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View Full Version : The Great War[3.5 setting brainstorming]



PersonMan
2011-02-08, 02:50 PM
I've been constructing the bare bones of a setting in my spare time, and have decided that most of the nations of the setting will be on the brink of war-essentially, WWI in a DnD setting.

I was having some thoughts on how to make this work, so I've decided to ask you: what sort of magical/technological forces or advancements would be needed for this kind of thing? High firepower with low mobility seems to be a big thing, but what other factors are there?

The main continent of the world is divided into several main power blocks, with fairly few details as of yet. What I've decided so far is that all of them are heavily fortified and one nation uses primarily undead-they start out with a huge advantage, but after a year or so countermeasures are in place against their forces, and their low population/territory makes it difficult to continue the war. A small number of neutral nations are sandwiched between some of the larger nations, what sort of precautions could they take to dissuade their neighbors from invading them to get to their enemies?

randomhero00
2011-02-08, 02:55 PM
Illusions are a great "dissuader" because scouts are usually low level, they likely won't make the save. Have illusions cast from the neutral nations that make them look way more imposing.

For instance, 50ft high adamantium spiked walls
humungous guardians
horrifying terrain (for undead it might somehow "look" like holy land, the opposite on the live side)
Marching forces (which can be cast with simple ghost sound.
etc.

Kobold Esq
2011-02-08, 03:07 PM
Role playing/storyline considerations:

How do the citizens of the various countries feel about the wars? Is it nationalist pride? Are they uninformed about the realities of war in terms of losses expected? In WWI, many people far from the front simply had no idea how horrific trench warfare and mustard gas were. I imagine most peasants also don't know what it is like to face a couple Sudden-Widened cloudkills drifting through a pack of 3 HD or less soldiers...


Combat thoughts:

What level of magic do you expect armies to have access to? Lots of low level casters? Bards inspiring courage? Do you plan to have higher level casters acting as artillery? While there is some incentive to use adventurers and powerful individuals as shock troops, odds are you need to not risk losing them, so you wouldn't treat them as expendable units.



Diplomacy!!!:

What happens if a neutral nation tries to buy an alliance with a local group of dragons? Good aligned or LE dragons could be easily bargained with (though the cost could be much much higher for the evil dragons) for protection. A primarily mundane army will be no match for an even moderately advanced dragon, as frightful presence alone will force a retreat in most cases. But if Country A allies itself with Dragon X, what happens to Country B who allied itself with Dragon Y, who is the mortal enemy of Dragon X? These networks of alliances are really what caused WWI. Countries with no reason to fight were drawn in because of pacts and treaties.

Odin the Ignoble
2011-02-08, 03:17 PM
I'd take a look at The Darkness Series. It deals mostly with a magical parallel of WWII, but allot of the WII stuff could be toned down for a WWI feel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Darkness_Series

The major twist in the series is that mass produced wands replace the guns from WWI. If you want magic to be less prominent, you could use actual guns or improved crossbows. Heavy wands/ staffs would replace machine-gun emplacements, clouds of death would be an easy analogy for gas attacks with similar gas masks. "Positive energy clouds" could do similar things for the undead.

Simply consecrating trenches might be a big enough deterrence to the undead, requiring human teams to go in and desecrate the area before a successful push could be made,

PetterTomBos
2011-02-08, 03:24 PM
One thing I used for a plothook myself: have the wizards be artillery, and the wizards of both sides researches/makes defensive items for their sides mooks... (It suddenly becomes rock paper scissors with elemental type damage ;) )

Are some countries having special forces? (Think LOTR Rohan Riders, elephants of the south) , make them special!

PersonMan
2011-02-08, 03:47 PM
Level of magic:

I was thinking of a mid-to-low magic situation,with some nations having more or less, depending. Sorcerers, bards, etc. are very rare, and it takes quite an investment to produce powerful spellcasters.

Technology:

So far I've mainly thought about an industrial revolution-type production environment, with magic replacing some technology, so guns are a combination of magic and technology, around the same level as in 1914.

Reynard
2011-02-08, 03:54 PM
I'd take a look at The Darkness Series. It deals mostly with a magical parallel of WWII, but allot of the WII stuff could be toned down for a WWI feel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Darkness_Series

The major twist in the series is that mass produced wands replace the guns from WWI. If you want magic to be less prominent, you could use actual guns or improved crossbows. Heavy wands/ staffs would replace machine-gun emplacements, clouds of death would be an easy analogy for gas attacks with similar gas masks. "Positive energy clouds" could do similar things for the undead.

Simply consecrating trenches might be a big enough deterrence to the undead, requiring human teams to go in and desecrate the area before a successful push could be made,

Yeah, I second the Darkness books. The human-sacrifice-for-more-ammo twist was pretty grim, if practical, way of recharging their weapons without a real mage.

Your Nemesis
2011-02-09, 09:31 AM
There already is a setting that fits this perfectly: Eberron. Simply set your game at the very beginning of the last war for all the destruction you could ever want!

