Injury poison is out of the question - a twenty and a one in a row a rare and nothing to count on.

We need contact poison - Sassone leaf residue should do it. It has a DC of 16, and does 1d6 Con secondary damage. It also costs only 300 (which is cheap for poison), and can thus be apllied on a larger scale. You still need that natural 1 and one minute of time, but as soon as the first one comes through and kicks in, it gets a lot easier, since constitution damage lower the Fort Save.
So Iīd say equip 30 Crossbowmen with poisoned quarrels and hide them among your normal crossbowmen, so the dragon has no Idea who to attack specifically. Give them 5 doses of poison each. They only need to hit the Touch AC, which is ridiculously easy with dragons. As soon as the first oneīs in, the Fort Save drops by 1 or 2 points.
Wonīt do much, itīs still probably dependent on natural ones. But at that point the Dragon has also lost quite some HP - 2d6 to one dose of the poison, and another 22 to the con damage. Other crossbowmen are bound to do damge as well, allthough DR severely limits it. By the second volley, another d6 Con Damge cuts the dragon down to size - his fort save is now probably something around 13. At that point, one out of seven quarrels that hits delivers. Two volleys later, the dragon lies bleeding and dies, if the HP damage hasnīt killed him first. Mission accomplished, and that at a cost of maybe 100 or 200 crossbowmen and 150 doses of poison, totaling 14,000 in Equipment for the crossbowmen and 150,000 for the the poison. Expensive, but your dragon is bound to cost more and be more sorely missed.......or not.

Tor the Fallen
2007-07-03, 02:06 AM
OMFG the expense!

Look at outfitting even a level 5 PC. Now multiply that by a thousand. That's what you're talking about paying to outfit your army.

It's much easier to sprinkle Bards in your army to give everyone bonuses. Flute, drum, and (hehe) bagpipe were all used in armies, after all. So was the Bugle.

Let the casters take the place of your howitzers. Launch Area Effect stuff like Stinking Cloud at massed formations and watch the fun begin.

Actually, if you assume NPCs have access to special crafting classes, feats, and skill, so can manufacture for cheap, and there are economies of scale, then it works.

Tor the Fallen
2007-07-03, 02:07 AM
Oh, these are typos - but If i were to present numbers, I think of fightinmg an adult dragon. These have Con 21 and just as many HD, sometimes 22 or 23. Thus, the have a base Fort Save of +16. Getting to them requires a natural one on their save or very expensive poison. Iīd use cheaper stuff, but in Quantity. their AC is high-twentyish, so Injury poison is out of the question - a twenty and a one in a row a rare and nothing to count on.

We need contact poison - Sassone leaf residue should do it. It has a DC of 16, and does 1d6 Con secondary damage. It also costs only 300 (which is cheap for poison), and can thus be apllied on a larger scale. You still need that natural 1 and one minute of time, but as soon as the first one comes through and kicks in, it gets a lot easier, since constitution damage lower the Fort Save.
So Iīd say equip 30 Crossbowmen with poisoned quarrels and hide them among your normal crossbowmen, so the dragon has no Idea who to attack specifically. Give them 5 doses of poison each. They only need to hit the Touch AC, which is ridiculously easy with dragons. As soon as the first oneīs in, the Fort Save drops by 1 or 2 points.
Wonīt do much, itīs still probably dependent on natural ones. But at that point the Dragon has also lost quite some HP - 2d6 to one dose of the poison, and another 22 to the con damage. Other crossbowmen are bound to do damge as well, allthough DR severely limits it. By the second volley, another d6 Con Damge cuts the dragon down to size - his fort save is now probably something around 13. At that point, one out of seven quarrels that hits delivers. Two volleys later, the dragon lies bleeding and dies, if the HP damage hasnīt killed him first. Mission accomplished, and that at a cost of maybe 100 or 200 crossbowmen and 150 doses of poison, totaling 14,000 in Equipment for the crossbowmen and 150,000 for the the poison. Expensive, but your dragon is bound to cost more and be more sorely missed.......or not.

They'll never get a second volley. Those that don't run off because of the dragon's frightful presence will be reduced to ash by his breath weapon on the fly-by attack.

Dervag
2007-07-03, 02:37 AM
They'll never get a second volley. Those that don't run off because of the dragon's frightful presence will be reduced to ash by his breath weapon on the fly-by attack.Don't put them in a block. It doesn't give them increased resistance to the fear effect, and it makes them sitting ducks for the breath weapon.

The dragon's frightful presence is range-limited; allowing it to intimidate the entire force of crossbowmen with one pass is giving the enemy a break, always a bad idea in war. Ideally, you want the crossbowmen spread out to the point where the dragon will find it difficult or impossible to affect more than a few with breath weapons in one pass.

You're already relying on natural twenties to hit the beast; making the crossbowmen stand a few range increments (say, a hundred yards) away from the dragon isn't going to make matters worse.

The key to dealing with magical and monstrous threats in D&D is to free one's mind from the image of blocks of infantry and vollies of missiles. Those tactics will work well in a conflict between armies, or even between an army and a force of 'ordinary' monsters such as ogres. But against a dragon they are worse than useless, just as they would be against an attack helicopter in real life.

Kizara
2007-07-03, 03:55 AM
In point of referance, consider the following:

Adult Red Dragon vs army 100% composed of crossbowmen, along with appropriate officers. Highest level officer: lvl 10.
If anyone wants to debate the 'army', thats fair, I'm trying to judge it by what people are saying.

Anyways... it doesn't actually matter, at all.

Here's why:
You people don't know how to run your dragons.

First off, at some point the army has to move somewhere. It's going to be in some kind of collum or something. It's going to not be something absurd like spread out over 5 miles.

Round one, dragon flies out of literally nowhere (invisibility) roars and proceeds to quickly waste the most threatening group of attackers.
at 150 feet a round, and a 30x6= 180 foot radius frightful presence, anything remotely close to the dragon over the course of it's attack run is going to be effected.
It's a DC 24 will save, no fighter under 5th level is going to make that non-20. So, 95% of your force thats <level 6 is now totally routed if its anywhere close to the dragon. Anyone higher then that is likely on a horse, which is also routed. So any people not effected (nat 20 on save) are faced with this massively powerful dragon and everyone else around them running. Most of them panicked for 4d6 rounds.

The highest level officer, lets say a 10th level paladin, might be able to do something. But I don't have to stat-out 1-2 rounds of full melee with an adult red dragon to tell you what happens there.

With arcane and divine casting at CL 7, he also has an impressive array of pre-buffs he could cast that I'm not going to bother to mention. There's also things like fog or wind-wall to defend against ranged attacks. Not to mention protection from arrows. And without having to check, I'm fairly certain there's a divine spell somewhere that protects against posion.


Posion isnt going to work, and if he really has to he can heal/neutralize it.
Equipping your entire army with posion is extremely hazardous too.

Some kind of ballista rocket-launcher isnt going to work, even if it hits, the dragon has at least 253 hp and your not getting a second shot.

And don't forget in everyone's "use masses of spread-out archers" that even with 20-fishing in numbers, the dragon has DR 5/magic, so any arrow that gets through is likely going to do very little.

Also, all of this assumes that in the dragon's wealth and magical items he doesn't have any that he himself benefits from.

Edit: An adult red dragon is CR 15. According to the DMG, the average reward for an EL 15 encounter is 22,000. A dragon is Triple Standard, so that improves to 66,000. I would assume that paying a dragon an amount equal to the entire current value of its horde is sufficent to hire it to kill an army for you. Especially since it likes doing that anyways, and it gets to loot all of said army. Therefore, I submit to 'counter' my dragon you can only use twice this amount, or 132,000. And again, an EL 15 party can of course fight the dragon, I already said that. The only thing that counters a dragon is adventurers.
And for the record, my definition of 'adventurers' is "people with a PC class that engage in the business of aquiring wealth through undertaking large risks" whether those risks include helping people or fighting monsters, is immaterial. A lvl 10 aristocrate king isnt an adventurer, even if he has 10x+ the wealth of one. A 14th level fighter/ranger archer guy that is hired as "anti-dragon protection" most certinally is.

Funkyodor
2007-07-03, 04:12 AM
Well, I personally like a middle level suicide bomber, er..., knight. ~40,000 gp later with 200d6s worth of beads of fireball, potion of flight & invisibility... Oh, and silence too. Can't forget the silence for the hypnotized invisible cruise missile.

Gavin Sage
2007-07-03, 10:01 AM
Well. I've often wondered why nations keep these armies of level 1 grunts. They have to feed them.

Let's look at 2 armies.

Army Number 1

This is your standard army of level 1 warriors.

Let's go with 50,000 men.
A silver piece per day is the standard salary. Food costs another 5 SP per day if you go by trail rations (a fair price and we will assume that delivery costs are included in the price).

Lets give everyone a short spear, padded armor, and a light wooden shield. That comes to 9 GP. Lets round it to 10 to cover miscellaneous things.

So to equip your army costs you 500,000 GP up front and another 30,000 GP per day in upkeep.

Let's assume that the minimum time the army is kept around is a month (30 days). That is 900,000 GP for upkeep.

So your army costs you a grand total of 1,400,000 GP to equip and field. And that is just with basic level 1 grunts and no special units at all.


Army Number 2

Let's make a hundred man force this time. Upkeep comes to 60 GP per day. Or 1,800 GP for the month. Leaving 1,398,200 GP left to spend on equipment.

Or 14,000 GP per person.

Let's equip each with a CL 5 Wand of Fireball for 11,250 GP each. Leaving 2,750 GP left for each solider.

Equip them with a horse (450 GP each, including saddle, bridal, and food). Spend the rest of the money on guard dogs. Say 50 per person.


The second army would win every engagement. Horses allow them to run, the dogs act as a shield/melee force, and the wands of fireball need only kill 10 guys per charge (on average) to destroy the first army.

You realize that 50,000 footmen would be a very dumb way to build an army. You don't win wars with footmen alone except against other foot, and then its a massive slaughter and so on and so forth. Even the number would be very hard to acquire, since you are talking major portions of the population. For the same amount of money without getting into magic you wouldn't raise all foot, you'd raise something with a ratio more like 5 footmen, 3 archers, and 2 horsemen . Have the foot work as a screen for the archers against the fireballs, while the archers arrow launch 1000 1d8 arrows (or 1d10 bolts) into your expensive but low HD men for a few rounds.

Also you can't simply equip your magic wielding army with one wand, since then you can just be bled dry by sacrificial or hit and run tactics. Its not good to have your army's very expensive equipment run out in the middle of a war. Plus training your troops would require use of said wands. And any time some bozo dropped his wand in the middle of 100 horses.... accidents happen. It's like running an army of jetfighters, only jets can be refueled and repaired while wands generally can't. I don't know if you could call it safe to run a war with out at least 5 wands a man.

Lapak
2007-07-03, 10:10 AM
The other problem with investing in magic rather than men is that you run the real risk of having those assets captured and used against you. If your men are in squads, they may be easily ambushed. If they're all together, there's still kidnapping and sabotage and even other one-shot magical assaults to worry about. If I spent all my army money on magic wands of fireball and then saboteurs destroyed or stole them, I'd be a very unhappy king.

Mike_G
2007-07-03, 10:49 AM
Historicaly, poorly armed armies of rebels and guerillas, armed only with small arms, have given a lot of grief to artillery and tank and helicopter and airstrike armed modern armies.

From the American revolution, through the Boers, the IRA, the Chechens, the Vietnamese (against Japan, France and the US), the Somalis and the "bunch of dead enders" in Iraq.

Enough guys with AK47's and homemade bombs can't stop a modern army, or keep it from occupying territory, but they can bleed it for years, and evade total destruction.

So, if my nation were occupied by ET's company of Fireball chuckers, or even somebody's hired Dragon, I'd just fade my troops into the hills, striking from ambush with my slingers and a few Experts with trap setting skills, then capture a few of your Fireball items and lead your vaunted elite army into a quagmire that will cost more blood and treasure than is worth it.

You can't keep the whole army together, since you need to patrol and guard important areas, or we'll just retake any territory where your troops ain't.

An army that can't win in the field won't fight in the field.

The Glyphstone
2007-07-03, 11:32 AM
Well, I personally like a middle level suicide bomber, er..., knight. ~40,000 gp later with 200d6s worth of beads of fireball, potion of flight & invisibility... Oh, and silence too. Can't forget the silence for the hypnotized invisible cruise missile.


Wait, weren't we discussing a Red Dragon for this hypothetical situation? Any other non-fireproof breed would, well....see it with Blindsight when it got within 60/30ft and avoid, but a Red wouldn't even care.:smallconfused:

terror_drone
2007-07-03, 11:48 AM
Someone said it above me but Im trying to get ready for an interview some I'm not going to quote them.

Anyways, 50,000 people? Not happening, thats the size of a an entire large city-metropolis in the standard D&D world. Even if you do conscription and force prisoners to fight for you the most you will likely have is 10,000~ish. This cuts down the costs quite a good deal but even then at least half of this force will not be of the trained kind and it will most likely be every single thing in the country you can throw at the enemy. It is rare in historical examples for a medieval army to number more then 5,000 tops

Funkyodor
2007-07-03, 02:09 PM
Alright, some people did not get the humor of my invis exploding knight. Soo. Adult dragon? Significant enemy investment requires an associated investment to defeat it. Greater arrows of Dragon slaying work wonders. Don't know what your talking about with a Con bonus to a Fort. save in the book that already includes said Con bouns (Dragons have all good saves, 22HD is +13 save, you do the math). Now the question as to how easy it is to hit. The wording is that if it strikes the creature it must save. Not if it takes damage or not, like how other arrows are worded. Is this a touch attack? If so then that AC is Much! easier to hit for standard mooks. Less arrows are needed if you decide to actually give these expensive munitions to soldiers that can use them effectively. Dragon dead, army losses minimal from direct confrontation. If 'salted earth' dragon tactics, more losses but same result. Might as well have some of the others handy too for foes that armies have problems against. Elementals, Constructs, Demons/Devils, etc...

Indon
2007-07-03, 02:33 PM
I'd say that one of the more effective magical armies is one of the more commonly depicted magical armies; the army of undead.

One HD worth of undead is worth 25g, about the price of 3 soldiers. BUT, there is no upkeep required; the only upkeep is for the necromancers whom serve you.

An Evil or negatively aligned Neutral level 7 cleric (that's high enough to cast Animate Dead, right?) can animate and safely control what, three times their level in undead HD? Some for the animation, and some for their Rebuking power.

Edit: Though really, their biggest benefit is that the undead army is not limited by personnel; so long as they have the monetary resources, and somewhere to dig up bodies, they can animate an arbitrarily high number of the dead.

Dervag
2007-07-03, 07:05 PM
First off, at some point the army has to move somewhere. It's going to be in some kind of collum or something. It's going to not be something absurd like spread out over 5 miles.It will be if it's being run by someone with intelligence greater than or equal to my own who is expecting a dragon attack.

First gain air superiority, then move.


It's a DC 24 will save, no fighter under 5th level is going to make that non-20. So, 95% of your force thats <level 6 is now totally routed if its anywhere close to the dragon.You're right; so what about the guys who aren't close to the dragon?


With arcane and divine casting at CL 7, he also has an impressive array of pre-buffs he could cast that I'm not going to bother to mention. There's also things like fog or wind-wall to defend against ranged attacks. Not to mention protection from arrows. And without having to check, I'm fairly certain there's a divine spell somewhere that protects against posion.

Posion isnt going to work, and if he really has to he can heal/neutralize it.
Equipping your entire army with posion is extremely hazardous too.

Some kind of ballista rocket-launcher isnt going to work, even if it hits, the dragon has at least 253 hp and your not getting a second shot.

And don't forget in everyone's "use masses of spread-out archers" that even with 20-fishing in numbers, the dragon has DR 5/magic, so any arrow that gets through is likely going to do very little.

Also, all of this assumes that in the dragon's wealth and magical items he doesn't have any that he himself benefits from.

And for the record, my definition of 'adventurers' is "people with a PC class that engage in the business of aquiring wealth through undertaking large risks" whether those risks include helping people or fighting monsters, is immaterial. A lvl 10 aristocrate king isnt an adventurer, even if he has 10x+ the wealth of one. A 14th level fighter/ranger archer guy that is hired as "anti-dragon protection" most certinally is.What if the fighter/ranger is himself a member of the king's army or personal guard?

Anyway, it's a pointless quibble as to whether or not high-level characters are necessarily adventurers. The point remains that if you can spend money on dragons, I can spend money on things to fight a dragon with. Since killing dragons is profitable if you can do it, it must be possible to kill a dragon with less money than the dragon possesses. So I can probably match you gold piece for gold piece and come up with a stiff anti-dragon defense for the price it cost you to buy the dragon. I'll take casualties from the air attack, but it isn't a God button.

Moreover, you are the one taking the large risk of bargaining with dragons. As you correctly note on another thread, making deals with powerful evil beings such as dragons or devils can be dangerous.


I'd say that one of the more effective magical armies is one of the more commonly depicted magical armies; the army of undead.

One HD worth of undead is worth 25g, about the price of 3 soldiers. BUT, there is no upkeep required; the only upkeep is for the necromancers whom serve you.

An Evil or negatively aligned Neutral level 7 cleric (that's high enough to cast Animate Dead, right?) can animate and safely control what, three times their level in undead HD? Some for the animation, and some for their Rebuking power.

Edit: Though really, their biggest benefit is that the undead army is not limited by personnel; so long as they have the monetary resources, and somewhere to dig up bodies, they can animate an arbitrarily high number of the dead.It's true, but the catch is that 21 HD of zombies isn't much of an army. You need a lot of necromancers or evil clerics to make this one work, and the cost of outfitting those guys adds up.

Kizara
2007-07-03, 07:33 PM
It will be if it's being run by someone with intelligence greater than or equal to my own who is expecting a dragon attack.

First gain air superiority, then move.

You're right; so what about the guys who aren't close to the dragon?

What if the fighter/ranger is himself a member of the king's army or personal guard?

Anyway, it's a pointless quibble as to whether or not high-level characters are necessarily adventurers. The point remains that if you can spend money on dragons, I can spend money on things to fight a dragon with. Since killing dragons is profitable if you can do it, it must be possible to kill a dragon with less money than the dragon possesses. So I can probably match you gold piece for gold piece and come up with a stiff anti-dragon defense for the price it cost you to buy the dragon. I'll take casualties from the air attack, but it isn't a God button.


How do you 'gain air superiority' against a creature that's incredibly cunning/brilliant (like at mental stats), fast, and can literally come out of nowhere to attack you.

Anyone not close enough to the dragon to be effected by its frightful presense will either 1) be way too far away to attack it or 2) be already effected (4d6 rounds is a great deal of time, and even after that it only 'improves' to shaken) or 3) not yet be effected and maybe can take a few pot shots if their commander can rally them to do so in face of the scary-as-hell dragon that's right there and owning everything.

You still have not presented a viable counter that isn't "adventurers" of some variety.
Your point that someone could be high-level and essentially an adventurer, even if he hasn't gone adventuring, I agree is besides the point.

1) I hire a dragon.
2) You hire more powerful adventures to kill the dragon.
3) I either also hire powerful adventures or another, possibly more powerful dragon.
Thus, all wars in D&D are some combination of dragons vs adventurers. If 'adventurers' are actually high-level military officers, that's 1) unrealistic and not how its presented in any material and 2) besides the point.

Kizara
2007-07-03, 07:41 PM
Alright, some people did not get the humor of my invis exploding knight. Soo. Adult dragon? Significant enemy investment requires an associated investment to defeat it. Greater arrows of Dragon slaying work wonders. Don't know what your talking about with a Con bonus to a Fort. save in the book that already includes said Con bouns (Dragons have all good saves, 22HD is +13 save, you do the math). Now the question as to how easy it is to hit. The wording is that if it strikes the creature it must save. Not if it takes damage or not, like how other arrows are worded. Is this a touch attack? If so then that AC is Much! easier to hit for standard mooks. Less arrows are needed if you decide to actually give these expensive munitions to soldiers that can use them effectively. Dragon dead, army losses minimal from direct confrontation. If 'salted earth' dragon tactics, more losses but same result. Might as well have some of the others handy too for foes that armies have problems against. Elementals, Constructs, Demons/Devils, etc...

I'd say that claiming slaying arrows only require touch attacks is a very liberal interpretation of the rules.

But let's say it really is like that (seems like complete BS to me, but w/e).

*Dragon casts Death Ward before attacking*

Dervag
2007-07-03, 07:52 PM
How do you 'gain air superiority' against a creature that's incredibly cunning/brilliant (like at mental stats), fast, and can literally come out of nowhere to attack you.Well, either you hire one of your own, or you hire mercenaries who can find it and kill it, or you buy weapons to kill it with. If you can't buy weaposn t okill it with, you use options (1) and (2), possibly simultaneously. The point is that you don't bunch up into a column as long as the dragon is a threat. That's just stupid, and you know it as well as I do.


Anyone not close enough to the dragon to be effected by its frightful presense will either 1) be way too far away to attack it180 feet is three range increments for a light crossbow and two for a heavy; neither is too far away to score a 20 against a dragon, and the crossbowman is likely to still need a 20 to hit at closer range anyway.


You still have not presented a viable counter that isn't "adventurers" of some variety.
Your point that someone could be high-level and essentially an adventurer, even if he hasn't gone adventuring, I agree is besides the point.What I'm saying is that the entire question of whether high level characters are or are not adventurers is irrelevant, even though your characterization of them as such is cavalier. I'm not going to pretend dragons don't exist while equipping an army. That may well mean hiring or otherwise obtaining the loyalty of high-level characters who can kill dragons. It doesn't make the army useless, because the army has abilities that the high-level characters do not, such as the power to be in a hundred places at once, or to clear a mountain full of goblin tunnels without having 95% of the goblins escape through a side entrance.


1) I hire a dragon.
2) You hire more powerful adventures to kill the dragon.
3) I either also hire powerful adventures or another, possibly more powerful dragon.
Thus, all wars in D&D are some combination of dragons vs adventurers. If 'adventurers' are actually high-level military officers, that's 1) unrealistic and not how its presented in any material and 2) besides the point.And yet the army is still useful if there's an actual country involved anywhere in this war. If there are no countries, if it's just, say, two wizards in towers in the wilderness fighting, then I agree that there's no point in amassing an army. But if there are large groups of low-level people or monsters on either side, then you really do need something capable of spreading out among those large groups if you want to get your goals in the war. One dragon can scatter a massed army, but one dragon can't win a guerilla war. The only kind of control your one-dragon army can exert is that of extreme destruction; the only way you'll have to control the rebellious goose that lays the golden eggs is to kill it.

Kizara
2007-07-03, 08:11 PM
Most of my points that you countered addressed those counters in the very next point...

Like, the adventurer thing. I agree the exact definination is immaterial, my point is nothing short of high-level characters can kill a dragon.

As for the rest of things you need an army to do: policing, supressing monsters, etc. That's why I said the 'other side' could have twice as much, since the other half of my kingdom's reasources are being spent to ethier maintain my lands or to counter-invade you.

In reality, to make a realistic conquest/army model work, you need to have a good reason why kingdom B CANT just hire a dragon and win.

Maybe the dragons all have a code? Maybe the gods have one (the dragon gods) and they enforce it on the dragons. Maybe big dragons won't fight for you because the dragon war is so intense that if they do so, their counter-variety will show up in numbers, track them and own them.

But unless in your campaign you specifically address it, the dragon army wins.
And as for "the dragon can't hold territory" nope, but he can sure as heck stop you from attacking.

EDIT: As a side note, for clearing goblin tunnels. Firestorm/cloudkill/summoned monsters work wonders there.
Firestorm does great damage to an utterly huge AoE. Great for taking out large dungeons of Mooks.

Snooder
2007-07-03, 08:19 PM
A decent example of magically armed military, IMO is Harry Turtledove's "Into the Darkness" series.

Basically an alternate history of WWII but with dragon instead of airplanes and behemoths instead of tanks. The way it works out in the books, the mages tend to pretty much cancel each other out, one side uses its mages, the other dispels and vice versa.

Might help with concept of magic armies in D&D. Gotta scale back for non-industrial/modern age armies though.

Snooder
2007-07-03, 08:21 PM
In reality, to make a realistic conquest/army model work, you need to have a good reason why kingdom B CANT just hire a dragon and win.


Hate to jump in here but I think the answer is pretty much this. However much it costs to hire the dragon, the high level NPCs to kill the dragon are cheaper.

By cheaper, of course i mean both in terms of monetary cost because they would be motivated by such things as patriotism and have the prospect of the dragon's loot to look forward to, and overall cost because they can function as army officers to command the army.

Jack_Simth
2007-07-03, 09:05 PM
I'd say that one of the more effective magical armies is one of the more commonly depicted magical armies; the army of undead.

One HD worth of undead is worth 25g, about the price of 3 soldiers. BUT, there is no upkeep required; the only upkeep is for the necromancers whom serve you.

An Evil or negatively aligned Neutral level 7 cleric (that's high enough to cast Animate Dead, right?) can animate and safely control what, three times their level in undead HD? Some for the animation, and some for their Rebuking power.

Edit: Though really, their biggest benefit is that the undead army is not limited by personnel; so long as they have the monetary resources, and somewhere to dig up bodies, they can animate an arbitrarily high number of the dead.
For a Cleric, Animate Dead is a 3rd level spell, castable at 5th level. And the caster can control 4 times their caster level with Animate Dead, and their Cleric level by way of Commanding undead (5 times Cleric level, total, for a pure-classed Evil (or Neutral/Rebuking) cleric without caster level boosters).

Interestingly, for a Cleric, Animate Dead meets all the requirements of being made into an Oil. Conceivably, a single 6th level Cleric with Leadership and a high Charisma score could have a lot of living followers who each control 24 HD of mindless undead.

horseboy
2007-07-03, 09:06 PM
How do you 'gain air superiority' against a creature that's incredibly cunning/brilliant (like at mental stats), fast, and can literally come out of nowhere to attack you.

Anyone not close enough to the dragon to be effected by its frightful presense will either 1) be way too far away to attack it or 2) be already effected (4d6 rounds is a great deal of time, and even after that it only 'improves' to shaken) or 3) not yet be effected and maybe can take a few pot shots if their commander can rally them to do so in face of the scary-as-hell dragon that's right there and owning everything.

Thus, all wars in D&D are some combination of dragons vs adventurers. If 'adventurers' are actually high-level military officers, that's 1) unrealistic and not how its presented in any material and 2) besides the point.

Well, off the top of my head, Ki-rin and couatls.
Secondly the level 2 ranger scout could take 10 and spot the invisible dragon, giving the army a round to get set up.
Third, you don't have to actually kill the dragon. He's chaotic evil. All you've got to do is hurt it enought to where it leaves.

Dervag
2007-07-03, 10:06 PM
As for the rest of things you need an army to do: policing, supressing monsters, etc. That's why I said the 'other side' could have twice as much, since the other half of my kingdom's reasources are being spent to ethier maintain my lands or to counter-invade you.So in other words, you spend half your money on an invasion army and half on a dragon, while I spend half of an equal amount of money on an army and half on a bunch of guys to take down the dragon.

I fail to see why your plan is so much more economical than mine that it's worth making a big deal about.


Maybe the dragons all have a code? Maybe the gods have one (the dragon gods) and they enforce it on the dragons. Maybe big dragons won't fight for you because the dragon war is so intense that if they do so, their counter-variety will show up in numbers, track them and own them.

But unless in your campaign you specifically address it, the dragon army wins.The army with a dragon isn't dramatically more cost-effective than the army with a bunch of high-paid, high-level mercenaries hanging around to take on dragons and such. Your idea of having an army that hires a dragon isn't intrinsically better than the idea others have expressed on this board of having an army that spends time and money to be ready to fight a dragon using whatever means are appropriate. If one antidragon plan (like poisoned crossbow bolts) won't work, the army will use another. 'Hiring adventurers' is in fact just such a plan.

Again, one dragon, or a group of fireball-slinging horsemen with cost equal to the dragon, will beat a horde of spear-toting first level warriors with cost equal to the dragon. It's true. But it's completely beside the point, because the choice isn't between a dragon and a horde of mooks. The choice is between a dragon and an army that consists of a range of balanced capabilities running from the mooks up to the high-level mercenaries or 'special forces' units that can go after dragons.


EDIT: As a side note, for clearing goblin tunnels. Firestorm/cloudkill/summoned monsters work wonders there.
Firestorm does great damage to an utterly huge AoE. Great for taking out large dungeons of Mooks.Fire Storm has an AoE of two 10' cubes per level. That will clear out a traditional dungeon that has been set up so that a small group of PCs can clear it out. It isn't enough to clear out an entire mountain without many multiple castings, unless the goblins were stupid enough to have no escape routes. If they do have escape routes, a few casters won't be able to guard them all, not least because you don't know where they all are. Summoned monsters don't last long enough to cover the entrances around an entire mountain.

With an army you can actually surround the mountain, making it much less likely that the goblins will run out the back door while your 15th-level cleric casts his Fire Storm spells.


A decent example of magically armed military, IMO is Harry Turtledove's "Into the Darkness" series.

Basically an alternate history of WWII but with dragon instead of airplanes and behemoths instead of tanks. The way it works out in the books, the mages tend to pretty much cancel each other out, one side uses its mages, the other dispels and vice versa.

Might help with concept of magic armies in D&D. Gotta scale back for non-industrial/modern age armies though.The catch is that the mages on each side have equipped the armies on each side with mass-produced 'sticks,' which is the in-universe term for magic wands that have roughly the same power, size, and usefulness of firearms. Without 'sticks', the universe in question would look very different.

Mike_G
2007-07-03, 10:23 PM
I think the factor we need to look at is that tactics change in response to new technology. If magic and mosnters were known parts of the world, and wer commonly deployed in wartime, armies would adapt.

Troops advance through machine gun and artillery fire on the modern battlefield. The Spartans or Crusaders wouldn't have been able to, simply because they trained for a differnt style of combat where enemy missile fire was less effective, and massed troops made sense. If we substitute Fireballs for artillery but don't change the ancient and medieval tactics, sure the non magic side is screwed.

Training a totally non magic armed force like modern infantry (rely on ranged weapons and spread out, rather than rely on polearms and mass and manuever tactics) will make them at least somewhat able to cope with a magic armed force.

A Fireball won't get more than two or three soldiers if they maintain their interval, and if they answer with a barrage of arrows, bolts and sling bullets, a handful of expensive Fireball chuckers may well be less cost effective than a whole mess of archers.

And you do need boots on the ground to control territory.

There is a place in any kingdoms army for a bunch of low level Warriors and Experts.

Grey Paladin
2007-07-03, 10:38 PM
Kizara: Throw enough X with any BAB score at a problem and it shall be no more, eventually one of the farmers will roll three 20s in a row on its attack roll :smallbiggrin:

Fizban
2007-07-03, 11:14 PM
A decent example of magically armed military, IMO is Harry Turtledove's "Into the Darkness" series.

Basically an alternate history of WWII but with dragon instead of airplanes and behemoths instead of tanks. The way it works out in the books, the mages tend to pretty much cancel each other out, one side uses its mages, the other dispels and vice versa.

Might help with concept of magic armies in D&D. Gotta scale back for non-industrial/modern age armies though.
Bonus points for guessing what my main inspiration was, nice job. Unfortunately, I have no coookies.


The catch is that the mages on each side have equipped the armies on each side with mass-produced 'sticks,' which is the in-universe term for magic wands that have roughly the same power, size, and usefulness of firearms. Without 'sticks', the universe in question would look very different.
Excactly. Now, one could always just fiat away how they've come into being, but I don't like that, I think like a player and try to stay within the established rules, so I keep my eyes open for a way to do so.

Now, in Into the Darkness, aside from the fact that it's openly a fantasy version of WWII, the magicbabble reason for why things work is that the mages draw energy from ley lines and focal points to power the assorted weapons of war. Since there is no equivalent in DnD, we have a problem. Faerun had an artifact that removed the xp cost from making magic items, but they only worked within a certain area, so it doesn't work for arming an army. The idea of letting people willingly give xp to the party caster to craft items for them has been around for a while, and even made it into an article on the WoTC site. While watching Stargate (Atlantas actually), I remembered the episode where the government on one planet sent their high risk prisoners to an island and allowed the Wraith (life sucking aliens for those who don't know) to hunt there freely, a sort of peace treaty to protect the city.

So, I put the two together in my head: the problem with the city from the show was that crime stopped all but completely because no one wanted to go to the island, reducing the supply for the Wraith, and bringing their wrath down on the city. But in DnD, xp loss causes no actual damage, and you actually aren't allowed to give up enough xp to lose a level by casting or crafting, so there would be no real deterrent. Essentially, you get an xp tax that can go towards solving the logistical problem of where the crafters would get the xp needed to craft.

Obviously there are plenty of holes in the prisoner idea, such as that you could just tax everyone anyway (though that would start to reduce the effectiveness of the entire country since no one would level up), and you'd still need an enourmous amount of crafters because it takes so long, and etc. But the core idea is that you could borrow xp from people on a large scale to allow casters to craft more items than they could usually even if they had no gp constraints.

So, that was a really long post that didn't say anything particularly new, but if anyone was wondering what the point was that might have cleared it up.

Oh, and about the dragon vs. army debate: you do realize that dragons have a very finite number of spells known, and won't automatically have every possible counter. Really, it doesn't matter that adventurers counter dragons, because adventurers are better anyway. They can do as much if not more damage than the dragon, and are much harder to kill generally, having access to more varied defenses (and knowing how to use them, otherwise they'd be dead by now). They can be used in the open to rout the enemy, or they can sneak behind enemy lines, or anything else an adventuring party would normally do that a dragon couldn't. The only thing they can't do is breathe a massive cone of dX's every 1d4 rounds. Except if you need that, you can get a warlock, dragon shaman, or whatever the dragon-y invoker was to do it. You don't need many d6's to kill a bunch of mooks, a dragon is overkill.

Yeah, I'm long winded. Deal.

Kemper Boyd
2007-07-03, 11:15 PM
And you do need boots on the ground to control territory.


That can be said twice. If you want to win a war, you need to win the war, and as long as you win the war winning the battles doesn't really matter. If the opposition is one of those crazy moonpeople hundred-man armies with level 1 sorcerers/level 1 experts, I can attrit them with something like, say, three thousand men easily enough. And then I can occupy the homeland of the crazy moonpeople and win.

horseboy
2007-07-03, 11:37 PM
I think the factor we need to look at is that tactics change in response to new technology. If magic and mosnters were known parts of the world, and wer commonly deployed in wartime, armies would adapt.

Actually, it'd probably be a lot easier just to make a banner that projects minor globe of invulnerability. Not a magical item seen that often for adventurers but well worth their weight in gold for protecting the elite pikeman unit.

Tech changes for the changing battlefield.

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-04, 12:37 AM
The most cost effective invasion force (barring level 20 wizards) is as many Greater Shadesteel golems as you can afford.

Advanced to 40 HD they only cost 195,000 GP each.

DR 15/adamantium means that a max damage critical hit (which requires 2 natural 20's in a row) does 1 point of damage. With a heavy crossbow you need to crit and roll higher than 8 on the damage roll to deal 1 point of damage. The average advanced Greater Shadesteel golem has 250 HP (40d10+30).

It's immune to magic and poison. It can fly (perfect maneuverability) and has a negative energy pulse wave attack that deals (on a successful save at a DC of 28) 6d6 damage to every living thing within a 40 foot radius. It has +10 to hide and +18 to move silently in addition to having concealment in all but full daylight.

A hundred of those can break any force that just about any nation can raise.

Another nice thing is that so long as a shadesteel golem is within range of a spell with the shadow descriptor it is healed as many points as the spells level. It also acts as hasted if within the effect of any spell with the light descriptor.

Well see Greater Shadow Evocation makes Continual Flame into an 8th level spell that has the shadow descriptor, including the nice permanent duration. So one Greater Shadow Evocation later and your golem has what amounts to Fast Healing 8. Now we cast a regular Continual flame spell on the golem. Since this one has the light descriptor he now has permanent haste.

And a hundred of those guys only costs you 25,000,000 GP. And remember, they last until destroyed.

Shadesteel golems are my faviorte monster :smallbiggrin:


Now those guys won't hold land but they are not meant to. They are meant to deal with large threats (such as the aforementioned dragon or adventuring party) or to be attacking force in your invasion plans. They may not be able to hold a country but they can clear out anything in the way of the holding force (which can now be made up of pretty much anyone).

Tor the Fallen
2007-07-04, 01:25 AM
Historicaly, poorly armed armies of rebels and guerillas, armed only with small arms, have given a lot of grief to artillery and tank and helicopter and airstrike armed modern armies.

From the American revolution, through the Boers, the IRA, the Chechens, the Vietnamese (against Japan, France and the US), the Somalis and the "bunch of dead enders" in Iraq.

Enough guys with AK47's and homemade bombs can't stop a modern army, or keep it from occupying territory, but they can bleed it for years, and evade total destruction.

So, if my nation were occupied by ET's company of Fireball chuckers, or even somebody's hired Dragon, I'd just fade my troops into the hills, striking from ambush with my slingers and a few Experts with trap setting skills, then capture a few of your Fireball items and lead your vaunted elite army into a quagmire that will cost more blood and treasure than is worth it.

You can't keep the whole army together, since you need to patrol and guard important areas, or we'll just retake any territory where your troops ain't.

An army that can't win in the field won't fight in the field.

The difference between a modern army and an Adult Red Dragon are rules of combat. With modern day morals, it's very hard to combat a guerilla force that hides in the civilian population without targeting the civilians. If you look at older wars, such as the US's engagement in Latin America or the Phillipines, or in the Indian wars, or during the Conquista, it's an entirely different story.


Anyway, if you have the sort of resources to field enough low level NPCs to down an adult dragon, chances are, the dragon is going to ignore the crossbowmen, and head straight for things that those crossbowmen need to survive. Farmland- burninated. Smithies- burninated. Supply trains- burninated.

Don't dorget, a properly devious dragon could use the polymorph line of spells to infiltrate critical organizations and use his high bluff and diplo check to really muddle things up.

Combating high mobility, high int, powerhouses like dragons is best done with high level PCs, rather than standing armies.

And now, with spells like Dragon Ally, Greater, high level PCs can call upon dragons to aid them. :smallamused:

Jacob Orlove
2007-07-04, 02:27 AM
Why does everyone in this thread keep talking about Fireball and Stinking Cloud and all those other spells as if they are the most important things magic can do to a battlefield?

Here are some things that magic can get you that utterly revolutionize warfare:
No supply lines
Instantaneous transportation
Phenomenal information acquisition
Near-perfect communication

Between those four, the assumption that an "army" needs to hold any territory at all is crucially flawed; your nation's defense system can seriously just be a bunch of adventurers teleporting around under the direction of a few mid level spellcasters. Guerrilla warfare loses to this strategy because you totally can be everywhere at once, at no cost. The only reason to even have grunts would be to defend against enemies not strong enough for the real soldiers to bother with (like marauding Orcs).

Dervag
2007-07-04, 03:38 AM
The most cost effective invasion force (barring level 20 wizards) is as many Greater Shadesteel golems as you can afford.

Advanced to 40 HD they only cost 195,000 GP each."only," the man says.

If I have that kind of money to spare, I'll definitely consider buying one. However, it may well be that Greater Shadesteel golems are so expensive that they're the D&D equivalent of F-22 Raptors; they kick butt, but only an incredibly rich society would be remotely willing to pay for the enormous price tag that comes with the butt kicking.


A hundred of those can break any force that just about any nation can raise.Of course, a hundred of those cost almost twenty million gold pieces; you can do a LOT with twenty million gold pieces. The fact that you can build a country-conquering army of golems with that kind of money should come as no surprise.


The difference between a modern army and an Adult Red Dragon are rules of combat. With modern day morals, it's very hard to combat a guerilla force that hides in the civilian population without targeting the civilians. If you look at older wars, such as the US's engagement in Latin America or the Phillipines, or in the Indian wars, or during the Conquista, it's an entirely different story.Actually, the US's involvement in the Philippines turned into a horrible bloody mess once it turned into a guerilla war and the matter was only resolved by, in essence, killing the goose that laid the golden eggs. And the word 'guerilla' originated from the harassment campaign launched by the citizens of Spain against Napoleon's army in the very early 1800s, back when there were many armies perfectly willing to commit large-scale massacres to deter opposition.

The essential problem of guerilla warfare is that the only way to decisively beat the guerillas is to kill or imprison virtually everyone. That is the only thing that has ever worked without winning a 'hearts and minds' campaign of some kind. And that problem is just as serious when the guerillas are using bows and arrows as when they're using machine guns.


Anyway, if you have the sort of resources to field enough low level NPCs to down an adult dragon, chances are, the dragon is going to ignore the crossbowmen, and head straight for things that those crossbowmen need to survive. Farmland- burninated. Smithies- burninated. Supply trains- burninated.What happens when the crossbowmen start scattering and becoming, essentially, bandit troops? How much of a nuisance can they be?

In and of itself, this sort of thing won't win the war if you've got a dragon or two who can and will stay around and keep up the pressure. But in that case, the guy who hired the dragon may well find that his employee is calling the shots (always a risk when employing someone stronger, older, and more cunning than yourself), and the longer the war drags on, the more likely a hero will emerge to slay the dragon.

Thoughtbot360
2007-07-04, 07:05 AM
The most effective army is a dragon.

Ruler 1: I spend 2 million gp on large army.

Ruler 2: I spend 1 million gp to hire an adult dragon to completely waste your army.

Works on any lower examples. Make any reasonably large army of 'people', and I use my "I hire a dragon for half that amount" policy. :)

And I seriously doubt any evil dragon is going to turn down 1 million gp to torch some people and loot anything they find.

Also, this works for adventures. Adventurers can counter dragons, and dragons adventurers.

So, in conclusion, wars in D&D are some combination of Dragon vs Adventurers.

Hence the name: Dungeons (which are where adventurers become adventurers)and Dragons

PaladinBoy
2007-07-04, 11:23 AM
Why does everyone in this thread keep talking about Fireball and Stinking Cloud and all those other spells as if they are the most important things magic can do to a battlefield?

Here are some things that magic can get you that utterly revolutionize warfare:
No supply lines
Instantaneous transportation
Phenomenal information acquisition
Near-perfect communication

Between those four, the assumption that an "army" needs to hold any territory at all is crucially flawed; your nation's defense system can seriously just be a bunch of adventurers teleporting around under the direction of a few mid level spellcasters. Guerrilla warfare loses to this strategy because you totally can be everywhere at once, at no cost. The only reason to even have grunts would be to defend against enemies not strong enough for the real soldiers to bother with (like marauding Orcs).

The major problem with using magic so repeatedly is that eventually your enemies are going to catch on and start using their own magical countermeasures. For that matter, in the high-magic environment where using magic extensively was even possible, it's probably fair to assume that armies are generally warded against scrying, and important government buildings like palaces are warded against teleportation.

Clever enemies can easily expand on that to lure you into ambushes....... such as splitting their army into two groups and only warding one against scrying, hoping that you'll assume the group you can see is the only one. Or using anticipate teleport to give their forces a few crucial seconds to prepare an ambush. Even if it's as simple as a single volley of crossbow bolts, it'll catch your adventurers flat-footed and be an extra disadvantage.

Even if your enemy has no access to the magic they need, your ability to be everywhere at once is limited by your mages' spell slots and the number of fire teams you have. A guerilla force protected from scying could use repeated minor disturbances over the course of a day to exhaust your forces and leave you with nothing left while they attack their true target. A larger army could use its own communication magic and split into 50 groups of 100 soldiers, each one going for a separate village, city, or critical location. Once your fire teams run out of teleport magic or are just too worn out to continue, the enemy has the run of your country for the next 8 hours, if you don't have a standing army to protect yourself. And you'd be in big trouble if the enemy reached the base where your fire teams rested.

Mike_G
2007-07-04, 11:38 AM
The difference between a modern army and an Adult Red Dragon are rules of combat. With modern day morals, it's very hard to combat a guerilla force that hides in the civilian population without targeting the civilians. If you look at older wars, such as the US's engagement in Latin America or the Phillipines, or in the Indian wars, or during the Conquista, it's an entirely different story.


The Germans and Japanese in WWII, neither of whom were known for handling civillian popukltions with kid gloves, had a lot of trouible with partisans and guerilla bands.

Just willing to be cruel in no way deters guerillas



Anyway, if you have the sort of resources to field enough low level NPCs to down an adult dragon, chances are, the dragon is going to ignore the crossbowmen, and head straight for things that those crossbowmen need to survive. Farmland- burninated. Smithies- burninated. Supply trains- burninated.


One assumes you inavded the country to get something form it.

If you destroy it economically, you have no industry, agriculture or population for subjects/slaves, did you really win?

And small guerilla bands don't use "supply trains." A small unit with a decent Survival skill can live in the woods or even change out of uniform and go home for dinner.



Don't dorget, a properly devious dragon could use the polymorph line of spells to infiltrate critical organizations and use his high bluff and diplo check to really muddle things up.


There's nothing wrong with a dragon. Dragons are great. But theyr're expensive.

One dragon can be in exactly one place at one time. Infiltrating a band of rebels takes time. Spies spend months doing this. If your Dragon does, then he isn't burning down enemy strongholds for a large chunk of time.

Likewise, if he's attacking over here he can't be defending over there so the enemy plan is never to fight him, just scatter and hide when he appears and have another unit wreak havoc a hundred miles away.

If you have a Dragon and 1,000 infantry, you're in great shape. He can do aerial recon, air support, and spying for the army. You'll beat an army of 2,000 men and no dragon pretty consistently, and hold territory better than 2 Dragons and no infantry.

As part of an army, a Dragon is a great asset. Alone, well, he can't hold ground.

Grunts have been trying to explain this to the Air Force high command for 50 years



Combating high mobility, high int, powerhouses like dragons is best done with high level PCs, rather than standing armies.

And now, with spells like Dragon Ally, Greater, high level PCs can call upon dragons to aid them. :smallamused:

Didn't say it wasn't.

But the "A Dragon trumps any mudane army" is false. Yes, they can incinerate any fielded army, so after half your buddies burn to death or flee in Dragon terror, you leave the field and go guerilla.

Just having a big, invincible unit that wins battles does not guarantee victory in War without enough troops on the ground to enforce order and implement your political will.

If it did, Vietnam and Iraq would have a Walmart on every corner right now.

Capt'n Ironbrow
2007-07-04, 02:29 PM
The major problem with using magic so repeatedly is that eventually your enemies are going to catch on and start using their own magical countermeasures. For that matter, in the high-magic environment where using magic extensively was even possible, it's probably fair to assume that armies are generally warded against scrying, and important government buildings like palaces are warded against teleportation.

Clever enemies can easily expand on that to lure you into ambushes....... such as splitting their army into two groups and only warding one against scrying, hoping that you'll assume the group you can see is the only one. Or using anticipate teleport to give their forces a few crucial seconds to prepare an ambush. Even if it's as simple as a single volley of crossbow bolts, it'll catch your adventurers flat-footed and be an extra disadvantage.

Even if your enemy has no access to the magic they need, your ability to be everywhere at once is limited by your mages' spell slots and the number of fire teams you have. A guerilla force protected from scying could use repeated minor disturbances over the course of a day to exhaust your forces and leave you with nothing left while they attack their true target. A larger army could use its own communication magic and split into 50 groups of 100 soldiers, each one going for a separate village, city, or critical location. Once your fire teams run out of teleport magic or are just too worn out to continue, the enemy has the run of your country for the next 8 hours, if you don't have a standing army to protect yourself. And you'd be in big trouble if the enemy reached the base where your fire teams rested.

Yet another drawback of Jacob Orlove's plan is that Adventurers are not soldiers. They might be fighters, but not soldiers: too unreliable to be the core of an army, they're just too individualistic and undisciplined (and no discipline= no army). And, using the Saphire Guard as an example, can all (or for at least a partly) be out questing when you get invaded...

