Let's Build some PC Armies

[MaxWilson]

If you optimize the Wizard's like the way you would as an individual character, you should theoretically have a large number of 8 STR Birdmen stuck carrying their belongings over some distance. That's a maximum carrying capacity of 120 pounds per individual. I don't know if that's going to be enough for a war? You need to be able to carry food, tents/sleeping bags, and depending on where you're trying to invade, you may need to carry more.

5e Aarakocra description suggests it won't be an issue:

"Once airborne, an aarakocra leaves the sky with reluctance. On their native plane, they can fly for days or months, landing only to lay their eggs and feed their young before launching themselves back into the air."

More generally, I agree that it's hard to plan in a vacuum. We don't even know how the DM handles stealth checks! Is sneaking 50 soldiers through a chokepoint harder than sneaking only two? (I.e. is it handled with a group check or 50 individual checks?) What about intrigue? Will all twelve armies fight each other to the death on the same day? (If so warlocks have the edge.) Are there soft targets that need to be defended? There's even some controversy over what "starting equipment only" really means. Etc., etc.

The one thing we can do though is look for who can kick the wriggly bits out of each other in a fight, under what conditions. Then when conditions are known we're much closer to already knowing which choices are appropriate or inappropriate, stronger or weaker than they seem.

[Xetheral]

Yeah, the way I'd view this is that Shielding is better than dying, but knocking out ~2 enemy clerics with a Sleep spell is better than being forced to Shield. It's sort of like the strategy you mentioned earlier where Aarakocras who haven't Shielded on round 1 cast a second Magic Missile on round 2, except with no round 1.

Another alternative is to split off a third of your army and have them Longstrider the other wizards to save on spell slots. They'll be out of spell slots but you can still use that third of your army to shoot arrows or act as decoys (see below) or whatever.



Yeah, but I don't want to lean too heavily on the tactic because it is pretty unrealistic to expect to judge distances to within 5'. Using it in actual play would harm suspension of disbelief.

I've seen it used in land battles, in ways that don't break my suspension of disbelief, e.g. coming just far enough out from behind total cover to shoot a few bad guys (ignoring partial cover because Sharpshooter) and then duck back behind cover, without ever giving the majority of the bad guys a shot at you. But it would be much harder to do that in a large-scale battle with some or all aerial combatants.

I have no qualms about using it more strategically, of course. "Threaten three soft targets to force the enemy to split his forces to defend them all, and then re-concentrate your forces and annihilate his forces in detail."

Wait, instantly arresting a 57 mph vertical fall by "standing up from prone" in mid-air doesn't harm suspension of disbelief? Or the fact that a prone falling creature is harder to hit than a not-prone falling creature?

Maintaining suspension of disbelief is not the strong suit of the Aarakocra Wizard army. :)

[JackPhoenix]

Maintaining suspension of disbelief is not the strong suit of the Aarakocra Wizard army. :)

It's not the strong suit of RAW in general

[Amechra]

As a general note, my army was kinda me being silly and pointing out that, hey, there are races that can stay underwater indefinitely. They're the worst at offensive maneuvers - really, the only thing they have going for them is that they have a fallback position that most opposing armies can't do anything against.

They're Barbarians because they all give a bonus to Constitution, and because that was a personal challenge. Class-wise, Barbarians are identical until 3rd level unless you're using the Class Features UA.

I challenge someone to do Monks, Paladins, or Rangers next. I suspect that Monks will be the hardest, since the class doesn't really give you anything to work with at 1st level.

[MaxWilson]

Wait, instantly arresting a 57 mph vertical fall by "standing up from prone" in mid-air doesn't harm suspension of disbelief? Or the fact that a prone falling creature is harder to hit than a not-prone falling creature?

Eh, those don't matter because if the DM uses more realistic rules, the tactic doesn't cease to be valid. A gradual fall that takes a second or two to slow down still accomplishes the same task: rapidly closing distance. In fact, a truly realistic ruleset wouldn't even let longbows shoot straight up for the same distance they can shoot horizontally...

