A Mile Away - The Meteor Swarm Problem

[Vyshaan]

Hello everyone... long-time lurker, but I haven't posted in a long time (back in the day I used to play around with the 3.5 business rules). Anyways, I've been working on an essay about mass combat and 5e, which seems timely given the latest UA release. I wanted to approach warfare in D&D the same way airpower was approached during World War II: here's a real game-changer, but even after its introduction, infantry remained the Queen of Battle. I wanted to focus on how a single high-level mage would interact with another army. However, I keep running into one particular problem: the range of meteor swarm.

At one mile, this is far, far beyond most effects in the game. It's not insurmountable, but I've trying to figure out how a military force who, knowing there's someone with the fantasy equivalent of a tactical nuke out there, would find, fix, and attack that individual (particular if it's possible with low to mid-level NPCs).

I think I have a pretty good basis for an essay, I just want to really pin down this one problem: what do you do when the scale of this one spell (and now, all wizard spells with the Lore Master from UA) so far exceeds that of all other mechanical effects in the game?

[8wGremlin]

Same as the Cold War.
You don't attack the powers with the nuke.
You do espionage, and engage is small scale skirmishes, blame 'issues' on other races/nations
Pay other races to play up, feed the local undead commanders to push into the opposing lands
Send adventurers in who have no affiliation to your nation.

If the Meteor Swam casting mage (MSM) has taken the field, then you'll have mutually assured destruction, as your MSM also takes to the field.

[Potato_Priest]

Assassins are generally the best way to go. If you send an advance team of assassins out, preferably including someone who can grapple and someone who can cast silence, they can sneak into wherever that wizard sleeps and kill them before they get a spell off. Presumably doable with 2 level 5 PCs, 1 wizard and 1 rogue/barbarian (wizard dual casts invisibility with a 3rd level slot to sneak around, casts silence on the sleeping wiz, and a bully rogue/barbarian with stealth proficiency grapples and shanks) if all goes well you can even get out before anyone notices anything amiss. For a greater chance of success add someone with both pass without trace and invisibility (grasslands druid) and another melee beater.

[RickAllison]

Do keep in mind that anyone with access to Meteor Swarm is not just a powerful soldier, but a major player on their own in the realm. They have sufficient power that parley can be forced by a mere offer to enter/leave a conflict. At that level, a Champion Fighter is able to heal injuries perhaps faster than he takes them, a Rogue is able to (without fail) make DC 25 checks in his chosen specialties, and a Barbarian can possess strength and constitution that are literally unobtainable by the most gifted of humanoids.

Because of that, a Meteor Swarm is a last resort where all talks have broken down and someone who is of a power level that really should be dealing with extra-planar threats has decided to step in. And he wrecks common men. Which makes sense, as he should be dealing with gods and demon lords, not kings and soldiers. It outstrips other spells because this marks the beginning of the tier where such concerns are beneath the heroes. They shouldn't be getting involved with such conflicts unless it becomes personal.

[Potato_Priest]

In case you haven't considered this as another world-breaking spell, animal shapes is perhaps even more powerful than meteor storm in a military battle. Gather a large number of peasants within 30 feet of you, and BAM! A horde of Giant Scorpions for 24 entire hours. What was once a band of children, old women, and cripples is now a super badass army.

[Vyshaan]

Same as the Cold War.
You don't attack the powers with the nuke.
You do espionage, and engage is small scale skirmishes, blame 'issues' on other races/nations

....

If the Meteor Swam casting mage (MSM) has taken the field, then you'll have mutually assured destruction, as your MSM also takes to the field.

The issue I'm running into is that the MSM is not only a "state actor," but is usual a rogue actor... it's more like suitcase nukes being a common thing.

However, I did realize that the Lore Master Mage offers an elegant solution, when used: a LMM can counterspell at a mile range.

This, in itself, brings things back to workable assumptions. If one side has a MSM, the other likely has four 6th level LMM who can be on hand to attempt to counter the nuke. Each of them has roughly a 30% chance of countering it, which means 4 of them will counter 3 out of 4 times. The bomber does not get through.

[ShikomeKidoMi]

Meteor Swarm? You want to wreck the average army, you use Storm of Vengeance. Get yourself a nice tall tower and you can hit people from over the horizon. It's got a wider radius, too. Admittedly, strong stone roofs will stop it, but any low level characters that are outside are dead.

The main thing to remember about high level wizards is that they're meant to be rare and the best way to engage them, if you have to engage them, is generally not with traditional infantry. You probably want a few assassination specced Lore Bards to kill them in their sleep, frankly.

