Realistically, in a dungeon, the ultimate OP strategy would be a shield wall. Have EVERYONE do a tower shield and set it down... literally NOTHING can beat a shield wall if the walls are covered... and dungeon walls cover that... it's worked since Basic D&D...
Why aren't you doing a dungeon shield wall?
Enjoy getting wrecked by pit traps and AoEs
>Put down a shield and walk over it.
>Lock shields in a Testudo and let the water slide over the interlinked shields.
>Lock shields even tighter, after ringing them with rubber. This creates an airtight seal, preventing inhalation.
>Put down a shield and walk over it.
Congrats, you're without your shield you fricking moron and you dropped down leaving yourself completely vulnerable for a second
>Lock shields in a Testudo and let the water slide over the interlinked shields.
Yeah, like boiling water won't slide through the gaps, burning your soldiers anyway. Smaller wounds but still significant.
>Lock shields even tighter, after ringing them with rubber. This creates an airtight seal, preventing inhalation.
Congrats on killing yourself via suffocation
>Congrats, you're without your shield you fricking moron and you dropped down leaving yourself completely vulnerable for a second
Have your buddy there with his shield to protect you.
>Yeah, like boiling water won't slide through the gaps, burning your soldiers anyway. Smaller wounds but still significant.
Smaller wounds, and easily ignored. Try tossing a bucket of water over a cheese grater. It has holes, but will let through bugger all water because of how fluid dynamics works. And a shield you can adjust.
>Congrats on killing yourself via suffocation
What about air tanks?
IIRC, at least for 3.5e, a wall of tower shields can grant full cover to each bearer, and would block LOS if in close formation, forcing the caster to target outside the formation.
A testudo thereby would always have full cover from a fireball, excepting the sides.
Or just getting hit normally because a +2 AC isn't really that much.
I hope you’re not a GM
when I learned this rule is the exact moment I knew 5e was shit
My Goliath with a tower shield only gets a +2, even though everyone else in the party is small?
Ok, you just don't get what we're trying to do here
tl;Dr, don't have rules autism
A hidden trap pours boiling water on you what now
Chemical warfare followed by engineers laying plank floors, actually.
>What's that faint hiss coming from those little holes in the walls?
good ol' log on a rope
Shield wall in generic medieval fantasy would be anarchronism.
It's a valid idea for sandalpuk though.
>Shield wall in generic medieval fantasy would be anarchronism
I'm not a historian but I'm pretty sure you're full of shit.
Well mobile shield walls would be odd, but they clearly did set up stationary shield walls as field fortifications.
Are you purposefully excluding the early Medieval period from your definition of the Middle Ages, or are you just stupid?
Scarab Strategy/Sisyphos Roll/Reverse boulder trap is de way.
The boulder's heavy and large enough to trigger all traps while both physically protecting you and keeping enough distance between you and the trap's effects.
Unless, you know, the boulder comes from behind and you'd have to make a run ala Indiana Jones
Combine them both: dungeon contains teleporters/spinners, oldschool blobber style, and now you get to run away from your own boulder.
>Casts Grease
oh no it seems grease absolutely mangled their hands and feet
they also lack eyes
The frick happened here?
AI glitch
It can't glitch, though.
It's supposed to be perfect and replace ink cucks.
It's Alpharius
I tried, but google gave nothing good enough. Easier than scouring for the right image.
>gelatinous cube
My first thought as well
I always thought dwarves should be a pike and shot army. Spear dwarves with tall shields, and then a row of archers or handgunners standing on stools behind em to fire over the spear wielders heads. Takes advantage of the narrow confines and low center of gravity of the dwarves.
I see it more of a mixed formation, Something like pic related in front with pike/spear behind.
I think the shield dwarves would just have shields, no gaps, no reason to have a spear. They don't need to see what they're blocking, they just need to keep it on the far side of the wall.
Floor trap.
Looks slow. Every six dungeon turns is a chance to encounter something that doesn't care about your shields and there's a lot of ground to cover.
That being said, if you can have a unit of heavy infantry, you should.
i cast delete floor
Hey did you know that the Romans are actually very famous for PROVING shield walls(Phalanx) can be beaten and developing a specific type of army formation and strategy to beat all the shield walls(Phalanx) that were previously dominating the Mediterranean world?
What's in your picture is called a testudo and was only used when legionnaires were approaching cities in a siege, not as an actual battlefield formation.
The only shield walls the romans ever fought was the Celtic ones.
The Successor kingdoms used pike blocks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Pydna
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cynoscephalae
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Magnesia
Pike blocks.
Did you even read the links? They were specifically phalanxes in the old fashioned style. Two of them because the Macedonian successors wanted to make a statement about the glory days.
