Front Line Warrior - Military

[kalos72]

My group is looking for a class that would pose as a good front line warrior for their kingdom's military and was looking at the Warblade.

Thoughts?

[Zweisteine]

If it's a normal kingdom, the class you want is the Warrior (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/npcClasses/warrior.htm), the class for average-trained NPC soldiers.

If you're looking at doing anything with actual armies, look at Heroes of Battle, the 3.5e book for mass combat.

[kalos72]

This is epic level stuff, so alot more then just the warrior. From a class abilities perspective is what Im looking for...

[Zweisteine]

It depends on what you want to do, but in general, Warblades won't hurt your front line. I don't remember exactly what niche Crusaders fill, but they'd be good as well.

I would recommend looking at Heroes of Battle. You don't want to have to roll the dice for entire armies, and if you weren't planning on using them, then you don't need specific details.

[Silva Stormrage]

This is epic level stuff, so alot more then just the warrior. From a class abilities perspective is what Im looking for...

Epic levels you don't really have a standard front line for a military. Casters can lay waste to armies of anything below level 10 without much threat. It just becomes impractical to field large armies of standard troops at epic levels.

At those levels if you need disposable meat shields or an occupying force you want constructs and undead. Easy to mass produce at those levels and can be decent at mowing down monsters or non epic level threats.

Good Construct List: Here (http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=18109.0)
Top tier options are shade steel golems (Overall amazing), ruby golems (Has regeneration and immunity to non lethal), runic guardians (Can cast spells), and a few juggernauts (Great SLA's including wall of force and force cage at will)

Good Undead List: Here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?537889-Undead-List-(Updated-Table))
Top Tier Options: Bloodhulk Crusher (Stupidly easy to spam and is created with animate dead. Won't be very effective at combat against actual casters and such but can be a threat to towns/cities with enough of them), Spectre (Incoporeal, Negative Level touch attack and create spawn). Since this is epic levels if you can find and control or create a Shadow of the Void you can just use it's create spawn on level 1 commoners (Prisoners or convicts if you don't want to use your own citizens due to alignment constraints) and get decent undead combatant who is CR 23 with some decent SLA's including dimensional door, sleet storm (Which they and all other winter wights can see through) and control weather (As a standard action as well).

[kalos72]

I believe they want to use sims of the PC for the actual army...

Dwarven Crusaders were thought one but they seem boring...warblades have a bit more flash.

[Nifft]

Constructs and Undead seem like solid ideas.

Other similar ideas:

- Augment the soldiers of your nation with strange magics, turning them into combat-focused Aberrations.

- Empower the soldiers of your nation with heavenly energies, turning them into combat-focused Archons.

- Sacrifice the souls of your nation's children to infuse their soldiery with the power of Hell, turning them into legions of Devils.

- Just hire a bunch of Yugoloths.

- Your alchemical cauldrons spawn an entirely new creature to be your front-line soldiers: a Unicorn Sphinx Chimera.

- Let the berserkers of your tribe drink deep of the fermented divine blood of Snurrfrir and thence become Fire Giants.

- Join the Wild Hunt, and defeat their LaShay leadership in single combat. Now the Wild Hunt are your soldiers... for a season.

[Goaty14]

Crusaders are the best tanks because they get all sorts of bonuses if their opponent doesn't attack them. Therefore an army of crusaders triggers all sorts of bad things for the enemy. Bonus points if they use phalanx-based feats to skyrocket AC (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22429206&postcount=2).

[kalos72]

The phalanx was the sort of thought they had, human crusader 10 SIMS.

They also have a group of Star Elf Ranger SIMS they are working on.

One long term question for them is what to do with all the SIMS later? Make them real people maybe?

[DMVerdandi]

Op, I think that warblade works fine, but I suggest that you organize your miliary structure based on modern formations. At least on the heroic side. Having a bunch of the same type of soldiers in the same place makes for strategic mishaps.

Personally, I say organize with the core being the 4 man squad. Everyone has a role in the squad,
It's epic level, so I will at the least start them as level 10, as that is the standard for a finely trained amateur soldier.

1.Squad support: Archivist
Archivist natively has really good support spells, the ability to ramp up their combat potential just like clerics, and also has variety from casting off of all divine lists. It can do EVERYTHING, but excels at keeping everyone alive much better,
Throw some heavy armor on em, and he's good to go.

2.Pointman: Erudite (Convert spell to power)
This is the operator, the get in get out, and lay down accurate and damaging effects on the enemy. Similar to the archivist in the amount of depth they have, due to being able to cast all arcane spells memorized as powers, and extremely flexibly at that, they can summon whichever power they need from a whole host of them.

Use the Dragon 319 version for it. Instead of only having 11 unique powers per day that can be any level, they have them broken into 4/4/4/4/4/4/4/4/4 (Same number as wizard and psion. 36)

That makes it better than regular preparation, but still worse than full list knowledge.

Arcane powers are still subject to arcane spell failure, so this guy will need to have some defensive buffs running too.

3. Shock Trooper: Warblade
This is the melee guy. Put a weapon in his hand, and he's gonna be a killing man. To truly maximize potential, Take factotum 1/Warblade xx With able learner feat. Consider the factotum level basic infantry training. Taking that first factotum level gives the build access to all skills as class skills, and even if you don't have a totally amazing amount of skill points from warblade, (4+int is decent), you are still probably going to buff int.

Optional to multiclass with crusader if need for more meaty tanky build.

