Advice for war tactics in a post-modern post-apocalypose game

[Helinon]

So, I'll throw out the relevant details from the start (I'd love to get into the setting as a whole, but there is still the faint hope that one day my friend the DM will attempt to publish this as some form of 3rd party material).

System is 3.5e D&D with broad use of supplemental material (excluding anything draconic related and Dragon Magazine material) as well as 10+ years worth of homebrewing/campaign specific rule interpretation

Setting is a post-apocalyptic Earth in a post-modern time setting (most tech is the same, just slightly more advanced, plus magnetic and laser technologies have been streamlined)

Guns and heavy weapons (artillery batteries, rocket launchers, heavy machine guns, etc.) are incredibly common and are incredibly dangerous and not balanced towards "normal" 3.5 weapon statistics in the slightest.

The level of our party ranges from 16 to 18.

Currently 2 major factions are vying for control of our region, an Drow-led Underdark faction that invaded the surface recently as well as a demonic force that did the same around the same time. My party's position is as the de-facto leadership of a moderately sized settlement that managed to avoid occupation by either side during their respective invasions and has managed to be neutral to both sides as of this point. The party in question consists of a bioengineered vulture-man Monk who the the official leader of the settlement, a high level human Cleric who fits the bill as a stereotypical "adventurer", a synthetic(AI) human Artificer who currently has a massive base of operations with manufactorums on Mars and a 1-way portal to our Earth settlement form said base, and myself, a human Ranger who is the leader of the local mercenary forcers and de-facto leader of the all military forces for the settlement.

The main issue that has occured is this. The demons underwent a change of leadership recently which also led to a change in tactics. Previously, they had something of a stalemate with the Drow forces as they had occupied settlements and held them as strongholds. The new leadership has abandoned all their settlements and is having their demonic forces roam on warpaths, burning down everything in their way. We recently figured out that they were attempting to construct a massive ritual circle of some sort with these efforts, and while we were able to confirm that the nature of said ritual was not offensive, it is still bad.

As such, we've made the decision that we need to interfere with the apparent construction of the ritual circle. However, even the smallest horde of demons will number in the hundreds and every demon that is not a meat shield is large enough to carry around heavy weapons, making each the equivalent of an armored vehical/tank depending on the demon in question. Our DM does spread those demons out accordingly tho, so the majority of each force is likely to consist of armed slaves, lesser demons (such as dretch), and demonic aligned mortals.

Our leader the vulture-man monk, and as such much of our settlement's population, tends towards Lawful Good, so war crimes to even the field are right out. As unlikely as it is, does anyone have any advice for tactics on how to deal with this scenario?

[Pauly]

On the defensive side.
1) Defensive lunes are obsolete.
2) Defense in depth. Defenders are arranged in mutually supporting boxes in a checkerboard pattern. If the demons crack one box then they will be caught between the boxes to the left, right and forward left and forward right.
3) Active defense. Small packets of defenders are in a checkerboard pattern and mobile reserves are held to counterattack. Often the counterattack is not to meet the enemy spearhead, but to pinch off the spear shaft and keave the enemy spearhead isolated and out of supply
4) Firebases. The difference between a fort and a firebase is that a fort is defending something. A firebase exists to attract the enemy to it and then wreck said enemy.

[Anonymouswizard]

They're making a philosopher's stone!

More seriously, a ritual circle has both points and lines. The obvious moves are ways to stop them creating more or force them to redo parts they've already finished.

With your manufacturing capability compared to their none (great move on their part abandoning all their bases :smallamused:) I'd also focus on plans that cost material over manpower. If you know any routes or places they need to rampage through mine them, either they won't want to go there or you can force significant losses on the warband. Create fake threats so they waste ammunition and then engage from a distance. study their circle and prepare a counter-circle using your blood and a solar eclipse (okay, I'll stop the FMA references). Spend thirteen months developing a bomb that can banish an entire warband in one go. Anything that works to your advantage.

[ciopo]

I am going to assume banish and Holy word are not practical because of "too small area of effect" when applied to scale , and/or being severely outranged by the "heavy mech" demon weaponry

I am not sure if the "problem to solve" in the scenario is the sheer size of "hundreds of slaves/small demons" or "big big mechademon not meant to be fought barehanded"

My usual solution for problems of the horde persuasion is spike stones, because it has both the duration and the area to be a spell effective at "army level".

