over a century of war [Archive] - Wizards Community

over a century of war [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Mesraic
05-24-05, 08:55 PM anyone else wondering how through a century of war most of the NPC's (admitidly not alive that whole century) are mostly low level. Like the King of Breland being around 10th level, even though he led his armies on several large campaigns, several skirmishes, and runs a country on a day to day basis. I personally think that some of the NPC's should be higher level. Any thoughts on the matter. My apologies for bad spelling
drasticale
05-24-05, 09:00 PM A century of war is the reason most of the NPC's are low level...

Most of the more powerful ones didn't survive. The King of Breland isn't a higher level because he didn't actually sit on the front of the battle lines, and grind exp... or what have you. <grins>
greatmonkey
05-24-05, 09:09 PM Not to mention that in Eberron they want the PC's to be the heroes. They should be the ones doing crazy heroic things to save the day. Unlike in forgotten realms where every other NPC is near epic or epic level.
Mesraic
05-24-05, 09:11 PM maybe he didnt "grind" experience, but wouldnt he get experience for running, i presume since he's still in office, successful campagins? and it would still be a safe assumption that he did get to do some "grinding".

lso, war trains people to become better at what they do. for example, through war our units in the military have become more skilled without dying. and we've only been at it for the past couple years now. what im saying is that some of the people yes would die, in fact lots, but those that dont would live and get better. just seems to me that with all real world and game world examples before that long war while bad for economies would produce some more competant people
Mesraic
05-24-05, 09:13 PM i understand they want the Pc's to be the heros. it was jsuta thought. even at higher levels the NPC's would still not steal the saving the day scenario from the PC's. never did in any forgotten realms game i played
Ponderosa
05-24-05, 09:36 PM Keith Baker himself has actually addressed that topic here on the forums. In his view, NPCs aren't special or heroic the way that PCs are. Thus, they don't have the same potential for greatness or gain experience the same way that PCs do. A grunt in the army might spend several years in battle, but never rise beyond a 2nd level warrior. In contrast, a PC wizard might gain several levels over just a few adventures. Even the King of Breland is only a NPCs, and not in the same league as PC adventurers.
Radkres
05-24-05, 09:50 PM They are aristocrats it hard for them to get out of bed much less do work.
Have to eat rich foods, keep up with fashion, dance all night, **** the maids/ stable boys.
To get Experience you have to do some thing that challenges you. Most do things that don’t even come close to a challenge a duel once and awhile, political intrigue, sneaking into and out of someone’s room. If you have high enough skill you don’t need to roll so an auto anything gives you nothing.
Cloud Divider
05-25-05, 09:56 AM On the surface, this looked like a pretty straightforward question. War is hell, casualties are high, etc. Even long-lived races like Elves and Dwarves will most likely have combat lifespans similar to humans (Dwarves a teensy bit better due to the better average CON; Elves a little worse due to the lower average CON). So I'm honestly not too concerned about most folks being low level, and honestly, I prefer it that way.

It did get me started, though, on thinking about trying to do a mathematical simulation (probably something simple like a Monte Carlo). Take a platoon of 20 (or even 100) soldiers, estimate a strict 25% casualty rate, and see how many equivalent encounters they survive, and use that to determine what the final level distribution is.

Naturally the assumptions are:
1) An "encounter" is a single engagement with a single opponent of equal level/class.
2) 25% casualty rate (in a strict equivalent encounter, there's a 50% chance of success, but let's assume that half of the failures are saved via healing)
3) # Encounters/level is probably on the order of 6-7 (Human Warrior is CR 1/2, and is worth 150xp to the victor)
4) Extracting # engagements to real time (e.g. years in service) is pretty much going to be arbitrary. Maybe 1 encounter/month is appropriate.

The simulation could then be rerun using different assumptions... Casualty rate of a PC-classed character would be somewhat lower, thanks to their better abilities (hp, powers, etc). Or the "NPC Inferiority" could be invoked - maybe they only get 10% xp rates. Or the "Meatgrinder War," with a spectacular casualty rate (say, 75%), for characters on the frontlines or in hotly contested areas.

It'll take a bigger math-and-game-rules geek than I to come up with a better way to model the casualty rate (taking into account BAB, armor, and so forth).