[Vyshaan]

In case you haven't considered this as another world-breaking spell, animal shapes is perhaps even more powerful than meteor storm in a military battle. Gather a large number of peasants within 30 feet of you, and BAM! A horde of Giant Scorpions for 24 entire hours. What was once a band of children, old women, and cripples is now a super badass army.

Agreed, and I have a list of spells like this. I'm trying to assume "bang for the buck" (Call Lightning is an amazing spell, because it's likely to be common, whereas the Animal Shapes trick is probably more rare).

I did some math: taking a peasant and turning them into a giant scorpion makes them about 5 times more effective (I did some napkin math with mob rules... I can do it tighter if you don't agree). Basically... if I have 20 archers, they'll take out 4 scorpions at range before they close using mob rules. Which is good... but it's a high level spell, and it's basically letting 50 peasants take out 250 warriors. Which is a huge swing, but there's stuff that can be done against it.

The main point that I'm working on is that in 5e, there's a limit to the amount of actual damage magic can do, and ways to mitigate that. The premise that to win an open war you need to put a soldier with weapon in hand in another land might not necessarily change.

[Asmotherion]

I'll quote Cornelius Fudge from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: "The trouble is, the other side can do magic too, Prime Minister.". A single mage can cast only one of those ultimate 9th level spells per day. The enemy needs knowlage of how many of those almighty mages are avalable on each side. If one does not kill the other in the first attack (and, due to preparations, he probably won't) the other will respond with his own Meteor Swarm. There is also the collateral damage to consider, as well as the defences on each side (Wall of Force and other effects do stop Meteor Swarm, and neither side would like to waste their nuke without knowing if it will be countered). Collateral Damage alone would make nuking a strategy that would be avoided, both from the attacker and defender, as one wants to protect his lands, not burn them down, wile the other wants to conquer prosperous and not burned land. In non-conquering wars, there might be other reaaons such as resuing prisoners, retrieving an artifact from an enemy... Even in cases of pure revenge war, there is still the sence of self preservation that prevents putting soldiers in too risky situations, as they may change their loyalties. That is also what makes an undead army thay dangerous: lack of a sence of self preservation.

Yes, a high level Mage can wipe out an entire mundane army in one hit, that is intended. However, no army worthy of the name will be without it't own spellcasters, and some highly trained (high lever/CR) parties of the army might survive the nuking, and then the caster is left to face them without his 9th level spell slot.

Basically, a caster is the equivalent of nukes and superweapons in D&D warfare. Won't be deployed (at least not at full power) easyly, and serves more as a strategic point/threat than a default go-to resource of damage.

[Ninja_Prawn]

Yes, a high level Mage can wipe out an entire mundane army in one hit

This got me thinking... Meteor Swarm hits 4no 40-foot circles, right? That... actually isn't a very big area. A=πr2, right? That's 20,106 square feet - all of a quarter of the area of an international soccer field. On a D&D grid, you couldn't even fit 1,000 people in that space... pretty small for an army.

So really, the wizard is going to need to be a bit cleverer than just 'stand on hill, cast meteor swarm' if they want to be a threat to an army.

[JellyPooga]

This got me thinking... Meteor Swarm hits 4no 40-foot circles, right? That... actually isn't a very big area. A=πr2, right? That's 20,106 square feet - all of a quarter of the area of an international soccer field. On a D&D grid, you couldn't even fit 1,000 people in that space... pretty small for an army.

So really, the wizard is going to need to be a bit cleverer than just 'stand on hill, cast meteor swarm' if they want to be a threat to an army.

I had the same thought as you at first, but consider; defeating an army does not mean killing an army and MS can and will straight up kill a significant number of men, likely in key positions. The impact on moral of a couple of hundred trained soldiers (assuming, of course, that they are trained) being wiped off the face of the planet in a matter of seconds is highly significant. They don't know that Wizard can't do it again after all, even if their commanders do.

[Tanarii]

Characters that can cast Meteor Swarm are effectively Demi-gods. Hell, even level 11-16 characters change the entire world. But level 17-20 change the multiverse.

Generally speaking, if one is walking the earth and gets involved in a local (ie non-planar) war, it should be exactly like the USA dropping the nuke. The other side should immediately surrender in the face of such overwhelming force after a single demonstation of power.

YMMV but unless you're running a really high powered campaign setting with Demi- (and actual) Gods walking the earth and around every corner, that's the way it should be. (Looking at you Forgotten Realms. :smallyuk: )

Edit:
If you make some simple demographic assumptions, like 1/100 are level 1 PCs, and of that 1/2 of each level go to the next level thru level 5, then 1/5th thru level 9 (when raise dead comes online), then back to 1/2 again ... a level 9 character is 1 in a million, and a level 17 is 1 in 256 million.

