Playing College of Glamor female Bard

Hm, I don't know. That seems more like a ikinokoritai moment if you ask me.

>actually playing your character and doing the IC thing instead of metagaming and only spending spells on your fellow players
Got nothing to be ashamed of, OP, you did good.
Maybe your next party'll be a little more careful.

>>mfw I saved random NPC soldiers that will never be relevant again

If your DM is cool, they will be relevant again

If I were the DM, I'd let the players whose PCs were killed roll up new characters from amongst those soldiers, a new cleric and fighter that were inspired by the bard's performance and the sacrifice of her party mates.

>enemy leaders are epic boss encounters

so tired of this trope

Don't feel bad, OP. After all, now you know how to get eternal life in the center of the lightning speed waltz.

Why is that?

Okay user, I'll bite. What else would they be?

Why didn't the dozens of NPC soldiers surround the enemy general and butcher him?

People with authority and planning/leadership skills. You don't need to be able to decapitate dragons on a typical monday in order to lead an army or nation. Rather, it prevents the party from dealing with them in many ways and often closes off all avenues other than "epic throne room showdown".

>Outmaneuvered the army, outwitted the general, infiltrated the castle? Too bad, you still have to trade big blows in a big fight with the big guy. The rest was just a fluffy prelude, pure distraction.

>I want this to be like the real world
>in a fantasy game

You're a buffoon. In a setting like D&D you are going to make leaders on people who:

1. Know how to fight and can cleave monsters in two with ease, because why wouldn't you put up a guy that can make the average peasant soldier respect authority or shit his pants. Why wouldn't you put Guts up as a leader?
2. Someone who has vast intelligence as you said, who in this case would likely also know magic. Why the fuck would you want Nobunaga and Hannibal to be some 8 HP bureaucratic shitter in a world where people can achieve great feats?

If that's your idea of fun then fine. But why in the world would you be playing D&D if you want muh realism.

>arguing for the sake of arguing

Good job overlooking my points.

If the only way you know how to challenge your party is to throw big blobs of HP and damage at them, then your game is shit.

>arguing for the sake of arguing
>literally what you're doing
Don't know if retard or trolling. Let me make it more clear.

>You don't need to be able to decapitate dragons
But why wouldn't you. Again, why would you make Zhuge Liang some shitty civilian class when you can class him as a Wizard? Why would you make Semiarmis some random slut when you can turn her in to a Bard focused on charm spells? Or a Succubus influencing a nation to war?

>Rather, it prevents the party from dealing with them in many ways and often closes off all avenues
This is the equivalent of "If you are making a power build, you are shit at RPing." The two do not cancel out each other. If you are in a war situation and your GM just makes it a straight up slogfest and refuses party plan,say, killing Achilles by taking his woman hostage or luring him out to an ambush where you surrounded and wounded him, it's your GM being shit.

In fact the presence of an epic level enemy should be FACILITATING your party to make betters/alternative plans.

See above. Holy shit you guys can't have had this many shit GMs. Have you guys GM'd before?

Whilst it's true that the Emperor's Chosen may be a tactical genius but will never win a local strongman contest. He's going to have a guard or two.
A very big guard or two.

Yeah it's totally unrealistic, just look at all the examples in real life where a leader was the weakest or entirely unexceptional.

Ya'll dumb. It's clearly a omae wa mou shindeiru moment.

Realistically, there would be no such thing as a powerless tactician leader in your standard D&D setting, because they'd be instantly assasinated by any type of magic user

>not a Char ga kuru moment

That can spiral to great character arc. Reminds me of Neuromancer ending. After you win that battle soldiers should thank you and forget about you and you character spends his days mourning friends he didnt save.

Animeposters are trully retarded.

Strange you hang out in an anime board.

Thankfully I don't post in a anime board

>allied soldiers are wounded at the start of battle
>suppose to be meat shields that are going to die while we whittle the enemy numbers down
>FUCK THAT SHIT MY TIME TO SHINE
>Dive in
>Mantle of Inspiration
>Cure Wounds and Healing Word on all allied NPC soldiers

HOL UP

Cure Wounds and Healing Word are both single target.

Mantle of Inspiration can affect AT MOST 3 to 5 creatures.

So, what, were you healing like 3 to 5 dudes at a time? That's basically irrelevant in a bigass battle.

>People with authority and planning/leadership skills.
Thanks to how butt-fucking stupid levels are, any D&D game or its derivative ties general competence to combat efficacy; between skill point caps, proficiency bonus, feat selection, attribute bonuses, or whatever depending on the specific system/edition, the only way to be really really good at any non-combat task is to be high level, and since attack, HP, and other combat traits also scale with level, that means your master bureaucrat will also be able to rip dragons a new asshole.

Obviously there are also practical explanations like "exemplary soldiers tend to be made officers" and "why the fuck wouldn't you want your army's head to know how to fight," but the above is a setting-agnostic reason why it's still going to be the case.

I dunno. Maybe? I mean, the core conceit of most Fire Emblem games is that you (the player) are the tactician and aren't involved anywhere on the battlefield. More recent games have put the Tactician on the battlefield, but even the mobile game says, "Stand back and we'll do the fighting, friend. Tell us where to point the swords."