>Hey did you know that the Romans are actually very famous for PROVING shield walls(Phalanx) can be beaten and developing a specific type of army formation
Look at that Roman formation that eviscerated greek phalanxes. So Roman they shit homosexuals and piss fish sauce.
>Roman formation that eviscerated greek phalanxes
no they did not, the cavalry did not contribute to combat and they lost due to out of battle factors. The sarissa phalanx had little to do with the sarissa phalanx Alexander had centuries before the romans fought with the phalanxes.
They did...the manipular system chewed up the greeks and there has already been evidence posted in this thread that the greatest Greek armies of their time were destroyed by the Romans fairly handily. Said Greek armies were using phalanxes specifically. I don't know why this is so hard for you to accept.
>8 men across
>16 men deep
just like your mom
Most people didn't really fight in densely packed shieldwalls. You really don't want to be immobile during battle. For example when people think of hoplites and the Greek phalanx they usually think of a densely packed formation of overlapping shields but that's not really how our sources paint them. Instead the Greeks sacrifices order for aggressiveness, most description of Greek hoplites in battle show that they ran into battle in an unorganized fashion. At times they did pack themselves closer but that was mostly when confronting cavalry.
Bro...why say anything at all if you don't know anything about the topic? It baffles me. People like you baffle me.
>Realistically, in a dungeon
That’s why I have 2 fighter retainers with shields
>testudo is literally unstoppable
>pilum equipped soldiers shown in the supporting image
Anon, I...
>Fireball
Here is your tightly packed shield wall vs. my character
>it's worked since Basic D&D
All a tower shield does is improve AC by 1.
>shield wall
oozes, slimes and gelatinous cubes would destroy the block of men very fast. No escape.
Any are of effect traps, creatures breathing fire and gas and the such would destroy them as well. Easier hit and harder for them to run away and regroup.
Traps on the floor, rocks falling from above would be doom as well.
Any uneven surface would create chaos.
What you are supposed to do is have 2-3 people with good armor and shields up front with close combat stabbing weapons, not tower shields (they are too big to move properl) really and then 1-2 people with polearms behind them and the rest of the party offering support (fire support, healing, watching for further dangers or an ambush) and some rearguard cause you never know.
Monsters
Ghosts: go through walls to attack the pcs immune to pike wounds
Skeletons: resistant to piercing wounds
Oozes: can hide and attack from plain sight
Wizards: can cast AOE
Vampiric Mist: is just mist
Humanoids: can form an opposing sheild wall if they are intelligent enough.
Dragons and flying enemies: can drop rocks from above assuming the room is big enough, also dragons have AOE
Mimics: catches PCs off guard.
Umber Hulks: can attack the formation from where is least expected
Purple worms: destroys everything in its path.
Drow: can cast darkness and shoot crossbows
Realistically, in a dungeon, the ultimate OP strategy would be a wizard wall. Have EVERYONE be a wizard and bust it down centaur-style... literally NOTHING can beat a wizard wall if the right spells are picked... different magic schools will cover that... it's worked since Basic D&D...
...........................ellipses................... funn..............y.................
Unfortunately, D&D doesn't recognize shieldwalls. Packing characters that close together just means you're vulnerable to AoEs like Fireball. Yes, a good shieldwall should be able to ward off most of an attack like that but it's something that needs homebrewing and homebrew can be...iffy.
Fireball explicitly expands to fill space. Using a fireball in a dungeon was suicidal in older editions because once it hit the walls, it would continue to expand in the only direction left, which was right back to you. If you somehow make an airtight shieldwall, then you'd be able to block it. Otherwise it'll fill the space around your shields and then continue expanding into the space behind your shields.
This shit is the thread anti-/slop/ homosexuals are b***hing about. "Le OP strategy for dungeon!", "Le alignment thread", "Why are you not playing as le human fighter", "Why are you not smothering yourself with shit to deceive dragons", "why are you using/not using combat wheelchair rules", "why are glasses better/worse than cure blindness spell", "Why you should/shouldn't play D&D"...
THERE IS A D&D GENERAL YOU FRICKING CRETIN GO THERE AND ASK YOUR moronic "btw who is stronger the lvl 20 fighter with phimosis or twenty lvl 3 clerics with incontinence? Serious answers only" SHIT THERE. SAGE.
"The shield does not, however, provide cover against targeted spells; a spellcaster can cast a spell on you by targeting the shield you are holding."
I'm not sure how well a shield wall can file down a corridor/
>You meet one monstrous creature that can btfo your shield wall
Not the greatest end for a campaign.
Did Hoplites carry tower shields or hoplons?
What do you think, genius?