Post/Author/DateTime	Post
JadeFox 03-10-05, 09:09 PM	For your consideration..... Your average carrear solider is between 3ed and 5th level. Going by the DMG's rules on pay rates, that means their payed an average of 4gp a day. The army also has to feed the solider every day. Basic rations are 0.5 Gold a day. Chalk in the cost of hauling them to the front, and add another gp. These two facts tell us that pay+food costs the army 22gp per solider per 4 days, or 1980gp a year. Ring of Sustinance cost 2500gp, assume the army gets 1 to 200 gp off for buying in bulk. What if the army, for carrear soliders, equipped them with rings of sustinance, the price of which came out of the first-year-and-a-sixth of their pay, plus the money the army didn't spend on food. The soliders would get to keep the rings after they retire. As far as I can see, this system would have no downsides.... 1) For the troops, they get a highly valuable magic item at a discount. 2) For the army, they have to spend (1.5*365)=547.5gp less per solider per year. 3) For the army, their soliders sleep less and can march farther. 4) For the army, they can manuver soliders without having to worry about that pesky Logistics thing. 5) For the kingdom, the huge influx of spending will promote the magic item trade. For these reasons, all carrear soliders in my game now get Rings of Sustinance if their 4th level or higher. -- Are there any non-intuitive tactics armies use in your camapaign worlds that you can share?
Soichiro Arima 03-10-05, 09:31 PM	I would like to be able to help you but the system and levels of soldiers (low level setting with more advanced technology) are so differnt in my world that I dont think it would help you. If you want it anyway just ask though.
AAOMasta 03-10-05, 09:32 PM	Wouldn't the influx of the magic rings thus reduce their value... making them not so "highly valuable"?
Cymraegmorgan 03-10-05, 09:38 PM	Wouldn't the influx of the magic rings thus reduce their value... making them not so "highly valuable"? No, as higher demand would offset the influx, keeping the value reasonably static. Great idea, JadeFox! No thinking inside the box for you!
otomik 03-10-05, 09:39 PM	most medieval armies bought food off the locals or commandered it (stole it legally). so it was pretty cheap, I also gotta imagine that would sweeten the deal considerably for people going AWOL knowing they have a 2,000gp ring to sell. 3-5 level for career soldiers, that seems generous to me, these sound like professional mercenaries not conscripts working for queen and country.
Dunther the Great 03-10-05, 09:39 PM	Wouldn't the influx of the magic rings thus reduce their value... making them not so "highly valuable"? Thus the 1-200 GP discount, or at least that's how I see it.
Decius 03-10-05, 09:42 PM	A fifth level warrior, by the DMG, should have Full Plate, a heavy steel Shield, a Masterwork meele and ranged weapons, and 2150 GP worth of cash or misc items. That comes out to about 4000 GP of equipment, or about three years pay. If you assume that he spent some of his own money on stuff he doesn't have (Better food, gambling, pleasurable company, his family at home) A two-termer (8 years) would be able to afford a RoS in addition to his other expenses. The RoS would only reduce the need for logistics, unless you want to not have any ranged combat whatsoever (bad idea). I also think it excessive to charge a GP per ration to haul it to the front- A wagon train full of bags of holding full of rations could carry enough for years. Otherwise, I just like the look and feel of mideval style warfare, unfettered by things like what mideval warfare was really like or how it could be done better with magic.
BW0222 03-10-05, 10:00 PM	JadeFox, >Your average carrear solider is between 3ed and 5th level. Your average soldier is a 1st-level warriors. Junior NCOs would be 2nd-level warriors and/or 1st-level fighters. Senior NCOs would be 2nd or 3rd-level fighters. Senior officers might hit 5th or 6th-level. Add about half the group in support staff -- and then cooks, carters, smiths, etc. A typical army might have two or three major battles per year. Assuming each person gained 100xp/battle, you'd need years to gain levels. Most of the time you are on boring guard duty, marching, building stuff, manual labor, training, marching, etc. In most armies, soldiers aren't paid. The lord or kingdom may require X number of years of compulsery service, sons serve in-lieu of family taxes, they receive plots of land or citizenship, criminals or serfs are often used with freedom as payment, etc. >Basic rations are 0.5 Gold a day. More like 5cp/day assuming they bring cooks, cattle, and supplies with them. They aren't eating in inns or carrying dried rations with them like adventurers. In most cases, the lord is paid taxes from farmers in food-stuffs. >What if the army, for carrear soliders, equipped them with rings of >sustinance, Math doesn't support it. One in ten folks have class levels, one in ten might be a spellcaster, one in a thousand folks might be 12th-level or greater, and only one in ten might have the forge ring feat. I'm seeing 10x10x1,000x5 = 500,000. Thus, if a kingdom have 5 million people, one could only expect about 10 folks are even able to craft a ring. Even if you fudged the numbers (a much higher level campaign) and you have 100 folks able to craft rings in the kindom, you certainly wouldn't have access to them. Some would belong to guilds, some would be evil, some would be busy, etc. Crafting the ring takes 100xp. Making even 1000 of them would drain 100,000xp. You would effectively drain a hundred 13th-level wizards (if you could find them) to 12th-level. It could take years for the wizards to regain those levels -- and several would die attempting to regain their levels. The cost is some 2.5 million gold pieces. That exceeds the total wealth of most lords, kings, and even small kingdoms. >As far as I can see, this system would have no downsides.... a) It isn't possible. b) If you had access to 100 13th+ level spellcasters willing to loose a level, to keep 1000 men fed, why not hire the spellcasters to do battle? c) Why not spent the 2.5 million gold necessary to purchase the rings, building say a couple of castles, hiring twenty-times the number of men, or purchasing other powerful magical items -- 1000 gems of elemental summoning, 250 figurines of wondrous items (silver griffons), or 100 wands of fireballs? d) How many men would lose, have stollen, desert and/or sell, the ring? It's worth as years of a commoners wages? What happens if you lose a battle and you end up giving a million gold pieces of magic to your enemy?
Chosen of the Dark Sun 03-10-05, 10:02 PM	Actually, as I usnderstand it from the DMG, a soldier can have served in the military his or her whole life and still be a third level warrior. Three to five levels in a PC class is more of high ranking officers. I'd consider a colonel to be level five or six, since in many campaign worlds supreme generals of entire armies can be as tenth level fighters.
Fixxxer 03-10-05, 10:26 PM	The army also has to feed the solider every day. Who says? Going by our own real-world history, midieval armies were generally populated by people who brought their own food to the party and looted what they needed to supliment it along the way. Bread, cheese, dried meat and wine were popular because they lasted so long and were very resistant to environmental effects. If today was a good day, you and your group of friends managed to loot some vegetables and possibly a small lamb off of an unfortunate local and you get stew instead of having to deplete your own food store.
JadeFox 03-10-05, 10:37 PM	A fifth level warrior, by the DMG, should have Full Plate, a heavy steel Shield, a Masterwork meele and ranged weapons, and 2150 GP worth of cash or misc items. That comes out to about 4000 GP of equipment, or about three years pay. If you assume that he spent some of his own money on stuff he doesn't have (Better food, gambling, pleasurable company, his family at home) A two-termer (8 years) would be able to afford a RoS in addition to his other expenses. The RoS would only reduce the need for logistics, unless you want to not have any ranged combat whatsoever (bad idea). I also think it excessive to charge a GP per ration to haul it to the front- A wagon train full of bags of holding full of rations could carry enough for years. Otherwise, I just like the look and feel of mideval style warfare, unfettered by things like what mideval warfare was really like or how it could be done better with magic. That's assuming a solider who pays for his own equipment. A millitary solider has what he is issued, plus maybe a few personal items. In effect, this transforms the soliders savings into somthing he dosn't touch until he retires, into something that benifts him in battle. Your average soldier is a 1st-level warriors. Junior NCOs would be 2nd-level warriors and/or 1st-level fighters. Senior NCOs would be 2nd or 3rd-level fighters. Senior officers might hit 5th or 6th-level. Add about half the group in support staff -- and then cooks, carters, smiths, etc. Most of the supoort staff can be removed now that, other then arrows and weapon repair, logistics are a non-issue. Also, your average town guardsmen is higher then level 1. If your read the DMG, I think you'll find that the average conscript is level 1. Carrear soliders can be higher. A typical army might have two or three major battles per year. Assuming each person gained 100xp/battle, you'd need years to gain levels. Most of the time you are on boring guard duty, marching, building stuff, manual labor, training, marching, etc. That's if the army is at war. Since a country might go a few years inbetween wars, if you start this system right when one war ends, it will be in place when the next one starts. In most armies, soldiers aren't paid. The lord or kingdom may require X number of years of compulsery service, sons serve in-lieu of family taxes, they receive plots of land or citizenship, criminals or serfs are often used with freedom as payment, etc. Fine then. Take the rings out of spoils of war and pass it on from sollider to solider. My point was that the rings are clearly worth the investment. Math doesn't support it. One in ten folks have class levels, one in ten might be a spellcaster, one in a thousand folks might be 12th-level or greater, and only one in ten might have the forge ring feat. I'm seeing 10x10x1,000x5 = 500,000. Thus, if a kingdom have 5 million people, one could only expect about 10 folks are even able to craft a ring. Even if you fudged the numbers (a much higher level campaign) and you have 100 folks able to craft rings in the kindom, you certainly wouldn't have access to them. Some would belong to guilds, some would be evil, some would be busy, etc. Crafting the ring takes 100xp. Making even 1000 of them would drain 100,000xp. You would effectively drain a hundred 13th-level wizards (if you could find them) to 12th-level. It could take years for the wizards to regain those levels -- and several would die attempting to regain their levels. The cost is some 2.5 million gold pieces. That exceeds the total wealth of most lords, kings, and even small kingdoms. Faultless logic, except then the number of magic items in a book-standard D&D world isn't possible. I see one of three possiblities.... 1) The magic items have built up over time. In this case, the govenrment just needs to buy up current ones. 2) NPC spellcasters regain exp in some slow, but completly safe method. 3) Some races (such as elves) have a much much higher mage-talent/item-crafting rate. Besides, if the infrastructure isn't there, a Lord could build it up my having the wizards he controls teach apprentices as fast as they can. Having a lot of mages on hand never hurts.
JadeFox 03-10-05, 10:40 PM	>As far as I can see, this system would have no downsides.... a) It isn't possible. b) If you had access to 100 13th+ level spellcasters willing to loose a level, to keep 1000 men fed, why not hire the spellcasters to do battle? c) Why not spent the 2.5 million gold necessary to purchase the rings, building say a couple of castles, hiring twenty-times the number of men, or purchasing other powerful magical items -- 1000 gems of elemental summoning, 250 figurines of wondrous items (silver griffons), or 100 wands of fireballs? d) How many men would lose, have stollen, desert and/or sell, the ring? It's worth as years of a commoners wages? What happens if you lose a battle and you end up giving a million gold pieces of magic to your enemy? a) Yeah, but by your logicl the level of magic promoted in the book isn't possible. Which defeats the point of saying it's a STANDARD (as in, by the book) D&D world. b) You can have the spellcasters do battle on top of this. Or maybe not all of them are combat mages. Or maybe more then 1 ring per spellcaster. Or maybe your buying up old ones. c) All of those things will either eventually die, have a cost to maintain, or will eventually run out of charges. This is a one-time expenditure. d) By that logic, why equip any soliders with any valuable items? And no mages should bein battles, lest such a rare and valuable asset be killed.
JadeFox 03-10-05, 10:41 PM	Who says? Going by our own real-world history, midieval armies were generally populated by people who brought their own food to the party and looted what they needed to supliment it along the way. Bread, cheese, dried meat and wine were popular because they lasted so long and were very resistant to environmental effects. If today was a good day, you and your group of friends managed to loot some vegetables and possibly a small lamb off of an unfortunate local and you get stew instead of having to deplete your own food store. Granted. So lets assume for this that either your the kind of lord who prefers NOT to desicrate the land your about to rule over, or that isn't an option for some other reason.
Fixxxer 03-10-05, 10:53 PM	d) By that logic, why equip any soliders with any valuable items? And no mages should bein battles, lest such a rare and valuable asset be killed. That's just the point...most smart nations won't equip a soldier with anything valuable. If they're going to issue him any equipment at all, it will probably be the cheapest weapon and armor money can buy (probably recycled equipment pundered off the battlefield to save money). Now, this is, of course, assuming we're talking about the average soldier. An officer is naturally going to have better equipment. A grunt, however, can buy his own upgraded equipment, if he so desires...but the government certainly isn't going to pay for it. To use a real-world example, when I got out of basic training for the USMC and was sent to my MOS, I was issued an M-16A2 service rifle. It was in relatively good condition, but it was certainly used. I was also issued a pass that allowed me to requisition an M-21 sharpshooter rifle, which was used by a number of soldiers in addition to myself. Now, aside from training, in which I was required to use the gear I was issued, I was free to purchase my own higher-quality firearms (so long as it was legal, that is). In the event I was sent into a combat zone somewhere, my CO wouldn't have had a problem with me buying my own Tactical .308 (a weapon I would certainly have prefered over the issued M-21), but the government certainly wasn't going to pay for it. Additionally, I was allowed to purchase spare sets of clothing, harnesses, etc, but they weren't going to give me more than one or two. They'd certainly provide a place for me to make said purchase, but they weren't going to fund my comfort. Regarding spellcasters as military assets, you can't think of the average spellcaster as a grunt soldier. Spellcasters employed in an army aren't going to be in the thick of combat. They're going to act as artillery, frying opposing formtions rather than dealing one-on-one with their opponents. It's a lot less likely that they'd be slaughtered in a battle, even one that went badly for their side.
JadeFox 03-10-05, 11:10 PM	That's just the point...most smart nations won't equip a soldier with anything valuable. If they're going to issue him any equipment at all, it will probably be the cheapest weapon and armor money can buy (probably recycled equipment pundered off the battlefield to save money). Now, this is, of course, assuming we're talking about the average soldier. An officer is naturally going to have better equipment. A grunt, however, can buy his own upgraded equipment, if he so desires...but the government certainly isn't going to pay for it. To use a real-world example, when I got out of basic training for the USMC and was sent to my MOS, I was issued an M-16A2 service rifle. It was in relatively good condition, but it was certainly used. I was also issued a pass that allowed me to requisition an M-21 sharpshooter rifle, which was used by a number of soldiers in addition to myself. Now, aside from training, in which I was required to use the gear I was issued, I was free to purchase my own higher-quality firearms (so long as it was legal, that is). In the event I was sent into a combat zone somewhere, my CO wouldn't have had a problem with me buying my own Tactical .308 (a weapon I would certainly have prefered over the issued M-21), but the government certainly wasn't going to pay for it. Additionally, I was allowed to purchase spare sets of clothing, harnesses, etc, but they weren't going to give me more than one or two. They'd certainly provide a place for me to make said purchase, but they weren't going to fund my comfort. So basicly, by buying a superior firearm out of your own money, you were transferring your pay/savings from money that you sit on into an item that you can use on the battlefield. This is the same deal, except that the govenrment is docking your pay and givng you the item at a reduced rate instead of waitng for you to make that analysis on your own.
JadeFox 03-10-05, 11:14 PM	And to the address the "what if it gets lost to the enimey" point........ Well, there is some truth to that. But bear in mind, if the war is going bad to the point where your elite (level 3 to 5) forces are getting the asses handed to them so bad that they can't even pause to take the items with them, it's prettymuch over anyway.