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-04, 02:35 PM
"only," the man says.

If I have that kind of money to spare, I'll definitely consider buying one. However, it may well be that Greater Shadesteel golems are so expensive that they're the D&D equivalent of F-22 Raptors; they kick butt, but only an incredibly rich society would be remotely willing to pay for the enormous price tag that comes with the butt kicking.

Of course, a hundred of those cost almost twenty million gold pieces; you can do a LOT with twenty million gold pieces. The fact that you can build a country-conquering army of golems with that kind of money should come as no surprise.

A hundred of those cost just as much as it would cost just to feed an army of 100,000 for 500 days. And remember, these golems never cost a cent once you buy them. They can defend the nation for a thousand years and be just as effective in year 1,000 as they were in year 1.

Mike_G
2007-07-04, 02:44 PM
A hundred of those cost just as much as it would cost just to feed an army of 100,000 for 500 days. And remember, these golems never cost a cent once you buy them. They can defend the nation for a thousand years and be just as effective in year 1,000 as they were in year 1.


Well, 100,000 is a huge army by pre industrial standards, and can be in 1,000 times as many places as 100 anything, so routine patrols, spying and policing are much better served by a few thousand troops.

The best army is a bunch of low level NPCs to do patrolling and controlling the populace, and a handful of high level PC's or Dragons or Iron Golems or whatever as a Quick Reaction Force.

Neither will do as well without the other

Funkyodor
2007-07-04, 03:03 PM
I'd say that claiming slaying arrows only require touch attacks is a very liberal interpretation of the rules.

But let's say it really is like that (seems like complete BS to me, but w/e).

*Dragon casts Death Ward before attacking*

Uh... Death Ward is not a Sorcerer spell, and an Adult Red dragon can't cast 4th lvl spells anyway.

About constructs and other exceptional creatures. Yes they are expensive. Yes they are great. But it's the all the eggs in one basket mentality thing. A few arrows of slaying (Unless they've got around a +20 Fort. save then alot of arrows), contracted adventurers, internal spies, etc... and Bam, broken stone/steel/iron/clay all over the place, dead dragon carcasses dropping from the sky, and rocks fall people die.

Multi-tasking is hard for a small force. Easier for larger forces. One HQ (crystal ball scrying, teleport/communication receiving, teleport/communication transmittal, etc...). Patrolling forces (rangers, barbarians, horse/flight/overland flight, etc...), because there are ways to hide from magical vision. Home forces (Cav, Archers, Footmen, Heavy Foot/Cav, etc...). And Special forces (High lvl loyal forces, Dragons, Golems, Spys/Assassins, Ninjas when you can actually find them, the slackers, etc...)

My 6c.

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-04, 03:19 PM
Well, 100,000 is a huge army by pre industrial standards, and can be in 1,000 times as many places as 100 anything, so routine patrols, spying and policing are much better served by a few thousand troops.
Policing is a civilian matter that the towns deal with. They elect a sheriff who deals with small town problems. The city councils pay people to make up a city watch.

The military is independent of the civilian police.

For spying on your own people just pick a random loyal person in each town and use a permanent telepathic bond to link them to a commander that is back at the capital.

Greater Teleport works on golems (SR: No) so 25 level 13 wizards with greater teleport is enough to move your whole golem force to any battlefield in 6 seconds.

Routine Patrols are handled by a force of warforged equipped with rings of invisibility, wings of flying, eyes of the eagle, and a medallion of thoughts.

20,000 GP for the Ring of Invisibility
54,000 GP for the Wings of Flying
12,000 GP for the Medallion of Thoughts
1,250 GP for the Eyes of the Eagle

So 87,250 GP per warforged.

Each Warforged is at least a Ranger 2 with max points in Survival, Spot, Move Silently, Listen, Hide, and Knowledge (Geography).

Do to being warforged these scouts need never eat, sleep or even land. Add a Permanent Telepathic Bond so they can report in without any problems and your golden. 500 can easily guard a kingdom.

So thats another 50,000,000 GP. At that price it is well worth it. And if you can get the items at cost (without a markup) the cost is slashed by 50%.


The best army is a bunch of low level NPCs to do patrolling and controlling the populace, and a handful of high level PC's or Dragons or Iron Golems or whatever as a Quick Reaction Force.

Neither will do as well without the other
PC's aren't very good at taking orders, neither are dragons for that matter. That is the benefit of a golem force, they obey without question. And a lowlevel NPC force doing the patrolling won't do much. They are very easily to sneak by.



Uh... Death Ward is not a Sorcerer spell, and an Adult Red dragon can't cast 4th lvl spells anyway.

The dragon can get a buckler with soulfire on it. If I was a dragon you can be damn sure I would have 1.


About constructs and other exceptional creatures. Yes they are expensive. Yes they are great. But it's the all the eggs in one basket mentality thing. A few arrows of slaying (Unless they've got around a +20 Fort. save then alot of arrows), contracted adventurers, internal spies, etc... and Bam, broken stone/steel/iron/clay all over the place, dead dragon carcasses dropping from the sky, and rocks fall people die.

Arrows of Slaying don't work on Constructs.
A single one of my Advanced Greater Shadesteel Golems has a CR of 18 (and it is really closer to 20, they have a low CR for their difficulty). 10 of then will deal with any adventuring party without a problem.
Internal Spy's are easily found out with Mind Reading. And Programmed Amnesia can guarantee loyalty.

No, no bam. These shadesteel golems are stronger than iron golems, can fly with perfect maneuverability, are immune to magic, have DR 15/adamantium, are permanently hasted, and have Fast Healing 8.


Multi-tasking is hard for a small force. Easier for larger forces. One HQ (crystal ball scrying, teleport/communication receiving, teleport/communication transmittal, etc...). Patrolling forces (rangers, barbarians, horse/flight/overland flight, etc...), because there are ways to hide from magical vision. Home forces (Cav, Archers, Footmen, Heavy Foot/Cav, etc...). And Special forces (High lvl loyal forces, Dragons, Golems, Spys/Assassins, Ninjas when you can actually find them, the slackers, etc...)

My 6c.

Multi Tasking for the force I created is easy. Split the Golems into forces of 20 each and with teleport you can deal with 10 problems per day without any problem.

Mike_G
2007-07-04, 04:34 PM
Policing is a civilian matter that the towns deal with. They elect a sheriff who deals with small town problems. The city councils pay people to make up a city watch.

The military is independent of the civilian police.


Not if we're talking an invading army.

Or does your Army just say to the conquered populace "Make sure your sherrif arrests any rebels or saboteurs."

Look at Iraq. Smashing the defending army and taking a country is easy for an elite force. Keeping the country requires policing.



For spying on your own people just pick a random loyal person in each town and use a permanent telepathic bond to link them to a commander that is back at the capital.


A "random loyal person" is unlikely to be trusted by the Resistance. Or, if he is, after one inelligence coup, they deal with him as informers have always been dealt with.



Greater Teleport works on golems (SR: No) so 25 level 13 wizards with greater teleport is enough to move your whole golem force to any battlefield in 6 seconds.

Routine Patrols are handled by a force of warforged equipped with rings of invisibility, wings of flying, eyes of the eagle, and a medallion of thoughts.

20,000 GP for the Ring of Invisibility
54,000 GP for the Wings of Flying
12,000 GP for the Medallion of Thoughts
1,250 GP for the Eyes of the Eagle

So 87,250 GP per warforged.

Each Warforged is at least a Ranger 2 with max points in Survival, Spot, Move Silently, Listen, Hide, and Knowledge (Geography).

Do to being warforged these scouts need never eat, sleep or even land. Add a Permanent Telepathic Bond so they can report in without any problems and your golden. 500 can easily guard a kingdom.

So thats another 50,000,000 GP. At that price it is well worth it. And if you can get the items at cost (without a markup) the cost is slashed by 50%.


PC's aren't very good at taking orders, neither are dragons for that matter. That is the benefit of a golem force, they obey without question. And a lowlevel NPC force doing the patrolling won't do much. They are very easily to sneak by.




The dragon can get a buckler with soulfire on it. If I was a dragon you can be damn sure I would have 1.


No, no bam. These shadesteel golems are stronger than iron golems, can fly with perfect maneuverability, are immune to magic, have DR 15/adamantium, are permanently hasted, and have Fast Healing 8.



Multi Tasking for the force I created is easy. Split the Golems into forces of 20 each and with teleport you can deal with 10 problems per day without any problem.

You are, although substituting magic for high tech, making the same shortsighted judgments that lost the Brits Africa, America, and India, lost the French and later the Americans Vietnam, and are not really controlling Iraq or Afghanistan all that well.

Airstrikes, artillery, night vision, spy drones and satellites, and helo insertion/extraction funtion much like the spells and ideas you present. And they work fine, until some dirt farmer digs a weapon out of his rice paddy, joins up with his buddies and slits the throats of your loyal informers, torches your bridges, poisons your food supplies, sets fire to your oil wells or caves in your mines or whatever you invaded the country for in the first place, striking fear into loyal populace and inspiring the rebelious.

A few really good units can kick the crap out of a big, poorly armed army. They cannot control territory.

Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt. The only thing that works is a presence on the ground.

Tor the Fallen
2007-07-04, 04:50 PM
The Germans and Japanese in WWII, neither of whom were known for handling civillian popukltions with kid gloves, had a lot of trouible with partisans and guerilla bands.

Just willing to be cruel in no way deters guerillas

Actually, a willingness to deal with guerrillas by crushing them mercilessly does in fact deter guerillas.


One assumes you inavded the country to get something form it.

If you destroy it economically, you have no industry, agriculture or population for subjects/slaves, did you really win?

Invasion? Maybe we're not the aggressor.
Maybe we're a chaotic evil cleric of a chaotic evil god who's getting off on crushign the weak. Maybe their country's in the way of bigger plans. Maybe there's a prohpecy of their kingdom destroying something important in the future.

Maybe it's a purely mental exercise that a single dragon can destroy a country that has a standard army of level 1-10 NPCs.

But let's say we're invading because we want the land. Buildings can be rebuilt. Fields can be replanted. Populations repopulate. Hell, if we kill all their folk, we can move our loyal subjects in.

It's called total war. Worked for Sherman. Worked for the Allies. I'll work for you.


And small guerilla bands don't use "supply trains." A small unit with a decent Survival skill can live in the woods or even change out of uniform and go home for dinner.

I thought this was about dragon vs. army? Small guerilla bands will do nothing to a dragon. And with spells like scry, it'll be very easy to find out where they're living (capture one, torture him a bit, keep his finger, then let him go). Then, it's burninating the countryside.



There's nothing wrong with a dragon. Dragons are great. But theyr're expensive.

One dragon can be in exactly one place at one time. Infiltrating a band of rebels takes time. Spies spend months doing this. If your Dragon does, then he isn't burning down enemy strongholds for a large chunk of time.

Dragons have nothing but time. There's the pre-war build up. Infiltration, recon, espionage. A dragon can cast teleport, which means he can be in a great many places at a time.


Likewise, if he's attacking over here he can't be defending over there so the enemy plan is never to fight him, just scatter and hide when he appears and have another unit wreak havoc a hundred miles away.

Who cares about your pathetic infantry units? Your entire military structure is in ruins. The king's dead, the generals are dead, the commanders are dead. The cavalry's routed. All that's left are a handful of guerrillas that can't do anything but fire their heavy crossbow once every other turn, have a move speed of 30, and no special qualities to speak of.

Who's going to lead? How do you organize anything when the military structure has been destroyed?


If you have a Dragon and 1,000 infantry, you're in great shape. He can do aerial recon, air support, and spying for the army. You'll beat an army of 2,000 men and no dragon pretty consistently, and hold territory better than 2 Dragons and no infantry.

You don't need a military if you have two dragons. With all the spells and firepower of two dragons.... You will be able to obliterate everything their 2000 troops need to survive. Holding territory isn't necessary when you can make it so there's no territory left to hold.
Just having a big, invincible unit that wins battles does not guarantee victory in War without enough troops on the ground to enforce order and implement your political will.

Depends what the goal of the war is.
What's the goal? Invasion and keeping the territory?

Easy.
1) Dragon burninates everything and everyone important to the nation- kings, castles, barracks, armies.
Meanwhile, what's left of the army has 'gone guerrila'.
2) Keep burninating guerrilas, targeting the high level'd magic users. Sure, they can last for years, but the dragon's gunna outlive them.
3) Let the territory go to someone who doesn't sympathize with the guerrillas. Preferably orcs. Orcs will submit to your dragon's power. Those who don't can be dominated, charmed, etc.
4) Orcs will brutalize your guerrilas until there's nothing left.
5) Celebrate.

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-04, 05:25 PM
Not if we're talking an invading army.

Or does your Army just say to the conquered populace "Make sure your sherrif arrests any rebels or saboteurs."
That depends. This force can secure your nation from any threat so if you don't want to invade others your golden. But lets assume that you want to.

The golems and wizards come in and destroy any force that stands in their way. They arrive at some small little town of a hundred people. After receiving oaths of fealty from everyone your forces say "We will be back at some point, don't break your oath on pain of death." You then leave, a few wizards come back invisible and dominate a few of the town leaders, get them to break their oaths. Your force then comes back and kills all but say 5 people who they let go and tell to let everyone know the punishment for oathbrakers. Repeat 5 or 6 times and use a couple bards and merchants to insure the tail spreads. People will now keep their oaths.

Send level 1 clerics (who preach loyalty to your nation) to every town that you take over. A cleric can insure that anyone survives any accident that doesn't immediately kill them. Bring in food as well. The conquered people see the benefits of helping you and the risks of working against you.


Look at Iraq. Smashing the defending army and taking a country is easy for an elite force. Keeping the country requires policing.

Iraq is a mistake on so many levels that it doesn't really count as evidence. You are also supposing an invasion force that is amoral and won't fight a total war


A "random loyal person" is unlikely to be trusted by the Resistance. Or, if he is, after one inelligence coup, they deal with him as informers have always been dealt with.

That was in all of your towns. So that you know what is happening everywhere in your realm.


You are, although substituting magic for high tech, making the same shortsighted judgments that lost the Brits Africa, America, and India, lost the French and later the Americans Vietnam, and are not really controlling Iraq or Afghanistan all that well.

My tech is far above current high tech. And thsi is the equivalent of taking current tech back to the crusades.


Airstrikes, artillery, night vision, spy drones and satellites, and helo insertion/extraction funtion much like the spells and ideas you present. And they work fine, until some dirt farmer digs a weapon out of his rice paddy, joins up with his buddies and slits the throats of your loyal informers, torches your bridges, poisons your food supplies, sets fire to your oil wells or caves in your mines or whatever you invaded the country for in the first place, striking fear into loyal populace and inspiring the rebelious.

You are making false assumptions. Nothing like an RPG exists in D&D. Those golems are immune to any weapon that farmers could ever get. And immunity to magic negates what they could get. The only real way to take out one of these golems is with a high level fighter, and that isn't even a sure thing.

There is no way for that farmer to know who my informers are. Without magic there is no way to detect that my informer is sending me messages.

I have no need for supply lines or even terrain features such as bridges. Destroying food supplies and bridges just hampers their forces, not mine.

Destroying whatever I invaded the country for is a fairly good idea, but what if I invaded for land?

Attacking inside of my loyal realm is foolish to a great extent. You can't fight a guerilla war with the populace against you. And there will be little rebellion if all of it is ruthlessly suppressed and all loyalty generously rewarded.


A few really good units can kick the crap out of a big, poorly armed army. They cannot control territory.

Incorrect. They can control territory but only if they are willing to be utterly ruthless.


Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt. The only thing that works is a presence on the ground.

If you are constrained by morals, yes. If you are willing to fight total war, no.

Capt'n Ironbrow
2007-07-04, 05:48 PM
So, say, what could someone noble do to have an optimised army with this set of rules and standards, One probably needs not only the favour, but the heartfelt love and admiration of the gods with plenty of proof and much more besides that.

Tor the Fallen
2007-07-04, 06:19 PM
Using the rules in the rulebook as anything more than guidelines for building a campaign world is pretty much impossible. There are huge problems with level distribution and its effects on society. The fact that levels exist in D&D, and that being better at even the most mundane of things also requires you to be better at killing things, makes for weird possibilities.

Then there's the issue with economics, even outside of magic. Look at the price of a pound of mithral, then check out the price of a mithral chain shirt. You actually make money melting down mithral armor and selling the raw mithral.

The gold economy is retarded. Gold has become an abstract concept used to limit PC power through the accumulation of items. Trying to use the WBL guideline, crafting costs, etc. when attmepting to design worlds is something of a headache.

While Tippy's interpretations and extrapolations of unstoppable forces are more or less impeccable, they create some pretty big problems. Namely, any cabal of wizards that hits a certain level will immediately create an army of giant flying robots and take over most of the world. This begs the question- why isn't the world ruled by wizards and their legions of giant flying robots?

One answer, one the DMG gives, is that there aren't that many high level people. In that case, why hasn't Hell boiled over onto the Prime? Why are the squidfaces till hiding in their burrows? What do you do to keep the PCs from marauding over great swaths of your campaign world? This is entirely an unsatisfying solution.

Mike_G
2007-07-04, 06:27 PM
1) Dragon burninates everything and everyone important to the nation- kings, castles, barracks, armies.
Meanwhile, what's left of the army has 'gone guerrila'.
2) Keep burninating guerrilas, targeting the high level'd magic users. Sure, they can last for years, but the dragon's gunna outlive them.
3) Let the territory go to someone who doesn't sympathize with the guerrillas. Preferably orcs. Orcs will submit to your dragon's power. Those who don't can be dominated, charmed, etc.
4) Orcs will brutalize your guerrilas until there's nothing left.
5) Celebrate.


So you don't need an army to control the territory...

...but you do repopulate with a bunch of orcs who brutalize the guerillas and make sure the gold is mined, or shake the coconuts out of the trees or whatever.

And these statements don't in any way contradict one another in your little world?

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-04, 06:32 PM
Using the rules in the rulebook as anything more than guidelines for building a campaign world is pretty much impossible. There are huge problems with level distribution and its effects on society. The fact that levels exist in D&D, and that being better at even the most mundane of things also requires you to be better at killing things, makes for weird possibilities.
Agreed Whole heartedly.


Then there's the issue with economics, even outside of magic. Look at the price of a pound of mithral, then check out the price of a mithral chain shirt. You actually make money melting down mithral armor and selling the raw mithral.
Yep. Or wall of iron giving unlimited money.


The gold economy is retarded. Gold has become an abstract concept used to limit PC power through the accumulation of items. Trying to use the WBL guideline, crafting costs, etc. when attmepting to design worlds is something of a headache.
Agreed. WBL is very unrealistic for a world. From a character standpoint there is no reason that a level 20 wizard should only have a net worth of 760,000 GP.

From a balance standpoint it somewhat makes sense though.


While Tippy's interpretations and extrapolations of unstoppable forces are more or less impeccable, they create some pretty big problems. Namely, any cabal of wizards that hits a certain level will immediately create an army of giant flying robots and take over most of the world. This begs the question- why isn't the world ruled by wizards and their legions of giant flying robots?

Yeah. In a world as high magic as D&D is generally shown to be wizards should be the power behind pretty much everything.


One answer, one the DMG gives, is that there aren't that many high level people. In that case, why hasn't Hell boiled over onto the Prime? Why are the squidfaces till hiding in their burrows? What do you do to keep the PCs from marauding over great swaths of your campaign world? This is entirely an unsatisfying solution.

Yep. Fully agreed.

I have a mostly finished campaign world where I actually applied magic to a world from the ground up. I was goign to run a game on the boards here in June but my life got very complicated about 2 days before recruiting was to start. So I'm hoping to start it sometime thsi month.

Lapak
2007-07-04, 06:49 PM
Arrows of Slaying don't work on Constructs.
A single one of my Advanced Greater Shadesteel Golems has a CR of 18 (and it is really closer to 20, they have a low CR for their difficulty). 10 of then will deal with any adventuring party without a problem.
Internal Spy's are easily found out with Mind Reading. And Programmed Amnesia can guarantee loyalty.

No, no bam. These shadesteel golems are stronger than iron golems, can fly with perfect maneuverability, are immune to magic, have DR 15/adamantium, are permanently hasted, and have Fast Healing 8.I don't know quite enough about Shadesteel Golems to say for sure, but most golems have at least one significant Achilles' heel even if they have all of their other bases covered - the assassination of their creator/controller. If I was the commander facing your army, I'd be bribing people in your camp and hiring assassins to /poison the food of /stick a dagger in/walk up to and trigger a fireball on/ anyone who had control of a golem.

Rampaging uncontrolled golems aren't so hot for the defenders, but they're much better than controlled ones.

Fawsto
2007-07-04, 06:50 PM
It is much more cheap and almost as good to try and equip an army with Masterpiece equipment. Well, at least Masterpiece armors function basicaly as well as a +1 armor of teh same type. Masterpiece weapons would only deal 1 hp damage less than the magic +1 weapons of the same cathegory.


Are those golems some kind of freaking hellspawn?!!? They are ridiculously stronger than any golem I've seen so far (pehaps not in the Epic LH)

Tor the Fallen
2007-07-04, 06:54 PM
I have a mostly finished campaign world where I actually applied magic to a world from the ground up. I was goign to run a game on the boards here in June but my life got very complicated about 2 days before recruiting was to start. So I'm hoping to start it sometime thsi month.

Sounds interesting. I'd like to see you start that up, to see what the world's like.

Tor the Fallen
2007-07-04, 07:01 PM
So you don't need an army to control the territory...

...but you do repopulate with a bunch of orcs who brutalize the guerillas and make sure the gold is mined, or shake the coconuts out of the trees or whatever.

And these statements don't in any way contradict one another in your little world?

You have empty land, since the guerrillas are hiding in caves, and the peasants are dead. You let in an easily manipulated bunch of ruffians move in to take care of things for you. You don't pay them, you just tell them what to do. And they either do it, or you devestate them, or they do it because they failed a will save vs. dragon.

You don't need a particular group- after you kill everyone, the power vacuum is inevitable. Someone will move in after your 'army' is ashed. The best part- my dragon can keep wiping them out until someone suitable moves in. Your guerrillas, on the other hand, can't do anything.

Way easier than training a bunch of yokels how to live of roots and berries between taking pot shots at your impenetrable iron fortress of doom. Cheaper and more reliable, too.

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-04, 07:05 PM
I don't know quite enough about Shadesteel Golems to say for sure, but most golems have at least one significant Achilles' heel even if they have all of their other bases covered - the assassination of their creator/controller. If I was the commander facing your army, I'd be bribing people in your camp and hiring assassins to /poison the food of /stick a dagger in/walk up to and trigger a fireball on/ anyone who had control of a golem.

Rampaging uncontrolled golems aren't so hot for the defenders, but they're much better than controlled ones.
Incorrect. If their creator/controller is killed a golem just follows the last orders given to it.

And killing the creator/controller would be no easy task. Just dump the creators in stasis, hide the stasis chamber so it can't be found, and then if any controller is killed just awaken the creator and have him order the golem to follow your new controller. He then goes back in stasis.

As for controlling the golems in battle. Get the highest level wizard you can, give him a ring of invisibility, wings of flying, and all the craft contingent spells you can come up with. Permanent Telepathic bond him to the golems and have him fly around with them. Oh, equip him with the helm of 120 foot continuous true seeing and a medallion of thoughts as well.

If wizards ever got smart and errated the Awaken Construct spell so it actually worked on golems (it's SR: Yes) then you could have intelligent golems instead.


Are those golems some kind of freaking hellspawn?!!? They are ridiculously stronger than any golem I've seen so far (pehaps not in the Epic LH)

They are in the MM 3. 130,000 GP is the base price. Advanced to 40 HD adds 65,000 GP. At 41 HD they go up a size category which would add 50K to the price.

The fast healing and haste effects come from someone not thinking when they made the rules.

And yes, Shadesteel Golems are badass. They are as powerful as Iron golems and they get a ton of nice abilities that really shore up the golems weaknesses on top of it. (Flight being the big one)

Tor the Fallen
2007-07-04, 07:34 PM
Could you first get the wizard to leave his body, say, by shpping him to the astral plane, before putting stasis on him? That way, his body would be safe, but he'd still be useful.

I don't think trading a caster capable of creating a shadesteel golem for a shadesteel golem is worth it. You could break them out of stasis when needed, I guess.

Roderick_BR
2007-07-04, 07:46 PM
Someone probably said it before, but according to the DMG, a foot soldier will hardly have something more than leather or studded leather, a wooden shield, and some cheap weapon, like a half lance. They don't even get a scale mail, that is every PC's starting armor.
Cashing 2000+ for a weapon 1000+ for a armor (that would be a lot cheaper to buy a full or half plate first) is too costly for a kingdom.
Better to hire wizards, sorcerers, bards, and adepts to move with troops, and cast their spells on the spot.

Edit: Add the possibility that for each fallen soldier, an enemy soldier has access to his expensive gear, given enough time and opportunity.

Use the "infinite cash" trick to dress your armor in full plates and wear MW swords, and you are set ;)

Gavin Sage
2007-07-04, 08:29 PM
One answer, one the DMG gives, is that there aren't that many high level people. In that case, why hasn't Hell boiled over onto the Prime? Why are the squidfaces till hiding in their burrows? What do you do to keep the PCs from marauding over great swaths of your campaign world? This is entirely an unsatisfying solution.

And lo the people cried unto the gods for a savior and the gods hearing their people raised up a mighty hero that smote back the forces of darkness with the sword of legend forged to destroy them buying the people's freedom with his life.

Or some other suitably epic tale required to restore the status quo. Ultimately there is no such thing as an unbeatable force, because someone somewhere will come up with an equally unbeatable force or slick manuver or so forth. Or of course you can doom yourself.

Mike_G
2007-07-04, 08:44 PM
You have empty land, since the guerrillas are hiding in caves, and the peasants are dead. You let in an easily manipulated bunch of ruffians move in to take care of things for you. You don't pay them, you just tell them what to do. And they either do it, or you devestate them, or they do it because they failed a will save vs. dragon.

You don't need a particular group- after you kill everyone, the power vacuum is inevitable. Someone will move in after your 'army' is ashed. The best part- my dragon can keep wiping them out until someone suitable moves in. Your guerrillas, on the other hand, can't do anything.

Way easier than training a bunch of yokels how to live of roots and berries between taking pot shots at your impenetrable iron fortress of doom. Cheaper and more reliable, too.


You are using the orcs the way an occupying army would be used, so saying you don't need an army, but you'll just have the orcs do it is arguing in favor of an occupying force of low HD grunts, with your Dragon as a strike force, which is what I advocated in the first place.

The boots on the ground just have green, clawed feet in them in your example.

If you do use the Dragon as your only enforcement arm, even instituting a "pay tribute or Big Lizard Belong Sky burn down Mud Hut belong you" policy to keep the wealth flowing, you put all your eggs in one basket. The remnants of the populace, or the slaves you need to keep around to mine gold, grow crops, make wealth in whatever way you need to get the million gp to keep the dragon happy, will look around for a hero to slay the dragon.

Which should sound familiar to most gamers.

If you want to own and reap wealth from a country, then you do need an army, whether it be a bunch of human soldiers, or a tribe of orcs, or whatever.

Once again, I am not saying the Dragon or golems would be a bad thing, just that they are an incomplete force. Total war or not, Sherman marched to the sea with tens of thousands of infantry, cavalry and artillery, as well as engineers and signalers and a plethora of other specialists. The Allied invasion of Europe was hundreds of thousands. They couldn't have liberated France with nothing but a handful of B29s and Mustangs.

Snooder
2007-07-04, 10:03 PM
I think the problem that people are making, and the reason why, OMG dragon pwns army, is even cropping up is that they:
a.) watch too many bad movies
b.) don't understand the difference between medieval and modern combat.

Alright, time for rant. *breathe in*

A.
Dragons are not all that great. Lets say you have as u stipulate, an Adult Red Dragon.
He has a CR of 15, which means a group of 4 lvl 15 (non-optimized) PCs should expend a 4th of their daily resources killing him. I don't have my DMG with me to look it up, but i'm fairly certain that at with 1,000,000gp and a 100,00 man army you will have at least 4 NPCs of lvl15+ as officers.
His breath weapon has a range of 100'. That means he can hit at most 20 soldiers at once(probably less since he is flying and not directly in contact with them).
He has 253 hp. That means even at minimum damage, 253 hits will kill him. due to the d20 attack roll, that means that 253 * 20 = 5060 attacks will kill the dragon. Sure, he has DR 5/magic, but all that means is either +1 arrows, or 6 dmg per arrow. Neither of which is all that difficult. Lets say it is an army of 100,000 mooks. lets give them an archer force of 25,000. That means that the 100,000 army has enough basic firepower to kill 5 adult red dragons. In the FIRST round. You stretch that out to multiple rounds and dragons suddenly become much less of a "win" scenario.
Of course, this would be obviously to anyone if not for hollywood movies where the dragon just flies in, blows fire and scatters an entire army. Too bad the entire army consists of about 100 extras shot to make it seem bigger. Look people, a dragon is a large flying reptile, that's it. It bleeds and dies like everything else.

B.
Medieval armies are not like modern armies. In a modern army you have a standardized uniform and organization, and the government is responsible for all of thier food/weaponry, e.t.c. That's not how medieval armies worked. The govt. basically subcontracted all of that to vassals who brought their own weapons, skill and minions to the fight. Basically all those retired 12th lvl adventurers who the king gave a castle to, yeah, they'd be the army. It means a much smaller army, and most warfare was fought through seiges, but that's how it worked. No large set piece battles of hundreds of thousands of peasants with bad weapons and no armor, just a few thousand very well equipped knights and thier train. Eventually longbows and pike ruined all that, but hey, D&D isn't set in the Renaissance, now is it.

Sorry, i g2g right now, i'll edit this and add more cogent points later.

Dervag
2007-07-04, 10:24 PM
A hundred of those cost just as much as it would cost just to feed an army of 100,000 for 500 days. And remember, these golems never cost a cent once you buy them. They can defend the nation for a thousand years and be just as effective in year 1,000 as they were in year 1.As others point out, armies of 100,000 are unsustainable for any but the most gigantic empires using medieval technology. There were very few armies in antiquity that ever came close to that mark.

So yes, if your nation can scrape up twenty million gold pieces they would do really well to buy these golems. But most nations cannot scrape together twenty million gold pieces, and if they can only afford three or four or even ten such golems, then they might well be better off with an army of normal people instead.

At some point the low number of golems means that it does not matter how powerful the individual golems are; you can't keep running them aroundd the country fast enough to cover all the potential trouble spots.


Policing is a civilian matter that the towns deal with. They elect a sheriff who deals with small town problems. The city councils pay people to make up a city watch.

The military is independent of the civilian police.So in other words, the 'military' consists of nothing but a small force of nigh-invulnerable golems and warforged, while everything else in the country is handled by the village sheriffs.

As long as we're clear on that.


For spying on your own people just pick a random loyal person in each town and use a permanent telepathic bond to link them to a commander that is back at the capital.That doesn't solve the real problem spies have. Communication is a problem, but not the big one. The big problem is for the spy to actually obtain the needed information in the first place, and telepathic bonds on random people don't do a damn thing to helf for that.


So 87,250 GP per warforged.

Each Warforged is at least a Ranger 2 with max points in Survival, Spot, Move Silently, Listen, Hide, and Knowledge (Geography).

Do to being warforged these scouts need never eat, sleep or even land. Add a Permanent Telepathic Bond so they can report in without any problems and your golden. 500 can easily guard a kingdom.

So thats another 50,000,000 GP. At that price it is well worth it. And if you can get the items at cost (without a markup) the cost is slashed by 50%.Ah, so now we have to scrape together another twenty, thirty, or even fifty million gold pieces to buy this army to back up the other army.

Again, this is a budget-busting expense. For anything but a continent spanning empire, this army would cost the entire gross national product for years to assemble.

For that kind of money there are undoubtedly hundreds of ways to assemble a world-beating army of superpowerful monsters. Golems are by no means unique in this respect.


Actually, a willingness to deal with guerrillas by crushing them mercilessly does in fact deter guerillas.No, it doesn't; it really doesn't. It's been done before, both ways.


Maybe it's a purely mental exercise that a single dragon can destroy a country that has a standard army of level 1-10 NPCs.Again, the problem is that your idea of a "standard" army is one that contains no defenses against dragons. In essence, your argument is that "a country which contains no one capable of fighting a dragon cannot fight a dragon." And you are correct. But it would be equally correct and irrelevant to point out that one M1 Abrams tank can kill a thousand soldiers with machine guns, or that the tank could in fact kill any number of soldiers with machine guns if it had a source of resupply.

That's correct, but it isn't relevant, because no country exists without antitank weapons. Likewise, if one dragon can conquer or destroy a nation that has nothing on its side but an army of low-level soldiers, there will be no such nations.. All such nations will have long since been defeated by nations that have dragons or forces that can kill dragons. The nations that remain will be the ones capable of killing a dragon in one way or another.

So it doesn't matter that a few L1 crossbowmen can't stop a dragon. Nobody is going to form an army composed entirely of low-level crossbowmen if they know they might be attacked by dragons.


Iraq is a mistake on so many levels that it doesn't really count as evidence. You are also supposing an invasion force that is amoral and won't fight a total war Actually, Iraq does count as evidence. The US has plenty of weapons roughly as powerful as one of those super-golems in terms of raw destructive ability. Some of these weapons are completely immune to attack by the insurgents (such as jet fighters). They can't bring down the jet fighters. They can't shoot down the satellites spying on their country. And yet they are still presenting enormous trouble to us, because we can't garrison everything and we can't have people guarding every road.


That was in all of your towns. So that you know what is happening everywhere in your realm.No, you know what one guy in each town in your realm thinks is happening. You do not know what is happening in the forest. You do not know whether the townsfolk are meeting in secret behind your man's back. You don't actually know much of anything, to be honest.


You are making false assumptions. Nothing like an RPG exists in D&D. Those golems are immune to any weapon that farmers could ever get. And immunity to magic negates what they could get. The only real way to take out one of these golems is with a high level fighter, and that isn't even a sure thing.OK, so nobody kills your golems any more than anybody in Iraq can kill fighter jets.

So?


There is no way for that farmer to know who my informers are. Without magic there is no way to detect that my informer is sending me messages.Right. And, of course, you have nearly unlimited magic and resources while your enemies have none.

That's the core assumption of this entire battle plan. You can build super-golems. You don't have any enemies that can build super-golems and send them into this country to support the rebels (as the Soviets shipped weapons into Vietnam). You have high level casters to teleport your army all over the place and low level casters to occupy every village. Your enemies have no casters, high or low level.

OK, fine. Under those conditions you win, but it's a rigged match. It's like saying that you can win a footrace against a man whose feet are shackled to a ten ton block of concrete. It's true, but it doesn't impress anybody.

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-04, 11:15 PM
As others point out, armies of 100,000 are unsustainable for any but the most gigantic empires using medieval technology. There were very few armies in antiquity that ever came close to that mark.

Fine. Let's go with a nice small nation. It's budget for defense is 1 million GP per year (a very reasonable number). The military spends half of that budget on its regular army (500,000 GP is enough to easily equip a force of 10,000). The other half goes into the future defense force fund. They buy 2 of these golems (400,000 GP) and put the other 100,000 GP in a savings fund.

After 25 years you have 50 golems and 2.5 million GP left in the fund. You have also continued to support your army of 10,000 people. We now cut the budget for the regular army down to 300,000 GP and cut the force in half.

So now we have 700,000 GP a year for the future defense force fund. Let's continue to buy golems at 2 per year with the rest of the money saved.

After another 25 years we have our force of 100 golems and a fund of 10,000,000 GP for the Future Weapons project.

We will continue to fund the regular army at the current rate but they are used mostly as border guards and scouts.

Let's take the 700,000 GP we have to work with and set aside 100,000 GP for the golem force (paying the wizards and what not). Another 100,000 GP is set aside in the savings fund. The last 500,000 GP is used on the warforged scouts. At 100,000 GP a piece we can buy 5 per year and the 10,000,000 GP saved allows us to get another hundred.

So after another 25 years (year 75) we have 225 scouts. We start them on patrol and cut the defense force in half again. So now we have 850,000 GP to spend. That is 8 more scouts per year.

After another 25 years (year 100) we have 425 scouts and a savings fund of 3,750,000 GP which allows us to buy 37 additional scouts. For a total of 462 scouts.

After about 5 years we will have 500 scouts. We can now cut funding for the regular troops.

Now we devote our 1,000,000 a year to the intelligence business. 5 years should be enough time to get a loyal person into each town in our land. Each one has a permanent telepathic bond and is told to just live their life.

Now lets slash the defense budget in half, to 500,000 GP. Half of that goes to upkeep and the other half goes to intelligence operations.

So after 130 years our nation has a force that will last forever and can't be beat.


So yes, if your nation can scrape up twenty million gold pieces they would do really well to buy these golems. But most nations cannot scrape together twenty million gold pieces, and if they can only afford three or four or even ten such golems, then they might well be better off with an army of normal people instead.

Yes, if bought all at once they are prohibitively expensive but your a nation, nothing stops you from spending a good hundred years building the force. And even 10 of these will smash any army sent against you. Yes, you will need a regular army but it can be much smaller than otherwise necessary.


At some point the low number of golems means that it does not matter how powerful the individual golems are; you can't keep running them aroundd the country fast enough to cover all the potential trouble spots.

If you have that many trouble spots then your country won't last pretty much no matter what force you have.


So in other words, the 'military' consists of nothing but a small force of nigh-invulnerable golems and warforged, while everything else in the country is handled by the village sheriffs.

That depends. Outside threats and outright rebellion and handled by the government. A brawl or a murder is handled by the local guard or watch.


That doesn't solve the real problem spies have. Communication is a problem, but not the big one. The big problem is for the spy to actually obtain the needed information in the first place, and telepathic bonds on random people don't do a damn thing to helf for that.

There job is to let you know when the town is taken over by invaders, or is talking rebellion, or is having problems with orcs, or when a farmer sees some foreign troops moving through the woods. While it is hard to find out information in a city it is not very hard in a town of 100. Everyone knows everyone else. Visitors are noticed by everyone and are commented on. Half the town hangs out in the tavern at night and talks.


Ah, so now we have to scrape together another twenty, thirty, or even fifty million gold pieces to buy this army to back up the other army.

But its a 1 time fee.


Again, this is a budget-busting expense. For anything but a continent spanning empire, this army would cost the entire gross national product for years to assemble.
The government of most nations should be pulling in at least 10,000,000 GP per year in taxes. 10% of the budget devoted to defense isn't that high. Especially considering that the government doesn't have that many other responsibilities.


For that kind of money there are undoubtedly hundreds of ways to assemble a world-beating army of superpowerful monsters. Golems are by no means unique in this respect.

Actually they are generally the best way to do it. Level 20 Wizards aren't very good at taking or following orders and can rebel with you having fairly little recourse.

Dragons are likewise not to good at the order thing and don't have that much that makes them any nicer than an Advanced Greater Shadesteel Golem.

Golem's are the best army for the cost. Being immune to magic is a very nice thing if the other nation decides to go with the high level wizard option. Or the dragon option.


Actually, Iraq does count as evidence. The US has plenty of weapons roughly as powerful as one of those super-golems in terms of raw destructive ability. Some of these weapons are completely immune to attack by the insurgents (such as jet fighters). They can't bring down the jet fighters. They can't shoot down the satellites spying on their country. And yet they are still presenting enormous trouble to us, because we can't garrison everything and we can't have people guarding every road.

No. The US could stop the insurgency in Iraq inside of a month. The problem is it would be incredibly bloody and it is not something that America as a nation could do. There is a difference between the ability to do something and the will to do it.


No, you know what one guy in each town in your realm thinks is happening. You do not know what is happening in the forest. You do not know whether the townsfolk are meeting in secret behind your man's back. You don't actually know much of anything, to be honest.
You seem to think that my people in my own realm want to overthrow me. And know who my spy/informant is. In a town of 100 everyone knows what everyone else is up to.

See above.


OK, so nobody kills your golems any more than anybody in Iraq can kill fighter jets.

So?

See above about the will to use the force you have. And golems are much better than fighter jets when combined with teleportation mages.


Right. And, of course, you have nearly unlimited magic and resources while your enemies have none.

Oh, he can have them. It's just that unless he brings someone who can detect magic to every town and checks every person then he won't know who my people are. And I would know as soon as such a thing happened do to the informant telling me by the bond.


That's the core assumption of this entire battle plan. You can build super-golems. You don't have any enemies that can build super-golems and send them into this country to support the rebels (as the Soviets shipped weapons into Vietnam). You have high level casters to teleport your army all over the place and low level casters to occupy every village. Your enemies have no casters, high or low level.

Golem's can fight golem's, but thats about it. They can even teleport them around like I do. I don't care. They are not a nation I would attack and chances are they wouldn't attack me. MAD and all. As for teh low level cleric's, he can have thsoe as well. It doesn't matter.


OK, fine. Under those conditions you win, but it's a rigged match. It's like saying that you can win a footrace against a man whose feet are shackled to a ten ton block of concrete. It's true, but it doesn't impress anybody.

The first principal of warfare is never fight fair and never attack an equal force unless you absolutely have to. I'm not stupid enough to attack an enemy with equal force and chances are they are not stupid enough to attack me. I just go after the nation that is weaker than me.

horseboy
2007-07-04, 11:43 PM
Fine. Let's go with a nice small nation. It's budget for defense is 1 million GP per year (a very reasonable number). The military spends half of that budget on its regular army (500,000 GP is enough to easily equip a force of 10,000). The other half goes into the future defense force fund. They buy 2 of these golems (400,000 GP) and put the other 100,000 GP in a savings fund.

After 25 years you have 50 golems and 2.5 million GP left in the fund. You have also continued to support your army of 10,000 people. We now cut the budget for the regular army down to 300,000 GP and cut the force in half.



Well, first off, no one is going to let you have 100 years of building up a "super force" that you could use to take them over.

Second, you can't "drop" your human military. Otherwise you've got 10,000 unemployed, armed, well trained and highly irate people in your country.

Third, as has been pointed out "PC's" do have national loyalties. Golems do not an army make. They make a REALLY good shock force.

Forth, your army would react too slowly to changing circumstances. With mindless Autominatons only on the battle field. Even Iyaden needs guardians.

In any military situation, you don't put all your eggs in one basket. A combined force will be better able to react, function better and well, work more like a party does (on a bigger scale).

Gavin Sage
2007-07-04, 11:56 PM
@Tippy:

You realize the concept of a 130 year plan is ridiculous even as thought exercises go. Of course I'm sure this must be an elven nation that is paranoid and warlike enough to want to spend that money for a no material threat. Or your ruler is a lich/demi-god/dragon or other creature willing to spend the time and enforce their iron will on creating the super force. All assuming you have unlimited availiblity of resources to create these, aside from the base gold.

Further more against there's no reason why any nation other nation in that time can't say spend that time on retaining mages who develop a new spell that ignores the golem resistances and destroys them. Or deals unhealable damage, or renders them unable to move, etc. While outfitting their armies with adamantine weaponry to cut through the DR (it was adamantine correct) perhaps. And maybe a few mages casting a targeted dispel against the spell (not the golem) you used as an exploit to make them heal.

Or simply build their own golems, maybe not as many but enough to deterr you from ever using your golems. Since they would teleport their golems right into your capital. And sure you might get away with picking of a small country or two, but not using said golems as that would violate the MAD ideology. Meaning your every action would be tied up around a force you can't use.

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-05, 12:24 AM
Well, first off, no one is going to let you have 100 years of building up a "super force" that you could use to take them over.

Who ever said I was going to invade with it? And remember, I still have that nice little army that I keep around while building the force.


Second, you can't "drop" your human military. Otherwise you've got 10,000 unemployed, armed, well trained and highly irate people in your country.

They are slowly let off over a 100 year period. When ones die I just don't replace them. They can also be given other jobs until they die/retire. Make them into the town watch for these places. 5 guys per town seems good.

The point is to get them into jobs that make you money or that get them killed. Patrolling the kings roads for bandits seems like a good job. Or perhaps a mercenary force that other nations pay to use.


Third, as has been pointed out "PC's" do have national loyalties. Golems do not an army make. They make a REALLY good shock force.

I think we are operating under different definitions of army. Mine is a force that defends a nation from outside threats and can project power into other nations. Yes, it is not an army made to hold captured ground, but it doesn't have to ever hold ground.


Forth, your army would react too slowly to changing circumstances. With mindless Autominatons only on the battle field. Even Iyaden needs guardians.

That what the wizards are for. Invisible, Flying, have a helm of true seeing and a medallion of thought, and are telepathically linked to the golems. I believe I mentioned it somewhere.

The cost is accounted for in the rounding of my figures and the upkeep cost I mentioned.


In any military situation, you don't put all your eggs in one basket. A combined force will be better able to react, function better and well, work more like a party does (on a bigger scale).

A combined force will not be able to react faster, teleport allows my force to respond to any threat at any location instantly. My force also functions better do to a single mind controlling the whole force and orders are followed instantly.


@Tippy:

You realize the concept of a 130 year plan is ridiculous even as thought exercises go. Of course I'm sure this must be an elven nation that is paranoid and warlike enough to want to spend that money for a no material threat. Or your ruler is a lich/demi-god/dragon or other creature willing to spend the time and enforce their iron will on creating the super force. All assuming you have unlimited availiblity of resources to create these, aside from the base gold.

A 130 year plan isn't particularly long in many cases. It is a plan that lasts roughly 2 human lifespans. Elves and Dwarves won't have a problem with it. Elans won't even blink.

In the history of a nation 130 years isn't a great deal of time.


Further more against there's no reason why any nation other nation in that time can't say spend that time on retaining mages who develop a new spell that ignores the golem resistances and destroys them. Or deals unhealable damage, or renders them unable to move, etc. While outfitting their armies with adamantine weaponry to cut through the DR (it was adamantine correct) perhaps. And maybe a few mages casting a targeted dispel against the spell (not the golem) you used as an exploit to make them heal.

These other nations would have to know about the golems first. And now we are assuming custom magic? The spells that you need to target are cast at CL 25 meaning that it requires a greater dispel magic cast by a 16th level wizard to even have a 5% chance of dispelling it. And at CL 20 you still only have a 25% chance.

Disjunction is a better choice.


Or simply build their own golems, maybe not as many but enough to deterr you from ever using your golems. Since they would teleport their golems right into your capital. And sure you might get away with picking of a small country or two, but not using said golems as that would violate the MAD ideology. Meaning your every action would be tied up around a force you can't use.

Incorrect. They would need a force of golems almost equal to mine for MAD to be effective.

The MAD ideology says nothing about using the force against a nation that can't respond in kind. I could invade every nation that doesn't have the golems with impunity because as soon as they attack my capital I can go and attack theirs.

Mike_G
2007-07-05, 01:25 AM
But why disband your conventional forces?

You admit you can't hold ground with the golems, why not slowly build up a golem strike force while maintaining a useful, deployable army that can hold, patrol, police and pacify territory?

An army that can't hold captured territory is not a fully functional army.

Adding magic and monsters and constructs to an army is a good idea. Trying to replace an army with magic and expensive constructs gives you a limited force, which you yourself admit.

Dervag
2007-07-05, 01:25 AM
Predictably, my post can be summarized as "Although it is a good plan, the scheme of golems will not work as well as Emperor Tippy thinks, for the following reasons: blah blah blah..."


Who ever said I was going to invade with it? And remember, I still have that nice little army that I keep around while building the force.Nobody. But you could use it to invade them. The golems would be just as effective at tearing down their cities as at protecting yours, remember? That's one of their selling points.

So anyone who sees you building one unstoppable super-golem a year is going to scramble to find ways to kill super-golems. It won't be done with low-level mooks, but they can invest in adamantine weapons, ways of dispelling the continual flame spell you use to give the golems Fast Healing, and other things listed on this thread. They can hire or train high-level fighters to use these weapons. And they will succeed, because these golems are difficult, not impossible, to kill. They can equip a force to beat a few of these golems in a few years, if they had the budget that you assume that you have.