Sadly, you don't have a druid, but you do have a ranger! Spike growth would work just as well there, assuming a 16th level ranger , each casting of one of these babies is 16 hours of sixteen 20x20 squares of difficult terrain that deal a bit of damage (might or might not bypass dretch DR depending how your GM goes about spells dealing physical damages, by RAW it bypasses DR) but also halves speed to anyone stepping on one, just find appropriate chokepoints and go nuts with those.

what is the ultimate aim? Uninterrupted access to the ritual site to foil it?

If I was in your game, I would have argumented that, if we could identify some important part of the megaritual, we could forever "taint the earth" (but actually untaint) by casting an hallow on that place, making it not compatible with demonic magic.

Pending GM buy in, that would means the plot becomes "how do I stay unmolested in one of the ritual leylines for 24+ hours to cast hallwo there?"

[Pauly]

On the offensive side.
1) Blitzkreig. Attack his weak points with overwhelming force then move on. Since they will be defending a circular permitter you have the advantage of choosing when and where to attack.
2) Deep penetration. After making a gap in their lines send a mobile unit deep into their rear area to somewhere the enemy has to maintain control over (eg railway marshaling yard, highway crossroad, airfield) and dig in. The unit that does the penetration is to draw enemy mobile reserves to it and hold them in place so your main forces can attack their reserves.
3) peaceful penetration. If the enemy is using holdout boxes, infiltrate a box, then launch a surprise attack to take over their box and flip it into your box before their reserves can react. This is only really doable in static situations.
4) Use special forces (rangers for wilderness, rogues for urban areas) to identify targets to be eliminated with a strike force. The strike force in D&D will be magic users and martials on flying mounts. This is to eliminate targets of high value, not to hold ground so the strike force will fly out and the special forces will sneak away at the conclusion of the strike.
5) not specifically modern but it applies here. Use feints and decoys to make the enemy’s reserves move around.
In modern war it often is about misinformation (deliberately giving the enemy false information) in the intelligence. (Ref Patton’s ghost army and the Man who never was in the lead up to D-day).
6) Funding and supply of insurgents in the enemy’s territory. The aim is to make the enemy squander resources, and any damage done is a bonus.
7) Wonder Weapons. Developing weapons that pose a significant threat to the enemy that must be defended against. The bouncing bomb of the dambuster’s raid is a good example. After the successful raid the Germans were forced to devote large AA defenses to their dams which could have been usefully employed elsewhere even though the British never intended to replicate the raid. The damage done is good, but the ongoing drain on enemy defenses is the real benefit.

[Valorium]

Considering demons can't be permanently killed and are living embodiments of various evils and ills, surely they don't count when it comes to war crimes? I'm fairly certain the Geneva Convention has exceptions for "magical avatars of all that is evil and unholy in this world".

[Helinon]

Many thanks for the advice so far! There have been some good ideas here, some of which I did consider before posting this thread, but still helpful nonetheless.


4) Firebases. The difference between a fort and a firebase is that a fort is defending something. A firebase exists to attract the enemy to it and then wreck said enemy.

This is absolutely a plan we've got it the works now, tyvm for it!


With your manufacturing capability compared to their none (great move on their part abandoning all their bases :smallamused:) I'd also focus on plans that cost material over manpower. If you know any routes or places they need to rampage through mine them, either they won't want to go there or you can force significant losses on the warband. Create fake threats so they waste ammunition and then engage from a distance.

Sadly, as demons they have the ability to planar shift and teleport an infinite number of time per day which means that though they don't hold any actual bases for manufacturing on the Material plane, their supply lines from the Abyss itself are all but unassailable. Mines are another option that is unfortunately not on the table, but I'll get more into that below. The fake threats thing might just be a thing we can do, so I'm gonna look at option for how we can do that.


I am not sure if the "problem to solve" in the scenario is the sheer size of "hundreds of slaves/small demons" or "big big mechademon not meant to be fought barehanded"

The answer here is unfortunately "yes". We'll have to deal with both of these problems at the same time, which is part of the problem we're facing.