Fixxxer 03-10-05, 11:19 PM	This is the same deal, except that the govenrment is docking your pay and givng you the item at a reduced rate instead of waitng for you to make that analysis on your own. Hmmm...now that you've pointed it out to me, I can see your point. However, I do think that automatically docking the soldier's pay and forcing this item on him is probably not the best way to go. For starters, what about someone who has a distrust of magic? On a more-likely note, what about people who have confidence in their own ability to find what they need to survive and would prefer the money over the item? I would just find it a little difficult to believe that in the entire history of an army doing this, no one would have brought up such concerns. It just seems like it would be a better idea to offer such a deal as an option instead of basically requiring a soldier to conform.
Thanatos02 03-10-05, 11:33 PM	The big dog on my continent is the Vaijin Empire, which is semi-feudal. The central government relies on various lords to suppliment a levy of troops which are outfitted depending on their lords taste. You can expect most soldiers to be Level 1 Commoners, then. I'd say it makes up 80% of the troop capacity. The Empire has a variety of additional places to turn to, since it provides financial support in exchange for soldiers or military magic or weapons. The Academy of Learning provides a certain number of graduate students based on the size of the conflict. Graduate students are between level four and seven. They also provide certain magical devices for armies, and may outfit certain champions, but weapons for standard troops is unheard of. The Mechanist Guild designes and produces a certain number of weapons for the Emperor's armies. Repeating Crossbow for standard troops, Heavy Repeating Crossbows and Siege Crossbows for certain units in limited numbers, Hand Repeaters for leaders upon request. The Guild allocates a number of members in elite units, armed with weird equipment. Alchemist Fire-Throwers, Battery-Powered Lightning Rods, Grenadiers, Riflemen and Pistoliers and others are possible. Usually between 1st and 3rd level Experts or Expert/Fighters. Merchant princes help fund war efforts or loan home-gaurd, mercenaries are up for purchase, and the Emperor's Elite Gaurd are serious dangers on the field. The city of Ehlon may loan elite operatives for praticularly dangerous operations. Non-Empire soldiers tend to be Orcs, who fight oppression by Imperial soldiers. They're almost always leveled Barbarians, Rangers, Scouts, or Druids. Elves go into battle with elemental Sorcerers as leaders, Fighter soldiers and Scouts as support. Their small numbers means they get chewed up on the battlefield as anything but skirmish troops, though. Orcs lack the numbers and organization of Imperial soldiers, and elves lack the numbers or flexibility (or technology) of Imperial soldiers.
JadeFox 03-10-05, 11:49 PM	Hmmm...now that you've pointed it out to me, I can see your point. However, I do think that automatically docking the soldier's pay and forcing this item on him is probably not the best way to go. For starters, what about someone who has a distrust of magic? On a more-likely note, what about people who have confidence in their own ability to find what they need to survive and would prefer the money over the item? I would just find it a little difficult to believe that in the entire history of an army doing this, no one would have brought up such concerns. It just seems like it would be a better idea to offer such a deal as an option instead of basically requiring a soldier to conform. Point conceded. Although there are enough incentives the govnerment can offer solliders that cost the government basicly nothing (such as increased shares of conquered land) that it would be very popular if not almost universal. The big dog on my continent is the Vaijin Empire, which is semi-feudal. The central government relies on various lords to suppliment a levy of troops which are outfitted depending on their lords taste. You can expect most soldiers to be Level 1 Commoners, then. I'd say it makes up 80% of the troop capacity. The Empire has a variety of additional places to turn to, since it provides financial support in exchange for soldiers or military magic or weapons. The Academy of Learning provides a certain number of graduate students based on the size of the conflict. Graduate students are between level four and seven. They also provide certain magical devices for armies, and may outfit certain champions, but weapons for standard troops is unheard of. The Mechanist Guild designes and produces a certain number of weapons for the Emperor's armies. Repeating Crossbow for standard troops, Heavy Repeating Crossbows and Siege Crossbows for certain units in limited numbers, Hand Repeaters for leaders upon request. The Guild allocates a number of members in elite units, armed with weird equipment. Alchemist Fire-Throwers, Battery-Powered Lightning Rods, Grenadiers, Riflemen and Pistoliers and others are possible. Usually between 1st and 3rd level Experts or Expert/Fighters. Merchant princes help fund war efforts or loan home-gaurd, mercenaries are up for purchase, and the Emperor's Elite Gaurd are serious dangers on the field. The city of Ehlon may loan elite operatives for praticularly dangerous operations. Non-Empire soldiers tend to be Orcs, who fight oppression by Imperial soldiers. They're almost always leveled Barbarians, Rangers, Scouts, or Druids. Elves go into battle with elemental Sorcerers as leaders, Fighter soldiers and Scouts as support. Their small numbers means they get chewed up on the battlefield as anything but skirmish troops, though. Orcs lack the numbers and organization of Imperial soldiers, and elves lack the numbers or flexibility (or technology) of Imperial soldiers. My game world (see here: http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=391070) is more Roman based. Soliders are paid a steady wage, conscirpt armies are only used in times of dire need, the elite legions of the empire get only the best equipment and traning before going into battle. A guess it's a point of view of unending hordes v. small elite forces.
Vanigo 03-11-05, 12:03 AM	Woludn't it be more economical to purchace Murlynd's spoons? One of those things will keep four people fed, and only costs 5,400 gold, plus it can be made by a much lower level spellcaster.
Kursk 03-11-05, 12:10 AM	Your average career soldier is perhaps a 2nd level warrior who is lucky to make 1sp/day + food. The economics doesn't work out.
fdnickerson 03-11-05, 12:42 AM	For it to be econimically feasible you'd have to have some type of mass production of magical items. This isn't really plausible in Greyhawk and Fr settings becaused they're mostly based on feudal economies. However, it should (I think) work in settings with more modern economies such as Eberron or homebrew settings with large empires (who can reproduce by sheer numbers what modern economies do through efficiency). I don't know if i'd issue them to every 1st lvl conscript, but I can see giving them to whatever your campaign world's equivalent of LRRP's is.
weasel fierce 03-11-05, 02:59 AM	My campaign is low magic, except for special individuals (and the PC's of course), and mostly dark medieval, meaning that an army tends to consist of a large force of peasants, as well as a few small core's of professional troops, mercenaries and knights.
HomebrewedMonster 03-11-05, 04:07 AM	The biggest flaw in the plan: Finding a group of wizards will to burn the XP to equip said army.
FriendoftheDork 03-11-05, 04:11 AM	I'll have to disagree with you Jade Fox on several points. As already pointed out, 3-5th lvl warriors are not average, they're at least veterans of many battles and could be considered elite. The numbers of 5th lvl warriors in an army is rather small compared to 1st level warrior proffessional but inexperienced soldiers, and many armies conscripts 1st lvl commoners as well. A soldier usually get's 2sp pay per day, perhaps 5 sp for NCOs. How food is requisitioned varies from army to army, some plan ahead and brings alot of supplies. This means the army can stay in the field for a long time and attack at will, but it will cost. 22 gp per four days sounds entirely too much, most supplies are not trail rations, and will probaly not cost more than 5cp/day. Still, soldiers require clothes, smiths and alot of others so the cost per soldier will be higher than this. Living off the land is cheap (although peseants will probably suffer), but make the army less mobile and makes them vulnerable to scorched earth strategies. Having soldiers in the field for a whole year is very rare, and expensive. Usually campiagns lasted a month or three, and then soldiers settled down for winter. Borrom line is, the Rings are too expensive. And I'll add that getting hundreds of them, or thousands is impossible, there just aint that many rings around. Magic items are not mass-produced. It may be worth it for small units of special forces that spends years in the field spying, sabotage etc, but those are usually hired adventuers of high level and could probably afford it themselves.
LordArkan 03-11-05, 04:13 AM	I'll have to disagree with you Jade Fox on several points. As already pointed out, 3-5th lvl warriors are not average, they're at least veterans of many battles and could be considered elite. The numbers of 5th lvl warriors in an army is rather small compared to 1st level warrior proffessional but inexperienced soldiers, and many armies conscripts 1st lvl commoners as well. 1st level warriors ARE the conscripted militia, according to the World-Building section of the DMG. The "War" section of the DMG is completely inconsistent with this, of course. Not surprising, since I've never seen a reliable source on the subject of Magical Warfare anyway.
HomebrewedMonster 03-11-05, 04:56 AM	Instead of arguing over what level these grunts are, how about someone answer my question: Where are you getting wizards (at least 9th for forge ring) that are going to burn enough xp to make a couple hundred rings?
Fredrik Svanberg 03-11-05, 05:40 AM	Instead of arguing over what level these grunts are, how about someone answer my question: Where are you getting wizards (at least 9th for forge ring) that are going to burn enough xp to make a couple hundred rings? Who said the wizards have to be willing? Make a law that states that wizards must create certain magic items to the crown each year in order to keep their magic-using licenses. I can also see a military-magical-industry complex appearing within 10 seconds of the foundation of the first nation in the world. The military buys magic items at a discount from a wizard's guild, which gets a steady source of income for its research and opportunity to test new spells and artefacts on the battlefield every now and then. It's a win-win situation, except for the people who pays for the magical toys with their tax money. All it takes is a perpetual state of war, or perceived state of war. If there aren't any orcs lurking outside the borders, the military-magical-industrial complex will have to make sure there is something to fight, or their little scheme will crumble when the people find out that there is no enemy anywhere.
HomebrewedMonster 03-11-05, 05:45 AM	Screw that, I'll go underground and keep my XP thank you. Let the rebellion begin!!! Now if only the guards would go to sleep.
Solidcobra 03-11-05, 06:00 AM	Level 3-5 fighters (or warriors) would be special ops, the guys you expect to send against 3x as many enemy infantry units and walk away victorious. They are NOT the average soldier. Level 1-2 warriors would be soldier and soldier after a few years of war, respectively. Class levels are restricted to the incredible people. The ones destined to do great things. A few level 10-14 characters will change the face of war easily. They'll be heroes, they'll spend half the time signing shortswords and the other half slaying their way through enemy elite units to kill the general. >_> 3-5 warrior...pssch!
anders 03-11-05, 08:23 AM	The common soldiers are normal peasants. 1 level warriors or even commoners. When a war would come, knights would travel from farm to farm and take the men to join the army. No military training. That certainly dont make them level 3-5. The pay they would recive (if any) would be minimal. A meal costs 1sp per day. A meal in larger quanteties would certainly cost less (5cp?). You can hire higher level mercernaries, but i doubt anyone would give them any more equipment. After al, they do get paid and they are just cannon fodder after all ;) *summary* The main problem I can see in your calculus is that you a) Overprice the food. A meal in the army should cost at MOST 1sp (poor meal) / day. Most likely it will be cheaper b) To high level on average soldier. The average soldier level is 1, not 3-5. In conclusion, a soldier costs the army 36,5gp / year in food. So the investment in the ring is *clearly* not worth it. That it how I would see it in my campaign anyways.
JadeFox 03-11-05, 01:02 PM	Woludn't it be more economical to purchace Murlynd's spoons? One of those things will keep four people fed, and only costs 5,400 gold, plus it can be made by a much lower level spellcaster. Perhaps, but that woudln't increase the soliders marching speed. Something to consider though. Your average career soldier is perhaps a 2nd level warrior who is lucky to make 1sp/day + food. The economics doesn't work out. So......your average solider gets paid 1/20th of what a mercinary of his skill level gets paid, plus he has a higher chance of death and can't quit when he wants too? For it to be econimically feasible you'd have to have some type of mass production of magical items. This isn't really plausible in Greyhawk and Fr settings becaused they're mostly based on feudal economies. However, it should (I think) work in settings with more modern economies such as Eberron or homebrew settings with large empires (who can reproduce by sheer numbers what modern economies do through efficiency). I don't know if i'd issue them to every 1st lvl conscript, but I can see giving them to whatever your campaign world's equivalent of LRRP's is. Yes, I was thinking of giving them to vetran forces. And yes, I did assume a game world that had a more Modern/Roman'esq millitary. 1st level warriors ARE the conscripted militia, according to the World-Building section of the DMG. The "War" section of the DMG is completely inconsistent with this, of course. Not surprising, since I've never seen a reliable source on the subject of Magical Warfare anyway. Again, this idea obviously dosn't work with large conscript armies. It was intended for a paid, trained, professional millitary. Instead of arguing over what level these grunts are, how about someone answer my question: Where are you getting wizards (at least 9th for forge ring) that are going to burn enough xp to make a couple hundred rings? Start an aggressive wizard training program. Offer huge benifits to spellcasters that move to your kingdom. Find a relativly safe way for them to regain exp. Who said the wizards have to be willing? Make a law that states that wizards must create certain magic items to the crown each year in order to keep their magic-using licenses. I can also see a military-magical-industry complex appearing within 10 seconds of the foundation of the first nation in the world. The military buys magic items at a discount from a wizard's guild, which gets a steady source of income for its research and opportunity to test new spells and artefacts on the battlefield every now and then. It's a win-win situation, except for the people who pays for the magical toys with their tax money. All it takes is a perpetual state of war, or perceived state of war. If there aren't any orcs lurking outside the borders, the military-magical-industrial complex will have to make sure there is something to fight, or their little scheme will crumble when the people find out that there is no enemy anywhere. How Orwellian. The mages want YOU to resist Goldstein and his Eurasian allies. Level 3-5 fighters (or warriors) would be special ops, the guys you expect to send against 3x as many enemy infantry units and walk away victorious. They are NOT the average soldier. Level 1-2 warriors would be soldier and soldier after a few years of war, respectively. Class levels are restricted to the incredible people. The ones destined to do great things. A few level 10-14 characters will change the face of war easily. They'll be heroes, they'll spend half the time signing shortswords and the other half slaying their way through enemy elite units to kill the general. >_> 3-5 warrior...pssch! Why wouldn't a carrear solider get to level 2 just through training before going into battle?
Thanatos02 03-11-05, 01:04 PM	In my game, the Academy recieves a large amount of money from the empire, as well as being allowed to continue in exchange for certain special magic items and being able to access mages during major conflicts. Academy undergrads make magic items to help pay tuition and for college credit. Grad students do it for funding for their projects. Rings of Sustenance are rare though. Common items are low-end bracers or amulets of protection, catapult ammo, wands, or the like. Low-end, but useful items. They are not paid in cash, usually, but in credit and prestige. Much more important.
JadeFox 03-11-05, 01:04 PM	The common soldiers are normal peasants. 1 level warriors or even commoners. When a war would come, knights would travel from farm to farm and take the men to join the army. No military training. That certainly dont make them level 3-5. The pay they would recive (if any) would be minimal. A meal costs 1sp per day. A meal in larger quanteties would certainly cost less (5cp?). You can hire higher level mercernaries, but i doubt anyone would give them any more equipment. After al, they do get paid and they are just cannon fodder after all ;) *summary* The main problem I can see in your calculus is that you a) Overprice the food. A meal in the army should cost at MOST 1sp (poor meal) / day. Most likely it will be cheaper b) To high level on average soldier. The average soldier level is 1, not 3-5. In conclusion, a soldier costs the army 36,5gp / year in food. So the investment in the ring is *clearly* not worth it. That it how I would see it in my campaign anyways. Eh, if you were going with a fudual system that would follow. But if your going with a trained millitary, the match dosn't work that way. Oh, and for the record, a trained well-paid roman'esq millitary beats the crap out of peasent leagons any day.
JadeFox 03-11-05, 01:05 PM	In my game, the Academy recieves a large amount of money from the empire, as well as being allowed to continue in exchange for certain special magic items and being able to access mages during major conflicts. Academy undergrads make magic items to help pay tuition and for college credit. Grad students do it for funding for their projects. Rings of Sustenance are rare though. Common items are low-end bracers or amulets of protection, catapult ammo, wands, or the like. Low-end, but useful items. They are not paid in cash, usually, but in credit and prestige. Much more important. Exactly what i'm saying.
