1 martial vs an army

[CIDE]

I was trying to build hype for a npc and it got me thinking about the mechanical implications of the hype and i was wondering what it'd really take. The scenario was a single fighter against a small army of 500ish troops all npc classes except roughly 50 mixed npc/pc classes like fighters. No spellcasting I either side. Open field as a location, no cavalry, only humans in both sides.

My question is this: how would the fighter need to be built and at what level to turn the army away (after slaughtering most of it) by himself? Human, standard array, wbl (either pc or npc). Any optimization level. Optionally, what if they were only a "fighter" as a title and were actually another class like a barbarian or Warblade? Still no magic spells. I'm interested in first party 3.5 material but if you have an interesting idea to include dragon magazine or pf I'm all ears.

What are all of your thoughts? Woo thinks they can do it with the lowest level?

[flappeercraft]

Depends on the army if they are a group of level 1's, level 2-3's or even some level 5's. We really need more details.

Assuming 2-3's being the higher end I would say a level 15 would already be more than enough. Also if the fighter has a Starmantle Cloak from BoED, it's basically just a stomp from his side.

[heavyfuel]

As soon as we can get AC>21 and DR>7 we should be almost immortal.

AC is easy DR can be acquired with a Wand of Angelskin (Miniatures Handbook) and UMD

[zlefin]

another major variable is the exact equipment and tactics used by the army.
things like acid/alchemist flask open up another thing you have to be resistant/immune to.

how well optimized is the army? and how much variation in techniques do they have?

extensive use of aid another to enable certain special moves can make things a lot messier; and there's some known tactics/optimizations to help an army deal with a single high powered individual.

getting DR is key in order to avoid death by natural 20 from massed ranged attacks.

generally speaking; lvl 15 should handle it well enough.
lvl 12 if somewhat focused on anti-weenie tactics.
lvl 9, maybe even less if higher optimized and dedicated anti-weenie build.

some other fighting classes could do it 1-2 levels earlier, maybe more; crusader in particular might do well.

also considerably less if you allow wblmancy and nova'ing with consumables; but that seems outside the spirit of the challenge.

[lord_khaine]

Assuming 2-3's being the higher end I would say a level 15 would already be more than enough. Also if the fighter has a Starmantle Cloak from BoED, it's basically just a stomp from his side.

Then its the starmantle cloak doing the stomping though.


AC is easy DR can be acquired with a Wand of Angelskin (Miniatures Handbook) and UMD

Here i would say its not a martial doing the actual job, but instead a martial doing the job by borrowing from a spellcaster.

[heavyfuel]

Here i would say its not a martial doing the actual job, but instead a martial doing the job by borrowing from a spellcaster.

Would you be opposed to the Mineral Warrior template?

Additionally, Idiot Crusader + Stone Bones is a start.

What are some other ways to get DR 8 or better?


Then its the starmantle cloak doing the stomping though.

OP did say standard WBL.

[SaintNick]

Normally, the largest impact a 'Hero' martial has is by manipulating morale during an army vs army confrontation as it's unlikely a single martial would be capable of killing everyone outside of using generous amounts of magical equipment. I'd probably go with some kind of strength-based AoE intimidate build. Assuming the enemy army is realistic and not suicidal, you should be able to force them to flee or otherwise disrupt their organization.

[RoboEmperor]

Then its the starmantle cloak doing the stomping though.

Your point?

The OP asked for WBL. If it's within WBL it's fair game. Martials are 99% magic item 1% feats/class features.

The build would probably be a Spiked Chain using either Whirlwind Attack or Great Cleave with some form of swift action teleport.

[Jowgen]

As the base I suggest a tripper, with knockdown, wielding a two handed reach weapon (e.g. glaive) and wearing Steadfast Boots (MIC).

He gets an attack against any enemy who charges at him and deals double damage on hit (as if set against the charge), everyone he hits and deals at least 10 damage to has a chance to be tripped, and by most readings he gets a follow up attack with improved trip. This is easily doable by level 3 (2 levels of Wolf Totem Barbarian for Improved Trip) and goes a LONG way towards counteracting the army's action economy advantage.

Onto this base you can add stuff that'll improve suriveability. Wrathful Healing on the main weapon (a +3 from Hero Builder's Guidebook) will let the guy keep healing as he hits the oncoming waves. Intercepting (FoW) and Smoking (LoD) on side-weapons (e.g. gauntlets) respectively add another reactive attack against certain special maneuvers as well as 20% concealment miss chance as well as a grapple deterrent. A Ring of Entropic Deflection could severely reduce the threat based by ranged attackers. The mineral Warrior template could provide DR 8/Adamantine AND a burrow speed (great for temporary withdraws) for a +1 LA.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Once again I am reduced to referring to the build in my signature. DR, self-heals, counter-attacks--the complete package for chewing through hordes of mooks.

[daremetoidareyo]

A PC with maxed knowledge skills can use each of them for a tactical advantage using the heroes of battle battle points system. With 8 hours of study, you can defeat them all without any bloodshed.

[Eldariel]

Let's see...Bloodstorm Blade could one-shot a tremendous number in a single turn. Same with Cleaving Charge Street Fighter Barbarian with lots of movement speed. Troll-Blooded and Pugilist would get you invulnerability. Hmm, Supreme Blade Parry would be pretty decent as well.

[JoshuaZ]

As soon as we can get AC>21 and DR>7 we should be almost immortal.

AC is easy DR can be acquired with a Wand of Angelskin (Miniatures Handbook) and UMD

Hmm 1 in every 20 hits will still hit. If hits are doing 1d6+3 damage (which with a longsword isn't unreasonable for a level 1 character), then 1 in every 6 hits does 1 point of damage. So, 1 in every 120 hits does 1 point of damage. Yeah, almost immortal seems fair especially because no more than 20 or 30 people are going to get close enough to get an attack in on any given turn (even without the fighter's attacks of opportunity).

That said it might be interesting to run this against a typical fighter rather than one optimized for taking down mooks, in which case they aren't going to have much of any DR and the situation may look very different.

[Kelb_Panthera]

"Hero" might be a stretch but a 4th level frenzied beserker (ECL 10) could do it in pretty short order. Like a scythe through dry wheat.

[heavyfuel]

Hmm 1 in every 20 hits will still hit. If hits are doing 1d6+3 damage (which with a longsword isn't unreasonable for a level 1 character)

I was thinking the army from the DMG, made up of standard array Warriors and Commoners. That's 1d8+1 damage for Warriors and 1d6+0 for Commoners.

[RoboEmperor]

Hmm 1 in every 20 hits will still hit. If hits are doing 1d6+3 damage (which with a longsword isn't unreasonable for a level 1 character), then 1 in every 6 hits does 1 point of damage. So, 1 in every 120 hits does 1 point of damage. Yeah, almost immortal seems fair especially because no more than 20 or 30 people are going to get close enough to get an attack in on any given turn (even without the fighter's attacks of opportunity).

That said it might be interesting to run this against a typical fighter rather than one optimized for taking down mooks, in which case they aren't going to have much of any DR and the situation may look very different.

What about bows? If you're only hitting on a nat 20 anyways, melee penalties and range increment penalties don't mean jack. The correct thing to do also would be to use poisoned arrows since you also autofail the save on a 1.

[ExLibrisMortis]

What about bows? If you're only hitting on a nat 20 anyways, melee penalties and range increment penalties don't mean jack. The correct thing to do also would be to use poisoned arrows since you also autofail the save on a 1.
That would work. 400 commoners with bows have a decent chance of hitting and even critting/successfully poisoning. It's going to be hard to argue the back ranks don't suffer cover/concealment miss chances, but it's still possible to turn an otherwise unhittable juggernaut into a pincushion.

On the juggernaut's side, DR and heavy fortification armour can deal with the first two, the third might take more effort. However, poison will take a big chunk out of a level 1 NPC's budget, so that's a number of ballistae you don't have to worry about.

[Bucky]

Other tactics the juggernaut might need to deal with:
* Aid Another-based grappling. The first few mooks to approach in a round exhaust his AoOs. The next bunch apply Aid Another with longspears. Then several melee Aid Anothers, then the actual grapple attempt has a ~+20. Once grappled, repeat the process for a pin, then tie him up, then CdG.
* Net spam - A touch attack that shuts down charge-based builds. Provokes AoOs vs. reach weapons, though.
* Contact poison on touch weapons - Nets and lassos
* Siege Weapons - for beating DR 8
* Magic Missiles - if the army invests a fraction of its resources into items of magic missiles, they could deal a couple hundred damage.

While any army can Aid Another, as GM you decide which of the other tactics they were equipped for.

[heavyfuel]

Other tactics the juggernaut might need to deal with:
* Aid Another-based grappling. The first few mooks to approach in a round exhaust his AoOs. The next bunch apply Aid Another with longspears. Then several melee Aid Anothers, then the actual grapple attempt has a ~+20. Once grappled, repeat the process for a pin, then tie him up, then CdG.
* Net spam - A touch attack that shuts down charge-based builds. Provokes AoOs vs. reach weapons, though.
* Contact poison on touch weapons - Nets and lassos
* Siege Weapons - for beating DR 8
* Magic Missiles - if the army invests a fraction of its resources into items of magic missiles, they could deal a couple hundred damage.

While any army can Aid Another, as GM you decide which of the other tactics they were equipped for.

*Aid Another can't be used to aid in a grapple by RAW. You can aid the touch attack used to initiate the grapple, but not for the grapple itself. Even if we argue that aid another uses a non-exhaustive list, I don't think many DMs woul allow for 20 people to aid another with Longspears in a grapple check. Also, Freedom of Movement exists.
*Freedom of Movement
*On standard WBL for a lv1 NPC? Yeah, let's seem them posions.
*They allow Reflex save for half. Two feats for Evasion is easy to manage (Shape Soulmeld: Impulse Boots + Least Chakra Bind)
*OP specified no spellcasters. Plus the Shield spell

[CIDE]

Neither side had any chance to prepare and while things like alchemical items may be there for the army they are few and far between. Basic gear and tactics for the army since the fight was pulled out of left field. May be a few level 5s but mostly 3 and below.

[Bucky]

Aid Another also works for basic attacks; at the very least, this ups the AC target. A couple of level 1s using Aid Another and providing flanking could boost a mounted lance charge from a Warrior 3 into relevance vs. AC 22 and DR 8. (+4 aid, +3 BAB, +2 flanking, +2 strength, +1 high ground -> 55% chance to hit for 2d8+6)

[StreamOfTheSky]

His greatest problem will be ranged attacks. It's pretty easy to build an optimized martial w/ very long reach and tripping who can shut down all attempts to melee him, from enemies even just 5 levels below him.