The rough edges in the ruleset don't change the outcomes in those cases, but abusing aerial conga lines does change outcomes, letting you win battles by crushing margins instead of fighting at rough parity. At minimum I'd want to justify things by firing some ranging shots first and/or Googling depth perception in eagles.

[Ghost Nappa]

As a general note, my army was kinda me being silly and pointing out that, hey, there are races that can stay underwater indefinitely. They're the worst at offensive maneuvers - really, the only thing they have going for them is that they have a fallback position that most opposing armies can't do anything against.

From a War Perspective, can you really lose if you can't be assaulted?

Non-Aquatic races can't even assault the homeland of the Aquatics.

Even if you somehow eliminated the 1,000 person Army of our arbitrarily selected fish people of the day, Starting Equipment does not give any tool or equipment that permits long term aquatic exploration. Waterbreathing is not available until mid-levels. You can lose your entire fighting force in a battle and still be completely unassailable from the environment alone.


I was going to recommend splitting the recruit amongst Aarakocra and Tritons, but despite Tritons are supposedly surviving at the depths of the Oceans, they don't have Darkness?? Where does that oversight come from.

[8wGremlin]

Some thoughts:

Centaurs from Ravenica these are treated as Fae, and thus are immune to sleep, have a decent move, and carrying capacity.

Pity you can't use Volo races...

Yuan-ti Pureblood all have the poison cantrip and more importantly can cast animal friendship at will but only snakes.
They can have a breading program of flying snakes, which can be trained to attack any aerial troops, they can fly 60' swim 30'

and lastly

Revenants - from Unearthed Arcana (used as a sub-race replacement)
They gain the following benefits:

1. If you are below half your hit point maximum at the start of your turn, you regain 1 hit point.
2. If you die, you return to life 24 hours after death. If your body is destroyed, you reform within 1 mile of the place of your death at a spot determined by the DM. If your equipment was also destroyed, you do not regain it.
3. You know the distance and direction between you and any creature involved in your goal, such as a person you seek vengeance against or someone you pledged to defend. This awareness fails if the creature is on another plane of existence.

Now, if you state that your goal is to eradicate the jedi-douche Jedouche army, that last benefit kicks in if they ever try and infiltrate your army. you know the distance and direction to their closest agent, ALWAYS, forever.

Now what can have sub races - Human, elves, etc...

just some thoughts.

[JackPhoenix]

Centaurs from Ravenica these are treated as Fae, and thus are immune to sleep, have a decent move, and carrying capacity.

They don't have Sleep immunity, despite being true fey instead of just having Fey Origin, which grants that immunity. Only creature type that gets blank immunity to Sleep is undead, not fey.

[Amechra]

From a War Perspective, can you really lose if you can't be assaulted?

Non-Aquatic races can't even assault the homeland of the Aquatics.

Even if you somehow eliminated the 1,000 person Army of our arbitrarily selected fish people of the day, Starting Equipment does not give any tool or equipment that permits long term aquatic exploration. Waterbreathing is not available until mid-levels. You can lose your entire fighting force in a battle and still be completely unassailable from the environment alone.


I was going to recommend splitting the recruit amongst Aarakocra and Tritons, but despite Tritons are supposedly surviving at the depths of the Oceans, they don't have Darkness?? Where does that oversight come from.

You can still lose if your objective is anything other than sheer survival. If it's to, I dunno, hold a position on land? Their advantage is... restricted.

And yeah, it is a bit odd that tritons don't have darkvision when elves do (need I remind everyone that the reason that elves have darkvision is because it gets dark under the trees at night? )

[col_impact]

Just a point, OP ruled out Volo's Monstrous races, not all VGTM races. Firbolgs and Tritons are fine, Kobolds and Yuan-Ti are not.

As for countering the Jedi Army, just have a mathematically-appropriate number of soldiers with proficiency in Insight and Investigation. We work in a bounded accuracy system. Even the most proficient disguised wizards will be found out if you have enough opponents rolling checks. Even if every single Jedi wizard has proficiency in Deception and maxes CHA instead of INT, that's simply not enough to maintain any sort of long-term infiltration and would severely undermine both the "Swiss Army Knife" value and the soldiers' optimisation as actual wizards.