If you can afford to build them, your equals can afford to build things to kill them. And if they strike before the full 100-golem force is ready (say, a decade into the plan), you're going to have much more trouble fending them off than you would if your enemies gave you several generations to build up.

As for your buildup plan, let's look at that again. You say that 500,000 gold a year can keep a force of ten thousand in the field. But earlier, you said:

A hundred of those [golems, costing a total of 19.5 million gold] cost just as much as it would cost just to feed an army of 100,000 for 500 days.Now, 500 days is about a year and a half, and ten thousand men should cost one tenth as much as one hundred thousand men. So based on your own statistics, simply feeding an army of 10,000 for a year should cost over a million gold. This country's defense budget would, according to your statistics, already be totally invested in keeping the existing army going, and there would not be hundreds of thousands of extra gold kicking around to invest in superweapons.


If you have that many trouble spots then your country won't last pretty much no matter what force you have.The catch is that there will always be a response loop. Even with teleportation, it will take time to teleport a golem to a place. Some areas are too important to wait for that time. For example, you probably want to keep at least one of the golems on watch in the king's throne room all the time, because someone could quite plausibly figure out a way to assassinate the king in the time it takes for someone to go "Ohmigod! Somebody's trying to kill the king!", call the wizards, and have them teleport in a golem to defeat the assassin.

So some of your golems will be tied down defending a position where you need an immediate reaction. And to make matters worse, your enemies will start working out ways to draw your golems off to one place (say, with an army of big illusionary monsters) while actually hitting you in another place.

The result is that you need a large number of golems (say, 100) to cover all your trouble spots. Even when your guard force is composed of invincible guards that can be teleported to the places they are called for, you still have to have a certain minimum size to protect a nation effectively.


But its a 1 time fee.Yes, but it is a huge one-time fee.

What else could a government do with that kind of money? What other kinds of armies could they build? What other priorities might they have?


The government of most nations should be pulling in at least 10,000,000 GP per year in taxes.Care to expand a little more on why that is, and on how big 'most nations' are?


Actually they are generally the best way to do it. Level 20 Wizards aren't very good at taking or following orders and can rebel with you having fairly little recourse.There's nothing inherent in the nature of high-level wizards that makes them angry coup-staging fiends. A high-level wizard may well be loyal, especially if they are being richly rewarded for their services. Moreover, if there is more than one such high-level wizard then the rebellion of one is less of a danger than if there are many.

Again, the problem is that if I know you are building an army of golems, I will spend my money on anti-golem weaponry. Even your super-golems can be killed with sufficient effort, skill, and resources, and enemies with resources similar to your own can find ways to kill them- probably for a net cost lower than the cost of the golems.


No. The US could stop the insurgency in Iraq inside of a month. The problem is it would be incredibly bloody and it is not something that America as a nation could do. There is a difference between the ability to do something and the will to do it.And yet there are ample cases of rebellions persisting for months or years in the face of truly brutal suppressive efforts; it happens.


You seem to think that my people in my own realm want to overthrow me.You never know, they might. Maybe they resent those big creepy golems (the whole shadesteel/shadow-loving thing is in fact rather creepy). Maybe they think your cousin would make a better monarch. Maybe they just want lower taxes.

Maybe you're an unjust king; that's been known to happen too. Every ruler faces opposition; rebellions happen.


And know who my spy/informant is. In a town of 100 everyone knows what everyone else is up to.If so, then everyone knows who your spy is. In which case they can work around him if they feel the need to do so. Your spy can't know that there are troops moving in the woods if nobody tells him that unless he spends all his time snooping around, which will make him even more obvious. And if someone murders him in his sleep and he doesn't know who, what are you going to do?

The peasants can claim not to know who he was. You can either start massacring entire villages (which will assuredly make everyone in your kingdom want to overthrow you), or you can appoint a new spy. But after two or three such spies turn up dead in the same community, you're going to run short of volunteers.

In essence, your problem is that the telepathic link doesn't alleviate many of the problems faced by secret police informants throughout history. To solve those problems, you have to adopt the full range of secret police tactics, which is expensive and will alienate your people.


See above about the will to use the force you have. And golems are much better than fighter jets when combined with teleportation mages.First of all, if you have the "will" to destroy half a country to subdue the other half, you will find yourself amassing a lot of enemies, enemies with the funds to match your army of super-golems.

Second of all, why do you assume that the "will" to use powerful weapons to cause mass destruction will exist in greater quantity than it does in modern-day Western societies? Remember that the modern aversion to massacres of civilians is in large part a product of the sheer scale of massacre modern technology makes possible. With super-golems wandering around capable of levelling entire towns without stopping for breakfast, the same factor will apply in your campaign universe.


Oh, he can have them. It's just that unless he brings someone who can detect magic to every town and checks every person then he won't know who my people are. And I would know as soon as such a thing happened do to the informant telling me by the bond.On the contrary, one low-to-mid-level caster with detect magic can ferret out your spies in short order, and without your spy knowing it because the spell can be cast where the spy isn't looking. If the town is small enough, they can check out most of the village in a few minutes. If it's large it would take longer and require multiple castings, of course, but would still be doable.


Golem's can fight golem's, but thats about it. They can even teleport them around like I do. I don't care.Or high-level fighters with magical equipment and adamantine weapons can fight your golems. Now, granted, you can overwhelm any one fighter by sending in enough golems, since the golems are each very powerful. But if you can posit the resources to create golems, why can't I posit the resources to destroy them?


The first principal of warfare is never fight fair and never attack an equal force unless you absolutely have to. I'm not stupid enough to attack an enemy with equal force and chances are they are not stupid enough to attack me. I just go after the nation that is weaker than me.That's been tried. It didn't work very well, because when you run around picking fights with enemies weaker than you are you will tend to step on the toes of enemies equal to or more powerful than you. They will aid your weak enemies, and are quite likely to attack you directly, for fear that you will become stronger than they are.


A combined force will not be able to react faster, teleport allows my force to respond to any threat at any location instantly. My force also functions better do to a single mind controlling the whole force and orders are followed instantly.You miss the distinction between "react better" and "react faster."


A 130 year plan isn't particularly long in many cases. It is a plan that lasts roughly 2 human lifespans. Elves and Dwarves won't have a problem with it. Elans won't even blink.

In the history of a nation 130 years isn't a great deal of time.Actually, it is. For example, the nation of Germany has currently existed for slightly more than 130 years. In 130 years, Spain rose to world-dominating power and began its fall into irrelevance. 130 years is a very long time for things to change.


These other nations would have to know about the golems first.They can scry. Or they can just watch you, because you're using these golems to fight your enemies. They can't be kept secret; once a giant black robot appears out of nowhere and wipes out a bandit troop besieging a peasant village they'll be the talk of the county.


Disjunction is a better choice.So they use disjunction.


Incorrect. They would need a force of golems almost equal to mine for MAD to be effective.On the contrary, this is a classic analogy to the logic of nuclear deterrence. Let us assume that each golem is an unstoppable killing machine capable of leveling a city, which can only reliably be defeated by the combined efforts of at least two other similar golems, and which can be teleported to or away from any place at will.

Now, if you have 100 golems and I have 20, I can still devastate your country. The first step is making sure that the location from which I control my golems is a secret. This is equivalent to placing my nuclear launch platforms in a secret location (such as a missile submarine that you can't find).

Now, I order my golems to run around doing damage in your country. Whenever you teleport in enough golems to kill one of my golem forces, I simply teleport my golems out.

You can't stop me from damaging you. You can damage me, but that won't stop me because as you say, my golems need no upkeep. I can have my golem controllers in a scrying-warded underground bunker. Even if you tear apart my country until it resembles the surface of the moon, I can still keep attacking your homeland and hurting you.

This is very similar to the logic of nuclear deterrence. I don't need 10,000 nuclear missiles to worry an enemy with 10,000 nuclear missiles. All I need is a few dozen missiles stashed in unknown locations that they can't shoot back at.


The MAD ideology says nothing about using the force against a nation that can't respond in kind. I could invade every nation that doesn't have the golems with impunity because as soon as they attack my capital I can go and attack theirs.On the contrary, if you try to use your golems to conquer the non-golem-equipped world, other golem-equipped powers will step in. Either because those non-golem nations are their dependents, or simply because they don't want to see you acquire enough money to build an utterly overwhelming force of golems.

Funkyodor
2007-07-05, 01:39 AM
Arrows of Slaying don't work on Constructs.
A single one of my Advanced Greater Shadesteel Golems has a CR of 18 (and it is really closer to 20, they have a low CR for their difficulty). 10 of then will deal with any adventuring party without a problem. Internal Spy's are easily found out with Mind Reading. And Programmed Amnesia can guarantee loyalty.

And what makes Advanced Greater Shadesteel Golems immune to Arrows of Construct Slaying? Since there are Arrows of Consruct Slaying, and Arrows of Undead Slaying, and Arrows of Dragon Slaying, and Arrows of Elemental Slaying, etc...

And with the mind reading thing, in 1st ED and 2nd ED there were items that stopped mind effecting things (Mind Bar), I haven't read anything in 3/3.5 ED that does this. I don't know if this will work but here goes, a spy can have Telempathic Bond and be hypnotized so that he doesn't realize he's a spy. So what he sees and hears is transmitted to the other person and mind reading (using Detect Thoughts takes 3 rounds and a failed save FYI) just sees he's an average joe doing average stuff, not a freedom fighter, no way not mister Joe Average. Couple of command words or his Hypnotic Suggestion to be curious about a specific field, like how many whatevers are produced, or what food the king likes, or (insert something here).

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-05, 02:33 AM
And what makes Advanced Greater Shadesteel Golems immune to Arrows of Construct Slaying? Since there are Arrows of Consruct Slaying, and Arrows of Undead Slaying, and Arrows of Dragon Slaying, and Arrows of Elemental Slaying, etc...

The nice little line in construct traits that says they are immune to death effects? And if you want to say that for some reason that doesn't apply to arrows of slaying then Just give them each a +1 Soulfire Buckler which specifically prevents arrows of slaying from working.


And with the mind reading thing, in 1st ED and 2nd ED there were items that stopped mind effecting things (Mind Bar), I haven't read anything in 3/3.5 ED that does this. I don't know if this will work but here goes, a spy can have Telempathic Bond and be hypnotized so that he doesn't realize he's a spy. So what he sees and hears is transmitted to the other person and mind reading (using Detect Thoughts takes 3 rounds and a failed save FYI) just sees he's an average joe doing average stuff, not a freedom fighter, no way not mister Joe Average. Couple of command words or his Hypnotic Suggestion to be curious about a specific field, like how many whatevers are produced, or what food the king likes, or (insert something here).

The nice little thing called Detect Magic shows that he is under a magical effect. Arcane Sight shows it as well. So does True Seeing. And the only way to mind control a person like you are suggesting is with Programmed Amnesia, a 9th level spell.

horseboy
2007-07-05, 02:34 AM
Who ever said I was going to invade with it? And remember, I still have that nice little army that I keep around while building the force.


You don't have to. Shortly after me (and/or the rest of your neighbors find out about you having more than, say, 10 of these things and making more, we're going to form an alliance and crush you early.



I think we are operating under different definitions of army. Mine is a force that defends a nation from outside threats and can project power into other nations. Yes, it is not an army made to hold captured ground, but it doesn't have to ever hold ground.


And that's why I win. If your army can't hold ground, I just roll back in and claim the territory.



That what the wizards are for. Invisible, Flying, have a helm of true seeing and a medallion of thought, and are telepathically linked to the golems. I believe I mentioned it somewhere.

The cost is accounted for in the rounding of my figures and the upkeep cost I mentioned.


Something with that much magic would glow like the sun with a 0 level detect magic. All you'd need to stop that would be a 1st level wizard with a wand of glittercheese. I don't have to attack your golems, just take out the squishy then run.



A combined force will not be able to react faster, teleport allows my force to respond to any threat at any location instantly. My force also functions better do to a single mind controlling the whole force and orders are followed instantly.


Meaning I'd only have to trick one person instead of your entire command staff. You'd remove your control from one place and put it in another. I now have forced you to choose one location or the other. (This is why you need to be able to hold ground)



These other nations would have to know about the golems first. And now we are assuming custom magic? The spells that you need to target are cast at CL 25 meaning that it requires a greater dispel magic cast by a 16th level wizard to even have a 5% chance of dispelling it. And at CL 20 you still only have a 25% chance.

Disjunction is a better choice.


What makes you think I don't already have spies there, telling me what you're doing?




Incorrect. They would need a force of golems almost equal to mine for MAD to be effective.

The MAD ideology says nothing about using the force against a nation that can't respond in kind. I could invade every nation that doesn't have the golems with impunity because as soon as they attack my capital I can go and attack theirs.

Oh really? And if I'm there, attacking your capital and kill you, how did yowin? What are you protecting your castle with from my 6,000 humanoids, pegasis knights, dropping summon rustmonster bombs, jade dragon golem, big catapults and the outsider my high priest just summoned? Then there's my two or three allies's armies to contend with simultaneously.

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-05, 02:52 AM
You don't have to. Shortly after me (and/or the rest of your neighbors find out about you having more than, say, 10 of these things and making more, we're going to form an alliance and crush you early.

You have to find out.


And that's why I win. If your army can't hold ground, I just roll back in and claim the territory.

No. Any army you field is destroyed and routed in a matter of hours. If you locate enough troops in 1 place (even to take back something I have taken) then I can teleport in and destroy that fielded army.


Something with that much magic would glow like the sun with a 0 level detect magic. All you'd need to stop that would be a 1st level wizard with a wand of glittercheese. I don't have to attack your golems, just take out the squishy then run.

Detect Magic has a 60 foot range.
Since most of the magic comes from items a simple Magic Aura spell will take care of most of it.
Nondetection will protect me from the rest, a good use of a 3rd level spell.
If the wizards could cast 8th level spells then Mindblank would work as well.


Meaning I'd only have to trick one person instead of your entire command staff. You'd remove your control from one place and put it in another. I now have forced you to choose one location or the other. (This is why you need to be able to hold ground)
There is 1 wizard per 4 golems. They are the field commanders for their forces. I have 25 separate forces each made up of 4 golems and at least a level 13 wizard.


What makes you think I don't already have spies there, telling me what you're doing?
Finding spies is trivial. And the grand total of people who know what I am doing can be the king, his top general, and the mages making the things. Considering that they are made on the plane of shadow it is even less likely that you would find out.


Oh really? And if I'm there, attacking your capital and kill you, how did yowin? What are you protecting your castle with from my 6,000 humanoids, pegasis knights, dropping summon rustmonster bombs, jade dragon golem, big catapults and the outsider my high priest just summoned? Then there's my two or three allies's armies to contend with simultaneously.

You just lost you capital as every man, women, and child in it is dead. Your force would also have to find some way to get to my capital (which is not where my military command would be anyways) without being detected and crushed in the field.

And this is all assuming that you manage to raise an alliance to come and attack me. How come you think that would be so easy?

Funkyodor
2007-07-05, 04:17 AM
Guess I'm not so up to speed on all the RAW ins and outs of magic/magic items in 3.5. But, about spies and intelligence. Limiting crucial knowlege to a handfull of select people is great for hiding exactly what you are doing. But making assumptions that you are building either something very big, or alot of small things from the massive influx of unique raw materials and the hush hush meetings with high lvl mages might be harder to disguise. A neat factoid about military intelligence. During WWII the US received intel that the Germans were making a large winter offensive because of large orders of buttons used exclusively in the manufacture of German military issue winter coats. That started a deeper probe so they were ready when it started.

That also got me thinking. Divination. Man, I don't need spies to determine when and where an attack is coming from. Spell, questions, answers and prepare.

I like the idea of assaulting the Golem Controllers instead of the golems themselves. You are assuming that they are all going to be fanatically loyal to whomever. Blackmail and subterfuge are cool things. I've got your wife and family, give me a golem for it. Yea! Plus, they are cool, but how indepth can their instruction be? They don't think for themselves. And Dragons have all kinds of quirks. It says specifically that Red dragons won't breath on defenseless targets and risk destoying precious items. It's a perfect dragon lure for an overconfident Dragon. There are all kinds of ways to pick apart whatever design is thought of. But, the gist of this topic I think were listing the magic that military channels have avalible to exploit. Not whats the absolute best and can't be beaten.

So, we've got Thought Detection, Mind Reading, Detect Magic, True Sight to help detect spies. Programmed Amnesia, Telempatic Bond, True Sight, Detect Magic, & something that disguises magic auras help spies. Dragons, Golems, Warforged, & high lvl NPCs are great but expensive. Normal troops (I.E. Foot, Cav, Archers) are crappy but cheap. Magic is great for increasing the effectiveness of all the non-combat aspects of war (No supply lines, instant communication, fear removing effects, super medics, scrying, divination) but the expense can outweigh the benefits.

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-05, 05:45 AM
Guess I'm not so up to speed on all the RAW ins and outs of magic/magic items in 3.5. But, about spies and intelligence. Limiting crucial knowlege to a handfull of select people is great for hiding exactly what you are doing. But making assumptions that you are building either something very big, or alot of small things from the massive influx of unique raw materials and the hush hush meetings with high lvl mages might be harder to disguise. A neat factoid about military intelligence. During WWII the US received intel that the Germans were making a large winter offensive because of large orders of buttons used exclusively in the manufacture of German military issue winter coats. That started a deeper probe so they were ready when it started.
Your forgetting about teleportation effects. Knowing what I am buying is next to impossible when every city in the multiverse is open for business. Sigil and Union are good bets. And knowing that I am even spending gold on anything would be a pain to figure out. Do you have any idea how much money the US military hides for its black ops? Money that even the president and congress don't know where it is or what it is for. It's even easier to hide gold when you are a absolute ruler.


That also got me thinking. Divination. Man, I don't need spies to determine when and where an attack is coming from. Spell, questions, answers and prepare.
You think I would be stupid enough to have any of it located outside of permanent mage's private sanctums? The whole operation could be buried 2,000 feet under ground in a place that is covered in permanent sanctums on both the prime material plane and the plan of shadow (where shadesteel golems have to be built). And thats if you even locate it on the same planet.


I like the idea of assaulting the Golem Controllers instead of the golems themselves. You are assuming that they are all going to be fanatically loyal to whomever. Blackmail and subterfuge are cool things. I've got your wife and family, give me a golem for it. Yea! Plus, they are cool, but how indepth can their instruction be? They don't think for themselves. And Dragons have all kinds of quirks. It says specifically that Red dragons won't breath on defenseless targets and risk destoying precious items. It's a perfect dragon lure for an overconfident Dragon. There are all kinds of ways to pick apart whatever design is thought of. But, the gist of this topic I think were listing the magic that military channels have avalible to exploit. Not whats the absolute best and can't be beaten.
Guaranteeing loyalty from 25 mages that I might add you don't even know exist is easy. Programmed Amnesia can do it.

Lapak
2007-07-05, 08:07 AM
Incorrect. If their creator/controller is killed a golem just follows the last orders given to it.There seem to be enough other problems that I'm not overly invested in making you argue this point, but if you're using your golems as a fast reaction force, sending them to destroy particular armies, and so on, their standing orders probably aren't very useful. They'd need to be issued orders on a regular basis, and once they completed whatever they were intent on they'd be pretty much done as a fighting force. This assumes that the controllers are not completely invulnerable, but surely that's a safe assumption. Or...
And killing the creator/controller would be no easy task. Just dump the creators in stasis, hide the stasis chamber so it can't be found, and then if any controller is killed just awaken the creator and have him order the golem to follow your new controller. He then goes back in stasis.Wow. You've spent your national budget for 100+ years to build your amy, and you've also come up with the resources to have your (presumably) highest-level, most powerful magical item creators tucked into cold storage at all times? And to pop them in and out of it with ease whenever you need?

You have got quite the military budget.
As for controlling the golems in battle. Get the highest level wizard you can, give him a ring of invisibility, wings of flying, and all the craft contingent spells you can come up with. Permanent Telepathic bond him to the golems and have him fly around with them. Oh, equip him with the helm of 120 foot continuous true seeing and a medallion of thoughts as well.AND, in addition to the stasis-bound golem creators, you've ALSO hired high-level wizards as golem commanders and equipped them with scads of powerful magic.

You've started out with the most extravagant budget possible, and it keeps on climbing. You're assuming pretty much unlimited resources of all varieties - spellcasters, spells, magic items, gold, and time. Of course you can conquer the world with that kind of funding, but I rather suspect your proposed nation would end up like the U.S.S.R. instead: spending so much on its military that the country falls apart through domestic problems.

Unless you're willing to unleash your unstoppable hordes on your own country, in which case the scorched-earth approach is going to pretty much end your military buildup anyway.

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-05, 08:27 AM
There seem to be enough other problems that I'm not overly invested in making you argue this point, but if you're using your golems as a fast reaction force, sending them to destroy particular armies, and so on, their standing orders probably aren't very useful. They'd need to be issued orders on a regular basis, and once they completed whatever they were intent on they'd be pretty much done as a fighting force. This assumes that the controllers are not completely invulnerable, but surely that's a safe assumption. Or...Wow. You've spent your national budget for 100+ years to build your amy, and you've also come up with the resources to have your (presumably) highest-level, most powerful magical item creators tucked into cold storage at all times? And to pop them in and out of it with ease whenever you need?
If the controller is being attacked their last order will be kill these people and return to base.

And cold storage costs 1 6th level spell slot an a 100 GP focus. It is outrageously cheap. Smokey Confinement in Complete Mage.


You have got quite the military budget. AND, in addition to the stasis-bound golem creators, you've ALSO hired high-level wizards as golem commanders and equipped them with scads of powerful magic.
A million a year isn't that big a military budget. The governments yearly budget in the average D&D kingdom (1 million working citizens) should be about 25 million GP, more if your a trading hub. To be realistic your military budget would run at least 25% of that. So you should be getting 6,250,000 GP to spend each year.

And the cost of the wizards and their items were covered in the rounding error in my calculations (13,000 GP per scout and 5,000 GP per golem).


You've started out with the most extravagant budget possible, and it keeps on climbing. You're assuming pretty much unlimited resources of all varieties - spellcasters, spells, magic items, gold, and time. Of course you can conquer the world with that kind of funding, but I rather suspect your proposed nation would end up like the U.S.S.R. instead: spending so much on its military that the country falls apart through domestic problems.

The US military budget for 2007 (not including Iraq and Afghanistan) is 440 billion dollars. According to WotC 1 GP is supposed to equal 20 USD. So in D&D GP that is a budget of 22 BILLION GP.

I was not assuming unlimited resources. The only thing I was assuming was time. Acquiring the necessary items over a hundred year period isn't difficult.


Unless you're willing to unleash your unstoppable hordes on your own country, in which case the scorched-earth approach is going to pretty much end your military buildup anyway.

Why would I need to unleash them on my own populace?

Funkyodor
2007-07-05, 09:18 AM
So for the golem thing your spending money on
- Golems
- Warforged
- Magic equipment for the Warforged
- 25 High lvl mages to do all your construction, Oh wait your gonna Programmed Amnesia these High lvl mages, so do you really need to pay them?
- Spies to find out enemies weakness, oh Programmed Amnesia again.
- Magic Items for the Spies.
- Super Secret underground magic sanctuary.
- Way to get to Super Secret sanctuary and still keep it a secret.
- Secure places to store your High Lvl mages when not making Golems, you might need to re-amnesia them if they start asking too many questions, like why was I in suspended animation?
- Other Mages to control the Golems to provide instructions at all times. Enough so that they can rest, sleep, and vaction, but still be ready at a moments notice.
- Magic Items for the other Mages.
- Extra budgeted for accidents made by the controllers who screw up some commands.
- Spy sniffers with True Sight, Thought Detection, and enough fighting ability to take down a spy if necessary, without killing him.

Am I forgetting anything?

kpenguin
2007-07-05, 09:20 AM
The US military budget for 2007 (not including Iraq and Afghanistan) is 440 billion dollars. According to WotC 1 GP is supposed to equal 20 USD. So in D&D GP that is a budget of 22 BILLION GP.


Medieval kingdoms tend to have lower budgets than modern superpowers.

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-05, 09:26 AM
So for the golem thing your spending money on
- Golems
- Warforged
- Magic equipment for the Warforged
- 25 High lvl mages to do all your construction, Oh wait your gonna Programmed Amnesia these High lvl mages, so do you really need to pay them?
Those mages aren't doing construction. They are just the controlelrs for teh golems.

- Spies to find out enemies weakness, oh Programmed Amnesia again.
No, it's cost prohibitive. I don't particularly care about my enemies weaknesses, at least not enough to take extreme measures.

- Magic Items for the Spies.
No, all spies get is the permanent telepathic bond for communication purposes.

- Super Secret underground magic sanctuary.
Military command bunker, every nation should have at least 1 in not a dozen.

- Way to get to Super Secret sanctuary and still keep it a secret.
Teleport works fine.

- Secure places to store your High Lvl mages when not making Golems, you might need to re-amnesia them if they start asking too many questions, like why was I in suspended animation?
They can be stored in the kitchen cabinet when in suspended animation. And Programmed Amnesia means they don't ask questions. You literally get to rebuild their minds from birth to the present. If you can't manage to get fanatically loyal people out of that they you shouldn't be running a country in the first place.

- Other Mages to control the Golems to provide instructions at all times. Enough so that they can rest, sleep, and vaction, but still be ready at a moments notice.
50 is enough. 25 will do though.

- Magic Items for the other Mages.
The cost is covered in the rounding error.

- Extra budgeted for accidents made by the controllers who screw up some commands.
Covered in the continuing budget and rounding error

- Spy sniffers with True Sight, Thought Detection, and enough fighting ability to take down a spy if necessary, without killing him.
No, all those items are on the golem controllers. Detecting spies is as simple as a guy at the door with a permanent arcane sight and a medallion of thoughts.


Medieval kingdoms tend to have lower budgets than modern superpowers.

Yes, but they also tended to be a higher percentage of that budget. And considering I used the same percentage of teh budget devoted to the military as the US did for 2007 (4%) the figure is low.

5-8 million is a more realistic budget for your country of 1 million working adults.

Double or even triple it if you are a trading hub.

Lapak
2007-07-05, 09:44 AM
If the controller is being attacked their last order will be kill these people and return to base. Which is why I suggested assassination, not open combat. If he chokes his life out on poisoned stew in his bedchamber or field tent, I'm guessing that he won't be issuing any orders.
And cold storage costs 1 6th level spell slot an a 100 GP focus. It is outrageously cheap. Smokey Confinement in Complete Mage.I don't have Complete Mage, what exactly does Smokey Confinement do?

And it doesn't cost nothing; it requires that you keep yet another level-11-minimum mage around to handle emergency golem-controller-recovery.
A million a year isn't that big a military budget. The governments yearly budget in the average D&D kingdom (1 million working citizens) should be about 25 million GP, more if your a trading hub. To be realistic your military budget would run at least 25% of that. So you should be getting 6,250,000 GP to spend each year.Where do you get the 25 million GP figure, just out of curiosity? Medieval economies (which the average D&D kingdom is supposed to be) aren't notorious for generating large amounts of cash revenue; most of the 'product' in GDP is going to be in grains and other such non-cash sources, and a good chunk of it goes right back into feeding the populace. I would be very surprised indeed to find that, as you claim, medieval societies spent more of their production on the military - just keeping the people alive was crushingly expensive in terms of production due to inefficient food production and distribution.

The US military budget for 2007 (not including Iraq and Afghanistan) is 440 billion dollars. According to WotC 1 GP is supposed to equal 20 USD. So in D&D GP that is a budget of 22 BILLION GP.As has been said, comparing to a modern superpower's budget is, at beast, not relevant. And the cash equivalency is questionable at best for the not-cash-based-economy reason I gave above.
Why would I need to unleash them on my own populace?Because when you spend 2.5 million GP on a golem war engine (or trade away the equivalent in grain, or however you're planning to make this barter work) and your people starve as a result, you're going to have to start suppressing unrest. If you go with less than total oppression, the golems aren't effective for the 'lack of will' you listed above; if you go with total oppression you depress your own economy and lose the ability to fund your project at best and end up completely destroying your own nation at worst.

Now, if you assume a full-on economy fueled by magic instead of tech - which you could; you could even argue it is inevitable - you could make your plan work. But it wouldn't be your 'average D&D country' any more.

Capt'n Ironbrow
2007-07-05, 09:56 AM
@Emperor Tippy: And, does your long term plan account for draughts, diseases, flash floods and other natural disasters? Or several slim economic years in succession. Assuming to be overpoweringly succesfull and effective has many dangers if you leave out many possibilities. True, the golems might also be usefull in clearing the rubble of an earthquake, wizards may be usefull in other areas of humanitairian aid, but you might just be the guy who doesn't want to waste or rather expose his elite strikeforce for such trivial things as major inconveniances to your people which makes them grumpy and if their plights are neglected in succession, rebelious. Which then requires you to reduce your population and thus have less taxpayers.

It's a long shot, but I'm sure it won't be sunny all the time for 130 years, and wars you don't get involved in might harm your economy too and force you to either use you're reserve money or even reduce your defence budget... problems you ignore might stab you in the back later.

If your approach is such a sure shot, why doesn't everybody do it? are they just shackled to the floor by tradition?

And there's the earlier mentioned alliances, minion defection and pre-emptive strikes. They are not impossible, you just perceive it as improbable, untill there happens to be some one like you who loves effectiveness and super cool whoopass in the same optimalistic way. I played 4th and 5th ed. warhammer (herohammer) and there where a lot of "u can't beat this" opportunities, but nothing is unbeatable. Let two exactly the same forces fight and one will win. I know you don't PLAN to do so, but you're probably not the only one who plans. Of course it can be countered, of course it can leak out. Before you even start building your super cool whoopass things might be faced with friction and dramas from the very outside you was planning to take 130 years to build a protection to, or from the inside you can't yet show your full potential.

And if it's finished, all it takes to beat this is 25 strong decoys (say, the exact same set-up of golems and super cool whoopass to make big enough on their threat to have you expend your super cool whoopass), a 2nd strike-force to get your base of operations and superb intellengce. If two or more countries team up on you the moment they hear from your little scheme, they can pool their resources just to come up with a stronger, more numerous version of your strikeforce before you're even ready (as their expenses would be split amongst them).

Roderick_BR
2007-07-05, 09:58 AM
The golem army is interesting. 130 years may be a lot from an individual point of view, but as an ongoing project handed down from generation from generation, it could work. Maybe some old civilization that created a couple golens, and through the years was improving it.

I agree it wouldn't be wise to disband the conventional army, though. It would be better to keep the golans as a special force, instead of the main (and only) force.

New spell? No need. The DMG has several kinds of magic scarabs that destroy golens.

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-05, 10:08 AM
Which is why I suggested assassination, not open combat. If he chokes his life out on poisoned stew in his bedchamber or field tent, I'm guessing that he won't be issuing any orders.
First you have to know about the controllers (not an easy task). Then you have to kill them, as they are at least level 13 (and more likely level 15) wizards this is an iffy proposition at best. It is also highly unlikely that when not actually commanding the golems in the field that these wizards would be outside of home base.


I don't have Complete Mage, what exactly does Smokey Confinement do?
Turns the target into smoke and stores them in stasis inside a crystal vial worth 100 GP until you let them back out, and they emerge in exactly the condition they entered in.


And it doesn't cost nothing; it requires that you keep yet another level-11-minimum mage around to handle emergency golem-controller-recovery.
I already have 50 of them as golem controllers. 1 of the one's who is not on duty can handle stasis issues.


Where do you get the 25 million GP figure, just out of curiosity? Medieval economies (which the average D&D kingdom is supposed to be) aren't notorious for generating large amounts of cash revenue; most of the 'product' in GDP is going to be in grains and other such non-cash sources, and a good chunk of it goes right back into feeding the populace. I would be very surprised indeed to find that, as you claim, medieval societies spent more of their production on the military - just keeping the people alive was crushingly expensive in terms of production due to inefficient food production and distribution.
Most of the GDP was not spent on the military. Most of the nations budget was though (or at least a very large part). If you assume that each working, non noble, adult (of which there are 1 million) pays 5 GP in taxes each year then you get 5 million GP. Tax's on the nobles can be much higher, a thousand GP per year is acceptable, let's call it the military tax. Let's assume a thousand nobles so we are now at 6 million in taxes each year. Then come the tariffs and import tax. That should be another 5 to 10 million (let's assume 7). So thats 13 million. Now we come to crown lands. Well we own all the land in every city and lots of other land that is worked for us. You pick up another million GP (very low figure) from rent in each city, so with 5 cities you are picking up another 5 million GP. And our money producing properties, such as the gold mines, silver mines, and fields should make up the rest.

Most of those figures are low as well.


As has been said, comparing to a modern superpower's budget is, at beast, not relevant. And the cash equivalency is questionable at best for the not-cash-based-economy reason I gave above.Because when you spend 2.5 million GP on a golem war engine (or trade away the equivalent in grain, or however you're planning to make this barter work) and your people starve as a result, you're going to have to start suppressing unrest. If you go with less than total oppression, the golems aren't effective for the 'lack of will' you listed above; if you go with total oppression you depress your own economy and lose the ability to fund your project at best and end up completely destroying your own nation at worst.

Actually the entire military budget can be in coin. Just grab it out of the nobles payment and the import tax.


Now, if you assume a full-on economy fueled by magic instead of tech - which you could; you could even argue it is inevitable - you could make your plan work. But it wouldn't be your 'average D&D country' any more.
No it's not, but it is inevitable.

Oh, and I failed to account for other sources of income for the crown. Such as shipping, banking, and insurance.

Sir Giacomo
2007-07-05, 10:55 AM
Hi, nice thread!

I especially like the idea of a country that relies on a golem army. There are plenty of campaign prospects from such a scenario (say, the golems rebel as they become sentient?), plus the stuff outlined by Emperor Tippy. Great read.

On the budget of medieval governments, though: I guess that the tax systems were much less developed than in modern societies; plus a lot of it is barter economy and not in coin (maybe some empires have solid monetary/currency base). In fact, medieval history has shown that kings/sovereigns were often underfunded, which is also the reason why they gradually accorded more and more rights to other power groups of their kingdom (nobles or, later, merchants and rich citizens. Magna charta and city sovereign rights come to mind).

Over time, still, the ideas outlined by Emperor Tippy are valid (in particular since the golems bought have hardly any maintenance cost- they could suffer from losses over time, though, so need to be replaced now and then).

- Giacomo

hewhosaysfish
2007-07-05, 11:12 AM
I am amused by the idea of dedicating half your military budget for 130 years to this plan.
Imagine some tiny island nation somewhere coming up with a brilliant plan to build as massive an army as they can muster, train them for two or three generations to be an elite fighting force, arm them all with hi-tech Winchester rifles and be a military superpower by the year 1996.
Rofl.

Lapak
2007-07-05, 11:17 AM
No it's not, but it is inevitable.

Oh, and I failed to account for other sources of income for the crown. Such as shipping, banking, and insurance.I think these two sum up the reason that everyone is disagreeing with you. You are quite definitely assuming a magical modern economy to run this golem-producing machine. While it may not be realistic in 3.x D&D, that sort of economic structure is not the assumption of the setting. In the societies we're modeling things after, insurance and banking weren't something that the government engaged in; they were something that the government depended on.

If we're going that far, we might as well jump all the way to the 19th century and set up a paper-money economy and a stock market.

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-05, 11:34 AM
I think these two sum up the reason that everyone is disagreeing with you. You are quite definitely assuming a magical modern economy to run this golem-producing machine. While it may not be realistic in 3.x D&D, that sort of economic structure is not the assumption of the setting. In the societies we're modeling things after, insurance and banking weren't something that the government engaged in; they were something that the government depended on.

Insurance and Banking was provided by various institutions, most of them had nobles at the head. My king is smart enough to insure that he is the one at the head.

And everyone of the assumptions that I made is perfectly valid for a game set in greyhawk. A single level 20 elf wizard can create all of the golems (2 per year for 50 years, that leaves 100 days to go off adventuring and getting the experience necessary to build next years golems).

What part of the process requires a modern economy?


If we're going that far, we might as well jump all the way to the 19th century and set up a paper-money economy and a stock market.

Stock markets existed as far back as the roman empire. And people invested in ships all of the time.


I am amused by the idea of dedicating half your military budget for 130 years to this plan.
Again, 130 years isn't really that long in the great scheme of things. Especially in D&D when most races have lifespans of 200 or so years. Humans are on the short end for sentient races.


Imagine some tiny island nation somewhere coming up with a brilliant plan to build as massive an army as they can muster, train them for two or three generations to be an elite fighting force, arm them all with hi-tech Winchester rifles and be a military superpower by the year 1996.
Rofl.

Really, lets say the elves decided to do this because they want to spend more time staring at their navels instead of fighting wars. An elf is born the year you start. He is considered a teenager when you finish with the golems and will have just begun to be considered an adult when the entire plan is finished.

Snooder
2007-07-05, 11:37 AM
http://www.hyw.com/Books/History/Military.htm

Interesting article about medieval militaries. Basically, it looks like if we ARE positing a medieval setting, and D&D does follow that basic model, then you wouldn't have large national armies anyway. They'd be either landholders or mercenaries, but no centralized government of professional soldiers.

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-05, 11:45 AM
http://www.hyw.com/Books/History/Military.htm

Interesting article about medieval militaries. Basically, it looks like if we ARE positing a medieval setting, and D&D does follow that basic model, then you wouldn't have large national armies anyway. They'd be either landholders or mercenaries, but no centralized government of professional soldiers.

I follow the roman method of governance. :smallbiggrin:

Long lived races like Elves make it highly unlikely that anything like the dark ages would have lasted.

horseboy
2007-07-05, 12:16 PM
You have to find out.

Augury, political intrigue, spies. It wouldn't be hard to find out about where 1/2 of your military budget is going.


No. Any army you field is destroyed and routed in a matter of hours. If you locate enough troops in 1 place (even to take back something I have taken) then I can teleport in and destroy that fielded army.

Uh, no. Look, let me try giving you a description: I take my 200 head fast calvary unit. Armed with, oh, studded leather, wooden shields, broadswords, shortbows, some arrows and torches. I divide them into 8 units of 25 people. I then send them after 8 different small hamlets. They get set up and on a predetermined day they all attack at once. They run though the one road through town, setting fire to the thatched huts. They'll probably have to ride down Andy Griffin and Barney Fief. Then, when everything is burning (1, maybe 2 passes) they leave. Your 1 guy is now having to deal with 8, 16, 24
(I do have allies, and they'd do largely the same thing) peasants screaming incoherently about raiders, fire, oh Pelor where's Ruth, Save me Save me! By the time he's going to get anything coherent those guys are long gone. The people now have no home, no shops, have some wounded. They do what historically they always do in times of hard ship. They move to the city. 1,600 people just descend onto the next closest town. I move my army up, claiming the fields they were working. The nearby towns now no longer have food going into them and a higher demand for it. You still have yet to "find" my army.


Detect Magic has a 60 foot range.
Since most of the magic comes from items a simple Magic Aura spell will take care of most of it.
Nondetection will protect me from the rest, a good use of a 3rd level spell.
If the wizards could cast 8th level spells then Mindblank would work as well.


There is 1 wizard per 4 golems. They are the field commanders for their forces. I have 25 separate forces each made up of 4 golems and at least a level 13 wizard.

That's a lot of wizards, but it's okay. Teleporting 4 large, winged golems and a human is going to take a lot of room. It's going to be pretty easy knowing where you're going to teleport them. It's going to have to be a wide, open space, like town square or a nearby field. Your mage teleports the forces in, wand of glittercheese/dust of appearance, there's the mage, silence 10' mage can't give the order to attack, 200 archers and 200 pikemen squish him. Town square now has 4 really cool statues.


Finding spies is trivial. And the grand total of people who know what I am doing can be the king, his top general, and the mages making the things. Considering that they are made on the plane of shadow it is even less likely that you would find out.
You left out the merchants providing materials, the mage's drinking buddies, the cleaning staff, the scribes shuffling the paperwork, experts required for certain processes that the wizards won't know (there always seems to be at least one of those) any random courtier who just happens to walk in when you're talking about it.


You just lost you capital as every man, women, and child in it is dead. Your force would also have to find some way to get to my capital (which is not where my military command would be anyways) without being detected and crushed in the field.

For the same reasons I'm not just teleporting my army straight into your capital, anything sensitive is going to be warded against scrying and teleporting, that means your mage is going to be teleporting (and how well does he know my city to start with?) into areas he's spent the most time at. So, yeah, go ahead and teleport in right outside the tavern. Watch the adventurers in my capital trip over each other to get at those tasty nuggets of xp.


And this is all assuming that you manage to raise an alliance to come and attack me. How come you think that would be so easy?

Well, you're building an "unstoppable army of destruction." You've upset the delicate balance of power in the region. Nobody wants to be invaded, so it's going to be in all your neighbor's best interest to stop you.

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-05, 12:37 PM
Augury, political intrigue, spies. It wouldn't be hard to find out about where 1/2 of your military budget is going.

You have to know that I am spending any money on it at all in the first place. Hiding money is easy when you are the regulator.


Uh, no. Look, let me try giving you a description: I take my 200 head fast calvary unit. Armed with, oh, studded leather, wooden shields, broadswords, shortbows, some arrows and torches. I divide them into 8 units of 25 people. I then send them after 8 different small hamlets. They get set up and on a predetermined day they all attack at once. They run though the one road through town, setting fire to the thatched huts. They'll probably have to ride down Andy Griffin and Barney Fief. Then, when everything is burning (1, maybe 2 passes) they leave. Your 1 guy is now having to deal with 8, 16, 24

You are assuming that you can invade my country without me realizing it (a highly flawed assumption) and then assuming that you have allies. You also don't seem to realize that while your 200 guys destroy 8 hamlets 20 of my golems killed every living thing in your capital. Which is a bigger loss?


(I do have allies, and they'd do largely the same thing) peasants screaming incoherently about raiders, fire, oh Pelor where's Ruth, Save me Save me! By the time he's going to get anything coherent those guys are long gone. The people now have no home, no shops, have some wounded. They do what historically they always do in times of hard ship. They move to the city. 1,600 people just descend onto the next closest town. I move my army up, claiming the fields they were working. The nearby towns now no longer have food going into them and a higher demand for it. You still have yet to "find" my army.

No. As you ride up to the town I know. The virtues of Permanent Telepathic Bonds. 1 Golem can deal with your horseman easily.


That's a lot of wizards, but it's okay. Teleporting 4 large, winged golems and a human is going to take a lot of room. It's going to be pretty easy knowing where you're going to teleport them. It's going to have to be a wide, open space, like town square or a nearby field. Your mage teleports the forces in, wand of glittercheese/dust of appearance, there's the mage, silence 10' mage can't give the order to attack, 200 archers and 200 pikemen squish him. Town square now has 4 really cool statues.

Let's see, all the things wrong with this.

First you have yet to show how you even know about the existence of the controller wizards. Second I can Teleport into the Air 30 feet above the town. And the golems aren't winged. Third the mage is linked to eh golems with permanent telepathic bonds, he doesn't need to say a word to order the attack.


You left out the merchants providing materials, the mage's drinking buddies, the cleaning staff, the scribes shuffling the paperwork, experts required for certain processes that the wizards won't know (there always seems to be at least one of those) any random courtier who just happens to walk in when you're talking about it.

The merchants have no idea who they are providing the materials to and they are bought off plane in cities like Union and Sigil. The mages have been affected by Programmed Amnesia, the literally can't be disloyal. None of them ever drink alcohol. They think the best pastime is sitting around meditating. Cleaning is covered by Prestidigitation, so there is no cleaning staff. Why do you assume that there is any paperwork. And no "random courier" would ever get into the military command center. Permanent Telepathic Bonds are a nice feature again.


For the same reasons I'm not just teleporting my army straight into your capital, anything sensitive is going to be warded against scrying and teleporting, that means your mage is going to be teleporting (and how well does he know my city to start with?) into areas he's spent the most time at. So, yeah, go ahead and teleport in right outside the tavern. Watch the adventurers in my capital trip over each other to get at those tasty nuggets of xp.

Visiting your city is chills play. The wizard just flies around, hell a description is enough for greater teleport. And your adventurers wouldn't put a dent in these things. 20 CR 18 (and they really should be closer to CR 22ish) popping up in your city and just killing ever living thing. Pretty much everything under level 5 dies from his AoE attack


Well, you're building an "unstoppable army of destruction." You've upset the delicate balance of power in the region. Nobody wants to be invaded, so it's going to be in all your neighbor's best interest to stop you.

You are assuming that you know about what I am doing (a very big assumption) and that you can raise neighbors to oppose it. What is much more likely to happen is they tell you that they will help and then let you invade first. If they see you destroyed they promptly attack your country as your army has been so kindly dispersed. If you appear to be winning they will come and help so they can claim some of the booty.

Mike_G
2007-07-05, 12:54 PM
Well, despite the fact that this has gotten silly, I'll respond.

Your force of super golems won't be secret for long. If you have a strong central government, but you start laying off the military, someone smart will start counting the chickens and figure you must have some other plan for defense and start investing in espionage, or, some dumb neighbor or horde of orcs or displaced nomadic barbarians or what have you will think you are easy pickings and invade. Think you'll have 130 years of peace and prosperity in which to build your army is naive, especially if your obvious, guys-with-pointy-sticks force is being downsized.

So, fine, your Golems wipe out the barbarian horde/orcs/huns/rebelious peasants, whatever, with no loss and little difficulty, and the will to use force and rapid teleports and perfect intelligence from the "random loyal citizen" in the town nearest the invasion.

But now, everybody knows they exist.

And you have a cold war style arms race.

Every huge leap in military tech provokes a response, from the Phalanx through the longbow through the machine gun and aircraft and atomic bomb, when a new scary weapon or tactic emerges, other nations scramble to imitate or counter it.

So, in a prosperous nation with a long lived monarch, fiercely loyal citizens, high level wizards willing to sacrifice their time, energy and freedom to the crown, surrounded by really unobservant, pacifist neighbors who never learn from experience...

..well, then, yes. This army will be unstoppable.

Murderous Hobo
2007-07-05, 12:55 PM
An all golem army won't work too good because it completely relies on one single unit. This make it inflexible and predictable. When you're predictable it doesn't matter how strong you are, you'll be put into a position were your advantage is completely nullified.
That doesn't mean golems are useless, on a battlefield they're the equivalent of Hannibals elephants. They're perfect to charge through the flanks or the center and cause maximum chaos.

The same goes for a Dragon (assuming the kingdom is breeding them for this), they're big, though and good at breaking up formations.
They're a tad vulnerable to arrows but only when they're close to the ground, at higher altitudes the arrows won't have enough energy. Though it wouldn't be a bad idea to give the Dragon extra armor just in case.

Now there is two problems with this debate, one is DnD, the other is Situation.
Dnd is just a game and the army's in it are part of the decor. The costs and character levels, the way magic works, are game mechanics. Armies are props and the battles are decided by the power of the plot, not by military genius or whom ever is ahead of the arms race.
he same goes for magic, if things worked as the rules said then dnd wouldn't be a fantasy game but a sci-fi setting.

Situation is even worse because it makes every comparison one between apples and pears. Both are fruit and both are grown on trees, but they got different shapes and tastes and depending on the circumstances one is better then the other. The circumstances in a fantasy game are literally everything you can imagine.

So as a result; what works in one setting, might not in another. Don't let that stop you from throwing unconstrained fictional scenarios at each other though. This is a really good read. :smallwink:

edit:

Mike_G ninjad the spirit of it.

Emperor Tippy: If you can make a Marry Sue army, your neighbors can do so too or they wouldn't be worth the expense of conquering.

elliott20
2007-07-05, 01:05 PM
Meh, all he really needs to do is modify that plan a little to include a more well rounded army and he's pretty much set.