I've made a few such characters. I'd say the "easy bake" method is a Binder dip for Paimon's Dance of Death, plus long reach (enlarged, Inhuman Reach and/or Tall Deformity, Spiked Chain or other reach weapon), speed boosts where possible and the Feathered Wings graft (so you can cover a lot of ground w/ Dance of Death), and all the usual AoO tripper stuff. Elusive Target's Cause Overreach tactic works really well.
For my build like this, I went w/ Changeling for Warshaper.
Level 15 build here:
[ECL 15] Guillo - Changling Warshaper
Changeling Martial Rogue 4 / Wolf Spirit Lion Totem Barb 2 / Warshaper 3 / Binder 4 / Unarmed Swordsage 2
Progression: R 1, Binder 1-4, Barb 2, WS 1, SS 1, WS 2-3, SS 2, R 2-4

Str 16, Dex 15, Con 14, Int 14, Wis 8, Cha 10 (32 point buy)
Str 18 (24), Dex 16 (20), Con 14 (18), Int 14, Wis 8, Cha 10 (level 15 w/ magic items)
Str 22 (28), Dex 20 (24), Con 18 (22), Int 14, Wis 8, Cha 10 (with Paimon and Warshaper)
Str 26 (32), Dex 20 (24), Con 18 (22), Int 14, Wis 8, Cha 10 (Whirling Frenzy + Pai & WS)

CN Medium Changeling (Humanoid, Shapechanger)
HP: 166 (4d6 +2d12 +9d8 +90 -15)
AC: 31 [33] (10 +7 armor +7 dex +3 shield +2 deflect +1 insight +1 natural)
Touch: 20 [22]; FF: 24 (Imp. Uncanny Dodge)
Base Saves: Fort +11, Reflex +9, Will +9
Saves: Fort +22, Reflex +20 [22], Will +14 (Evasion, +2 vs. sleep/charm)
BAB +11; Grapple +20 [22]; Trip +17 [19]
Init +8; Speed: 50 ft; Fly 100 ft (average)

Spiked Chain +26 [28] (2d4 +21 [24], 20/x3, 20' reach&adjacent, P)
Unarmed +22 [24] (1d6 +16 [18], 20/x2, 10' reach, B)
Snap Kick +20 [22] (1d6 +11 [12], 20/x2, 10' reach, B) [other attacks also @ -2]
Sneak Attack +2d6 and Staggering Strike
Snap Kick: Extra Unarmed Strike @ 1/2 Str to dmg w/ any form of attack; it & other attacks done w/ it @ -2 to hit
[Flurry]: Take -2 to hit for extra attack, when in frenzy
Power Attack: +2 dmg per -1 to hit for chain; +1/-1 for unarmed; +2 dmg if taking -2 or worse (default -2 for +6/+4)
AoO: +2 to hit; 8 per turn (imm. 2/day for extra); Su, casting (can't defensive), and moving provoke

Enlarged Spiked Chain +26 [28] (2d6 +23 [25], 20/x3, 40' reach&adjacent, P)
Enlarged Unarmed +22 [24] (1d8 +17 [19], 20/x2, 20' reach, B)
Enlarged Snap Kick +20 [22] (1d6 +12 [13], 20/x2, 20' reach, B) [other attacks also @ -2]


Feats:
1 Power Attack [flaw]
1 Mage Slayer (foes can't cast defensively) [flaw]
1 Blind-Fight [Rogue 1]
1 Stand Still (Reflex vs. 10 + dmg or be stopped; AoO does no actual dmg)
3 Supernatural Instincts (Su abilities provoke AoO)
5 Improved Binding
5 Whirlwind Attack [Binder - Paimon]
6 Pierce Magical Concealment (Ignore all miss % from magic)
7 Imp. Trip [Barb 2]
9 Imp. Unarmed Strike [SS 1]
9 Weapon Focus (Shadow Hand: Spiked Chain, Unarmed, others) [SS 1]
9 Shadow Blade (add Dex to dmg for all SH weapons)
12 Staggering Strike (foe hit by melee SA must make Fort vs. dmg dealt or Staggered 1 round)
13 Combat Reflexes [Rogue 2]
15 EWP (Spiked Chain) [Rogue 4]
15 Snap Kick (Extra unarmed attack @ 1/2 str to dmg; adds to any kind of attack; -2 to hit all attacks)

Traits: Detached (+1 Will, -1 Reflex), Quick (+10 ft speed; -1 hp/level)
Flaws: Murky-Eyed (take worse of 2d100 on miss %), Shaky (-2 ranged attacks)

Skills [48 +30 +12 +12 +16 +16 = 134] (ranks, ability mod, misc. bonuses):
Balance +14 (5, 7, 2)
Bluff +23 (18, 0, 5)
Climb +11 [13] (0, 9 [11], 2)
Diplomacy +25 (18, 0, 7)
Disguise +15 (0, 0, 15)
Gather Info +8 (5, 0, 3)
Intimidate +5 (0, 0, 5)
Jump +31 [33] (5, 9 [11], 17)
Listen +17 (18, -1)
Sense Motive +8 (5, -1, 4)
Spellcraft +4 (2, 2)
Spot +19 (18, -1, 2)
Swim +11 [13] (0, 9 [11], 2)
Tumble +31 (18, 7, 6)
UMD +21 (18, 0, 3)
Skill Tricks: Clarity of Vision (swift; spot vs. DC 20 to pinpoint invis foe for 1 round), Twisted Charge (turn up to 90 deg. on charge)
Languages: Common, Auran, Draconic

Maneuvers (IL 8; 7 known; 4 readied)
4 Comet Throw (DC 23 [25]) R
2 Cloak of Deception
2 Flashing Sun R
1 Burning Brand
1 Counter Charge R
1 Sudden Leap R
1 Wolf Fang Strike
Stances: Child of Shadow (move 10', gain 20% conceal), Assassin's (+2d6 sneak attack) R
[b]Comet Throw: Standard strike; make trip w/ +4 bonus to send it 10 ft away from Guillo +5 ft per 5 won by; foe takes 4d6 damage and prone. Throw at other foe and he takes 4d6 and prone, Reflex (DC 14+Str) negates prone and halves damage.
Cloak of Deception: Swift boost; Greater Invisibility till end of turn.
Flashing Sun: Full Round strike; full attack + extra attack, all @ -2 to hit
Burning Brand: Swift boost; weapon does fire damage and has +5' reach till end of turn.
Counter Charge: Imm. counter; Charging foe must make Str/Dex check (same you pick); you get +4 if larger/smaller; if it fails, lands 10 ft away from Guillo; gets +2 to hit Guillo on charge otherwise.
Sudden Leap: Swift boost; Move your jump check distance.
Wolf Fang Strike: Standard strike; attack once w/ 2 weapons, -2 to hit for each.


Equipment (200,000 gp):
Locked Gauntlet
Feathered Wings graft (Fly (avg) speed = 2x land; free Bluff rounds not flying for +2 to hit; will DC 15 daily or do evil deed) [10000]
+1 Shadow Hand Living Chain (Spiked Chain; +2 trip; +3 attack when in SH stance) [10325]
Wand Chamber (Wand of Enlarge Person) [1050]
+1 Animated Darkwood Heavy Shield [9207]
Wand Chamber (?)
+3 Mithralmist Chain shirt (swift 7/day; 1 min. 20% conceal mist (wearer can see through) in his space) [11400]
Dusty Rose Iuon stone [5000]
Arms: Bracers of Might & Opportunity (+2 str checks/skills & AoO attack rolls, +2 damage when PA for 2+; imm. 2/day extra AoO) [7550]
Hands: Brute Gauntlets of Dex +4 (Swift 3 charge/day; 1+charges spent on str checks/skills, damage) [16500]
Head: Scout's Headband of Persuasion (+2 Spot; Standard 3 charges; 1: DV 60' 1 hour, 2: See Invis. 10 min, 3: True Seeing 1 min.) [7700]
Face: Goggles of Foefinding (Ignore non-total cover) [2500]
Feet: Boots of Striding and Springing and Agile Leaping and Translocation [7500]
Ring1: Ring of Protect +2 [8000]
Ring2: Ring of Blinking [27000]
Shoulders: Cloak of Resistance +5 and Cha +4 [41000]
Throat: Amulet of Natural Armor +1 and Con +4 [18000]
Torso: Vest of Many Styles [500]
Waist: Belt of Str +6 [16000]
Scroll of Blood Frenzy [187.5]
Scroll of Guidance [15.625]
Scroll of Mending x2 [31.25]
Handy Haversack [2000]
Bedroll
Chalk
Clubs (4)
Crowbar
Flint and Steel
Torches (4)
Silk Rope (50 ft) and Grappling Hook
Sack
Trail Rations (4 days)
Waterskin

Binding Paimon:
A grey, featureless figure with a dancer's physique and swords for limbs appears, spinning rapidly counterclockwise, occasionally switching the appendage he is using to balance on a single blade point. Coming to a stop on one "leg," he stares impatiently, not comfortable being still. His face is stretched and disfigured, and he speaks in a garbled voice.
Influence (if binding check fails): Guillo is lascivious and bold. Also, s/he must dance (move at half speed) when s/he hears music.
Sign (if binding check fails): One side of Guillo's mouth appears stretched wider and open, and sometimes drools.

Dance of Death: Move up to your speed (provokes as normal), making one attack vs. any foe you pass. You forfeit any bonus attacks and can only attack each foe once. Must wait 5 rounds to use again.
Paimon's Dexterity: Gain +4 Dex
Paimon's Skills: Gain +4 Tumble and Perform (Dance)
Uncanny Dodge: As rogue; do not lose dex to AC when flatfooted.
Whirlwind Attack: Gain as a bonus feat.
Paimon's Blades: Weapon Finesse w/ rapier and scimitar

Changeling: +2 Bluff/Intimidate/Sense Motive, +2 saves vs. sleep/charm, Minor Shape Change (Su; full round; at will disguise self that causes physical changes, +10 on disguise checks).

- Barbarian: d12; 4+Int; Pounce, Whirling Frenzy 1/day 9 rounds (+4 Str, +2 Dodge to AC/Reflex, can flurry), Imp. Trip
- Binder: d8; 2+Int; Soul Binding (Paimon: +4 Dex, WWA feat, Dance of Death, Uncanny Dodge, +4 Tumble/Dance), Suppress Sign, Pact Augmentation (+1 insight on attack rolls)
- Rogue: 3 bonus feats, Evasion, (Improved) Uncanny Dodge, Penetrating Strike (1/2 SA to immune foes); Social Intuition (gather info only takes 1d4+1 x10 min.; Sense motive to assess situation only takes full round; take 10 on Bluff, Diplomacy, Gather Info, Intimidate, Sense Motive), 10 + Int sp at 1st level
- Unarmed Swordsage: IUS and monk dmg, Weapon Focus (Shadow hand), Quick to Act +1
- Warshaper: Morphic Weapons, +4 Str/Con, Crit/Stun Immunity, +5 ft reach

Spell/wand wish list:
Greater Magic Weapon (for chain and unarmed; only +1 chain and nonmagical unarmed currently)
Enlarge Person
Blood Frenzy (more rages)
Any sort of fog / area concealment spell (he ignores all of it)

That might be overkill, though. Could always scale it down to level 10 or whatever if the party isn't supposed to be around that level when they fight him.
(It was made for a short adventure, level 15. if i were building to play from level 1 on up, obviously you would want Combat Reflexes earlier, among other feats re-ordered :smallsmile:)

[CharonsHelper]

Not if the army all use bows and the fighter doesn't somehow have a DR of 20+. If the army is human and has point blank & rapid-shot then they should be able to get 2.5 critical hits each turn no matter what the high level fighter's AC is. (Only 1/400 - but when you're chucking out 1,000 arrows a turn...)