Aharon
2011-02-09, 09:41 AM
Spoilered something that would mainly be applicable for a high-magic setting - how to make a mook army a bit more threatening:

Metamagic School Focus: -1/Metamagic
Practical Metamagic: -1/Metamagic

Focused Specialist 2/Master Specialist 3/Incantatrix 3
int 18
race 20
level 22
age 24
Spellcraft 11+int 7=18
+7 circumstance
Ring of Spellcraft +8 (6400 gp)
Ring of Spellcraft +8 (6400 gp)
Amulet of Spellcraft +9 (8100 gp)
Headband of Spellcraft +9 (8100 gp)

Artificer 8
int 18
race 20
level 22
age 24
item (4000) 26
Artificer 8
Cleric 9
Bard 4
Wizard 7
Wizard 5/Incantatrix 3

Prayer (Cleric 3, Paladin 3) DC 45/54 40 ft./Widened 80 ft.
Blessed aim (Blackguard 1, clr 1, pal 1) DC 39/48 50 ft./Widened 100 ft.
Righteous Wrath of the Faithful clr 5 DC 51/60 30 ft./Widened 60 ft.
Interfaith Blessing (Cleric 2) DC 42/51 20 ft./Widened 40 ft.
Widened Persistent Allegro (Bard 3) DC 42/51 20 ft./Widened 40 ft.
Persistent Recitation (cleric 4, Purification 3) DC 42/51 60 f./Widened 120 ft.
Elation (Clr 2, BoED), DC 42/51, 80 ft./Widened 160 ft.

+2 morale STR
+2 morale DEX
+5 ft. movement
+3 AC
+5 ranged attacks
+2 ranged damage
+6 melee attacks
+6 melee damage
one additonal melee attack per round when making full attack
30 feet movement


when high level cleric is doing the routine:
Widened Persistent Crown of Glory (Glory 8)
+4 morale bonus on attack rolls,
saves, and skill checks, immunity to
fear effects, and temporary hit points
equal to your caster level (maximum
20).
Widened Persistent Lion's Roar (Cleric, Courage 8)
+1 morale bonus
on attack rolls and saves against fear
effects, plus temporary hit points equal
to 1d8 + caster level (to a maximum of
1d8+20 temporary hit points at caster
level 20th).
Sacred Heaven Pal 4
+2 sacred AC, retain dex bonus to armor while flatfooted/against invisible opponents
Mass Aid
Mass Conviction
Mass Fireshield



Spells relevant to battles/war:
Information transmission
Message PHB
Alarm PHB

Large area:
Entangle PHB
Control Weather, Control Wind PHB
Earthquake, Sun Burst PHB
Plant Growth, half circle PHB
Silence PHB
Greater Cloak of Bravery SpC
Cold Snap Frburn
Illusory Pit SpC
Shadow Landscape SpC
Shifting Paths SpC
Hallucinatory Terrain PHB
Mirage Arcana PHB
Call Lightning, Call Lightning Storm PH

Protection:
Forbiddance around general, so he's harder to assassinate.

Imaginative use:
Feather Fall: catapult your troops (Paratroopers)

Fortify a position:
Traps like Ghoul Glyph
Guards and Wards (Used in conjunction with creatures that aren't bothered: Destrachan, Grimlocks, Oozes, Tremorsense: Phasm, Umberhulk, Purple Worm, Yrthak) PHB

Long Duration/Duration Concentration:
Summon Swarm PHB
Dirge of Discord SpC
Wall of Gloom SpC
Wall of Sand SpC
Hypnotic Pattern PHB
Lullaby PHB
Major Image PHB
Minor Image PHB
Rainbow Pattern PHB
Scintillating Pattern PHB
Silent Image PHB
Storm of Vengeance PHB
Veil PHB
Wall of Fire PHB
Control Darkness and Shadow Forgotten Realms
Wall of Ooze Forgotten Realms
Apocalypse from the Sky BoVD
Evil Weather BoVD
Inspired Aim BoED
Psionics:
Energy Wall XPH
Drums of War Heroes of Battle

Use of Image spells:
Make them look like Acid Fog,
Bigby’s Hand Spells
Cloud Kill
Delayed Blast Fireball

Dragon issue 309 has rules on War spells - variants of normal spells with components that cost 10x as much and a higher spell level, but larger area/more targets.

Saintheart
2011-02-09, 09:53 AM
In terms of things that cause wars, economics is a big one. One country has a lot of something vital, and when they dump it onto the open market, it basically destroys the economies around it where that something vital is basically the currency of note. That tends to tick countries off. War's a nice cheap way of distracting the peasants from the fact the government can't keep the roads or the peace in-country.

In terms of having close to WW1 in D&D: AFAIK the basic thing that WW1 brought about was mass mechanization of military strength. The tank and the gatling-style gun came into common battlefield use around this time.

That form of mass mechanization means you have to have steelcrafting industries which can create things orders of magnitude more dependable or reliable than their predecessors: the biggest innovation of the Samuel Colt revolver was because you could get off 6 shots reliably with a very short reload time and no messing around with flashpans or open pouches of gunpowder. Steel has to be able to withstand longer periods of continuous heat without warping or jamming. It has to be of harder alloys.

(The extent to which steelcrafting can be miniaturised also plays into this. If you can build stuff at smaller scales, you can build smaller and more efficient machines.)

Artillery similarly becomes more mechanized, of much greater range and much greater accuracy: screw grapeshot or cannonballs, try artillery pieces that can hurl chunks of metal for several miles in any given direction without much risk of malfunction.

The other chief thing being that the "elder military minds" of the time period completely don't get the impact technology will have on a war. This is what turned Flanders fields into literal bogs of death.

Just some random thoughts...