[3.P] Dread Legions

[TotallyNotEvil]

So, the concept of automaton armies is far from new, and, playing a kingdom-builder type of game, we, of course, have looked into it.

However, I can't seem to find anything remotely worth the effort, at least to field in the hundreds or very few thousands. Hell, not even to field in the dozens.

So, suggestions? The best I found was the Clockwork Warrior, but I have not the price for it.

Those armies are meant to face mostly humans with 3-5 class levels, but a major vassal lord can field 2-4 thousand well equipped soldiers, with some fielding that in Knights (Fighter 4~5 in full plate on barded warhorses), while Lords Paramount can field 30-50 thousand in mostly professional soldiers, plus that again in pure peasant levy, with varying degrees of armour and equipment.

Custom constructs are on the table, too. Biggest hurdle is price.

Things like Terracota Soldiers look great, well rounded constructs with roughly appropriate abilities for their CR. And then the cost shows up as ten thousand GP each.

So a mere hundred of those guys costs significantly more than 20th level WBL.

Due to having a portal to the City of Brass, and the party itself being roughly 10th level and full of casters, if mostly spontaneous ones, we should be able to equip armies to high standards, as is the way of most PCs, with maybe MW Guisarmes and Breastplates. In a world where a moderately skilled artisan makes 100 GP a year, that's a fairly big deal.

So, yeah, we'd love to have unflinching, untiring Dread Legions, but the cost seems absolutely ridiculous when one could field armies a couple order of magnitutes bigger with human soldiers.

Help?

[The_Jette]

Undead. There are so many ways of getting rid of the costs of raising them, it's not funny. Raise a vampire and have it make Spawn. Promise it all the blood it can drink, and then freedom from your rule once all the enemies' armies have been destroyed. Or, look into less-cheesy version of the wight-ocalypse, and set them off in your enemies' kingdom. You don't need thousands of trained men when you have access to millions of commoners just waiting to get wighted. (it's a pun on knighted...)

[ExLibrisMortis]

Chained command undead controls 1 undead/CL (up to 20) for 1 day/CL (no limit), so a single second-level spell slot/day controls 100 soldiers before CL boosters. Invest in some sweet undead creation boosts, for example through a dread necromancer 8/horned harbinger 2 build*, and go to town.


*I don't mean that you should literally rebuild into that, but look at what abilities it combines, and pick those you can get.

[Fizban]

Well yeah, that's the point. Constructs are expensive, undead are cheaper but have control and morality issues, mercenaries or peasants are cheapest but require to you deal with the DM (even just to take the Leadership feat). Undead Leadership gives precedence for replacing followers with monsters, a Construct Leadership would be reasonable.

You could hire some Maugs from the Fiend Folio. 5gp/day is steep compared to peasants, but each should be a match for a knight at least.

[TotallyNotEvil]

It will be a bit hard to swing undead for rowing our boats, I don't believe they are on the table.

More specifically, it's ruled that creating undead is always an evil act, as every undead in the world makes creating the next a tiny bit easier.

And we are playing on Planetos. Aka, Game of Thrones' world. Where the BBEG are ice zombies.

Is there no good, cheap construct? No way to build something that fills that role with custom construct creation guidelines?

[Cosi]

A Cleric/Dweomerkeeper can use Supernatural Spell to make limited wish emulating permanency free and use animated objects to create construct soldiers to any of a variety of specs. Ideally, you want something that is cheap enough to be worth using in bulk and durable enough to make normal soldiers ineffective. Not sure what the best pick is. You could probably do worse than statues.

[noob]

Make paintings of very small level 20 wizards.
It costs something like 2500 gp per level 20 wizard(and they can start building level 20 wizards on their own after that).
You can do that with anything else and even do a painting of a terra cota soldier if you really want to under use trompe l'oeuils.
Alternatively: make a construct version of an apocalypse swarm and make it get more numerous: each time it takes damage there is more of them(and they get fast healing).(basically imagine grey goo apocalypse except it is caused by damaging your constructs instead of being based on turning things in grey goo)

[ATHATH]

Where the BBEG are ice zombies.

Then the problem's solved nicely, then- just Rebuke/Command the armies of your enemies! If you don't want to use Neutral/Evil Clerics or the like, just use Clerics that have access to the Cold domain; "ice zombies" have the [Cold] subtype, right?

Plus, you can cite needing more cheap, tireless labor as a reason for going to war.

[evedgebah]

Cheapest Options I know of:

Effigies {CA} are 2,000 GP Each for Medium Creatures of 1 HD.
Elder Eidolon {LoM} are 4,000 GP Each for Medium Creatures of 1 HD and come with Fast Healing, Magic Immunity, and a Confusion Aura.
Animate Object spells with buffed duration/range (or Spell Trap or Spell Clock) on suits of armor. - This gives interesting plot hook where the enemy can disable them by finding the animating item.

[noob]

the cheapest option in pathfinder(and this is a pathfinder thread) is trompe l'oeuil.(really no matter what construct you want you are better of making a trompe l'oeuil of it in gp cost and it is also better than that because you can make trompe l'oeuil of everything)

[TotallyNotEvil]

So, just as an update, Legends and Lairs - Spells and Spellcraft has actual rules for custom constructs, and we got those greenlighted.

Highly economical for a dread legion, we'd be paying the same for a HP 35, AC 17, 2x Slam +5 (1d6+4) construct that we would a Warrior 3. For one year's service.

Great rowers, too, as they are untiring and double as combat complement.