Even if the fighter somehow acquired DR 10, they'd still be taking on average about 20-30 damage the first turn, and while he'd be killing 3-4 from the army each turn, it likely wouldn't be fast enough to keep from dying in less than a dozen turns.

And that's if they're all level 1 warriors with basic longbows. Make them composites for an extra point or two of damage (3 or 6 on a crit) and a few with magic comp bows - and the solo martial will only go down that much faster.

[Nifft]

So basically, you need to be immune to arrows.

Displacement or Blink (from an item) or Air Devotion (the feat) gets you down to 1.25 arrow hits per turn.

Deflect Arrow (the feat) gets rid of one of those, so you face 0.25 arrow threats per turn.

That seems like survivable DPR, with a very reasonable investment.

[Lans]

Not if the army all use bows and the fighter doesn't somehow have a DR of 20+. If the army is human and has point blank & rapid-shot then they should be able to get 2.5 critical hits each turn no matter what the high level fighter's AC is. (Only 1/400 - but when you're chucking out 1,000 arrows a turn...)



The fighter could grab shield block/and or deflect arrows to decrease that chance to 1/8000 or 1/16,0000



*On standard WBL for a lv1 NPC? Yeah, let's seem them posions.


A 1st level Npc has 900 gp, a heavy crossbow costs 50gp, bolts a couple of gp

Drow poison costs 75 gp so they can afford like 10 doses. Other good options are purple worm, giant scorpion


So basically, you need to be immune to arrows.

Displacement or Blink (from an item) or Air Devotion (the feat) gets you down to 1.25 arrow hits per turn.

Deflect Arrow (the feat) gets rid of one of those, so you face 0.25 arrow threats per turn.

That seems like survivable DPR, with a very reasonable investment.

Deflect arrows doesn't work against projectiles that are 'Unusually massive' I would argue that gold orcish shotputs would fall under that umbrella.

Air devotion only lasts 1 minute, so the army could attempt to draw the fight out with tower shields, nets, use aid other for an ac boost

[Nifft]

Deflect arrows doesn't work against projectiles that are 'Unusually massive' I would argue that gold orcish shotputs would fall under that umbrella.

Luckily "gold orcish shotput" doesn't fall under the umbrella of arrows, so it's kinda irrelevant.

Also, as an academic side question, is that much gold even plausibly within the WBL for a level 1 NPC?

[Kelb_Panthera]

Vs arrows = tower shield. Why would you waste magic when this is literally what tower shields are for?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Vs arrows = tower shield. Why would you waste magic when this is literally what tower shields are for?But then you take horrible penalties and can't even properly use it without utterly neutering your action economy.

Tower shields suck.

[Ignimortis]

The only problem is scratch damage from crits, and either Vampiric Weapon or Wrathful Healing takes care of that.

You just need some sustain abilities, a boatload of HP and AC (shouldn't be a problem on a martial) and ways to hit many targets in a single round. It's rather simple, really. Even a Fighter who basically doesn't do any tricks and just pumps AC+to-hit and weapon damage, picking up Great Cleave on the way can do that. Take a 5-foot step, attack someone, cleave everyone around you, if you roll a 1, use your iterative on the lucky enemy, cleave them too. And if you're a reach-build or can move while full-attacking, well, this army is gonna regret opposing you.

[Kelb_Panthera]

But then you take horrible penalties and can't even properly use it without utterly neutering your action economy.

Tower shields suck.
They've only got so many arrows and you'll mostly have cover from the unit itself once you get in among them. You don't have to use it through the whole fight.

[Crake]

So basically, you need to be immune to arrows.

Displacement or Blink (from an item) or Air Devotion (the feat) gets you down to 1.25 arrow hits per turn.

Deflect Arrow (the feat) gets rid of one of those, so you face 0.25 arrow threats per turn.

That seems like survivable DPR, with a very reasonable investment.

Sufficient DR, as described earlier, should make you immune to arrows barring a crit, and the likelihood of a double natural 20 crit followed by a natural 1 on your fort save vs the poison is nearing 0.

Also, let's remember that if the NPCs are using poison, probably about 2.5% of the army is out of commission on each volley, as they roll a natural 1 on their attack roll, and then fail their save vs poisoning themselves, unless you're dedicating one of their feats to master of poisons, which I feel isn't really reasonable for an entire army.

[Rebel7284]

Some thoughts:
Roll with it [Savage Species], gives you DR 2/- and can be taken multiple times.
Planar Touchstone -> Catalogs of Enlightenment -> Pride Domain is useful for anything that requires a save (poison,etc)

Note that your weapon and your protective items can be sundered or disarmed (may need a lot of aid another)! Armor can't be sundered, so it may be worthwhile to add other magical abilities to it (ring of freedom of movement, etc) and eat the cost increase.

Freedom of movement is essential so the army can't just pick you up and bull rush you into a conveniently placed vat of acid/lava or tie you up after you run out of AoOs.

[Erit]

Warblade 1/Fighter X, drop two feats to pick up a Devoted Spirit strike and then the Martial Spirit stance. Then get your AC and DR in order, Mithral Fullplate and a Defending weapon for the AC and I believe there's a soulmeld for DR, congratulations you now have next to no chance of dying to hit point damage. Getting immunity to poison or some kind of free-action neutralize on a magic item means even that cheese can't hurt you.

[Warchon]

Regarding the makeup of the army, I might suggest referencing the Epic Leadership chart to get an idea how levels might break down.
The horde reaches 500 between a leadership score of 32 and 33, which breaks down thusly

400 40 20 10 5 3 2 1

This is just meant to provide a reasonable array--you certainly don't want to have to deal with a level 30 Leader and his epic Cohort, so let's say that one lone level 8 dude is the General, the L7s are his Lieutenants, and you've still got a few bigger guys for division leaders and various specialists.
Obviously the 400 L1s are the fresh recruits and militia, with NPC WBL they're lucky if they have decent light armor and a polearm.
Make the 40 L2 guys be archers, give the 20 L3s a horse and saber, the 10 L4s a horse and lance and heavy armor and I think you've got a pretty believable army makeup.

[Fizban]

Access to some form of automatic healing is essentially mandatory, but even one level of Crusader's got you covered with Martial Spirit stance, Crusader's Strike, and Stone Bones (Dragon Shaman's Aura of Vigor requires your hp to be much higher than otherwise). Someone's already mentioned the Block Arrow feat (Heroes of Battle), which will negate one projectile per round, while most of the rest will be negated by Full Plate+Buckler, assuming they even have that many. We use a buckler because the really dangerous thing here is being dogpiled with grapple/trip, and preventing a dogpile requires reach and Combat Reflexes. Multiple copies of Roll With It (or another source of DR to boost with feats) is nice, but you still have to worry about being hogtied and just flat executed- no amount of DR will protect you from suffocation or burning alive.

The army as portrayed in the DMG is going to be mostly those commoner 1 conscripts, who don't even have projectile weapons- they're mostly dangerous as terrain blockers and a potential stampede and honestly after the first dozen or two fall should be flatly unwilling to attack you. Warrior 1s with one-handed weapons are also little threat, unless they're disciplined enough to forgo those weapons and dogpile you. Warrior 1s with light lances are dangerous on a crit, but mostly are dangerous because updating their gear to 3.5 means they've got reach so they can surround and Aid Another you: half a dozen levels will give you plenty enough hp to hold, then stab and heal your way out. Higher level warriors are mostly a threat only in that it will take multiple attacks to bring them down, reducing your shock value and giving the rest of them more time to bunch up and dogpile. On the flipside, any properly geared PC-classed NPC can be built to crush you just fine, because PC classes are built for slaying monsters and PCs are much squishier than monsters.

A 5th or preferably 6th level full BAB build built for the job should do the job just fine. One level of Crusader, however many levels of Fighter you need for the desired feats, fill the rest with whatever you like. Doing the job without Crusader or something else for healing is mostly an exercise in how many hits get through your defenses, which depends on how many ranged/reach weapons they have, and how willing the fodder is to throw themselves on your blade.


If you've got a more optimized army, it gets far more dangerous extremely quickly. If the peasants are armed with longspears instead of shortspears, you can't mow them down with AoOs. If they have the perfect direction to rush you all at once then you will be dogpiled. If the whole army has crossbows, you're going to be spending your time hiding in cover. If they have tower shields they can just box you in. If they have a half a dozen classed NPCs of comparable level to you who work in coordination they can probably overwhelm you, especially if they're mounted.

The question of what ratio of conscripts to warriors is also important. A pop center has 1 soldier/guard per 100 people, and a further 1 militiaman per 20 people, but those numbers line up with warrior totals. While a quick look at wikipedia does find medieval levies described as "mostly rabble," it then goes on and on about militaries getting more professionalized and having tons of paid soldiers and mercenaries. Combine this with the fact that those soldiers still need to eat and you need some 90% of your pop farming, I think the city generation's 5% warriors should actually cover your actual medieval levies. Or least half of it- another figure was each Englishman serving "40 days" (which is actually served by those who don't pay their way out) which if we take to mean 40 days per year and divide it out results in. . . about 10%, or only 5% of your pop if you read Englishman as male only, which brings us right back to that 5%.

So even though the DMG says most of the army should be commoner conscripts, city generation has set it up so the army is actually all warrior 1's. That doesn't actually mean they're all soldiers (remember, only 1% are soldiers compared to 5% as warriors), nor does it mean they'll all be equipped with bows, but it does give a lot more room for optimization by someone who's willing to pay for all that. Looks like it would be most appropriate to have 4/5 of the army be warrior 1s with poor gear and discipline, 1/5 with good gear and discipline, and however many higher level guys you find appropriate.

The various humanoids in the MM get companies of 11-20 war 1s+ 2 "sergeants of 3rd level" and one "leader of 3rd-6th level. Round that to 17+2+1 and an army of 500 has 25*2= 50 3rd level guys and 25 3rd-6th level guys. The classes of the sergeants and leaders aren't specified. That's plenty enough high level characters to beat you down even with an endurance build, but obviously as leaders of smaller groups they should be spread out. If the army is composed of bands then those numbers will vary a lot more (and since bands include noncombatants, as in camp follower support staff, they should probably be bands).

[MeimuHakurei]

Regarding the makeup of the army, I might suggest referencing the Epic Leadership chart to get an idea how levels might break down.
The horde reaches 500 between a leadership score of 32 and 33, which breaks down thusly

400 40 20 10 5 3 2 1

This is just meant to provide a reasonable array--you certainly don't want to have to deal with a level 30 Leader and his epic Cohort, so let's say that one lone level 8 dude is the General, the L7s are his Lieutenants, and you've still got a few bigger guys for division leaders and various specialists.
Obviously the 400 L1s are the fresh recruits and militia, with NPC WBL they're lucky if they have decent light armor and a polearm.
Make the 40 L2 guys be archers, give the 20 L3s a horse and saber, the 10 L4s a horse and lance and heavy armor and I think you've got a pretty believable army makeup.