My usual solution for problems of the horde persuasion is spike stones, because it has both the duration and the area to be a spell effective at "army level".

Spike stones would be a great suggestion, and one that I did not think of initially, but it has the same issue as setting up mines in an area, which I will address below.


what is the ultimate aim? Uninterrupted access to the ritual site to foil it?

If I was in your game, I would have argumented that, if we could identify some important part of the megaritual, we could forever "taint the earth" (but actually untaint) by casting an hallow on that place, making it not compatible with demonic magic.


The Hallow bit here is ingenious, and I'm going to be having some people IG research if that is a potential way to slow them down by forcing them to undo the hallow effects.

I also wasn't clear with how large this "ritual circle" is. The area this circle is encompassing is about 3,500 square miles, or about the size of the US state of Connecticut, and is being constructed by numerous individual hordes. the "site" in question is effectively the entire area, so normal ways of dealing with a ritual like this aren't exactly viable.


Considering demons can't be permanently killed and are living embodiments of various evils and ills, surely they don't count when it comes to war crimes? I'm fairly certain the Geneva Convention has exceptions for "magical avatars of all that is evil and unholy in this world".

So the issue we're faced with in terms of this is that the demons have been actively capturing civilians to us as shields, expendable slave soldiers, or sacrifices for this ritual. Indiscriminate artillery/air strikes, minefields, and the like would be very good options here but would also result in an excessive amount of civilian casualties. We have enchanted artillery rounds that have been made Merciful for when we feel we have no choice but to strike them, but enchanting them is prohibitively expensive to do on a large scale.

[Easy e]

Are you asking for tactical advice, about how you crack these units in battle?

Or are you asking for strategic advice, how to stop them from creating the circle?

There is a big difference.

[Anonymouswizard]

Sadly, as demons they have the ability to planar shift and teleport an infinite number of time per day which means that though they don't hold any actual bases for manufacturing on the Material plane, their supply lines from the Abyss itself are all but unassailable. Mines are another option that is unfortunately not on the table, but I'll get more into that below. The fake threats thing might just be a thing we can do, so I'm gonna look at option for how we can do that..

That's not RAW. I checked the SRD, most demons get at-will greater teleport (limited to self+50lbs, so they'll struggle to bring along lesser demons who can't do it), and there's a grand total of one demon in there who can Plane Shift and they're limited to self-only.

So basically the demons have a massive tactical advantage they shouldn't have, which means they out-number you, likely out-gun you, and have invulnerable supply lines.

You have three choices: die, run as far as you can, or make them unwilling to complete the ritual or advance on you. The last would likely require scaling up to MAD levels of civilian casualties, so yeah. Your choices are run or die.

I hear that Epsilon Eridani is lovely this time of year.

Unless you continually disrupt enough of the ritual area that they can't perform the ritual. You don't need all of it, just enough that they can't complete the ritual. Be aware you might face the entire horde.

Or go full FMA and after the demons have finished their ritual go 'ha! I have set up 10,000 volunteere souls in the right place to do a counter ritual at precisely this moment, which only works due to how you're performing your ritual!' But considering how many ludicrous advantages the GM had given the demons they'll likely just pull out a counter-counter ritual that shifts the entire party to the Demiplane of Sartare or something.

[Lapak]

A postmodern (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism) setting and you're fighting against demons? Attack them with moral relativism! Poof, the creatures that depend on a Good/Evil cosmology blink out of existence and you only have to deal with the Drow.

:smallwink:

[AdAstra]

So, as mentioned, these demons cheat and they cheat hard. They are getting abilities well in excess of their already quite dangerous existing abilities, in ways that completely upend our current understanding of war. However, you haven't yet been completely obliterated by teleporting hordes of walking tanks that can instantly move anywhere at any time with no need to build up forces or logistics, so either the GM is going easy on you (for a given definition of easy)/toying with you, or the teleportation/plane shifting has meaningful limits. What are those limits, if any?