If anyone's interested, I'll post the results into this thread. If anyone is REALLY interested, PM me and I'll send you the spreadsheet with the simulation.
tsuthe
05-25-05, 10:24 AM Hello Cloud Divider

I found your post very interesting. However, don't you think a 25% casualty rate is rather extreme?

For WWI a casualty rate of 15% was extreme (KIA & WIA) with average casualty rates at the divison level being much lower.

I guess it also depends on how you picture the Last War. Personally I flip flop between viewing it as similiar to the 100 Year War and WWI. Most likely it would have been a combination of the two.

Just my two cents.

See Ya
Tim
DarkWarriorKarg
05-25-05, 10:47 AM I seems to reall that the Last War was more a series of battles, ever changing alliances and uneasy peace.

They didn't throw waves of armies at each other every day for 100 years.
Cloud Divider
05-25-05, 10:49 AM Here's the first string of results:
5000 soldiers at a 25% fatality rate:

Maximum: 25 encounters (4th level)
50% fatalities mark reached at: 3 encounters
# surviving 1st encounter: 3796 (76%)
# reaching 2nd level (7 encounters): 658 (13%)
# reaching 3rd level (14 encounters): 90 (2%)
# reaching 4th level (21 encounters): 11 (0.2%)

1000 soldiers at 10% fatality rate (e.g. PC classed)
Maximum: 47 encounters (7th level)
50% fatalities mark reached at: 6 encounters
# surviving 1st encounter: 894 (89%)
# reaching 2nd level (7 encounters): 469 (47%)
# reaching 3rd level (14 encounters): 215 (22%)
# reaching 4th level (21 encounters): 120 (12%)
# reaching 5th level (28 encounters): 65 (7%)
# reaching 6th level (35 encounters): 33 (3%)
# reaching 7th level (42 encounters): 16 (2%)

Now, just like any modeled statistic, 1) it's only as good as it's assumptions, 2) "what it means" is up to interpretation.

If you have 5 encounters a year, that means the grand majority of soldiers didn't survive that first year (76%).

How that manages to not depopulate the continent, is something else.
Cloud Divider
05-25-05, 11:19 AM Hello Cloud Divider

I found your post very interesting. However, don't you think a 25% casualty rate is rather extreme?

For WWI a casualty rate of 15% was extreme (KIA & WIA) with average casualty rates at the divison level being much lower.
Well, there's a few fairly sizeable differences between WWI and Eberron's Last War. Nevermind that we've got game mechanics mucking things up, too. I'll definitely state foremost that the casualty rate figure is pretty heavily weighted to game mechanics.

Even WWI was predominantly a war with ranged weapons; the Last War is still very much up-close-and-personal combat with sharp pokey things. Even with magical healing, wands, and so forth, taking the place of "modern" medicine, maybe it's a wash. Can't really say.

Now, mechanically, a 1st level Warrior has 4 (or 5) hp, and all the wacky things that hp entail. The "average weapon" is a heavy mace, longsword or spear, all of which are 1d8 weapons, that inflict 5 points of damage on average. The ranged weapons are pretty comparable, ranging from d6 (shortbow) to d8 (light xbow, longbow) and d10 (heavy xbow). It's pretty much straight odds (50/50) on someone getting the one or two hits it'd take to drop the other guy to -1 or worse. And once he's down to -1, that soldier is dead within 1 minute (10 rounds). Ergo, 50% immediate casualty rate. In real life, unless you're shot critically, it generally takes you a few minutes to bleed out, which is hopefully enough to scream for the medic. I'm assuming that half of the people that go down in battle are rescued/stabilized by healers or other friendlies before they hit -10 and die. Ergo a final 25% casualty rate.

Granted, that guy with 5 hp that gets tagged for 2 might go down and feign death, or otherwise just flee combat.

I guess it also depends on how you picture the Last War. Personally I flip flop between viewing it as similiar to the 100 Year War and WWI. Most likely it would have been a combination of the two.
Yeah, I'm pretty much with you on that.

Note that the second set of statistics I posted gave figures for a 10% casualty rate, and even there, we've got basically 10% surviving to 4th level, and a few real "war heroes" making it to 7th. I'd have preferred to run 5000 or even 10000 trials, but that'll have to wait until later.
Dragonmann
05-25-05, 11:35 AM I think you also need to include some of the odder things that were present in the last war. Karnnathi Undead And Warforged specifically were soaking up casualties that would of eliminated many more squishies.

