So, I have this world that was perfectly at peace, until the party came around. Now, It's basically MWW (magical world war). And my players are looking foward to some trench warfare in dnd.
Why trench warfare? Because mold earth is a cantrip and it is always better to have cover. I have a couple of basic ideas.
The bullet points are:
Scrolls, rare magic items and more than lv5 npcs are hard to come by, because they are strategical game changers froom both sides.
There is gunpowder in the world and the spell detect traps actually detects traps (location of all in an area), so, landmines are a thing.
Someone as figured out ballista machine guns, so charging is unadvised.
I'm looking for tactics and general suggestions.
Try a book called 'The Bloody Red Baron' by Kim Newman. It's the second book in the 'Anno Dracula' series. The premise is that Dracula killed Van Helsing et al and made Queen Victoria his bride [Book 1] It's now 1916 and WW1 is going on. Both sides of the battle have humans and vampires working together. Might spark some ideas. Also, I can't recall the exact title, but Harry Turtledove did a dragons in WW1 novel. Good luck shifting through that guy's booklist!
I've read this saga on the napoleonic wars, but with dragons called "Temeraire" by Naomi Novik. It depicts an amaicing array of ways in wich diferent cultures interact with dragons. India, Turkey, England and specially China have diferent ways to interact with the lizards and the book also goes into detaio regarding the tactics andadvantages that dragons bring to the table.
But vampires would be the kings of the night if dragons are the kings of the day. The relative implications of mass vampirism are much less concerning than winning the war after all. Also, you can make vampire-spawn by the docen and turn the promising ones into full fledged vampires, as vapire-spawn are under the absolute control of their master, they cant revolt or refuse to charge. This also opens the door to vamping any prisioners you get to extract information from them.
Another fun read is 'The Guns Above' by Robyn Bennis. No magic, except for the idea that people in the Napoleonic era have access to hydrogen and helium. She does a great job of designing and fighting airships.
I would watch Tanya the evil for creative inspiration. You pretty much just described the show.
As far as tactics, I would watch a lot of YouTube videos on mob tactics in DnD. Mob tactics can be really hard to get right for the specific context of scenario, so you'll have to watch a few videos before finding a method that works for you. I've personally found a mix of roll together and individual plays can be good, like squad based turns pretty much. But that was for a Melee war scenario I did. IDK how to make it work when long range is something everyone on the battlefield has.
Maybe look into how Warhammer 40k is played, could give some inspiration for home brew rules to make the combat smoother.
If you don’t have a very happy necromancer somewhere repeatedly sending the same undead to attack them over and over (in growing numbers as the fighting continues), I’ll be sad. This is their time to shine!
Necromancers would also be high priority target to kill or protect (if they’re… maintaining effective combat strength… on your side)
I'm thinking, wouldnt an undead be, by definition of not having a brain or even being alive, be the perfect suicide assasin/canon fodder. But, you would need a method to keep the enemy side from recycling the boys a second time. If you dont, its like playing pingpong with a massive undead horde. A sport I'm sure many necromancers would enjoy playing. Also, hig lv clerics and paladins wold be able to, literally bless the rain, killing undead left and right.
On a side note, would the ghost of a soldier still want to fight? If so, the necromancer just got the posivility of more complex tactics and strategies, thanks to these ethereal aides.
I'm telling you man. Check out Eberron lore. An entire nation is a military superpower because of its embracing of necromancy and use of undead soldiers in a world war setting.
No need to reinvent the wheel for a lot of this stuff. Check out the Eberron setting and a ton of the stuff that Keith Baker puts out about "The Last War". The central and defining aspect of the Eberron setting is that it is generally played in the reconstruction period of a century long magical world war and goes into great detail about different countries motives and means to fight in said war and how it changed over time.
Trenches? you mean unfinished canals. Fling water bombs and cast Control Water to flush enemy troops out and ruin their powder.
Thats a good point, but gunpowder horns are wateproof and being underwater still beats death. On a side note, control water is a lv4 spell, so ti would be a good example of "and then we knew that they had a powerfull caster, because, you know, ten feet underwater things like that become obbious".
Thanks for the tip.