Would it be reasonable to assume that there's going to be a few other supporters in the low-level rows? The Level 1 guys probably have light shields, padded vests, a club or similar simple weapon and a few javelins, the Level 2 soldiers could have both archers and a few adepts to provide magical support, the Level 3s are mainly fighters with probably a few martial adepts and the Level 4 are heavy armored mounted combatants as stated. Level 5 will probably have one or two rogues and the higher level ones may include full-on PC spellcasters.

As for the martial fighting them, I think Level 15 is a good baseline.

Edit: Formatting change

[Crake]

Regarding the makeup of the army, I might suggest referencing the Epic Leadership chart to get an idea how levels might break down.
The horde reaches 500 between a leadership score of 32 and 33, which breaks down thusly

400 40 20 10 5 3 2 1

This is just meant to provide a reasonable array--you certainly don't want to have to deal with a level 30 Leader and his epic Cohort, so let's say that one lone level 8 dude is the General, the L7s are his Lieutenants, and you've still got a few bigger guys for division leaders and various specialists.
Obviously the 400 L1s are the fresh recruits and militia, with NPC WBL they're lucky if they have decent light armor and a polearm.
Make the 40 L2 guys be archers, give the 20 L3s a horse and saber, the 10 L4s a horse and lance and heavy armor and I think you've got a pretty believable army makeup.

One of the optional rules in the epic level handbook is to allow the followers to have PC class levels at the expense of 3 character levels, so one of the level 6 guys could be replaced with a level 3 bard with that horn that can be heard for miles, along with that 1,500 gp medallion that allows you to get +1 to inspire courage, the inspirational boost spell (debtable, considering no "spellcasters"), and the feat that gives you +1 to inspire courage, along with words of creation, for a pretty substantial +6-8 attack and damage bonus for the entire army. With that one change, suddenly the capabilities of the army shift quite drastically.

[Zombimode]

I find the assumption that an "army" is somehow composed of only extremely low-level conscripts rather scetchy.

Even if you subscribe to the idea that Level 1 is the norm for normal NPCs (which is not supported by published aventures and setting material, mind you), an army contains veterans, officers and Champions, not to mention beast of war/constructs and special weapons/siege weapons.

Sure, there is a threshold for when a "hero" will eclipse even those, but I figure that in the double digits.

[cartejos]

Considering an Army, would the following work? I know you said 500, but that seems a little low for an Army
1 level 9 Crusader - General
2 level 8 Warblades - Lieutenant Generals
4 level 7 Warblades - Major General
12 level 6 Marshals - Brigadiers
24 level 5 Marshals - Colonel
96 level 4 Marshals - Lieutenant Colonel
192 level 3 Marshals - Captains
384 level 3 Bards - 1st Lietenants
768 level 2 Bards - Sergeants
3072 level 1 Fighters - Soldiers

Would any level 20 Initiator be able to take this? Would any single classed non-caster? Caster? Multiclassed Character? What's the lowest level of optimization for a single character to blow through an army?

[Warchon]

I find the assumption that an "army" is somehow composed of only extremely low-level conscripts rather scetchy.

Even if you subscribe to the idea that Level 1 is the norm for normal NPCs (which is not supported by published aventures and setting material, mind you), an army contains veterans, officers and Champions, not to mention beast of war/constructs and special weapons/siege weapons.

Sure, there is a threshold for when a "hero" will eclipse even those, but I figure that in the double digits.

I have to stridently disagree. Even a level. 1 PC is an Olympian by real-world standards--'salt of the earth' types reach 13 in any stat exceptionally rarely. And compare the wealth thresholds. A level 5 PC has more wealth on his potions belt than a commoner sees in his lifetime.

We're all Batman.

Granted it's in a world where there's a lot of Batmans (probably on par with the population density of the DC universe, come to think of it) but a mundane army is going to be full of Jimmy Olsons.

[Ignimortis]

Considering an Army, would the following work? I know you said 500, but that seems a little low for an Army
1 level 9 Crusader - General
2 level 8 Warblades - Lieutenant Generals
4 level 7 Warblades - Major General
12 level 6 Marshals - Brigadiers
24 level 5 Marshals - Colonel
96 level 4 Marshals - Lieutenant Colonel
192 level 3 Marshals - Captains
384 level 3 Bards - 1st Lietenants
768 level 2 Bards - Sergeants
3072 level 1 Fighters - Soldiers

Would any level 20 Initiator be able to take this? Would any single classed non-caster? Caster? Multiclassed Character? What's the lowest level of optimization for a single character to blow through an army?

As long as you're not facing all generals at once (the warblades and the crusader), most level 20 initiators with appropriate WBL should be perfectly fine, if they're at least slightly geared towards this. +3 enchant on your weapon is pocket change by level 20. Getting DR 10/- or Heavy Fort +5 Full Plate at level 20 isn't hard either. You're Lu Bu (probably the Dynasty Warriors version, too), or War, or Doomguy on permanent Berserk. Swordsages have it the worst (still possible, though?), I'd say, while someone like a Warder or a Harbinger is gonna have a field day with it, easily destroying whole formations on their turn and out of turn, too.

[Zombimode]

I have to stridently disagree. Even a level. 1 PC is an Olympian by real-world standards--'salt of the earth' types reach 13 in any stat exceptionally rarely.

Unsupported by the capabilities of 1st Level PCs.


And compare the wealth thresholds. A level 5 PC has more wealth on his potions belt than a commoner sees in his lifetime.

PCs are Special concerning wealth. NPCs of the same Level have less.

Also, I think you underestimate the wealth of a commoner. Sure, a commoner earns only 3 GP/month (which still accumulates to a lot over a lifetime), but owns buildings that are quite expensive.



And, again, published adventures, Setting books and Monster Manual entries contradict the "there are only 1st Level NPCs" line of thinking.

[CharonsHelper]

So basically, you need to be immune to arrows.

Displacement or Blink (from an item) or Air Devotion (the feat) gets you down to 1.25 arrow hits per turn.

Deflect Arrow (the feat) gets rid of one of those, so you face 0.25 arrow threats per turn.

That seems like survivable DPR, with a very reasonable investment.

If you're building specifically for this encounter maybe the sole martial would have that.

But then - in that case the army's generals & high officers (level 5-8ish from other posts) are all rogues with UMD and wands of magic missile.

It gets silly if we're building for this sole encounter. I was under the impression that this was a query about a standardly built martial vs a standard NPC army. And at low level with some of the crazy monsters they'll need to fight (many with horrid AC) - it only makes sense for them to be archery focused.

Lets not make this an escalating Schrodenger's build game.


I have to stridently disagree. Even a level. 1 PC is an Olympian by real-world standards--'salt of the earth' types reach 13 in any stat exceptionally rarely.

Where do you get that idea? The standard NPC stat array includes a 13 - so it seems pretty normal to have 1-2 stats in that range. At level 4 they'd bump that up to 14.

A heroic NPC stat array has a 15, 14, & a 13.

[liquidformat]

I feel like this could make for a really cool build competition, what does everyone think? We could come up with the army and their tactics for each round and include what restrictions there are for the build?

[Elrak]

Is it just me or does this thread not remind you all of Berserk - Guts fighting of a 100 men (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qacgb2b8LVU).

On a more on topic point. I do think that we would need more details on the whole scenario.
Many pointed out already that the composition of the army would be a big factor in the discussion but I feel, that the topography (and mobility of the involved parties) would probably be of equal importance.

[Andor13]

Interesting thread, but also kind of missing the point I think? The goal (unless I misunderstood it) was to see how overblown someones reputation could be for "Defeating an army."

So, defeating doesn't mean butchering to the last man. This guy doesn't need to kill an army in single combat, just drive them off. Remember the Charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaclava? "Into the jaws of death rode the 600?" A Unit so reduced and shattered in morale it was never reformed? That was about 2/3rds casualties, of whom about half were dead, and the rest wounded.

Granted asking a single person to kill or wound a few hundred people is a tall order, but we may be forgiven for thinking that this fantasy army might have less high morale than a unit still remembered in verse 150+ years later.

And I think it's fair to pick optimal terrain. 1 man fighting a small army in an open field is a very different scenario than one trying to stop an army from crossing a bridge or tunnel.

If he was trying to prevent an army from crossing a covered bridge, or mountain tunnel, then he has less to worry about from ranged troops.

If he had time to prepare his place of battle he could have built a small barricade to give him cover from missile fire, and he can hide behind that and only sally forth when the army sends men to try and displace the barricade.

Under those circumstances, I think an optimized 3rd level Crusader could do it, or an unoptimized 5th level one, assuming the goal is to inflict, say 10% casualties in close combat, while stalling the armies advance. I'm sure plenty of other builds could do so as well, but Crusaders can self-heal without breaking the spellcasting ban.

[RaiKirah]

Any character with initiator level 11-12 can pick up Desert Tempest (Desert Wind manuever lvl6) and/or Ring of Fire (also lvl6) and with sufficiently high speed can attack each member of the army (Desert Tempest) or light them all on fire (Ring of Fire) in one round. Get Knock Down and Great Cleave to get extra attacks with Desert Tempest, or Empower/Maximize Supernatural Ability to deal more fire damage with Ring of Fire.

[Lans]

[QUOTE=Zombimode;23208111]

PCs are Special concerning wealth. NPCs of the same Level have less.

QUOTE]

This isn't true at very low levels, 1st level npcs have 900 gp, and 2nd levels have more. 2nd level Pcs have 900 gp and 1st levels have less

[Efrate]

As much reach as you can plus spiked chain, great cleave and 18 strength. An average levy is a lvl 1 commoner with 10s in all stats before racials, likely a club or shortspear and maybe padded armor. He will have 4 or 5 hp, 11 ac. Thats about 400 of your army. You will have most of the reamining 100 be lvl 1 warriors with a longsword a buckler or light wooden shield and leather armor. 8 or 9 hp. You will have maybe 20 veterans which are lvl 2 warriors that might have studded leather and a bow or crossbow. 5 to 7 corporols that are lvl 1 fighters, 3 or 4 sargents in scale mail that are level 3 fighters, and one 5th level fighter as the captain. He might have plate, likely half plate. Corporol and up, maybe veterans will have elite array. I assuming pretty basic non optimized army.

A goliath with strongarm bracers and monkey grip can weild a gargantuan spiked chain (or barbed chain) for 3d8 ( or 6d6) plus 6 (2 handed with 18 str) 9 damage minimum a hit, with 30 ft reach i believe. Thats 264 threatened squares. All the chaff are killed in 2 rounds, possibly one depending on movement. A way to reroll an unlucky few 1s makes that almost certain in 2 rounds. Crusader 1 fighter 4 x 1 that gives rerolls or anything you want, plus 1 la ecl 7. Monkey grip, ewp, cleave, power attack, great cleave your level 3 feat is free. Take victors luck for a reroll, and buy the 5k amulet in the mic thats 2 rerolls, mantle of second chances is affordable if pricey at ecl 7 if you can, thats 3. If you get one or two more levels so you have more wbl to work with go to the catelogs for luck domain thats 4.