Also note the multiclassing rules will probably effect the levels too. For example "hey you farm boy (3rd level commoner) you're in the army now (1st level warrior."

Humans can technically ignore that with their favored class bonus, but i have always reserved that for PC classes.
EvilDrPuma
05-25-05, 11:48 AM Also note the multiclassing rules will probably effect the levels too. For example "hey you farm boy (3rd level commoner) you're in the army now (1st level warrior."

Oh, I don't know. If real-world history is any judge, that 3rd-level commoner stands a pretty good chance of ending up in the front ranks as a 3rd-level commoner with a pointy stick. If he gets through a few fights without getting impaled by another 3rd-level commoner with a pointy stick, maybe then we can think about a level of warrior.
Mesraic
05-25-05, 12:25 PM well, really i was jsut curious as to other people's standpoints on the high and low levels of NPC's. I always thought that once the PC's become higher levels if their aren't other higher level NPC's to oppose them then their only challenges are monsters, and intrigue.

As for the real world thing, I know from personal experience (having gone to Iraq tiwce) that the 25% casualty rate is incredible high. On a side note most combat platoons are around 40 people.

We also didn't have any magical abilities to heal ourselves.
Cloud Divider
05-25-05, 12:38 PM I think you also need to include some of the odder things that were present in the last war. Karnnathi Undead And Warforged specifically were soaking up casualties that would of eliminated many more squishies.

Maybe. It's the same kind of argument with magic, really. So while a lost warforged or spellcaster may cause 2-3 casualties on the opposing side, the opposition's got the same stuff, and they're inflicting similar losses on you.

Take my figures as a global average, and the presence/absence of warforged or other oddities washes out.

Also note the multiclassing rules will probably effect the levels too. For example "hey you farm boy (3rd level commoner) you're in the army now (1st level warrior)."
There's A LOT of things my model doesn't take into account. Of particular interest is the seasoned soldier (Warrior 2) that still ends up running into green troops (Warrior 1's). He's at a reasonable advantage, and thus his casualty rate should be lower. Really, what should happen is the survival rate should go up in proportion to the number of encounters survived.

But taking any of that into account makes the model rather more complicated than what I bashed together in 10 minutes (there's a reason I picked a simple Monte Carlo sim).

Also, I don't honestly think there's all that many Com 3 farmboys out there. A Com3 is probably something more like a village chieftain. He's not likely to be a young kid. Sure, he could get conscripted, too. But as another poster mentioned, when he gets conscripted, he's probably a Com3 with a spear (which is still pretty impressive, compared to the 18-yr old War 1 he may come up against...he's got about 10hp, to the War 1's 4, though they'd both have a +1 BAB, IIRC).
Cloud Divider
05-25-05, 01:09 PM well, really i was jsut curious as to other people's standpoints on the high and low levels of NPC's. I always thought that once the PC's become higher levels if their aren't other higher level NPC's to oppose them then their only challenges are monsters, and intrigue.
As said, my opinion is: "I really like how the NPC's are generally all low level", because I'm not too fond of GMing d20 once it gets past about level 10. And if the typical Last War vet-now-Emerald-Claw-goon is only a Warrior 2, it means that 4th or 5th level PC is VERY formidable, and is downright legendary by 10-12.

But I'm funny that way.

As for the real world thing, I know from personal experience (having gone to Iraq tiwce) that the 25% casualty rate is incredible high. On a side note most combat platoons are around 40 people.
Two things first:
1) You have my thanks for going.
2) I'm happy that you made it back intact.

As said earlier, the 25% casualty rate is inherently "unrealistic" because it's strongly tied to the game mechanics (which aren't exactly the paragon of perfect emulation). If one good hack drops you from "ready to rock" to Dying, and you don't have a healer or anyone able to get to you to Stabilize/heal you in under 60 seconds, you're hosed.

That scenario is pretty globally applicable: consider two scenarios:
1) Small squad ambush - 1 10-man squad vs. another 10-man squad. 6 of the ambushers let loose a volley of crossbow bolts, taking out 3 men (50% success rate) in Round 0 (surprise). They then charge. Ambushers drop 5 in Round 1, defenders drop 4. Defenders have 2 men left, attackers 6, elapsed time: 12 seconds. Round 2: Attackers wipe out defenders, and take 1 casualty (total 5 attackers survive). The attackers can then treat their wounded, saving 3 (via stabilization), possibly more (how much more depends on your vision of how well the "average" greenie squad was equipped - do they have a full Cleric 1, healing wands, and piles of potions? I'd assume not, because that's *a lot* of money). They can take the enemy prisoner, assuming they bother to stabilize/heal them. Or they can just leave them be. Total casualty rate across both sides is over 50%.