But really, like Mike_G says, this will just set off an arms race. (No doubt though, ET will probably retort that he will just send some wizards to sabatoge their efforts)

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-05, 01:09 PM
Well, despite the fact that this has gotten silly, I'll respond.

Your force of super golems won't be secret for long. If you have a strong central government, but you start laying off the military, someone smart will start counting the chickens and figure you must have some other plan for defense and start investing in espionage, or, some dumb neighbor or horde of orcs or displaced nomadic barbarians or what have you will think you are easy pickings and invade. Think you'll have 130 years of peace and prosperity in which to build your army is naive, especially if your obvious, guys-with-pointy-sticks force is being downsized.

I didn't start laying off the military until after I had the golem force pretty much finished.


So, fine, your Golems wipe out the barbarian horde/orcs/huns/rebelious peasants, whatever, with no loss and little difficulty, and the will to use force and rapid teleports and perfect intelligence from the "random loyal citizen" in the town nearest the invasion.

But now, everybody knows they exist.

And you have a cold war style arms race.
Yes, one that I have an advantage in that can't be matched in any reasonable amount of time.


Every huge leap in military tech provokes a response, from the Phalanx through the longbow through the machine gun and aircraft and atomic bomb, when a new scary weapon or tactic emerges, other nations scramble to imitate or counter it.
Sure, and if we allowed custom stuff it would be great, but as that is outside of the D&D rules it is a moot point.


So, in a prosperous nation with a long lived monarch, fiercely loyal citizens, high level wizards willing to sacrifice their time, energy and freedom to the crown, surrounded by really unobservant, pacifist neighbors who never learn from experience...

The neighbors can be as observant as they want. They can spend millions attempting to infiltrate my military. I don't care. Hiding the force from them is still child's play. If I don't lay a bunch of false flags so they think I'm doing something completely different.



An all golem army won't work too good because it completely relies on one single unit. This make it inflexible and predictable. When you're predictable it doesn't matter how strong you are, you'll be put into a position were your advantage is completely nullified.
That doesn't mean golems are useless, on a battlefield they're the equivalent of Hannibals elephants. They're perfect to charge through the flanks or the center and cause maximum chaos.

What are you talking about? Yes, everyone can know the abilities of my golems, why should I care? A siege engine won't take out on of them, if it can even hit.


The same goes for a Dragon (assuming the kingdom is breeding them for this), they're big, though and good at breaking up formations.
They're a tad vulnerable to arrows but only when they're close to the ground, at higher altitudes the arrows won't have enough energy. Though it wouldn't be a bad idea to give the Dragon extra armor just in case.

Dragons and golems are very different forces.


Now there is two problems with this debate, one is DnD, the other is Situation.
Dnd is just a game and the army's in it are part of the decor. The costs and character levels, the way magic works, are game mechanics. Armies are props and the battles are decided by the power of the plot, not by military genius or whom ever is ahead of the arms race.
he same goes for magic, if things worked as the rules said then dnd wouldn't be a fantasy game but a sci-fi setting.
Fantasy and Sci-FI are not mutually exclusive, in fact all fiction is fantasy.

Situation is even worse because it makes every comparison one between apples and pears. Both are fruit and both are grown on trees, but they got different shapes and tastes and depending on the circumstances one is better then the other. The circumstances in a fantasy game are literally everything you can imagine.


Emperor Tippy: If you can make a Marry Sue army, your neighbors can do so too or they wouldn't be worth the expense of conquering.
Who said? I could already be the most powerful nation in my part of the world. And just because someone can do something doesn't mean they will do it.

horseboy
2007-07-05, 01:32 PM
You have to know that I am spending any money on it at all in the first place. Hiding money is easy when you are the regulator.

I my spies find out what you're bringing in, how much it should cost to equip your schmoes, and that there's a HUGE difference in between. It's now just a matter of following the money to find out where.



You are assuming that you can invade my country without me realizing it (a highly flawed assumption) and then assuming that you have allies. You also don't seem to realize that while your 200 guys destroy 8 hamlets 20 of my golems killed every living thing in your capital. Which is a bigger loss?

For starters, you don't have 20, I stopped you at 10. Secondly this would be how you'd find out about my invasion. Third: AHH!! FIRE FIRE!! (1guy) What? Which one are you? My house is on fire! (Which is your village) Ahh! Guys riding horses (Who are they) Compound this by 20 and the fact that the human mind is not wired to withstand that much sensory overload it'll be a small miracle he doesn't pass out. Then he's got to wake up the mages in charge of the squads, they've got to get dressed, run to where the golems are stored cast the spell. That's going to take time. Granted not days like a conventional army, but still minutes. Then there's the question of where to teleport? 8 hamlets are being hit. You want to go after my capital? Fine, who am I? Peasants can tell you all day how to grow wheat, but heraldry isn't a class skill. That's also assuming I'm wearing my heraldry and not the heraldry of someone I don't like. Thereby tricking you into slaughtering an entire city of innocent people, and costing you 1 or 2 of your golems just due to attrition. I can now use this "unwarranted" attack as proof of your aggression to galvanize those kingdoms that were fence straddling. (Not to mention every paladin on the continent)



No. As you ride up to the town I know. The virtues of Permanent Telepathic Bonds. 1 Golem can deal with your horseman easily.

Yes they can. Then the scouts report back that great golems suddenly appeared in the sky. I turn to my court wizard and ask if this is normal for them. "No," he says. That means a wizard must be teleporting them, the fact that the scout didn't see them means they're invisible. You've thrown away your entire strategy in the opening gambit.



Let's see, all the things wrong with this.

First you have yet to show how you even know about the existence of the controller wizards. Second I can Teleport into the Air 30 feet above the town. And the golems aren't winged. Third the mage is linked to eh golems with permanent telepathic bonds, he doesn't need to say a word to order the attack.

You've already told me about your controller wizards (This tactic comes in later in the war, not the initial confrontations)


The merchants have no idea who they are providing the materials to and they are bought off plane in cities like Union and Sigil. The mages have been affected by Programmed Amnesia, the literally can't be disloyal. None of them ever drink alcohol. They think the best pastime is sitting around meditating. Cleaning is covered by Prestidigitation, so there is no cleaning staff. Why do you assume that there is any paperwork. And no "random courier" would ever get into the military command center. Permanent Telepathic Bonds are a nice feature again.

Okay, your mages are stretching the boundaries of believability, but because of the magic, I'll allow it in the argument. Buying them in Sigil is an even greater security risk, as all of a sudden now you've brought outsiders into this. Suddenly an outsider attuned to oh, the gods of justice and/or honourable combat can send direct warnings.

Even without while I'm working on my own (more reasonable) super secrete project I look over the books. Wow, powered dragon horn has tripled in value over the last five years, Get me a trader and have him explain why. "Your lord, The Empire of Tippy is paying quite well for it." Hmmmm.



Visiting your city is chills play. The wizard just flies around, hell a description is enough for greater teleport. And your adventurers wouldn't put a dent in these things. 20 CR 18 (and they really should be closer to CR 22ish) popping up in your city and just killing ever living thing. Pretty much everything under level 5 dies from his AoE attack
[quote/]
Well, assuming you figure out it's me that's attacking. Assuming I don't have a few tasked air elementals patrolling my air space. Again, you only have 10. Also, as my capital that means that's one of the richest areas in my kingdom. Meaning here's where the most money is. Here is where high level adventurers can be paid to do things. Here is where the high level adventurers are in my kingdom. If you've got all these level 13+ mages working for you, It's clear there's a lot of adventurers in this world. They're not all going to be in your fascist country.

[quote]
You are assuming that you know about what I am doing (a very big assumption) and that you can raise neighbors to oppose it. What is much more likely to happen is they tell you that they will help and then let you invade first. If they see you destroyed they promptly attack your country as your army has been so kindly dispersed. If you appear to be winning they will come and help so they can claim some of the booty.
Well, the Gods have told me what your doing. The merchants have told me what you're doing. My spies have told me what you're doing. The fact that you're taking such elaborate pains to keep a very big secrete tells me you're up to no good.
My army is still intact because you have yet to engage them in combat. You've crushed an innocent kingdom in a VERY brutal display of power. Your neighbors aren't going to be taking kindly to that. This means you're going to have to pay restitution to the damaged kingdom. Political/economic sanctions are going to be enacted against you. And at best you're going to have to publicly apologize and stop your mad scheme, worst we all band together and crush you early.

Lapak
2007-07-05, 01:51 PM
Insurance and Banking was provided by various institutions, most of them had nobles at the head. My king is smart enough to insure that he is the one at the head.This is one of the things that tells me you're approaching this from an out-of-setting perspective; your implication is that any king would have been at the head of these things if only he had been 'smart enough.' There were plenty of very intelligent rulers out there - in the societies we're discussing, there were good reasons that the rulers weren't the ones running the bank.
Stock markets existed as far back as the roman empire. And people invested in ships all of the time.You are quite right; I should have specified 'modern-style stock market in combination with a paper-money economy', which did not exist until relatively recently. Naturally people made investments in all kinds of things in most organized societies; there were slum lords and real estate racketeers in Rome, too.
Again, 130 years isn't really that long in the great scheme of things. Especially in D&D when most races have lifespans of 200 or so years. Humans are on the short end for sentient races.But coming back to setting expectations again, humans are assumed to be the driving force in most D&D settings. Greyhawk, for example. Which means that, for whatever reasons, elves just don't do thing like...
Really, lets say the elves decided to do this because they want to spend more time staring at their navels instead of fighting wars. An elf is born the year you start. He is considered a teenager when you finish with the golems and will have just begun to be considered an adult when the entire plan is finished.Your argument, as an ideal plan from the perspective of someone who grew up in a modern society with an industrialized economy, makes sense. From a medieval government/economy's limitations, it doesn't. Except for the long-lived races, which apparently don't go in for this kind of thing or humans would have been wiped out ten dozen times in most campaign settings.

Is it inevitable anyway, given D&D magic, that a ruler thinking this way would arise, and that sooner or later we'd see the golem-army? Maybe so.

But then, taking D&D magic to a realistic conclusion would mean that somewhere, at some point, one of the intelligent spawn-creating undead would have replicated itself enough to overwhelm all existing opposition and the world would be a cold dead shell. A wraith that started out in the backwoods could easily roll into a weak human nation with a few thousand slave-spawns and convert the thousands into millions. Then it's too late to stop them. They can go underground, literally, if faced with a force that can stop them, they can fly, they're incorporeal... they have pretty much every advantage you can ask for and they're free. And all it takes is one wraith that thinks ahead more than a couple of days.

Every living creature would be extinct if we tried to play 'what if magic worked as it was presented and we took it to logical conclusions.'

Indon
2007-07-05, 02:17 PM
I'd say a high-budget undead army would be more effective than a high-budget construct army.

Now, don't get me wrong, constructs have their advantages, and any D&D combined arms force should have a couple clay golems or something.

But you don't need to keep retraining high-level spellcasters (which is an absolutely _ridiculous_ suggestion, training-cost wise) to command golems when you can just have liches, who live forever.

A proper Skeleton (you should probably avoid using zombies as a defense force; attack only, due to their high degree of... distastefulness) army is cheap, not limited to just human forms (skeletal horses and cattle are just as intelligent as skeletal humans but more effective in combat!), and functions well as an infantry presence given lower-level clerics or wizards to function as sergeants.

The prospect of undead also provide for many different kinds of specialized troops, like level-drainers (be careful with those, they breed).

Another option: Lycanthropy. Making your army into an army of werewolves is free, after you've gotten the first one out of the way.

Funkyodor
2007-07-05, 02:48 PM
Hmm, one ring of mind sheilding later (~8,000gp, immunity to detect thoughts *Bingo found it*). And mass quantitys of Greater Arrows of Slaying Constructs (~4,000gp, Says specificilly that Undead and Constructs normally immune to fortitude saves have to save). Oh, Death Ward only protects Living Targets. So, bye bye Golem army.

Dervag
2007-07-05, 02:52 PM
So, in a prosperous nation with a long lived monarch, fiercely loyal citizens, high level wizards willing to sacrifice their time, energy and freedom to the crown, surrounded by really unobservant, pacifist neighbors who never learn from experience...

..well, then, yes. This army will be unstoppable.This sums up all the problems with the golem army.

The Empire of Tippy can only pull this off if Emperor Tippy is a genius and everyone else is an idiot, if the Empire is rich and everyone else is poor, if the Empire can secure the loyalty of powerful wizards and no one else can, and so forth.

But if all that is true, then there's no need for all this shadesteel golem fanboyism. An empire that clever, rich, and powerful surrounded by stupid, poor, weak enemies will win no matter what. You could do just as well using your Programmed Amnesia-brainwashed wizards to blow up enemy cities directly, or using your enormous pots of money to finance a conventional army while using your brainwashed wizards to take out anything capable of threatening the army.

If you're strong enough to get away with building the golems, you're strong enough to conquer the world without them.

And so we have a plan based on the assumption that everyone else in the world is a brainless, impoverished ignoramus who will squat in their little hut and go "Yurr" for 130 years, that high-level wizards will let you muck about with their minds to ensure perfect loyalty, and that an enormous, complex scheme of interlocking systems of magic-users, telepathic spies, and enchanted golems can go off without a hitch.

elliott20
2007-07-05, 03:02 PM
I think in order to properly pin down what kind of effects magic would have, we need to understand some OTHER parameters.

1. people: what kind of people is available to us?
2. city infrastructure
3. time
4. magic level

each one of these will greatly effect how we go about implementing our solution. For humans who live in a rather turbulant area, they don't have the luxury of sitting around dedicating most of the resources to building an expensive strike force that consists of near invincible golems. It's more likely for them to simply outfit what will give them the best bang for their buck, namely, something that can effect all of the their current standing army. (i.e. a good general, an item that has battlefield altering affects, etc)

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-05, 03:13 PM
I my spies find out what you're bringing in, how much it should cost to equip your schmoes, and that there's a HUGE difference in between. It's now just a matter of following the money to find out where.

My nation is known to be corrupt. :smallwink:


For starters, you don't have 20, I stopped you at 10. Secondly this would be how you'd find out about my invasion. Third: AHH!! FIRE FIRE!! (1guy) What? Which one are you? My house is on fire! (Which is your village) Ahh! Guys riding horses (Who are they) Compound this by 20 and the fact that the human mind is not wired to withstand that much sensory overload it'll be a small miracle he doesn't pass out.
What are you talking about? These gusy talk with their handelers daily. They know each other. And he can just describe what your forces look like to his handler who is skilled enough to know what it means.


Then he's got to wake up the mages in charge of the squads, they've got to get dressed, run to where the golems are stored cast the spell. That's going to take time. Granted not days like a conventional army, but still minutes.
I have 2 shifts of wizards. One shift is always ready and waiting by the golems. It's as simple sending by thought "Horseman in village A7". We are talking a 1 round delay. From the attack to the golems being in the vilalge is under 15 seconds.


Then there's the question of where to teleport? 8 hamlets are being hit. You want to go after my capital? Fine, who am I? Peasants can tell you all day how to grow wheat, but heraldry isn't a class skill. That's also assuming I'm wearing my heraldry and not the heraldry of someone I don't like.

8 hamlets means that I send 1 golem to each. Problem solved. Once I have dealt with your horseman its a simple question of porting back home and playing 20 questions with contact other planes to find out who attacked me.

The golems then all teleport in and destroy your city.


Thereby tricking you into slaughtering an entire city of innocent people, and costing you 1 or 2 of your golems just due to attrition. I can now use this "unwarranted" attack as proof of your aggression to galvanize those kingdoms that were fence straddling. (Not to mention every paladin on the continent)

And I can dump all the bodies of your horseman and show everyone that you invaded under false colors with 200 horseman. Not to mention due to Contact Other Planes I won't fall for the ruse.


Yes they can. Then the scouts report back that great golems suddenly appeared in the sky. I turn to my court wizard and ask if this is normal for them. "No," he says. That means a wizard must be teleporting them, the fact that the scout didn't see them means they're invisible. You've thrown away your entire strategy in the opening gambit.
And it doesn't matter. You won't survive my response. And so what, you happen to know that an invisible wizard teleported them to the location. He is flying a couple hundred feet up and directing the battle.


You've already told me about your controller wizards (This tactic comes in later in the war, not the initial confrontations)
There is no later. You attack me and destroy a few hamlets. I counterattack you and go city by city ruthlessly slaughtering every person in your nation until you break.


Okay, your mages are stretching the boundaries of believability, but because of the magic, I'll allow it in the argument. Buying them in Sigil is an even greater security risk, as all of a sudden now you've brought outsiders into this. Suddenly an outsider attuned to oh, the gods of justice and/or honourable combat can send direct warnings.

How exactly do they know who is buying it or why? I buy through cutouts and intermediaries while under multiple spells of disguise.


Even without while I'm working on my own (more reasonable) super secrete project I look over the books. Wow, powered dragon horn has tripled in value over the last five years, Get me a trader and have him explain why. "Your lord, The Empire of Tippy is paying quite well for it." Hmmmm.

How would you know I was buying it at all. Again, you are assuming intelligence that you can not possess.


Well, assuming you figure out it's me that's attacking. Assuming I don't have a few tasked air elementals patrolling my air space. Again, you only have 10. Also, as my capital that means that's one of the richest areas in my kingdom. Meaning here's where the most money is. Here is where high level adventurers can be paid to do things. Here is where the high level adventurers are in my kingdom. If you've got all these level 13+ mages working for you, It's clear there's a lot of adventurers in this world. They're not all going to be in your fascist country.

Why are you assuming a fascist country? And You can have a hundred level 13 wizards. It doesn't matter a bit to the golem.

A single AoE attack by a single golem is enough to drop a level 13 mage with average HP and will knock off over a third of the level 13 fighters HP. 10 of them at once and all those adventurers are gone.


Well, the Gods have told me what your doing. The merchants have told me what you're doing. My spies have told me what you're doing. The fact that you're taking such elaborate pains to keep a very big secrete tells me you're up to no good.

How do you have any idea that I am up to anything? Laundering money is easy when you are the regulator. The merchants have no idea that I am buying anything. How do your spies know something that is known to the controller wizards, the guy making the golems, and my head general? All are loyal.



My army is still intact because you have yet to engage them in combat. You've crushed an innocent kingdom in a VERY brutal display of power. Your neighbors aren't going to be taking kindly to that. This means you're going to have to pay restitution to the damaged kingdom. Political/economic sanctions are going to be enacted against you. And at best you're going to have to publicly apologize and stop your mad scheme, worst we all band together and crush you early.

No. First off even supposing by some wild fluke of luck you manage to find out what I am doing when I only have 10 golems I will find out that you attacked me do to Contact Other Planes and my spy network. I will ruthlessly crush you in a brutal display of power and then tell the other nations that they can share your kingdom amongst themselves. That should keep them fighting each other for the next 20 years or so.


This is one of the things that tells me you're approaching this from an out-of-setting perspective; your implication is that any king would have been at the head of these things if only he had been 'smart enough.' There were plenty of very intelligent rulers out there - in the societies we're discussing, there were good reasons that the rulers weren't the ones running the bank.

The ruling family in italy ran one of the worlds largest banks.


You are quite right; I should have specified 'modern-style stock market in combination with a paper-money economy', which did not exist until relatively recently. Naturally people made investments in all kinds of things in most organized societies; there were slum lords and real estate racketeers in Rome, too.But coming back to setting expectations again, humans are assumed to be the driving force in most D&D settings. Greyhawk, for example. Which means that, for whatever reasons, elves just don't do thing like...Your argument, as an ideal plan from the perspective of someone who grew up in a modern society with an industrialized economy, makes sense. From a medieval government/economy's limitations, it doesn't. Except for the long-lived races, which apparently don't go in for this kind of thing or humans would have been wiped out ten dozen times in most campaign settings.
I maintain that the middle ages would never have happened if long lived races existed. They preserve knowledge. If you base it all in a roman style system it works fine and makes sense.


Is it inevitable anyway, given D&D magic, that a ruler thinking this way would arise, and that sooner or later we'd see the golem-army? Maybe so.

But then, taking D&D magic to a realistic conclusion would mean that somewhere, at some point, one of the intelligent spawn-creating undead would have replicated itself enough to overwhelm all existing opposition and the world would be a cold dead shell. A wraith that started out in the backwoods could easily roll into a weak human nation with a few thousand slave-spawns and convert the thousands into millions. Then it's too late to stop them. They can go underground, literally, if faced with a force that can stop them, they can fly, they're incorporeal... they have pretty much every advantage you can ask for and they're free. And all it takes is one wraith that thinks ahead more than a couple of days.

Every living creature would be extinct if we tried to play 'what if magic worked as it was presented and we took it to logical conclusions.'

If Wraiths did that and the gods didn't intervene, sure.


Hmm, one ring of mind sheilding later (~8,000gp, immunity to detect thoughts *Bingo found it*). And mass quantitys of Greater Arrows of Slaying Constructs (~4,000gp, Says specificilly that Undead and Constructs normally immune to fortitude saves have to save). Oh, Death Ward only protects Living Targets. So, bye bye Golem army.

Yes. They fail to account for the constructs other immunity. Immunity to death effects and necromancy effects. Deathward only works on living creatures but constructs don't need deathward do to their immunity.



This sums up all the problems with the golem army.

The Empire of Tippy can only pull this off if Emperor Tippy is a genius and everyone else is an idiot, if the Empire is rich and everyone else is poor, if the Empire can secure the loyalty of powerful wizards and no one else can, and so forth.

No. Any halfway competent nation with a decent economy can pull it off. The US managed to hide the Manhattan Project, the Stealth project, and numerous other weapons systems from everyone else.

Hiding what you are doing isn't that hard.


But if all that is true, then there's no need for all this shadesteel golem fanboyism. An empire that clever, rich, and powerful surrounded by stupid, poor, weak enemies will win no matter what. You could do just as well using your Programmed Amnesia-brainwashed wizards to blow up enemy cities directly, or using your enormous pots of money to finance a conventional army while using your brainwashed wizards to take out anything capable of threatening the army.
It's not an enormous amount of money. The power level of the surrounding states doesn't matter at all, 50 Level 13 wizards are not enough to make an army. And a conventional army is more expensive for what you get.


If you're strong enough to get away with building the golems, you're strong enough to conquer the world without them.
Not really. You don't have to be strong. Again, hiding what you are doing is easy.


And so we have a plan based on the assumption that everyone else in the world is a brainless, impoverished ignoramus who will squat in their little hut and go "Yurr" for 130 years, that high-level wizards will let you muck about with their minds to ensure perfect loyalty, and that an enormous, complex scheme of interlocking systems of magic-users, telepathic spies, and enchanted golems can go off without a hitch.

Let's see. The loyalty of the wizards is insured when they are level 1. So no problems there. It doesn't matter how powerful the surrounding nations are and the whole project, while enormous in the final result isn't that big in space or manpower requirements. A single level 20 Elan of Elven wizard is all that is required for the golems.



I think in order to properly pin down what kind of effects magic would have, we need to understand some OTHER parameters.

1. people: what kind of people is available to us?
2. city infrastructure
3. time
4. magic level

each one of these will greatly effect how we go about implementing our solution. For humans who live in a rather turbulant area, they don't have the luxury of sitting around dedicating most of the resources to building an expensive strike force that consists of near invincible golems. It's more likely for them to simply outfit what will give them the best bang for their buck, namely, something that can effect all of the their current standing army. (i.e. a good general, an item that has battlefield altering affects, etc)

Yeah. And who cares about them. Give me a peaceful, prosperous country with the normal available amount of magic and a hundred and 50 years.

The US didn't become the most powerful nation in the world until nearly 150 years after it was founded (and in reality that was amazingly quick). Give me that long and I will become as powerful in the D&D world.

PaladinBoy
2007-07-05, 03:16 PM
Making the entire army golems strikes me as unwise for several reasons.

First, as many others have said, you're putting all your eggs in one basket. A single high level enemy wizard with a greater teleport, mage's disjunction, and quickened greater dimension door costs you a huge pile of gold pieces. Eventually, your enemies will firgue out what tactics work or develop countermeasures. I can think of one: Send in 5-man special forces units, with mages that can cast teleport, to random hamlets and villages in your territory. When a squad of golems teleports in, teleport a few thousand feet away into nearby cover, then come back after you've left. Eventually your mages will run out of teleports, and then my standing army has the run of your country for the next 8 hours.

Second, can you predict what type of enemy you'll be fighting in 25 years? 50? How about the 130 that your plan requires? Because you'll be fighting those threats of the future, as it were, with the golem army you're spending money on today. If those new enemies have tactics or magic of their own that is powerful against your golems, or if they can't be defeated with pure destructive power, then you've wasted millions of gold pieces.

Third, using Programmed Amnesia to ensure loyalty from your wizards, or anyone else you need absolute loyalty from, becomes a much worse idea if the spell is ever broken. Perhaps the wizard casting the spell made a mistake, or perhaps the enemy that captures a worker detects its aura. Then, when they break it, the person you did it to has every reason to hate you for messing with his mind and probably is in the company of other people who are hungry for juicy national secrets. For that matter, a mage's disjunction aimed at the golems might catch their controller in its area, and.............


Oh, and the major problem with an undead army is the possible risk of paladins/clerics that hate undead. For that matter, many people find undead distasteful. Other nations are liable to object to your nation's use of undead due to moral concerns and/or their populace's dislike of it.

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-05, 03:28 PM
Making the entire army golems strikes me as unwise for several reasons.

First, as many others have said, you're putting all your eggs in one basket. A single high level enemy wizard with a greater teleport, mage's disjunction, and quickened greater dimension door costs you a huge pile of gold pieces.
Immunity to disjunction costs 2,000 GP a pop.


Eventually, your enemies will firgue out what tactics work or develop countermeasures. I can think of one: Send in 5-man special forces units, with mages that can cast teleport, to random hamlets and villages in your territory. When a squad of golems teleports in, teleport a few thousand feet away into nearby cover, then come back after you've left. Eventually your mages will run out of teleports, and then my standing army has the run of your country for the next 8 hours.

I have 50 wizards. Yeah, it might work once but my forces will learn.


Second, can you predict what type of enemy you'll be fighting in 25 years? 50? How about the 130 that your plan requires? Because you'll be fighting those threats of the future, as it were, with the golem army you're spending money on today. If those new enemies have tactics or magic of their own that is powerful against your golems, or if they can't be defeated with pure destructive power, then you've wasted millions of gold pieces.

Name something in the D&D books that is really effective against a golem. Immunity to Magic solves lots of problems. They are some of the best physical combatants in the game. When you add magic to them they become even better.


Third, using Programmed Amnesia to ensure loyalty from your wizards, or anyone else you need absolute loyalty from, becomes a much worse idea if the spell is ever broken. Perhaps the wizard casting the spell made a mistake, or perhaps the enemy that captures a worker detects its aura. Then, when they break it, the person you did it to has every reason to hate you for messing with his mind and probably is in the company of other people who are hungry for juicy national secrets. For that matter, a mage's disjunction aimed at the golems might catch their controller in its area, and.............
Disjunction doesn't end Programmed Amnesia. The only spell that can is a specially worded wish.


Oh, and the major problem with an undead army is the possible risk of paladins/clerics that hate undead. For that matter, many people find undead distasteful. Other nations are liable to object to your nation's use of undead due to moral concerns and/or their populace's dislike of it.

Those are all reasons I avoided making an undead army.

Strangely, they are the most effective against my golems because I can't use their AoE attack, it heals undead.

Lapak
2007-07-05, 03:32 PM
If you base it all in a roman style system it works fine and makes sense.Which - again - is not the 'average D&D country', like it or not.
If Wraiths did that and the gods didn't intervene, sure.My point is the same as yours: it is not possible, it is inevitable. Wraiths have higher INT than humans, and that's the average; all it takes is one wraith to do this, and it's not a very complicated idea. It doesn't require a vast amount of obscure arcane knowledge, like the Shadesteel Golem Army. It doesn't take control of a country, or any gold, or any experience, or any followers. All it takes is ONE wraith which thinks 'I hate all life. If I start out small, and kill single unarmed peasants in a frontier area - or humanoids in the wilderness! - I can amass enough slaves to wipe out all life.'

It would take an incredible stroke of luck to have someone fall into place to stop this, and that wouldn't save the world - because it's so very simple, it would happen again and again, and sooner or later it would work.

If we assume that what the magic system allows would happen, then the world dies. If we assume that the Gods step in when things like this threaten, then it's equally likely that the reason that the unrealistic, anachronistic medieval society structure that abounds in D&D exists because the Gods keep it that way. Why? Who knows. Maybe they like keeping power centers small and localized, so it's easy to squash any mortal power except the extremely rare adventurer-individual whose power rests solely in his own person.

EDIT on that last response: Wishes are hardly so expensive that they're unattainable, especially in the money levels you're talking about. One divination that determines how your wizards can be compromised and you'll quickly have all of your wizards un-mind-controlled in short order.

PaladinBoy
2007-07-05, 03:44 PM
Immunity to disjunction costs 2,000 GP a pop.

Uh...... Mind telling me how?


I have 50 wizards. Yeah, it might work once but my forces will learn.

Either you ignore my special forces teams, and they claim village after village in the name of my nation. Or you teleport out to get them, and they teleport away. The fact that you have 50 wizards only means I need to devote a similarly large number of special forces teams to random destruction or capturing of your villages/farmland. And no, I'm not going to time it so you can let your mages rest.


Name something in the D&D books that is really effective against a golem. Immunity to Magic solves lots of problems. They are some of the best physical combatants in the game. When you add magic to them they become even better.

That presumes that the threats you'll be fighting can be defeated by pure force. What if the primary threat right after your project is completed is a nation with enough economic/political connections that attacking it directly would be a mistake, and the nation is focusing on spies and attempting to compromise your nation from within and start a rebellion? Your golems would be cool, costly black statues while you struggle to establish proper espionage and counterintelligence networks.


Disjunction doesn't end Programmed Amnesia. The only spell that can is a specially worded wish.

You're right about disjunction, but while we're on the subject, I'm pretty sure greater restoration works as well.

Funkyodor
2007-07-05, 03:46 PM
Yes. They fail to account for the constructs other immunity. Immunity to death effects and necromancy effects. Deathward only works on living creatures but constructs don't need deathward do to their immunity.

Hmm, yes constructs are immune to death effects. And if it was a living target then the Arrow of Slaying would impose said effect. In the case of the Constructs/Undead or other non-living creatures, it is a destroyed effect. So, Slaying arrows still cause Construct destruction. So, best case scenario, ~4,000gp to kill a Golem. Worst case, 80,000gp.

But it was also really cool finding the ring of mind shielding to get spies up and running.

Indon
2007-07-05, 04:04 PM
Oh, and the major problem with an undead army is the possible risk of paladins/clerics that hate undead. For that matter, many people find undead distasteful. Other nations are liable to object to your nation's use of undead due to moral concerns and/or their populace's dislike of it.

Then destroy anyone who objects or stands in your way. On the way, become a Lich yourself and eventually ascend to godhood.

It's been done before.

Edit: In D&D, that is.

Citizen Joe
2007-07-05, 04:19 PM
Name something in the D&D books that is really effective against a golem. Immunity to Magic solves lots of problems. They are some of the best physical combatants in the game. When you add magic to them they become even better.

Rust Monster.

Murderous Hobo
2007-07-05, 04:43 PM
What are you talking about? Yes, everyone can know the abilities of my golems, why should I care? A siege engine won't take out on of them, if it can even hit.

I wasn't specifically addressing your idea, just the idea's of an all Golem army or a Dragon strike force army in general. When used in combination with other units to provided flexibility it's a more reasonable strategy all ready.

An all golem army isn't a good idea because it's vulnerable to a single counter measure.
Just because such a counter measure isn't in the RAW that doesn't mean it does not exist. After all, the RAW just is a bounce of game mechanics, it describes how a game of dnd works but not how the actual world does it.

People could for example find a way to mystically impersonate the controller, over power the existing connection and fool the golem into thinking they are the legit controller.

You could of course say that this is not possible, but then you might as well say "I'm invisible because I'm invincible", which is allot easier.


Who said? I could already be the most powerful nation in my part of the world. And just because someone can do something doesn't mean they will do it.

The idea is that if you can do it, everybody else can. They might not be in Emperor Tippy's part of the world but you will eventually meet somebody who's had the same idea.

You could for example run into the Hobo Empire who altered it's golems to improve their grapple, double team grapple one of yours and toss them into a portal to a place without gravity.

How would you deal with that? Put oil on your golems? I'd provide mine with nets to catch yours. Then you'd give your golems large pikes to keep the nets away and trip my golems. I'd give mine saw blades to cut your pikes. ect.

Effin. It will end up in just another arms race, now involving golems instead of swords and armor and as usually it will be won by whomever got lucky to gain an edge at some point rather then by the superiority of the weapons.

edit:

I just saw this was would be an air battle. That'll stop the tripping, everything else still goes.

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-05, 04:43 PM
Uh...... Mind telling me how?
Item in Dungeonscape. 2,000 GP and it protects the wearer and their items from disjunction, it's 1 time use though.


Either you ignore my special forces teams, and they claim village after village in the name of my nation. Or you teleport out to get them, and they teleport away. The fact that you have 50 wizards only means I need to devote a similarly large number of special forces teams to random destruction or capturing of your villages/farmland. And no, I'm not going to time it so you can let your mages rest.
You have to let your mages rest as well.


That presumes that the threats you'll be fighting can be defeated by pure force. What if the primary threat right after your project is completed is a nation with enough economic/political connections that attacking it directly would be a mistake, and the nation is focusing on spies and attempting to compromise your nation from within and start a rebellion? Your golems would be cool, costly black statues while you struggle to establish proper espionage and counterintelligence networks.
Espionage and counterintelligence is in the budget already. It is seriously running about 15 million gold from rounding errors. Equipping the wizards costs between 5 and 7 million. So we have another 7 million to devote to counter intelligence.


You're right about disjunction, but while we're on the subject, I'm pretty sure greater restoration works as well.

Nope. I believe it is only wish but I'm away from my books at the moment so if you want to check I don't mind.


Hmm, yes constructs are immune to death effects. And if it was a living target then the Arrow of Slaying would impose said effect. In the case of the Constructs/Undead or other non-living creatures, it is a destroyed effect. So, Slaying arrows still cause Construct destruction. So, best case scenario, ~4,000gp to kill a Golem. Worst case, 80,000gp.
No. They are necromancy effects. Golems have immunity to those as well.


Rust Monster.
My golems fly and have ranged attacks. Which on average damage on a successful save is enough to kill a rustmonster.


I wasn't specifically addressing your idea, just the idea's of an all Golem army or a Dragon strike force army in general. When used in combination with other units to provided flexibility it's a more reasonable strategy all ready.

An all golem army isn't a good idea because it's vulnerable to a single counter measure.
Just because such a counter measure isn't in the RAW that doesn't mean it does not exist. After all, the RAW just is a bounce of game mechanics, it describes how a game of dnd works but not how the actual world does it.

Come up with a counter measure. Immunity to magic is very good at beating counter measures.

And if you go with custom magic items I should get them as well.


People could for example find a way to mystically impersonate the controller, over power the existing connection and fool the golem into thinking they are the legit controller.
Not doable per RAW. And it makes absolutely no sense considering that the golems are hardwired to being loyal.


You could of course say that this is not possible, but then you might as well say "I'm invisible because I'm invincible", which is allot easier.
Come up with something even half way rules legal to do it.


The idea is that if you can do it, everybody else can. They might not be in Emperor Tippy's part of the world but somewhere else but you will eventually meet somebody who's had the same idea.
Good for them. Why should I care?


You could for example run into the Hobo Empire who altered their golems to improve their grapple, double team grapple one of yours and toss them into a portal to a place without gravity.
Why exactly are him and I fighting? MAD here. It's stupid for us to fight, much better off just bashing everyone else to bits.


How would you deal with that? Put oil on your golems? I'd provide mine with nets to catch yours. Then you'd give your golems large pikes to keep the nets away and trip my golems. I'd give mine saw blades to cut your pikes. ect.
Golems aren't proficient with any of those weapons. A net can be busted by a golem on a roll of 1 of the strength check.


Effin. It will end up in just another arms race, now involving golems instead of swords and armor.

Sure, if for some reason my country and thsi other country go to war instead of just splitting the world down the middle and saying you stay on your half and I'll stay on mine.

Funkyodor
2007-07-05, 04:59 PM
It says specifically under Arrow of Slaying that in the case of unliving targets (then goes about specifying Constructs), that it is a Destroied effect, not a Death effect. How do you get a necromantic effect from that? So you're saying that an arrow specifically mentioned to kill undead/constructs/unliving creatures can't kill said creatures even if you roll them on the table?

Murderous Hobo
2007-07-05, 05:04 PM
Not doable per RAW. And it makes absolutely no sense considering that the golems are hardwired to being loyal.

Sure. They're loyal but if I'm in everything by the golem detectable respects equal to the person who has it's loyalty, what will the golem do?

The RAW doesn't cover everything, it's made for people who crawl in dungeons and fight dragons, it's not made for machine warfare. The RAW also doesn't allow inventions, new things, something that will possible in the actual fantasy world.

Anyway, if we're you're just by RAW, why not make a pun-pun? :smallmad:

Dervag
2007-07-05, 05:11 PM
Item in Dungeonscape. 2,000 GP and it protects the wearer and their items from disjunction, it's 1 time use though.Disjunction costs less than 2,000 GP to cast, right?

That could get expensive, if someone malicious decided to start flying around and disjoining your golems. So much for a 'one time investment'.


Come up with a counter measure. Immunity to magic is very good at beating counter measures.Golembane scarabs are a good place to start. They won't kill your golems, but they will enable my warriors to kill your golems. And they're relatively cheap on the scale of budget we're talking about.

Or are your golems immune to the effects of those too, for some reason?

Mike_G
2007-07-05, 05:13 PM
Sure, if for some reason my country and thsi other country go to war instead of just splitting the world down the middle and saying you stay on your half and I'll stay on mine.


That kind of arrangement doesn't tend to last very long.

I really do give up. I think a few such golems in a combined arms force would be great, but eliminating the rest of the army, and relying on the complex magical concepts is a shaky idea at best.

horseboy
2007-07-05, 05:15 PM
My nation is known to be corrupt. :smallwink:

Ah, no. Not buying it.


What are you talking about? These gusy talk with their handelers daily. They know each other. And he can just describe what your forces look like to his handler who is skilled enough to know what it means.


Yes, these peasants. These peasants that just woke up to find out their house is on fire. These guys that are now panicking, babbling and being incoherent in fear.


I have 2 shifts of wizards. One shift is always ready and waiting by the golems. It's as simple sending by thought "Horseman in village A7". We are talking a 1 round delay. From the attack to the golems being in the village is under 15 seconds.

You've got 8 scared and angry people in one room shouting at the top of their lungs, how long will it take you to understand? How long will it take you to calm them down enough to be able to find out what's going on?
"Ready and waiting" does not mean "instantaneously". They could still be in the can, slacking off, hitting on a coworker, and all those other things you're doing at work that's not working.



8 hamlets means that I send 1 golem to each. Problem solved. Once I have dealt with your horseman its a simple question of porting back home and playing 20 questions with contact other planes to find out who attacked me.


So, you believe that you're the ONLY person with the ability to cast contact other planes? If you've got access to it, then so do I. Using that it's just as easy to find out where the crafter is, plane shift, kill him quick and stop your army in one confrontation.


The golems then all teleport in and destroy your city.

No, the golems then all teleport in and ATTACK my city. You keep making the assumption that I'm just some schlub waiting for you to come attack me. I could have some soverign glue bombs, shadow energy draining poles, and anything else the twisted minds of me and my generals can come up with.



And I can dump all the bodies of your horseman and show everyone that you invaded under false colors with 200 horseman. Not to mention due to Contact Other Planes I won't fall for the ruse.

Plausible deniability. You can't prove that you didn't dress them up as my men.


And it doesn't matter. You won't survive my response. And so what, you happen to know that an invisible wizard teleported them to the location. He is flying a couple hundred feet up and directing the battle.

Oh yeah, and in a world with flying dragons, air elementals, pegasi, griffons, hippogriffs, coatl, genies, and possibly even flying airships, it's NEVER occur to me to have an air force, right?



There is no later. You attack me and destroy a few hamlets. I counterattack you and go city by city ruthlessly slaughtering every person in your nation until you break.

With 60 guys. RRiiigghht..... It may cost me, but if I have to I could attrition out those 10 golems and their 50 handlers.


How exactly do they know who is buying it or why? I buy through cutouts and intermediaries while under multiple spells of disguise.

There's only a finite of materials in an economy. Especially for stuff used for HIGHLY magical purposes. I'm buying them too for my own doomsday weapons. EVERYBODY AROUND YOU IS! Suddenly you start buying in larger quantities than the rest of us. This drives up the prices. We launch an investigation into why. If it starts disappearing into your country questions will be asked.



How would you know I was buying it at all. Again, you are assuming intelligence that you can not possess.
Intelligence isn't about watching you do something, it's about watching the ripples in the world that you create.


Why are you assuming a fascist country?

Oh, the blatant mind control used so off handedly for starters....



And You can have a hundred level 13 wizards. It doesn't matter a bit to the golem.
Fine, 10 golems vs 100 huge elementals and 200 large elementals. Attrition, here we come.



A single AoE attack by a single golem is enough to drop a level 13 mage with average HP and will knock off over a third of the level 13 fighters HP. 10 of them at once and all those adventurers are gone.

In that bar. They don't have to beat you, they just have to wear you down. And given some of the builds possible I wouldn't be surprised for you to have lost one or two in that round.


How do you have any idea that I am up to anything?

I take it from this question, you're probably from the suburbs or some other area where the norm is sphincterlunking. YOU ARE A NEIGHBORING COUNTRY. OF COURSE YOU'RE UP TO SOMETHING!


Laundering money is easy when you are the regulator. The merchants have no idea that I am buying anything. How do your spies know something that is known to the controller wizards, the guy making the golems, and my head general? All are loyal.

Their loyalty doesn't inter into this. By trying SO hard to be so secretive you're screaming that you're up to something.
Cute chambermaid enters, starts cleaning hallway in the castle. Goes to clean room barricade by two guards. Guards stop her. "Oh, I'm just going in to clean."
"No one enters."
"Ever?"
"Ever."
*Sniff* thought: Hmm, doesn't smell dirty. "Well, I guess I'm done then, what time do you get off?" *wink*
"Eight"
"Well, I don't normally do this, but I'm a sucker for a guy in a uniform. Meet me at the Gilded Toad?"
"Sure"
What did this tell us? Your guards are straight. This room is taken care of, but NO ONE is allowed in. Something very important is held here. One sending a rat familiar (cause EVERY castle has rats) into the room later leads me further into your secrets.


No. First off even supposing by some wild fluke of luck you manage to find out what I am doing when I only have 10 golems I will find out that you attacked me do to Contact Other Planes and my spy network. I will ruthlessly crush you in a brutal display of power and then tell the other nations that they can share your kingdom amongst themselves. That should keep them fighting each other for the next 20 years or so.

No. That will display what a dangerous despot you are. They know that for their own safety you can't be allowed to remain in power.


I maintain that the middle ages would never have happened if long lived races existed. They preserve knowledge. If you base it all in a roman style system it works fine and makes sense.

Even Rome fell.



No. Any halfway competent nation with a decent economy can pull it off. The US managed to hide the Manhattan Project, the Stealth project, and numerous other weapons systems from everyone else.

Hiding what you are doing isn't that hard.

To the extent you're thinking, yes it is. Germany knew about the Manhattan Project. We knew about theirs. What wasn't known was how far along the other was. You're claiming that nobody would ever notice these, giant, hulking statues are constantly showing up, while you attrition out your military.


It's not an enormous amount of money. The power level of the surrounding states doesn't matter at all, 50 Level 13 wizards are not enough to make an army. And a conventional army is more expensive for what you get.

And yet, 50 level 13 wizards is your army.

PaladinBoy
2007-07-05, 05:18 PM
Item in Dungeonscape. 2,000 GP and it protects the wearer and their items from disjunction, it's 1 time use though.

Ah. Sure, that'd work, but it's another thing you have to worry about. And if the golems face unexpectedly high resistance and run out of said item, then you have to choose between retreating or risking losing a golem, or more.


You have to let your mages rest as well.

True, but your quick reaction time depends on mages with teleport spells. I can exhaust your mages and attack with a more conventional force. Once your mages run out of teleport spells, then your golems' mobility, while still better than a normal army, is not a matter of instantaneous reinforcement. I can get a lot of mileage out of hit-and-run strikes once I know that reinforcements are a few hours away instead of a few seconds. And if your golems come out without using teleport, then they can't leave as quickly if it turns out to be a trap.


Espionage and counterintelligence is in the budget already. It is seriously running about 15 million gold from rounding errors. Equipping the wizards costs between 5 and 7 million. So we have another 7 million to devote to counter intelligence.

Sure, whatever. You're already spending huge amounts of gp. If you run into an opponent who's spent the equivalent of your entire military budget on espionage, including magical enhancements and defenses for spies, then there's literally no way that you can match them quickly or possibly at all. Better yet, you might not even realize that you needed to match them in that department, if they were clever about it.


Nope. I believe it is only wish but I'm away from my books at the moment so if you want to check I don't mind.

Okay, I just checked. According to Complete Arcane, the effects of Programmed Amnesia can be removed by greater restoration or wish.


No. They are necromancy effects. Golems have immunity to those as well.

If I were a DM and needed to give a ruling on that problem, I would rule that the intent of creating an Arrow of Construct Slaying and specifying that constructs do have to save against its effect would be to create something which targets a weakness that constructs do not normally have to worry about. Or, if you prefer to put it another way, something which can kill a construct on a failed save.


My golems fly and have ranged attacks. Which on average damage on a successful save is enough to kill a rustmonster.

If it was just wild rust monsters, then yes, you'd have nothing to worry about. If the enemy arranges a trap with trained rust monsters and a wizard to dimension door them up out of the mage's private sanctum using a spotter's instructions about the location of the attackers........


Sure, if for some reason my country and thsi other country go to war instead of just splitting the world down the middle and saying you stay on your half and I'll stay on mine.

That only partially worked in the Cold War. Instead of open war, we got decades of hostility. People aren't motivated solely by expediency....... if someone has a problem with your nation on moral/religious terms, then the size and power of your military will only determine what tactics they use against you, not whether or not they work against you. Besides which, what if one side or the other of your "split the world in half" idea decides they want the whole world? They've got plenty of resources to use against you. And they might work on a plan intending to cut you down to size.

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-05, 06:08 PM
It says specifically under Arrow of Slaying that in the case of unliving targets (then goes about specifying Constructs), that it is a Destroied effect, not a Death effect. How do you get a necromantic effect from that? So you're saying that an arrow specifically mentioned to kill undead/constructs/unliving creatures can't kill said creatures even if you roll them on the table?

Arrows of Slaying are based on Finger of Death and register a strong necromancy aura. They are a necromancy effect and golems are immune to those.

Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. It's not my fault idiots made an item that is utterly worthless. It happens all the time though.


Sure. They're loyal but if I'm in everything by the golem detectable respects equal to the person who has it's loyalty, what will the golem do?
Considering that the golem takes its orders from the telepathic bond you won't appear to be the controller.


The RAW doesn't cover everything, it's made for people who crawl in dungeons and fight dragons, it's not made for machine warfare. The RAW also doesn't allow inventions, new things, something that will possible in the actual fantasy world.

Anyway, if we're you're just by RAW, why not make a pun-pun? :smallmad:

Because pun-pun requires you to be playing in FR. :smallwink:


Disjunction costs less than 2,000 GP to cast, right?

That could get expensive, if someone malicious decided to start flying around and disjointing your golems. So much for a 'one time investment'.
Considering that disjunction has absolutely no effect of the golems at all, all that you may be able to get out of it is the wizards items. Which means you have to hit the wizard, which is not an easy thing. It also requires a level 17+ wizard and leaves you vulnerable to my golems killing you while you cast it.