You can start 14 dex 14 str 14 wis 16 con with 28 pb, gets you 18 str and con, 12 dex, 14 wis and you can cast freedom of movement if needed. 4 rerolls should let you decimate them easily. Plus if you kill half the army within 6 secods im pretty sure all the commoners and most the warriors will flee. The fighters may as well.

So ecl 7 thru 9 depends on how lucky you are.

[Bucky]

If you want to tip the fight further in favor of the martial, you can have it take place in adverse weather conditions where the army has trouble coordinating its front line with its archers, or even keeping its squads in formation. Winning a series of 1v20s is a lot easier than winning a 1v500, and is well within the capacity of a slightly optimized level 12 fighter with a pile of healing potions.

[liquidformat]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_organization#Commands,_formations_and_uni ts

'army' and terrain are very important here. So based on OP we are talking about a human infantry battalion (300-1000; 500 in this case), lets call them part of a 'trained standing army', ie they are not restricted to NPC calsses. Leader should be a lieutenant colonel (1 level 4 Marshal) battalion is composed of 5 companies of 100 each, plus 5 captains (5 level 3 Marshals); which is composed of 2 infantry platoons of 50 each, plus 2 1st Lieutenants (10 level 3 Bards); which are each composed of 2 sections of 25 soldiers each, plus 1 Sergeant (20 level 2 Bards). So if I counted correctly that gives of 500 soldiers, 20 sergeants, 10 1st Lieutenants, 5 captains, and 1 lieutenant colonel 536 total.


Considering an Army, would the following work? I know you said 500, but that seems a little low for an Army
1 level 9 Crusader - General
2 level 8 Warblades - Lieutenant Generals
4 level 7 Warblades - Major General
12 level 6 Marshals - Brigadiers
24 level 5 Marshals - Colonel
96 level 4 Marshals - Lieutenant Colonel
192 level 3 Marshals - Captains
384 level 3 Bards - 1st Lietenants
768 level 2 Bards - Sergeants
3072 level 1 Fighters - Soldiers

Would any level 20 Initiator be able to take this? Would any single classed non-caster? Caster? Multiclassed Character? What's the lowest level of optimization for a single character to blow through an army?
Next is army makeup: officers use elite array, soldiers use standard (ignoring officer abilities for the moment)

-200 large shield and short sword fighters (Shield Wall, Phalanx Fighting, Combat Reflexes)
-100 polearm fighters Guisarme (Combat Expertise, Improved Trip, Combat Reflexes)
-200 Fighter Archers with Composite Longbows (Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Shot)

Tactics: The ss and reach fighters formup into groups with ss making up the front row and reach standing behind, reach fighters trip and everyone then attacks. While archer group uses volley tactics from the back. This makes a pretty solid infantry battalion that I believe would be pretty reasonable and powerful for army conflicts. Granted probably not very effective against a single target.

Terrain: Perhaps going with a 300 style narrow mountain pass, a choke point is a reasonable place to make an attack as a small number (this case 1 person) who is taking on a large group. With x amount of time to prepare.

Ways to rate a successful build:
-survive y amount of time for rest of army to arrive and help out.
-Kill/ incapacitate 357 soldiers.
-Other(stacking fear affects to destroy army or other novel tactics)

Build requirements:
-standard PHB races
-all WotC 3.0 (that haven't been updated) books, 3.5 books (all setting specific stuff is fine), and dragon/dungeon mag.
-tier 3 or lower classes primarily mundane (allow up to level 4 spells so as to not arbitrarily exclude things like ranger, paladin, and hexblade), no prc that would boost casting above this limit.
-32 point buy

How does that sound? Anyone interested in fleshing out some builds to see who could take the battalion down at the lowest level?

[Efrate]

Venerable dragonwrought kobald gets frightful presence I think, be one level higher than the mooks and pump cha. Most will drop their gear and flee. Just kill the rest on your choice of way.

[RaiKirah]

Standard Bardblade but take the Inspire Awe acf to fear effects. With Haunting Melody on top of that and an Alphorn you can frighten everyone for miles with a standard. Take one level of Warrior Skald to get back regular Bard Musics and do regular Inspire Courage and Dragonfire Inspiration optimization too to clean up the mooks who stick around

[liquidformat]

Venerable dragonwrought kobald gets frightful presence I think, be one level higher than the mooks and pump cha. Most will drop their gear and flee. Just kill the rest on your choice of way.
You can take awaken frightful presence at level 3 which gives you 30' radius aura and immunizes on succeeded will saves for 24 hours; at level 3 you could have a bonus of +16 (+5 cha +1 level). At level 5, 1 more than the lieutenant colonel +19(+7 Cha with cloak, +2 levels)
On the other side there are bards and marshals giving + 4 or 5 bonus to will saves to the melee fighters seems reasonable for lieutenant colonel +1 bard and 200 archers. Verdict... kobald pincushion before he can get in range for frightful presence to activate.

[CIDE]

This isn't normal for armies in this setting for all of those nitpicking how weak the group is. It's intentionally a low level group of conscripts and such.

[Bucky]

This isn't normal for armies in this setting for all of those nitpicking how weak the group is. It's intentionally a low level group of conscripts and such.

Then our juggernaut can definitely rely on both coordination problems and morale failures. He could well take out one flank and the command group and have the bulk of the conscripts nope out simply because they have no leaders and no plan.

[Peat]

What level would a martial need to be do it through guerilla warfare and relying on hit & run/marksmanship along with obscene stealth to whittle them down bit by bit?

[Efrate]

Since dragonwrought kobalds are true dragons unless I'm missing something they get real dragon frightful presence once they pass age threshold, at vernerable they are at least very old and have 270 ft range. Marshall only gives 60 ft. 24 cha with a starting cha of 18, plus 3 venerable, us 2 cloak, plus 1 asi, add ability focus and it's dc 20 will of panic for less than 5 hd. They will likely have plus 0 will so only Nat 20 saves, add any more fear stuff and the higher than 5th level will progress through stages of fear and it will panicked shortly. That's just doing fear shenanigans. You can have most the battle field in short order throwing their gear down and running from the 2 foot menace which is a visual i love.

[daremetoidareyo]

What level would a martial need to be do it through guerilla warfare and relying on hit & run/marksmanship along with obscene stealth to whittle them down bit by bit?

Probably level 9. Ranger 2/ whirl pounce barbarian/ fighter 6.
Rapid shot, pbs, woodland archer, weapon focus, weapon specialization, dead eye, headlong rush, raptor school, far shot.

Headlong rush and whirling frenzy don't specify melee weapons for you on a charge. Make pointless jump checks for Plus 4 damage using Raptor School. Add Dex to damage. Use a composite bow. You got five shots a round at 1d6/or 1d8 +12 damage, which you then double...

Just keep strafing an a diagonal away for your 80' of straight line jumpy movement. That's 4-5 dead dudes per turn.

[RaiKirah]

You might be able to do it faster with a Swift Hunter build and the Dark Template so they don't get to fight back. Probably want Travel Devotion so you can move after Hiding to avoid becoming a pincushion.

[CIDE]

To put it into perspective it's not exactly a huge feat or very impressive on its own. But, over time,the story has been hit with the telephone game and the army size and composition has changed and the NPC "fighter" in question hasn't really corrected anyone when they think he's more badass than he is. It's letting the character fill a sort of local folk hero type role in the area.

[liquidformat]

Since dragonwrought kobalds are true dragons unless I'm missing something they get real dragon frightful presence once they pass age threshold, at vernerable they are at least very old and have 270 ft range. Marshall only gives 60 ft. 24 cha with a starting cha of 18, plus 3 venerable, us 2 cloak, plus 1 asi, add ability focus and it's dc 20 will of panic for less than 5 hd. They will likely have plus 0 will so only Nat 20 saves, add any more fear stuff and the higher than 5th level will progress through stages of fear and it will panicked shortly. That's just doing fear shenanigans. You can have most the battle field in short order throwing their gear down and running from the 2 foot menace which is a visual i love.

First off, +7 from 24 cha +2 from your 5 levels you don't get to round up so DC 19 not 20, and an increase in your range would not negate the bonus from marshal aura nor bard inspire courage so +4 to 5 to will save without much charop to quite a few if not all of the affected troops.

Second, I have never heard of dragonwrought auto bestowing frightful presence because you now have dragon type nor can I find anything backing up that claim, anywhere. While it should be true that you can go to venerable without taking any of the negatives to physical stats that is all it does besides qualify you for feats, prcs and what not.(maybe lets you take epic feats before level 21) Also if their frightful presence only comes on at venerable then they would only get 30' radius, if it comes on at old age they would only get 60', it is absolutely unreasonable to try and claim they would get the full 270' for an ability they don't get until old age or venerable.

Anyways in the absence of proof you need awaken frightful presence from dragonomicon which gives you 5x1/2 RHD foot radius and only affects creatures with 4 or less HD. DM might let you use total HD in place of RHD for this but that is up to the DM otherwise you only get 5' radius from this feat; otherwise you are looking at Draconic Presence with is only 10' radius and DC is based on the spell you cast. Any way I look at it you are not getting 270' radius frightful presence by virtue of being a dragon instead of dragonblooded. This seems to be a similar argument to I get dragon breath weapons as a dragon of my age category by virtue of me now being a dragon instead of dragonblooded...

You could instead take frightful presence at level 6 and then awaken frightful presence at 9 and get 45' radius with a DC=10 + 1/2 your character level + your Cha modifier+2 though that ability wouldn't affect any creature with 3 or lower int.

[ExLibrisMortis]

To put it into perspective it's not exactly a huge feat or very impressive on its own. But, over time,the story has been hit with the telephone game and the army size and composition has changed and the NPC "fighter" in question hasn't really corrected anyone when they think he's more badass than he is. It's letting the character fill a sort of local folk hero type role in the area.
Then you'll probably want to stick with a crusader with a tower shield (or maybe a few rocks to hide behind, a shepherd's hut--some sort of cover, anyway), taking on 5-10 soldiers at once, until the army decides to parley and eventually retreats. This works a lot better if you can (a) put the fight at a natural choke point or fresh water source, or (b) somehow convince the army that they don't want to go wherever they're going, because they're all badass crusaders over there. Otherwise, the army can too easily go around such a crusader.

If you want to really destroy the army, a flying invisible creature can kill mundane mooks with impunity, as can anything incorporeal. A paladin with a flying mount or a ranger with a flying animal companion could do some serious damage (you may need to optimize your companion a bit, as ranger--they don't start out very strong), especially if the mount has Flyby Attack. Both classes have spell-less variants that let you satisfy the "totally mundane" requirement.

[Jack_Simth]

Let's see....

Troll-blooded Feat (Regen-1)
Steadfast Determination Feat (don't fail Fort saves on a roll of 1)
Great Cleave
Power attack (obviously)

+X Vampiric Spiked Chain (Magic Item Compendium property, for healing by killing folks)
Ring of Freedom of Movement

Get a little miss chance, a good AC, and then even modest DR, and you can fight basically forever. A Ring of Invisibility wouldn't be amiss - lets you adapt easily if they start massing arrows.