2) Massed combat, with 100men/side. Scenario is still fairly similar, but the timeframe is longer, which means that the liklihood of death due to blood loss (that -1hp/round thing) is much greater, because nobody can get to you in time, because most of the others are too busy trying not to get killed themselves. On the upside, the overall casualty rate is going to be lower, because it's much more likely that one side will eventually choose to withdraw (but that may leave the wounded to die).

With close combat still being predominant, you don't quite have the luxury of being able to drag your buddy behind cover to stabilize him, because chances are that not only do you have the dude you were fighting in your face trying to introduce his spear to your spleen, you've now got your buddy's opponent looking to do the same. If you're lucky, you can dispatch your opponents in 2-4 rounds, by which time your buddy's gone from -3 to -7...

We also didn't have any magical abilities to heal ourselves.
True. But those capabilities aren't exactly widespread - a Cure Light potion is 50gp, which isn't something that the kingdom can necessarily afford to issue to every single footsoldier, and the conscripted farmer certainly isn't going to be able to afford his own... A Cure Minor potion costs what, 25gp, and would heal a whoppin' 1hp? A good insta-stabilizer, but still awfully expensive. If you had 50gp for each footsoldier, you might be better served to buy him better arms and armor...

Further discussion probably heads into the "Last War military organization, economics, and strategy" realm. Which may or may not be worth doing in this thread...
polt
05-25-05, 01:29 PM A century of war is the reason most of the NPC's are low level...

Most of the more powerful ones didn't survive. The King of Breland isn't a higher level because he didn't actually sit on the front of the battle lines, and grind exp... or what have you. <grins>

That's actually not the reason.

To quote Keith Baker, the dude who made Eberron:

No. As I've said before, I don't feel that NPCs advance in the same way that PCs do. the war would certain lead to a larger percentage of skilled low to mid-level characters, but characters of 12th level and above are remarkable in any age. With that said, many of the greatest heroes of the last century fell in the Last War, with the result that this is one of the low points in the history of heroes: hence the void for the characters to fill. But it's not like there was ever a time when there was an 20th-level wizard in every city in Khorvaire.

In Eberron there are no very high lvl NPC's, because NPC's arent the heroes, and don't advance as the players does.
All Last War veterans are lvl 1-2 Warriors.

There may have been a bunch of lvl 6-8 heroes in the Last War, but very, very few of those. I would make like 1-2 pr. nation.
Mesraic
05-25-05, 03:12 PM thanks for the support, i can tell you we all appreciate it

so what im gathering is that the main reason ebberon is a lower level NPC area is because it was just made that way. which is perfectly fine.

thanks for the input all, i've enjoyed the debate.
ryanroyce
05-25-05, 04:31 PM As said earlier, the 25% casualty rate is inherently "unrealistic" because it's strongly tied to the game mechanics (which aren't exactly the paragon of perfect emulation). If one good hack drops you from "ready to rock" to Dying, and you don't have a healer or anyone able to get to you to Stabilize/heal you in under 60 seconds, you're hosed.

Don't forget that there's always a %10 chance to auto-stabilize every round while dying, even without medical help. So if 1000 soldiers are at -1, %10 of those troops (100) will stabilize on the first round of dying. On the next round, an additional %10 of the still-dying troops (90) will stabilize, and so on until 387 of the 1000 dying soldiers actually die (barring medical intervention). That's something to consider, IMO.

Ryan
Cloud Divider
05-25-05, 04:43 PM Don't forget that there's always a %10 chance to auto-stabilize every round while dying, even without medical help. So if 1000 soldiers are at -1, %10 of those troops (100) will stabilize on the first round of dying. On the next round, an additional %10 of the still-dying troops (90) will stabilize, and so on until 387 of the 1000 dying soldiers actually die (barring medical intervention). That's something to consider, IMO.
Ah! Good point. That will help, on some level. You're still in reasonably dire straits if you're on the losing side of a given battle, however, as you're likely to either be left for the crows (better), or they come back and finish the job...