BW0222 03-11-05, 01:35 PM	Jade Fox, >a) Yeah, but by your logicl the level of magic promoted in the book isn't >possible. Which defeats the point of saying it's a STANDARD (as in, by the >book) D&D world. The DMG prices says if you can find an item, here is how much it is worth. It is not the Sears catalog which says you can always order one at said price. If you find a ring of sustenance it is worth about 2500gp. That doesn't mean if you have 2500gp you put it in a box and shake it, it will turn into any magical item of 2500gp or less you want. The DMG also includes charts of the most valuable items available in various population centers and charts for finding random treasure. Say, take one billion gold pieces and start rolling treasure randomly. You'll never arrive at 100 of any specific item (except potions or scrolls). Thus, you'll never find them randomly (even if you could gather up every magical item in the kingdom as yours). Your only choice is to craft them, and you don't have enough high-level casters nor do they have the ability to regenerate XP fast enough, to make them. >b) You can have the spellcasters do battle on top of this. Why? Why spend another 2.5 million gold to take 1000, 1st-2nd level warriors into combat with 1000 magical rings, when you have 100 13th-level wizards are your disposal? If you have 100 folks each tossing out sixth-level spells, do you honestly think a 1000 1st or 2nd-level folks is going to make any difference. >Or maybe not all of them are combat mages. Well maybe they aren't all crafting mages? How can a 13th-level mage not be useful in combat. He doesn't have any combat spells and you can't buy a couple scrolls of fireball or magic missile for them? You are saying you can find 100 13th-level wizards with the forge ring feat willing to lose a level crafting rings, but you can't find 100 wizards (without any specific feats) willing to go to war a couple of days a year? >Or maybe more then 1 ring per Each wizard is already making so many rings they are losing levels. It is 100,000 xp to make 1000 sustenance rings. That means you drain 100 13th-level wizards to 12th-level, or you could drain a 19th-level wizard to 12th-level. A kingdom likely only has 1 or 2 folks of 19th-level, and you want to drain him just for food for 1000 people? Already I'm sure the wizard's guild has branded you a lunatic and either gone underground or off'd you. >spellcaster. Or maybe your buying up old ones. I see... so with say 4 years of service, you are going to pay 2,500 per person every four years or so. That's about 750gp/person/year. A 5cp/day * 365 days, you could feed a person the food for under 20gp/year. Heck, you could buy a small farm for what you are paying to feed someone for four years. Your math just isn't working. >c) All of those things will either eventually die, have a cost to maintain, or >will eventually run out of charges. This is a one-time expenditure. You said that the soldiers get to keep the rings? That means you need to make more every year. Also soldiers are going to die, lose rings, have them stollen over time, have them destroyed in combat, etc. The wands are good enough for 50 battles x 100 fireballs. An army might fight two or three times a year. A single fireball would kill say 10 enemy soldiers. That is 1000 dead soldiers per round. You'd win a battle with 1000 enemy soldiers in one round. Even against an army of 10,000, they'd break and flee after having lost 10% of the men at over 400 ft. For the cost of equiping your soldiers with rings to avoid food costs for a few year, I'd slaughter every one of your soldiers in 1 round and assure about 15 years of victories. >d) By that logic, why equip any soliders with any valuable items? And no >mages should bein battles, lest such a rare and valuable asset be killed. Correct and correct. You don't give 1st-level people expensive weapons and armour because it isn't cost effective. They die too easily. High-level mages are rare and valuable. A kingdom might only have a dozen 10th+ level wizards. Most of these are way to valuable to take into combat. If one did decide to enter a battle, he'd cost nearly as much as the 1000 men and he'd do serious damage to the other side. One wall of fire would dust nearly 100 men in a single round. >Faultless logic, except then the number of magic items in a book-standard >D&D world isn't possible. What number? It only lists the items. It doesn't say which ones or how many of each is available. If you find 1000 random magical items with 2500gp or more only 1.4 will be rings of sustenance. In order to find 1000 rings of sustenance there would need to be 714,285 magical items in the campaign worth 2,500gp or more -- assuming all were in found and in friendly hands. >I see one of three possiblities.... >1) The magic items have built up over time. In this case, the govenrment >just needs to buy up current ones. Then overtime everyone would have every magical item in existance. Farmers would be walking around with staves of power. Magical items don't build up over time. Given enough owners and enough time, someone is going to roll a 1 on that save and the item will be destroyed, fall into some acid, run into a rust monster, be on a boat which sinks, have a cloak left in the inn during a fire, get eaten by a remoraz, be melted down by some smith not realizing it is magical, etc. >2) NPC spellcasters regain exp in some slow, but completly safe method. They don't. They need to take some risks to gain XP. A normal peasant gains maybe 50xp per year running his farm. Risking hiding some grain from his lord, getting a good deal, roleplaying getting his daughter married off, etc. Given 10 years he is a second level commoner, another 25 years to third, 40 more to 4th, etc. (XP goes down because what was a challenge at 1st-level, is less of a challenge at 2nd, etc.) A 12th-level wizard doing mundane things isn't going even going to gain XP at that rate. Dealing with a local baker is hardly a challenge to him. Maybe he earns 50xp / year serving on the town council. Given 20 years, he could regain 13th-level in order to again make another 10 rings. The only way to gain XP faster is to take more risks. He could gain maybe 1000xp per year dealing with trolls. Unfortunately 10% of the time, he'll get killed. XP is based on CRs and CRs are based on the likelyhood of you dying. A 10th-level PC can kill rats all day and not earn XP for it. >3) Some races (such as elves) have a much much higher mage-talent/item- >crafting rate. They don't. Same rules apply to them. Sure 200 years isn't a big deal for them, but why would an elf want to wait 200 years just to make some more rings? After a week, I'm sure he has come up with something more productive to do with his time. How about #4? It isn't possible.
fdnickerson 03-11-05, 01:42 PM	Yes, I was thinking of giving them to vetran forces. And yes, I did assume a game world that had a more Modern/Roman'esq millitary. In that case, I really like the idea. I think I'd buy those rings of sustenance before, say, a couple of castles, hiring twenty-times the number of men, or purchasing other powerful magical items -- 1000 gems of elemental summoning, 250 figurines of wondrous items (silver griffons), or 100 wands of fireballs? just because none of those things would be of any use if you couldn't get your soldiers into the right position to use them. Anyway, whether or not those things are possible in the core books is beside the point. It's your world and anything goes.
JadeFox 03-11-05, 01:53 PM	The DMG prices says if you can find an item, here is how much it is worth. It is not the Sears catalog which says you can always order one at said price. If you find a ring of sustenance it is worth about 2500gp. That doesn't mean if you have 2500gp you put it in a box and shake it, it will turn into any magical item of 2500gp or less you want. The DMG also includes charts of the most valuable items available in various population centers and charts for finding random treasure. Say, take one billion gold pieces and start rolling treasure randomly. You'll never arrive at 100 of any specific item (except potions or scrolls). Thus, you'll never find them randomly (even if you could gather up every magical item in the kingdom as yours). Your only choice is to craft them, and you don't have enough high-level casters nor do they have the ability to regenerate XP fast enough, to make them. Let me give you a little lession in the laws of supply and demand. Basicly they say that if you have enough money to buy an item, but you can't find one because there arn't enough for everyone, then the item is undervalued. Since were assuming this isn't the case (as supported by the DMG's generous treasure tables) the rings must be available. >b) You can have the spellcasters do battle on top of this. Why? Why spend another 2.5 million gold to take 1000, 1st-2nd level warriors into combat with 1000 magical rings, when you have 100 13th-level wizards are your disposal? If you have 100 folks each tossing out sixth-level spells, do you honestly think a 1000 1st or 2nd-level folks is going to make any difference. Conscripts are first level. Not soliders. >Or maybe not all of them are combat mages. Well maybe they aren't all crafting mages? How can a 13th-level mage not be useful in combat. He doesn't have any combat spells and you can't buy a couple scrolls of fireball or magic missile for them? You are saying you can find 100 13th-level wizards with the forge ring feat willing to lose a level crafting rings, but you can't find 100 wizards (without any specific feats) willing to go to war a couple of days a year? Yeah. Basicly. In a battlefield, a wizard sticks out as a huge freakin target. Which sounds better to you? >Five days a year, you have to spend your entire day in pitched battles while you pray to the gods that none of the hostile snipers have bows that can pentrate "Stoneskin", >We pay you the same. We just want you to forge two rings a year for the governemnt. Hell, we'll also renew your magic lisence and give you plots of land for free. The second one is a LOT safer, and has more benifits. >Or maybe more then 1 ring per Each wizard is already making so many rings they are losing levels. It is 100,000 xp to make 1000 sustenance rings. That means you drain 100 13th-level wizards to 12th-level, or you could drain a 19th-level wizard to 12th-level. A kingdom likely only has 1 or 2 folks of 19th-level, and you want to drain him just for food for 1000 people? Already I'm sure the wizard's guild has branded you a lunatic and either gone underground or off'd you. I'm sure a mages guild can be found that has one 19th level person they woudln't mind bumping off. New blood in the high ranks and all that. Besides, this could be done over time so the mages can slowly and safely regain EXP. I see... so with say 4 years of service, you are going to pay 2,500 per person every four years or so. That's about 750gp/person/year. A 5cp/day * 365 days, you could feed a person the food for under 20gp/year. Heck, you could buy a small farm for what you are paying to feed someone for four years. Your math just isn't working. 750gp per person per year ($15,000 dollar equlivent) is entirly reasonable for a carrear solider. >c) All of those things will either eventually die, have a cost to maintain, or >will eventually run out of charges. This is a one-time expenditure. You said that the soldiers get to keep the rings? That means you need to make more every year. Also soldiers are going to die, lose rings, have them stollen over time, have them destroyed in combat, etc. The wands are good enough for 50 battles x 100 fireballs. An army might fight two or three times a year. A single fireball would kill say 10 enemy soldiers. That is 1000 dead soldiers per round. You'd win a battle with 1000 enemy soldiers in one round. Even against an army of 10,000, they'd break and flee after having lost 10% of the men at over 400 ft. For the cost of equiping your soldiers with rings to avoid food costs for a few year, I'd slaughter every one of your soldiers in 1 round and assure about 15 years of victories. Except for three factors. 1) Soliders CAN'T USE WANDS. You would have to field a lot of mages for that tactic to work. 2)When retired solider eventually die, the governement will be happy to buy up their rings from them. At 1/2 list price of course. 3)Food is the primary limitation in how large an army a nation can field. With this, I can summon a much larger force then you can. any soliders with any valuable items? And no >mages should bein battles, lest such a rare and valuable asset be killed. Correct and correct. You don't give 1st-level people expensive weapons and armour because it isn't cost effective. They die too easily. They arn't first level. >Faultless logic, except then the number of magic items in a book-standard >D&D world isn't possible. What number? It only lists the items. It doesn't say which ones or how many of each is available. If you find 1000 random magical items with 2500gp or more only 1.4 will be rings of sustenance. In order to find 1000 rings of sustenance there would need to be 714,285 magical items in the campaign worth 2,500gp or more -- assuming all were in found and in friendly hands. See my comments about supply and demand above. Then overtime everyone would have every magical item in existance. Farmers would be walking around with staves of power. Magical items don't build up over time. Given enough owners and enough time, someone is going to roll a 1 on that save and the item will be destroyed, fall into some acid, run into a rust monster, be on a boat which sinks, have a cloak left in the inn during a fire, get eaten by a remoraz, be melted down by some smith not realizing it is magical, etc. So there are NO old magic items in circulation? The number of them never increases? Obviously those would limit growth, but not stop it. They don't. They need to take some risks to gain XP. A normal peasant gains maybe 50xp per year running his farm. Risking hiding some grain from his lord, getting a good deal, roleplaying getting his daughter married off, etc. Given 10 years he is a second level commoner, another 25 years to third, 40 more to 4th, etc. (XP goes down because what was a challenge at 1st-level, is less of a challenge at 2nd, etc.) A 12th-level wizard doing mundane things isn't going even going to gain XP at that rate. Dealing with a local baker is hardly a challenge to him. Maybe he earns 50xp / year serving on the town council. Given 20 years, he could regain 13th-level in order to again make another 10 rings. The only way to gain XP faster is to take more risks. He could gain maybe 1000xp per year dealing with trolls. Unfortunately 10% of the time, he'll get killed. XP is based on CRs and CRs are based on the likelyhood of you dying. A 10th-level PC can kill rats all day and not earn XP for it. Or he could take the weakest monster he gains exp from slaying (Say, Gnolls) and slaughter them wholesale with teleport spells ready in case he gets swarmed. Low exp to be sure, but enough to subsidise itemforging. They don't. Same rules apply to them. Sure 200 years isn't a big deal for them, but why would an elf want to wait 200 years just to make some more rings? After a week, I'm sure he has come up with something more productive to do with his time. Money has a wonderfull way of making people think "Maybe I should do it NOW instead of 200 years from now." How about #4? It isn't possible. Addressed above.
LordArkan 03-11-05, 02:30 PM	Actually, the DMG DOES say how much of an item you can find in a given city. Example: A city of 17,000 people has 34,000,000gp worth of any given item. Divide by 2,500gp for rings of sustenance, and you about 1360 rings availible. This works out pretty well, since you only have 170 career soldiers to equip. Granted, a city this large would also be responsible to equip soldiers from several nearby towns, but it works about according to what's written in the book. (Yes, the town wealth chart is done on an item-by-item basis. The DMG even gives an example.) I'm still trying to work out a decent system for figuring out what equipment a military force has, though. Right now I'm fiddling with the idea of a city having a "military budget" somewhere around 4-8% of their total wealth bonus that is used to purchase "standard issue" equipment - higher level soldiers can buy their own items. So let's say the city above is able to spend 6% of its wealth on maintaining a guard - or 2,040,000gp. Assuming that career soldiers would get double (possibly triple) shares, this comes to ~1700gp per person (3400gp for career soldiers). For a non-specialized militiaman, this could buy: 1 Masterwork Light Crossbow (335) 1 Chain Shirt (100) 1 Masterwork Heavy Mace (312) 1 Short Sword (10) 1 Buckler (15) 1 Flask Holy Water (25) 3 Potions Cure Light Wounds (150) 2 Oils Magic Weapon (100) 1 Potion Remove Fear (50) 1 Tanglefoot Bag (50) 1 Smokestick (20) Not sure what else. You've got about 580gp left that could just go to replacing the single-use items.
kliate 03-11-05, 02:50 PM	You could also keep a 5th level cleric with your larger deployments, casting "Create Food and Water" to feed 15 humans/casting. Equipping a lower level cleric with a wand of "Create Food and Water" (caster level 10th) would support 30 troops/charge for a cost of 11250gp. That works out to 7.5gp/troop/day. It's more expensive than conventional rations, but the wands can be stockpiled for years without worry of decay. Higher level troops could be given "Spoons of Prestidigitation 3/day" that would make their otherwise bland food taste like a royal feast - such a tool would cost 2400gp, but would probably be readily accepted over a mere medal. Next, you could look into creating a wondrous item that provides food and water to 30 troops/day, every day on command. Such an item would cost 21600gp and take 10 minutes to fully create the meal - but it poses a far cheaper alternative to 30 rings of sustenence. Finally, you could create a wondrous item that produces food for 30 troops on command, without a limit to it's daily use for 108000gp (You'd get about 144 uses/day = 4,320 troops if used constantly) edit: Fixed wondrous item costs to assume unslotted status
HomebrewedMonster 03-11-05, 02:52 PM	Why are you people arguing about the level of the army, its his campaign. How about you discuss what the thread was started to discuss? Are there any non-intuitive tactics armies use in your camapaign worlds that you can share?