If not known, there should be an effort to find them out along with a lot of other information about your foe.
-Do they have the ability to communicate easily over long distance, or do they rely on teleporting "runners". Or do they largely not communicate between different bands.
-Is there a limit to where they can teleport, the accuracy of such, the amount of demons that can be teleported at once? Is there some magical device that serves as either a fixed gate or a means of creating portals where the demons want them that can be destroyed? etc.
-Are there ways to prevent teleporting to/from an area? A jammer of sorts? Similarly, can you "jam" whatever communications they have access to, if any? What are the limitations to these countermeasures?

Assuming there aren't heavy limits or countermeasures to the teleportation, then defensive warfare is nearly pointless if the enemy isn't intentionally softballing. Even defense in depth can be easily circumvented by having your teleporting scouts (preferably with magical invisibility) or scryers find key locations like headquarters, barracks, supplies, etc. then plastering them with artillery or teleporting strike teams. Scry and Die on a massive scale. Even if they can't teleport straight into a base, they can mass so much firepower so quickly that any fixed location, if found, can be destroyed if they set their mind to it. The closest thing to a "counter" is having near-instant communications and the ability to teleport masses of your own troops in response, or some other kind of ridiculously effective defense, and even then, it's incredibly difficult to mount a meaningful defense of a large area, since the attacking forces can't really be pinned down. So any ability to counteract this state is critical to have.

Without a very good idea of the Demons' capabilities, specifics of the scenario, it's hard to formulate an exact strategy, but here are my offensively-oriented points
-Fighting the enemy is a means, not an end. It may be the best way to accomplish something, but try to consider alternatives, and weigh the cost of any action (including opportunity cost) with the benefits. Have clear goals and plans in mind, but be prepared to change them if you spot an opportunity or circumstances make the existing way no longer viable. For example, for this ritual circle, depending on its structure, you could do a ton of damage to it without fighting at all, or fighting only as a distraction. This goes double because you're small fry on the world stage.
-On the other hand, don't ignore the expediency of just shooting the problem. Sometimes you need to raid to get some stuff or free some people or just disrupt their operations. Sometimes the best way to scout out the enemy is to start rampaging through their rear lines and see what they bring out to stop you before you disengage. The hammer is a reliable tool.
-Magical scrying and various other spells for info-gathering and communication are a ridiculously powerful tool in any war. Basically anywhere you go you should be thoroughly reconnoitering with magic, resources permitting. Try to have dedicated info-gatherers/interpreters, scouts, even spies/informants among the demon's slaves if you can manage it (watch out for moles and false intel, though). Always seek to acquire accurate info. The inverse applies too. Do whatever you can to reduce the amount and accuracy of what the enemy knows.
-The enemy's supply lines are in hell and thus impossible to access from the material plane. But you have casters. You can go to hell, as dangerous as it might be). Similarly, you can teleport. It's a great escape route if there's no way to prevent it and the enemy can't track you (of course, they might be able to, in which case it becomes a lot less viable).

If the game is just a GM power trip, there's not really any in-game thing that can help you, but assuming the players are meant to have a fighting chance, this might be a decent starting point

[Mutazoia]

Artillery is your friend. They can't complete the ritual circle if you keep blowing the crap out of one (large) section of it.

[Vahnavoi]

Key piece of strategic information missing is how fragile this ritual circle is. Do they need all points and lines at once, how easy is it for them to reroute if one point is withheld or one line is erased, so on and so forth. If shape of the circle is known, you can predict enemy troop movements and pick your fights based on what's tactically most advantageous.

[Thane of Fife]

An option for a war strategy here would be to open negotiations with the drow. Presumably, they don't want the demons to finish their ritual any more than you do, so you may very well be able to bring them in on your side. If they were already fighting the demons to a stalemate before, this potentially represents a big shift in your side's ability to fight. Plus, having a common enemy opens the possibility to ease tensions between your two sides and potentially make them another faction you can coexist with.

[Slipjig]

One of the key pieces missing is what forces the PCs have available. In large engagements against what are effectively armored brigades, even high-level PCs are going to struggle to be personally relevant.