For me, that's the absolute most common you could expect. Personally I'd expect it to be orders of magnitude higher than that (ie a far lower fraction of each level make it to the next). For example at 1/5 thru level 9 and 1/2 after, it's 1 in 39 million make it to level 9, and 1 in 10 billion make level 17. (And I still consider 1/2 per additional level to be far too high personally.)

[Asmotherion]

This got me thinking... Meteor Swarm hits 4no 40-foot circles, right? That... actually isn't a very big area. A=πr2, right? That's 20,106 square feet - all of a quarter of the area of an international soccer field. On a D&D grid, you couldn't even fit 1,000 people in that space... pretty small for an army.

So really, the wizard is going to need to be a bit cleverer than just 'stand on hill, cast meteor swarm' if they want to be a threat to an army.

40 foor radious is 80 foot diameter cyrcles... based on grid rules, only one person would fit on a 5 foot squere (which in a tactical possition makes sence), so it is 172 people max per sphere, or 688 targets per 4 full spheres. The damage is enough to kill most non-classed npcs, and the PHB makes it clear that the average npc is non-classed. Even a 10th level character (which includes some officers, generals etc) would probably not survive 40d6 aka 140 average damage or 70 average on a succesfull save.

That said, on feudal levels of battle, a 1000 person army would be quite large, and would at the very least be more than an average of millitia per hold. Perhaps a capital city or a larger city would have more, but it would be the exception, not the average. Economy-wise, that would mean 1000 persons that are fed and paid to do nothing except train in the case a battle occures. It is a large percentage of people to feed with them not providing food or weres to the economy, and that economy would eventually fail. I would estimate a 300-500 militia a logical average per Hold. Now, if we are not talking about Hold vs Hold but country vs country, granted, still 688 is the equivalent of a small-scale army, if not more.

That said, the ability to kill even half, or 1/4 of the enemy's army in a single hit is still quite impressive. Esspecially from the relative safety of being 1 mile away.

[Ninja_Prawn]

I had the same thought as you at first, but consider; defeating an army does not mean killing an army and MS can and will straight up kill a significant number of men, likely in key positions. The impact on moral of a couple of hundred trained soldiers (assuming, of course, that they are trained) being wiped off the face of the planet in a matter of seconds is highly significant.

I guess the impact on morale could be significant, though that would depend on a number of other factors. I've done a bit of reading and it looks like a few hundred casualties in a short space of time would have been decisive in many medieval battles, so you're probably right there.

I could also see how using heavy evocations to break up defensive formations so that they could be routed by a cavalry charge (or equally, break up a cavalry charge to protect your own infantry) would be very effective if the other side had no magical defenses.

(And yeah, I'm ignoring the overarching debate about why an epic-level spellcaster is fighting an army of soldiers in the first place. Others have already addressed that well enough.)

[RickAllison]

Also don't forget specific targeting with the Meteor Swarm. That cavalry charge intended to break your infantry ranks so their soldiers can mop up? Not happening anymore. They may survive, but their horses won't. The siege engines brought in to make holes in the walls? Burnt to the ground. That detachment bearing the king's banner to rally the troops? Incinerated.

Basically, the goal of the Meteor Swarm and similar spells isn't to destroy their rank and file, but to break the factors that allow otherwise-equal forces to triumph over the other. Archers, cavalry, officers, messengers. Remove those and your forces will win.

[Sir cryosin]

Assassins are generally the best way to go. If you send an advance team of assassins out, preferably including someone who can grapple and someone who can cast silence, they can sneak into wherever that wizard sleeps and kill them before they get a spell off. Presumably doable with 2 level 5 PCs, 1 wizard and 1 rogue/barbarian (wizard dual casts invisibility with a 3rd level slot to sneak around, casts silence on the sleeping wiz, and a bully rogue/barbarian with stealth proficiency grapples and shanks) if all goes well you can even get out before anyone notices anything amiss. For a greater chance of success add someone with both pass without trace and invisibility (grasslands druid) and another melee beater.

This is all find and Dandy. But if the MSM will have a clone. So killing him is not going to do anything but piss him/her off.

[RickAllison]

This is all find and Dandy. But if the MSM will have a clone. So killing him is not going to do anything but piss him/her off.

Not necessarily. Remember that clones have an incubation time of 120 days, so a smart wizard may hold back from retaliation until they are safe once again. They may still try to manipulate things to hurt the enemy, but they can't operate as openly anymore.

[Gawayne]

And that's why pretty much every major city in Faerun live in relative peace with each other.

The first reply to this topic said everything there is to be said. It's just like the real world. When the major players of a world get their hands on weapons of mass destruction they won't engage directly anymore.

In fact, if you think about it, a lot of conflicts that happen in the real world can be used to inspire adventures. Imagine a group of outlaws stealing a Meteor Swarm scroll from the vaults of Neverwinter, and now are asking for ransom otherwise they'll nuke the city. In fact, even a Wand of Fireballs can be treated as a huge threat on the wrong hands.