Jedi Army is cool but it's far from unbeatable. This is Sorcerer King ****.

PM me. Would like to interact with you over private message.

[JNAProductions]

PM me. Would like to interact with you over private message.

I'm curious what you have to hide.

[col_impact]

I'm curious what you have to hide.

I bet you are curious. Feel free to PM me yourself if you would like to know more.

[8wGremlin]

They don't have Sleep immunity, despite being true fey instead of just having Fey Origin, which grants that immunity. Only creature type that gets blank immunity to Sleep is undead, not fey.

yeah bugger I was thinking it was like Humanoid spells, and thus they would be exempt.
- thanks for the catch.

[col_impact]

Some thoughts:

Centaurs from Ravenica these are treated as Fae, and thus are immune to sleep, have a decent move, and carrying capacity.

Pity you can't use Volo races...

Yuan-ti Pureblood all have the poison cantrip and more importantly can cast animal friendship at will but only snakes.
They can have a breading program of flying snakes, which can be trained to attack any aerial troops, they can fly 60' swim 30'

and lastly

Revenants - from Unearthed Arcana (used as a sub-race replacement)
They gain the following benefits:

1. If you are below half your hit point maximum at the start of your turn, you regain 1 hit point.
2. If you die, you return to life 24 hours after death. If your body is destroyed, you reform within 1 mile of the place of your death at a spot determined by the DM. If your equipment was also destroyed, you do not regain it.
3. You know the distance and direction between you and any creature involved in your goal, such as a person you seek vengeance against or someone you pledged to defend. This awareness fails if the creature is on another plane of existence.

Now, if you state that your goal is to eradicate the jedi-douche Jedouche army, that last benefit kicks in if they ever try and infiltrate your army. you know the distance and direction to their closest agent, ALWAYS, forever.

Now what can have sub races - Human, elves, etc...

just some thoughts.

I highly doubt U.A. or Ravnica would be allowed. It would be best to adhere to AL guidelines IMHO.

You can't really beat my design plan. Should competition actually happen I will have 1000 individual jedi agents to choose from for insurgency and guerilla tactics. If I ever feel outmatched I slow bleed the opposing player with hit and run tactics, and fight like Geronimo.

[MaxWilson]

From a War Perspective, can you really lose if you can't be assaulted?

Can you really win if all you can do is turtle? If you assault, you can then be counter-attacked.

My experience from wargames with underwater factions is that it's easy to make it to endgame, but it can be hard to leverage that into a win because you're usually facing a juggernaut who's gobbled a bunch of other nations while you were mostly just sitting there. Depends very much on diplomacy (can you make land nations fight each other, or take advantage if they already are?), strategic ability, surprise, and the tools you have for projecting force out of the water. (At least Amechra's army won't have trouble with that last part.) And of course on the relative ratios of land and water-based resources (cities, minerals, etc.).

In short, a win seems possible, but it really, really depends. Much easier if the win condition is something you can win by surprise, like "hold three or more capitals by next spring equinox" instead of "conquer everything."

P.S. a similar argument applies to Aarakocra. Humans can't even assault them unless they choose to land, and Aarakocra on their home plane may go weeks without ever landing... But you have to be able to turn that strategic advantage into a tactical advantage if you want to take and hold territory. Aarakocra wizards can do that through dive-bombing alpha strikes, anywhere outdoors. I don't know of a good way for tritons to do the same.

[col_impact]

What does the Aarokara do when the opposing player trenches up with shape water full cover shields and builds mold earth tunnels? Does a longbow work through full cover?

Can the Aarokara get the benefit of full cover while flying?

[col_impact]

Humans can't even assault them unless they choose to land

Not exactly true but I won't tell you how. Mwahahahaha.