And, honestly, from what you described, it sounds like you are thoroughly boned. In terms of military capabilities, mass teleports are basically an "I win" button, because they allow you to mass troops instantly at any vulnerable point and render pretty any and all defensive setups meaningless. They also make offensive operations against then all but impossible, because they can instantly reinforce any place you attack. Unless teleporting is an EXTREMELY limited resource, the ability to teleport regular troops renders moot pretty much our entire current understanding of military strategy.

Troops that, when killed, reform in the Abyss and can immediately return to the Prime Material are also an "I win" button. Having invulnerable supply lines and a genuinely infinite supply of troops renders any defensive operation pointless, because the demons have more bodies than you have bullets (even if most of those bodies get sent back to the Abyss multiple times in the process), and will eventually overwhelm even the most brilliant defense through sheer weight of numbers.

Putting the two together, unless the DM has given you some MASSIVE advantages you haven't mentioned so far, even the full US military would be overrun in a matter of days. If these demons haven't wiped you out, it's because you aren't important enough to have gotten their attention yet.

I'd argue that the human shields thing should be irrelevant, regardless of your alignment. You've clearly crossed the Godzilla Threshold.

My only thought is the DM is setting up a situation where meaningful resistance is clearly impossible. The military Code of Conduct specifies that you will not surrender "while you still possess the means to meaningfully resist". You don't seem to meet that. Maybe he expects you to cut a deal?

The only other possibility I can think of is that you need something you can hold hostage that makes the demons unwilling to attack you. Is there a McGuffin key to their ritual that you can steal, and then threaten to destroy the first time you smell brimstone? Or, better yet, frame the Drow for stealing?

[ciopo]

could you tell us how the sotry moved on? I'm curious :)

[Helinon]

OKAY, thanks again for the responses, lotta stuff pointed out that I had to check up on and verify.


That's not RAW. I checked the SRD, most demons get at-will greater teleport (limited to self+50lbs, so they'll struggle to bring along lesser demons who can't do it), and there's a grand total of one demon in there who can Plane Shift and they're limited to self-only.

So basically the demons have a massive tactical advantage they shouldn't have, which means they out-number you, likely out-gun you, and have invulnerable supply lines.

[snipped]

Unless you continually disrupt enough of the ritual area that they can't perform the ritual. You don't need all of it, just enough that they can't complete the ritual. Be aware you might face the entire horde.

You are right on the teleport and plane shift, though I'd counter that 50lbs of ammo and gear every minute or so from every demon that can teleport is plenty of supply capacity. The plane shifting demon by RAW is hostile to other demons but we've seen them used amongst demonic forces, so they've managed to "domesticate" them in some manner meaning they likely also can serve as interdimensional supply mules (considering that they are huge, multi-legged, and strong that's a lot of of carrying capacity.

@AdAstra (Since your post has too much relevant stuff to effectively quote)

Part of the reason that we haven't been targeted yet was that the previous demonic leadership saw us as not worth the effort. We'd inflict too much damage in losing for it to be worthwhile attacking us when we've been willing to not get involved up until now. The new leadership is taking a much more aggressive approach and any deals we had with the previous leader are considered null and void. They potentially have secret portals thet they are using to transport people and materials, but we haven't put too much effort into finding if thats the case yet, as we only just started getting truely involved. Teleportation is effectively only for the demons themselves, which means a mass teleportation of an enemy force isnt really a threat, but any demon with Blasphemy or Unholy Blight can wipe out any low level soldiers near them, which when combined with teleportation means a lot of dead defenders or attackers very quickly. We're currently operating on the assumption that the demons are using Quasits for scouting, since they can fly, can be invisible. and can take the form of animals. They are effectively impossible to stop for those reasons. Tech based communications used to be near instantaneous, though now due to local conditions has a delay, so that's likely what they are using to coordinate. All of the options you've listed are good ones though, and we'll be looking into them.


Key piece of strategic information missing is how fragile this ritual circle is. Do they need all points and lines at once, how easy is it for them to reroute if one point is withheld or one line is erased, so on and so forth. If shape of the circle is known, you can predict enemy troop movements and pick your fights based on what's tactically most advantageous.

This on on our To-Do list, we just haven't gotten the chance to really look into it. We know the demons are actively leveling and "smoothing" the terrain that the circles lines are in, so we thing that its going to be something we are going to have to put effort in to damaging beyond simply shelling it.