[Calthropstu]

Melee only:
10th lvl fighter, great cleave with a weapon that has reach would be able to pull it off.
If bows become a thing, it becomes significantly harder. Dr would be a neceszity.

[Elricaltovilla]

Against a Melee only army some sort of Jack B. Quick (http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=6944.0) build with a reach weapon would be very good. Being able to hit anyone trying to attack you three or more times should just about guarantee that you chew through the army in short order.

Against a more cohesive fighting force? You'll need to use terrain to your advantage and make use of asymmetric warfare, which could honestly be much more terrifying. Poisoning supplies, sneaking into camp to assassinate leaders, stealing horses, using traps and explosives. Basically torturing that army to death over the course of weeks as they desperately try to fight you off to no avail.

[lord_khaine]

If you want to really destroy the army, a flying invisible creature can kill mundane mooks with impunity, as can anything incorporeal. A paladin with a flying mount or a ranger with a flying animal companion could do some serious damage (you may need to optimize your companion a bit, as ranger--they don't start out very strong), especially if the mount has Flyby Attack. Both classes have spell-less variants that let you satisfy the "totally mundane" requirement.

That both goes against the spirit of the contest i think, as well as the -only humans- clause.


+X Vampiric Spiked Chain (Magic Item Compendium property, for healing by killing folks)
Ring of Freedom of Movement

I think at the moment you got the vampiric weapon most builds would be able to deal with the army.


10th lvl fighter, great cleave with a weapon that has reach would be able to pull it off.
If bows become a thing, it becomes significantly harder. Dr would be a neceszity.

Its unlikely to be enough. Each round your going to take something on the line of 20 attacks (assuming a reasonable mix of spears and blades in said army)
Thats at on average 1 hit each turn. More if your ac isnt so high that they only hit on a natural 20, despite aid another bonuses and tripping.

[liquidformat]

That both goes against the spirit of the contest i think, as well as the -only humans- clause.


incorporeal/ flying invisible creature definitely not, but ranger/paladin with flying mount seems reasonable for the conflict. After all you are supposed to be the big hero capable of decimating an army, who ever said you had to do it on the ground. A 'hero' with a flying mount and bow could have the mount drop rocks while he showers the area with arrows from outside the range of any archer. Technically this build would work as soon as you could get said flying mount. Heck you could technically use something like a bag of endless caltrops and just use falling damage and maybe volley rules to literally rain death from above!

[Nifft]

incorporeal/ flying invisible creature definitely not, but ranger/paladin with flying mount seems reasonable for the conflict. After all you are supposed to be the big hero capable of decimating an army, who ever said you had to do it on the ground. A 'hero' with a flying mount and bow could have the mount drop rocks while he showers the area with arrows from outside the range of any archer. Technically this build would work as soon as you could get said flying mount. Heck you could technically use something like a bag of endless caltrops and just use falling damage and maybe volley rules to literally rain death from above!

A Fighter with a magic item of unlimited flight, plus that item of infinite javelins, might well be a match for an army.

I don't think caltrops will inflict falling damage, but you could put some cannon-ball-sized rocks in a bag of holding and chuck them one by one.

[liquidformat]

A Fighter with a magic item of unlimited flight, plus that item of infinite javelins, might well be a match for an army.

I don't think caltrops will inflict falling damage, but you could put some cannon-ball-sized rocks in a bag of holding and chuck them one by one.

I seem to recall a bag of endless rocks from some source or another that could work perfectly for this but I can't remember where and am away from my books... I think it was meant to be an item for giants' rock throwing ability?

[lord_khaine]

incorporeal/ flying invisible creature definitely not, but ranger/paladin with flying mount seems reasonable for the conflict. After all you are supposed to be the big hero capable of decimating an army, who ever said you had to do it on the ground. A 'hero' with a flying mount and bow could have the mount drop rocks while he showers the area with arrows from outside the range of any archer. Technically this build would work as soon as you could get said flying mount. Heck you could technically use something like a bag of endless caltrops and just use falling damage and maybe volley rules to literally rain death from above!

Well.. the moment a mount is involved its no longer no cavalery, and for that matter only humans.
But more importantly, i still think it goes against the spirit of the challenge, because it was a fight meant to be cause of hype for a warrior of some sort.
"He dropped rocks on them from a safe distance until they ran away" dont build much hype.
"He slaughtered his way though their ranks until none were left who dared to try and attack him" does.

For that matter, if you are in range to shoot at them, then their archers will also be in range of you. I dont recall any d&d rules that gives range penalties for elevation.
And if you try and drop rocks on then, then they can just ready an action to step aside.


A Fighter with a magic item of unlimited flight, plus that item of infinite javelins, might well be a match for an army.

Depends on how many archers they have.


I don't think caltrops will inflict falling damage, but you could put some cannon-ball-sized rocks in a bag of holding and chuck them one by one.

Hmm.. would give one heck of a penalty to hit? lack of proficiency in whats likely an improvised weapon. Awful range. And additional penalties for it being a rock sized for a large or huge creature?

Looking at it some more, then i do think a Crusader could rather easily do it at.. i dont know, level 8-10 at the very least.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

I wonder what level Tiny von BigMcLargeHuge (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?132294-Tiny-Von-BigMcLargeHuge) could pull this off at.

[Nifft]

Depends on how many archers they have. No it doesn't.


Hmm.. would give one heck of a penalty to hit? lack of proficiency in whats likely an improvised weapon. Awful range. Falling objects don't have a range increment, all they have is a terminal velocity.


I seem to recall a bag of endless rocks from some source or another that could work perfectly for this but I can't remember where and am away from my books... I think it was meant to be an item for giants' rock throwing ability?

That would be cool, anyone know the item name or source book?

[Yogibear41]

Level 20 Barbarian, Roll With it Featx5, Armor of the Unending Hunt from Complete Warrior so he is immune to fatigue/exhaustion, might take him all day, but I doubt anyone can get through DR 15/- and he can just hack people to death with a +1 Greatsword or something, doesn't even need WBL.

Toss on something that gives fast healing or regeneration for insurance if you want, but you probably won't need it.
Also Ring of Freedom of movement, so they all don't just dog pile, mass grapple you.

[Calthropstu]

That both goes against the spirit of the contest i think, as well as the -only humans- clause.



I think at the moment you got the vampiric weapon most builds would be able to deal with the army.



Its unlikely to be enough. Each round your going to take something on the line of 20 attacks (assuming a reasonable mix of spears and blades in said army)
Thats at on average 1 hit each turn. More if your ac isnt so high that they only hit on a natural 20, despite aid another bonuses and tripping.

His back against a wall reduces that to 10 per round IF his enemies all use reach weapons. Alternatively, he could use the vampiric weapon to counter that one hit per round.

But let's figure this out if it's enough.

Figure 1 hit to drop something, only a 1 misses, 20 enemies within reach.

Now let's give this guy a special semi-mythic weapon that grants him the always a chance ability so 1s don't miss. Automatic 20 drop per round.

One hit per round from say... a d10 weapon. 7.5 per round after str modifiers.
10th lvl fighter with a good con mod will have about 75 hp.

So he drops in 10 rounds... enough to slaughter 200. Good luck could double that length. If someone sliaghters half my army by himself, I'd order a retreat. Hell, I'd order a parlay after 50.

But let's go further. We have a 10th lvl human fighter. In pf, that would be 12 feats. In 3.5 it would be 10. So let's grab the fast healing feat and boots of the earth, bump our con mod to +4 with items and presto... we're down to 2.5 damage per round. So we've tripled it. Enpugh to surpass the 500 mark.

But that's if pathfinder and boots of the earth are alliwed. Vampiric serves the same function, especially if we crit fish.

[AnimeTheCat]

So, OP... Let me know how on the mark or off the mark the below NPC soldier is:

Human Warrior 1


Str 13
Dex 11
Con 12


Int 9
Wis 10
Cha 8


Fort +3
Ref +0
Will +0


AC 17
TAC 10
FFAC 17


HP 1d8+4 (8)
BAB +1
Init +0


Attack: Short Spear +2 Melee (1d6+1) x2 OR Shortsword +2 Melee (1d6+1) 19-20/x2
Attack: Light Crossbow +1 Ranged (1d8) 19-20/x2, 80 ft OR Longbow +1 Ranged (1d8) x3, 100 ft

Armor: Breastplate +5 AB/+3 MDB/-4 ACP/20 ft
Shield: Heavy Steel Shield +2 SB/-2 ACP

Feats: ToughnessH, AlertnessH


Is that NPC in the right power vein for this "common rabble army" that you're "Legendary" NPC fighter is boasting defeating?

[BloodSnake'sCha]

Rouge/Master Thrower Kobold that get epic feats or just an epic character.

Take Distant Shot and Storm Of Throws to one shoot kill all the army.

Just spot everyone and use your Master Thrower triks to make it a tuch attack with no dex bonus and with 2 knifes on each enemy.

SA them, it should be enough damage.

If you don't think it work then just use the 1st level ranger spell that remove all paneltis to range.

[JNAProductions]

So, OP... Let me know how on the mark or off the mark the below NPC soldier is:

Human Warrior 1


Str 13
Dex 11
Con 12


Int 9
Wis 10
Cha 8


Fort +3
Ref +0
Will +0


AC 17
TAC 10
FFAC 17


HP 1d8+4 (8)
BAB +1
Init +0


Attack: Short Spear +2 Melee (1d6+1) x2 OR Shortsword +2 Melee (1d6+1) 19-20/x2
Attack: Light Crossbow +1 Ranged (1d8) 19-20/x2, 80 ft OR Longbow +1 Ranged (1d8) x3, 100 ft

Armor: Breastplate +5 AB/+3 MDB/-4 ACP/20 ft
Shield: Heavy Steel Shield +2 SB/-2 ACP

Feats: ToughnessH, AlertnessH


Is that NPC in the right power vein for this "common rabble army" that you're "Legendary" NPC fighter is boasting defeating?

Drop to a heavy wooden shield (no change, but more realistic) and most of them probably only have hide armor. Breastplates are 200 GP!

[AnimeTheCat]

Drop to a heavy wooden shield (no change, but more realistic) and most of them probably only have hide armor. Breastplates are 200 GP!

Fair enough, the above are usually the dreggs of the armies I have in my game so I just kept their breastplates and steel shields when I typed it in here. In all honesty, if it's a rabble, they might only have padded leather as it takes less time to manufacture (no tanning/hardening process) and is one of the cheapest armors available. In that case, they're probably also using slings as opposed to crossbows or longbows (which is kind of better... raises the damage bottom line and only drops the damage cap by 1).

Either way, some kind of actual target baseline will seriously help people when they are throwing ideas out there for this "local legendary fighter".

[liquidformat]

Drop to a heavy wooden shield (no change, but more realistic) and most of them probably only have hide armor. Breastplates are 200 GP!