[Sir cryosin]

Not necessarily. Remember that clones have an incubation time of 120 days, so a smart wizard may hold back from retaliation until they are safe once again. They may still try to manipulate things to hurt the enemy, but they can't operate as openly anymore.

Any 20lv wizard would have a clone ready to go before making himself know. Not to mention how in the hell are you getting to the wizard when he could just freaking create a demi playing and stay inside the Demian plan to come out whenever he needs to. The toughest part is to get the wizard into a undesirable situation. And if he's the 20th level wizard you have better chances freaking killing a god. A 20th level wizard don't get to be that high of a wizard that being paranoid as hell. He would have contingencies plans for his contingency plan for his contingency plan.

[Ninja_Prawn]

It's just like the real world.

Point of order: Meteor Swarm is not a WMD. It's long-range artillery. The end result if both sides (assuming there are sides) have epic-level wizards is not the Cold War, it's the Western Front of World War I. Spread your men out in bunkers and trenches, and they'll withstand Meteor Swarms for years. Thousands will die if they try to charge the wizards' positions. Wizards will have to get good at hiding and avoiding counter-battery fire. You know, classic WWI. Though potentially flight and other class abilities might make WWII-style blitzkrieg possible...

And taking into account the rarity of high-level wizards, the small number of of spell slots per wizard and the assumed pre-industrial setting... well the scale of any conflict would definitely be smaller than the Great War. But the overall battlefield role of wizards still looks more like artillery than WMDs.

[RickAllison]

Any 20lv wizard would have a clone ready to go before making himself know. Not to mention how in the hell are you getting to the wizard when he could just freaking create a demi playing and stay inside the Demian plan to come out whenever he needs to. The toughest part is to get the wizard into a undesirable situation. And if he's the 20th level wizard you have better chances freaking killing a god. A 20th level wizard don't get to be that high of a wizard that being paranoid as hell. He would have contingencies plans for his contingency plan for his contingency plan.

That's my point, payaso. He had a clone at the ready which was why the assassination failed. Contingency planned for. But rather than being free to resume things as they were before, he doesn't have a mature clone for another 120 days. The wizard has to lay low or risk a second assassination before the clone is ready. If the assassins were skilled enough to get him the first time, a smart wizard would realize that it is better to analyze the situation and adapt rather than pulling some harebrained revenge scheme before his clone is ready to survive him.

Please, feel free to actually read the thread.

[dejarnjc]

All this talk of Meteor Swarm when Control Weather would easily take the cake for most useful military spell.

* 5 mile radius.
* 8 hour duration. (a 20th level character could keep this going for 16 hours a day)
* Constant torrential rain, hail, or blizzard
* With either unbearable heat or arctic cold (I assume we're talking in the 120 degree Farenheit range for heat and -40 degree range for cold) - No army could prepare for both so the spell caste would just have to switch to whichever is most effective.
* Constant storm level wind (70+ mph wind so say goodbye to archery)



The one downside is that it's a 5 mile radius centered on the caster so hypothetically you could find the center of the storm and track the caster that way. I'm sure a variety of illusion and other protection spells would make the caster nearly impossible to find though.

[RickAllison]

All this talk of Meteor Swarm when Control Weather would easily take the cake for most useful military spell.

* 5 mile radius.
* 8 hour duration. (a 20th level character could keep this going for 16 hours a day)
* Constant torrential rain, hail, or blizzard
* With either unbearable heat or arctic cold (I assume we're talking in the 120 degree Farenheit range for heat and -40 degree range for cold) - No army could prepare for both so the spell caste would just have to switch to whichever is most effective.
* Constant storm level wind (70+ mph wind so say goodbye to archery)



The one downside is that it's a 5 mile radius centered on the caster so hypothetically you could find the center of the storm and track the caster that way. I'm sure a variety of illusion and other protection spells would make the caster nearly impossible to find though.

Heck, with the limited visibility due to the precipitation and the possible movement of the caster, it would be nearly impossible anyway. Remember that you need to scout to find the edges, then correctly triangulate the position of the center, then communicate this information to the soldiers within the middle of the storm as they hunt down the caster. Continually. Because moving at a fast pace is still going to take two and a half hours (presumably the great amounts of heavy snowfall, mud, wind, and other effects of the weather will be sufficient to constitute difficult terrain) and in that time the caster could have moved stealthily two miles. With no tracks because the precipitation is already covering/washing them away. Multiple castings of Sending would be necessary to track the caster down, and then the attacking party that remains after brutal weather conditions still has to deal with a powerful wizard who probably has bodyguards as well.