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Mesraic 05-24-05, 08:55 PM	anyone else wondering how through a century of war most of the NPC's (admitidly not alive that whole century) are mostly low level. Like the King of Breland being around 10th level, even though he led his armies on several large campaigns, several skirmishes, and runs a country on a day to day basis. I personally think that some of the NPC's should be higher level. Any thoughts on the matter. My apologies for bad spelling
drasticale 05-24-05, 09:00 PM	A century of war is the reason most of the NPC's are low level... Most of the more powerful ones didn't survive. The King of Breland isn't a higher level because he didn't actually sit on the front of the battle lines, and grind exp... or what have you. <grins>
greatmonkey 05-24-05, 09:09 PM	Not to mention that in Eberron they want the PC's to be the heroes. They should be the ones doing crazy heroic things to save the day. Unlike in forgotten realms where every other NPC is near epic or epic level.
Mesraic 05-24-05, 09:11 PM	maybe he didnt "grind" experience, but wouldnt he get experience for running, i presume since he's still in office, successful campagins? and it would still be a safe assumption that he did get to do some "grinding". lso, war trains people to become better at what they do. for example, through war our units in the military have become more skilled without dying. and we've only been at it for the past couple years now. what im saying is that some of the people yes would die, in fact lots, but those that dont would live and get better. just seems to me that with all real world and game world examples before that long war while bad for economies would produce some more competant people
Mesraic 05-24-05, 09:13 PM	i understand they want the Pc's to be the heros. it was jsuta thought. even at higher levels the NPC's would still not steal the saving the day scenario from the PC's. never did in any forgotten realms game i played
Ponderosa 05-24-05, 09:36 PM	Keith Baker himself has actually addressed that topic here on the forums. In his view, NPCs aren't special or heroic the way that PCs are. Thus, they don't have the same potential for greatness or gain experience the same way that PCs do. A grunt in the army might spend several years in battle, but never rise beyond a 2nd level warrior. In contrast, a PC wizard might gain several levels over just a few adventures. Even the King of Breland is only a NPCs, and not in the same league as PC adventurers.
Radkres 05-24-05, 09:50 PM	They are aristocrats it hard for them to get out of bed much less do work. Have to eat rich foods, keep up with fashion, dance all night, **** the maids/ stable boys. To get Experience you have to do some thing that challenges you. Most do things that don’t even come close to a challenge a duel once and awhile, political intrigue, sneaking into and out of someone’s room. If you have high enough skill you don’t need to roll so an auto anything gives you nothing.
Cloud Divider 05-25-05, 09:56 AM	On the surface, this looked like a pretty straightforward question. War is hell, casualties are high, etc. Even long-lived races like Elves and Dwarves will most likely have combat lifespans similar to humans (Dwarves a teensy bit better due to the better average CON; Elves a little worse due to the lower average CON). So I'm honestly not too concerned about most folks being low level, and honestly, I prefer it that way. It did get me started, though, on thinking about trying to do a mathematical simulation (probably something simple like a Monte Carlo). Take a platoon of 20 (or even 100) soldiers, estimate a strict 25% casualty rate, and see how many equivalent encounters they survive, and use that to determine what the final level distribution is. Naturally the assumptions are: 1) An "encounter" is a single engagement with a single opponent of equal level/class. 2) 25% casualty rate (in a strict equivalent encounter, there's a 50% chance of success, but let's assume that half of the failures are saved via healing) 3) # Encounters/level is probably on the order of 6-7 (Human Warrior is CR 1/2, and is worth 150xp to the victor) 4) Extracting # engagements to real time (e.g. years in service) is pretty much going to be arbitrary. Maybe 1 encounter/month is appropriate. The simulation could then be rerun using different assumptions... Casualty rate of a PC-classed character would be somewhat lower, thanks to their better abilities (hp, powers, etc). Or the "NPC Inferiority" could be invoked - maybe they only get 10% xp rates. Or the "Meatgrinder War," with a spectacular casualty rate (say, 75%), for characters on the frontlines or in hotly contested areas. It'll take a bigger math-and-game-rules geek than I to come up with a better way to model the casualty rate (taking into account BAB, armor, and so forth). If anyone's interested, I'll post the results into this thread. If anyone is REALLY interested, PM me and I'll send you the spreadsheet with the simulation.