If you are really going into that level of thought then armor should be: Padded, leather, or Hide; shield should be heavy wood maybe even light; Weapons should be melee Javelin, dagger, club, or spear (removing shield); ranged should be 5x javelin or sling. Bows and crossbows would be cost restrictive for the standard ragtag militia of minute men/irregular army that you are representing. Something closer to a hoplite should be the bar for cheap base unit of an npc classed army.

-Crossbows were traditionally seen in mercenary armies and used in conjunction with tower shield walls.

-Whereas, the best representation for bow use would be Medieval England where every man over the age of... 12? can't remember if that is right at the moment. Was required by law to have and be proficient with a bow and they were required to practice on Sundays. They also outlawed other sports for a time besides archery to help support the training of archers.

[Fizban]

I was checking back in Heroes of Battle for rock dropping in the dragon thread (side note: yeah obviously if you can fly and drop rocks all day you're gonna wreck 'em), and it doesn't look like it disagrees with the Monster Manual organization at all. More importantly, there's already a morale check system. Any given unit (which are usually in the tens of soldiers) has all its members start making morale checks as soon as half of them drop. The maximum bonus for outnumbering is +5 (there's also penalties for fatigue), so that means. . . they still probably need a 15 to make the check. 30% succeed, 50% are shaken and can be Intimidated into running, and 20% fail so hard they run immediately (unless the DM rolls once for the group). The 20% that run (10% of the original total) leave the remainder that much closer to making another check (they're now at 40% original with the next check at 25), at which point the remainder almost certainly fail and break.

Not quite as easy to break them for one melee man as I might like, but still makes the job easier. Of course this doesn't count commanders rallying them, but for non-specialized commanders this isn't going to be very successful either, and there's a penalty for recent failures that means you've got a good window to finish breaking them.


Back to the OP, a straight classed fighter ought to be able to do it by 10th (or as always, preferably 11th for BAB)- they could take Martial Spirit+Martial Stance, but with the extra AC and healing from magic items (or other feats) they can do the job. PC wealth gives plenty of room for healing and defenses, but even the 16k of NPC wealth is enough for the bare essentials. Specialized gear that would help quite a bit includes a Swordbow to keep pressure up without wasting time switching weapons.

Alternate feats would include the Combat Focus/Stability/Vigor line, which gives you resistance to maneuvers and fast healing. It only refreshes every encounter, but if you can borrow a time definition for resetting encounters (typically one or five minute after finishing your last opponent), then you take them apart with PHB2 healing instead of ToB healing. You'd need to pace yourself instead of shooting constantly for that one, but that's fine. You can get a break simply by retreating faster than they can follow you.

[Nifft]

I was checking back in Heroes of Battle for rock dropping in the dragon thread (side note: yeah obviously if you can fly and drop rocks all day you're gonna wreck 'em), and it doesn't look like it disagrees with the Monster Manual organization at all. More importantly, there's already a morale check system. Any given unit (which are usually in the tens of soldiers) has all its members start making morale checks as soon as half of them drop. The maximum bonus for outnumbering is +5 (there's also penalties for fatigue), so that means. . . they still probably need a 15 to make the check. 30% succeed, 50% are shaken and can be Intimidated into running, and 20% fail so hard they run immediately (unless the DM rolls once for the group). The 20% that run (10% of the original total) leave the remainder that much closer to making another check (they're now at 40% original with the next check at 25), at which point the remainder almost certainly fail and break.

Not quite as easy to break them for one melee man as I might like, but still makes the job easier. Of course this doesn't count commanders rallying them, but for non-specialized commanders this isn't going to be very successful either, and there's a penalty for recent failures that means you've got a good window to finish breaking them.

They only start making morale checks after half of them drop?

These fantasy humans are incredibly brave.

[Fizban]

Well it is called Heroes of Battle after all. From what I've seen looking up this and that, as much as people go on about realistic armies retreating as soon as they take any damage, there sure are lots of instances of some battle where people fought to the last man, even mercenaries who are supposed to be the most cowardly of all.

[Nifft]

Well it is called Heroes of Battle after all. From what I've seen looking up this and that, as much as people go on about realistic armies retreating as soon as they take any damage, there sure are lots of instances of some battle where people fought to the last man, even mercenaries who are supposed to be the most cowardly of all.

Yeah, that's true.

It is a fantasy game, not a reenactment physics engine.

[Jack_Simth]

Well it is called Heroes of Battle after all. From what I've seen looking up this and that, as much as people go on about realistic armies retreating as soon as they take any damage, there sure are lots of instances of some battle where people fought to the last man, even mercenaries who are supposed to be the most cowardly of all.
Note: a rather lot of the groups that fought to the last man had nowhere to run. Those were also often the sorts of battles where the winner took more casualties than the loser (The Alamo being a particularly extreme example of that).

[Fizban]

I mean, I was going to say "even though they could have run," but I thought it was implied*. Winners taking greater casualties supports troops not immediately morale breaking in response to casualties, so that checks out. Can be modeled within the mechanics quite easily as well, just have reinforcements keep showing up before the unit hits 1/2 and they never have to roll a check.

Of course you can easily change the thresholds so there's a first check at 75% before you go to 50% and then half again for each check after that. That makes it most likely the unit will break at 50%, but it also works better with single unit checks rather than checks for every individual, since you could get a serious snowball effect where the check at 75% causes a bunch of people to flee and makes the next check much sooner. And it just feels off to me to have stragglers breaking off and fleeing when the unit is still 3/4 there.

*No I don't have a bunch of examples. When I was looking for info on peasant levies I ended up on the mercenaries page which was saying stuff like "oh the swiss were known for fighting to the last man," and someone will probably say that's bunk but whatever. It's easy enough to slide the scale one way or the other and for dnd purposes where the default assumption is pretty much everything fights to the death, 50% is fine.

[CIDE]

So, OP... Let me know how on the mark or off the mark the below NPC soldier is:

Human Warrior 1


Str 13
Dex 11
Con 12


Int 9
Wis 10
Cha 8


Fort +3
Ref +0
Will +0


AC 17
TAC 10
FFAC 17


HP 1d8+4 (8)
BAB +1
Init +0


Attack: Short Spear +2 Melee (1d6+1) x2 OR Shortsword +2 Melee (1d6+1) 19-20/x2
Attack: Light Crossbow +1 Ranged (1d8) 19-20/x2, 80 ft OR Longbow +1 Ranged (1d8) x3, 100 ft

Armor: Breastplate +5 AB/+3 MDB/-4 ACP/20 ft
Shield: Heavy Steel Shield +2 SB/-2 ACP

Feats: ToughnessH, AlertnessH


Is that NPC in the right power vein for this "common rabble army" that you're "Legendary" NPC fighter is boasting defeating?

Not every one would have a ranged weapon but that's pretty much the gist of it.

[AnimeTheCat]

Not every one would have a ranged weapon but that's pretty much the gist of it.

Ok, so no need to scale down to a paded leather/Light wood shield AC? or change the weapons to clubs or quaterstaffs or slings? regardless, this is what makes up about 80% of the force right? and scale that up to level 3 and 5 for 15% and 5% of the force?

This is just to get a feel for what kind of "army" the "hero" is credited for vanquishing alone.

[CIDE]

Ok, so no need to scale down to a paded leather/Light wood shield AC? or change the weapons to clubs or quaterstaffs or slings? regardless, this is what makes up about 80% of the force right? and scale that up to level 3 and 5 for 15% and 5% of the force?

This is just to get a feel for what kind of "army" the "hero" is credited for vanquishing alone.

Yeah that's about right.

[AnimeTheCat]

So the army looks like this:




Str 13
Int 9
Fort +3
AC 17
HP 1d8+4 (8)


Dex 11
Wis 10
Ref +0
TAC 10
BAB +1


Con 12
Cha 8
Will +0
FF 17
Init +0



Shortspear +2 (1d6+1) x2, 20 ft OR Shortsword +2 (1d6+1) 19-20/x2
Breastplate +5 AB/+3 MDB/-4 ACP
Heavy Shield +2 SB/-2 ACP

Feats: HToughness, 1Alertness





Str 11
Int 9
Fort +3
AC 16
HP 1d8+1 (5)


Dex 13
Wis 10
Ref +1
TAC 11
BAB +1


Con 12
Cha 8
Will +0
FF 15
Init +1



Longbow +2 (1d8) x3, 100 ft OR Dagger +1 (1d4) 19-20/x2
Breastplate +5 AB/+3 MDB/-4 ACP

Feats: HPoint Blank Shot, 1Precise





Str 13
Int 9
Fort +4
AC 17
HP 3d8+6 (20)


Dex 11
Wis 10
Ref +1
TAC 10
BAB +3


Con 12
Cha 8
Will +1
FF 17
Init +0



Shortspear +5 (1d6+1) x2, 20 ft OR Shortsword +4 (1d6+1) 19-20/x2
Breastplate +5 AB/+3 MDB/-4 ACP
Heavy Shield +2 SB/-2 ACP

Feats: HToughness, 1Alertness, 3Weapon Focus (Shortsword)





Str 11
Int 9
Fort +4
AC 16
HP 3d8+3 (17)


Dex 13
Wis 10
Ref +2
TAC 11
BAB +3


Con 12
Cha 8
Will +1
FF 15
Init +1



Longbow +4 (1d8) x3, 100 ft OR Dagger +3 (1d4) 19-20/x2
Breastplate +5 AB/+3 MDB/-4 ACP

Feats: HPoint Blank Shot, 1Precise Shot, 3Rapid Shot





Str 14
Int 9
Fort +5
AC 17
HP 5d8+8 (30)


Dex 11
Wis 10
Ref +1
TAC 10
BAB +3


Con 12
Cha 8
Will +1
FF 17
Init +0



Shortspear +8 (1d6+1) x2, 20 ft OR Shortsword +7 (1d6+1) 19-20/x2
Breastplate +5 AB/+3 MDB/-4 ACP
Heavy Shield +2 SB/-2 ACP

Feats: HToughness, 1Alertness, 3Weapon Focus (Shortsword)





Str 11
Int 9
Fort +5
AC 17
HP 5d8+5 (27)


Dex 14
Wis 10
Ref +3
TAC 12
BAB +5


Con 12
Cha 8
Will +1
FF 15
Init +2



Longbow +7 (1d8) x3, 100 ft OR Dagger +5 (1d4) 19-20/x2
Breastplate +5 AB/+3 MDB/-4 ACP

Feats: HPoint Blank Shot, 1Precise Shot, 3Rapid Shot

[liquidformat]

So the army looks like this:




Str 13
Int 9
Fort +3
AC 17
HP 1d8+4 (8)


Dex 11
Wis 10
Ref +0
TAC 10
BAB +1


Con 12
Cha 8
Will +0
FF 17
Init +0



Shortspear +2 (1d6+1) x2, 20 ft OR Shortsword +2 (1d6+1) 19-20/x2
Breastplate +5 AB/+3 MDB/-4 ACP
Heavy Shield +2 SB/-2 ACP

Feats: HToughness, 1Alertness





Str 11
Int 9
Fort +3
AC 16
HP 1d8+1 (5)