An option for a war strategy here would be to open negotiations with the drow. Presumably, they don't want the demons to finish their ritual any more than you do, so you may very well be able to bring them in on your side. If they were already fighting the demons to a stalemate before, this potentially represents a big shift in your side's ability to fight. Plus, having a common enemy opens the possibility to ease tensions between your two sides and potentially make them another faction you can coexist with.

We are actively working with the drow on this, and for what its worth, have had pretty decent relationships with them since their invasion. We'll see how it pans out, but the demons pretty big tactics shift has them a lot more difficult to pin down and attack, especially when theres not really anything to gain from attacking them (The drow are a very capitalistic society here, they don't really function like stereotypical drow)


One of the key pieces missing is what forces the PCs have available. In large engagements against what are effectively armored brigades, even high-level PCs are going to struggle to be personally relevant.

[snipped]

Troops that, when killed, reform in the Abyss and can immediately return to the Prime Material are also an "I win" button. Having invulnerable supply lines and a genuinely infinite supply of troops renders any defensive operation pointless, because the demons have more bodies than you have bullets (even if most of those bodies get sent back to the Abyss multiple times in the process), and will eventually overwhelm even the most brilliant defense through sheer weight of numbers.

[snipped] If these demons haven't wiped you out, it's because you aren't important enough to have gotten their attention yet.

I'd argue that the human shields thing should be irrelevant, regardless of your alignment. You've clearly crossed the Godzilla Threshold.

My only thought is the DM is setting up a situation where meaningful resistance is clearly impossible. The military Code of Conduct specifies that you will not surrender "while you still possess the means to meaningfully resist". You don't seem to meet that. Maybe he expects you to cut a deal?

The only other possibility I can think of is that you need something you can hold hostage that makes the demons unwilling to attack you. Is there a McGuffin key to their ritual that you can steal, and then threaten to destroy the first time you smell brimstone? Or, better yet, frame the Drow for stealing?

I'm pretty sure that the demons for our campaign, when killed on the material plane, suffer the "banished for a year and a day" drawback upon death. So any demons we 'kill' will only be a problem much later down the line. We also don't actually have the issue of "all demons can plane shift" as I had previously stated, as that was simply due to my incorrect assumption of what demons could do. Your second point is on he money though, we def didn't make ourselves enough of a problem to be recognized before now, even though we could have done so. In the end, our goal here is to survive this invasion mostly intact and with our independence. That is more likely to happen with the drow than the demons, but ultimately, we'll have to take the best deal we're offered. And while we actually have collected a number of MacGuffins at this point, none of the are related to the demons (as far as we know)


could you tell us how the sotry moved on? I'm curious :)

Everything got so much worse, and we are thoroughly screwed (and its completely unrelated to the demons). We've lost our cleric and his wizard cohort (both of our most powerful casters) because that player was doing stuff behind the scenes (and did not inform the rest of the party) and messed up so hard that another faction ended up demanding their heads or would declare war on us. That faction also has orbital plasma cannons. Its as bad as it sounds.

[ciopo]

Oh dear.

By the way, there is a 4th level exalted spell in book of exalted deeds, that deals a bit of damage to undead and evil outsider every round.

The interesting bit is it's no save, no SR, area of effect is only 60ft radius.... but the duration is day/level!! That could fit nicely for you I would think, since it only affect the demons and the duration is long enough to be an actual major hindrance. A 15th level cleric can drop like, 6 of these each day amd they last so looooong. It's called celestial brilliance

[Anonymouswizard]

You have implied access to rather significant manufacturing capability on Mars, so what are the options for space flight? With a torch drive and favourable timing you could have orbital installations within a couple of weeks. Teleportation can in theory do it faster. I'm fairly certain that a rod from god plus a Sanctify trap (connected to some kind of sensor so it can go off milliseconds before impact) or the like will cause the demons a lot of problems.

Because plasma cannons are for wimps who can't heft a tungsten rod into orbit.

Throw some spy satellites up there while you're at it, it would likely be helpful to see this ritual circle from above. Plus ideally some kind of space station with a two-way portal in it, in case you need to get things off-planet fast.