tsuthe 05-25-05, 10:24 AM	Hello Cloud Divider I found your post very interesting. However, don't you think a 25% casualty rate is rather extreme? For WWI a casualty rate of 15% was extreme (KIA & WIA) with average casualty rates at the divison level being much lower. I guess it also depends on how you picture the Last War. Personally I flip flop between viewing it as similiar to the 100 Year War and WWI. Most likely it would have been a combination of the two. Just my two cents. See Ya Tim
DarkWarriorKarg 05-25-05, 10:47 AM	I seems to reall that the Last War was more a series of battles, ever changing alliances and uneasy peace. They didn't throw waves of armies at each other every day for 100 years.
Cloud Divider 05-25-05, 10:49 AM	Here's the first string of results: 5000 soldiers at a 25% fatality rate: Maximum: 25 encounters (4th level) 50% fatalities mark reached at: 3 encounters # surviving 1st encounter: 3796 (76%) # reaching 2nd level (7 encounters): 658 (13%) # reaching 3rd level (14 encounters): 90 (2%) # reaching 4th level (21 encounters): 11 (0.2%) 1000 soldiers at 10% fatality rate (e.g. PC classed) Maximum: 47 encounters (7th level) 50% fatalities mark reached at: 6 encounters # surviving 1st encounter: 894 (89%) # reaching 2nd level (7 encounters): 469 (47%) # reaching 3rd level (14 encounters): 215 (22%) # reaching 4th level (21 encounters): 120 (12%) # reaching 5th level (28 encounters): 65 (7%) # reaching 6th level (35 encounters): 33 (3%) # reaching 7th level (42 encounters): 16 (2%) Now, just like any modeled statistic, 1) it's only as good as it's assumptions, 2) "what it means" is up to interpretation. If you have 5 encounters a year, that means the grand majority of soldiers didn't survive that first year (76%). How that manages to not depopulate the continent, is something else.
Cloud Divider 05-25-05, 11:19 AM	Hello Cloud Divider I found your post very interesting. However, don't you think a 25% casualty rate is rather extreme? For WWI a casualty rate of 15% was extreme (KIA & WIA) with average casualty rates at the divison level being much lower. Well, there's a few fairly sizeable differences between WWI and Eberron's Last War. Nevermind that we've got game mechanics mucking things up, too. I'll definitely state foremost that the casualty rate figure is pretty heavily weighted to game mechanics. Even WWI was predominantly a war with ranged weapons; the Last War is still very much up-close-and-personal combat with sharp pokey things. Even with magical healing, wands, and so forth, taking the place of "modern" medicine, maybe it's a wash. Can't really say. Now, mechanically, a 1st level Warrior has 4 (or 5) hp, and all the wacky things that hp entail. The "average weapon" is a heavy mace, longsword or spear, all of which are 1d8 weapons, that inflict 5 points of damage on average. The ranged weapons are pretty comparable, ranging from d6 (shortbow) to d8 (light xbow, longbow) and d10 (heavy xbow). It's pretty much straight odds (50/50) on someone getting the one or two hits it'd take to drop the other guy to -1 or worse. And once he's down to -1, that soldier is dead within 1 minute (10 rounds). Ergo, 50% immediate casualty rate. In real life, unless you're shot critically, it generally takes you a few minutes to bleed out, which is hopefully enough to scream for the medic. I'm assuming that half of the people that go down in battle are rescued/stabilized by healers or other friendlies before they hit -10 and die. Ergo a final 25% casualty rate. Granted, that guy with 5 hp that gets tagged for 2 might go down and feign death, or otherwise just flee combat. I guess it also depends on how you picture the Last War. Personally I flip flop between viewing it as similiar to the 100 Year War and WWI. Most likely it would have been a combination of the two. Yeah, I'm pretty much with you on that. Note that the second set of statistics I posted gave figures for a 10% casualty rate, and even there, we've got basically 10% surviving to 4th level, and a few real "war heroes" making it to 7th. I'd have preferred to run 5000 or even 10000 trials, but that'll have to wait until later.
Dragonmann 05-25-05, 11:35 AM	I think you also need to include some of the odder things that were present in the last war. Karnnathi Undead And Warforged specifically were soaking up casualties that would of eliminated many more squishies. Also note the multiclassing rules will probably effect the levels too. For example "hey you farm boy (3rd level commoner) you're in the army now (1st level warrior." Humans can technically ignore that with their favored class bonus, but i have always reserved that for PC classes.