Golembane scarabs are a good place to start. They won't kill your golems, but they will enable my warriors to kill your golems. And they're relatively cheap on the scale of budget we're talking about.
Sweet. Easy money for me. I make 1,250 gold for each one of your soldiers killed. Every 200 is enough to cover the cost of a golem.


Or are your golems immune to the effects of those too, for some reason?
Nope, but it still doesn't matter much. Your best bet is a large force of level 20 melee characters equipped with scarabs of golembane. A dozen or so would be a good bet for each team of 4 golems.



That kind of arrangement doesn't tend to last very long.

I really do give up. I think a few such golems in a combined arms force would be great, but eliminating the rest of the army, and relying on the complex magical concepts is a shaky idea at best.

Yes, you can do better with a balanced force, but this is the best force for the cost.

And the US and USSR managed to last like that for 30+ years.


Ah, no. Not buying it.
Thats what your intelligence people tell you. :smallwink:


Yes, these peasants. These peasants that just woke up to find out their house is on fire. These guys that are now panicking, babbling and being incoherent in fear.
Peasants? More like retired military or intelligence officers who want a quiet life. These aren't random peasants. They are trained intelligence officers.


You've got 8 scared and angry people in one room shouting at the top of their lungs, how long will it take you to understand? How long will it take you to calm them down enough to be able to find out what's going on?
"Ready and waiting" does not mean "instantaneously". They could still be in the can, slacking off, hitting on a coworker, and all those other things you're doing at work that's not working.
No. Programmed Amnesia. They don't do that stuff. As for 8 guys at once, who said 1 intelligence guy was handling everybody?


So, you believe that you're the ONLY person with the ability to cast contact other planes? If you've got access to it, then so do I. Using that it's just as easy to find out where the crafter is, plane shift, kill him quick and stop your army in one confrontation.
No its not. Yes or No answers.

"Is XXX the nation attacking me?"
Go down the list of nations until you get a yes. Ask a few more specific questions and I'm golden.

CoP can't tell you that I am building a force of golems, or where they are located, or who is making them, or anything else except yes or no.


No, the golems then all teleport in and ATTACK my city. You keep making the assumption that I'm just some schlub waiting for you to come attack me. I could have some soverign glue bombs, shadow energy draining poles, and anything else the twisted minds of me and my generals can come up with.
Sovereign Glue bombs would be outrageously expensive and considering my golems fly they wouldn't be stuck to anything. You also have to wait for it to set. What are these shadow energy draining poles you are talking about? Have a book and page reference?


Plausible deniability. You can't prove that you didn't dress them up as my men.
Speak with Dead. Raise Dead. Etc.


Oh yeah, and in a world with flying dragons, air elementals, pegasi, griffons, hippogriffs, coatl, genies, and possibly even flying airships, it's NEVER occur to me to have an air force, right?
Have any airforce you want, its just a lot less effective than mine.


With 60 guys. RRiiigghht..... It may cost me, but if I have to I could attrition out those 10 golems and their 50 handlers.

Not really. You have to find the wizards (again, not an easy task) and coem up with some way to destroy the golems.


There's only a finite of materials in an economy. Especially for stuff used for HIGHLY magical purposes. I'm buying them too for my own doomsday weapons. EVERYBODY AROUND YOU IS! Suddenly you start buying in larger quantities than the rest of us. This drives up the prices. We launch an investigation into why. If it starts disappearing into your country questions will be asked.
You don't get it, do you? I am buying on another plane through cutouts. How are you managing to find out that I am buying Shadesteel. Considering its only use is to make Shadesteel Golems.


Intelligence isn't about watching you do something, it's about watching the ripples in the world that you create.
Yes, but you have to trace those ripples to me. With teleportation and anti scrying magic that becomes a practical impossibility.

Hell my entire golem creation project could be located in another nation or in some no mans land. If its even on the same planet.


Oh, the blatant mind control used so off handedly for starters....
What? To detect spies? Considering that that measure is for entering restricted areas it isn't fascist. If you are talking about the Programmed Amnesia, if mindcontrolling 50 people is what is required to secure a country of millions I have no problem with it.


Fine, 10 golems vs 100 huge elementals and 200 large elementals. Attrition, here we come.
Where did you get the Elementals? :smallwink:


In that bar. They don't have to beat you, they just have to wear you down. And given some of the builds possible I wouldn't be surprised for you to have lost one or two in that round.
Not unless you have a ton of level 20's lieing around. Considering that you have to be able to fly to even attack the golems I think I'm good for a bit.


I take it from this question, you're probably from the suburbs or some other area where the norm is sphincterlunking. YOU ARE A NEIGHBORING COUNTRY. OF COURSE YOU'RE UP TO SOMETHING!
Gee. Fine, how do you have any idea that I'm up to anything special.

You still have yet to show how you managed to pierce my veil of secrecy and learn about the golems. Spies won't work because of mental probing. Tracking the money won't work because it is utterly easy to hide. Talking to merchants won't work because for all they know they are selling to your nation. Scrying won't work because of the Private Sanctums.


Their loyalty doesn't inter into this. By trying SO hard to be so secretive you're screaming that you're up to something.
Cute chambermaid enters, starts cleaning hallway in the castle. Goes to clean room barricade by two guards. Guards stop her. "Oh, I'm just going in to clean."
"No one enters."
"Ever?"
"Ever."
*Sniff* thought: Hmm, doesn't smell dirty. "Well, I guess I'm done then, what time do you get off?" *wink*
"Eight"
"Well, I don't normally do this, but I'm a sucker for a guy in a uniform. Meet me at the Gilded Toad?"
"Sure"
What did this tell us? Your guards are straight. This room is taken care of, but NO ONE is allowed in. Something very important is held here. One sending a rat familiar (cause EVERY castle has rats) into the room later leads me further into your secrets.

Utter stupidity. Phase Door is a much better choice.


No. That will display what a dangerous despot you are. They know that for their own safety you can't be allowed to remain in power.
No. I proved I wasn't a despot by giving up your land. With that 1 move I showed everyone that I just wanted to be left alone and don't want their land. They also saw what happens if you attack me. They all know it can happen to them just as easily, they saw me crush your army with ease so it is doubtful that they would send theirs. They then saw that the cost of attacking me and failing was total ruin.


Even Rome fell.
After a thousand years. And the reasons why it fell are not something we can discuss on these boards but suffice it to say that it wouldn't be a problem that a D&D nation would face.


To the extent you're thinking, yes it is. Germany knew about the Manhattan Project. We knew about theirs. What wasn't known was how far along the other was. You're claiming that nobody would ever notice these, giant, hulking statues are constantly showing up, while you attrition out your military.
The Stealth Fighter then. Developed in the height of the cold war and Russia still says that they didn't no about it unti la week before it was publicly announced.


And yet, 50 level 13 wizards is your army.
No. 50 level 13+ wizards is a part of my army.


Ah. Sure, that'd work, but it's another thing you have to worry about. And if the golems face unexpectedly high resistance and run out of said item, then you have to choose between retreating or risking losing a golem, or more.
Golem's aren't effected by Disjunction. Just like they aren't effected by AMF's.


True, but your quick reaction time depends on mages with teleport spells. I can exhaust your mages and attack with a more conventional force. Once your mages run out of teleport spells, then your golems' mobility, while still better than a normal army, is not a matter of instantaneous reinforcement. I can get a lot of mileage out of hit-and-run strikes once I know that reinforcements are a few hours away instead of a few seconds. And if your golems come out without using teleport, then they can't leave as quickly if it turns out to be a trap.
Yes, but what I maintain is that after the first time you do this my wizards will learn about your trick and won't fall for it. Your wizards attack to draw me out and I don't show up. What do they do? Continue the attack (wasting spells for minimal effect) or leave? After 5 or 6 times of me not showing up you grow cocky and stay to fight and then I show up.


Sure, whatever. You're already spending huge amounts of gp. If you run into an opponent who's spent the equivalent of your entire military budget on espionage, including magical enhancements and defenses for spies, then there's literally no way that you can match them quickly or possibly at all. Better yet, you might not even realize that you needed to match them in that department, if they were clever about it.
All true. But they still can't find out about my golems.


Okay, I just checked. According to Complete Arcane, the effects of Programmed Amnesia can be removed by greater restoration or wish.
Check the Spell Compendium, its the newest source and I believe it changed it.

And considering the 10 miniute casting time it is not something that you would use on the battlefield. The wizard also gets a saving throw. And you ahev to be touching him.


If I were a DM and needed to give a ruling on that problem, I would rule that the intent of creating an Arrow of Construct Slaying and specifying that constructs do have to save against its effect would be to create something which targets a weakness that constructs do not normally have to worry about. Or, if you prefer to put it another way, something which can kill a construct on a failed save.

Yes, that may have been the intent (even if it was a stupid idea in the first place, a creature that is immune to magic, death effects, and fortitude saves is someone killed by it) by it is still a necromancy effect, something which golems happen to be immune to.


If it was just wild rust monsters, then yes, you'd have nothing to worry about. If the enemy arranges a trap with trained rust monsters and a wizard to dimension door them up out of the mage's private sanctum using a spotter's instructions about the location of the attackers........
Touching a Rust monster does nothing. It has to take a standard action to hit him. Somethign It can't do while teleported up into midair. Especially since DD stops it from acting that round. And it immediately starts falling as well.


That only partially worked in the Cold War. Instead of open war, we got decades of hostility. People aren't motivated solely by expediency....... if someone has a problem with your nation on moral/religious terms, then the size and power of your military will only determine what tactics they use against you, not whether or not they work against you. Besides which, what if one side or the other of your "split the world in half" idea decides they want the whole world? They've got plenty of resources to use against you. And they might work on a plan intending to cut you down to size.

And you have plenty or resources to use against them. MAD. Not to mention it would still take a while to conquer half the world.

The Pink Ninja
2007-07-05, 06:34 PM
Trying too write a D&D army by the rules is rediculous and pointless.

Anyway, why make crappy little magic items when you could create a great warmachine, like the classic floating Adamatine Fortress.

Funkyodor
2007-07-05, 06:39 PM
Just because a specific spell is used to create a magic item and that it radiates a type of aura does not mean it's effect has to follow with the same spell/aura. Rings of Mind Shielding use the spell Nondetection, which has no effect on Thought Detection, but the ring does for some reason. Because the Narrative of the item tells me it does. The Narrative of the arrow says it works on Golems, so it works on Golems. It is a Strong Necromantic aura on the Arrow of Slaying, but it's not the aura that hurts the non-living creature, It's the destruction effect.

Irreverent Fool
2007-07-05, 07:15 PM
Hate to jump in here but I think the answer is pretty much this. However much it costs to hire the dragon, the high level NPCs to kill the dragon are cheaper.

By cheaper, of course i mean both in terms of monetary cost because they would be motivated by such things as patriotism and have the prospect of the dragon's loot to look forward to, and overall cost because they can function as army officers to command the army.

They're also cheaper because they don't come after you to collect the payment if they get routed. An evil dragon (and I doubt you'd be able to just up and HIRE a good dragon) is going to demand payment after he devestates a part of the army and decides his job's done when he notices the wizard trying to cast shivering touch.

horseboy
2007-07-05, 07:37 PM
Yes, you can do better with a balanced force, but this is the best force for the cost.

And the US and USSR managed to last like that for 30+ years.

ouNo, the US and USSR had other forces in their army.


Thats what your intelligence people tell you. :smallwink:


Peasants? More like retired military or intelligence officers who want a quiet life. These aren't random peasants. They are trained intelligence officers.

No, they're peasants. You said so. They were people already existing in their community. i.e. peasants. If they're retired military in a peasant community it's be butter spotting these guys.


No. Programmed Amnesia. They don't do that stuff.

ROTFLMAO!!!! Oh, I've got to know, what level is "Remove Waste" that they never have to go.


As for 8 guys at once, who said 1 intelligence guy was handling everybody?

Could have sworn you did. Something about "and it would be even faster since it's all going through 1 person."



No its not. Yes or No answers.

"Is XXX the nation attacking me?"
Go down the list of nations until you get a yes. Ask a few more specific questions and I'm golden.
CoP can't tell you that I am building a force of golems, or where they are located, or who is making them, or anything else except yes or no.

Is the creator inside the border of Tippy's Empire?
Is the creator on the prime material plane?



Sovereign Glue bombs would be outrageously expensive and considering my golems fly they wouldn't be stuck to anything. You also have to wait for it to set. What are these shadow energy draining poles you are talking about? Have a book and page reference?

They'd stick to themselves. Keeping them from being able to melee.



Speak with Dead. Raise Dead. Etc.

Well of course YOUR casters are telling you that. That's not what my casters just told me (True because we were just discussing what to have for lunch) Look at your casters, you've got them so screwed in the head they don't even go to the bathroom.



Have any airforce you want, its just a lot less effective than mine.

Not really. You have to find the wizards (again, not an easy task) and come up with some way to destroy the golems.

No, All it would take would be a 2nd level ranger taking 10 to spot the invisible mage, hop on a griffon, toss some dust of appearance, and now a nice squishy target appears. Without being able to get new orders, your golems eventually grind to a hault.




You don't get it, do you? I am buying on another plane through cutouts. How are you managing to find out that I am buying Shadesteel. Considering its only use is to make Shadesteel Golems.

I do get it. Shadesteel golems aren't made solely of shadesteel. You're going to need other things as well.
Next question: If your agents are SO good that there's NO way possible for the EVER to be caught by beings that existed since before time began, why are working for you? Why aren't they out being their own BBEG?


Yes, but you have to trace those ripples to me. With teleportation and anti scrying magic that becomes a practical impossibility.

Only if I'm using scrying magic. That's a luxury that Columbo never had.


Hell my entire golem creation project could be located in another nation or in some no mans land. If its even on the same planet.

That would be the best idea. However, you're in your kingdom.


What? To detect spies? Considering that that measure is for entering restricted areas it isn't fascist. If you are talking about the Programmed Amnesia, if mindcontrolling 50 people is what is required to secure a country of millions I have no problem with it.

It's not fascist to crush the freewill of an individual to the point of them being an autominaton? And that's just what you've admitted to being willing to do.
I've met several people who work at the NSA. None of them have been brainwashed to the point that they can't remember their family or have any desire other than to work.


Where did you get the Elementals? :smallwink:

Summon monster VII and VI from the 100 wizards you gave me.:smallbiggrin:


Not unless you have a ton of level 20's lieing around. Considering that you have to be able to fly to even attack the golems I think I'm good for a bit.

In order for them to get max kill, they've got to get in close. That means those that held their action are going simo.



Gee. Fine, how do you have any idea that I'm up to anything special.

Because you're being suspicious.


You still have yet to show how you managed to pierce my veil of secrecy and learn about the golems. Spies won't work because of mental probing. Tracking the money won't work because it is utterly easy to hide. Talking to merchants won't work because for all they know they are selling to your nation. Scrying won't work because of the Private Sanctums.

You're mind probing every single person that comes into your country? You don't allow ANY of the great trading houses into your kingdom? The high priest/ess of the god/dess of justice telling me they had a dream of a great army of shadows rising up from some strange place, going to your castle and then destroying mine doesn't count?



Utter stupidity. Phase Door is a much better choice.

But you'd be looking for Phase doors being cast. That's how much espionage is done in the real world. You just ask innocent questions and put the answers together.


No. I proved I wasn't a despot by giving up your land. With that 1 move I showed everyone that I just wanted to be left alone and don't want their land. They also saw what happens if you attack me. They all know it can happen to them just as easily, they saw me crush your army with ease so it is doubtful that they would send theirs. They then saw that the cost of attacking me and failing was total ruin.

That's not a despotic statement? People who want to be left alone don't build armies of super mega unstoppable death.



After a thousand years. And the reasons why it fell are not something we can discuss on these boards but suffice it to say that it wouldn't be a problem that a D&D nation would face.

Yeah, because there are no barbarian hordes in D&D, oh wait.


The Stealth Fighter then. Developed in the height of the cold war and Russia still says that they didn't no about it unti la week before it was publicly announced.

And while a good example of how to hide something, it's not the "end all be all" of our army that we're phasing everything else out.



No. 50 level 13+ wizards is a part of my army.

Just the most numerous part (of your offensive arm)


Yes, but what I maintain is that after the first time you do this my wizards will learn about your trick and won't fall for it. Your wizards attack to draw me out and I don't show up. What do they do? Continue the attack (wasting spells for minimal effect) or leave? After 5 or 6 times of me not showing up you grow cocky and stay to fight and then I show up.

And thereby proving to your populace that you don't care about them. Revolution is imminent.


Touching a Rust monster does nothing. It has to take a standard action to hit him. Somethign It can't do while teleported up into midair. Especially since DD stops it from acting that round. And it immediately starts falling as well.

Yeah it does. You touch a rust monster with your sword and it turns to rust (unless that's something else they changed in 3.x)

Dervag
2007-07-05, 08:20 PM
"Ready and waiting" does not mean "instantaneously". They could still be in the can, slacking off, hitting on a coworker, and all those other things you're doing at work that's not working.In fairness, the atmosphere in the Golem Control Room and the central intelligence repository are likely going to be similar to those of an air traffic control tower or a critical air defense installation. While people may be slacking, response time in situations like that will be fast. Not instantaneous, but fast.


Sweet. Easy money for me. I make 1,250 gold for each one of your soldiers killed. Every 200 is enough to cover the cost of a golem.You completely misunderstood.

I'm not going to equip first-level mooks with these things. I'm going to equip warriors who are in fact strong enough to fight a golem with them. Give them the right buffs (heck, make them permanent- you're throwing around permanency spells pretty lavishly too), and you're going to have to send in quite a few golems to take them down.

And again, if I can take down one of your golems for a cost lower than the cost of building one, your operation is going to collapse. You can't replace a golem quickly, and you can't afford to replace, say, 10-20% casualties in less than a few years.


Nope, but it still doesn't matter much. Your best bet is a large force of level 20 melee characters equipped with scarabs of golembane. A dozen or so would be a good bet for each team of 4 golems.That approximates what I had in mind, actually.


Not really. You have to find the wizards (again, not an easy task) and coem up with some way to destroy the golems.Except that he has. It won't be foolproof; it won't work instantly. But it can be done. It's not something you can dismiss by waving your hand and calling it impossible.


You don't get it, do you? I am buying on another plane through cutouts. How are you managing to find out that I am buying Shadesteel. Considering its only use is to make Shadesteel Golems.You don't get it, do you? He knows you're buying something. You're spending money, and the money isn't being spent to buy food or swords or any of the normal things nations spend money on.

All right, start probing with spies. The spies don't get very far. They might turn up a few rumors that a bunch of wizards disappeared some time ago. They might even get lucky and find out that you've set up restricted areas nobody can get into. But it's likely that they'll bounce, because your Thought Police are presumably running around reading the minds of all the many, many people who interact with anyone who is remotely connected with this project.

The thing is, if they bounce, that tells me something right there. If you're making the effort to roll up my spy networks, that tells me something. You've got a big project in the offing. Now I don't just suspect; I know. So I start sending magic-equipped agents to look for signs of magical activity. I try to kidnap one or two members of your thought police. Kidnapping a telepath is hard... unless you can teleport them out.

It may take me a few years to figure out what you're up to, but I can do it. Magic gives the attacker the ability to spy just as well as it gives the defender the ability to keep secrets. And there is absolutely no way you'll be able to keep this going for a century, or even a decade, without word starting to get around.


Utter stupidity. Phase Door is a much better choice.No, it isn't. It's a high level wizard spell, for starters. It shows up on detect magic. And if someone passes through the phase door and shows up in a restricted area, they will most likely be captured and tortured.

You're falling in love with the use of magic where mundane means will work just as well. The goal of intelligence work in this scenario is to work around the edges of the Supergolem project, to identify that something is going on and what, roughly, it might be. Once I reach that stage, I can use spells like Contact Other Plane and Legend Lore to research what you're doing, or I can plan elaborate operations that allow me to penetrate your security.


The Stealth Fighter then. Developed in the height of the cold war and Russia still says that they didn't no about it unti la week before it was publicly announced.That's because the F-117 development budget was a tiny, tiny fraction of the national total. The US was spending so much money on various black operations and classified subjects that it was easy for one project guarded by unusual secrecy to get lost in the shuffle.

You don't claim to have that kind of money.

PaladinBoy
2007-07-05, 08:39 PM
Golem's aren't effected by Disjunction. Just like they aren't effected by AMF's.

So it seems. Doesn't seem quite right to me, but whatever.


Yes, but what I maintain is that after the first time you do this my wizards will learn about your trick and won't fall for it. Your wizards attack to draw me out and I don't show up. What do they do? Continue the attack (wasting spells for minimal effect) or leave? After 5 or 6 times of me not showing up you grow cocky and stay to fight and then I show up.

What about your nation's people, who my special forces teams are evicting from their homes? And how do you tell whether I'm going to stay and fight or not without teleporting out?


All true. But they still can't find out about my golems.

.........:smallconfused:

I'm reading this as "there's no possible way you can find out no matter how much time and effort you invest in this". Which frankly doesn't make much sense. Can you account for the inventiveness and resources of an entire nation devoted to finding new and better ways to gather information and protect their own? I'm not a spymaster, so I can't really think up of too many good plans, but these people are trained to gather information, and in a world where magic is this prevalent, it becomes part of the calculation.

Dervag put it quite well....... Magic offers as many options for spying as it does defenses for spying. Heck, that Programmed Amnesia spell you like so much is an excellent tool for a spy......... and how do you figure out whether the spell on the guy in front of you that inspires their loyalty is your spell or an enemy's ruse?


Check the Spell Compendium, its the newest source and I believe it changed it.

Unfortunately I lent that book to a friend. :smallfrown:


And considering the 10 miniute casting time it is not something that you would use on the battlefield. The wizard also gets a saving throw. And you ahev to be touching him.

I wouldn't use it on the battlefield, I'd use it if my spies or military managed to capture someone who you've used it on.

For that matter, I could point out similar problems with getting high-level mages to submit to Programmed Amnesia.


Touching a Rust monster does nothing. It has to take a standard action to hit him. Somethign It can't do while teleported up into midair. Especially since DD stops it from acting that round. And it immediately starts falling as well.

I didn't say it was a perfect plan. Perhaps we cast fly on the rust monster, or train the rust monster so that when it teleport, it has a readied action to attack?

I'm not a trained strategist. My guess is that a trained strategist would be able to figure out a way to use it.


And you have plenty or resources to use against them. MAD. Not to mention it would still take a while to conquer half the world.

You seem to be expecting the other nation to be reasonable and sensible about the matter, when history shows that the type of person to be conquering large areas of the world isn't going to be that sensible. Heck, personal experience shows that people in general aren't always sensible. The most likely thing that that stalemate will generate are new, more subtle ways to fight each other.

Gavin Sage
2007-07-05, 09:08 PM
This thread has sprialed so badly I'd rather not sort it out. So why not go back to the original force and simply find an effective way to destroy the golems?


The most cost effective invasion force (barring level 20 wizards) is as many Greater Shadesteel golems as you can afford.

Advanced to 40 HD they only cost 195,000 GP each.

DR 15/adamantium means that a max damage critical hit (which requires 2 natural 20's in a row) does 1 point of damage. With a heavy crossbow you need to crit and roll higher than 8 on the damage roll to deal 1 point of damage. The average advanced Greater Shadesteel golem has 250 HP (40d10+30).

It's immune to magic and poison. It can fly (perfect maneuverability) and has a negative energy pulse wave attack that deals (on a successful save at a DC of 28) 6d6 damage to every living thing within a 40 foot radius. It has +10 to hide and +18 to move silently in addition to having concealment in all but full daylight.

The key to this whole strategy is Damage Reduction. Otherwise the golem can simply be beaten by a high amount of mundane weapons. The rest is almost besides the point, with ranged weapons in play flying is not such an advantage nor even a ranged attack on the golem. The DR 15 is the real key. Its what puts mere grunts out of having an above miniscule effect before being killed. However every damage reduction has a weak point. So why since we are plainly into implausible scenarios, why not equip our armies with Adamatine weapons?

Let's say we raise up some crossbow men. Let's say we have 1000. Upgrading ammunition to adamantine is listed at a rate of +60gp, and as these are like masterworks thats for 10 bolts for 61 gp. On a side note I have to wonder since if that's a flat rate we couldn't do this with ballistas. So lets equip our 1000 archers to kill the golem. I don't have the monster entry for the AC, but there are always 20s to hit. And lets say for argument the bolts all do 5 damage as an average. Now how many do we need to carve up that 250 HP?

250 divided by 5 damage is 50 Attacks. To be extra sure we will will work with needing 100 attacks. To garuntee that many hits we 2000 shots. So our 1000 crossbowmen need to make 2 attacks, but lets give equip them for 4. So that means 4000 adamantine bolts. At 6.1gp a pop that works out to 24,400 gp. Leaving 170,600 gp in savings for more then suffcient weapons to destroy a golem. You can spread this out in different ways too, such as using our savings to increase our number of crossbowmen. And I've built plenty of leeway into this overkilling the number of bolts, to account for varying tactical situations and the concealment (as you'd want to make 2400 attacks with concealment dropping %20)

Many men would die but you have at a basic level getting 4000 adamantine bolts is still only 24,400, you can spend more gold as needed to make a capable force. I'm not going to say that equiping an army thus garuntees victory, but that's because I don't believe in absolute chances and don't want to get into the infinite possible tactical scenarios. Hence why I built the overkill in.


Another nice thing is that so long as a shadesteel golem is within range of a spell with the shadow descriptor it is healed as many points as the spells level. It also acts as hasted if within the effect of any spell with the light descriptor.

Well see Greater Shadow Evocation makes Continual Flame into an 8th level spell that has the shadow descriptor, including the nice permanent duration. So one Greater Shadow Evocation later and your golem has what amounts to Fast Healing 8. Now we cast a regular Continual flame spell on the golem. Since this one has the light descriptor he now has permanent haste.

For this a Dispel targeting the Shadow Evocation spell wipes out the, so have some decent level mages accompanying your forces. Nevermind I daresay turning your concealed golems into torches should make them rather more visible, compromising their concealment. Albeit I doubt the rules exactly cover that and so it would probably be a DM call on how nonsensical the scenario is. But more importantly have your mages prepard heavy on dispels to nix this advantage. And even then enough crossbows will beat the regen, again with the overkill margin, and I'm not garunteeing victory simply creating a reasonable counter measure at a much lesser cost.


And a hundred of those guys only costs you 25,000,000 GP. And remember, they last until destroyed.

2,440,000 for the 4000 bolts for each golem. Go as high as wanted until the economy is bankrupt.

And why have I not bothered with say the cost of keeping an army of living creatures about? The bolts are basic the key and the rest gets into specific tactical situations which can be argued unto infinity. And as I said I am not garunteeing victory, just establishing a counter-measure at cheaper cost. I kinda assumed that it would be added onto an army in existence and supported already. Which Tippy's original proposal essentially calls for anyways:


Now those guys won't hold land but they are not meant to. They are meant to deal with large threats (such as the aforementioned dragon or adventuring party) or to be attacking force in your invasion plans. They may not be able to hold a country but they can clear out anything in the way of the holding force (which can now be made up of pretty much anyone).

Since our super-golems were originally going to be a strike force anyways not the end all of the military, it says they were being built in support of anyways so its cost already being born. Besides if I remember correctly the 50,000 man army from waaaay back didn't cost as much as the golems anyways, and you don't need a stupidly high number like that.

Dervag
2007-07-05, 09:43 PM
OK, Gavin is arguing smarter than me.

That sounds like a good countermeasure, or at least a close approximation to a countermeasure. On the other hand, you need hordes of crossbowmen to make it work, which is hard when the golems are flying and teleporting around. However, if they attack your main army, then you can use the adamantine bolts to riddle them.

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-05, 09:44 PM
ouNo, the US and USSR had other forces in their army.
The US and USSR could have completely dropped their armies and neither would have attacked the other. Nuclear weapons were enough of a deterrent to insure that neither side would attack the other.


No, they're peasants. You said so. They were people already existing in their community. i.e. peasants. If they're retired military in a peasant community it's be butter spotting these guys.
No. They are retired soldiers, farmers, merchants, and various other loyal people who after receiving training are sent to a town and told to live their.


ROTFLMAO!!!! Oh, I've got to know, what level is "Remove Waste" that they never have to go.
Multiple shifts. And with 50 guys and 10 golems I could have many, many shifts. It is slightly more strained with the full force of 100 golems but oh well, 4 golems happen to be a minute late. Good for them. The other 96 were there and have solved the problem.

And if it was up to me they would all be Elans meaning I don't have to feed them and they don't need bathroom brakes.

Could have sworn you did. Something about "and it would be even faster since it's all going through 1 person."

No. The golems in the field are linked 4 golems to 1 controller. That controller is linked to home base. The response time of the golems in the field is far above that of any other force because 1 brain is running the whole thing.


Is the creator inside the border of Tippy's Empire?
Is the creator on the prime material plane?

The creator of what? Why do you keep assuming that you know about the golems. You have yet to show any way that you have found out that I am doing anything, much less enough specifics to make CoP work.

Not to mention Private Sanctum stops CoP. So as long as the creator stays in the base the only answer you will get is maybe.


They'd stick to themselves. Keeping them from being able to melee.
Sovereign glue requires you to stay still for a round for it to set. Not to mention that I prefer the Negative Energy wave that does 12d6 damage to every living thing within 40 feet.


Well of course YOUR casters are telling you that. That's not what my casters just told me (True because we were just discussing what to have for lunch) Look at your casters, you've got them so screwed in the head they don't even go to the bathroom.
You think it matters? I Have one of your guys raised with Raise Dead in front of all the other rules and with their chief cleric and wizard present we use a nice zone of truth to make him tell us all everything.

I doubt you attempting to deceive them will go over so well.


No, All it would take would be a 2nd level ranger taking 10 to spot the invisible mage, hop on a griffon, toss some dust of appearance, and now a nice squishy target appears. Without being able to get new orders, your golems eventually grind to a hault.

Let's see. Your in the middle of battle so -5 for the spotter being distracted. Then -1 for every 10 feet away from you I am. So at a 50 feet you couldn't spot me.

And all you find out is that an invisible creature is near you.


I do get it. Shadesteel golems aren't made solely of shadesteel. You're going to need other things as well.
Not really. The book just says a **** ton of shadesteel IIRC.


Next question: If your agents are SO good that there's NO way possible for the EVER to be caught by beings that existed since before time began, why are working for you? Why aren't they out being their own BBEG?
What beings that existed before time began? And you don't seem to understand that all of these secrecy measures are very standard stuff. It's nothing amazing.


Only if I'm using scrying magic. That's a luxury that Columbo never had.

Scrying magic doesn't help you at all. Really.


That would be the best idea. However, you're in your kingdom.

Um, what the hell are you talking about? Why do you think I'm in my kingdom?


It's not fascist to crush the freewill of an individual to the point of them being an autominaton? And that's just what you've admitted to being willing to do.
I've met several people who work at the NSA. None of them have been brainwashed to the point that they can't remember their family or have any desire other than to work.
And any American general would tell you that if the cost was the freewill of 50 Americans to protect the nation from all threats they would accept it in a heatbeat.

Doing 1 thing that is mildly fascist also doesn't make you a fascist dictator.


Summon monster VII and VI from the 100 wizards you gave me.:smallbiggrin:
Um, my golems fly away for a minute until your summons disappear and then come and bash your city.


In order for them to get max kill, they've got to get in close. That means those that held their action are going simo.
Who said anything about max killing? Risking golems is stupid. They wil lstay out of range of the guy with a sword.


Because you're being suspicious.
What exactly have I done thats suspicious? Remember. No one loyal to you knows anything about any of it. The gold is laundered 6 ways to Sunday and can't be traced to me. All that you would have to go on is I'm a bit to trusting with gold, my nobles are stealing it all. This isn't some sudden change.


You're mind probing every single person that comes into your country? You don't allow ANY of the great trading houses into your kingdom? The high priest/ess of the god/dess of justice telling me they had a dream of a great army of shadows rising up from some strange place, going to your castle and then destroying mine doesn't count?
I mind probe everyone entering secure military installations. And I do an even better check if you were being allowed into the war room/ golem construction facilities.


But you'd be looking for Phase doors being cast. That's how much espionage is done in the real world. You just ask innocent questions and put the answers together.
So you are getting a spy who can detect magic into the kings study somehow and then are suspicious because you happen to see a Phase Door and from that manage to put together that I am building an army of golems?

Most kings have a bolt hole or way out if the castle is attacked. That is mine. Pretty much every ruler would have a Phase Door to a room containing a 1 time use item of teleport to retreat to a safe place. Or they may have a permanent teleport circle instead.


That's not a despotic statement? People who want to be left alone don't build armies of super mega unstoppable death.

Yes they do. The US is an excellent example. Japan in the 1800's is another. China back in the pre Columbus days is another.


Yeah, because there are no barbarian hordes in D&D, oh wait.
IM me on AIM if you want to talk about why Rome feel. The barbarian hoards were a tertiary cause.


And while a good example of how to hide something, it's not the "end all be all" of our army that we're phasing everything else out.
We managed to hide a bomber program that allowed us to launch an undetectable disarming first strike against the soviet union. The stealth program, if the cold war hadn't ended, would have drastically changed the balance of power for the rest of the cold war.

And Russia didn't even know it existed until right before it was made public. The KGB was widely considered the best intelligence force in the world. And it was hidden from them. This is the agency that got one of its spies to the second highest position in the British intelligence community before he was discovered, and in 2 years he would have been the head of MI-5.


Just the most numerous part (of your offensive arm)
I have a hundred golems. That is twice as many golems as wizards.


And thereby proving to your populace that you don't care about them. Revolution is imminent.
No. You seem to think my nation is a seething pool of rebellion just waitign for a spark to break out in open rebellion.

Why are you assuming this?


Yeah it does. You touch a rust monster with your sword and it turns to rust (unless that's something else they changed in 3.x)


Rust (Ex)

A rust monster that makes a successful touch attack with its antennae causes the target metal to corrode, falling to pieces and becoming useless immediately. The touch can destroy up to a 10-foot cube of metal instantly. Magic armor and weapons, and other magic items made of metal, must succeed on a DC 17 Reflex save or be dissolved. The save DC is Constitution-based and includes a +4 racial bonus.

Per RAW you can pound the thing with a sword with no problem. It only affects you if it hits with a touch attack, a standard action.


You completely misunderstood.
Ah, sorry.


I'm not going to equip first-level mooks with these things. I'm going to equip warriors who are in fact strong enough to fight a golem with them. Give them the right buffs (heck, make them permanent- you're throwing around permanency spells pretty lavishly too), and you're going to have to send in quite a few golems to take them down.

And again, if I can take down one of your golems for a cost lower than the cost of building one, your operation is going to collapse. You can't replace a golem quickly, and you can't afford to replace, say, 10-20% casualties in less than a few years.

I can replace 2 per year without a problem.

And while its a good idea, my golems are cowards. If they get lwo on health they run away for a bit until they are fully healed again.


That approximates what I had in mind, actually.
It is generally the best plan but it is still not easy.


Except that he has. It won't be foolproof; it won't work instantly. But it can be done. It's not something you can dismiss by waving your hand and calling it impossible.
Yes, it can be done. Can it be done under battle field conditions while your forces are fighting for their life? Not without an act of god.


You don't get it, do you? He knows you're buying something. You're spending money, and the money isn't being spent to buy food or swords or any of the normal things nations spend money on.
How does he know I am buying anything? Again, laundering money is incredibly easy. Especially if you are the government.


All right, start probing with spies. The spies don't get very far. They might turn up a few rumors that a bunch of wizards disappeared some time ago. They might even get lucky and find out that you've set up restricted areas nobody can get into. But it's likely that they'll bounce, because your Thought Police are presumably running around reading the minds of all the many, many people who interact with anyone who is remotely connected with this project.
Those working on the project don't have contact with the those outside the project. To enter the facilities you have to be mind probed, after being invited in by the king personally. The ones buying the supplies don't even know who they are buying it for. I'm talking 8 layers minimum between the supplier and the guy making the golem.


The thing is, if they bounce, that tells me something right there. If you're making the effort to roll up my spy networks, that tells me something. You've got a big project in the offing. Now I don't just suspect; I know. So I start sending magic-equipped agents to look for signs of magical activity. I try to kidnap one or two members of your thought police. Kidnapping a telepath is hard... unless you can teleport them out.
The telepaths don't know anything either. Just to watch out for people who don't belong.


It may take me a few years to figure out what you're up to, but I can do it. Magic gives the attacker the ability to spy just as well as it gives the defender the ability to keep secrets. And there is absolutely no way you'll be able to keep this going for a century, or even a decade, without word starting to get around.
Yes you can. I'm the king with a bad financial adviser who is skimming some of the taxes for his own personal wealth. My top general is apparently a bit bad as well, he doesn't seem to be keeping the guard in tip top shape.

You set up the appearances 5+ years before you start work on the project.


No, it isn't. It's a high level wizard spell, for starters. It shows up on detect magic. And if someone passes through the phase door and shows up in a restricted area, they will most likely be captured and tortured.
The Phase Door is in the kings study. It leads to a room wit ha permanent Private Sanctum and a Teleportation Circle to the Command Center. Everyone assumes its the kings bolt hole to escape if he has to.

And since no one can go through it without the king one insures security.


You're falling in love with the use of magic where mundane means will work just as well. The goal of intelligence work in this scenario is to work around the edges of the Supergolem project, to identify that something is going on and what, roughly, it might be. Once I reach that stage, I can use spells like Contact Other Plane and Legend Lore to research what you're doing, or I can plan elaborate operations that allow me to penetrate your security.
I maintain that even getting an inkling would be next to impossible. Then there are the false trails.

And so long as the entire golem construction process is done inside of Private Sanctums CoP and Legend Lore can't help you. Not even the gods can penetrate a Private Sanctum.


That's because the F-117 development budget was a tiny, tiny fraction of the national total. The US was spending so much money on various black operations and classified subjects that it was easy for one project guarded by unusual secrecy to get lost in the shuffle.

You don't claim to have that kind of money.
And it is still easily to launder. 500,000 is about 2% of the national budget. A nice amount for my bad financial adviser to skim off. And if he hides the money as good as he can, well he wouldn't want the king to find out.


What about your nation's people, who my special forces teams are evicting from their homes? And how do you tell whether I'm going to stay and fight or not without teleporting out?
The on the ground spy.


.........:smallconfused:

I'm reading this as "there's no possible way you can find out no matter how much time and effort you invest in this". Which frankly doesn't make much sense. Can you account for the inventiveness and resources of an entire nation devoted to finding new and better ways to gather information and protect their own? I'm not a spymaster, so I can't really think up of too many good plans, but these people are trained to gather information, and in a world where magic is this prevalent, it becomes part of the calculation.
Yes, but by the RAW it can't be done with the system I have set up. Most divination spells are only half way decent and all of the real good ones are ones that block other divinations.


Dervag put it quite well....... Magic offers as many options for spying as it does defenses for spying. Heck, that Programmed Amnesia spell you like so much is an excellent tool for a spy......... and how do you figure out whether the spell on the guy in front of you that inspires their loyalty is your spell or an enemy's ruse?

Because my guy uses his Telepathic Bond to tell the control center that he is coming in and they tell the guard. Not to mention all my wizards teleport in, which can't be done unless you visit the bunker.


I wouldn't use it on the battlefield, I'd use it if my spies or military managed to capture someone who you've used it on.
Hmm, I wonder how hard it is to program a death reflex in a person...


For that matter, I could point out similar problems with getting high-level mages to submit to Programmed Amnesia.
I mentioned it once already, they get hit with it when they are low level mages.


I didn't say it was a perfect plan. Perhaps we cast fly on the rust monster, or train the rust monster so that when it teleport, it has a readied action to attack?

It gets 1 chance and then it falls. It needs a natural 20 to hit and the golem only fails the saving throw on a natural 1 IIRC. So 1 in 400 odds. How many rust monsters do you have?


You seem to be expecting the other nation to be reasonable and sensible about the matter, when history shows that the type of person to be conquering large areas of the world isn't going to be that sensible. Heck, personal experience shows that people in general aren't always sensible. The most likely thing that that stalemate will generate are new, more subtle ways to fight each other.

Subtle ways to fight are good. So logn as it isn't open war I'm fine.

horseboy
2007-07-05, 10:48 PM
No. They are retired soldiers, farmers, merchants, and various other loyal people who after receiving training are sent to a town and told to live their.

Farmers and merchants and various others. Peasants. Remember you said that they were locals that blended in completely.


Multiple shifts. And with 50 guys and 10 golems I could have many, many shifts. It is slightly more strained with the full force of 100 golems but oh well, 4 golems happen to be a minute late. Good for them. The other 96 were there and have solved the problem.

And if it was up to me they would all be Elans meaning I don't have to feed them and they don't need bathroom brakes.

I'm envisioning more the standard "Hurry up and wait" of the military. You know, you've just blown up a planet, a ship comes in with a powerful presents on it. You're guarding the tractor beam holding it there, and you've still got time to discus the new speeders coming out. Unless of course we're actually at war.


No. The golems in the field are linked 4 golems to 1 controller. That controller is linked to home base. The response time of the golems in the field is far above that of any other force because 1 brain is running the whole thing.

Ah, I thought you were saying that all the spies were tied to one guy.



The creator of what? Why do you keep assuming that you know about the golems. You have yet to show any way that you have found out that I am doing anything, much less enough specifics to make CoP work.

Then what just killed my 200 horsemen?


Sovereign glue requires you to stay still for a round for it to set. Not to mention that I prefer the Negative Energy wave that does 12d6 damage to every living thing within 40 feet.

That every round? Usually that stuff is every other or d3 rounds.


You think it matters? I Have one of your guys raised with Raise Dead in front of all the other rules and with their chief cleric and wizard present we use a nice zone of truth to make him tell us all everything.

I doubt you attempting to deceive them will go over so well.

Hmm, zone of truth. So when I ask you how many you have and are going to make, and why you're making them you're going to answer properly?



Let's see. Your in the middle of battle so -5 for the spotter being distracted. Then -1 for every 10 feet away from you I am. So at a 50 feet you couldn't spot me.

And all you find out is that an invisible creature is near you.

That's why there was dust of appearance. Be all like Johnny Quest and stuff.


Not really. The book just says a **** ton of shadesteel IIRC.

That's HIGHLY unusual. Usually you still had other things in all the other golems that you'd need.


What beings that existed before time began? And you don't seem to understand that all of these secrecy measures are very standard stuff. It's nothing amazing.

The outsiders you're duping with all these double agents.



Scrying magic doesn't help you at all. Really.

Which is why my spy network wouldn't rely on it.


Um, what the hell are you talking about? Why do you think I'm in my kingdom?

Somebody's gotta be running your country. Especially if you're refusing to have a chamberlain staff to take care of every red cent going around in your country.


And any American general would tell you that if the cost was the freewill of 50 Americans to protect the nation from all threats they would accept it in a heatbeat.
Doing 1 thing that is mildly fascist also doesn't make you a fascist dictator.

I'll disagree totally with you there.



Um, my golems fly away for a minute until your summons disappear and then come and bash your city.

But your golems showed up to my city flying, so I'd have to use flying elementals to engage them. This gives me time to prepare for your next assault.


Who said anything about max killing? Risking golems is stupid. They wil lstay out of range of the guy with a sword.

What about all the Roy's with his boots of striding and springing or ring of jumping, and the bow specialists, etc.


What exactly have I done thats suspicious? Remember. No one loyal to you knows anything about any of it. The gold is laundered 6 ways to Sunday and can't be traced to me. All that you would have to go on is I'm a bit to trusting with gold, my nobles are stealing it all. This isn't some sudden change.

Well, gold is disappearing, I can see where it's not going. Nobles are by nature ostentatious. If they're getting more money they'll be displaying more money. You're just not paranoid enough to see all the ways that you're telegraphing what you're doing.


I mind probe everyone entering secure military installations. And I do an even better check if you were being allowed into the war room/ golem construction facilities.

That's fine, but that leaves A LOT of places that my spies can gather information from.


So you are getting a spy who can detect magic into the kings study somehow and then are suspicious because you happen to see a Phase Door and from that manage to put together that I am building an army of golems?

More like a crumpled piece of paper with an obscure reference. I then have to discern what this is referencing and how.


Most kings have a bolt hole or way out if the castle is attacked. That is mine. Pretty much every ruler would have a Phase Door to a room containing a 1 time use item of teleport to retreat to a safe place. Or they may have a permanent teleport circle instead.

Yes, that's not what's suspicious.



Yes they do. The US is an excellent example. Japan in the 1800's is another. China back in the pre Columbus days is another.

We're considered exceptional because we don't. We're the exception that proves the norm.


IM me on AIM if you want to talk about why Rome feel. The barbarian hoards were a tertiary cause.

I watch a lot of History channel. I know ;)


We managed to hide a bomber program that allowed us to launch an undetectable disarming first strike against the soviet union. The stealth program, if the cold war hadn't ended, would have drastically changed the balance of power for the rest of the cold war.

But our primary ploy of sending MTV into Russia proved more successful. :smallcool:


And Russia didn't even know it existed until right before it was made public. The KGB was widely considered the best intelligence force in the world. And it was hidden from them. This is the agency that got one of its spies to the second highest position in the British intelligence community before he was discovered, and in 2 years he would have been the head of MI-5.

Yes, but they were too busy with the Russian mafia to be able to pay attention to us.



No. You seem to think my nation is a seething pool of rebellion just waitign for a spark to break out in open rebellion.

Why are you assuming this?

Well, you've got this whole "secret police" thing going on. You don't care if they're being attacked by a foreign power. Erasing peoples memories on whim.
People don't like that sort of thing.



Per RAW you can pound the thing with a sword with no problem. It only affects you if it hits with a touch attack, a standard action.

Ah, that is something they changed. Used to if you hit one with a metal weapon it rusted.


How does he know I am buying anything? Again, laundering money is incredibly easy. Especially if you are the government.

I know your money is disappearing. I'm trying to find out what you're buying.


Yes you can. I'm the king with a bad financial adviser who is skimming some of the taxes for his own personal wealth. My top general is apparently a bit bad as well, he doesn't seem to be keeping the guard in tip top shape.

Because if that was true, I'd be able to bribe him.



I maintain that even getting an inkling would be next to impossible. Then there are the false trails.

I wish I could remember who said it, but there's an old saying about the harder you try and hide something the more it wants to be found out.

PaladinBoy
2007-07-05, 10:58 PM
What exactly have I done thats suspicious? Remember. No one loyal to you knows anything about any of it. The gold is laundered 6 ways to Sunday and can't be traced to me. All that you would have to go on is I'm a bit to trusting with gold, my nobles are stealing it all. This isn't some sudden change.

I might not be an expert, but I do know that real intelligence work mostly involves putting together pieces of very sketchy info. My operatives in places like Sigil and Union tell me that someone is purchasing large amounts of shadesteel. My operatives in your palace tell me that gold is disappearing from your treasury, and investigating possibly corrupt officials in your administration yields interesting info, but no indication that they're siphoning off all the gold that's missing. Possible investigation of the gold pieces that are ending up in planar merchants' hands reveals that they were minted in your nation. Even if I skipped the middle step and couldn't figure out that it wasn't going to your corrupt officials, I could still do that last step and extrapolate that you were buying the shadesteel. Bringing that knowledge to my mages would yield a litany of possible uses for the stuff, and further investigation would begin.


I mind probe everyone entering secure military installations. And I do an even better check if you were being allowed into the war room/ golem construction facilities.

What happens if I use Programmed Amnesia on my spies? How do you distinguish your spells from mine?


And while its a good idea, my golems are cowards. If they get lwo on health they run away for a bit until they are fully healed again.

And what happens if an army equipped with heavy repeating crossbows and adamantine bolts keeps you at safe distance? What happens to the people that your forces are supposed to be protecting while your golems are hiding in a corner waiting to heal?