JadeFox 03-11-05, 03:10 PM	Why are you people arguing about the level of the army, its his campaign. How about you discuss what the thread was started to discuss? THANK you. :D You could also keep a 5th level cleric with your larger deployments, casting "Create Food and Water" to feed 15 humans/casting. Equipping a lower level cleric with a wand of "Create Food and Water" (caster level 10th) would support 30 troops/charge for a cost of 11250gp. That works out to 7.5gp/troop/day. It's more expensive than conventional rations, but the wands can be stockpiled for years without worry of decay. Higher level troops could be given "Spoons of Prestidigitation 3/day" that would make their otherwise bland food taste like a royal feast - such a tool would cost 2400gp, but would probably be readily accepted over a mere medal. Next, you could look into creating a wondrous item that provides food and water to 30 troops/day, every day on command. Such an item would cost 21600gp and take 10 minutes to fully create the meal - but it poses a far cheaper alternative to 30 rings of sustenence. Finally, you could create a wondrous item that produces food for 30 troops on command, without a limit to it's daily use for 108000gp (You'd get about 144 uses/day = 4,320 troops if used constantly) edit: Fixed wondrous item costs to assume unslotted status Interesting idea. I tried to avoid anything custome in my firstpost though so the thread wouldn't get into a debate about houserules.
HomebrewedMonster 03-11-05, 03:17 PM	I try to be a psuedo-moderator. Pimp slapping those that get off topic.
mercurial67 03-11-05, 03:27 PM	Let me give you a little lession in the laws of supply and demand. Basicly they say that if you have enough money to buy an item, but you can't find one because there arn't enough for everyone, then the item is undervalued. Since were assuming this isn't the case (as supported by the DMG's generous treasure tables) the rings must be available.Unfortunately, this clearly indicates you DON'T understand the laws of supply and demand. The prices quoted in the books are suggested values for items should a PC go looking for one and find it. The prices aren't fixed and there are not infinate supplies of each item. Magic items are also not industrial items where you can just roll them off an assembly line and if the need for an item goes up, people can just start producing more. They are artisan items. You must have an artisan who is skilled enough and takes the time to craft a masterworked item. Then you must have a spell caster who is skilled and powerfull enough to enhance the item. There is also a minimum cost to the item (half the suggested value) as well as an XP cost which is totally unlike any normal manufacturing cost. With all of this in mind, what would happen based on the laws of supply and demand is the price would start to rise if there were several different people each trying to buy the item since there is a limited supply of the magic OR if it was one entity, they would be told only X could be made. Remember, you can NOT loose levels while creating items, so a spell caster would actually reach a point where they could no longer manufacter items. A large city of approximately 21000 people would have (based on the rules in the DMG) on average three wizards & three sorcerors who would be high enough level to craft rings. They are only going to be able to produce a certain number of rings before they can no longer produce ANY magic item. Before that happened, they would start charging a LOT more to enhance an item and the price would go up. Actually, the DMG DOES say how much of an item you can find in a given city. Example: A city of 17,000 people has 34,000,000gp worth of any given item. Divide by 2,500gp for rings of sustenance, and you about 1360 rings availible. This works out pretty well, since you only have 170 career soldiers to equip. Granted, a city this large would also be responsible to equip soldiers from several nearby towns, but it works about according to what's written in the book. (Yes, the town wealth chart is done on an item-by-item basis. The DMG even gives an example.)The 34 million gp amount is actually the WEALTH of the town and includes the approximate cost of ALL the belongings in a town (homes, furniture, anvils, animals, etc) This is not how much wealth the town has available each year. A town would not equip it's forces based on the total value of the town, but on the taxes generated by the town which would be a percentage of the wealth generated per year. From those same taxes, you also have to pay for all the town employees, all the maintainance, etc. So you don't have anywhere near the funds you are assuming.
HomebrewedMonster 03-11-05, 03:37 PM	snip. Hey! What did I say? Back on topic. *pimp slap*
JadeFox 03-11-05, 03:43 PM	Unfortunately, this clearly indicates you DON'T understand the laws of supply and demand. The prices quoted in the books are suggested values for items should a PC go looking for one and find it. The prices aren't fixed and there are not infinate supplies of each item. Magic items are also not industrial items where you can just roll them off an assembly line and if the need for an item goes up, people can just start producing more. They are artisan items. You must have an artisan who is skilled enough and takes the time to craft a masterworked item. Then you must have a spell caster who is skilled and powerfull enough to enhance the item. There is also a minimum cost to the item (half the suggested value) as well as an XP cost which is totally unlike any normal manufacturing cost. With all of this in mind, what would happen based on the laws of supply and demand is the price would start to rise if there were several different people each trying to buy the item since there is a limited supply of the magic OR if it was one entity, they would be told only X could be made. Remember, you can NOT loose levels while creating items, so a spell caster would actually reach a point where they could no longer manufacter items. Who the heck did you learn economics from? A ring of sustinance is a universally usefull item. Who wouldn't want another 4 productive hours in every day (or the ability to sleep in and still get up before everyone else). In terms of what you get out of it per gp you spend, it is argueably one of the best items in the entire game. Someone selling a RoS or forging an RoS and then selling it in a world as low-magic as you claim is not going to sit there and go "Hmm. I'll find a nice person and sell it to them for 2500." He's going to sell it off with 2500gp as the starting bid, and watch all the people who can afford it drive the price up. A large city of approximately 21000 people would have (based on the rules in the DMG) on average three wizards & three sorcerors who would be high enough level to craft rings. They are only going to be able to produce a certain number of rings before they can no longer produce ANY magic item. Before that happened, they would start charging a LOT more to enhance an item and the price would go up. Except that there are very safe ways they can earn EXP to keep crafting magic items. And the fact that 2500gp is the prices means that the scenario you've given clearly ISN'T the case. The 34 million gp amount is actually the WEALTH of the town and includes the approximate cost of ALL the belongings in a town (homes, furniture, anvils, animals, etc) This is not how much wealth the town has available each year. A town would not equip it's forces based on the total value of the town, but on the taxes generated by the town which would be a percentage of the wealth generated per year. From those same taxes, you also have to pay for all the town employees, all the maintainance, etc. So you don't have anywhere near the funds you are assuming. Since this comes out of the millitary's existing budget (food and pay) it costs the city nothing in new taxes. Assuming 1% of the city's net income goes into the millitary, that's 340,000gp. Still plenty.
LordArkan 03-11-05, 03:59 PM	The 34 million gp amount is actually the WEALTH of the town and includes the approximate cost of ALL the belongings in a town (homes, furniture, anvils, animals, etc) This is not how much wealth the town has available each year. Incorrect. Community Wealth represents the amount of ready cash in a community, and also the gp amount of any given item. Try reading the section. Then go read the section again, because you clearly don't understand.
Aurum 03-11-05, 04:19 PM	Ultimately the availability of magic at the level of a society is a question every DM has to deal with. Its a question that two of the best current campaign worlds (Ebberon and Forgotten Realms) deal with fairly well. If you are looking for justification of such items existing, have the items that produce the food be more akin to the creation patterns for Ebberon: magical items whose creation is something that doesn't need to be defined, because its something you never give the PCs the ability to make. Or, treat the items as something more like Wonderous Items: perhaps all the troops carry specially created mess kits that have the same effect. Perhaps a conclave of mages created a single special item that casts Create Food and Water at will or a certain number of times per day. Destroying or stealing such an item might make for an interesting adventure for the PCs. Ebberon's warforged is perhaps the best example of how magical combat might eventually evolve beyond making sharper swords towards making a better arm to swing them.
BW0222 03-11-05, 05:31 PM	>Let me give you a little lession in the laws of supply and demand. ... Thanks for the lesson, but I'll stick to the classes I've taken. No insult intended, but based on your repeated misspellings ("carrear", "lession", etc.) and your lack of numbers and book references in your arguements I'm guessing you haven't made it through univeristy yet? Terms like "micro", "macro", "free market", etc. are important. The laws of supply and demand breaks down on the small scales or in resource limited systems. There is only one Mona-Lisa painting in the world. Someone might pay $50 million for it. Value $50 million. That doesn't mean that the US government can write a cheque for $1 trillion and get 200 of them, nor does it mean that the painting is worth more than $50 million. Magic in a standard campaign is more like high-end art work. There are only a few hundred people capable of making them. Items have a value, but demand doesn't influence supply. >Conscripts are first level. Not soliders. In standard D&D, soldiers are 1st-level warriors. Conscripts are 1st-level commoners. Try the arms and equipment guide or the DMG under hirelings. >Yeah. Basicly. In a battlefield, a wizard sticks out as a huge freakin target. >Which sounds better to you? Does he? He can't go invisible? He can't fly up 600'? He can't attack the army in their camp? Give me a 13th-level wizard and I'd walk through a battle with 100 1st-level warriors without taking a point of damage. Send in a few large air elementals see how many are carried away each round. >I'm sure a mages guild can be found that has one 19th level person they >woudln't mind bumping off. New blood in the high ranks and all that. Nonsense. If a 19th-level wizard doesn't want to make rings for some lord, then that lord won't need an army - he's dead or his kingdom is wizardless. The wizard can teleport away or wish the lord into a chicken. >750gp per person per year ($15,000 dollar equlivent) is entirly reasonable >for a carrear solider. (FYI. it's career.) $15,000 per year for just food! Hint, the US army doesn't pay that. A person can eat for $200/month, likely $100 in massive bulk. That is only $1200 per year. Even eating expensive combat ration packs (about $10/meal, two meals a day) is only $3500 per year. And do you think the modern US army is a good judge of how well soldiers from the middle-ages were fed? In most places in the world, folks live on $500 a year. A 1900s Zulu army was fighting with spears and hide shield? >Except for three factors. >1) Soliders CAN'T USE WANDS. You would have to field a lot of mages for >that tactic to work. 100 first level wizards or sorcerors. You already have a campaign where hundreds of 13th-level wizards are for hire and willing to lose a level each year, so I don't see why 100 first level wizards are a problem. Of course making 100 wands of fireballs would be equally unmakeable in a standard campaign, but since we both have wizards growing on trees and unlimited supplies of gold and xp, I'd still put 100 fireball wands against your 1000 men any day. BTW. I save the food costs also by not having 900 extra men. I also save on transport, shelter, armor, weapons, etc. >2)When retired solider eventually die, the governement will be happy to buy >up their rings from them. At 1/2 list price of course. Sorry, you buy items at full price. You only sell them at 1/2 price -- since it is assumed that they don't want the item and you are just dumping it. However, even giving you a glut on the market discount that's 375gp/year instead of 20gp/year. Say... where to you get 1.25 million gold each year? Hey... why not tax your farmers? Hire tens of thousands of extra farmers to grow hundreds of thousands of tons of extra food so you can sell it to someone. Humm... >3)Food is the primary limitation in how large an army a nation can field. With >this, I can summon a much larger force then you can. No you can't. You can't reasonably justify bringing 1000 rings into existance. You want to talk about 10,000 or 25,000 rings? Beyond absurd. >They arn't first level. Sorry. Look at the DMG or arms and equipment guide. >See my comments about supply and demand above. Supply and demain only applies to economies of scale. It doesn't apply to items numbering in the handfuls or dozens. >So there are NO old magic items in circulation? The number of them never >increases? Didn't say that. I simply said they don't last forever, and by common sense, they don't increase in overall numbers of long periods of time. Most worlds have histories of thousands of years. If in a given nation the number of permanent items grew by 1000 per year, after 2,000 years you'd have 200,000 permanent magical items. Your law of supply and demand would kick in and magic would be a near worthless commodity. >Or he could take the weakest monster he gains exp from slaying (Say, >Gnolls) and slaughter them wholesale with teleport spells ready in case he >gets swarmed. Low exp to be sure, but enough to subsidise itemforging. And he'd have to do this hundreds of times. He either run out of gnolls, or one of those hundred times something would go wrong and he'd be killed -- a sleep arrow, a grapple, the roof caving in, etc. Not often, but given a hundred times, one of them would likely fail. XP is tied to risk. Whether you take 5 adventures with a 5% chance of death, or 50 adventures with a 0.5% chance of death, you still have a 25% chance of not making it back to 13th-level. >>How about #4? It isn't possible. >Addressed above. Nope. For those saying 'It's his world'... the topic and original post says "Armies in standard-D&D worlds" and "For your consideration....." I'm being true to the orginal post and considering it if feasable in a standard D&D world. IMHO, and with the arguments I've posted, it isn't. Anyone can dream up a super-high magic campaign in which armies march around with 2,500gp rings and folks can mass order thousands of copies of the same item. However, there is nothing standard about such a world. It doesn't fit the crafting rules in the books nor the level distributions and is well beyond that of anything contemplated or permitted in a standard D&D world.