[Catullus64]

A few people seem to have pointed out the vagueness of my original post, that it didn't provide tactical specifics about what the army is required for. I suppose that my idea was not to build a perfect unit for a single, specialized purpose (although some classes are absolutely better suited to that), but a generally effective fighting unit that could respond effectively to many scenarios, such as might arise in a war.

I will admit that when making my original restrictions, I flat-out forgot the existence of Aarakocra. If I had, I would have added some to my druidic army. More likely, though, I would have banned them from the scenario just like I do from my games; they change up the nature of character balance too radically for my liking.

The one sentence I wish people had taken more to heart (and for which I should have provided more clarification) is this one: "This is intended to be a cooperative, not competitive exercise." I guess what I meant by that is that I wasn't interested in figuring out which army of purpose-built PCs could beat another army of purpose-built PCs. That way lies bickering, and turns the conversation from building an army to be useful in a war to building an army to dominate in hyper-optimized D&D rulesfest.

Those considerations are why I preferred the Druid army. In an isolated 1000 vs. 1000 battle, I would perhaps prefer an army of Barbarians or Fighters; but given that I don't know exactly what enemy, terrain, or conditions I would be fighting, I went with an army that I thought could deal effectively with a wide range of logistical, strategic, and tactical demands

So far, Amechra's underwater army is still the most on-point to what I imagined, and also the most conceptually terrifying to war against. Just imagining having to defend entire coastlines against massed infantry assaults (of Barbarians, no less) that are all but invisible before they strike makes me shiver.

[Aeriox]

With 1000 bards you could have the largest marching band in the world. In terms of winning a war, everyone would just cast charm person and hope. Possibly dissonant whispers if you actually wanted to try to win. Alternatively, you could just give them all trumpets and try to blast the opposing force’s eardrums.

[MaxWilson]

I will admit that when making my original restrictions, I flat-out forgot the existence of Aarakocra. If I had, I would have added some to my druidic army. More likely, though, I would have banned them from the scenario just like I do from my games; they change up the nature of character balance too radically for my liking.

The one sentence I wish people had taken more to heart (and for which I should have provided more clarification) is this one: "This is intended to be a cooperative, not competitive exercise."

Okay then, let's ban Aarakocra. I think we've established that Aarakocra wizards are a dominant strategy, and the existence of dominant strategies makes everything boring, so let's move on to the scenario where Aarakocras are illegal.

In that case my vote is back on War Clerics, specifically Wood Elf War Clerics for the stats (Dex 16 Wis 16), movement speed, stealth capabilities, and longbow proficiency.

[8wGremlin]

Okay then, let's ban Aarakocra. I think we've established that Aarakocra wizards are a dominant strategy, and the existence of dominant strategies makes everything boring, so let's move on to the scenario where Aarakocras are illegal.

In that case my vote is back on War Clerics, specifically Wood Elf War Clerics for the stats (Dex 16 Wis 16), movement speed, stealth capabilities, and longbow proficiency.

I'd have to agree, no other class brings more to the table than a 1st level cleric, especially with War domain With Wood elves bringing up the perfect stats, for archer builds. (v.human is perhaps better, but banned)

The same can be said with terrain specific builds such as tritons and other amphibious races.

So what other class + race combinations can be as versatile.

When running my smaller clan games (1 1st level PC, 10 Commoners of X race) we have found that the logistics of the game become important, how do you feed these troops, move them, protect them from the elements, how effective are they in differing terrains, different seasons, are they defending, attacking, or is it a random encounter. What are your scouts like, how effective is your sighting range and can you be surprised.

I like the thought experiment, I'll see what I can come up with.
thanks

[MaxWilson]

I'd have to agree, no other class brings more to the table than a 1st level cleric, especially with War domain With Wood elves bringing up the perfect stats, for archer builds. (v.human is perhaps better, but banned)

Yes, variant humans, if allowed, would crush everybody else on the battlefield. E.g. 700 Sharpshooters, 10 Inspiring Leaders, 200 Healers, 40 Magic Initiates (Disguise Self comes to mind), 50 Mobiles. Healer is *extremely* strong on a battlefield scale due to unlimited pop-up heals: if they can't kill over 200 men in a single round, you can revive anyone whom they have managed to put down.