Yes you can. I'm the king with a bad financial adviser who is skimming some of the taxes for his own personal wealth. My top general is apparently a bit bad as well, he doesn't seem to be keeping the guard in tip top shape.

You set up the appearances 5+ years before you start work on the project.

Does that mean I'm not allowed to try and find out where the gold went? Just because I think I know where it's going is no reason to ignore it. I'll still make sure, and I can investigate the advisor or anyone who he could possibly be passing the gold to so long as I find it. Eventually, though, I'm gonna think, "It doesn't look like it's here. Where else could it be?"


I maintain that even getting an inkling would be next to impossible. Then there are the false trails.

We have plenty of security measures in the real world, and yet spies still manage to get information. It's possible to hide something....... but portraying it as effortless and infallible no matter how much effort the enemy is spending on finding out strikes me as implausible at best.


The on the ground spy.

Wait a minute here. He's either dead at the hands of my special forces, if they figure out who he is, or he's leaving the village, because my special forces are burning it down. The plan here is "Stay until the enemy teleports in, then leave." for the special forces no matter how many times you don't show up. If you don't show up by the time the village is gone, then we move on to the next one.

For that matter, your spy would have to read minds to even figure that much out, and if you think I'm going to send special forces teams out with high level mages without preventing enemy mages from using such a simple trick as detect thoughts?.........guess again.


Because my guy uses his Telepathic Bond to tell the control center that he is coming in and they tell the guard. Not to mention all my wizards teleport in, which can't be done unless you visit the bunker.

*snip*

I mentioned it once already, they get hit with it when they are low level mages.

Hmm..... I wonder how two Programmed Amnesia spells interact with each other? Because using Programmed Amnesia, possibly twice to be safe, to put deep cover spies in your nation seems like an okay plan.

Dervag
2007-07-05, 11:07 PM
No. They are retired soldiers, farmers, merchants, and various other loyal people who after receiving training are sent to a town and told to live their.You do realize that they'll stand out like a sore thumb for precisely that reason?


The creator of what? Why do you keep assuming that you know about the golems. You have yet to show any way that you have found out that I am doing anything, much less enough specifics to make CoP work.Actually; he's done a very good job of showing that he can stage intelligence operations that will eventually uncover what you're doing.

Moreover- and this is really important- once you have used the golems even once, you can not hide them. Their existence becomes known the first time they are used, just like the existence of the atomic bomb. At the very latest, that is when your rivals will start working on countermeasures, even if you assume that their spies are sitting on their thumbs while you build the golems.


Scrying magic doesn't help you at all. ReallyYes, which forces him to fall back on conventional intelligence-gathering techniques, relying on his own magic to hold your counterespionage teams at bay. So? Plenty of real spies have found out things without needing any scrying magic.


And any American general would tell you that if the cost was the freewill of 50 Americans to protect the nation from all threats they would accept it in a heatbeat.Prove it.


What exactly have I done thats suspicious? Remember. No one loyal to you knows anything about any of it. The gold is laundered 6 ways to Sunday and can't be traced to me. All that you would have to go on is I'm a bit to trusting with gold, my nobles are stealing it all. This isn't some sudden change.But the nobles aren't spending the gold, not detectably. Gold is disappearing down a hole here, and it isn't turning up anywhere else. Likewise, a bunch of wizards have disappeared.

These are ominous signs, sort of like a billion-dollar budget gap in a Third World country combined with the disappearance of several of that nation's top physicists. You can deduce that something important is happening from those facts alone. And there is absolutely no way for you to conceal them, no matter how many antiscrying protocols and mind control spells and telepathic investigators you use.


Yes they do. The US is an excellent example. Japan in the 1800's is another. China back in the pre Columbus days is another.Except that none of those nations built up unstoppable armies in their isolationist periods. Japan's military was so anemic in the 1800s that Commodore Perry could threaten them into compliance with four modern warships. The Chinese of pre-Columbian times had just enough military power to fend of barbarians; and they didn't like spending more money on it than they had to. And the US retained a small peacetime standing army that was expanded only in wartime until the Cold War, at which point we stopped being a nation that 'just wanted to be left alone'.


We managed to hide a bomber program that allowed us to launch an undetectable disarming first strike against the soviet union. The stealth program, if the cold war hadn't ended, would have drastically changed the balance of power for the rest of the cold war.We couldn't have crippled the Soviets with that first shot, though; they had the facilities to withstand a nuclear first strike. Stealth would not have changed the balance of power as much as you think, because the Soviets would still retain second strike capability regardless of what we might or might not do with stealth bombers.


No. You seem to think my nation is a seething pool of rebellion just waitign for a spark to break out in open rebellion.

Why are you assuming this?Because your golems are expensive and cost lots of taxes and worry people, and because your spies are running around reading everyone's minds?

People get nervous in those situations. You're using some tactics out of the secret police handbook here; you'll quickly find that you have to use the whole book if you want to maintain control.


And while its a good idea, my golems are cowards. If they get lwo on health they run away for a bit until they are fully healed again.There's a problem with that. If you pull your golems away from anything that might threaten them, and especially if there are casters going around dispelling the spells you put on them to soup up their powers, it will be hard to use the golems against a prepared enemy. Which means that the golems will be less effective in their original role as shock troops.

So your golems will be harder to trap, but also harder to use effectively because you don't want to risk sticking them into a trap.


Yes, it can be done. Can it be done under battle field conditions while your forces are fighting for their life? Not without an act of god.Can it be done by a nation that just saw what your supergolems did to the ogres of the Darg Mountains? Yes.


How does he know I am buying anything? Again, laundering money is incredibly easy. Especially if you are the government.Laundering money can't hide the fact that the money is going somewhere. Enough persistence (or legend lore spells) will lead them to the place it is spent. And since, as you say, all shadesteel is really good for is making golems, once they know what you're buying they know what you're doing.


Those working on the project don't have contact with the those outside the project. To enter the facilities you have to be mind probed, after being invited in by the king personally. The ones buying the supplies don't even know who they are buying it for. I'm talking 8 layers minimum between the supplier and the guy making the golem.Yes, but you can't make it impossible to trace transactions across multiple buyers any more than you can in real life. Someone knows they're selling a lot of shadesteel. They know who they're selling to. If you put tabs on those people, or start using legend lore to ask around, you can trace the chain back.

It's not fast, but it's possible. You can't dismiss the possibility.


Yes you can. I'm the king with a bad financial adviser who is skimming some of the taxes for his own personal wealth. My top general is apparently a bit bad as well, he doesn't seem to be keeping the guard in tip top shape.OK, so if your financial adviser is skimming money, why isn't it showing up? Where does the money go? Is he keeping it in some sort of vault? Then why all the secrecy? Why did all those wizards disappear?

These are the kinds of questions that real spies ask.


I maintain that even getting an inkling would be next to impossible. Then there are the false trails.

And so long as the entire golem construction process is done inside of Private Sanctums CoP and Legend Lore can't help you. Not even the gods can penetrate a Private Sanctum.All I have to do is find out you're buying shadesteel, which you aren't doing in your Private Sanctum. Once I know that, your intentions become as obvious as if you were buying weapons-grade plutonium. I know that you've got a secret golem construction program running; call it 'the Prague Project'.


And it is still easily to launder. 500,000 is about 2% of the national budget. A nice amount for my bad financial adviser to skim off. And if he hides the money as good as he can, well he wouldn't want the king to find out.OK, so the money's disappearing into a hole in the ground. This guy's supposedly sitting on millions and millions of embezzled gold pieces. What happens if my spies try to probe his finances?

Do I hit the same 'impenetrable' wall of mind-reading security that you have wrapped around the 'Prague Project'? If not, then I'll figure out that the guy doesn't actually have that money, which leads me back to the golems. If so, then that's a clue in and of itself. Why are government spies protecting information on the finances of a corrupt treasurer?


Hmm, I wonder how hard it is to program a death reflex in a person...Quite difficult. Moreover...


I mentioned it once already, they get hit with it when they are low level mages.If you do that, you have to use the brainwashing spell on every mage, because you don't know which ones are going to end up becoming powerful and suitable for your program. To make matters worse, it will quickly become common knowledge that student wizards in your country get hit with mind-control spells that make them totally loyal to the government, that make them forget their family, that make them totally obsessed with work.

Who would want to study magic in a country like that?

Tor the Fallen
2007-07-06, 02:00 AM
You are using the orcs the way an occupying army would be used, so saying you don't need an army, but you'll just have the orcs do it is arguing in favor of an occupying force of low HD grunts, with your Dragon as a strike force, which is what I advocated in the first place.

The boots on the ground just have green, clawed feet in them in your example.

Definitions of army on the Web:

a permanent organization of the military land forces of a nation or state
a large number of people united for some specific purpose
United States Army: the army of the United States of America; the agency that organizes and trains soldiers for land warfare
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
A nation's army is its military, or more specifically, all of its land forces. Within a national army, armies are formations composed of several corps.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army
The term Army, besides its generalized meaning (see "army") specifically denotes a major military formation in militaries of various countries, including the Soviet Union. A Soviet Army was equivalent to a corps in most militaries.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_(Soviet_Army)
the largest tactical unit in the military forces of the United States. Larger tactical commands are formed by grouping two or more armies into an army group. Following World War II the numbered armies of the US Army were six, including the Sixth US Army headquartered at the Presidio of San Francisco. The "United States Army" is composed of the nation's ground forces, as opposed to the US Navy, US Marine Corps, and the US Air Force.
www.nps.gov/prsf/history/glossary.htm
A formation made up of several Corps. Corps were allocated to armies as required.
www.warpath.orbat.com/glossary.htm
Used generically to mean a nation's land forces. Also a very large formation made up of two or more army corps, as in 1st Canadian Army, which at its peak strength in 1944-5 included about 160,000 personnel.
www.warmuseum.ca/cwm/newspapers/glossary_e.html
Two or more corps under the command of a general; generally between 120,000 and 200,000 all ranks.
collections.ic.gc.ca/courage/glossaryofterms.html
A group of more than one Corps under the command of a Major General. Union Armies were named after their Department and thus were named after rivers (Army of the Cumberland, Army of the Potomac, Army of the Tennessee, etc.). Confederate Armies were named after states. The Army of Tennessee was a Confederate Army. The Army of the Tennessee was a Union Army.
www.rootsweb.com/~ilcivilw/terms.htm
Two or more corps constitute an army (50,000 to 250,000 men).
www.hyw.com/Books/WargamesHandbook/2-c-term.htm
a military formation consisting of a minimum of two corps.
www.maine.gov/museum/collections/Flags/Level2/FlagGlos.html
a military unit comprised of two or more Corps.
www.geocities.com/Heartland/Woods/3501/glossary.htm
To dream of an army of soldiers is to dream of physical conflict. In this day and age of global conflict, one must consider their personal relationship to the military before attempting to analyze the dream completely.
www.katiestanley.com/resources/dd/a.htm
Largest administrative and tactical unit of a land force, also called Field Army, made up of Corps and Divisions comprising several components of arms & services, which are essential to combat . The Army Commander usually holds the grade of Lieutenant General . All Military Forces of a Nation, excluding Naval Forces, abbreviation A . ...
users.skynet.be/jeeper/Terms%20A.html
a ceremony, custom, or public structure to honor a dead person or past event.
www.teach-nology.com/worksheets/misc/veterans/quiz/

They really don't fall into any of those catgeories.


If you do use the Dragon as your only enforcement arm, even instituting a "pay tribute or Big Lizard Belong Sky burn down Mud Hut belong you" policy to keep the wealth flowing, you put all your eggs in one basket. The remnants of the populace, or the slaves you need to keep around to mine gold, grow crops, make wealth in whatever way you need to get the million gp to keep the dragon happy, will look around for a hero to slay the dragon.

I just make MW weapons and armor every day by casting fabricate on a wall of iron. I then sell the equipment to nations that still think that 'boots on the ground' actually matter.


Which should sound familiar to most gamers.

Yeah. I think the point most are missing is this:
High level and powerful creatures require other high level and powerful creatures to defeat them. Armies of mooks aren't going to do much. It's simply the way the D&D world works. These aren't real world mechanics, so real world analogies aren't that useful.

In the manner that Greyhawk is presented, it would be very easy for a high level int based caster and a dragon cohort (or an army of golems) to take over lots and lots. The only way to combat this (within any reasonable pobability of succeeding) is with a bunch of other CR 20 monstrosities.

At which point, we have a serious escalation of power and it's no longer anything like the Greyhawk setting. We've left pseudo-medieval far behind.

Trying to come up with mundane means of combating Tippy's force of golems is futile. You may as well try to explain how ancient Egypt could repel a time traveling force of walking tanks from mars.


Once again, I am not saying the Dragon or golems would be a bad thing, just that they are an incomplete force. Total war or not, Sherman marched to the sea with tens of thousands of infantry, cavalry and artillery, as well as engineers and signalers and a plethora of other specialists. The Allied invasion of Europe was hundreds of thousands. They couldn't have liberated France with nothing but a handful of B29s and Mustangs.

You know, only 500 to 1000 spaniards destroyed an Aztec empire of tens of millions.

horseboy
2007-07-06, 02:25 AM
Actually; he's done a very good job of showing that he can stage intelligence operations that will eventually uncover what you're doing.



Thank you,
I may not know d20 well, but I know how to be a sneaky git. No mega-corp's dirty laundry is safe!

Coyote Shaman, ftw!

Dervag
2007-07-06, 08:30 AM
They [the orcs] really don't fall into any of those catgeories.Only because they don't follow the Geneva conventions. They're actually a barbarian horde instead of an army, but their function is similar- to flush out small groups of enemies the dragon can't afford to waste time dealing with, and to physically occupy the territory in question.


Yeah. I think the point most are missing is this:
High level and powerful creatures require other high level and powerful creatures to defeat them. Armies of mooks aren't going to do much. It's simply the way the D&D world works. These aren't real world mechanics, so real world analogies aren't that useful.Well, we've established mechanisms by which low level mooks can pose a threat to high level monsters (crossbowmen threaten dragons when operating in large numbers; crossbowmen with adamantine bolts threaten the super-golems of the Tippian Empire when operating in large numbers).

Now, a threat doesn't necessarily kill. In some cases, it's quite likely not to kill. But it remains a threat, and one that the powerful monster must take seriously.

Moreover, there's no reliable way to tell high-level humans and demihumans with PC classes from low-level mooks at a distance, which makes operating as if mooks were no threat even more dangerous.


Trying to come up with mundane means of combating Tippy's force of golems is futile. You may as well try to explain how ancient Egypt could repel a time traveling force of walking tanks from mars.

[quote]You know, only 500 to 1000 spaniards destroyed an Aztec empire of tens of millions.No, 500 to 1000 spaniards combined with the entire population of Tlaxcala, a city with tens of thousands of soldiers that the Spanish recruited to aid them, destroyed an empire that controlled millions or tens of millions.

The way in which the Aztec Empire controlled that population is actually relevant, because it's the only way that a dragon or force of supergolems could control territory: by threatening to beat the living daylights out of anyone who failed to pay their tribute. The Aztec subject city-states could refuse to pay their taxes any time they liked as long as they were willing and ready to fight the resulting Aztec punitive expedition.

And look what happened to them. Eventually, someone capable of defeating them showed up, and they immediately faced a crisis because their tributaries had no reason to be loyal to them if they had a competing power base to rally to.

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-06, 01:41 PM
You do realize that they'll stand out like a sore thumb for precisely that reason?
Why? Because 10 years ago Bill moved to town? He's a retired solider who was given some land like all the other retired sliders and he took up farming.

Bob the merchant set up shop about 5 years back, came and set up shop when the miltiary was training in the area to sell them stuff, he fell in love with the area and decided to stay.


Actually; he's done a very good job of showing that he can stage intelligence operations that will eventually uncover what you're doing.
No, he has done a great job of saying he has penetrated them but he has yet to show how.


Moreover- and this is really important- once you have used the golems even once, you can not hide them. Their existence becomes known the first time they are used, just like the existence of the atomic bomb. At the very latest, that is when your rivals will start working on countermeasures, even if you assume that their spies are sitting on their thumbs while you build the golems.
After I have the force it doesn't matter. They are at least a hundred years behind me.


Yes, which forces him to fall back on conventional intelligence-gathering techniques, relying on his own magic to hold your counterespionage teams at bay. So? Plenty of real spies have found out things without needing any scrying magic.
Yes, and they have also failed to find stuff plenty of times.


But the nobles aren't spending the gold, not detectably. Gold is disappearing down a hole here, and it isn't turning up anywhere else. Likewise, a bunch of wizards have disappeared.
Yes they are. What makes you think they aren't spending money? Noble A appears to be skimming money from me, say 500,000 GP per year. He is quietly investing it in various shipping concerns. Mainly in high value items like silks and spices.

1 in 10 ships goes missing, shipping is a dangerous business. The goods are teleported off the ship to a hidden location of my choice. They are then teleported to the warehouse of a silk dealer on the other side of the world. This man sells the silks and passes on 50% of the profits to the man who insures the silks are delivered. This man thinks he is a spy for another nation, one besides mine, and passes the gold on to his boss (who is really one of my agents) who then gives it to John (a wizard agent who can cast greater plane shift and thinks he is working for the same nation as that other guy). John gives the gold to Bob in Sigil. Bob goes and delivers the gold to the merchant who provides the shadesteel (which reaches my kingdom through an entirely different chain). He buys the shadesteel through his own network and thinks it is going to a lich who lives in the underdark.

The noble has all his ships insured with out of country insurers (doesn't want his king knowing how much he is spending as he might wonder where the gold is coming from). So the insurer covers the loss (and only 10% lost is a very good percentage).

You know right where the gold goes. To Noble A who then invests it in shipping high value goods. He loses some to the sea like all other merchants but most get through and are mostly reinvested in the shipping firm. He has maybe a thousand shipments per year and of that 6 get "lost" with all hands.


We couldn't have crippled the Soviets with that first shot, though; they had the facilities to withstand a nuclear first strike. Stealth would not have changed the balance of power as much as you think, because the Soviets would still retain second strike capability regardless of what we might or might not do with stealth bombers.
If the original production run on the stealth bomber had been continued, as it was going to be before the end of the cold war, then a disarming first strike would have been possible.


Because your golems are expensive and cost lots of taxes and worry people, and because your spies are running around reading everyone's minds?
Their taxes haven't gone up and I am not running around reading everyones mind. Those who have their mind read are those trying to access secure areas (the kings apartments and a few false flag locations aroudn the kingdom).


People get nervous in those situations. You're using some tactics out of the secret police handbook here; you'll quickly find that you have to use the whole book if you want to maintain control.
No I'm really not. People don't start rebelling when the presidential cleaning staff has to go through regular background checks. Or when to get security clearance they talk with your 5th grade teacher.


There's a problem with that. If you pull your golems away from anything that might threaten them, and especially if there are casters going around dispelling the spells you put on them to soup up their powers, it will be hard to use the golems against a prepared enemy. Which means that the golems will be less effective in their original role as shock troops.
That was the plan if I only had 10. It's different with 100.


Can it be done by a nation that just saw what your supergolems did to the ogres of the Darg Mountains? Yes.
They saw a bunch of golems come out from behind a mountain and attack the ogres and kill them. The golems then retreated behind a mountain. I won't pop into the middle of a battle. Just close.


Laundering money can't hide the fact that the money is going somewhere. Enough persistence (or legend lore spells) will lead them to the place it is spent. And since, as you say, all shadesteel is really good for is making golems, once they know what you're buying they know what you're doing.
See above.

And let's look at legend lore. Your spies find out that the figures don't add up. Thats enough to cast it asking where the money is going. After a 2d6 week casting time you get the rumor that someone is skimming money from the crown. Another 2d6 weeks and you learn that noble A is the one skimming the money. Another 1d10 days later and you learn that it is quietly being directed into his shipping business.


Yes, but you can't make it impossible to trace transactions across multiple buyers any more than you can in real life. Someone knows they're selling a lot of shadesteel. They know who they're selling to. If you put tabs on those people, or start using legend lore to ask around, you can trace the chain back.
Not really. They know who they think they are selling to. And if you follow the chain it will direct you to a different nation than mine.


It's not fast, but it's possible. You can't dismiss the possibility.
Braking a chain of cutouts requires 1 person in it to pull themselves out. And you do realize that you (nation 1) are attempting to trace a chain of people (who think they are working for nation 2) in nation 3. When I am nation 4. Do you think that nation 1 is just going to let your spies hang out in their?


OK, so if your financial adviser is skimming money, why isn't it showing up? Where does the money go? Is he keeping it in some sort of vault? Then why all the secrecy? Why did all those wizards disappear?
See above for where the money is going. You mean why did all those level 1 wizard students disappear? Lot's of stupid wizards die when they leave home adventuring to early.


These are the kinds of questions that real spies ask.
And they all have a very obvious answer and a hidden answer before the real answer.


All I have to do is find out you're buying shadesteel, which you aren't doing in your Private Sanctum. Once I know that, your intentions become as obvious as if you were buying weapons-grade plutonium. I know that you've got a secret golem construction program running; call it 'the Prague Project'.
Yes, but even the person selling it doesn't know that I am the one buying it. And the people buying it don't even know what the yare buying.


OK, so the money's disappearing into a hole in the ground. This guy's supposedly sitting on millions and millions of embezzled gold pieces. What happens if my spies try to probe his finances?
See above. Probing his finances (hard because he is trying to hide his embezzlement from the king) shows that it goes into shipping like the rest of his money.


Do I hit the same 'impenetrable' wall of mind-reading security that you have wrapped around the 'Prague Project'? If not, then I'll figure out that the guy doesn't actually have that money, which leads me back to the golems. If so, then that's a clue in and of itself. Why are government spies protecting information on the finances of a corrupt treasurer?
The financial adviser is protected himself but not his servants or anyone else involved with him. All high officers of the crown are likewise protected, as I am sure you protect yours.


Quite difficult. Moreover...
Maybe. Programmings a suicide reflex isn't that difficult but I mean an actual death reflex.


If you do that, you have to use the brainwashing spell on every mage, because you don't know which ones are going to end up becoming powerful and suitable for your program. To make matters worse, it will quickly become common knowledge that student wizards in your country get hit with mind-control spells that make them totally loyal to the government, that make them forget their family, that make them totally obsessed with work.

Who would want to study magic in a country like that?
What are you talking about? I grab random low level mages from numerous countries who go out adventuring. Preferably elves because of their age. They are then trained by my wizard and forced into dangerous situations. Essentially staged adventures. Those that die I res and they can reach the required level in under 5 years.

Arakune
2007-07-06, 03:24 PM
hey tippy, can you re-submit your "army of dooms day" updated?
you said too many things after the first post, so a little clean up could help.
also you could do it, in a very easy fashion: be the Solaris nation of Xenogears. Problem solved.

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-06, 03:27 PM
hey tippy, can you re-submit your "army of dooms day" updated?
you said too many things after the first post, so a little clean up could help.
also you could do it, in a very easy fashion: be the Solaris nation of Xenogears. Problem solved.
Haha.

And yes I will type up the whole thing later today or tomorrow (depends on what happens in real life when I get around to it) . Complete with counter measures and security precautions.

Kioran
2007-07-06, 04:20 PM
Haha.

And yes I will type up the whole thing later today or tomorrow (depends on what happens in real life when I get around to it) . Complete with counter measures and security precautions.

The two problems this plan has are control, because having several dozen telepathic bonds permanently will drive you to distraction or f**cking insane, and repeated attacks wonīt even let the participants get any rest, which is baaaad for mages. Of course, common sense isnīt RAW, which is why I still need to cease this point to our nr. 1 rules lawyer.

The second problem: Again, not RAW, but if you buy weapons or shadesteel in Sigil or on some other plane, who says these guys, in the possesion of potent magic weapons, donīt simply beat your ass and take your stuff? Happens all the time. Nuclear weapons didnīt get proliferated quite as fast as anyone expected, because some countries (Israel, wih U.S. backing) actually bomb out neighbours who attempt to build these weapons. Other countires never sell these weapons since theyīll lose their worth if everybody does.
Chances are, if you arenīt the first one in all existence to try this, your predecessors will kick your balls when they find out what youīre up to. Getting materials from other plans, especially when, as with shadesteel, their purpose is obvious, will bring all the bloodhounds on your trail. So outside support - no dice. Itīs the same reason thereīs only one Pun-Pun/Omniscificer in all existence. The original one casually stops any wannabes in their Tracks.

And building from scratch bears the risk of neighbours with conventional armies kicking down your doors before youīre prepared.

Dervag
2007-07-06, 07:11 PM
Why? Because 10 years ago Bill moved to town? He's a retired solider who was given some land like all the other retired sliders and he took up farming.

Bob the merchant set up shop about 5 years back, came and set up shop when the miltiary was training in the area to sell them stuff, he fell in love with the area and decided to stay.They moved there, rather than being born there. In and of itself this means that your potential pool of spies is small, and that someone only has to check a few people with detect magic in order to identify your spies in any given place.

Moreover, it makes it more difficult to replace your spies in a hostile community; a new outsider will be even more suspect than a long-standing one.


No, he has done a great job of saying he has penetrated them but he has yet to show how.By analogy, you have done a great job of saying he can't ever ask any questions that will lead him to the golems, but haven't yet shown how.

You've established that the actual golem assembly will take place in a secure location his spies can't reach. And you've established that you will be trying to launder the money. But money laundering isn't a magic wand. Investigators can figure out where laundered money is going if they have time, and with the Prague Project taking several decades, they will have the time.


After I have the force it doesn't matter. They are at least a hundred years behind me.Only if you pretend that the only counter to a supergolem is another supergolem. Since that isn't true, they aren't a century behind you in antigolem tactics. They are a century behind you in golem construction.

Moreover, this assumes that you will not use any of your golems during the hundred year period of buildup, which means that you will be supporting a large conventional military during this time, which reduces the budget available to the Prague Project, which means that it will take longer than you said it would.


Yes they are. What makes you think they aren't spending money? Noble A appears to be skimming money from me, say 500,000 GP per year. He is quietly investing it in various shipping concerns. Mainly in high value items like silks and spices.Ah. I misunderstood; I had assumed that the skimming of money was an actual ruse instead of being a money laundering scheme.

The problem is that if the skimming of money is a money laundering scheme, then that gives your enemies a place to start rolling up your laundry operation. They know roughly how much money Noble A should have; they know roughly how much he's spending. They know he's investing a lot of money in shipping, so they look at his ships, suspecting a money laundering operation.

They find that more of his ships are disappearing under mysterious circumstances than those of his competitors.

Now what? Now they try to put spies aboard Noble A's ships. If you put them under intensive security to stop the spies, that tells them something- you have a reason to stop spies from finding out what's happening on board those ships, and start using divination spells to find out what's happening to the silk. If you don't, then they learn that the goods are being teleported away.

Either way, they find out that silk is disappearing sooner or later. That's going to present some problems, because they don't know where the silk is going and can't readily deduce it. But if they keep spying on your shipping lines long enough, and start looking at silk inventories, they'll twig to it eventually. And so on.

The point is that you can't launder money perfectly. You can launder it well, but not perfectly. To prevent spies from figuring out where the money is going, you'd have to use your mind-reading secret police and brainwashed wizards to do all the work. Which will, of course, reveeal that something of national importance is happening, because otherwise the Tippian secret police wouldn't be deporting every Dervaglander spy who tries to board one of Noble A's ships.


You know right where the gold goes. To Noble A who then invests it in shipping high value goods. He loses some to the sea like all other merchants but most get through and are mostly reinvested in the shipping firm. He has maybe a thousand shipments per year and of that 6 get "lost" with all hands.So what about all the other ships lost to other causes in addition to the ones he's losing? Look at the statistics for a few years and it will become apparent that this guy is in fact losing a few ships a year more than normal for the routes he's taking. Since he's also the guy embezzling royal money and since the disappearance of those powerful wizards is a danger sign, people aren't going to stop there.

It will take time, and there will be lots of false starts. But you can't expect to conceal a money laundering operation from the world's espionage services for a century.


If the original production run on the stealth bomber had been continued, as it was going to be before the end of the cold war, then a disarming first strike would have been possible.What about the Soviet boomers?


They saw a bunch of golems come out from behind a mountain and attack the ogres and kill them. The golems then retreated behind a mountain. I won't pop into the middle of a battle. Just close.People are going to hear about the golems, though; their existence is remarkable in and of itself, which attracts questions.


And let's look at legend lore. Your spies find out that the figures don't add up. Thats enough to cast it asking where the money is going. After a 2d6 week casting time you get the rumor that someone is skimming money from the crown. Another 2d6 weeks and you learn that noble A is the one skimming the money. Another 1d10 days later and you learn that it is quietly being directed into his shipping business.Which, in turn raises more questions.

Again, I have decades to investigate your money laundering operations. That means that the weeks or months it takes to get results from spells like legend lore are trivial.


Braking a chain of cutouts requires 1 person in it to pull themselves out. And you do realize that you (nation 1) are attempting to trace a chain of people (who think they are working for nation 2) in nation 3. When I am nation 4. Do you think that nation 1 is just going to let your spies hang out in their?If you don't it will be remarkable. Most governments don't take the trouble to roll up the espionage networks in their countries unless it's urgent or unless they get specific information telling them where to find the spies. Otherwise, a witch hunt for spies is more trouble than it's worth.

So when you start deporting spies en masse, people are going to start wondering what you're trying to hide.


See above for where the money is going. You mean why did all those level 1 wizard students disappear? Lot's of stupid wizards die when they leave home adventuring to early.Oh. So you're disappearing the wizards when they're just students. That increases the time it takes you to start turning out golems, increases the number of students you have to brainwash (some of them aren't going to pan out as high-level wizards), increases the risk that you'll get escapee students from the program who ran when they found out you were brainwashing and disappearing students, et cetera.


And they all have a very obvious answer and a hidden answer before the real answer.But since both the obvious and hidden answers are falsifiable, investigators will eventually realize that there's an elaborate hoax going on.


What are you talking about? I grab random low level mages from numerous countries who go out adventuring. Preferably elves because of their age. They are then trained by my wizard and forced into dangerous situations. Essentially staged adventures. Those that die I res and they can reach the required level in under 5 years.Ah, so now you're kidnapping foreigners. Think that won't raise questions? Think you can't be found out?

Again, this whole plan pivots on your ability to retain absolute secrecy for over a hundred years. I don't think it can be done. And I definitely don't think you're justified in dismissing the risk that it won't be done.

13_CBS
2007-07-06, 07:18 PM
You know, I wish there was a way to simulate all of this golem construction vs espionage thing, just to see how it all plays out. Heck, I'd pay to see it.

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-06, 08:43 PM
They moved there, rather than being born there. In and of itself this means that your potential pool of spies is small, and that someone only has to check a few people with detect magic in order to identify your spies in any given place.
Why they retire back to the towns they grew up in. And sure, they show up to a simple detect magic, it's not like I much mind. If any of them fail to report in then I know that something is happening so I send someone to check it out.


Moreover, it makes it more difficult to replace your spies in a hostile community; a new outsider will be even more suspect than a long-standing one.
In a hostile community, yes. There is no reason for my own communities to be hostile towards me.


You've established that the actual golem assembly will take place in a secure location his spies can't reach. And you've established that you will be trying to launder the money. But money laundering isn't a magic wand. Investigators can figure out where laundered money is going if they have time, and with the Prague Project taking several decades, they will have the time.
So you are willing to submit that the only way you can coem up with to find out about the golems is by tracking the money?


Moreover, this assumes that you will not use any of your golems during the hundred year period of buildup, which means that you will be supporting a large conventional military during this time, which reduces the budget available to the Prague Project, which means that it will take longer than you said it would.
I already have a fairly significant chunk of extra time built in. And I already said that you should keep your army at the same general level, perhaps a bit less (incompetent generals you know).


The problem is that if the skimming of money is a money laundering scheme, then that gives your enemies a place to start rolling up your laundry operation. They know roughly how much money Noble A should have; they know roughly how much he's spending. They know he's investing a lot of money in shipping, so they look at his ships, suspecting a money laundering operation.

They find that more of his ships are disappearing under mysterious circumstances than those of his competitors.

Now what? Now they try to put spies aboard Noble A's ships. If you put them under intensive security to stop the spies, that tells them something- you have a reason to stop spies from finding out what's happening on board those ships, and start using divination spells to find out what's happening to the silk. If you don't, then they learn that the goods are being teleported away.
Considering that it is maybe 5 ships in the year out of maybe 5 thousand voyages and that my people just have to make sure you aren't on those specific voyages I don't see a problem.

And if I manage to find out who one of your spies is then I can end the whole spy operation fairly easily. One of my wizards casts AMF and walks up next to him, disabling any telepathic bond and a few of my people knock him unconscious. 1 Programmed Amnesia later and he is perfectly loyal to me. I now put him on 1 of the ships and his instructions are to say that they are being attacked by some sea monster. He tragically dies in the middle of his report.

If I can do it to 2 or 3 of them it should be enough.


Either way, they find out that silk is disappearing sooner or later. That's going to present some problems, because they don't know where the silk is going and can't readily deduce it. But if they keep spying on your shipping lines long enough, and start looking at silk inventories, they'll twig to it eventually. And so on.
So you have a full network in every nation on the world? Because the silk is going to a nation on the other side of the world from us. It is also unlikely that the silk seller is keeping to good of records, he is most assuredly cooking the books because he is getting a fairly substantial amount of silk that he hasn't paid import taxes on.


The point is that you can't launder money perfectly. You can launder it well, but not perfectly. To prevent spies from figuring out where the money is going, you'd have to use your mind-reading secret police and brainwashed wizards to do all the work. Which will, of course, reveeal that something of national importance is happening, because otherwise the Tippian secret police wouldn't be deporting every Dervaglander spy who tries to board one of Noble A's ships.
As I said, I generally leave your spies alone. Unless you are putting a spy on every voyage, in which case I would find out about it and turn them.

In real life it is incredibly easy to launder money. As soon as money appears in a bank account pretty much anywhere in the world it becomes legit. Once in the account you can hide it through anonymous accounts with little effort. American Banks are the exception, not the rule. Most of the worlds banks will fight any warrant to see their records tooth and nail, and many of them offer anonymous banking. Where they literally don't even know who the money belongs to.


So what about all the other ships lost to other causes in addition to the ones he's losing? Look at the statistics for a few years and it will become apparent that this guy is in fact losing a few ships a year more than normal for the routes he's taking. Since he's also the guy embezzling royal money and since the disappearance of those powerful wizards is a danger sign, people aren't going to stop there.
He seems to be unlucky.

Figure 5,000 voyages for the year and that the average number of ships lost for all my routes is 10%. That is 500 ships on average. 5 ships are what I need to lose to fund my golems. Or .01% of my voyages. That is well within the margin of error.

Now lets suppose you devote 100 spies to Noble A's shipping company (a very high number, in real life most nations don't have that many field officers devoted to them). Each spy can go on 5 Voyages per year. So 500 voyages are checked.

There is a 1% chance that any of your spies get on a voyage that is lost and a 9x10^-4 % chance that you are on one of my special ships. And that is assuming a completely random crew assignment for each of those special ships.


It will take time, and there will be lots of false starts. But you can't expect to conceal a money laundering operation from the world's espionage services for a century.
Yes I can. You think I will run the same money laundering scheme for the full 130 years? This one would last maybe 20.

I believe it was horseboy who said I had 10 golems when he attacked. Meaning 5 years after I started production he had enough information to be willing to go to war with AND convince various other nations to back it.


What about the Soviet boomers?
Read some of the books put out by retired sub officers. When the soviet subs were out of port they almost always had at least 1 attack sub as a tail.


People are going to hear about the golems, though; their existence is remarkable in and of itself, which attracts questions.
Yeah, and I will come up with a cover story. Hmm

"Yes, while mining gold in those mountains the miners came across some old tomb and my court mage went to check it out. He found these interesting creations and just last year managed to figure out how to get them to follow orders. It's a real shame that he can't figure out how they are made. He keeps telling me he has the theory down but every time he tries to make one it fails, something about the magic not taking to the metal. So now I just use them as a fast response force in that area, it's much cheaper than sending army patrols out there."


Which, in turn raises more questions.
See above. An answer for every question. Occam's razor, "entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity". The simply answer is the best answer.


Again, I have decades to investigate your money laundering operations. That means that the weeks or months it takes to get results from spells like legend lore are trivial.
Yes, it is fairly trivial but it still doesn't help you much. That was weeks just to find out that someone is skimming money. Another few weeks to figure out who. Another week or so to figure out how. Then checking it.


If you don't it will be remarkable. Most governments don't take the trouble to roll up the espionage networks in their countries unless it's urgent or unless they get specific information telling them where to find the spies. Otherwise, a witch hunt for spies is more trouble than it's worth.
I was talking about the third nation. The idea was Dervagland is attempting to follow a chain of agents who appear to be from Ramboland inside the borders of Barneyton while in actuality the network is reporting to Tippyland.


So when you start deporting spies en masse, people are going to start wondering what you're trying to hide.
I never said I was going to deport spies.


Oh. So you're disappearing the wizards when they're just students. That increases the time it takes you to start turning out golems, increases the number of students you have to brainwash (some of them aren't going to pan out as high-level wizards), increases the risk that you'll get escapee students from the program who ran when they found out you were brainwashing and disappearing students, et cetera.
No. I am finding students who go adventuring, or have the wise old sage in the village of 50 as a master and the guy dies on them. What is the survival rate for low level adventuring wizards? It's under 5%. My kidnapping them will be unnoticed as they are assumed dead. If I don't just wait for them to die and then res them.


But since both the obvious and hidden answers are falsifiable, investigators will eventually realize that there's an elaborate hoax going on.
If they continue to look. You have been investigating me for 20 years, the spy in charge thinks something is going on but its been 20 years and you have seen no return on the money you keep poring in. Thousands of agents over the years and you haven't found anything to make it worthwhile. Dogbertland has been acting up though and they are pretty underfunded right now. The head of your intel service slashes your budget and reassigns the spies.


Ah, so now you're kidnapping foreigners. Think that won't raise questions? Think you can't be found out?
No. 50 people are disappearing around the world. All of them went out adventuring, a notoriously dangerous profession and didn't come back.


Again, this whole plan pivots on your ability to retain absolute secrecy for over a hundred years. I don't think it can be done. And I definitely don't think you're justified in dismissing the risk that it won't be done.
Over 100 years? See above. You really think that its remotely realistic to keep devoting those kinds of resources to spy on me after it doesn't turn anything up in 20 years? 30 years? 50 years?


You know, I wish there was a way to simulate all of this golem construction vs espionage thing, just to see how it all plays out. Heck, I'd pay to see it.

If someone neutral wants to DM it I'm game.

PaladinBoy
2007-07-06, 10:37 PM
So you are willing to submit that the only way you can coem up with to find out about the golems is by tracking the money?

I'm not, no. Personally, I would sell some shadesteel to the same intermediaries which I couldn't trace back to their source. With a little surprise inside. Probably an item, with two contingent spells tied to it...... first, a preprogrammed sending informing a group of my chief psionicists of its activation, then, a contingent disjunction to destroy the anti-scrying wards, and probably any other magic in the area. Whichever one is awake/ready when he gets the sending uses that metafaculty power. Admittedly, this would require either modifications to the power or using some Fine creature in stasis for the surprise, with an item with the spells, but whatever. And yes, the creature would be shielded from divination and any magic items used would have auras erased by the magic aura spell.

And that's only one possible plan, from a person who, while reasonably intelligent, has not been trained in spying and gathering infromation.


And if I manage to find out who one of your spies is then I can end the whole spy operation fairly easily. One of my wizards casts AMF and walks up next to him, disabling any telepathic bond and a few of my people knock him unconscious. 1 Programmed Amnesia later and he is perfectly loyal to me. I now put him on 1 of the ships and his instructions are to say that they are being attacked by some sea monster. He tragically dies in the middle of his report.

If I can do it to 2 or 3 of them it should be enough.

So, without magic, my spies are completely helpless? Wrong. They have orders to avoid capture, even if they have to resort to suicide. And all you need for that is a dagger. And no, the various methods of raising the dead are all voluntary on the dead guy's part. He's unlikely to agree if there's a possibility that it's your people.

That presumes you can find my spies. If you can, then my nation is doing something wrong anyway.


So you have a full network in every nation on the world? Because the silk is going to a nation on the other side of the world from us. It is also unlikely that the silk seller is keeping to good of records, he is most assuredly cooking the books because he is getting a fairly substantial amount of silk that he hasn't paid import taxes on.

As for the first question, yes, I do have a network in every nation. My nation in this thought excercise focuses on espionage to the exclusion of almost everything else.


He seems to be unlucky.

That's the obvious answer. Just because it's obvious doesn't mean it's right. Particularly when you consider all the other interesting stuff about this guy.


Yeah, and I will come up with a cover story. Hmm

"Yes, while mining gold in those mountains the miners came across some old tomb and my court mage went to check it out. He found these interesting creations and just last year managed to figure out how to get them to follow orders. It's a real shame that he can't figure out how they are made. He keeps telling me he has the theory down but every time he tries to make one it fails, something about the magic not taking to the metal. So now I just use them as a fast response force in that area, it's much cheaper than sending army patrols out there."

See above. I'm talking about a reasonably paranoid espionage nation here. We have no reason to believe you and every reason to worry that you can/will make more golems.


See above. An answer for every question. Occam's razor, "entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity". The simply answer is the best answer.

Covered this. There might be a simple answer, but when dealing with a nation that goes to your extremes to hide information, we have every reason to believe that the simple, obvious answer that you're providing is a cover.


Yes, it is fairly trivial but it still doesn't help you much. That was weeks just to find out that someone is skimming money. Another few weeks to figure out who. Another week or so to figure out how. Then checking it.

We have years to spend finding this out. And using limited wish or wish to replicate the necessary spells skips the long casting times.


No. I am finding students who go adventuring, or have the wise old sage in the village of 50 as a master and the guy dies on them. What is the survival rate for low level adventuring wizards? It's under 5%. My kidnapping them will be unnoticed as they are assumed dead. If I don't just wait for them to die and then res them.

And these people aren't going to have families interested in tracking down their remains, or something similar? Admittedly, my spies wouldn't be doing that, but if it kept happening, eventually some family would decide to mount a search or something.


If they continue to look. You have been investigating me for 20 years, the spy in charge thinks something is going on but its been 20 years and you have seen no return on the money you keep poring in. Thousands of agents over the years and you haven't found anything to make it worthwhile. Dogbertland has been acting up though and they are pretty underfunded right now. The head of your intel service slashes your budget and reassigns the spies.

Again, I'm assuming a nation which spends almost all of its effort and time spying on practically every other major nation in the world. And even if we didn't find anything out about the golem project specifically, we'd still dig up interesting tidbits about your government, your nobles, your shipping operations, etc.


Over 100 years? See above. You really think that its remotely realistic to keep devoting those kinds of resources to spy on me after it doesn't turn anything up in 20 years? 30 years? 50 years?

See above. We're already spying on you....... our sub-par military means we prefer to reveal plots and use sabotage and clever tactics with espionage to overcome enemies. For that matter, you wouldn't be hiding your nation's new economic plan so strenuously........ we would be interested because the secrecy involved practically screams "black project". Which usually means military buildup.

And we would probably realize that something's up. In fact, I can even think of a way to confirm that something odd was going on. Have my spies anonymously inform you of your guy's skimming. Either you don't do anything, which tells us that soemthing odd is going on here, or you spend the time and effort to work out a new scheme, and kick the guy we told you about out. While you're working that out, funding for the golem project is stopped, or going there more directly. And yes, if the one guy was kicked out and a new guy immiediately started skimming again, we would suspect something. And if you pretended to be corrupt yourself and hold that up as a reason to ignore it, then you've handed us a propaganda weapon that we can use to inflame your public's and the world's opinion against you.

Dervag
2007-07-06, 11:28 PM
Ironically, given the name, I find myself wanting PaladinBoy as my spymaster.


Why they retire back to the towns they grew up in. And sure, they show up to a simple detect magic, it's not like I much mind. If any of them fail to report in then I know that something is happening so I send someone to check it out.Ah. Before, you did not specify that you were using people native to the communities in question.


So you are willing to submit that the only way you can coem up with to find out about the golems is by tracking the money?That's one of the classic ways of finding out about any secret project. The other is when rumors of the weapon's existence emerge after it is tested, which we've already covered. And you refuse to believe that that's possible, too.


Considering that it is maybe 5 ships in the year out of maybe 5 thousand voyages and that my people just have to make sure you aren't on those specific voyages I don't see a problem.So your secret police bump my guy off the ship... and it disappears without a trace. Suspicious.

Remember that intelligence work is all about piecing together petty anomalies. The more anomalies you create, the more curious your enemies' spies are going to get.


And if I manage to find out who one of your spies is then I can end the whole spy operation fairly easily. One of my wizards casts AMF and walks up next to him, disabling any telepathic bond and a few of my people knock him unconscious. 1 Programmed Amnesia later and he is perfectly loyal to me. I now put him on 1 of the ships and his instructions are to say that they are being attacked by some sea monster. He tragically dies in the middle of his report.Why would I use a telepathic bond when I know how easy it is to track?

Spies that show up like a flare on detect magic aren't very useful as spies.


So you have a full network in every nation on the world? Because the silk is going to a nation on the other side of the world from us. It is also unlikely that the silk seller is keeping to good of records, he is most assuredly cooking the books because he is getting a fairly substantial amount of silk that he hasn't paid import taxes on.The question "Silk is disappearing on the ships of Noble A; where is it going?" is a suitable target for legend lore.


As I said, I generally leave your spies alone. Unless you are putting a spy on every voyage, in which case I would find out about it and turn them.


In real life it is incredibly easy to launder money. As soon as money appears in a bank account pretty much anywhere in the world it becomes legit. Once in the account you can hide it through anonymous accounts with little effort. American Banks are the exception, not the rule. Most of the worlds banks will fight any warrant to see their records tooth and nail, and many of them offer anonymous banking. Where they literally don't even know who the money belongs to.Yes, and this is based on a network of electronicized banking and modern finances. In an economy based on gold coins, things don't work the same way.

If you want to assume a modern economy, you should have said so. And even then, each layer of laundry only delays my intelligence work long enough to cast the necessary spells to inquire.


Figure 5,000 voyages for the year and that the average number of ships lost for all my routes is 10%. That is 500 ships on average. 5 ships are what I need to lose to fund my golems. Or .01% of my voyages. That is well within the margin of error.If ships get sunk once in every ten voyages on regular runs, world shipping collapses. Sailors aren't going to want to play Russian Roulette like that. So you're positing a sinkage rate that is incompatible with large-scale oceangoing trade. Which makes the fact that Noble A is investing money in shipping an anomaly all by itself, because it's an incredibly high-risk activity.


Read some of the books put out by retired sub officers. When the soviet subs were out of port they almost always had at least 1 attack sub as a tail.How often did the attack sub have its own tail?

But that's not a major question. My basic point remains that the entire Russian nuclear deterrent had to be based on the assumption that they could still launch a large salvo of nukes even after the bombs started to land. If not, then their incentive was to launch a first strike before



Yeah, and I will come up with a cover story. Hmm

"Yes, while mining gold in those mountains the miners came across some old tomb and my court mage went to check it out. He found these interesting creations and just last year managed to figure out how to get them to follow orders. It's a real shame that he can't figure out how they are made. He keeps telling me he has the theory down but every time he tries to make one it fails, something about the magic not taking to the metal. So now I just use them as a fast response force in that area, it's much cheaper than sending army patrols out there."Great cover. Really. It's good. It may even conceal the fact that you're building the supergolems.

What it doesn't cover is the fact that you have the supergolems, that they just beat the tar out of an army of ogres, and that your neighbors have no idea what they are or how to fight them.

Which means that your rivals start trying to figure out how to counter your golems, which is exactly what you were trying to avoid.


See above. An answer for every question. Occam's razor, "entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity". The simply answer is the best answer.If you assume that intelligence staff will automatically stop looking once they see the simplest answer, you are grievously underestimating them. They get paid to be suspicious SOBs, remember?