JadeFox 03-11-05, 06:25 PM	Thanks for the lesson, but I'll stick to the classes I've taken. No insult intended, but based on your repeated misspellings ("carrear", "lession", etc.) and your lack of numbers and book references in your arguements I'm guessing you haven't made it through univeristy yet? I'm a sophmore in an engineering university you :censored:. I'm sorry that the fact that a minor case of ADHD makes my spelling less then perfect. Terms like "micro", "macro", "free market", etc. are important. The laws of supply and demand breaks down on the small scales or in resource limited systems. There is only one Mona-Lisa painting in the world. Someone might pay $50 million for it. Value $50 million. That doesn't mean that the US government can write a cheque for $1 trillion and get 200 of them, nor does it mean that the painting is worth more than $50 million. Magic in a standard campaign is more like high-end art work. There are only a few hundred people capable of making them. Items have a value, but demand doesn't influence supply. Once again, you have made a compeltly valid argument that disproves a point I DIDN'T MAKE. The value of the mona-lisa is NOT $50million if someone is willing to pay 50million for it. It's value would be 50million if the highest bid for it is 50million. If one person bids 50, and someone else bids 100, the prices goes up. In this case, we KNOW the price (2500gp), it is a constant. And we know the demand (high). Therefore the only way for this relationship of moderate prices to high demand to make sense is if the items are limited but STILL AVAILABLE. Magic in a standard campaign is more like high-end art work. There are only a few hundred people capable of making them. Items have a value, but demand doesn't influence supply. No, demand influences price. But price is a known constant that does not reflect high-demand low-availablity. Therefore availabity must be higher then you suggest. In standard D&D, soldiers are 1st-level warriors. Conscripts are 1st-level commoners. Try the arms and equipment guide or the DMG under hirelings. I have stated multiple times in this thread that this would be for vetran soliders. Besides, not all worlds that use the standard D&D rules set use conscript armies that are horribly ineffective in battle. Does he? He can't go invisible? He can't fly up 600'? He can't attack the army in their camp? Give me a 13th-level wizard and I'd walk through a battle with 100 1st-level warriors without taking a point of damage. Send in a few large air elementals see how many are carried away each round. And the idea that any army that can afford mages might also afford "mage slayers" didn't occur to you? If I know you have mages, I can pay a mage a lot to equal you, or I can pay a lot less for ONE seeking explosive arrow that I give to the most elite archer in my army. Nonsense. If a 19th-level wizard doesn't want to make rings for some lord, then that lord won't need an army - he's dead or his kingdom is wizardless. The wizard can teleport away or wish the lord into a chicken. OR the wizard could be attacked by his fellow mages, overwhelmed, and deprived of his spellbook and magic items like I was trying to imply. If you think a sufficient number of 10 to 12 level mages can't overwhelm a 19th level mage who thinks their allies then you clearly don't' see the implications of the 1d4 HD. $15,000 per year for just food! Hint, the US army doesn't pay that. A person can eat for $200/month, likely $100 in massive bulk. That is only $1200 per year. Even eating expensive combat ration packs (about $10/meal, two meals a day) is only $3500 per year. And do you think the modern US army is a good judge of how well soldiers from the middle-ages were fed? In most places in the world, folks live on $500 a year. A 1900s Zulu army was fighting with spears and hide shield? 15,000 a year for food and their PAY. Yes, and 200's the Roman army had the best armor, weapons, traning, and provisions the empire could get them. Travelers on the road could keep safe from highwaymen by shouting "I am a citizen of rome" because the bandits feared the repercussions. Midevil conscript armies were a mark of truly ignorant times. A small, well-fed and equppied force cuts though hordes of conscripts. 100 first level wizards or sorcerors. You already have a campaign where hundreds of 13th-level wizards are for hire and willing to lose a level each year, so I don't see why 100 first level wizards are a problem. Of course making 100 wands of fireballs would be equally unmakeable in a standard campaign, but since we both have wizards growing on trees and unlimited supplies of gold and xp, I'd still put 100 fireball wands against your 1000 men any day. BTW. I save the food costs also by not having 900 extra men. I also save on transport, shelter, armor, weapons, etc. I've given perfectly good explanations for how that gold and exp can show up, you have not explained where the gold for those wands are going to comefrom. Besides, your fielding 100 people who have on average FOUR HITPOINTS with weapons with a 110ft max range. Put them up against a spread out archer formation with longbows and they'll be cut down. Sorry, you buy items at full price. You only sell them at 1/2 price -- since it is assumed that they don't want the item and you are just dumping it. However, even giving you a glut on the market discount that's 375gp/year instead of 20gp/year. No. The soliders sell the items at half-price. STORES sell items at full price as discussed above. Besides, the government could throw in an extra 10% over half. It still less then what the stores would charge, and it convinces the troops to sell it to the government instead of the shops. No you can't. You can't reasonably justify bringing 1000 rings into existance. You want to talk about 10,000 or 25,000 rings? Beyond absurd. For that argument, I was assuming a non-RoS item that feed slightly more people per day. Like a clerical item of Summon Food and Drink. Supply and demain only applies to economies of scale. It doesn't apply to items numbering in the handfuls or dozens. Handfulls? So you think a normally equipeed 10th level adventuring party is a reasonable percentage of every mage item in whatever kingdom their in? Didn't say that. I simply said they don't last forever, and by common sense, they don't increase in overall numbers of long periods of time. Most worlds have histories of thousands of years. If in a given nation the number of permanent items grew by 1000 per year, after 2,000 years you'd have 200,000 permanent magical items. Your law of supply and demand would kick in and magic would be a near worthless commodity. Actual, barring a very concentrated effort to distroy them or contact with a rust monster, magic items DON'T naturally break over time. They have a freaking DR! And he'd have to do this hundreds of times. He either run out of gnolls, or one of those hundred times something would go wrong and he'd be killed -- a sleep arrow, a grapple, the roof caving in, etc. Not often, but given a hundred times, one of them would likely fail. XP is tied to risk. Whether you take 5 adventures with a 5% chance of death, or 50 adventures with a 0.5% chance of death, you still have a 25% chance of not making it back to 13th-level. lol......but no, seriously. Due to a slight flaw in the XP system, a wizard of a high enogh level, or a low level who has had a high level cast a few buff spells on him, can go into battle with a DR higher then a Gnoll's max damage. They'll get pittance for XP, but it's still enough. Besides, who will complain if the world runs out of gnolls. For those saying 'It's his world'... the topic and original post says "Armies in standard-D&D worlds" and "For your consideration....." I'm being true to the orginal post and considering it if feasable in a standard D&D world. IMHO, and with the arguments I've posted, it isn't. Anyone can dream up a super-high magic campaign in which armies march around with 2,500gp rings and folks can mass order thousands of copies of the same item. However, there is nothing standard about such a world. It doesn't fit the crafting rules in the books nor the level distributions and is well beyond that of anything contemplated or permitted in a standard D&D world. Except that the way you've pained it, D&D rules don't follow the laws of Supply and Demand, adventurers attract magic items like magnets in a way no one else does, wizards don't know the first thing about making money, and no spellcasters know didly-crap about odds calculation!
ManinDarkness 03-11-05, 07:27 PM	Due to a slight flaw in the XP system, a wizard of a high enogh level, or a low level who has had a high level cast a few buff spells on him, can go into battle with a DR higher then a Gnoll's max damage. They'll get pittance for XP, but it's still enough. Wouldn't it be more cost effective that said wizard deal with the enemy, instead of making magic items?
JadeFox 03-11-05, 08:06 PM	Wouldn't it be more cost effective that said wizard deal with the enemy, instead of making magic items? Yes, but for reasons discussed above, that is not always a possiblity. Or you could just do both.
Vanigo 03-11-05, 08:16 PM	The value of the mona-lisa is NOT $50million if someone is willing to pay 50million for it. It's value would be 50million if the highest bid for it is 50million. If one person bids 50, and someone else bids 100, the prices goes up. In this case, we KNOW the price (2500gp), it is a constant. And we know the demand (high). Therefore the only way for this relationship of moderate prices to high demand to make sense is if the items are limited but STILL AVAILABLE.Or, maybe, just maybe, the constant price is an abstraction? The game's designed under the assumption that you're going to deal with one adventuring party, and the demand caused by one adventuring party more or less isn't going to sway the price all that much. This doesn't mean that demanding a few thousand percent increase isn't going to affect the price. No, demand influences price. But price is a known constant that does not reflect high-demand low-availablity. Therefore availabity must be higher then you suggest.No, it reflects low demand low availability. There are only a few thousand people in the market for magic items in any given kindgom (the rest being dissuaded by the high price, much of which is production cost). And the idea that any army that can afford mages might also afford "mage slayers" didn't occur to you? If I know you have mages, I can pay a mage a lot to equal you, or I can pay a lot less for ONE seeking explosive arrow that I give to the most elite archer in my army.And the idea that if you're fighting at that level, a fifth level fighter is less than useless, making the whole argument moot? OR the wizard could be attacked by his fellow mages, overwhelmed, and deprived of his spellbook and magic items like I was trying to imply. If you think a sufficient number of 10 to 12 level mages can't overwhelm a 19th level mage who thinks their allies then you clearly don't' see the implications of the 1d4 HD.That's what contingency and teleport without error are for. If the mage's guild involves that sort of cutthroat politics, you can freaking well bet every 19th level mage is going to be ready for that sort of uprising. And before you say anything, no, that kind of attack isn't going to come out of nowhere on some ruler's say-so. It'll take years to reach the point where there's any chance of that happening. I've given perfectly good explanations for how that gold and exp can show up, you have not explained where the gold for those wands are going to comefrom.EXACTLY THE SAME PLACE! Besides, your fielding 100 people who have on average FOUR HITPOINTS with weapons with a 110ft max range. Put them up against a spread out archer formation with longbows and they'll be cut down.Actually, it's a 540 foot range. Still, an archer formation will cut them down - if they're in formation. When one of your men can bring down twenty men marching shoulder-to-shoulder, you don't really need to stay in a tight formation. Add potions of invisibility, and you're looking at a beatdown of legendary proportions. For that argument, I was assuming a non-RoS item that feed slightly more people per day. Like a clerical item of Summon Food and Drink.That's a much more reasonable suggestion. In fact, such an item exists: the everful larder (SBG) can produce an unlimited amount of food and only costs 15000 gp. It's a piece of furniture, so it's highly impractical for adventurers, but an army could easily have one of these things in a wagon or something. Handfulls? So you think a normally equipeed 10th level adventuring party is a reasonable percentage of every mage item in whatever kingdom their in?Short answer? Yes. Now, by "reasonable percentage" I mean something on the order of half a percent, but that still means there aren't a lot of permanent magic items around. Actual, barring a very concentrated effort to distroy them or contact with a rust monster, magic items DON'T naturally break over time. They have a freaking DR!Not often, but they are lost and/or hoarded. Either will effectively remove them from circulation. Due to a slight flaw in the XP system, a wizard of a high enogh level, or a low level who has had a high level cast a few buff spells on him, can go into battle with a DR higher then a Gnoll's max damage. They'll get pittance for XP, but it's still enough.Wow, so your NPCs metagame? Except that the way you've pained it, D&D rules don't follow the laws of Supply and Demand,Which they don't, when you're dealing with something as inherently unique as magic items adventurers attract magic items like magnets in a way no one else doesWhich they most definetly do wizards don't know the first thing about making money,You mean "drain away your very soul for financial gain?" and no spellcasters know didly-crap about odds calculation! And/or don't metagame.
Johnny3D3D 03-11-05, 08:27 PM	That's just the point...most smart nations won't equip a soldier with anything valuable. If they're going to issue him any equipment at all, it will probably be the cheapest weapon and armor money can buy (probably recycled equipment pundered off the battlefield to save money). Now, this is, of course, assuming we're talking about the average soldier. An officer is naturally going to have better equipment. A grunt, however, can buy his own upgraded equipment, if he so desires...but the government certainly isn't going to pay for it. To use a real-world example, when I got out of basic training for the USMC and was sent to my MOS, I was issued an M-16A2 service rifle. It was in relatively good condition, but it was certainly used. I was also issued a pass that allowed me to requisition an M-21 sharpshooter rifle, which was used by a number of soldiers in addition to myself. Now, aside from training, in which I was required to use the gear I was issued, I was free to purchase my own higher-quality firearms (so long as it was legal, that is). In the event I was sent into a combat zone somewhere, my CO wouldn't have had a problem with me buying my own Tactical .308 (a weapon I would certainly have prefered over the issued M-21), but the government certainly wasn't going to pay for it. Additionally, I was allowed to purchase spare sets of clothing, harnesses, etc, but they weren't going to give me more than one or two. They'd certainly provide a place for me to make said purchase, but they weren't going to fund my comfort. Regarding spellcasters as military assets, you can't think of the average spellcaster as a grunt soldier. Spellcasters employed in an army aren't going to be in the thick of combat. They're going to act as artillery, frying opposing formtions rather than dealing one-on-one with their opponents. It's a lot less likely that they'd be slaughtered in a battle, even one that went badly for their side. I totally agree with this, and I can vouch for this from personal experience. The military provides you with the basic issue for your job. The basic equipment gets the job done, but it's not always the best equipment. I've shelled out money for many items which weren't issued to me; this isn't something which isn't a new concept. Most conscripts would be given basic equipment. Not to sound negative, but many officers view "grunts" as expendable; as said, they are given basic equipment. Each individual soldier would be responsible for providing anything above and beyond that. History supports this because many armies throughout history were relatively poorly equiped; the exception to this were the nobles who were wealthy enough to purchase their own gear. I could see maybe a few special items being handed out to officers or to a solider as a reward for some great deed, but definately not on a whim or to everyone. More wealthy nations may have better standard/basic equipment, but there still will be a basic set of equipment which is issued. As for higher level troops being only 10th level fighters or whatnot, I'd imagine that a few of them have levels in the Marshal class. It's also important to realize that conscripts are probably peasants or commoners, and they should therefore have levels of the NPC commoner class as well as their NPC warrior class. I know that the Commoner class isn't very tactical nor does it really help in combat, but it would raise the overall level of the conscript and they'd have more hit dice than simply a lvl 1 Warrior. It's also important to realize that most armies will have some form of training, and I'd imagine training would give some kind of experience reward.
JadeFox 03-11-05, 08:29 PM	Or, maybe, just maybe, the constant price is an abstraction? The game's designed under the assumption that you're going to deal with one adventuring party, and the demand caused by one adventuring party more or less isn't going to sway the price all that much. This doesn't mean that demanding a few thousand percent increase isn't going to affect the price. Irrelevent. We allready know that the demand for such an item is high. No, it reflects low demand low availability. There are only a few thousand people in the market for magic items in any given kindgom (the rest being dissuaded by the high price, much of which is production cost). Half of which is production cost. And a few thousand is a lot of people. And the idea that if you're fighting at that level, a fifth level fighter is less than useless, making the whole argument moot? Um......what? I'm talking about elite units canceling eachother out, and thus being irrelevent. The main battle is still critical. That's what contingency and teleport without error are for. If the mage's guild involves that sort of cutthroat politics, you can freaking well bet every 19th level mage is going to be ready for that sort of uprising. And before you say anything, no, that kind of attack isn't going to come out of nowhere on some ruler's say-so. It'll take years to reach the point where there's any chance of that happening. And? I didn't put a time limit on how long it would take to fully implment this plan. I figured a decade at the very least. EXACTLY THE SAME PLACE! No, his would come out of a new treasury. Mine would come out of docking the soliders pay. If he docked the troops pay his way, he would have to explain to them why their gold is going to buy the mages guild nice things. Actually, it's a 540 foot range. Still, an archer formation will cut them down - if they're in formation. When one of your men can bring down twenty men marching shoulder-to-shoulder, you don't really need to stay in a tight formation. Add potions of invisibility, and you're looking at a beatdown of legendary proportions. Except that the invisiblity ends as soon as the spell is used. And if you spread the archers out in a 15ft grid the fireballs are just really expensive arrows. That's a much more reasonable suggestion. In fact, such an item exists: the everful larder (SBG) can produce an unlimited amount of food and only costs 15000 gp. It's a piece of furniture, so it's highly impractical for adventurers, but an army could easily have one of these things in a wagon or something. No dispute. Wow, so your NPCs metagame? Which they most definetly do And/or don't metagame. No, yes, and no. In my world wizard guilds have aseembled a very nice table called. "What weapons can and can't hurt you when your under the effect of Stoneskin." it's handy.
JadeFox 03-11-05, 08:30 PM	I totally agree with this, and I can vouch for this from personal experience. The military provides you with the basic issue for your job. The basic equipment gets the job done, but it's not always the best equipment. I've shelled out money for many items which weren't issued to me; this isn't something which isn't a new concept. Most conscripts would be given basic equipment. Not to sound negative, but many officers view "grunts" as expendable; as said, they are given basic equipment. Each individual soldier would be responsible for providing anything above and beyond that. History supports this because many armies throughout history were relatively poorly equiped; the exception to this were the nobles who were wealthy enough to purchase their own gear. I could see maybe a few special items being handed out to officers or to a solider as a reward for some great deed, but definately not on a whim or to everyone. More wealthy nations may have better standard/basic equipment, but there still will be a basic set of equipment which is issued. As for higher level troops being only 10th level fighters or whatnot, I'd imagine that a few of them have levels in the Marshal class. It's also important to realize that conscripts are probably peasants or commoners, and they should therefore have levels of the NPC commoner class as well as their NPC warrior class. I know that the Commoner class isn't very tactical nor does it really help in combat, but it would raise the overall level of the conscript and they'd have more hit dice than simply a lvl 1 Warrior. Not disputed. See my above comments about it being optional and about this being for vetrans.
Johnny3D3D 03-11-05, 08:42 PM	I agree with you Jade, and, once again, I can vouch for this from personal experience. I'm in the military, but I wasn't born a soldier. I do have the training, but I also have the knowledge of things I've learned from civilian life. This example may be totally abstract, but to further prove the point that we seem to be agreeing on, my class levels if I were a D&D character would look something like this. Commoner 8/Expert [communication] 4/Warrior 10 I wouldn't simply just go from being born to Warrior 10. Again, the commoner class may not help very much at all, but, at the very least, it would give a few more hit dice. I also mentioned that many of the higher level Warriors/Fighters would probably have class levels in Marshal from the Miniatures Handbook. Many militaries would also have some sort of bard because many commands are given with different drum beats or tunes. Even today there are cadences for marching.
