Building a better army through fabricate.

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Lago_AM3P
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Building a better army through fabricate.

Post by Lago_AM3P »

Say you're a 9th or 10th level wizard who has access to this awesome, yet silly spell. And what the heck, minor creation. You are in a typical low magic world i.e. still the same amount of raw power for primary spellcaster PCs as before, but the fighter-types get hosed more than before.

An up and coming deity-appointed duke (no mind control, alas) has the best trained warriors on the continent but are woefully lacking in equipment. He has ambitions of planning a great campaign that will conquer several countries, and will appoint you as grand vizier if you make his dream happen.

Your basic strategy is this: create as many suits of masterwork full plate, masterwork steel shields, masterwork mighty composite longbows, masterwork longswords, and masterwork glaives as possible. Before important battles, you cast minor creation to create pools of poison and have it distributed among your men.

You also use fabricate to make siege engines, alchemist's fire, healing salves, ships (if they're too big, you make halves and then have them bolted together), and whatnot.

Assuming that you are more or less working by yourself with almost no magical competition, and the duke is cheerfully providing the raw labor to make your vision come true, about how much chance does our 10th level wizard have of helping his lord warmonger with just these two spells?
Username17
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Re: Building a better army through fabricate.

Post by Username17 »

Don't stop there. He wants Lesser Planar Binding.

There is a race on the Elemental Plane of Earth called the Dao - the vicious Genies of the Lands of Stone. They have unlimited raw materials and can travel absolutely anywhere at will.

They can provide you with literally anything you need as far as raw materials go. For a price.

But that price would have to be in the form of something they valued. And the only thing they value is the product of skilled labor, because it's the only thing they can't get for themselves just by furrowing their brow for a few seconds. Isn't that a coincidence?

Meanwhile, every time you cast Fabricate, you can transform 4,910 pounds of iron into whatever masterwork equipment you want - which in turn is enough to equip the entire army i a few days, provided of course that you have a source of Iron. And the Dao will pay you in mithril for the product of your spell labors - which means that this Duke's army can have the kind of armor that 6th level adventurers lust after.

Every time you cast Minor Creation - you can get thousands of applications of healing salve - which is pretty useful to an army I must say.

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Lago_AM3P
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Re: Building a better army through fabricate.

Post by Lago_AM3P »

Nice. The next part involves a bit of math.

Okay, your armies are loaded up on poisoned masterwork weapons, mithral full plates and shields, and like 4 things of healing salves per man. The only thing preventing you from making the entire material plane your playground is probably the size of your opposing army.

They're described like the typical veteran soldiers in the DMG, only they're considerably better equipped. Since the Duke is very organized and rules with an iron fist, all of the human soldiers are pretty much trained the same.

You have that equipment and your choice of two feats for each of the men, like point blank shot and rapid shot for the archers, improved trip and combat expertise for your spear line, weapon focus and some other feat for the swordsmen, etc. Your Duke is very impressed by your efforts, and is giving you your own unit of 200 soldiers, organized as described in the previous paragraph such that you can have 70 pikesmen, 60 archers, and 70 swordsdudes or any combination.

Your first battle, you're fighting on a flat, featureless plane, and both armies have 3 days to prepare for the battle. How much larger of a force do you estimate you could take on without it being a Pyrrhic victory?
Username17
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Re: Building a better army through fabricate.

Post by Username17 »

Very roughly, when I take a casualty from enemy fire, I lose only 2 actions (one from the dropped man, and one from the man slapping a healing salve on him), unless my line is overrun.

So unless and until my line is overrun - in which case I think I lose - I'm going to own these people without taking losses at all (except the occassional brutal critical or siege engine which deals instant death for the soldier).

My men have an AC on the line of about 25 - so enemy soldiers hit them only on a natural 20. Meanwhile, my soldiers with masterwork composite bows are hitting enemy soldiers on a 12+ - so I'm going to be chewing through the enemy force at about a third of my total number per round of combat (counting the fact that my line troops are going to be expertising and such).

Net result is that my enemies are going to be losing about 70 people a round, and I'm going to be losing only a handful. I'd call it a probable major victory unless I come across a force of well over a thousand soldiers. If I'm up against conscripts, I'm looking at more like two or three thousand troops.

Of more terror is a Dire Tiger or other monstrous appearance on the battlefield. But since I'm a 10th level Wizard I imagine that I can probably perform some direct intervention to screw that up.

-Username17
Lago_AM3P
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Re: Building a better army through fabricate.

Post by Lago_AM3P »

So have like six thousand of these troops like this, and you're practically looking at world domination?

Awesome. I just have an idea for my next NPC--Transmuter Calvin Kroitz, head of the Round Earth Society (a generic wizard guild that trains most of the wizards in this 'low magic' world) who is strongarming a weak ruler into conquering the continent for him.

Feels nice to know that you can run 'save the world' plots where your PCs can directly change history on a massive scale at around 9th or 10th level.
Username17
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Re: Building a better army through fabricate.

Post by Username17 »

So have like six thousand of these troops like this, and you're practically looking at world domination?


Once you factor in the fact that these bad boys are actually going to be winning and survivng battles (and thus occassionally getting XP and levels) - sort of.

Well, world conquest anyway. The world is actually a really frightening place which has forests with Girallon in them and such. So while this army would be able to smash any armed forces arrayede against them - it would not be able to actually hold the whole world.

So you can beat back the armies of Mordor with this, but you can't actually police Mordor without compradors - so while the war is going to be one sided in your favor, the peace might go badly for you.

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User3
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Re: Building a better army through fabricate.

Post by User3 »

You would have an overhwhelming advantage until you met an army with a Dispel Magic wand(at around 14th level), or an Antimagic Field. As a permanent effect, the mithril can be dispelled or supressed, meaning that your army can be rendered weaponless and armorless.

If you make your weapons out of regular iron or steel, then you still have the problem of the Imp. Invis flying mage with a Wand of Fireballs. Hope you've got True Seeing prepared that day....

So yes, assuming you are the only 14th level wizard in the whole world who is willing to fight in this conflict, then yes, you're army will roxor everyone.


Username17
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Re: Building a better army through fabricate.

Post by Username17 »

Oddly enough no. The magically created Mithril and Iron is an instantaneous magical effect, and is not subject to dispel magic.

However, that's completely irrelevent. Anyone capable of casting Dispel Magic with even a glimmer of overcoming the formiddable caster level of you or your complicit Dao would be able to cast Fireball instead. These guys you have are going in with astounding ACs and decent attack bonuses - but they still only have 1-3 hit dice.

That means that a single Fireball will probably take out even those guys of yours who make their save. Any spellcaster worth his salt could shell your army to an amazing degree - which is why you's still want the rest of your party to take those guys out.

-Username17
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