4.Quartermaster: Artificer
For all your needs as far as crafting goods, as well as having a pretty decent capacity for using their infusions. With the right build this can be fantastic as a party member. They are however EXTREMELY valuable for npc's as a way to explain how they got all their gucci gear.



That is pretty much a balanced fire-team. two make a squad, Four squads make a platoon, 4 platoons make a company, etc.

Have those four roles each have a college that they go to, and when they graduate, they become full soldiers.



If you want to make the country truly strong, get into state military education that starts from childhood for soldiers so that they can all be high level by the time they get out of school.



BONUS: Making soldiers necropolitans after graduation might be INSANE. Have it so that they have children before they join, and their graduation present is unlife. Keep the same stuff that I have above.

"YOU MUST GIVE YOUR LIFE TO THE CORPS, BECAUSE THE CORPS IS YOUR LIFE,"

[kalos72]

Great post, thanks.

We have talked about Crusaders in groups of 50ish as the main fighting force, 2 Dragon Shaman, 2 DI Bards and a Marshall Commander. Beins SIMS, traditional healers aren't possible but the group did design a custom spell to heal them. Or maybe make a new bard song for it instead...

There were some good discussions on briliantgamologists but they seem lost now...

[Nifft]

There were some good discussions on briliantgamologists but they seem lost now...

It got archived: http://bg-archive.minmaxforum.com/

[kalos72]

The AMF idea caught my attention, would it affect anything from the bard/shaman or marshall?

Whats the best way to utilize AMF for a military formation? Is there a magic item or something that one of the support roles NPC's could use or do I have to add a caster?

[kalos72]

The Bards could use AMF, but would that stop the other effects of their songs?

[Nifft]

The Bards could use AMF, but would that stop the other effects of their songs?

Here: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/bard.htm

Look up the songs you are interested in.

If they have an (Su) or (Sp) next to their name, then they will not function in an AMF.

[Jormengand]

My group is looking for a class that would pose as a good front line warrior for their kingdom's military and was looking at the Warblade.

Thoughts?

The problem with literally every single class that has been printed is that it doesn't have enough class skills or skill points to be competent at common soldiery. Any soldier who doesn't have climb, concentration, diplomacy, disable device, heal, hide, knowledge (geography), knowledge (local), listen, move silently, profession (soldier), search, spot, survival and swim is a potential liability. Now, if the army is just a stick you waggle at people, and the army has no initiative of its own (except for the stat) and if you have magical healing and so forth, you can get it down to climb, concentration, disable device, hide, listen, move silently, profession (soldier), search, spot, survival and swim, which is still way more than most classes will have.

Ranger gets fairly close to all this, but you're going to need some multiclassing and preferably a decent intelligence and some bonus skill points no matter how you swing it.

[weckar]

Surely not every soldier needs all those skills? We have specialists for a reason!

[TheTeaMustFlow]

The problem with literally every single class that has been printed is that it doesn't have enough class skills or skill points to be competent at common soldiery. Any soldier who doesn't have climb, concentration, diplomacy, disable device, heal, hide, knowledge (geography), knowledge (local), listen, move silently, profession (soldier), search, spot, survival and swim is a potential liability. Now, if the army is just a stick you waggle at people, and the army has no initiative of its own (except for the stat) and if you have magical healing and so forth, you can get it down to climb, concentration, disable device, hide, listen, move silently, profession (soldier), search, spot, survival and swim, which is still way more than most classes will have.

Ranger gets fairly close to all this, but you're going to need some multiclassing and preferably a decent intelligence and some bonus skill points no matter how you swing it.


Surely not every soldier needs all those skills? We have specialists for a reason!

Indeed. It's ridiculous to claim every soldier needs to be a professional negotiator, engineer, scout, and medic. No military in human history has ever come close to achieving that.

[weckar]

Indeed. It's ridiculous to claim every soldier needs to be a professional negotiator, engineer, scout, and medic. No military in human history has ever come close to achieving that.

Professional being the key word here. Very few skills cannot be attempted untrained, after all, and most routine checks are just that - routine.

[Telonius]

- Sacrifice the souls of your nation's children to infuse their soldiery with the power of Hell, turning them into legions of Devils.

Even better, legions of Legion Devils.

[Jormengand]

Indeed. It's ridiculous to claim every soldier needs to be a professional negotiator, engineer, scout, and medic. No military in human history has ever come close to achieving that.

Every soldier needs to be more competent than an untrained person at doing all those things. You need everyone to have basic first aid knowledge (and no, that's not just "I have a wisdom score", that's actual training) or you're going to have a bad time if all the nearby medics are injured. You need all the soldiers to be able to hide and move silently and see and hear enemies approaching and again they need to be better at it than someone who just has a wisdom score (of 8-13, no less) and nothing else. You at the very least ought to be able to have a go at disabling devices, and you need to be able to establish a good rapport with citizens. Certainly, you should be well-trained in all those skills, if not maxed out in them. If you're not trained in heal then unless your wisdom is at least 18, you have a less than 50% chance to succeed in administering basic first aid. I'm sorry, but if these soldiers are doing worse than the little kids I teach first aid, then they shouldn't be surrounded by people who are likely to get hurt.

[kalos72]

So far the plan is something like this Epic level scenario:

All SIMS mind you:
Human Crusaders for the mainline troops - Phalanx style I think
Firre Eladrin DFI Bards for Support
Dragonborn Aasimar Marshal Captains
Goliath Dragon Shaman for Support

Star Elven Rangers for ranged support/scouts

Working on a dwarven "rager" type for shock troops or Underdark forces

Probably running effigies as mounts or support creatures as well.