Yes, it is fairly trivial but it still doesn't help you much. That was weeks just to find out that someone is skimming money. Another few weeks to figure out who. Another week or so to figure out how. Then checking it.Yes. So?

Again, you've got 'disappeared' wizards and disappearing money. People are going to be curious as to where the wizards went and where the money is going, especially since there are so many, many ways that the two can be combined to form superweapons.


No. I am finding students who go adventuring, or have the wise old sage in the village of 50 as a master and the guy dies on them. What is the survival rate for low level adventuring wizards? It's under 5%. My kidnapping them will be unnoticed as they are assumed dead. If I don't just wait for them to die and then res them.If the survival rate is so low, there won't be many of them to look for; wizards are not known for being suicidally stupid. Moreover, if one of your guys escapes his kidnappers or if one guy gets followed up on with sufficient effort, you get into trouble.


If they continue to look. You have been investigating me for 20 years, the spy in charge thinks something is going on but its been 20 years and you have seen no return on the money you keep poring in. Thousands of agents over the years and you haven't found anything to make it worthwhile. Dogbertland has been acting up though and they are pretty underfunded right now. The head of your intel service slashes your budget and reassigns the spies.I think you underestimate the amount of time required. Again, there's always legend lore.


Over 100 years? See above. You really think that its remotely realistic to keep devoting those kinds of resources to spy on me after it doesn't turn anything up in 20 years? 30 years? 50 years?As realistic as devoting those kinds of resources to the Prague Project when, by your own plan, you can't actually use the golems until you have a hundred of them, a century after beginning the project.

It's as realistic for me to assume that I'll keep funding spies as for you to assume that you'll keep building golems that are just going to be kept in lockdown for the next fifty years while you build up even more of them. You talk about the patience of long-lived races; what about the patience of long-lived spymasters?


If someone neutral wants to DM it I'm game.There'd be no way to satisfy all parties as to the neutrality, since you don't believe in the possibility of being found out and we (the pro-spy faction) don't believe in the impossibility of you being found out.

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-06, 11:47 PM
I'm not, no. Personally, I would sell some shadesteel to the same intermediaries which I couldn't trace back to their source. With a little surprise inside. Probably an item, with two contingent spells tied to it...... first, a preprogrammed sending informing a group of my chief psionicists of its activation, then, a contingent disjunction to destroy the anti-scrying wards, and probably any other magic in the area. Whichever one is awake/ready when he gets the sending uses that metafaculty power. Admittedly, this would require either modifications to the power or using some Fine creature in stasis for the surprise, with an item with the spells, but whatever. And yes, the creature would be shielded from divination and any magic items used would have auras erased by the magic aura spell.
Um, I'm not buying from a state actor. I'm buying from a merchant who thinks he is selling to a lich on another plane. Why exactly do you think he cares? If shadesteel golems invade Sigil the Lady of Pain kills them and whoever decided to send them.


And that's only one possible plan, from a person who, while reasonably intelligent, has not been trained in spying and gathering infromation.
It's a plan that is utterly unbelievable. A merchant who believes he knows who he is selling to and lives in a city that is immune to attack by virtue of being home to the most powerful being in the universe is worried about what his buyer is doing with shadesteel?


So, without magic, my spies are completely helpless? Wrong. They have orders to avoid capture, even if they have to resort to suicide. And all you need for that is a dagger. And no, the various methods of raising the dead are all voluntary on the dead guy's part. He's unlikely to agree if there's a possibility that it's your people.
You can't by RAW coup de grace yourself, it is an action that is used against an opponent.

You also fail to account for knock out poison, grapples, and me just bashing your head in with a sword (so long as you are above -10 it's good)


That presumes you can find my spies. If you can, then my nation is doing something wrong anyway.
Um not really. In a world with detect thoughts it becomes very easy to find spies. And even in the real world they are found fairly often. You are talking about saturating my nation with spies. More field agents than the US had in Russia at the height of the cold war.


As for the first question, yes, I do have a network in every nation. My nation in this thought excercise focuses on espionage to the exclusion of almost everything else.
Then you don't have a military to act on the information and I'm still ok.


That's the obvious answer. Just because it's obvious doesn't mean it's right. Particularly when you consider all the other interesting stuff about this guy.

Yes, and when combined with the other evidence (which points to him being unlucky if it isn't just a statistics error) it is still the most likely thing to be happening.


See above. I'm talking about a reasonably paranoid espionage nation here. We have no reason to believe you and every reason to worry that you can/will make more golems.

Ok, your this paranoid nation that specializes in espionage. DO you really think the rest of the world will take you seriously when I give simple, logical explanations for all of it? Chances are if you really are that big in the intel thing all of the other nations are getting annoyed at you as well. And maybe it's getting time to act against you and end it.


Covered this. There might be a simple answer, but when dealing with a nation that goes to your extremes to hide information, we have every reason to believe that the simple, obvious answer that you're providing is a cover.

Again you assume information that you have no right to have. Why do you assume that I am going to extremes to hide information? Because my top people are protected from mind reading and I use it in secure areas? I expect that every other nation does it as well. It is nothing amazing.


We have years to spend finding this out. And using limited wish or wish to replicate the necessary spells skips the long casting times.
Yeah, so just how many mages capable of casting 8th level spells do you have lieing around? And hiding programs for 20 years is nothign spectacular. The US hid numerous ones from the best intelligence service in the world. And that intelligence service had the equivalent of hundreds of billions of dollars just devoted to finding out what the US was doing.


And these people aren't going to have families interested in tracking down their remains, or something similar? Admittedly, my spies wouldn't be doing that, but if it kept happening, eventually some family would decide to mount a search or something.
Adventurers here. They die all the time. Most of what kills them eats them. 50 people out of a world population of a hundred million or more. And from random nations. No, it is not logical to assume that anything comes of that.


Again, I'm assuming a nation which spends almost all of its effort and time spying on practically every other major nation in the world. And even if we didn't find anything out about the golem project specifically, we'd still dig up interesting tidbits about your government, your nobles, your shipping operations, etc.
What? That my king is kinda inept, that my top general - while loyal and eager- is a bit stupid at being a general-, that the crowns accountant is skimming tax money off for his own personal funds, all of it is stuff that is fine for you to know.


See above. We're already spying on you....... our sub-par military means we prefer to reveal plots and use sabotage and clever tactics with espionage to overcome enemies. For that matter, you wouldn't be hiding your nation's new economic plan so strenuously........ we would be interested because the secrecy involved practically screams "black project". Which usually means military buildup.
Um, what new economic plan? The money is still being spread out over all projects and since the old account retired we got a new one. He appears to be skimming money.


And we would probably realize that something's up. In fact, I can even think of a way to confirm that something odd was going on. Have my spies anonymously inform you of your guy's skimming. Either you don't do anything, which tells us that soemthing odd is going on here, or you spend the time and effort to work out a new scheme, and kick the guy we told you about out. While you're working that out, funding for the golem project is stopped, or going there more directly. And yes, if the one guy was kicked out and a new guy immiediately started skimming again, we would suspect something. And if you pretended to be corrupt yourself and hold that up as a reason to ignore it, then you've handed us a propaganda weapon that we can use to inflame your public's and the world's opinion against you.

Oh, I would suitably chastise him. Perhaps exile him from the nation and claim his entire shipping fleet as compensation. He would of course manage to leave with quite a bit of money that he had safely out of the nation. A good 20 million or so gold I should imagine. You here rumors that he wants revenge and is working on a plan to get it, some secret weapon. You see that he starts spending vast amounts of gold around the planes, and he moved to sigil.

Thank you for giving me an excellent way to fund the whole project. He is off in sigil spending and making gold. He becomes a planar business man. Buying and selling all kinds of things. Thanks for letting me slash the price on shadesteel.

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-07, 12:21 AM
Ironically, given the name, I find myself wanting PaladinBoy as my spymaster.
Fine with me.


Ah. Before, you did not specify that you were using people native to the communities in question.
It gets fleshed out as I go.


That's one of the classic ways of finding out about any secret project. The other is when rumors of the weapon's existence emerge after it is tested, which we've already covered. And you refuse to believe that that's possible, too.
No, I agree that both are perfectly possible. I just find one to be highly unlikely (tracing the money) and the other to depend entirely on my doing (testing them where you can see them, such as against those ogres).


So your secret police bump my guy off the ship... and it disappears without a trace. Suspicious.
No, the ship is right where it was before. Apparently sunk by pirates with a few wizards from the burn marks.


Remember that intelligence work is all about piecing together petty anomalies. The more anomalies you create, the more curious your enemies' spies are going to get.
Yep, agreed.


Why would I use a telepathic bond when I know how easy it is to track?
Well using other ways to communicate is fairly likely to be detected as well. And it generally gives the spy time to send "I've been made" back to their handler. Which would let you know that I am rolling up your spies.


Spies that show up like a flare on detect magic aren't very useful as spies.
True.


The question "Silk is disappearing on the ships of Noble A; where is it going?" is a suitable target for legend lore.
Not really. Read legend lore's description. He hardly qualifies as a legendary person or that as a legendary question.


Yes, and this is based on a network of electronicized banking and modern finances. In an economy based on gold coins, things don't work the same way.
Yes, but it is also a lot easier to make the money anonymous. Once a gold coin has left my hand you can't trace it back to me.


If you want to assume a modern economy, you should have said so. And even then, each layer of laundry only delays my intelligence work long enough to cast the necessary spells to inquire.
See above. It doesn't qualify for legend lore.


If ships get sunk once in every ten voyages on regular runs, world shipping collapses. Sailors aren't going to want to play Russian Roulette like that. So you're positing a sinkage rate that is incompatible with large-scale oceangoing trade. Which makes the fact that Noble A is investing money in shipping an anomaly all by itself, because it's an incredibly high-risk activity.
No, the figures really were that high. And with sea monsters they would likely be even higher.

The incredible profit levels made it worth the risk. It was also the reason that almost all shipping was insured.


How often did the attack sub have its own tail?
US attack subs? Almost never. The US has been considered the best at sub warfare pretty much from the start. In war games we actually had to put noise makers on our subs so that the opposition force could detect them at all.


But that's not a major question. My basic point remains that the entire Russian nuclear deterrent had to be based on the assumption that they could still launch a large salvo of nukes even after the bombs started to land. If not, then their incentive was to launch a first strike before
Exactly, they had the belief that this was still the case because they didn't know about the stealth bomber. It was kept blacker than black because it could have precipitated a nuclear war if it had come out.


Great cover. Really. It's good. It may even conceal the fact that you're building the supergolems.
Thank you.


What it doesn't cover is the fact that you have the supergolems, that they just beat the tar out of an army of ogres, and that your neighbors have no idea what they are or how to fight them.

Which means that your rivals start trying to figure out how to counter your golems, which is exactly what you were trying to avoid.
Yes, I am trying to avoid them coming up with ways to counter them but I am more concerned that they don't invade me.

As for dealing with 5 golems, that isn't that big a deal. They make a few iron golems or just keep an eye on them. Higher high level adventurers if you want them dealt with.

5 will brake an army of mooks but they won't defeat high level adventurers or other real high level threats (such as Iron Golems).

I keep those golems in that area for 10 years or so, say I don't trust them and if they go bad I don't want it around my people. After that I bring them into the capital and say that they guard it for me.


If you assume that intelligence staff will automatically stop looking once they see the simplest answer, you are grievously underestimating them. They get paid to be suspicious SOBs, remember?
I assume they will keep looking. But eventually they stop. Again, how long? 10 years? 20 years?


Yes. So?

Again, you've got 'disappeared' wizards and disappearing money. People are going to be curious as to where the wizards went and where the money is going, especially since there are so many, many ways that the two can be combined to form superweapons.
How do you know I've disappeared wizards? And you knwo right where the money is going.


If the survival rate is so low, there won't be many of them to look for; wizards are not known for being suicidally stupid. Moreover, if one of your guys escapes his kidnappers or if one guy gets followed up on with sufficient effort, you get into trouble.
You think I'm foolish enough to send people of the proper power level to capture them? It would be a level 20 wizard doing it.


I think you underestimate the amount of time required. Again, there's always legend lore.
Legend Lore only works on legendary stuff. This doesn't really qualify.


As realistic as devoting those kinds of resources to the Prague Project when, by your own plan, you can't actually use the golems until you have a hundred of them, a century after beginning the project.
Look at all the things that have had a **** ton of money poured into them over the years with no real benefit in sight. Half of the stuff DARPA spends money on for example. China and the great wall is another example. The pyramids in Egypt yet another. The large hadron collided is a newer one.


It's as realistic for me to assume that I'll keep funding spies as for you to assume that you'll keep building golems that are just going to be kept in lockdown for the next fifty years while you build up even more of them. You talk about the patience of long-lived races; what about the patience of long-lived spymasters?
Yes, but what about the patience of the king who has better things to spend money on when for 20 years all you have told him is that a noble is skimming money from me? Especially with that other neighbor making preparations for war.


There'd be no way to satisfy all parties as to the neutrality, since you don't believe in the possibility of being found out and we (the pro-spy faction) don't believe in the impossibility of you being found out.

I believe it is possible for me to be found out. I doubt the likelihood of it through. Especially with some of the assumptions in this thread by your faction.

As for a neutral DM, we need someone rules bright, experienced, and with no expressed opinion.

Jack Mann is out because him and I are friends.
Fax is likewise out.
How about Jack Smith? Him and I argue fairly often over points like this.

Or you start naming some people and when we find one we both can agree on we will ask them if they will do it. Remember, proven and accepted experience with the rules and DMing are big criteria.

Dervag
2007-07-07, 01:41 AM
No, the ship is right where it was before. Apparently sunk by pirates with a few wizards from the burn marks.Wait.

The ship is 'sunk by pirates'. This indicates that it is in fact sunk, i.e. gone. In which case your ships are disappearing.

Alternatively, it eventually shows up somewhere, and its cargo doesn't. In which case it is only the cargo that is disappearing, which is troublesome in its own right.


Well using other ways to communicate is fairly likely to be detected as well. And it generally gives the spy time to send "I've been made" back to their handler. Which would let you know that I am rolling up your spies.

[quote]Not really. Read legend lore's description. He hardly qualifies as a legendary person or that as a legendary question.How about keeping a crystal ball focused on the ship? That tells you that stuff is being teleported; and wizards capable of casting teleports are mostly high enough level that they and their deeds are subjects for legend lore.


No, the figures really were that high. And with sea monsters they would likely be even higher.
The incredible profit levels made it worth the risk. It was also the reason that almost all shipping was insured.OK, so 10% of ships are getting sunk by random accidents; every tenth voyage someone has to build a new ship to replace the old one. It may be over 10% due to sea monsters. We assume that this applies to regular shipping runs that people are making on a routine basis.

Would shipping be profitable in a fantasy setting under those conditions, compared to other, safer means of transportation assisted by magic? If not, then you may need a different way to launder your money because you can't have shipments vanishing in midtransport. Being the only noble crazy enough to invest in ships makes you conspicuous.


Exactly, they had the belief that this was still the case because they didn't know about the stealth bomber. It was kept blacker than black because it could have precipitated a nuclear war if it had come out.Except then the dynamic changes from "we could punch them out at the cost of getting punched out ourselves" to "we could punch them out and hopefully get away with relatively few citybusting nuclear explosions on our soil, but if they ever find that out then we'll get nuked." Which isn't such a big change, especially in light of the fact that it's still unclear whether we could knock out their second strike capability with the stealth bombers.


I assume they will keep looking. But eventually they stop. Again, how long? 10 years? 20 years?Maybe until I find an answer that I can prove?

Again, the problem with all these covers is that while they look fine on the surface, there are some subtle questions that arise. Why are Noble A's ships disappearing with abnormal frequency? Why doesn't Emperor Tippy care that Noble A is embezzling funds from the treasury?

Those questions are going to nag.


You think I'm foolish enough to send people of the proper power level to capture them? It would be a level 20 wizard doing it.Again, the problem is that when you kidnap and brainwash people, there's a chance that enquiries will be made; that someone will dedicate considerable time and money to finding them.

It creates another failure point in your plan. You're relying on the assumption that you can kidnap 50+ people and brainwash them without anyone doing a good enough job of investigation to find out what happened to them.


Look at all the things that have had a **** ton of money poured into them over the years with no real benefit in sight. Half of the stuff DARPA spends money on for example. China and the great wall is another example. The pyramids in Egypt yet another. The large hadron collided is a newer one.DARPA is intentionally working on a venture capital model; they invest in lots of things because they don't know which ones will pay off. The Chinese emperors seriously intended the Great Wall to pay off in terms of defense against intruders, or possibly as a symbol of the boundary line. And the Egyptian pharoahs were building pyramids for the very logical and compelling reason that they wanted their afterlife to be good.

People don't spend money for no reason; they expect a payoff. Sometimes you have to spend a lot of money on a lot of things to get one payoff. Sometimes the payoff never materializes. But there's always the desire for payoff, and always the desire to use potential payoffs rather than to continue to sink money into them.


Yes, but what about the patience of the king who has better things to spend money on when for 20 years all you have told him is that a noble is skimming money from me? Especially with that other neighbor making preparations for war....aand intelligence is an example of an area where you have to investigate a lot of things to get one or two payoffs. The nagging question of what's going on behind all the secrecy in your kingdom won't go away. All that security has to be hiding something, and since you don't have enough funds for one secret project (like the stealth bomber) to get lost in the shuffle, that one leak of money will be conspicuous.


Or you start naming some people and when we find one we both can agree on we will ask them if they will do it. Remember, proven and accepted experience with the rules and DMing are big criteria.Personally, I don't really think I could do a proper job the spies' side of the equation. I've got too much invested in the debate and I'm intrinsically too suspicious of you (so I can't roleplay the king who gets bored). The DMing task would be very complex (so many variables to consider) and we'd be modelling over generations.

If you feel up to managing the security for Project Prague, fine. I don't feel up to running the KGB effort to crack the security on Project Prague. Making suggestions is all very well, but roleplaying the section chief for the Tippian Empire is beyond me.

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-07, 02:29 AM
Wait.

The ship is 'sunk by pirates'. This indicates that it is in fact sunk, i.e. gone. In which case your ships are disappearing.

Alternatively, it eventually shows up somewhere, and its cargo doesn't. In which case it is only the cargo that is disappearing, which is troublesome in its own right.
Yes the ship is sunk. I insure they, with insurers in yours and other kingdoms, and that covers the replacement cost.


How about keeping a crystal ball focused on the ship? That tells you that stuff is being teleported; and wizards capable of casting teleports are mostly high enough level that they and their deeds are subjects for legend lore.
5 voyages out of 5,000 each year. Very bad odds.

[quote]OK, so 10% of ships are getting sunk by random accidents; every tenth voyage someone has to build a new ship to replace the old one. It may be over 10% due to sea monsters. We assume that this applies to regular shipping runs that people are making on a routine basis.

Would shipping be profitable in a fantasy setting under those conditions, compared to other, safer means of transportation assisted by magic? If not, then you may need a different way to launder your money because you can't have shipments vanishing in midtransport. Being the only noble crazy enough to invest in ships makes you conspicuous.
No, shipping wouldn't really be profitable and the world would be ruled by the cartel of mages who control all shipping through teleportation circles.

We had that thread about 3 months back, maybe a bit more. But if we are assuming mostly standard D&D then yes, shipping exists. And if teleportation magic is common it gets even easier to launder money. And intelligence work becomes a lot more difficult for you.


Maybe until I find an answer that I can prove?

Again, the problem with all these covers is that while they look fine on the surface, there are some subtle questions that arise. Why are Noble A's ships disappearing with abnormal frequency? Why doesn't Emperor Tippy care that Noble A is embezzling funds from the treasury?

Those questions are going to nag.
Because Emperor Tippy is a relatively incompetent king who trusts his Noble. As for the ships disappearing with abnormal frequency, the amount that I deliberately lose is less than the standard deviation meaning that it really doesn't prove anything.


Again, the problem is that when you kidnap and brainwash people, there's a chance that enquiries will be made; that someone will dedicate considerable time and money to finding them.
Yes, but the chance of it being traced to me and you finding out about it is sufficiently small as to be dismissed, unless you plan on coming up with some way of tracking all young wizards who go off adventuring?


It creates another failure point in your plan. You're relying on the assumption that you can kidnap 50+ people and brainwash them without anyone doing a good enough job of investigation to find out what happened to them.
Again, if I was kidnapping 50 people from the same area or even kingdom, yes it would most likely be suspicious. But 50 low level wizards going missing over a 5 year period is not something that can really be traced to me.


DARPA is intentionally working on a venture capital model; they invest in lots of things because they don't know which ones will pay off. The Chinese emperors seriously intended the Great Wall to pay off in terms of defense against intruders, or possibly as a symbol of the boundary line. And the Egyptian pharoahs were building pyramids for the very logical and compelling reason that they wanted their afterlife to be good.

People don't spend money for no reason; they expect a payoff. Sometimes you have to spend a lot of money on a lot of things to get one payoff. Sometimes the payoff never materializes. But there's always the desire for payoff, and always the desire to use potential payoffs rather than to continue to sink money into them.

I expect a pay off. That payoff is just a hundred to a hundred and 50 years down the road.


...aand intelligence is an example of an area where you have to investigate a lot of things to get one or two payoffs. The nagging question of what's going on behind all the secrecy in your kingdom won't go away. All that security has to be hiding something, and since you don't have enough funds for one secret project (like the stealth bomber) to get lost in the shuffle, that one leak of money will be conspicuous.

What do you mean all that security? This isn't a lot of security. Really. The grand total of my security is that my top people can't be mind read (something that every nation should have). All of my other security is non existent. The command center/base is undetectable and maybe 3 people in my kingdom (if that many) know about it who aren't working in it. The supply chains have no appearance of security until they are out of my borders and then they appear to be from a different nation all together.


Personally, I don't really think I could do a proper job the spies' side of the equation. I've got too much invested in the debate and I'm intrinsically too suspicious of you (so I can't roleplay the king who gets bored). The DMing task would be very complex (so many variables to consider) and we'd be modelling over generations.

If you feel up to managing the security for Project Prague, fine. I don't feel up to running the KGB effort to crack the security on Project Prague. Making suggestions is all very well, but roleplaying the section chief for the Tippian Empire is beyond me.

Awh, come on. It would be fun. I could do it (run the side trying to penetrate security).

Elana
2007-07-07, 04:14 AM
...

And with the mind reading thing, in 1st ED and 2nd ED there were items that stopped mind effecting things (Mind Bar), I haven't read anything in 3/3.5 ED that does this.

PHB page 253 on the right.

it is called Mind Blan the same name it had in AD&D 2Ed
(OD&D called it Mind Barring)



Now to the Golem thing. Taken the rarity of level 17 casters in account (The city population charts don't include wizards over level 16 at best)

And that most of them are too busy making infinite money with cheesy tricks you must have asked around 2000 wizards before you found one that can make you one of those golems.
(And with that XP cost you can be happy if he can create one every 5 years)

So everyone will know about your planes to create shadesteel golems long before you actually started construction.
(Lesser golems might still be an option)

(Not to mention that after the 3.0 core books everything created by WotC was seemingly written by Munchkins for Munchkins)

Also the money flow seems to be very generous.
(And for whoever came up with the US military budget, you realize that the USA spents 6% of the world military budget, and if you look at the 10 countries with the highest military budget the USA spents more then the next 9 in the list together?)

Now lets just look at the GP liit of a capital. It's 100,000 so you simply can't get anything more expensive.
(And before you come with buying stuff i Sigil, how many rulers on a primeworld know of that place? (Or for that matter how many persons on the whole world? They aren't called clueless for nothing)

But assuming a battle between big nations of similar strength, includes high level cleric who can use greater planar ally, Gate and miracle.
(And such is about as likely as a war between two countries having enough nukes to completely annihilate each other)


And if we look at a war of smaller nations, none of them has the money or resources to use any of the tactics mentioned before.
The use level 1 mooks in their armies because they just can't afford more.
(And if they have 100 men, they are happy to managed to recruit that much)

Lord Tataraus
2007-07-07, 04:23 AM
I just wanted to point out one major flaw in your plan Tippy. How do you know your brainwashed mages are all really loyal? When you go to the court wizard and order him to brainwash these student (i.e. level 1) wizards so that they are fanatically loyal to yourself and love nothing but work, he is going to be suspicious and what is stopping him from making them loyal to him instead?

Of course, if you are a wizard king all the nations around you would be investing large amounts of money into finding out all your secret projects and plans because you are so powerful and it makes it that much harder to keep secret, especially when they will be looking for golems since that's a wizard's obvious standing army.

Secondly, Shadesteel Golems MUST be crafted on the plane of shadow by a level 17 caster, no factories their.

Capt'n Ironbrow
2007-07-07, 06:26 AM
Now it's getting boring even If you're allready bored...

It's all pedantry and "I know what you don't know unless you know which I say you can't"

It's an option... not a solve-all solution. I've seen both sides here keep coming with new idea's on how you could defeat this golem force, or why it can't be defeated. And those idea's seem only to be action and reaction: 'hey, you say you can do this and that, why? because if you can do this and that I'll be able to do such and so.' I don't think either party is going to give in and stop searching for alternatives to rebuked arguments and idea's.

Just like a real MAD cold war...

the whole discussion becomes flawed because SOME countermeasures to each sides idea's/theories/stratagems are only thought of because the stratagem is mentioned and needs to be countered. I've seen Emperor Tippy change and adjust his plans to suit the other bloke's countertactics and he even mentioned undead as the only real danger to his forces... problem solved I say, use undead (even if they're evil, but who says the freak wraith mentioned earlier doesn't happen in ET's world?).
Even the number of wizards varies, the levels are inconsistend, it all begins to warp... and suddenly there are ships trading silk or dissapearing!

It's a bit like how children fight over who has the coolest/best dad

Kid 1: my dad is a doctor
Kid 2: well my dad is a CEO
Kid 3: my dad works at MacDonalds!
Kid1 &2: wow!! your dad is the coolest!

and I can't believe you would have come up with some of your tactics without another person mentioning the drawback you try to cover after it's exposition to you.

Not to mention the fact that ET thinks he can divide his entire country into 100-person townships ('cause they are ease to monitor/control/etc)... how would he deal with Births? deaths? migration? family bonds?
Face it ET, towns of 100 people aren't even called Town, they're hamlets if not just "Hole's" "specks" etc.
some buisnesses wouldn't even think about starting up in such a town: too few people to be profitable.

terror_drone
2007-07-07, 10:57 AM
Well if you want a neutral DM I'm ready and willing, cause to be honest I want to see how this would play out.

13_CBS
2007-07-07, 11:11 AM
What if we had a panel of DMs instead of just one? You know, to make it less likely that the DM(s) will be partial towards one faction.

Mike_G
2007-07-07, 01:01 PM
One last reply and I'm done unless this radically changes direction.

Other nations do not have to wait to develop countermeasures. They already have them.

In a world where Dragons and Golems and Liches etc exist, where magic is real, and where it is known, at least to the movers and shakers of the world if not to every peasant, nations will sink some resources into preparing to meet these challenges.

Even if the Tippian Empire's golems are a total secret to me, why can't my kingdom prepare for a random mad wizard and his handful of constructs? Or a dragon that miners disturb up in the northern mountains? These are reasonable threats to my sovereignty in a D&D world

No modern nation with a military is without antiaircraft and antitank weapons. Some may have small numbers, some may be outdated, but since the threat
exists, it's the job of the government to prepare to meet it.

By that token, a large D&D country, while probably most of its forces are low level Warriors with spears or bows to keep the populace in line, hunt bandits and defend against goblin hordes, they will have a cadre of high level PC types or constructs or trained or allied monsters of their own to handle such threats.

Or the average mad wizard who just builds a few of the golems in his spooky tower would have toppled empires by now.

The first guy ever to build a golem had a huge advantage, but then everybody prepared. The Maxim gun, which was state of the art 130 years (huh - what a coincidence) ago when colonial troops used it to mow down natives with spears and muskets, wouldn't scare the Liechtenstein National Guard right now.

Nations adapt to threats or the cease to be nations. The only weapon that nobody is ready to deal with is one that isn't in the RAW.

Gavin Sage
2007-07-07, 01:05 PM
@Capt'n Ironbrow

Thank you for that breathe of fresh air. I've been watching this thread's feedback loop out of morbid for awhile wondering how it could ever stop. I think you've summed up the lunacy rather well.

Dervag
2007-07-07, 01:37 PM
I admit it's been getting kind of stupid; it's devolved into a technical discussion of a specific case rather than a nontechnical discussion of the general case.

I think that Mike_G makes a really, really important point here. People are naturally going to spend time coming up with countermeasures against dragons and golems and hordes of wraiths and such, simply because they know those things exist. If you have anything remotely analogous to a national military, you'll see that national military making a concerted effort to make or steal weapons to fight big scary monsters with.

Now, that produces a world somewhat unlike the typical D&D setting, precisely because the typical D&D setting is predicated on the assumption that the heroes have something very important to do, and that there's no equivalent of the Army Rangers ready to drop in and do it for them.

But if you start from the premise that nations ruled by humanoid species exist, under anything but a clique of very high-level sorceror-kings, then you have to work backwards from that assumption and conclude that nations with militaries in the conventional sense of the word have the ability to deal with powerful monsters before they conquer the country.

Maybe their defense is the way they constantly generate a stream of mid-level PC-classed guys who strike out into the wilderness to find and destroy threats to the kingdom. Maybe the royal regalia includes a selection of minor artifacts that allow a 10th-level aristocrat of the royal blood to engage and destroy a dragon. But there has to be something that keeps those nations from going under, or they wouldn't exist.

So assuming that the first nation to make a concerted attempt at exploiting the power of big monsters will rule the world because they can destroy all the conventional armies is unwarranted. That phase of the campaign universe's history already happened. Unless the world was created yesterday, there would have been empires dominated by dragons or golems for thousands of years. Any nations that exist would have long since figured out how to deal with those threats, or have been forged in revolts against those threats.


Speaking purely for myself, I'm having a lot of fun trying to develop (in the military sense of the verb) Tippy's security plans here.


5 voyages out of 5,000 each year. Very bad odds.True. While I could concievably improve the odds by having the operator 'flick' from ship to ship, it wouldn't do all that much good. I'm brainstorming here.

What do you do with the crews of the ships?


But if we are assuming mostly standard D&D then yes, shipping exists.I'm working backwards from that assumption. If shipping exists, then the sinkage rates on regular runs has to be low enough that you've got a decent chance of surviving several voyages. Maybe the king's navy has done the same thing to the fireball-slinging pirates that the pirates do to the merchant marine. Maybe the gods of the sea keep the monsters in check as long as they're placated with sacrifices. But you can't keep seagoing trade functional with, say, a 15-20% sinkage rate, because there won't be enough experienced sailors to keep the machine running.

But the lower the loss rate, the more the .5 to .1% loss rate on ships that Noble A has invested in stands out.

Moreover, the more voyages Noble A invests in, the slimmer his investment in any one ship. Which means that less and less of the money invested in the ships is actually his.

If he's the primary investor in the voyages, how is he affording 5,000 trips a year? And if he isn't, then when those 5 ships a year 'disappear', a lot of money that isn't yours is disappearing with it, which increases the number of people who will want to know what the heck just happened to the ship.


Because Emperor Tippy is a relatively incompetent king who trusts his Noble. As for the ships disappearing with abnormal frequency, the amount that I deliberately lose is less than the standard deviation meaning that it really doesn't prove anything.Again, that assumes either a really high loss rate or a startlingly large number of ships. I can believe the high loss rate if you're investing in the equivalent of the British East India Company circa 1600. But high loss rate tends to correlate with low absolute numbers of voyages; moreover it increases the risk that the ship is going to be lost before you offload it due to natural causes, in which case the Prague Project's funding for that quarter goes straight to the bottom.

And I can believe the startlingly large number of ships if the trade you invest in is a 'regular run'. But that makes it harder to deep-six the ships where nobody can see them and makes the loss of ships more remarkable. Especially since the ships aren't vanishing under known conditions


What do you mean all that security? This isn't a lot of security. Really. The grand total of my security is that my top people can't be mind read (something that every nation should have). All of my other security is non existent. The command center/base is undetectable and maybe 3 people in my kingdom (if that many) know about it who aren't working in it. The supply chains have no appearance of security until they are out of my borders and then they appear to be from a different nation all together.Yes, but if my spies get close to the project you nail them. Now, mysterious disappearances of spies isn't all that unusual. But if you really want to avoid detection of the project, you do have to get rid of any spies who start poking around and asking awkward questions about the budget shortfall. Once they start looking for the budget shortfall, you're really not safe, because there's always the risk that some spy is going to play Mr. Clever **** and start rolling up the chain of money laundering.

And since budgetary analysis is a natural and important part of espionage, that means that some of my spies are going to start disappearing for the equivalent of looking at your country's government balance sheets. Which will make me suspicious; you don't normally see much effort put into keeping a bunch of financial records secure.


Awh, come on. It would be fun. I could do it (run the side trying to penetrate security).If you want to run both sides, that's your business.

I could play the brainstorming subordinate of the KGB section chief for the Tippian Empire, maybe. That's about it. My familiarity with the divination rules and my own ability to roleplay someone who merely suspects something I already know aren't good enough to do anything else.

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-07, 01:40 PM
PHB page 253 on the right.

it is called Mind Blan the same name it had in AD&D 2Ed
(OD&D called it Mind Barring)
Yes, and mindblank requires a 15th level caster and the only item that provides it is the Third Eye Conceal which costs 120,000 GP.


Now to the Golem thing. Taken the rarity of level 17 casters in account (The city population charts don't include wizards over level 16 at best)

And that most of them are too busy making infinite money with cheesy tricks you must have asked around 2000 wizards before you found one that can make you one of those golems.
(And with that XP cost you can be happy if he can create one every 5 years)
Actually I was going with the idea that the wizard came to me with his weapon and thought I might be interested. And a single level 20 wizard has enough XP to make 2 per year, leaving around 80 days left for him to go and get back his XP (beat up a draon or 2 for instance)


So everyone will know about your planes to create shadesteel golems long before you actually started construction.
(Lesser golems might still be an option)
See above.


(Not to mention that after the 3.0 core books everything created by WotC was seemingly written by Munchkins for Munchkins)
I won't argue this, a lot of the stuff is broken. :smallwink:


Also the money flow seems to be very generous.
(And for whoever came up with the US military budget, you realize that the USA spents 6% of the world military budget, and if you look at the 10 countries with the highest military budget the USA spents more then the next 9 in the list together?)
As a percentage of the budget the US is actually fairly low on the list.


Now lets just look at the GP liit of a capital. It's 100,000 so you simply can't get anything more expensive.
(And before you come with buying stuff i Sigil, how many rulers on a primeworld know of that place? (Or for that matter how many persons on the whole world? They aren't called clueless for nothing)
I have this nice little level 20 wizard who knows about these things.


I just wanted to point out one major flaw in your plan Tippy. How do you know your brainwashed mages are all really loyal? When you go to the court wizard and order him to brainwash these student (i.e. level 1) wizards so that they are fanatically loyal to yourself and love nothing but work, he is going to be suspicious and what is stopping him from making them loyal to him instead?
I don't, and it doesn't much matter. For purposes of thsi exercise it doesn't matter if the person ruling my nation is a figurehead king or the actual power.


Of course, if you are a wizard king all the nations around you would be investing large amounts of money into finding out all your secret projects and plans because you are so powerful and it makes it that much harder to keep secret, especially when they will be looking for golems since that's a wizard's obvious standing army.
Sure, as I have said. They can do what ever they want. I don't much care.


Secondly, Shadesteel Golems MUST be crafted on the plane of shadow by a level 17 caster, no factories their.
Yes, I have stated that as a security measure a few times. I set up the base (factory) on the material plane. The wizard then plane shifts to the plane of shadow and starts with the private sanctums and building walls (wall of iron/wall of stone). He then starts constructing the golem on the plain of shadow and brings it back to the base when finished.


Now it's getting boring even If you're allready bored...
What? This is quite fun and entertaining.


It's all pedantry and "I know what you don't know unless you know which I say you can't"
Not really. We have progressed through the arguments about the golems. The weak point is the other side finding out about them with enough time to attack/prepare before I am ready.


Just like a real MAD cold war...

the whole discussion becomes flawed because SOME countermeasures to each sides idea's/theories/stratagems are only thought of because the stratagem is mentioned and needs to be countered. I've seen Emperor Tippy change and adjust his plans to suit the other bloke's countertactics and he even mentioned undead as the only real danger to his forces... problem solved I say, use undead (even if they're evil, but who says the freak wraith mentioned earlier doesn't happen in ET's world?).
Even the number of wizards varies, the levels are inconsistend, it all begins to warp... and suddenly there are ships trading silk or dissapearing!

Consider this. No one on these boards has the intelligence of a high level wizard or the vast resources of a king in planning what we would do. We compensate by doing stuff like this.


It's a bit like how children fight over who has the coolest/best dad

Kid 1: my dad is a doctor
Kid 2: well my dad is a CEO
Kid 3: my dad works at MacDonalds!
Kid1 &2: wow!! your dad is the coolest!

and I can't believe you would have come up with some of your tactics without another person mentioning the drawback you try to cover after it's exposition to you.
No, I wouldn't have come up with all of them but a lot of it was stuff I already had fleshed out in my head and just hadn't posted (the chains for money laundering for instance) or would have evolved when I was seriously going to use it in a game and gave more than 5 minutes thought to it.


Not to mention the fact that ET thinks he can divide his entire country into 100-person townships ('cause they are ease to monitor/control/etc)... how would he deal with Births? deaths? migration? family bonds?
Face it ET, towns of 100 people aren't even called Town, they're hamlets if not just "Hole's" "specks" etc.
some buisnesses wouldn't even think about starting up in such a town: too few people to be profitable.

When did I ever say I was going to divide my nation into 100 person townships?


Well if you want a neutral DM I'm ready and willing, cause to be honest I want to see how this would play out.


What if we had a panel of DMs instead of just one? You know, to make it less likely that the DM(s) will be partial towards one faction.

That would be a good idea 13_CBS but we need to find someone to run the opposition and a few other DM's. I don't mind Terror Drone as one.


One last reply and I'm done unless this radically changes direction.

Other nations do not have to wait to develop countermeasures. They already have them.

In a world where Dragons and Golems and Liches etc exist, where magic is real, and where it is known, at least to the movers and shakers of the world if not to every peasant, nations will sink some resources into preparing to meet these challenges.

Even if the Tippian Empire's golems are a total secret to me, why can't my kingdom prepare for a random mad wizard and his handful of constructs? Or a dragon that miners disturb up in the northern mountains? These are reasonable threats to my sovereignty in a D&D world

A handful is a lot different than a hundred+. Dealing with a wizard with 5 of these means you higher a group of high level adventurers or just throw more people at them until they die.


No modern nation with a military is without antiaircraft and antitank weapons. Some may have small numbers, some may be outdated, but since the threat
exists, it's the job of the government to prepare to meet it.
Agreed.


By that token, a large D&D country, while probably most of its forces are low level Warriors with spears or bows to keep the populace in line, hunt bandits and defend against goblin hordes, they will have a cadre of high level PC types or constructs or trained or allied monsters of their own to handle such threats.
Yes they would. But it is a difference of scale. Dealing with 5 or fewer of these doesn't require that much. Dealing with a hundred or more would require a lot of resources being devoted over a number of years to deal with.


Or the average mad wizard who just builds a few of the golems in his spooky tower would have toppled empires by now.
Not really. A few of them can be dealt with in numerous ways.


The first guy ever to build a golem had a huge advantage, but then everybody prepared. The Maxim gun, which was state of the art 130 years (huh - what a coincidence) ago when colonial troops used it to mow down natives with spears and muskets, wouldn't scare the Liechtenstein National Guard right now.

Nations adapt to threats or the cease to be nations. The only weapon that nobody is ready to deal with is one that isn't in the RAW.

Yes, they can eventually develop a way to beat the golems. But can they do it in the amount of time they have before I can take over their nation?

Elana
2007-07-07, 02:03 PM
Can you take over the nation before they notice?

Because somehow every capital city includes a bunch of high level adventure classes.

And guess what, if the city is under attack they just might be recruited to the defense.

Your golem is a nice way against a small town, and might be enough to conquer a barony. But not against a kingdom.

(And that is assuming your opponents are stupid enough to not have anything equally destructive. I mean I do remember that there was some metamagic abuse to destroy every living thing in a 10 mile radius)

And all better magical items can't be mass produced. No wizard has enough XP to spare.
And do you honestly think 2 golems are enough to conquer anything.
(That is the most head start you can get before your neighboring countries would know about this)

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-07, 02:17 PM
Can you take over the nation before they notice?

Because somehow every capital city includes a bunch of high level adventure classes.

And guess what, if the city is under attack they just might be recruited to the defense.
Good for them. 50 of these golems will defeat 20 or more level 20 adventurers with little problem (I will most likely lose a few of them though)


Your golem is a nice way against a small town, and might be enough to conquer a barony. But not against a kingdom.
1 golem? I have a hundred.


(And that is assuming your opponents are stupid enough to not have anything equally destructive. I mean I do remember that there was some metamagic abuse to destroy every living thing in a 10 mile radius)
Yes, its done by getting explosive spell onto anything with a really long range such as Locate city or Apocalypse From the Sky. And my golems are immune to it incidentally.


And all better magical items can't be mass produced. No wizard has enough XP to spare.
Um, yes they do. XP isn't some rarity. In 10 days of adventuring a level 20 wizard can get enough XP to make the golems for next year.


And do you honestly think 2 golems are enough to conquer anything.
(That is the most head start you can get before your neighboring countries would know about this)

Sigh. Stop. If you want to argue about how many I get than go back and come up with counters that are reasonable to expect without you first knowing about the golems. Others in this thread have been arguing it for pages and I don't feel like repeating myself again with another new person. New and innovative arguments are welcome though.

Mike_G
2007-07-07, 02:59 PM
A handful is a lot different than a hundred+. Dealing with a wizard with 5 of these means you higher a group of high level adventurers or just throw more people at them until they die.

But it is a difference of scale. Dealing with 5 or fewer of these doesn't require that much. Dealing with a hundred or more would require a lot of resources being devoted over a number of years to deal with.


Not really. A few of them can be dealt with in numerous ways.

Yes, they can eventually develop a way to beat the golems. But can they do it in the amount of time they have before I can take over their nation?

The point is, nations could deal with golems. Maybe not 100 golems, but some. And you are relying on keeping your golem army secret until you get 100, which is asking for more than a century of not having to use the most powerful weapon you have.

Chances are that you will face a severe threat before you build 100 golems. If you get invaded by a similarly wealthy enemy within 5 years of starting your project, and they've spent all their budget on a military, and you've spent half on a military and half on golems, your choice is to fight at a 2-1 disadvantage or tip your hand and show the golems.

Now, this may let you win, or at least keep you from losing, but the cat is out of the bag. Nations already have some way to fight golems, on a small scale at least, and now they know that you have a potentially large golem threat. They will react accordingly.

Now, can you invade and subdue a neighbor before they can build up their anti-golem defenses? Probably. But the other neighbors will notice that kind of thing and take steps.

You keep moving the goal post for your argument. First, you just wanted to safeguard you nation and project power if need be. Well, the first time you do that, the Kingdom of Nextdooria may decide to ramp up its anti-construct brigade, which is must already have some of, even if that just means the PC group it hired last time.

So, you ask if they can build up before you can invade and dominate them. Well, I thought this was not an army of invasion. If it becomes one, you need to go back to page 1 or 2 and look at "controlling a conquered nation," which will drain your resources. And, if you do, the Duchy of Nearbyland, and the Principality of Closetoia will become...concerned.

Soon, you will have the equivalent of the Allies looking at Czecholslovakia, Yugoslavia and Poland disappearing and form The Anti Golem League.

Or, you could just use a handful of the damn things to augment your conventional forces and avoid the whole stupid issue.

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-07, 03:31 PM
The point is, nations could deal with golems. Maybe not 100 golems, but some. And you are relying on keeping your golem army secret until you get 100, which is asking for more than a century of not having to use the most powerful weapon you have.
The nuclear weapon has been used twice in its entire history. And hasn't been used for about 60 years.


Chances are that you will face a severe threat before you build 100 golems. If you get invaded by a similarly wealthy enemy within 5 years of starting your project, and they've spent all their budget on a military, and you've spent half on a military and half on golems, your choice is to fight at a 2-1 disadvantage or tip your hand and show the golems.
Yes, and I would use the golems if I was invaded like that. But only after I exhausted all other options.


Now, this may let you win, or at least keep you from losing, but the cat is out of the bag. Nations already have some way to fight golems, on a small scale at least, and now they know that you have a potentially large golem threat. They will react accordingly.
Yep, and oh well. **** happens. Time to move on to another plan.


Now, can you invade and subdue a neighbor before they can build up their anti-golem defenses? Probably. But the other neighbors will notice that kind of thing and take steps.
Depends on the political situation and the specifics. If they attacked me first in an unprovoked way (the aforementioned major army) and I retaliate, it's unlikely that they would attack me. They would build anti-golem forces but it is doubtful that they would attack.


You keep moving the goal post for your argument. First, you just wanted to safeguard you nation and project power if need be. Well, the first time you do that, the Kingdom of Nextdooria may decide to ramp up its anti-construct brigade, which is must already have some of, even if that just means the PC group it hired last time.

So, you ask if they can build up before you can invade and dominate them. Well, I thought this was not an army of invasion. If it becomes one, you need to go back to page 1 or 2 and look at "controlling a conquered nation," which will drain your resources. And, if you do, the Duchy of Nearbyland, and the Principality of Closetoia will become...concerned.
Controlling a conquered nation is doable with minimal forces if you are willing to be ruthless in doing it.


Soon, you will have the equivalent of the Allies looking at Czecholslovakia, Yugoslavia and Poland disappearing and form The Anti Golem League.
If I just started invading people willy nilly, yeah. And considering that Hitler would have won WW2 if he hadn't been stupid enough to attack the soviet union at that time and japan hadn't attacked the US, those allies being a threat is debatable.


Or, you could just use a handful of the damn things to augment your conventional forces and avoid the whole stupid issue.
What stupid issue? This is quite fun.

Dervag
2007-07-07, 03:46 PM
The nuclear weapon has been used twice in its entire history. And hasn't been used for about 60 years.But it hasn't been kept secret all that time. Nuclear bombs were used more or less at the first opportunity. The reason they were not used after that had to do with balance of power scenarios. There is no historical precedent for a powerful weapon being kept in reserve for a century, which is what your original plan proposed.


Controlling a conquered nation is doable with minimal forces if you are willing to be ruthless in doing it.First of all, at that point you're becoming an evil empire, something you said you weren't planning on doing. That isn't a show stopper; I'm just mentioning it.

Second of all, the more ruthlessly you smash opposition in occupied territory, the less you benefit from owning that occupied territory and the more you alarm your neighbors. If you start treating a conquered nation the way the Belgians treated the Congo, you're going to have diplomatic problems with neighbors who don't want it to happen to them.


What stupid issue?The stupid issue of having a massive 130-year project dedicated to building up an invincible army composed exclusively of supergolems, of protecting the program from detection for 130 years, and of sinking a massive sum of money into the program for many decades before seeing any payoff from it.

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-07, 04:01 PM
But it hasn't been kept secret all that time. Nuclear bombs were used more or less at the first opportunity. The reason they were not used after that had to do with balance of power scenarios. There is no historical precedent for a powerful weapon being kept in reserve for a century, which is what your original plan proposed.

Yes, and we don't have long lived races. When your children take a 100 years to reach adult hood you can afford the kind of time I'm talking about.

Would a human kingdom do something like this? Most likely not. An elven or dwarven kingdom though? Much more likely. In fact if we played this out I would go with the Dwarf kingdom for my side.