Vanigo 03-11-05, 10:54 PM	You think you're 22nd level? JadeFox, the metagaming is not knowing what can and can't hurt you while you're stoneskinned; that's perfectly reasonable. The metagaming is knowing that killing stuff gets you experience points, and making magic items spends experience points. It's not entirely outside the realm of belivability, but it's really close. Knowing that gnolls are just strong enough to give you experience points definetly is. The wands could be paid for out of the mage-soldiers' pay. These first level wizards aren't really part of the mage's guild, they're part of the army, remember? Now, they are expendable, but it's really kind of a once-every-fifteen-years kind of thing, so it's not that big a deal. Further funding can be drawn from the money that you're not paying the 900 other soldiers that you didn't hire. The invisibilty wears off, but by then it's too late. An conventional force will be wiped out within two or three rounds of the first fireballs going off. You could spread your archers way out, but fifteen feet won't do it. Fireball has a 20-foot radius, so they'd need to be at least forty feet apart - and that would make manuvers unwieldly, to say the least - not to mention trying to shout commands across a quarter-mile of troops! For hand-to-hand troops, it's even worse. As for the ninteenth level wizard, if it takes ten years to implement the "kill him" plan, he's got plenty of time to prepare. He's going to notice the less-friendly atmosphere, you know, seeing as how he's a super-genious and all. And he's not exactly going to be a passive player in the cutthroat politics, either; he's going to get his own allies and such. A ruler would have a really hard time gaining enough influence in such a situation to pull off a successful attack on the most powerful member. The only way it would be realistically possible to do would be if the wizard was more than a bit antisocial - in which case he'd simply leave when things got too unfriendly; after all, what kind of idiot stays in a situation like that when they have no desire to play the game?
Johnny3D3D 03-11-05, 11:15 PM	You think you're 22nd level? I'm not sure what level I'd be, but I figured I'd have quite a few levels of warrior considering my military experiences. I'm not very old, but I've had many experiences.
JadeFox 03-11-05, 11:16 PM	First, with the 19th level mage, that's moot. Mages can't de-level to make magic items. I didn't say 15ft, I said 25ft. And yes, that would make formations a bit unwiedly. But that's a small price to pay for items that, unlike yours, won't run out of charges and wont' get mages killed.
Vanigo 03-12-05, 12:06 AM	First, with the 19th level mage, that's moot. Mages can't de-level to make magic items.I know, but you're the one who brought it up. I didn't say 15ft, I said 25ft. And yes, that would make formations a bit unwiedly. But that's a small price to pay for items that, unlike yours, won't run out of charges and wont' get mages killed. Sorry, 25 feet, then. But that's still not far enough to keep a fireball from hitting multiple people. Just center it between them. If they're in a grid, you can hit four guys per fireball if you plant it just right.
JadeFox 03-12-05, 12:30 AM	I know, but you're the one who brought it up. Sorry, 25 feet, then. But that's still not far enough to keep a fireball from hitting multiple people. Just center it between them. If they're in a grid, you can hit four guys per fireball if you plant it just right. Hmmm. True. So in a perfectly ideal set up, each one of your mages manages to take out four normal troopers before being subject to pincushion treatment. A nice ratio, very effective i'll grant, but you still loose a lot of mages.
janusthinker 03-12-05, 02:13 AM	750gp per person per year ($15,000 dollar equlivent) is entirly reasonable for a carrear solider. That isn't actually true, given the D&D economic standard of a laborer earning what is basically minimum wage at 1 sp per day-about $41.20. A D&D minimum-wage worker earns 36 gp, 5 sp per year to the real-world example's $9888.00. (not counting taxes and all that, of course) Paying a soldier 750 gp per year is thusly equivalent to paying him $203,178.07 per year. Good lord, that was some math geekness....
weasel fierce 03-12-05, 02:15 AM	If you are using anything resembling historical reality, then most, if not all, of a soldiers pay comes from loot. If you are not, then all bets are off, of course, and you can do it whatever way you want in your game.
Vanigo 03-12-05, 01:39 PM	That isn't actually true, given the D&D economic standard of a laborer earning what is basically minimum wage at 1 sp per day-about $41.20. A D&D minimum-wage worker earns 36 gp, 5 sp per year to the real-world example's $9888.00. (not counting taxes and all that, of course) Paying a soldier 750 gp per year is thusly equivalent to paying him $203,178.07 per year. Good lord, that was some math geekness....Actually, a minimum wage worker today is far far better off than a medieval laborer. If you look at it that way, 36.5 gp is probably more like $3,000 a year, tops. JadeFox, that's if every archer fires the moment a target appears. An organized response to 40% of your force being blown apart in seconds is all but impossible, especially when your troops are too far apart for easy communication. The wizards should have at least a round or two before more than a handful of archers start firing back. Of course, you could just order your archers to kill anything that moves besides friendly troops, but it wouldn't be a good idea. The friendly fire casualties would be... exorbitant, especially at night.
JadeFox 03-12-05, 02:29 PM	If you are using anything resembling historical reality, then most, if not all, of a soldiers pay comes from loot. If you are not, then all bets are off, of course, and you can do it whatever way you want in your game. The greek Phaylanx and midevil hordes paid their soliders out of loot. The Romand Legoions as well as more modern armies earned a steady wage.
weasel fierce 03-12-05, 02:29 PM	A typical archer wont carry more than 30-40 arrows in a medieval setting. Even the vaunted english longbowmen didnt carry a large amount of ammunition.
JadeFox 03-12-05, 02:31 PM	That isn't actually true, given the D&D economic standard of a laborer earning what is basically minimum wage at 1 sp per day-about $41.20. A D&D minimum-wage worker earns 36 gp, 5 sp per year to the real-world example's $9888.00. (not counting taxes and all that, of course) Paying a soldier 750 gp per year is thusly equivalent to paying him $203,178.07 per year. Good lord, that was some math geekness.... That makes the assumption that the subistance wage in the D&D world is the same as minimum wage IRL. Going by the value of gold, i've found that 1gp==$20 is a good rule of thumb.
JadeFox 03-12-05, 02:32 PM	Actually, a minimum wage worker today is far far better off than a medieval laborer. If you look at it that way, 36.5 gp is probably more like $3,000 a year, tops. JadeFox, that's if every archer fires the moment a target appears. An organized response to 40% of your force being blown apart in seconds is all but impossible, especially when your troops are too far apart for easy communication. The wizards should have at least a round or two before more than a handful of archers start firing back. Of course, you could just order your archers to kill anything that moves besides friendly troops, but it wouldn't be a good idea. The friendly fire casualties would be... exorbitant, especially at night. Point conceded. However, that scenario assumes open field combat. In a situation where fireball'ers can't get a perfect firing solution, or where "my" side would have 1 mage with See Invisilbity and Glitterdust to foil your strategy, you would get slaughtered and all those disposable items would fall into an opponents hands.
Vanigo 03-12-05, 04:32 PM	Point conceded. However, that scenario assumes open field combat. In a situation where fireball'ers can't get a perfect firing solution, or where "my" side would have 1 mage with See Invisilbity and Glitterdust to foil your strategy, you would get slaughtered and all those disposable items would fall into an opponents hands. If it's not open field combat, then you have to pack your archers in tighter, making them that much easier to kill. As for a mage with see invisibility and glitterdust, who said the wizards were in a tight formation? In point of fact, the wizards must be scattered if they're going to reach all your archers. A glitterdust may reveal and thus doom one or two wizards, but so what? And how many glitterdusts do you expect one wizard to have? Plus, glitterdust has a much shorter range than fireball anyway. Really, there are two scenarios where one side has a force of wizards with wands of fireball to consider. If the enemy doesn't know about them, they get annihilated. If the enemy does know about them and takes precautions accordingly, i.e. spreads out their troops, among other things, their total lack of formation and inability to concentrate force means that they'll get torn apart by a conventional force with a fifth their numbers.
weasel fierce 03-12-05, 04:39 PM	A wand of fireball is little different from modern field artillery, save its lack of range and destructive capability. If you insist on running an extremely high magic game, look to modern warfare, as that is going to be more representative of the tactics employed. Alternatively, if such methods of mass destruction exists, and are commonly available, why would mass armies even exist ? Of course, there;s always dispel magic ;)
Johnny3D3D 03-12-05, 04:45 PM	If it's not open field combat, then you have to pack your archers in tighter, making them that much easier to kill. As for a mage with see invisibility and glitterdust, who said the wizards were in a tight formation? In point of fact, the wizards must be scattered if they're going to reach all your archers. A glitterdust may reveal and thus doom one or two wizards, but so what? And how many glitterdusts do you expect one wizard to have? Plus, glitterdust has a much shorter range than fireball anyway. Really, there are two scenarios where one side has a force of wizards with wands of fireball to consider. If the enemy doesn't know about them, they get annihilated. If the enemy does know about them and takes precautions accordingly, i.e. spreads out their troops, among other things, their total lack of formation and inability to concentrate force means that they'll get torn apart by a conventional force with a fifth their numbers. Maybe it's just me, but I find it hard to believe one company of troops would have that many wizards or casters; if so, I'd consider them to be some sort of special forces unit, and, as such, I'd imagine the other side would develope a special unit of their own to deal with them. I know it seems silly to give realistic thought to a fantasy world, but most campaign worlds I live in don't have that many mages. I also recall one of you saying something about how the need for many magical items would cause the price to change, and it does; there are guidelines in the Arms and Equipment Guide for how the prices would be altered, and this is to be used in conjunction with the information in the Dungeon Master's Guide. You also seem to be thinking as though the whole army would march in one massive formation and move as a whole; this is not true; this is why there are concepts such as brigades, companies, platoons, and squads. The army as a whole will have an overall mission, but each group will also have a specific part of the mission they are responsible for. There may be one platoon which is specifically instructed and trained on how to deal with wizards; I'd feel this would be realistic after they saw how often fireballs were a part of the enemy's tactics. The other groups would also have different tasks such as being the main melee force, being a meatshield for the archer platoon, suicide bombers, cavalry, and many others. They don't just all stand together and change formations together.
The Wasp 03-12-05, 06:02 PM	Jade Fox, you are seriously neglecting the effect of inflation and restricted supply Magic items are luxury goods. They are about on the same order of +1 full plate armor. In other words - something special. They are not in ready circulation - people who already have them are probably inclined to keep them. They probably paid 2500 gp for them, so are inclined to keep them unless paid more. To illustrate the effects, you just need to go back to econ 101: supply and demand curves. In this example, the demand curve moves greatly because of the new orders put in by the government. The supply curve does not move, because rings of sustenance are getting no easier to produce. the result is that both the quantity and price of RoS rises. I guess the important thing to ask is, how many of these do you want? If you really want the logistical benefits of not having to supply your troops, you have to give this to everybody, not just the career soldiers of 3rd +. Remember, an army is only as fast as its slowest member. I'd say, for a nation with 1-2 million inhabitants, getting about a hundred is doable without overly affecting the price. Five hundred is probably heavily inflationary. More than one or two thousand will certainly require going outside the country, which probably means large tariffs, more inflation (after all, what country is going to sell an aggressive nation an tiem it wants to use for war?). The only way to get around this is if you have good connections among the mercane, who can hook you up with a crossplanar market. in otherwords, equipping a central, standing army of 10 000 with RoS is impossible, and would bankrupt your kingdom. there's a reason most armies in history didn't actively equip their soldiers with topline equipment - it's just too expensive. even the Romans didn't do it until they had already conquered half the Mediteranean. heck, the European nation states didn't really start instituting uniforms until the 17th century. giving it to an elite force of about one hundred might be doable, however. these guys could sneak deep into enemy lines, operate in a desert, always be alert, and act independently from the rest of the army. I'd say, in order to be economically viable, these people should be at least 5th / 6th level PC class types.
Vanigo 03-12-05, 06:08 PM	Maybe it's just me, but I find it hard to believe one company of troops would have that many wizards or casters; if so, I'd consider them to be some sort of special forces unit, and, as such, I'd imagine the other side would develope a special unit of their own to deal with them. I know it seems silly to give realistic thought to a fantasy world, but most campaign worlds I live in don't have that many mages. I also recall one of you saying something about how the need for many magical items would cause the price to change, and it does; there are guidelines in the Arms and Equipment Guide for how the prices would be altered, and this is to be used in conjunction with the information in the Dungeon Master's Guide.I agree entirely. The whole "100 wizards with wands of fireball" is just an example of something better to do with the enormous magical resources you must have if you're capable of supplying a ring of sustenance for every soldier in your army (or even just your elite soldiers). You also seem to be thinking as though the whole army would march in one massive formation and move as a whole; this is not true; this is why there are concepts such as brigades, companies, platoons, and squads. The army as a whole will have an overall mission, but each group will also have a specific part of the mission they are responsible for. There may be one platoon which is specifically instructed and trained on how to deal with wizards; I'd feel this would be realistic after they saw how often fireballs were a part of the enemy's tactics. The other groups would also have different tasks such as being the main melee force, being a meatshield for the archer platoon, suicide bombers, cavalry, and many others. They don't just all stand together and change formations together.True, but in medieval warfare the best armies were the ones with tightly regimented units in close formation. These units would manuver around each other, but individual units would march in one formation and move as a whole. You wouldn't use the wizards as one giant unit, either; you'd split them up and send three or four against each unit.
weasel fierce 03-12-05, 06:18 PM	Most late medieval armies formed their forces into three "battles" (later to become the Battalion). Larger forces simply increased the battalions, rather than form additional ones. There'd be skirmish screens and propably a cavalry reserve as well, but skirmishers are generally not units in themselves, but would fall back unto the main bodies. Once orders are given, and a battle is underway, the commanders control over the force is virtually 0 %. Having numerous loose units leads to those units becoming stragglers, or simply not contributing to the battle. Its not untill the advent of specific unit based tactics (mid to late world war 1) and modern communications that smaller forces are viable on a battlefield.
True Cavalier 03-12-05, 06:47 PM	Myrlund's spoons, cheaper, and easier to come by. Though I am running a low-magic world and having entire armies relying on minor magical items totally ruins the epic feeling.
FriendoftheDork 03-12-05, 09:00 PM	I don't think it's right to assume that D&D prices are based on any realistic economical laws of supply and demand. D&D rules are made mainly to balance adventuring parties. Armies in D&D can be the old fashion disorganized low magic version that suits medieval and renaissance armies, or modern style with magic instead of technology. I basically use a combination in my FR game. In my game the Cormyrean "Purple Dragons" are extremely well-trained professional soldiers. In addition to training alot of them see combat and some get quite high level. Theres' even a sizable unit of monster hunters where everyone are 5th lvl and higher! In addition they have a independent branch called War Wizards that helps out alot in battles. They use alot of light infantry and light cavalry as scouts and skirmishers, and save the heavier type of soldiers for holding lines/breaking lines. All purple dragon officers of certain ranks receives some magic items, but this has as much a ceremonious function as a practical one, but not rings of sustenance or similar. I still don't think it's cost effective or even possible to equip a sizable force (1000+) with rings of sustenance, but even if it were possible, I doubt they would come up with such an idea at all. Despite actually having organized militairy wizards, they are usually reserved for magical threats and problems, and monsters that the troopers can't handle. Dead soldiers can be replaced, while recruiting new wizards takes alot more time. Even if one 5th mage with a fireball kills 50 enemies can be nice, losing that mage might not be worth the trade. Also, even if game mechanics are very much calculable, magic is mystical and not an exact science. Making it available for everyone and it's not really magic anymore, but technology. Ok, I can't really put it in the right words, but mass-producing magic items just feels wrong.
deadDMwalking 03-12-05, 10:40 PM	Hmmm. True. So in a perfectly ideal set up, each one of your mages manages to take out four normal troopers before being subject to pincushion treatment. A nice ratio, very effective i'll grant, but you still loose a lot of mages. The cost of equipping even a small force with a ring of sustenance is prohibitively expensive. Most wizards capable of producing such items would have little interest in doing so. The actual number capable of doing so is very limited. You indicate that they would opt to create rings to pay for their research. Yet, they must spend many days actually creating the rings, and many MANY more days earning back the XP to do it again. Any wizard capable of doing this is simply going to teleport away from the Kingdom. They'll probably create a Mageocracy somewhere, and the kingdom is going to be in a lot of trouble when the wizards get aggressive (unless they have a lot of clerics..... but then you're probably going to have theocracy and the king is gone anyway)..... With the amount of money used to equip 100 soldiers with rings of sustenance you should easily be able to hire 100 1st level wizards, each equipped with a potion of invisibility (1 minute duration), scroll of protection from arrows, and a wand. Fireball (5th level) or Magic Missile (5th level caster) might all be good choices. In any case, the side that spent the same amount of resources on rings of sustenance will be OBLITERATED. The side that instead spent the money on directly improving their combat effectiveness will win the encounter. The spoils of war will also reimburse the government for their expenses. Now, they'll probably have to hire a standing army, but it can be relatively small. When trouble rears its head, they simply enlist the aid of their wizards, and they've probably had a few years to stockpile 100 potions of invisibility and scrolls of protection from arrows.... And they still have 45-49 charges on each wand......