Assuming vanilla RAW conditions (no negative HP), at least.

[col_impact]

Okay then, let's ban Aarakocra. I think we've established that Aarakocra wizards are a dominant strategy, and the existence of dominant strategies makes everything boring, so let's move on to the scenario where Aarakocras are illegal.

In that case my vote is back on War Clerics, specifically Wood Elf War Clerics for the stats (Dex 16 Wis 16), movement speed, stealth capabilities, and longbow proficiency.

I would prefer that we do not ban Aarakocras, since it is a trap to play them as I have the perfect counter in my jedi school build. My strategy is the dominant one at this point. Just re-read my last few posts if you want a hint as to how.

[col_impact]

Yes, variant humans, if allowed, would crush everybody else on the battlefield. E.g. 700 Sharpshooters, 10 Inspiring Leaders, 200 Healers, 40 Magic Initiates (Disguise Self comes to mind), 50 Mobiles. Healer is *extremely* strong on a battlefield scale due to unlimited pop-up heals: if they can't kill over 200 men in a single round, you can revive anyone whom they have managed to put down.

Assuming vanilla RAW conditions (no negative HP), at least.

Variant humans are definitely OP along with the monster races. But not Aarakocra. Go ahead and bring those against me. Mwahahahahaha.

[col_impact]

I'd have to agree, no other class brings more to the table than a 1st level cleric, especially with War domain With Wood elves bringing up the perfect stats, for archer builds. (v.human is perhaps better, but banned)

The same can be said with terrain specific builds such as tritons and other amphibious races.

So what other class + race combinations can be as versatile.

When running my smaller clan games (1 1st level PC, 10 Commoners of X race) we have found that the logistics of the game become important, how do you feed these troops, move them, protect them from the elements, how effective are they in differing terrains, different seasons, are they defending, attacking, or is it a random encounter. What are your scouts like, how effective is your sighting range and can you be surprised.

I like the thought experiment, I'll see what I can come up with.
thanks

1st level wizard brings far more to the table than 1st level cleric.

[Ghost Nappa]

Okay then, let's ban Aarakocra. I think we've established that Aarakocra wizards are a dominant strategy, and the existence of dominant strategies makes everything boring, so let's move on to the scenario where Aarakocras are illegal.

In that case my vote is back on War Clerics, specifically Wood Elf War Clerics for the stats (Dex 16 Wis 16), movement speed, stealth capabilities, and longbow proficiency.

If Aarakocra are banned, I think it comes down to range and whether or not you can get mounts for your soldiers. The largest range for 1st level / cantrips I see is 120 feet (Eldritch Blast, Firebolt, Magic Missile) which are all out-ranged by Longbows (150' / 600'). Heavy Crossbows can also function, although they are universally less optimal with a heavier weight and smaller range (100'/400'). They're only upside is the larger damage die (a d10 over a d8).

I think it might also matter *how* starting gear is distributed (recommended quick lists in the class section or gold). In the event of the former, only Fighters and Paladins can actually receive Longbows in their starting gear.

[col_impact]

If Aarakocra are banned, I think it comes down to range and whether or not you can get mounts for your soldiers. The largest range for 1st level / cantrips I see is 120 feet (Eldritch Blast, Firebolt, Magic Missile) which are all out-ranged by Longbows (150' / 600'). Heavy Crossbows can also function, although they are universally less optimal with a heavier weight and smaller range (100'/400'). They're only upside is the larger damage die (a d10 over a d8).

I think it might also matter *how* starting gear is distributed (recommended quick lists in the class section or gold). In the event of the former, only Fighters and Paladins can actually receive Longbows in their starting gear.

Just shutdown long bow and long ranged attacks with full cover.

[Catullus64]

I think it might also matter *how* starting gear is distributed (recommended quick lists in the class section or gold). In the event of the former, only Fighters and Paladins can actually receive Longbows in their starting gear.