First of all, at that point you're becoming an evil empire, something you said you weren't planning on doing. That isn't a show stopper; I'm just mentioning it.
Agreed, it's not something I plan on doing. I'm just saying its possible.


Second of all, the more ruthlessly you smash opposition in occupied territory, the less you benefit from owning that occupied territory and the more you alarm your neighbors. If you start treating a conquered nation the way the Belgians treated the Congo, you're going to have diplomatic problems with neighbors who don't want it to happen to them.
It depends on why I was conquering that specific nation. If I'm after an artifact or a mine or even just land then I can afford to be ruthless. But if I'm after conquering and making that nation part of my nation then it doesn't go over so well.


The stupid issue of having a massive 130-year project dedicated to building up an invincible army composed exclusively of supergolems, of protecting the program from detection for 130 years, and of sinking a massive sum of money into the program for many decades before seeing any payoff from it.
Again, it depends on the race doing it if it is really that long.

The maximum age for a human is 110 years. The maximum age for a dwarf is 450 years. If we go with it being a 150 year project that is a third of a dwarves maximum life. But it is 136% of a humans maximum life. For a comparison, the 150 year project to the dwarves is the equivalent of a 37 year project for the humans. It's still long but its not that bad.

Dervag
2007-07-07, 07:01 PM
Yes, and we don't have long lived races. When your children take a 100 years to reach adult hood you can afford the kind of time I'm talking about.But there's also no precedent for a human culture keeping a powerful weapon in reserve for twenty years (the time it takes human children to mature), except in times of general peace. For that matter, even in times of relative peace, human nations tend to use the most powerful weapons at their disposal to fight minor wars unless they fear reprisals of some kind.

Now, a nonhuman species might actually be willing to sit on a superweapon in the middle of a shooting war because they didn't want to blow the surprise. But it would be a very nonhuman thing to do.


The maximum age for a human is 110 years. The maximum age for a dwarf is 450 years. If we go with it being a 150 year project that is a third of a dwarves maximum life. But it is 136% of a humans maximum life. For a comparison, the 150 year project to the dwarves is the equivalent of a 37 year project for the humans. It's still long but its not that bad.The thing is that time passes as fast for dwarves as for humans. To a dwarf, 'fifty years ago' is still a great deal of objective time, and 'fifty years from now' is still a great deal of objective time. The dwarf may not be all that much older fifty years from now, but they know very well that a lot of things can happen in the next fifty years, just as a lot of things happened in the past fifty years.

This presents an obstacle to extreme-range plans independent of the age of the participants. There will always be a temptation to use the superweapon now, when it is only partly ready, instead of waiting several decades until the project is complete. Because elves and dwarves get into crises just like anyone else, and have just as great and urgent a need to resolve those crises before they get themselves killed by failing to resolve them.

Elana
2007-07-08, 01:13 AM
Good for them. 50 of these golems will defeat 20 or more level 20 adventurers with little problem (I will most likely lose a few of them though)


1 golem? I have a hundred.

Where from? From the 100 wizards out of the 10,000 you asked who were willing and able to do the job for you?



Um, yes they do. XP isn't some rarity. In 10 days of adventuring a level 20 wizard can get enough XP to make the golems for next year.

Only if your world is full with CR20 challenges. In that case the life expectancy of your average city is 0 days.
If a higl level character actually manages to go on an adventure more often than every year your world is in serious trouble.
Not to mention that a wizard who actually goes out adventuring has better things to do then to spent 4 months on crafting a golem.




Sigh. Stop. If you want to argue about how many I get than go back and come up with counters that are reasonable to expect without you first knowing about the golems. Others in this thread have been arguing it for pages and I don't feel like repeating myself again with another new person. New and innovative arguments are welcome though.

The counter is that unless you kill every wizard you asked to build a golem, they will talk.
(And since they don't have glowing numbers with their level and spare XP over their head, you will waste a lot of time asking people who can't do the job)

And just put yourself into the spot of a wizard of level 17 with 16,999 XP.
Would you rather spent a year crafting golems for the price listed, or try to earn 1 more XP and level up, and earn the same money in the process?

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-08, 01:22 AM
Where from? From the 100 wizards out of the 10,000 you asked who were willing and able to do the job for you?
What are you talking about? Why would I ask 10,000 wizards. I have 1 level 20 wizard who can do it just fine.


Only if your world is full with CR20 challenges. In that case the life expectancy of your average city is 0 days.
If a higl level character actually manages to go on an adventure more often than every year your world is in serious trouble.
Not to mention that a wizard who actually goes out adventuring has better things to do then to spent 4 months on crafting a golem.
Finding the challenges is easy. We have the whole multiverse to work with. It's as simple as a plane shift to hell and him blasting away for a day or so.

The Plain of Ida in the Heroic Domains of Ysgard is actually perfect. If he dies he is true ressed in the morning and it is in a state of constant warfare.

Or he just pisses off a few inevitable's. They are easy to deal with and pretty much just keep coming.

XP really isn't hard to get in D&D.


The counter is that unless you kill every wizard you asked to build a golem, they will talk.
(And since they don't have glowing numbers with their level and spare XP over their head, you will waste a lot of time asking people who can't do the job)

Why am I asking anyone? I have my 1 wizard who can do it. 1 level 20 wizard can pop out 2 per year and still gain XP each year with little trouble.


And just put yourself into the spot of a wizard of level 17 with 16,999 XP.
Would you rather spent a year crafting golems for the price listed, or try to earn 1 more XP and level up, and earn the same money in the process?

See above.

EDIT: One of my golem's costs 100,000 GP and 7,200 XP to create. Our wizard has to solo 1 CR 17 encounter per golem to get the XP for 1 Golem. And he can go so far as gating in a CR 17 creature when he needs the XP.

Maerok
2007-07-08, 01:29 AM
So, I was watching some stargate, and I had a mostly unrelated thought: it's obvious that magic=win, and therefore a nation's military should want as much magic as possible. Aside from getting casters in the military, equipping soldiers with magic arms and devices is one of the easiest and pretty much only way to do this. But, aside from artificers, there's no real source of xp for the amount of crafting needed to equip an army, so how to go about getting some? Solution:

Prisoners. First off, go with the variant idea that allows a character to willingly (as in not affected by spell or ability) give up xp to a caster for casting a spell or crafting a magic item. Then, set up a system where prisoners are given the option of donating their spare xp in return for a lighter sentence.

Obviously it is under some duress, but they don't have to do it, and it causes them no harm whatsoever, just some of this unknown energy that magicians use to create their trinkets. The best part is, it's not really a fate that people will fear, so it won't reduce crime very much, meaning a steady flow of prisoners with varying amounts of spare xp.

So, discuss, refine, refute, and what have you.

An evil empire could pull this off by sacrificing the prisoners for darkcraft XP (via BoVD). I think they'd be more inclined for that sort of power-trip, as well as crazy enough to do it (even implementing a breeding stock program or getting into the soul trading business). That's what I would do anyway... Or go the Phyrexian route and convert the prisoners into living war machines.

A possible plothook could be uncovering a way to recover those souls (now occupying the golems o' death) and turn the army against its original creators.

Yahzi
2007-07-08, 02:37 AM
We did a thread on this kind of stuff here. You might find it interesting:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=37056&highlight=Book+Armies

Basically, there is a value to just having some warm bodies (even 1st lvl Commoners), and there is a value to having high-lvls. As always, some mix of both will prove to be the best bet.

Grey Paladin
2007-07-08, 09:59 AM
This discussion is pointless as it assumes that this takes place in a High Magic World ,if you assume that EXP is that easy to get and you have multiple high level wizards and a level 20 one you could just level to Epic and start the infinite summoning loop, heck, a level 13 Wu-jen could conquer the world all by himself with that kind of money and repeated castings of Body beyond Body, in a world where level 9 characters are not the equivalents of Hercules in rarity, there is no use for armies.

or countries, for that matter, without magic rulers needed peasants to produce good, now all they need is a single wizard, Kingdoms are an outdated business module.

TheWarBlade
2007-07-08, 12:02 PM
One thing that never fails! A party of high-level adventurers!

Grizzled Gryphon
2007-07-08, 12:16 PM
I have not read this thread, as it is HUGE, so this may have been addressed already, but here it is, anyway...

With the addition of magic, would "current" strategies (massed troops; formation's in rank and file) really still be useful? I mean, an easily aquired and placed fireball ends the threat of the charge from heavy calvary pretty easily. a couple of those spells, and your massed infantry is history.

So, I wonder what changes would have been made, tactically, anyway, to the way war is waged? Real history can help with that, but only a little.

In real life, the advent of personally used explosives (grenades) caused formation of units to spread out. A LOT.

Of course, this does not translate well into D&D. Each soldier does not have a rifle and a few grenades to throw at the enemy. They still only have swords, spears, and the like. Divide up an infantry unit outfitted like that, and they are a bunch of single guys looking to die. Too close together, and one fireball ends that threat fairly cheaply, all in all.

So, what kind of "fixs" would have been divised because of magic?

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-08, 12:38 PM
I have not read this thread, as it is HUGE, so this may have been addressed already, but here it is, anyway...

With the addition of magic, would "current" strategies (massed troops; formation's in rank and file) really still be useful? I mean, an easily aquired and placed fireball ends the threat of the charge from heavy calvary pretty easily. a couple of those spells, and your massed infantry is history.

Yeah, applying magic to the battlefield would change strategy and tactics so far as to be almost unrecognizable to us.

Take a look at teleport. You just made the whole concept of border security obsolete. Supply lines are now non existent as well.

And just look at the casting classes. We did the exercise once and a level 20 wizard can destroy an army of thousands of level 5 mooks in less than a day.


So, I wonder what changes would have been made, tactically, anyway, to the way war is waged? Real history can help with that, but only a little.

In real life, the advent of personally used explosives (grenades) caused formation of units to spread out. A LOT.

Of course, this does not translate well into D&D. Each soldier does not have a rifle and a few grenades to throw at the enemy. They still only have swords, spears, and the like. Divide up an infantry unit outfitted like that, and they are a bunch of single guys looking to die. Too close together, and one fireball ends that threat fairly cheaply, all in all.

So, what kind of "fixs" would have been divised because of magic?

Take a look at eberron for a bit of an idea.

But what you would really have is small armies of a hundred or so high level guys (10+) who do the fighting. Policing your own people can be done by regular mooks but they won't be able to take or hold land.

Arang
2007-07-08, 12:46 PM
It means "normal" troops are cannon fodder, basically. Face it, the level 3 Warriors have no way to take out the flying, invisible, Protection from Arrows-ed, Wind Wall-ed level 15 Wizard who's pumping out seemingly unlimited numbers of Fireballs at them. They are there (if they're there at all, something I will leave to more rules-wise people than me) so that the level 15 Wizard won't see the other level 15 Wizard coming at him as a single target, but one of many, spread-out targets. Do it like that, and he won't know who to hit, and (hopefully) he'll be toast.

Battles would've been more about the spellcasters. Joe Footman's only chance of not getting killed by some godlike wizard in the blink of an eye is that wizard being occupied fighting another godlike wizard. Battles (at least their first stages) would be about magic users teleporting or flying around, trying to kill each other, so they can get down to AoE-ing the grunts.

At least that's what I think.

SMDVogrin
2007-07-08, 12:51 PM
Back to the original topic of how nations could get XP to spend on crafting magic items:

One interesting plot option that occurred to me is something based on the "Witchblade" from Iron Kingdoms.

For those unfamiliar with the item, it's a magical blade particularly effective against arcane magic-users. One of it's abilities is that it can absorb part of the experience of the mages it kills, and transfers that XP to the wielder. Part of the plot involved in it's introduction is that it was once used to executed arcane casters convicted of crimes.

Now, imagine if some wizard working for a nation came up with something sort of similar. Executioner's blades that absorb a fraction of the XP of the people they are used to execute, and hold that XP until it can be used to craft magic items. Not only is it a source of magic items for the Nation's army, but it's a major plot hook to involve PCs in! (Is the nation evil for using this method, or not? Is the need for magic items corrupting the justice process, leading to faulty convictions or overly-broad classifications of what is a capital crime? Will the nation start executing foreign captives for XP if they go to war?)

ZeroNumerous
2007-07-08, 01:23 PM
You know.. Two 20th level PCs could defeat Emperor Tippy's entire army. Sadly enough, I think this proves that PCs are the most broken thing one can add to a nation's military.

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-08, 01:28 PM
You know.. Two 20th level PCs could defeat Emperor Tippy's entire army. Sadly enough, I think this proves that PCs are the most broken thing one can add to a nation's military.

Nope. Magic doesn't work on them and I have to many wizards for that anyway. So how do you plan on killing a 100 golems and 50 wizards?

/I'm actually quite curious because I was trying to figure out how to do it and couldn't (at least not with 2 characters)

ZeroNumerous
2007-07-08, 01:48 PM
I don't care about killing them. Using a diplomancer main PC and a cleric-cohort I can defeat this entire army. I just use Commune to triangulate the location of any one of your wizards. I then Gate myself to another plane, then Gate myself to that location. Diplomancer, using a one level dip in Mindbender, does his thing. Using your own telepathic bond, he instantly makes a +100~ Diplomacy check versus all of your wizards. Your entire army is now Fanatically loyal to him.

Tor the Fallen
2007-07-08, 06:25 PM
I don't care about killing them. Using a diplomancer main PC and a cleric-cohort I can defeat this entire army. I just use Commune to triangulate the location of any one of your wizards. I then Gate myself to another plane, then Gate myself to that location. Diplomancer, using a one level dip in Mindbender, does his thing. Using your own telepathic bond, he instantly makes a +100~ Diplomacy check versus all of your wizards. Your entire army is now Fanatically loyal to him.

Lol. Nice.

13_CBS
2007-07-08, 07:31 PM
I don't care about killing them. Using a diplomancer main PC and a cleric-cohort I can defeat this entire army. I just use Commune to triangulate the location of any one of your wizards. I then Gate myself to another plane, then Gate myself to that location. Diplomancer, using a one level dip in Mindbender, does his thing. Using your own telepathic bond, he instantly makes a +100~ Diplomacy check versus all of your wizards. Your entire army is now Fanatically loyal to him.

Doesn't a Mage's Sanctum prevent all that? Or have I not read up enough on that spell?

Jack_Simth
2007-07-08, 07:39 PM
Doesn't a Mage's Sanctum prevent all that? Or have I not read up enough on that spell?
Mage's Private Sanctum prevents Divination(Scrying) effects. Commune is merely a Divination effect.

Mind Blank potentially beats Commune. However, it only stops information about the protected subject. If you're Communing to find a golem station, rather than a covered mage (Golems have to be close to their masters to receive orders, in most cases), you'll find the mage by way of proxy.

Tor the Fallen
2007-07-08, 07:42 PM
Mage's Private Sanctum also only affects a specific area. Anytime the golems are mobilized, the wizard(s) would have to leave their sanctum.

Wolfwood2
2007-07-08, 07:45 PM
One thing about creating magical items is that you don't literally feed raw gold pieces into some sort of magical forge to produce them.

The gold pieces are supposed to be abstractly used to buy various exotic components, gathered from across the world at great expense and danger. These exotic components cost a lot of gold because they're so rare and in such limited supply.

On the level of an individual player, it's assumed that if you have the gold you can buy the components. However, that's just an assumption made for ease of play. When you talk about a nation casually buying 100 wands of fireballs you're assuming that the components for 100 wands of fireballs are available at any price- an assumption I'm not sure is safe to make.

Soulsteel golems presumably require a quantity of soulsteel to produce. If it takes 100 years to mine enough soulsteel to produce a golem from the world's only soulsteel mine... you're out of luck.

Tor the Fallen
2007-07-08, 08:30 PM
One thing about creating magical items is that you don't literally feed raw gold pieces into some sort of magical forge to produce them.

The gold pieces are supposed to be abstractly used to buy various exotic components, gathered from across the world at great expense and danger. These exotic components cost a lot of gold because they're so rare and in such limited supply.

On the level of an individual player, it's assumed that if you have the gold you can buy the components. However, that's just an assumption made for ease of play. When you talk about a nation casually buying 100 wands of fireballs you're assuming that the components for 100 wands of fireballs are available at any price- an assumption I'm not sure is safe to make.

Soulsteel golems presumably require a quantity of soulsteel to produce. If it takes 100 years to mine enough soulsteel to produce a golem from the world's only soulsteel mine... you're out of luck.

Great Teleport, Gate, and Divination spells mitigate this to a very small degree.

Arbitrarity
2007-07-08, 09:35 PM
You know.. Two 20th level PCs could defeat Emperor Tippy's entire army. Sadly enough, I think this proves that PCs are the most broken thing one can add to a nation's military.

1 1'st level PC could do it as well, but there's only so much cheese that is tolerable.

Elana
2007-07-08, 11:51 PM
What are you talking about? Why would I ask 10,000 wizards. I have 1 level 20 wizard who can do it just fine.

Sure, where did you get him from?
The only way I see, is for a bunch of PCs trying to take on the world, otherwise there is no wizard over level 16 available in any city.
(Going strictly by RAW and city populations, because everything else means the DM handed it to you)



Finding the challenges is easy. We have the whole multiverse to work with. It's as simple as a plane shift to hell and him blasting away for a day or so.

The Plain of Ida in the Heroic Domains of Ysgard is actually perfect. If he dies he is true ressed in the morning and it is in a state of constant warfare.

Or he just pisses off a few inevitable's. They are easy to deal with and pretty much just keep coming.
All those methods are clear ways to get killed sooner or later. Not even devils like to get slaughterd for fun and they have things like pitfiends with 54 hit dice. (No reason to pull unique beings into that)


XP really isn't hard to get in D&D.

Actually you get it for overcoming challenges. If you attack them without any chance of them striking back you get exactly 0 XP :P





Why am I asking anyone? I have my 1 wizard who can do it. 1 level 20 wizard can pop out 2 per year and still gain XP each year with little trouble.

Again only way a king can get a wizard of level 20 is if he is said wizard





EDIT: One of my golem's costs 100,000 GP and 7,200 XP to create. Our wizard has to solo 1 CR 17 encounter per golem to get the XP for 1 Golem. And he can go so far as gating in a CR 17 creature when he needs the XP.

Oh, so it's the kind that you can't buy per RAW ever and so have to make yourself:P


Maybe you haven't noticed, but the system was build for PCs to win.

If your not a PC the best you can ever buy is a stone golem. A nice CR11 encounter, but far from unstoppable

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-09, 12:10 AM
Sure, where did you get him from?
The only way I see, is for a bunch of PCs trying to take on the world, otherwise there is no wizard over level 16 available in any city.
(Going strictly by RAW and city populations, because everything else means the DM handed it to you)
The planar metropolises have them.

But that matters not at all. If I didn't have the wizard I would never attempt to carry out a plan like this. Hence I have th wizard. It doesn't matter how I got him (maybe he was trained by my government for just this occasion). I have him because if I don't have him I would be arguing an entirely different plan.

Just like those arguing against my position are assuming that they even know my nation exists.



All those methods are clear ways to get killed sooner or later. Not even devils like to get slaughterd for fun and they have things like pitfiends with 54 hit dice. (No reason to pull unique beings into that)

Actually you get it for overcoming challenges. If you attack them without any chance of them striking back you get exactly 0 XP :P

And I can build a level 20 wizard (not particularly optimized) who can solo them all day.

Who ever said I would attack them without giving them a chance to strike back?

And as I already said, just port on over to hell and wait a bit for a random patrol.



Again only way a king can get a wizard of level 20 is if he is said wizard
No, there are lots of ways to get level 20 wizards. Planar Cities get to ignore those level limits. And those limits assume a random distribution anyways, my taking steps to acquire said wizard (such as training him fro ma young age) is outside of those rules.


Oh, so it's the kind that you can't buy per RAW ever and so have to make yourself:P

Um, no. You can buy a shade steel golem. Market price for the ones I want is 190,000 GP. Those were just the costs to the wizard in XP and materials.


Maybe you haven't noticed, but the system was build for PCs to win.

If your not a PC the best you can ever buy is a stone golem. A nice CR11 encounter, but far from unstoppable

What are you talking about? I could, per RAW, go to Sigil and drop 20,000,000 GP down on the table and walk out that same day with 100 of the golems I want.

And the best golem you can get in core is a fully advanced Iron Golem. It beats the fully advanced Stone golem.

The cheapest way to get an Iron golem is actually by making an Iron Golem Manual. It costs you half of what it would cost you to make the actual golem.

Elana
2007-07-09, 02:51 AM
Fine, lets say you have your wizard and have the advantage of playing in a campaign where the creation of a shadesteel golem isn't lost.

What stops the other side of wasting the same amount of XP on creating Gate scrolls?

When you 100 golems come, my clerics read the gate scrolls to summon 700 solars to defend the city.


Do you want to play out how that ends?

(Tip the arrows they shoot do damage around half the time, forcing the golem to make a fort save.
Sure they are good at it, but sooner or later they do roll a 1 and are utterly destroyed.
(At least that is what the description of an arrow of slaying says in the DMG)
And they can use that while staying out of reach of your golems. (Actually there is no real need to waste 700 gate spells for that, but that is what I get with the same kind of XP waste))



PS.
The iron golem has a base price of 190,000 like you said. Unluckily for you by RAW a Metropolis doesn't sell anything worth more than 100,000

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-09, 03:33 AM
Fine, lets say you have your wizard and have the advantage of playing in a campaign where the creation of a shadesteel golem isn't lost.

What stops the other side of wasting the same amount of XP on creating Gate scrolls?

When you 100 golems come, my clerics read the gate scrolls to summon 700 solars to defend the city.
Your better off with candles of invocation, cheaper.

And nothing stops you from doing it. But how many times do you use those solars to defend your capital? And your other cities? And armies in the field?

The benefit of the golem army is how long it lasts.



Do you want to play out how that ends?

(Tip the arrows they shoot do damage around half the time, forcing the golem to make a fort save.
Sure they are good at it, but sooner or later they do roll a 1 and are utterly destroyed.
(At least that is what the description of an arrow of slaying says in the DMG)
And they can use that while staying out of reach of your golems. (Actually there is no real need to waste 700 gate spells for that, but that is what I get with the same kind of XP waste))
Actually, by RAW an Arrow of Slaying has absolutely no effect on a golem for 3 different reasons.

This is onls because someone didn't think when they came up with the arrow but as it stands an arrow of slaying does nothing to a golem no matter what it rolls.


PS.
The iron golem has a base price of 190,000 like you said. Unluckily for you by RAW a Metropolis doesn't sell anything worth more than 100,000

Sigil, Union, the City of Brass. All are cities with no GP limit. Pretty much every planar metropolis lacks one. :smallwink:

Elana
2007-07-09, 04:01 AM
Strictly by raw the arrow of slaying does something :)


Slaying Arrow

This +1 arrow is keyed to a particular type or subtype of creature. If it strikes such a creature, the target must make a DC 20 Fortitude save or die (or, in the case of unliving targets, be destroyed) instantly. Note that even creatures normally exempt from Fortitude saves (undead and constructs) are subject to this attack. When keyed to a living creature, this is a death effect (and thus death ward protects a target). To determine the type or subtype of creature the arrow is keyed to, roll on the table below.

So yes, those golems are toast as soon as you roll a 1 on the Fort save.


Your planar cities are nice and all, unfortunately they are not mentiont in any core product :P
(Now if you have the Manual of the planes in your game things are different)


And I only need the solars to defend my city once. After that you have no more golems :P

Thing is you waste 200,000 gold for an offense thing that can be defeated an item for just around 8,000 gold.

Sure the gate of solars isn't that good when I want to attack someone.
(They don't like that at all and come back to kick my ass afterwards) But for defense purposes they are just great.


Which brings us back to the earlier point. Nations that are that big and rich don't fight wars against each others, because no side can win those.

And the smaller nations, just don't have the money for any of those plans (or casters of high enough level for that matter)
And so have to fall back to using cheap level 1 people.
(And use of diplomacy to get on the good side of one superpower :) )

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-09, 04:26 AM
Strictly by raw the arrow of slaying does something :)

So yes, those golems are toast as soon as you roll a 1 on the Fort save.
No, the arrow says it does something. It also happens to be a death effect, a necromany effect, and magical. All 3 are things which golems are immune to.

The magical part can arguably be ignored and the death effect part is debatable but an arrow of slaying is a necromatic effect and golems are immune to those.



Your planar cities are nice and all, unfortunately they are not mentiont in any core product :P
(Now if you have the Manual of the planes in your game things are different)

Read your DMG both Sigil and The City of Brass are in there. Union is in the Epic Level Handbook.



And I only need the solars to defend my city once. After that you have no more golems :P

Thing is you waste 200,000 gold for an offense thing that can be defeated an item for just around 8,000 gold.
You claim that you can find out about my golems, what do you think stops me finding out about your plan to deal with them?

Also consider that each of your solars only lasts 17 rounds before you have to pay them to deal with my golems. Run, Run, Run as fast as you can for the next minute and a half mister golem. Then the solar goes home.


Sure the gate of solars isn't that good when I want to attack someone.
(They don't like that at all and come back to kick my ass afterwards) But for defense purposes they are just great.
They aren't so hot on defense either. Yeah, you may defend your capital. But what about your towns and other cities? What about your armies?

The biggest advantage of my force is near unlimited flexibility and the speed with which it can move.



Which brings us back to the earlier point. Nations that are that big and rich don't fight wars against each others, because no side can win those.
France and Britain did it for a hundred years. Persia did it to the Greeks. Napoleon and Russia. Hitler and Russia. Hitler and Britain.

Need I go on?

SMDVogrin
2007-07-09, 04:46 AM
No, the arrow says it does something. It also happens to be a death effect, a necromany effect, and magical. All 3 are things which golems are immune to.

The magical part can arguably be ignored and the death effect part is debatable but an arrow of slaying is a necromatic effect and golems are immune to those.


No, it's not a death effect ("When keyed to a living creature, this is a death effect" (emphasis mine), read the description for pete's sake).

Golems aren't immune to magic weapons, only (and I quote) "any spell, supernatural ability, or spell-like ability that allows spell resistance". This isn't any of those.

Constructs are only immune to "Necromancy effects". While the Slaying Arrow has a Strong Necromantic "Aura", that does not neccessarily mean that it's damage is a Necromancy effect.

And since the Slaying Arrow is SPECIFICALLY stated to affect Constructs, construct immunity to necromancy effects is obviously not effective against this weapon. (Specific rule over-rides general rule)
("creatures normally exempt from Fortitude saves (undead and constructs) are subject to this attack", "Designated Type or Subtype: 10-16 - Constructs")

Next?

Elana
2007-07-09, 04:56 AM
The arrow of slaying is only a death effect against living things.

And it clearly states that it works against things normally immune to such effects.
Sigil and the city of brass are named in the DMG, but it doesn't give them higher amount of wealth for things to buy there.

And I don't need to know about your golems.

If we assume that your kingdom has enough ties toother planes to make evrything on other planes, and you just sended your army through a gate to the prime when you wanted to start your plans of conquering everything.

Preparing some defenses is quite sensible precaution.
And I don't need to waste million of gold pieces for it either.

You have to admit that at same point I will know that I'm under attack.
Also that no ruler will have a 0 gp budget for military until that happens and only strat to recruit and train soldiers afterwards.

But even if I'm the most stupid ruler ever, I will have clerics in my capital able to cast gate.

A single Solar can destroy the army giving time. (Assuming that I realy have a bad kingdom with only one cleric able to cast that spell)


Just as further thought, say arrows of slaying really don't work for some reason.

The solar can shoot 4 arrows per round, lets say he even needs a 20 to hit,that makes one hit every 5 rounds.

Now half of those arrows would do enough damage to cost HP.

So lets say in 10 rounds I only cause 2 points of damage. and you have really huge shadesteel golems with , lets say 500 HP.

That would actually mean 4 hours before the first one is destroyed.

4 hours to destroy something you needed months to create isn't that bad.

As said Solar is fightig for a good cause and all that duration is of no importance. And my only cleric capable of casting that spell can get me another solar every day, until we defeated your golem army.
(And seriously, the only way a ruler could be that bad prepared, would mean that he, all his advisors and the cleric have an INt score of 3)

So worst case, takes me a week to defeat your unstoppable warriors.
(Actually, that you used unstoppable killing machines are what made it possible, there is no way I could have gotten the help of a Solar to fight a Paladins squad)


but Gate spells are a great way of defense. Especially as you can pick your monster when you are under attack. (And in your campaigns there is no need to restrict yourself to MM1 like I did)

Indon
2007-07-09, 09:07 AM
Well, to be fair, if we're going to get into cheese (which arguably, we did the moment we started getting free high-level characters via flawless brainwashing techniques), then the standard Solar Gate Cheese method beats pretty much any army, including those of lesser cheese methods, given a few days to prepare.

Elana
2007-07-09, 09:41 AM
The solar thing is not cheese. Only totally useless in more normal scenarios.

If I want to be the aggressor the Solars would leave after 2 minutes tops.


They are only helpful if you have to defend citizens from being slaughtered by large amounts of constructs or undead.

A sensible aproach for a metropolis would be to have about 10 candles of invocation to be stored away for an emergency.

now if your level 20 wizard who waste the last hundred years makeing his undefeatable shadesteel golems, you use 3 of those items (keep the rest save in case of a second wave)

If you play by normal rules, a solar needs around 5 minutes to destroy such a golem, no matter how many HP it has.
Ergo in 6 hours all 200 golems are destroyed.

Which clearly shows, if you put all your money into one kind of army you are screwed.

The same solar that stayed for hours to help all those innocents against the golems, would have gone home after 2 minutes if you had more or less equally human forces.

it's just nice to see that a 200,000 gp Golem is a waste of money, as the countermeasure only costs 8,400 gp


You are far better off, to use greater forces of cheaper stuff (like undead)

Golem armies are just not cost effective

elliott20
2007-07-09, 11:00 AM
this is why I think trying to pin down the precise construction of a fantasy army is not really appropriate. People get latched onto one concept, argue about it, and before you know it, the entire thread is just about that one army. It's an interesting idea, but that's hardly the end all, be all application of magic upon a military.

We have to consider how magic effects the general areas of warfare. there are so many things that we can consider: communication, transportation, supply lines, territory occupation, etc. But each is still constrained by the resources available to a particular army building nation.

While the D&D books RAW have prices for everything, it's not realistic to assume that you can just go and pick up all the materials you need en masse like that. money alone is not enough to get you the resources you need. Espeicially when you're arguing about nation building.

D&D, as it stands, has fast and simple rules for just running and adventure, but it's hardly a system for the theory of EVERYTHING. As such, it is at best, an imperfect model to simulate any wide scale economics or actual management tools.

So, when trying to apply D&D to something so wide scale, I would argue that it would be more prudent to fall back on empirical principles.

Arakune
2007-07-09, 12:26 PM
also, the ET still not updated his invencible army of doom.

Dervag
2007-07-09, 02:19 PM
The solar thing is not cheese. Only totally useless in more normal scenarios.So your argument is that a chain-summoning of solars is not cheese, because it only works properly and gives you a force that exists for a sustained period if the solars in question think that whatever you summoned them for actually deserves an honor guard of angels?

That may be stretching matters a little; I don't know.

I mean, you could equally well chain summon a bunch of opportunistic nongood outsiders using some kind of chain-gating and tell them that if they beat the shadesteel golems they get to take back the shadesteel and sell it.

elliott20
2007-07-09, 02:31 PM
So your argument is that a chain-summoning of solars is not cheese, because it only works properly and gives you a force that exists for a sustained period if the solars in question think that whatever you summoned them for actually deserves an honor guard of angels?

That may be stretching matters a little; I don't know.

I mean, you could equally well chain summon a bunch of opportunistic nongood outsiders using some kind of chain-gating and tell them that if they beat the shadesteel golems they get to take back the shadesteel and sell it.
well, she's really just playing the same card that ET is... "it's kosher according to RAW".

but then we might as well just talk about pun-puns and be done with the thread, if we're going to go that route.

ZeroNumerous
2007-07-09, 04:33 PM
Well, to be fair, if we're going to get into cheese (which arguably, we did the moment we started getting free high-level characters via flawless brainwashing techniques), then the standard Solar Gate Cheese method beats pretty much any army, including those of lesser cheese methods, given a few days to prepare.

Diplomacy.

Arakune
2007-07-09, 04:51 PM
Diplomacy.

i don't think that making a being of pure LG (that's it? well, it should be at least) to act friendly or to "ignore" an intervention if your army are going to slay inocent people, even if you had Infinity Diplomacy ranks. if you are going to lie about that they are the evil guys and etc, then that fall in to "bluff" section, and now we can work.

stainboy
2007-07-09, 05:05 PM
On mass production of magic items...

The GP prices for the magic-item crafting assume you're creating one item, from scratch, with no infrastructure in place to make the process more efficient. A nation trying to wage magical warfare probably won't be taking that approach. If they want to build, say, fifty iron golems, they're not going to find fifty different wizards, give them each a giant sack of gold, and say, "go make an iron golem." They're going to buy out an iron mine, find a way to mass-produce every iron golem component, and build a factory staffed by a bunch of wizards for putting iron golems together.

There are no rules for this, because D&D assumes that your party wizard just wants to make one iron golem, not a legion of them. D&D also assumes your DM doesn't want the wizard making a legion of iron golems and turning his game from a game about adventuring to a game about commanding a legion of iron golems. The rules just aren't there, because in D&D you play adventurers, not rulers of nations.

Regardless, mass-producing magic items would be much, much cheaper than creating them piecemeal.


On the XP cost, XP is pretty much an arbitrary mechanic. It's almost, but not quite, PC-only. There's an XP cost attached to magic item creation to keep the party wizard or cleric or artificer or whatever from going buck wild and outfitting the party with every item he can make. NPCs don't need that kind of restriction. We can either assume that (1) XP costs don't apply to creatures for whom the DM isn't tracking an XP total, such as the wizards in the factory making those iron golems, or (2) the DM has deemed that working in an iron-golem factory constitutes an "encounter," so those wizards are getting a constant supply of exactly enough XP to keep making iron golems.

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-09, 05:16 PM
No, it's not a death effect ("When keyed to a living creature, this is a death effect" (emphasis mine), read the description for pete's sake).
Yep. Now ask CustServe if something immune to death effects is immune to an arrow of slaying. They have said yes in the past.


Constructs are only immune to "Necromancy effects". While the Slaying Arrow has a Strong Necromantic "Aura", that does not neccessarily mean that it's damage is a Necromancy effect.
Again, according to CustServ anything with a necromantic aura or based on a necromancy spell is a necromantic effect.


And since the Slaying Arrow is SPECIFICALLY stated to affect Constructs, construct immunity to necromancy effects is obviously not effective against this weapon. (Specific rule over-rides general rule)
("creatures normally exempt from Fortitude saves (undead and constructs) are subject to this attack", "Designated Type or Subtype: 10-16 - Constructs")

Next?

No, it just gets pat their normally having to roll a fortitude save. It bypasses 1 thing.




The arrow of slaying is only a death effect against living things.

And it clearly states that it works against things normally immune to such effects.
See above.


Sigil and the city of brass are named in the DMG, but it doesn't give them higher amount of wealth for things to buy there.
Second paragraph down page 167


no GP limit applies when buying or selling goods... and NPCs of any class and level combination can be found there

And I don't need to know about your golems.


If we assume that your kingdom has enough ties toother planes to make evrything on other planes, and you just sended your army through a gate to the prime when you wanted to start your plans of conquering everything.

Preparing some defenses is quite sensible precaution.
And I don't need to waste million of gold pieces for it either.

You have to admit that at same point I will know that I'm under attack.
Also that no ruler will have a 0 gp budget for military until that happens and only strat to recruit and train soldiers afterwards.

But even if I'm the most stupid ruler ever, I will have clerics in my capital able to cast gate.

A single Solar can destroy the army giving time. (Assuming that I realy have a bad kingdom with only one cleric able to cast that spell)
After 17 round (20 if you use a level 20 cleric) your Solar pops out of existence.



Just as further thought, say arrows of slaying really don't work for some reason.

The solar can shoot 4 arrows per round, lets say he even needs a 20 to hit,that makes one hit every 5 rounds.

Now half of those arrows would do enough damage to cost HP.

So lets say in 10 rounds I only cause 2 points of damage. and you have really huge shadesteel golems with , lets say 500 HP.

That would actually mean 4 hours before the first one is destroyed.

4 hours to destroy something you needed months to create isn't that bad.
It is when the golem heals 8 points per round, your solar disappears in 17-20 rounds, and your solar can't take 4 hours of fighting 1 of the golems.


As said Solar is fightig for a good cause and all that duration is of no importance. And my only cleric capable of casting that spell can get me another solar every day, until we defeated your golem army.
(And seriously, the only way a ruler could be that bad prepared, would mean that he, all his advisors and the cleric have an INt score of 3)
No. Just because the solar is fighting for a "good cause" doesn't mean you get to ignore the time limit. First we haven't proven that any of my actions are evil. And if I am attacking you its because you planned on attacking me first. You also pulled thsi solar off of his duty, fighting the hordes of hell and demons around the multiverse, to fight a war of mortals that really doesn't matter in any great way.


So worst case, takes me a week to defeat your unstoppable warriors.
(Actually, that you used unstoppable killing machines are what made it possible, there is no way I could have gotten the help of a Solar to fight a Paladins squad)
You are assuming that your solar survives a week. If you some how managed to convince a solar to stay around and fight for you then I would throw everything at it and kill it. Then kill your cleric who summoned it. Then destroy the rest of your city.


but Gate spells are a great way of defense. Especially as you can pick your monster when you are under attack. (And in your campaigns there is no need to restrict yourself to MM1 like I did)

Gate lasts 2 minutes at most. It really doesn't matter when the enemy can run for 2 miniutes and then pop back in after the threat is gone. How many gate spells can you get each day?

Even if you convinced the solar to hang out, my forces retreat back to their undetectable base, wait until your solar leaves, and then port in and start wrecking havoc. You summon another solar and I repeat the process. If you are using the candles it costs you 8K for each false alarm. If you are using a cleric you get 4 or so gates a day.


Well, to be fair, if we're going to get into cheese (which arguably, we did the moment we started getting free high-level characters via flawless brainwashing techniques), then the standard Solar Gate Cheese method beats pretty much any army, including those of lesser cheese methods, given a few days to prepare.
Nah, the titan cheese is a much better choice.


The solar thing is not cheese. Only totally useless in more normal scenarios.

If I want to be the aggressor the Solars would leave after 2 minutes tops.


They are only helpful if you have to defend citizens from being slaughtered by large amounts of constructs or undead.

A sensible aproach for a metropolis would be to have about 10 candles of invocation to be stored away for an emergency.
Ok, you have 10 candles of invocation? That means after 10 false alarms you are out of them and I can attack with impunity.


now if your level 20 wizard who waste the last hundred years makeing his undefeatable shadesteel golems, you use 3 of those items (keep the rest save in case of a second wave)

If you play by normal rules, a solar needs around 5 minutes to destroy such a golem, no matter how many HP it has.
Ergo in 6 hours all 200 golems are destroyed.
(disregarding the rest) Why do you assume that the golems would stay and fight? As soon as they saw a Solar on the field they would retreat. Once the solars leave, which since they have defended the city from that attack they do, my golems come back and we repeat the process. You run out of solars quickly.


Which clearly shows, if you put all your money into one kind of army you are screwed.
Not really.


The same solar that stayed for hours to help all those innocents against the golems, would have gone home after 2 minutes if you had more or less equally human forces.
No, to be perfectly honest the solar would have gone home after 2 minutes pretty much no matter what. Your human nation being attacked by another human nation and taken over doesn't shift the cosmic balance of good and evil like a demon or devil on the loose does.


it's just nice to see that a 200,000 gp Golem is a waste of money, as the countermeasure only costs 8,400 gp
Sigh. Fine I gate in a titan and complete the titan chain cheese. I win.

And the soalrs really aren't that much help for the cost.


You are far better off, to use greater forces of cheaper stuff (like undead)

Golem armies are just not cost effective

Yes they are quite cost effective.

Flying Elephant
2007-07-09, 05:43 PM
Emperor Tippy, what if a rival empire where to say, breed Rust Monsters with shape-changing fiends? Once you got a few, they could reproduce rather quickly, getting a huge army to rip your golems apart.

Elana
2007-07-10, 01:21 AM
Hm, Tippy, you did notice that the 4 hours only apply in your homebrew version of the rules?

Strictly by RAW it would take an average of 5 minutes.

And yes for most outsiders the spell would either only work for 2 minutes or I have to make some sort of bargain with the summoned creature.

But the fun thing about celestials is, they actually value life and so feel compelled to save it.

But even if I have a mean DM. 3 solars would get rid of one of your golems, so 25,000 gp of defense ancel out 200,000 gp worth of offense power.

Your golems are still not cost effective.

Now I don't say that an army wouldn't use golems, but the second you put all your eggs into one basket, you face the danger of the basket getting stolen.

(Oh, and Sigil is listed in the Planar handbook, it's gp limit is 200,000 not unlimited, but still enough to get your golems, so at least you have a source :) )



So now that we have dealt with that one specific example, we can see how to create a better army. One that costs the other side at least as much to defeat then it costed us to build.


We have of course the 1,000 normal soldiers, just for the reason that they are there and can be drafted if need be.


A metropolis has a bunch of high level casters with it's city walls, so I guess if need be we can get them into the army as well.
(not for a long term employment, just for the war)

Leaves the equipment issue. We have wasted a lot of money to build city walls and a castle, so we sure have some money to spent around.

I already mentioned a stockpile of 10 candle of invocations, just because they are so versatile when it comes to getting a fitting defense against whatever the other side has.

But what other magic items should one have ready.

I guess an Apparatus of Kwalish could make a decent tank. (Especially if you put a low level wizard with a wand in it)
Probably a whole bunch of wands of magic missels (You just have to take advantage of all those level 1 casters)

2 or 3 stone golems aren't out of the question either. (Pretty expensive stuff, but can be usefull agaist a bunch of badly prepared opponents, or to be used in your 3rd wave, when you think your opponent has used up all the good defenses)
5 scrolls of Miracle could be considered, as you never know what bad stuff could happen. (And you probably need it most, once your high level clerics aren't capable of casting it :) )

But what other things do we need?
(And maybe some of the stuff I listed is bull****, because there are cheaper alternatives)

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-10, 02:06 AM
Hm, Tippy, you did notice that the 4 hours only apply in your homebrew version of the rules?

Strictly by RAW it would take an average of 5 minutes.
No, strictly by RAW an arrow of slaying does absolutely nothing to a golem. At least according to CustServe (an admittedly questionable source). They even went so far as to say that the arrows were intended to affect golems.

They are still a necromantic effect and are thus useless against a golem.


And yes for most outsiders the spell would either only work for 2 minutes or I have to make some sort of bargain with the summoned creature.

But the fun thing about celestials is, they actually value life and so feel compelled to save it.

But even if I have a mean DM. 3 solars would get rid of one of your golems, so 25,000 gp of defense ancel out 200,000 gp worth of offense power.

Your golems are still not cost effective.

Um, no. Celestials don't give 2 bits about life. They care about the cosmic struggle of good vs. evil. Neutral people killing neutral people is not something golems care about at all. And according to the rules the vast majority of humans are neutral.


Now I don't say that an army wouldn't use golems, but the second you put all your eggs into one basket, you face the danger of the basket getting stolen.

(Oh, and Sigil is listed in the Planar handbook, it's gp limit is 200,000 not unlimited, but still enough to get your golems, so at least you have a source :) )

As I have now said twice. Page 167 of the DMG. I even quoted the passage for you. Sigil has no GP limit. Original Source overrides new source if the original source is core and isn't specifically overridden.

Elana
2007-07-10, 09:34 AM
Fine.
But a arrow of construct slaying who destroys constructs should stillwork against constructs.
So telling it to be a death effect, like the DMG states it is against living creatures doesn't quite cut it.
(Now if you have a line in that description that claims that this particular golem, is immune to arrows of slaying you have a point. otherwise the fact that the DMG states that it works even against constructs normally immune to such an effect wins)

So you insist on the Solars going home after 17 rounds. No problem 3 Solars still managed to off one of the golems.

Which might not be enough to win against your army build over centuries. But the 200,000 golem was still destroyed by the expense of 25,000 gold. Making it a resource ratio of 8:1.

So if your military budget isn't at least 9 times that of your opponent, you have just wasted a lot of money and are now in trouble.

(if it is bigger you have still wasted a lot of money, but still managed to win)

Skjaldbakka
2007-07-10, 09:38 AM
An arrow of Golem Slaying is not a death effect. An arrow of slaying is ONLY a death effect if it is keyed to a living creature. This is by RAW. By RAW, what aura a magic item has is irrelevant, except as a way to guess at what it might do when using detect magic.

Arbitrarity
2007-07-10, 09:50 AM
An arrow of Golem Slaying is not a death effect. An arrow of slaying is ONLY a death effect if it is keyed to a living creature. This is by RAW. By RAW, what aura a magic item has is irrelevant, except as a way to guess at what it might do when using detect magic.

Wanna bet?

Immunity to poison, sleep effects, paralysis, stunning, disease, death effects, and necromancy effects.

Not a death effect, a "necromancy effect".

Indon
2007-07-10, 10:52 AM
Diplomacy.

Good point!

We want an infinitely-replicating, enslavable (but not _reenslavable_, so maybe trainable or something), _nonintelligent_ creature, ideally.

Edit: A good poor-man's choice for a good magic army is to infect all your troops with lycanthropy. Your army of 1HD peasants just became pretty comparatively awesome.

Dervag
2007-07-10, 11:02 AM
No, strictly by RAW an arrow of slaying does absolutely nothing to a golem. At least according to CustServe (an admittedly questionable source). They even went so far as to say that the arrows were intended to affect golems.

They are still a necromantic effect and are thus useless against a golem.So they're saying "we intended arrows of slaying to affect golems, but we screwed up, and now according to our own interpretation of the rules they don't?"

How is that not an errata?


Um, no. Celestials don't give 2 bits about life. They care about the cosmic struggle of good vs. evil. Neutral people killing neutral people is not something golems care about at all. And according to the rules the vast majority of humans are neutral.Could I get a citation on your claim that celestials don't care whether neutral mortals live or die? And, by extension, that they will allow your army of golems operated by mind-controlled slaves to destroy cities and conquer nations which, presumably, contain at least some good people in them?

Elana
2007-07-10, 12:48 PM
Here we go again.

The entry for the slaying arrow clearly states

...ote that even creatures normally exempt from Fortitude saves (undead and constructs) are subject to this attack...

Specific rules trump general ruling!
So, creatures normally immune to the effect still have to make the save.


On that note I remove the apparatus of kwalish from my list of suggesting items.
it has the same problem as the golems. It's not cost effective.

In fact no construct or item useable by only one person should be worth more than 8,500 gp.
And even that only if it is quite good.

We better leave golems doing the job they were invented for. Guarding places :D

Flying Elephant
2007-07-10, 12:48 PM
Emperor Tippy, what if a rival empire where to say, breed Rust Monsters with shape-changing fiends? Once you got a few, they could reproduce rather quickly, getting a huge army to rip your golems apart.
Emperor Tippy, I ask my question again and add more. You could just polymorph dretches you summoned into Rust Monsters and breed them with regular ones, making a rapidly expanding huge army of Half Fiend Rust Monsters.

Arbitrarity
2007-07-10, 12:54 PM
Here we go again.

The entry for the slaying arrow clearly states


Specific rules trump general ruling!
So, creatures normally immune to the effect still have to make the save.


On that note I remove the apparatus of kwalish from my list of suggesting items.
it has the same problem as the golems. It's not cost effective.

In fact no construct or item useable by only one person should be worth more than 8,500 gp.
And even that only if it is quite good.

We better leave golems doing the job they were invented for. Guarding places :D

It's not the immunity to fort saves, it's the immunity to necromancy. Thee is no specific rule about that. Trumps fort save immune, but not necromancy immune.

Strong necromancy; CL 13th
Then again, that's at least disputable enough that intent trumps stupidity.