EvilDrPuma 05-25-05, 11:48 AM	Also note the multiclassing rules will probably effect the levels too. For example "hey you farm boy (3rd level commoner) you're in the army now (1st level warrior." Oh, I don't know. If real-world history is any judge, that 3rd-level commoner stands a pretty good chance of ending up in the front ranks as a 3rd-level commoner with a pointy stick. If he gets through a few fights without getting impaled by another 3rd-level commoner with a pointy stick, maybe then we can think about a level of warrior.
Mesraic 05-25-05, 12:25 PM	well, really i was jsut curious as to other people's standpoints on the high and low levels of NPC's. I always thought that once the PC's become higher levels if their aren't other higher level NPC's to oppose them then their only challenges are monsters, and intrigue. As for the real world thing, I know from personal experience (having gone to Iraq tiwce) that the 25% casualty rate is incredible high. On a side note most combat platoons are around 40 people. We also didn't have any magical abilities to heal ourselves.
Cloud Divider 05-25-05, 12:38 PM	I think you also need to include some of the odder things that were present in the last war. Karnnathi Undead And Warforged specifically were soaking up casualties that would of eliminated many more squishies. Maybe. It's the same kind of argument with magic, really. So while a lost warforged or spellcaster may cause 2-3 casualties on the opposing side, the opposition's got the same stuff, and they're inflicting similar losses on you. Take my figures as a global average, and the presence/absence of warforged or other oddities washes out. Also note the multiclassing rules will probably effect the levels too. For example "hey you farm boy (3rd level commoner) you're in the army now (1st level warrior)." There's A LOT of things my model doesn't take into account. Of particular interest is the seasoned soldier (Warrior 2) that still ends up running into green troops (Warrior 1's). He's at a reasonable advantage, and thus his casualty rate should be lower. Really, what should happen is the survival rate should go up in proportion to the number of encounters survived. But taking any of that into account makes the model rather more complicated than what I bashed together in 10 minutes (there's a reason I picked a simple Monte Carlo sim). Also, I don't honestly think there's all that many Com 3 farmboys out there. A Com3 is probably something more like a village chieftain. He's not likely to be a young kid. Sure, he could get conscripted, too. But as another poster mentioned, when he gets conscripted, he's probably a Com3 with a spear (which is still pretty impressive, compared to the 18-yr old War 1 he may come up against...he's got about 10hp, to the War 1's 4, though they'd both have a +1 BAB, IIRC).
Cloud Divider 05-25-05, 01:09 PM	well, really i was jsut curious as to other people's standpoints on the high and low levels of NPC's. I always thought that once the PC's become higher levels if their aren't other higher level NPC's to oppose them then their only challenges are monsters, and intrigue. As said, my opinion is: "I really like how the NPC's are generally all low level", because I'm not too fond of GMing d20 once it gets past about level 10. And if the typical Last War vet-now-Emerald-Claw-goon is only a Warrior 2, it means that 4th or 5th level PC is VERY formidable, and is downright legendary by 10-12. But I'm funny that way. As for the real world thing, I know from personal experience (having gone to Iraq tiwce) that the 25% casualty rate is incredible high. On a side note most combat platoons are around 40 people. Two things first: 1) You have my thanks for going. 2) I'm happy that you made it back intact. As said earlier, the 25% casualty rate is inherently "unrealistic" because it's strongly tied to the game mechanics (which aren't exactly the paragon of perfect emulation). If one good hack drops you from "ready to rock" to Dying, and you don't have a healer or anyone able to get to you to Stabilize/heal you in under 60 seconds, you're hosed. That scenario is pretty globally applicable: consider two scenarios: 1) Small squad ambush - 1 10-man squad vs. another 10-man squad. 6 of the ambushers let loose a volley of crossbow bolts, taking out 3 men (50% success rate) in Round 0 (surprise). They then charge. Ambushers drop 5 in Round 1, defenders drop 4. Defenders have 2 men left, attackers 6, elapsed time: 12 seconds. Round 2: Attackers wipe out defenders, and take 1 casualty (total 5 attackers survive). The attackers can then treat their wounded, saving 3 (via stabilization), possibly more (how much more depends on your vision of how well the "average" greenie squad was equipped - do they have a full Cleric 1, healing wands, and piles of potions? I'd assume not, because that's a lot of money). They can take the enemy prisoner, assuming they bother to stabilize/heal them. Or they can just leave them be. Total casualty rate across both sides is over 50%. 