JadeFox 03-12-05, 11:00 PM	Jade Fox, you are seriously neglecting the effect of inflation and restricted supply Magic items are luxury goods. They are about on the same order of +1 full plate armor. In other words - something special. They are not in ready circulation - people who already have them are probably inclined to keep them. They probably paid 2500 gp for them, so are inclined to keep them unless paid more. To illustrate the effects, you just need to go back to econ 101: supply and demand curves. In this example, the demand curve moves greatly because of the new orders put in by the government. The supply curve does not move, because rings of sustenance are getting no easier to produce. the result is that both the quantity and price of RoS rises. Unless, as indicated at the end, you take steps to promote wizardry which not only increases the supply to offset the prices increase but gives you more wizards to draw on for elite divisons. giving it to an elite force of about one hundred might be doable, however. these guys could sneak deep into enemy lines, operate in a desert, always be alert, and act independently from the rest of the army. I'd say, in order to be economically viable, these people should be at least 5th / 6th level PC class types. For the FOURTH time this thread, I was assuming that. I agree entirely. The whole "100 wizards with wands of fireball" is just an example of something better to do with the enormous magical resources you must have if you're capable of supplying a ring of sustenance for every soldier in your army (or even just your elite soldiers). Yes, and I admit that is an effective way to use the money. But the RoS idea wasn't meant to increase an army's raw strength on the battlefield, it was meant to incrase it's tactical flexibility. Besides, if it's not "open field combat" the fact that the archers will be in tighter formations dosn't matter because you won't have a clear shot. rue, but in medieval warfare the best armies were the ones with tightly regimented units in close formation. These units would manuver around each other, but individual units would march in one formation and move as a whole. You wouldn't use the wizards as one giant unit, either; you'd split them up and send three or four against each unit. Again, your assuming midevil/fudal tactics. Myrlund's spoons, cheaper, and easier to come by. Though I am running a low-magic world and having entire armies relying on minor magical items totally ruins the epic feeling. Yes, I like low magic worlds too, please note that I said STANDARD magic levels. The cost of equipping even a small force with a ring of sustenance is prohibitively expensive. Most wizards capable of producing such items would have little interest in doing so. The actual number capable of doing so is very limited. You indicate that they would opt to create rings to pay for their research. Yet, they must spend many days actually creating the rings, and many MANY more days earning back the XP to do it again. Any wizard capable of doing this is simply going to teleport away from the Kingdom. They'll probably create a Mageocracy somewhere, and the kingdom is going to be in a lot of trouble when the wizards get aggressive (unless they have a lot of clerics..... but then you're probably going to have theocracy and the king is gone anyway)..... With the amount of money used to equip 100 soldiers with rings of sustenance you should easily be able to hire 100 1st level wizards, each equipped with a potion of invisibility (1 minute duration), scroll of protection from arrows, and a wand. Fireball (5th level) or Magic Missile (5th level caster) might all be good choices. In any case, the side that spent the same amount of resources on rings of sustenance will be OBLITERATED. The side that instead spent the money on directly improving their combat effectiveness will win the encounter. The spoils of war will also reimburse the government for their expenses. Now, they'll probably have to hire a standing army, but it can be relatively small. When trouble rears its head, they simply enlist the aid of their wizards, and they've probably had a few years to stockpile 100 potions of invisibility and scrolls of protection from arrows.... And they still have 45-49 charges on each wand...... I allready conceded the point, thank you. I grant that in a midevil/fudal setting where tactical flexiblity is not existant and armies just fight by clashing into eachother that the fireballs are more effective.
deadDMwalking 03-13-05, 11:14 AM	I'm sorry, JadeFox. I have some trouble understanding exactly what you have conceded to and what you have not. Some of your replies to quotes have not been entirely clear to which points you were conceding. Now, your original question is about what an army with access to magic might do differently than historical counterparts. Rather than provide expensive wondrous items, I think the following would likely happen. 1) Units will include PC classes. Fighters might seem like a natural choice, but clerics may be as common. Historical (literary) examples include Bishop Turin (iirc) from "The Song of Roland". Besides leadership, such PC classes could provide support. 2) In the early twentieth century, casualties (injuries) sustained in war were as likely to result in death as recovery. Wands of cure minor wounds would be an inexpensive way to make sure your fallen soldiers returned home for recovery. Providing each soldier a potion of cure light wounds could effectively double their combat stamina (instead of 1 hit, they could survive 2). 3) While increasing mobility is important, the most effective troops would probably be mounted. The base speed of 50' per round for horses exceeds the speed of 30' (or 20' for medium or heavy armored) for most infantry. While horses may not travel any faster over long distances, it would certainly provide a tactical mobility beyond what well-rested and well-fed personnel might benefit from. 4) In a low-technology world, the importance of keeping troops in tight formation has everything to do with the chain of command. If you cannot hear the voice of your commander, you're fighting alone. A key principle of war is "mass", applying the most effective amount of force to each objective. Without communication, that becomes possible. Considering then, that the forces are likely to be in tight formations, one side will likely attempt to utilize area-of-effect spells. This may eventually fall out of favor among civilized countries. The use of dedicated wizards with each unit who have focused on counter-spelling will greatly aid in their survival. 5) Formations work most effectively when they are "solid". That is, the enemy is on the outside, and only friendly units are on the inside. Anything that creates a threat in this "safe" area can disrupt the organized response of units. Summon monster spells are particularly effective at this, since even though they will be destroyed, they may cause confusion and disrupt response times. The fact that they are truly expendable also encourages this tactic. 6) The law of engagement applies. If two forces can force a hand-to-hand engagement, most of these other concerns disappear. The Romans were known as a defensive army which gave them a definite advantage when fighting lower technology forces. However, against mobile, magical-savvy opponents, the Romans would have been cut apart in their fortifications. This impetus to engage will result in more battles being an exchange or two of volleys of fire, then direct engagement. 7) With the need to engage, uniforms or other distinguishing marks will become important. Spells like "prestidigitation" can change the color of an object, allowing uniform colors "on-the-fly". 8) The most effective magical items for any unit will be a bag of holding. Logistics can become strained. Bags of holding (in sufficient quantities) allow the supply of your forces for far longer than if they were only capable of bringing what they could carry. These would also allow them to move beyond the range wagons for short periods of time. Likewise, if you could provide both light and heavy armor to your forces, you could move rapidly (30') at the march, then switch to heavy armor at the field of battle. I hope some of those help.
Nytmare 03-13-05, 12:20 PM	I think the concept of a high magic society who focussed it's entire populous to the craft of magic ring making is actually kinda funny... Some small pocket civilization of crazed, forward thinking, industrious dwarves who push for a bunch of magic rings. Eventually they reach the point where they needed more material, and no one is actually buying food anymore, so they pull all of the farmers out of their fields and cooks out of their kitchens and hand them picks. Years down the line after all of the farm land has been stripped away, and the tilling of fields and cooking of soups is a lost ancient art, the actual ring maker gets sick of it all, maybe he decides that he wants a nice cheeseburger, so he goes away. Now the society is left mageless, and foodless. The ecosystem's population is kept in check entirely by the number of rings. Deaths are joyous and celebrated events because it allows for the rings to be passed on and the youngest generations to procreate. The rings become personified, they are treated as though they are living breathing members of the family, their histories and the individuals who have worn them are marked down in books, songs are sung about the hands they have been worn on. The loss or destruction of a ring becomes the highest of crimes. A young dwarf, by no fault of his own, loses his ring hand in an accident and is summarily executed and villanized. The old women spit on the ground and curse his name on the anniversary of his death. And then: it begins. The first of the rings to be made "Gawremorth" (Dwarvish for My Belly Is Full) begins to show signs of tarnish. A tarnish that can not be scraped or cleaned away. In time the entire ring becomes dark as it is consumed by the shadowy blemish and then ceases to function. The second and third rings show the all too familiar markings next and then it spreads like a plague. The end times are upon us. Enter our heroes, 4 of the youngest Dwarves of the community, each of them armed with one of the, as of yet untouched rings. Their quest? To go out into the world along the old tunnels and down out of the mountains to find either a knowledgable sage to stem the destruction or create new rings, or failing that, to pick up at least 25 ranks between them of Profession: farming and/or cooking.
Thanatos02 03-13-05, 12:40 PM	You know, it seems to me that we're thinking of wizards of one of two things - ring-makers or artillery. Arn't we ignoring the uses of Divination, which places a Wizard off the front lines, but directly assists troops? Divination and communication spells used properly would allow one force to beat another so bad, they might just give up. Communication and foresight is just that important. Also, Illusion seems like a good bet. Conjuration? What about Druids and Clerics?
JadeFox 03-13-05, 12:50 PM	4) In a low-technology world, the importance of keeping troops in tight formation has everything to do with the chain of command. If you cannot hear the voice of your commander, you're fighting alone. A key principle of war is "mass", applying the most effective amount of force to each objective. Without communication, that becomes possible. Considering then, that the forces are likely to be in tight formations, one side will likely attempt to utilize area-of-effect spells. This may eventually fall out of favor among civilized countries. The use of dedicated wizards with each unit who have focused on counter-spelling will greatly aid in their survival. Not nessicarly. It woudln't be as flexible, but units could go into battle with pre-planned tactics. 6) The law of engagement applies. If two forces can force a hand-to-hand engagement, most of these other concerns disappear. The Romans were known as a defensive army which gave them a definite advantage when fighting lower technology forces. However, against mobile, magical-savvy opponents, the Romans would have been cut apart in their fortifications. This impetus to engage will result in more battles being an exchange or two of volleys of fire, then direct engagement. I'm sorry....what put you under the impression that the Roman army was defensive? They conquered all of northern africa, Spain, Gaul, half of england, and huge parts of the mid-east. 8) The most effective magical items for any unit will be a bag of holding. Logistics can become strained. Bags of holding (in sufficient quantities) allow the supply of your forces for far longer than if they were only capable of bringing what they could carry. These would also allow them to move beyond the range wagons for short periods of time. Likewise, if you could provide both light and heavy armor to your forces, you could move rapidly (30') at the march, then switch to heavy armor at the field of battle. Granted. I think the concept of a high magic society who focussed it's entire populous to the craft of magic ring making is actually kinda funny... Some small pocket civilization of crazed, forward thinking, industrious dwarves who push for a bunch of magic rings. Eventually they reach the point where they needed more material, and no one is actually buying food anymore, so they pull all of the farmers out of their fields and cooks out of their kitchens and hand them picks. Years down the line after all of the farm land has been stripped away, and the tilling of fields and cooking of soups is a lost ancient art, the actual ring maker gets sick of it all, maybe he decides that he wants a nice cheeseburger, so he goes away. Now the society is left mageless, and foodless. The ecosystem's population is kept in check entirely by the number of rings. Deaths are joyous and celebrated events because it allows for the rings to be passed on and the youngest generations to procreate. The rings become personified, they are treated as though they are living breathing members of the family, their histories and the individuals who have worn them are marked down in books, songs are sung about the hands they have been worn on. The loss or destruction of a ring becomes the highest of crimes. A young dwarf, by no fault of his own, loses his ring hand in an accident and is summarily executed and villanized. The old women spit on the ground and curse his name on the anniversary of his death. And then: it begins. The first of the rings to be made "Gawremorth" (Dwarvish for My Belly Is Full) begins to show signs of tarnish. A tarnish that can not be scraped or cleaned away. In time the entire ring becomes dark as it is consumed by the shadowy blemish and then ceases to function. The second and third rings show the all too familiar markings next and then it spreads like a plague. The end times are upon us. Enter our heroes, 4 of the youngest Dwarves of the community, each of them armed with one of the, as of yet untouched rings. Their quest? To go out into the world along the old tunnels and down out of the mountains to find either a knowledgable sage to stem the destruction or create new rings, or failing that, to pick up at least 25 ranks between them of Profession: farming and/or cooking. ROFLMAO! X_X
fdnickerson 03-13-05, 01:38 PM	I'm sorry....what put you under the impression that the Roman army was defensive? They conquered all of northern africa, Spain, Gaul, half of england, and huge parts of the mid-east. JadeFox, I don't mean to jump into the middle of a converstion, but you appear to misunderstand deadDMwalking. He was taking about the Romans being defensive on the tactical level. Your reply show you were thinking on the strategic level. It's perfectly possible for an army to be tactically defensive yet strategically offensive. Now for my opinion about the item creation. Since your campaign is apparently set in a more advanced or at least more monolithic world, I wouldn't use the standard D&D item crafing process (1 wizard creates 1 item at a time). I would use a variant process, perhaps the one from UA, that allows people to pool their resources to create items. Think magical sweatshops. Of course, That's just my opinion.
deadDMwalking 03-13-05, 02:08 PM	Not nessicarly. It woudln't be as flexible, but units could go into battle with pre-planned tactics. Actually, no. If you're talking about a collection of numbers that respond to the will of the DM (or a computer) then this is fine. Real people will not fully engage an enemy on their own initiative. They prefer to survive. At each point they'll have to indicate if the risk assessment indicates that they should attack (indendently) or hide or surrender. I'm sorry....what put you under the impression that the Roman army was defensive? They conquered all of northern africa, Spain, Gaul, half of england, and huge parts of the mid-east. Strategically, the Romans may have been an offensive army for much of their history. Tactically, they fought defensively for the most part. Roman soldiers carried far more equipment that other "armies" of the time, including tools for building earthworks. It was standard practice for Roman armies to "dig in" every night. They would build fortifications as they moved around. Although you could do research to indicate their preference for defensive conflict, you can also watch movies to get a sense of this. The initial battle in Gladiator helps to reveal this predilection. The movie "Druids" deals with Ceasar in Celtic lands. Roman history is long, but although they expanded, they tried to fight defensively. Of course, there are exceptions. The general trend however, remains. Tactics are what this conversation is about, not strategy.
Vanigo 03-13-05, 02:15 PM	Unless, as indicated at the end, you take steps to promote wizardry which not only increases the supply to offset the prices increase but gives you more wizards to draw on for elite divisons.Please. Even in Faerun 12th level wizards don't grow on trees. These steps to promote wizardry might get you more wizards in the 5-10 range, but you won't get many more who can make rings. Yes, and I admit that is an effective way to use the money. But the RoS idea wasn't meant to increase an army's raw strength on the battlefield, it was meant to incrase it's tactical flexibility. Besides, if it's not "open field combat" the fact that the archers will be in tighter formations dosn't matter because you won't have a clear shot.How exactly could the terrain be set up so that the archers have a clear shot and the wizards don't? No matter how you swing it, there's going to be somewhere the wizards can fire from - unless you have the archers surrounded on all sides by impassable mountains or something, I suppose, but that's silly. Again, your assuming midevil/fudal tactics.So are you, when you talk about people equipped with no magic but a ring of sustanance like they'll do any good.
