[3.5] Campaign world at war!

[PetterTomBos]

Hio :)

Short summary: Kingdom X is soon to be attacked by ragtag northern clans/tribes united by a red dragon. X was in the dark because of a curse the PCs took down, giving the dragon time to ritual the area pretty much sending/scry/alotofstuffs - proof. The PC's are going in for intel..

What would you expect? How would the war look like? What would society look like?

Kingdom X has a dark bortherhood (oblivion anyone?), united church of the good deities (or not so united, depending..), army of the king, accademy. But else: what kind of organizations should I use? Any ideas on RP nobles-bickering?

I'd love to get some input, afraid of running around in circles inside my own head ;)

[Yora]

This all depends on hw much XP the average people and heroes have in that world. If most armies are entirely 1st and 2nd level warriors and there are only 10 or so heroes in the entire realm with 10th level or higher, things will turn out completely differently to when you have 10.000 10th level characters and huge numbers of 6th to 8th level soldiers.

[PetterTomBos]

This all depends on hw much XP the average people and heroes have in that world. If most armies are entirely 1st and 2nd level warriors and there are only 10 or so heroes in the entire realm with 10th level or higher, things will turn out completely differently to when you have 10.000 10th level characters and huge numbers of 6th to 8th level soldiers.

The PC's are at lvl. 7, which is high, yet not getting songs after them ;) I'm thinking low to medium amounts of hlvl.s and tippyverse, so just give me input on what you guys are thinking :)

[Yora]

Team Kingdom would want to keep Team Dragon out of the country.
What does Team Dragon want?

If they just want some treasure and then head home, I think the nobles near the border would have a hard time convincing the other nobles to help them.

[PetterTomBos]

Update:

X get's attacked by notherners, that are rallied with the help of an old red dragon wanting the land to fall. When/if the land falls to the "savages" kingdom Y from the south will walk in, oblitterating the savages (that for some reason had no protection against their weapons/magic..), a lot of X's populace and taking over kingdom X. And the red dragon (in human disguise all the way..) get's to be chief over the new region in kingdom Y.

I've decided not to bother too much with politics unless the players really go into it :) but any input would be awesome !

Any input on the way the armies would look? I figure most commoners are just that, lvl. 1 commoners, some lvl. 2, a few lvl.3. Every hamlet would have a priest (that might be a lvl. 1 expert with UMD and wands or up to lvl. 5 cleric).

I figure most of the army would be centered around knights on horses, supported by pikemen, and a buffer and healer :)
Archers, groups of mook-meleers and arcane artillery ;)

Input? :)

[Raven777]

Basically, you want to play the Crystal Shard.

I'd avoid giving your Kingdom X such fancy tricks as mounted, armored knights, magical healers/buffers and arcane artillery. This doesn't exactly scream 'unprepared' to me, and this will make them being 1) threatened by a low tech warband of barbarians and 2) being mopped up by a neighbor afterwards feel weird.

You can have a core of such things, a royal guard if you will, but you should make the brunt of your forces an emergency conscript army in chainmail, pikes and crossbows. The trained part of the army should be accustomed to 'play by the rules' conventional warfare (all these years of border disputes between rulers with kingdom Y) but be ill prepared for the hit and run scorched earth tactics of the savages.

Savages which you will fluff as people who are nomads in times of peace and on the move in times of war. They do not besiege walled cities, they burn the contryside around them. They do not occupy cities they can take, they sack them, set them on fire and move on. They do not go head on against cavalry and archers on an open field, they wait till the army crosses a forest and slaughter the useless archers and helpless horses. Horses they do not need and will therefore eat.

Which will be their downfall... For all their cunning, the very tactics they use to deprive their enemies of resources will mean they won't be able to sustain themselves much longer than those they invade. Supplies will run low, they will be unable to replenish them because they burned every oath field and murdered every cow on their path, and that's why Kingdom Y will have such an easy time taking over as the Dragon smirks and whispers 'just as planned'...

[Roc Ness]

Have you tried Heroes of Battle? Its got some good easy-to-use stats for basic military units, even if those units are fairly weak.

EDIT: If you don't want to use those and prefer to construct your own units, I'll warn you now to ignore feats or class abilities that a) need to be kept track of (dodge) or b) have uses per day (smite), because the bookwork would be enormous. Instead use the ones that give a constant, passive bonus (Weapon Focus, Improved Initiative, Divine Grace) which can simply be tacked onto the stat block and then ignored, or the ones which are incredibly easy to activate and instantaneously over (Sneak Attack).

[Raven777]

Also, the Red Hand of Doom DM Handbook has nice advices on statting mooks. Ok, they're Goblinoids in this case, but you can apply most of the same tricks to humans.

[Chilingsworth]

The PC's are at lvl. 7, which is high, yet not getting songs after them ;) I'm thinking low to medium amounts of hlvl.s and tippyverse, so just give me input on what you guys are thinking :)

If you're planning on medium amounts of tippyverse, you might find the Darkness series inspirational.

[PetterTomBos]

Basically, you want to play the Crystal Shard.

I'd avoid giving your Kingdom X such fancy tricks as mounted, armored knights, magical healers/buffers and arcane artillery. This doesn't exactly scream 'unprepared' to me, and this will make them being 1) threatened by a low tech warband of barbarians and 2) being mopped up by a neighbor afterwards feel weird.

You can have a core of such things, a royal guard if you will, but you should make the brunt of your forces an emergency conscript army in chainmail, pikes and crossbows. The trained part of the army should be accustomed to 'play by the rules' conventional warfare (all these years of border disputes between rulers with kingdom Y) but be ill prepared for the hit and run scorched earth tactics of the savages.

Mhmm, I'll cut back on the entire "unit of healer/buffer and men"-thing, well seen :) The arcane artillery were/are ment for special circumstances, as an elite force only :) On the level of readiness:

A few nobles (xorvintaal dragons in disguise) have been aware of the fact that something is brewing, the game have, however, kept them from getting the king aware. Arcane artillery doesnt necessarily mean instantdeath to everything, especially if the backing dragon have some means of getting back at them, or just keeps sending in troops against a too weak gang of lvl. 6 wizards..

Savages which you will fluff as people who are nomads in times of peace and on the move in times of war. They do not besiege walled cities, they burn the contryside around them. They do not occupy cities they can take, they sack them, set them on fire and move on. They do not go head on against cavalry and archers on an open field, they wait till the army crosses a forest and slaughter the useless archers and helpless horses. Horses they do not need and will therefore eat.

Which will be their downfall... For all their cunning, the very tactics they use to deprive their enemies of resources will mean they won't be able to sustain themselves much longer than those they invade. Supplies will run low, they will be unable to replenish them because they burned every oath field and murdered every cow on their path, and that's why Kingdom Y will have such an easy time taking over as the Dragon smirks and whispers 'just as planned'...

Mhm, that's the plan :) (And also the red dragon BBEG's plan ;) )

[PetterTomBos]

Have you tried Heroes of Battle? Its got some good easy-to-use stats for basic military units, even if those units are fairly weak.

Thanks for the tip :)