When making my initial considerations about the strengths of different classes for this, I assumed the selected starting equipment from the class write-ups, rather than the option for starting gold. (In my day-to-day parlance, "starting gear" as a term is used in contrast to "starting gold." Guess that's not universal.) I thought it added some interesting balancing elements, where a class with better starting equipment can count that as an advantage over classes without. Guaranteed longbows help make Ranger a competitive choice.

I think Rangers are actually a pretty good choice altogether; having a thousand Rangers offsets the highly situational nature of Natural Explorer as a feature, since different sections of your army can choose different terrains and apply the group benefits to the rest. That really allows it to shine, and provides huge logistical advantages to the army.

Mounts, on the other hand, would be a viable thing for Druids (and Clerics, with Nature Domain) to obtain via Animal Friendship; long-term, sustained casting while the army isn't on campaign could conceivably be used to domesticate animals. If any of your army are Small races, the animal options open even wider. But that's straying a little bit from the basic discussion of the thread, so don't take it in earnest as a serious argument.

[MaxWilson]

You know, Changeling Hexblades would be pretty entertaining as the Intrigue Faction, a.k.a. the Darloks. Fairly strong in direct combat as well since they can have 18 Charisma, which means +4 to hit and damage for any non-two-handed weapon, plus extra at short range for Hexblade's Curse and/or Hex. And because they're warlocks they can play most of the usual cantrip tricks with e.g. Minor Illusion, Prestidigitation (massed campfire snuffing), etc., although not Mold Earth unfortunately.

But they would shine like the sun at intrigue!

If Aarakocra are banned, I think it comes down to range and whether or not you can get mounts for your soldiers. The largest range for 1st level / cantrips I see is 120 feet (Eldritch Blast, Firebolt, Magic Missile) which are all out-ranged by Longbows (150' / 600'). Heavy Crossbows can also function, although they are universally less optimal with a heavier weight and smaller range (100'/400'). They're only upside is the larger damage die (a d10 over a d8).

I think it might also matter *how* starting gear is distributed (recommended quick lists in the class section or gold). In the event of the former, only Fighters and Paladins can actually receive Longbows in their starting gear.

I mostly agree, range is hugely important, but don't forget about nighttime fighting as a counter to ranged combat. You need to be fairly competitive up close as well or nighttime is an Achilles Heel.

I agree, OP needs to clarify how they intended "starting equipment only" to work.

When making my initial considerations about the strengths of different classes for this, I assumed the selected starting equipment from the class write-ups, rather than the option for starting gold. I considered it to add some interesting balancing elements, where a class with better starting equipment can count that as an advantage over classes without. Guaranteed longbows help make Ranger a competitive choice.

Ah. Under those conditions, note that paladins can start with Longbows then but no arrows.

In that case I think Fighters are the obvious best choice, due to longbows, good armor, Second Wind, and a Fighting Style (Archery). Have most of the Fighters (700) take Chainmail, Longbow, and Shield. About 300 take Leather, Longbow, and 20 arrows, plus two rapiers. Everybody take a crossbow and 20 bolts. Everybody gets about 6 arrows and 20 bolts to start with. If anyone shoots arrows at you, shoot back until you use up your six, then also collect any usable arrows that they shot at you and shoot those too.

Wood Elf Fighters will dominate rangers, because first-level Rangers have no Archery style and fewer effective HP due to Second Wind.

Mounts, on the other hand, would be a viable thing for Druids (and Clerics, with Nature Domain) to obtain via Animal Friendship; long-term, sustained casting while the army isn't on campaign could conceivably be used to domesticate animals. If any of your army are Small races, the animal options open even wider. But that's straying a little bit from the basic discussion of the thread, so don't take it in earnest as a serious argument.

Either make it Suggested Starting Equipment only, or don't. Mounts aren't in any class's Suggested list. If druids can tame animals, fighters can make arrows. And clerics should be allowed to spend gold on longbows.

[col_impact]

Long range attacks get shutdown by full cover.

Can 1000 wizards each contribute 1 gp for a wizard scroll or 2? Just curious.