Dex 13
Wis 10
Ref +1
TAC 11
BAB +1


Con 12
Cha 8
Will +0
FF 15
Init +1



Longbow +2 (1d8) x3, 100 ft OR Dagger +1 (1d4) 19-20/x2
Breastplate +5 AB/+3 MDB/-4 ACP

Feats: HPoint Blank Shot, 1Precise





Str 13
Int 9
Fort +4
AC 17
HP 3d8+6 (20)


Dex 11
Wis 10
Ref +1
TAC 10
BAB +3


Con 12
Cha 8
Will +1
FF 17
Init +0



Shortspear +5 (1d6+1) x2, 20 ft OR Shortsword +4 (1d6+1) 19-20/x2
Breastplate +5 AB/+3 MDB/-4 ACP
Heavy Shield +2 SB/-2 ACP

Feats: HToughness, 1Alertness, 3Weapon Focus (Shortsword)





Str 11
Int 9
Fort +4
AC 16
HP 3d8+3 (17)


Dex 13
Wis 10
Ref +2
TAC 11
BAB +3


Con 12
Cha 8
Will +1
FF 15
Init +1



Longbow +4 (1d8) x3, 100 ft OR Dagger +3 (1d4) 19-20/x2
Breastplate +5 AB/+3 MDB/-4 ACP

Feats: HPoint Blank Shot, 1Precise Shot, 3Rapid Shot





Str 14
Int 9
Fort +5
AC 17
HP 5d8+8 (30)


Dex 11
Wis 10
Ref +1
TAC 10
BAB +3


Con 12
Cha 8
Will +1
FF 17
Init +0



Shortspear +8 (1d6+1) x2, 20 ft OR Shortsword +7 (1d6+1) 19-20/x2
Breastplate +5 AB/+3 MDB/-4 ACP
Heavy Shield +2 SB/-2 ACP

Feats: HToughness, 1Alertness, 3Weapon Focus (Shortsword)





Str 11
Int 9
Fort +5
AC 17
HP 5d8+5 (27)


Dex 14
Wis 10
Ref +3
TAC 12
BAB +5


Con 12
Cha 8
Will +1
FF 15
Init +2



Longbow +7 (1d8) x3, 100 ft OR Dagger +5 (1d4) 19-20/x2
Breastplate +5 AB/+3 MDB/-4 ACP

Feats: HPoint Blank Shot, 1Precise Shot, 3Rapid Shot


I will opt for my high end army battalion posted earlier!

[Fizban]

Universal breastplates would put things fairly late medieval if my guess is right, but luckily in standard 3.5 breastplate isn't any better than chainmail so statwise they're the same, but gp-wise that army is waaaaasting money (as has been mentioned). And if they've got that kind of money, there's no reason to ever be using shortspears or even short swords. Poor gear primary refers to armor and ranged weapon, as one-handed melee weapons max out at 15gp unless you want rapiers for some reason. Compared to that, +2-3 armor at 10-25gp is appropriate, while light crossbows are pricey but effective at 35gp (and are less than half the price of longbows at 75).

Warrior 1s taking toughness is well known as one of the best uses of the feat, and if using Heroes of Battle morale rather than DMG morale it's worth a ton of longevity. Alertness is worse than Weapon Focus? Formation troops would have Shield-Wall, while those not focused on formations would probably just jam weapon focus for their primary weapon.

I know char-op is terrified of archers without precise shot, but in actual battlefield conditions there's very little reason to take it. You're not shooting directly at people who are in melee with your own people, you're shooting at the back or side ranks where the enemy isn't actively engaged, or shooting arrow volleys that don't care about anyone's attack roll except the leader (and land a reflex save that ignores armor, which is completely bogus but hey them's the rules, and aren't hitting people directly engaged in melee either). If the Human Archers are going to double up on archery feats, Far Shot is the one they should be using: 50% more range is insane.

You've also got about twice as many sergeants as you should have, but I assume that's because you're giving them out per 5 based on a real-world conversion rather than per 6-10 or just per 10 as Heroes of Battle or MM1. On the other hand, HoB would have a 7th level captain over the whole thing (going by their example statblocks), while MM1 would give at least twelve 7th level captains over four bands of elves or dwarves (plus probably 50% noncombatants).

[liquidformat]

Depending on how realistic we want to get, tower shields and hide armor with a crossbow (at 81gp with dagger) or long bow (146gp) would be more reasonable use of money for the archers. Traditionally they would stick the shields in the ground so they are free standing then use them as partial cover while shooting or full cover while reloading in the case of using a crossbow. I think this works inside the rules as written given the described size of the tower shield and rules on cover, also the archers doesn't even need to be proficient in tower shields to use them this way since they are effectively just carrying around parts of a portable wall... This setup would also have implications against charges and trip attempts, all and all tower shield is a very effective use funds for an archery unit that isn't going to be moving after being positioned.

I would agree, for an archery unit far shot is a much better and more realistic use of feats followed by rapid shot unless you have specific tactics in mind such as the tripping army unit presented previously.

Ya alertness seems really strange for your standard soldier to have, they are not going to be in a position where they would ever use it. The only exception is if they are meant to be a scouting unit then it is fine otherwise it doesn't make sense for a unit with any training. Weapon Focus, shield wall, phalanx fighting or something similar makes much more sense for any military unit with basic training.

I am on the fence with any military officer above level 3ish being purely npc classes; these would typically be trained officers rather than grunts who have worked their way up through the ranks and their classes and builds should reflect that. Even if they were once grunts these are units that the military has chosen to invest resources in so there should logically be something showing that even if they are simple npcs. The lieutenants are probably the first level units you would reasonably be seeing the investment in armor as expensive as breastplate, also the footman lieutenants would most likely be wearing splint mail apposed to breastplate. The fact that there is no one capable of being a command unit is also unreasonable for a military unit of 500+ soldiers. No way would you be sending out that group of soldiers without someone more focused on and capable of command than a 5th level warrior...

[Bohandas]

I was trying to build hype for a npc and it got me thinking about the mechanical implications of the hype and i was wondering what it'd really take. The scenario was a single fighter against a small army of 500ish troops all npc classes except roughly 50 mixed npc/pc classes like fighters. No spellcasting I either side. Open field as a location, no cavalry, only humans in both sides.

My question is this: how would the fighter need to be built and at what level to turn the army away (after slaughtering most of it) by himself? Human, standard array, wbl (either pc or npc). Any optimization level. Optionally, what if they were only a "fighter" as a title and were actually another class like a barbarian or Warblade? Still no magic spells. I'm interested in first party 3.5 material but if you have an interesting idea to include dragon magazine or pf I'm all ears.

What are all of your thoughts? Woo thinks they can do it with the lowest level?
What levels are the opponents? And are any of the npc classed opponents magewrights?

[Fizban]

I am on the fence with any military officer above level 3ish being purely npc classes; these would typically be trained officers rather than grunts who have worked their way up through the ranks and their classes and builds should reflect that. Even if they were once grunts these are units that the military has chosen to invest resources in so there should logically be something showing that even if they are simple npcs.
Aristocrats are trained, doesn't get them out of an NPC class (and now that I mention it, a proper medieval setting with noble leaders ought to have aristocrats in command- the definitive tying of level to rank is one of the failings of the system). Gaining levels at all is a pretty significant representation of investment, since gaining levels by actual life-or-death combat will in all likelihood result in you being dead by the time you get there.

That said, city generation gives a roughly equal number of high level warriors as any other PC class (and since their roll is 2d4 vs 1d8, they're not more likely to be the highest either). Which actually means the PC classes outnumber them. And neither MM1 nor Heroes of Battle restricts the classes for "leaders."

[liquidformat]

Aristocrats are trained, doesn't get them out of an NPC class (and now that I mention it, a proper medieval setting with noble leaders ought to have aristocrats in command- the definitive tying of level to rank is one of the failings of the system). Gaining levels at all is a pretty significant representation of investment, since gaining levels by actual life-or-death combat will in all likelihood result in you being dead by the time you get there.

That said, city generation gives a roughly equal number of high level warriors as any other PC class (and since their roll is 2d4 vs 1d8, they're not more likely to be the highest either). Which actually means the PC classes outnumber them. And neither MM1 nor Heroes of Battle restricts the classes for "leaders."

While that is true HoB also sets precedent for the use of standard pc classes as the backbone of an army and tends to use classes capable of leading as the heads of the army.

Strangely enough WotC did a really great job of creating the Aristocrat class. The Nobility of medieval Europe were typically well trained knights, it was important to be trained in horsemanship, fighting with many weapons, have a wide breath of knowledge, be socially skilled as well as some stranger things like dancing. dance masters were a very important part of a medieval court that would go around to villages to find new and interesting folk dance to bring back to court to be added to the repertoire of the court. All nobility was expected to be skilled in dancing. In fact being a bad dancer was a good way to be kicked out of court in those times. The balloes (not sure if I am spelling that right) the Italian precursor to ballet were pretty epic and included not only dancing but also reenactments of famous battles with horses and everything, one even had a naval sea battle reenactment where they flooded a stadium to do so. Without the Aristocrat class I could see people being some horrible mix of swashbuckler/knight or swashbuckler/marshal. Straight bard would be pretty decent representation of medieval nobility that added magic into the standard repertoire of educational topics to be expected.

[Ignimortis]

While that is true HoB also sets precedent for the use of standard pc classes as the backbone of an army and tends to use classes capable of leading as the heads of the army.


Personally, I use low-tier PC classes as NPC classes mostly. Fighters aren't worth much as single-classed PCs unless you optimize them thoroughly, and so they mostly fill the roles of better-than-usual trained personnel, like lower-end officers and free gestalts for those who are supposed to be well-versed in combat and need to have other capabilities, like generals, who are marshal//fighters and so on.

However, if you consider Fighter to be a valid PC class (not as a dip) in your game without significant buffs/changes/gestalt, then I wouldn't advise making every single soldier a Fighter.

[liquidformat]

Ya I normally go with all tier 5 and any tier 4 without optimization are fine for random npcs. Something just feels mean about giving even an npc a class with no class features. Even monsters are supposed to be getting something for their RHD beyond a bump in life, saves, skills and maybe bab...

[Fizban]

Regarding appropriate equipment for 1st level warriors. They're not elite PC classed NPCs, so they don't necessarily get the NPC wealth table, but we do have another value once again from the MM1. The treasure rating for essentially all of the 1st level humanoid warriors is Standard (at CR 1/2), plus the gear they're already using. So that's 1/2 a standard 1st level treasure, which is 150gp. Or from random treasure, the most likely coin results are 1d8 or 2d8 x10gp, so something like 60-70gp in extra gear with some soldiers being broke and others having some cash or the occasional gem/art object/item.

That's in addition to their starting gear, which seems to be either studded leather or scale mail, light or heavy shield, and either a one handed and a projectile weapon or a two handed and some throwing weapons.

But wait! NPC classes actually have stated starting gear values. Warriors get 3d4 x10, for an average of 75gp. It would appear that elves and dwarves are abnormally well financed with their longbows and scale mail, but not too far outside the given range. Aristocrats have a lot more, so they've got a good shot at affording better armor, weapons, or a horse.