2) Massed combat, with 100men/side. Scenario is still fairly similar, but the timeframe is longer, which means that the liklihood of death due to blood loss (that -1hp/round thing) is much greater, because nobody can get to you in time, because most of the others are too busy trying not to get killed themselves. On the upside, the overall casualty rate is going to be lower, because it's much more likely that one side will eventually choose to withdraw (but that may leave the wounded to die). With close combat still being predominant, you don't quite have the luxury of being able to drag your buddy behind cover to stabilize him, because chances are that not only do you have the dude you were fighting in your face trying to introduce his spear to your spleen, you've now got your buddy's opponent looking to do the same. If you're lucky, you can dispatch your opponents in 2-4 rounds, by which time your buddy's gone from -3 to -7... We also didn't have any magical abilities to heal ourselves. True. But those capabilities aren't exactly widespread - a Cure Light potion is 50gp, which isn't something that the kingdom can necessarily afford to issue to every single footsoldier, and the conscripted farmer certainly isn't going to be able to afford his own... A Cure Minor potion costs what, 25gp, and would heal a whoppin' 1hp? A good insta-stabilizer, but still awfully expensive. If you had 50gp for each footsoldier, you might be better served to buy him better arms and armor... Further discussion probably heads into the "Last War military organization, economics, and strategy" realm. Which may or may not be worth doing in this thread...
polt 05-25-05, 01:29 PM	A century of war is the reason most of the NPC's are low level... Most of the more powerful ones didn't survive. The King of Breland isn't a higher level because he didn't actually sit on the front of the battle lines, and grind exp... or what have you. <grins> That's actually not the reason. To quote Keith Baker, the dude who made Eberron: No. As I've said before, I don't feel that NPCs advance in the same way that PCs do. the war would certain lead to a larger percentage of skilled low to mid-level characters, but characters of 12th level and above are remarkable in any age. With that said, many of the greatest heroes of the last century fell in the Last War, with the result that this is one of the low points in the history of heroes: hence the void for the characters to fill. But it's not like there was ever a time when there was an 20th-level wizard in every city in Khorvaire. In Eberron there are no very high lvl NPC's, because NPC's arent the heroes, and don't advance as the players does. All Last War veterans are lvl 1-2 Warriors. There may have been a bunch of lvl 6-8 heroes in the Last War, but very, very few of those. I would make like 1-2 pr. nation.
Mesraic 05-25-05, 03:12 PM	thanks for the support, i can tell you we all appreciate it so what im gathering is that the main reason ebberon is a lower level NPC area is because it was just made that way. which is perfectly fine. thanks for the input all, i've enjoyed the debate.
ryanroyce 05-25-05, 04:31 PM	As said earlier, the 25% casualty rate is inherently "unrealistic" because it's strongly tied to the game mechanics (which aren't exactly the paragon of perfect emulation). If one good hack drops you from "ready to rock" to Dying, and you don't have a healer or anyone able to get to you to Stabilize/heal you in under 60 seconds, you're hosed. Don't forget that there's always a %10 chance to auto-stabilize every round while dying, even without medical help. So if 1000 soldiers are at -1, %10 of those troops (100) will stabilize on the first round of dying. On the next round, an additional %10 of the still-dying troops (90) will stabilize, and so on until 387 of the 1000 dying soldiers actually die (barring medical intervention). That's something to consider, IMO. Ryan
Cloud Divider 05-25-05, 04:43 PM	Don't forget that there's always a %10 chance to auto-stabilize every round while dying, even without medical help. So if 1000 soldiers are at -1, %10 of those troops (100) will stabilize on the first round of dying. On the next round, an additional %10 of the still-dying troops (90) will stabilize, and so on until 387 of the 1000 dying soldiers actually die (barring medical intervention). That's something to consider, IMO. Ah! Good point. That will help, on some level. You're still in reasonably dire straits if you're on the losing side of a given battle, however, as you're likely to either be left for the crows (better), or they come back and finish the job...