That's arguable and somewhat depends on the setting. I'm pretty sure most war situations in D&D isn't going to be some ridiculous 50,000 troops on each side battling in one field because that would even make the party irrelevant unless they're high level.

A city-state as described probably will be fielding a thousand troops, maybe several thousand of troops at the most. If armies are sending out small units, engagements of some hundreds. In which case holding the line is very important.

Pretty sure there are rules in some splatbook that allow single-target spells to target whole units in a battlefield. It may have been the Miniatures Handbook, but I'm not sure.

>I literally can't figure out how to stat an NPC without just using player levels!

The fact that this isn't what happened is a testament to your DMs lack of skill.

>mfw I saved random NPC soldiers that will never be relevant again at the cost of half of my party being killed

Thanks for sharing that with us. Take this moment to reflect on how much of an incredibly fuck-up you are, and generally bad at D&D gaming. Hopefully, you'll learn from that. Most likely you won't though. Because if it didn't strike you to play more conservatively in the first place, it won't occur to you at all going forward.

>Doesn't play D&D with a character's mental state and moral values in mind to influence their in-game actions, thus making them look more like an actual person instead of a stat block with abilities

Wow user, you must be a ton of fun to play with.

Get a load of this asshole

You did good, OP. I myself have lost one of my favorite characters this way.

>Be playing Dhormund, a human barbarian, for over one year
>He was chaotic good, the type that would start a fight because someone he never met was being a dick and wouldn't apologize or keep quiet
>Would drink and talk with NPC footsoldiers all night
>Get drunk at the tavern, break a table, and in the next morning sell my armor to pay for the table
>Grand battle coming
>Our commander was killed by an assassin who infiltrated the allies ranks
>Party takes care of him
>Soldiers morale is low, we are outnumbered and our commander is down
>Dhormund raises among them screaming at the top of his lungs
>Rally ups everyone
>We charge
>Dhormund on the front line
>Engage in a blood bath, the army is motivated
>Party following behind us, casters buffing and attacking, while our rogue would flank them with another group
>Enemies retreating
>Suddenly the catapults fire, huge boulders coming our way
>Our allies scatter
>A group of soldiers was trying to carry a wounded friend, while a boulder was coming their way
>Dhormund didn't wavered
>Jumped right at them, pushing them away
>Boulder came
>Couldn't escape
>Roll to catch it
>Fails
>Boulder hits Dhormund, parting his body in two
>Legs are completely smashed, upper half in launched meters away
>He survive just a few more moment, only being able to place his blood soaked hands on his face to block the sun
>Later on, come back with another character, the nearby town made a statue of Dhormund, everyone new the tale of Dhormund The Fearless, and all the ally soldiers would paint a red hand on their faces before marching down to the battlefield

>Party can see the BBEGeneral and decides to stand within melee distance
Not your fault user, your party mates don't know how tactics work

Guys with more levels have more skill points. That's how it works.

No good deed goes unpunished. What you did wasn't wrong, but it's definitely going to have an impact on your character. I hope you roleplay it well.

Fuck that, we need it more if anything.
Your tastes are so incorrect that I want to physically harm you.

This sounds dope and it's what I would likely do

Or a defecting enemy soldier, after seeing that his commander has a boner for murder while the PC army has comrade and healing and morale

>HORRENDOUS rolls as enemy general crits and destroys Cleric

Clerics fault for not being born a Halfling

Eh, it's not really breaking character to wanna keep your friends alive more than some randos.

This is why you don't trust the party idiot with healing spells.

>Female bards are now anime style battle maiden idols
I never knew I needed this in my life, but now I wonder why this wasn't in my life earlier!

>in a battle-zone against enemy soldiers and allied soldiers
>allied soldiers are wounded at the start of battle
>supposed to be meat shields that are going to die while we whittle the enemy numbers down
>NUKE EVERYONE
>B-b-but our allie-
>EEEEVERYONE!

Pretty much this. Occasions like OP describes are why you carry healing potions, scrolls with healing spells, healer kits or some other stuff around

> check to make sure I'm still on Veeky Forums.
> I am

You guys are great. Hopefully the delta movie doesnt suck.

>in a battle-zone against enemy soldiers and allied soldiers
>allied soldiers are wounded at the start of battle
>supposed to be meat shields that are going to die while we whittle the enemy numbers down
>Cleric has wasted all of her spells healing minor flesh wounds on nameless soldiers that weren't really bothering them anyway and didn't influence the outcome of the battle in any way, shape, or form
>The Wizard insists on nuking everyone, even though her current position means she'll hit more of our guys than of the enemy
>The paladin is egging her on with no intention of leaving the nuke radius herself
This is fine. I'm okay with the events that are currently unfolding.

>have an army
>face something mildly threatening to the party
>have the army hang back, they'd just take uneccesary losses

I think we need a healthy mix. Barbarian kings who lead because they can cleave a man in half. Charismatic commanders with nothing but good equipment, who can inspire troops and coordinate them with terrifying efficience (doesn't matter if the guy has 15hp if his hundred soldiers get advantage on all attacks/saves and stand between him and you). And commoner tacticians who are powerless before bloodthirsty PCs but smart enough to never get caught without both a beefy bodyguard and a plan.