JadeFox 03-13-05, 04:08 PM	JadeFox, I don't mean to jump into the middle of a converstion, but you appear to misunderstand deadDMwalking. He was taking about the Romans being defensive on the tactical level. Your reply show you were thinking on the strategic level. It's perfectly possible for an army to be tactically defensive yet strategically offensive. Now for my opinion about the item creation. Since your campaign is apparently set in a more advanced or at least more monolithic world, I wouldn't use the standard D&D item crafing process (1 wizard creates 1 item at a time). I would use a variant process, perhaps the one from UA, that allows people to pool their resources to create items. Think magical sweatshops. Of course, That's just my opinion. Actually in my world I have some feats to that effect, although I didn't think it was important. And thanks for pointing out my misunderstanding.
JadeFox 03-13-05, 04:11 PM	Actually, no. If you're talking about a collection of numbers that respond to the will of the DM (or a computer) then this is fine. Real people will not fully engage an enemy on their own initiative. They prefer to survive. At each point they'll have to indicate if the risk assessment indicates that they should attack (indendently) or hide or surrender. Um......I don't follow. Armies use corrdinated attacks all the time. And fleeing a battle because you don't want to get killed is called Defecting. You can get hung for it. Strategically, the Romans may have been an offensive army for much of their history. Tactically, they fought defensively for the most part. Roman soldiers carried far more equipment that other "armies" of the time, including tools for building earthworks. It was standard practice for Roman armies to "dig in" every night. They would build fortifications as they moved around. Although you could do research to indicate their preference for defensive conflict, you can also watch movies to get a sense of this. The initial battle in Gladiator helps to reveal this predilection. The movie "Druids" deals with Ceasar in Celtic lands. Roman history is long, but although they expanded, they tried to fight defensively. Of course, there are exceptions. The general trend however, remains. Tactics are what this conversation is about, not strategy. Right, sorry for the misunderstanding. Quote: Originally Posted by JadeFox Unless, as indicated at the end, you take steps to promote wizardry which not only increases the supply to offset the prices increase but gives you more wizards to draw on for elite divisons. Please. Even in Faerun 12th level wizards don't grow on trees. These steps to promote wizardry might get you more wizards in the 5-10 range, but you won't get many more who can make rings. Quote: Yes, and I admit that is an effective way to use the money. But the RoS idea wasn't meant to increase an army's raw strength on the battlefield, it was meant to incrase it's tactical flexibility. Besides, if it's not "open field combat" the fact that the archers will be in tighter formations dosn't matter because you won't have a clear shot. How exactly could the terrain be set up so that the archers have a clear shot and the wizards don't? No matter how you swing it, there's going to be somewhere the wizards can fire from - unless you have the archers surrounded on all sides by impassable mountains or something, I suppose, but that's silly. Quote: Again, your assuming midevil/fudal tactics. So are you, when you talk about people equipped with no magic but a ring of sustanance like they'll do any good. Fine, RoS point conceded. Replace the RoS's with Murlands Spoons or other items that can collectivly feed more people. Give one to each squad command. A lot cheaper.
deadDMwalking 03-13-05, 06:26 PM	Um......I don't follow. Armies use corrdinated attacks all the time. And fleeing a battle because you don't want to get killed is called Defecting. You can get hung for it. Armies use coordinated attacks all the time. I agree. Have you ever heard the term "officers and men"? Does that indicate officers are not men? It indicates that in the modern military there is a distinction between those responsible for leading, and those responsible for following those orders. I don't know what your general opinion of the human race is, but the vast majority are quite willing to follow orders only so far as they are watched. If someone came along and said to you, "JadeFox, DeadDMWalking is your new commander. Do what he says." You'd probably prefer not to do it. If this "someone" is scary, or has some form of legitimate power, you might choose to obey his commands. However, if I'm not actually watching you, or you doubt I'll be able to report your failure to comply, you will be more unlikely to obey those orders. Remember, you don't want to obey them anyway.... You're looking for an excuse to ignore your orders, as long as you don't think you'll get caught. Now, maybe you're not the best example of a typical human. Still, most people are content to follow orders only as long as a proper chain-of-command exists. When it breaks down, soldiers surrender en masse, or cease to become effective. If the orders are "Engage the first enemy you see" and you find yourself alone, you can pretend you "didn't see the enemy." What if they come by at night. Maybe you're aware of them, but you also realize you're outnumbered 100 to 1. You might kill two or three of them before they identify your position, but you'll certainly die. There are a lot of people (probably most) who would not follow orders effectively if they were not being watched. Even in the Roman army there were officers entrusted to guide the men. A group of soldiers without an officer is often considered a rabble. If you can build an army of simply exceptional individuals, you can perhaps trust disperse formations. However, if you put all of your exceptional individuals in the army, you're depriving yourself of exceptional artisans, exceptional scientists, exceptional civilian leaders, etc. Any game mechanic that trusts that each individual will do what is best for their society REGARDLESS of personal cost is unrealistic. edit - fixed quote tag
fdnickerson 03-13-05, 08:12 PM	Um......I don't follow. Armies use corrdinated attacks all the time. And fleeing a battle because you don't want to get killed is called Defecting. You can get hung for it. Small point of order. It's actually called Desertion. Defection is when you change sides. Not to nitpick or anything, that just threw me for a second when I read it.
Vanigo 03-13-05, 10:49 PM	Um......I don't follow. Armies use corrdinated attacks all the time. And fleeing a battle because you don't want to get killed is called Defecting. You can get hung for it.Well, if one person does before battle it it's desertion. If an entire unit does it during battle, it's called routing. Outside of really strange situations (Stalinist Russia, for instance) routing is simply what happens when a unit is getting beaten too badly, and no one is severely disciplined for it. Fine, RoS point conceded. Replace the RoS's with Murlands Spoons or other items that can collectivly feed more people. Give one to each squad command. A lot cheaper. That makes things much more reasonable, primarily because Craft Wonderous Item can be taken by a much lower level spellcaster.
weasel fierce 03-14-05, 12:54 AM	Routing is also when by far the most casualties are inflicted in medieval melee.
Decepticons 03-14-05, 02:46 AM	I skipped a lot of this thread so pardon me if some of this has been covered. Fox, I think a lot of people lack the understanding of an armed society, like the Romans. I think you are pretty much correct in your level breakdowns. Light, skirmishing infantry might be level 1 or 2 warriors, led by maybe a 4th level ranger. Heavy infantry, like Roman princeps (or later, even heavier infantry) I can see being in the level 3-5 range. Most of these units were equipped with Rome's money, not their own. However, an important fact to remember is that in a Roman style army, being in the army is a BIG honor, not a burden, in the vast majority of cases. Roman society was based in large on military service. Only thing you might want to do is, in the case of officers, give them equal levels of aristocrat, as many roman officers were also minor nobles. So an infantry commander might be say a Fighter 5/Aristocrat 5. I don't really see the problem in terms of magic item production either. Rome's civilization WAS it's army. Lets not forget these people held the largest empire this world has ever seen...and they did it 1,000+ years ago when you couldn't hop in a HUMVEE, they marched on foot. So in a romanesque civilization that included magic, I think it would be perfectly resonable for there to be "assembly line" wizards cranking out magic items. Yes, they pay an XP burden, BUT, like the soldiers, in a society like this being the paty of the army that keeps bellies full and men on the move would be an honor. Soldiers in a society like this are not likely to run off with their equipment because A) it would be disgraceful and B) no one in the society would likely buy it from them...it would be tainted goods. Roman-style armies would probably also include a large number of people with levels in Expert, including engineers, smiths, fletchers, animal handlers, and so on. Some other things you might consider: 1. Each company of infantry includes a wizard who's main purpose is counter-spelling. This could reduce the effectiveness of Area Effect spells while keeping more to the true roman-style grouped-infantry tactics. Part of the Roman legions success was their ability to fight in unison, with overlapping defenses. If a company of soldiers included a specialist evoker geared (with feats) towards counter-spelling, it would go a long way towards defeating enemy spell-casters. 2. Each company of infantry includes a cleric or two of up to 5th level. Again, I don't see any problem with a martial civilization pumping out clerics, especially those with war/law domains. These clerics act as living first-aid kits, able to restore moderatly wounded soldiers to front-line status in the heat of combat. 3. Another thing you might consider, if you haven't is giving a Roman-style army some different class skills, like giving every member of the army some ranks in survival (to live off the land) and heal (to represent the fact that in a society that spends a lot of time at war, medicine tends to advance more quickly and that more members of the population know how to do simple things like treat infections, clean wounds, use splints, etc). All that being said, I think a Feudal society (which seems to be the norm for DnD settings) army would mostly be conscripted level 1 commoners, with a smattering of level 1 warriors. A "trained" infantry unit might be mostly level 1 warriors with a few level 2 or 3's in there...because feudal training didn't consist of much more than knowing which end of the sword was the dangerous one in most countries.
Gedrin 03-14-05, 09:08 AM	Typical Arms and Armor of a Roman Legionnaire First Century Legionnaires wore either chain or banded armor, depending on the legion. (Chain Mail: 150gp, Banded: 250gp) Heavy Shields were common (Wooden Heavy Shield: 7gp, Steel Heavy Shield: 20gp) Weaponry included; short swords for close combat, a pilum (short spear), and javelins (say…4, max range 150feet), some units carried a longer spear than the pilum called a hasta. Short Sword: 10gp, Short Spear: 1gp, Longspear: 5gp, Javelins X 4: 4gp Cost to equip a typical member of a Roman Legion: Between 172 to 287gp Typical Arms and Armor of an Alternative Soldier: Studded Leather: 25gp Short Sword: 10gp Javelins X4: 4gp Heavy Shield: wood: 7gp, steel: 20gp Use Activated Magic Item: Sleep cast at first level (better than 50% chance of rendering a soldier helpless for 10rounds, perfect accuracy to 110feet, effects up to 4 soldiers, no special Feats, Skills or Class required to use). 50gp, 2xp. Cost to Equip Alternative D&D Soldier: 96 to 109gp, plus 2xp Posed against each other, the Alternative Soldier’s units are likely able to eliminate 2 Legionnaires (presuming about half pass their Will save) for every one of themselves, at a range of 100 feet or more. Even a dispersed unit of Legionnaires wouldn’t fare much better, because the numbers of sleep items that can be fielded allows them to be used against smaller units of soldiers. You could have more smiths than magic item makers, and win by numbers… Except, a skilled smith takes 2 or 3 days to make a sword (according to Craft), and a Wizard can sip lattés while making 1 sleep item a day. A more potent version could be made, with 50 charges, could be made for 1,000gp and 40xp, also taking 1 day to make. Also, I’m certain a “Military-Mystical Complex” could find either: a way to get working wizards 2xp/day, or a way to save on XP spent for magic items(Liquid Pain, Pain Extractor both work for evil powers). The traditional army can’t stand up to this kind of firepower. To compete in a world with D&D style magic, and where wizards are fostered by the kingdom/state as military assets, a radically different military paradigm is needed.
FriendoftheDork 03-14-05, 10:27 AM	Typical Arms and Armor of a Roman Legionnaire First Century Legionnaires wore either chain or banded armor, depending on the legion. (Chain Mail: 150gp, Banded: 250gp) Heavy Shields were common (Wooden Heavy Shield: 7gp, Steel Heavy Shield: 20gp) Weaponry included; short swords for close combat, a pilum (short spear), and javelins (say…4, max range 150feet), some units carried a longer spear than the pilum called a hasta. Short Sword: 10gp, Short Spear: 1gp, Longspear: 5gp, Javelins X 4: 4gp Cost to equip a typical member of a Roman Legion: Between 172 to 287gp Romans using chainmails in the 1st century?I'm pretty sure chanmail wasn't common until 7th or 8th century at least. And If I'm not mistaken, the East roman empire used scale mail before chanmail even. By banded mail I think you mean lorica segmentata, right? The reproduction of those armors seem alot lighter and flexible than the D&D banded mail at least. Perhaps something more akin to chain shirts or scale mails. I may be mistaken, by in most films I've seen the Romans typically wear leather armors, or breastplates for officers. Pilums were javelins made to pierce shields. I don't think they were designed for stabbing like short spears. That's it about weapons. Decepticons: I highly doubt that the average roman officer was 10th lvl, even if half of those are NPC class. 10th level PCs are considered high level, and pretty rare. The DMG indicates that so high level characters are rare except in small cities and higher (if you ignore those high level commoners, those are plentiful!). 10th level character could be those in the upper echelons of the militairy or extremely experienced veterans. I'm pretty sure roman equivalent of NCOs were not akin to rangers, even if they had some skill in survival. 4th level is appropriate for experienced soldiers and officers. Any army would want 1 5th level cleric per company, but that is usually not doable. You can't just send a bunch of young men into a temple and expect them to produce 5th level clerics! A 5th level cleric is experienced enough to lead a small temple, or have a position of authority in a larger one. Still, clerics are more common that wizards, so armies are more likely to have a few of them. Having a wizard for counterspelling is great, but they are even rarer than clerics and are even more voulnerable becase of lack of armor. And to effectively counterspell they would have to be at least 5th level, scrolls of dispel magic have too little range and will usually fail against high level casters. If you want to see something similar to romans with magic, check out the Zhentarim in Lords of Chaos. These soldiers have heavy armor, very good equipment, tactical feats like Phalanx fighting, and often have wizards and clerics armed with scrolls. The soldiers are well trained and tough (fighter class), and they're used to fighting alongside and against enemy spellcasters, and even adventuring bands.
Decepticons 03-14-05, 11:39 AM	Decepticons: I highly doubt that the average roman officer was 10th lvl, even if half of those are NPC class. 10th level PCs are considered high level, and pretty rare. The DMG indicates that so high level characters are rare except in small cities and higher (if you ignore those high level commoners, those are plentiful!). The DMG is based on FUEDAL period armies. The Romans we VASTLY more developed. Fuedal armies were, for the most part, conscripted soldiers, with a few "noble" units like knights (foot and horse) being professional soldiers. The DMG does not consider a roman style civilization. In a society that spent nearly its entire history at war, or training for war...where young men were nearly all trained from an early age in the arts of combat, you would expect a much higher average level. At least I think you would. Again, I agree that in a feudal society, mages and clerics are rare, but in a Roman style society I think they'd be much more common. Serving in the army is a high honor, and having a place of importance in an army (mage or cleric) even higher. Families would all be having their sons (and maybe even daughters?) tested at a young age to see if they had that spark that might lead to a job as a mage in the army, thus bringing more honor to the family. In a feudal army, being in the army usually ment being plucked from your normal life, given limited training (if any), and marched to the line. In a roman style society, people wanted to be in the army, and they wanted to stand out in the army. You cant use the DMG as a guide for creating roman-style civilizations. Even in highly fleshed out campaign worlds like FR, there are no countries (unless they are player added) that resemble a roman one. The Zhents may come about as close as anything, but I still see them as more of a well-trained fuedal society. Also, the Zhents have a very small population base to draw from. Still, if I did some sort of fleshing out of Zhent-controlled areas, they would probably average a few levels higher than a less war-like country.
Puck 03-14-05, 01:16 PM	As far as the clerics and mages im going to go with Decepticons on this one. If it were for the "honor" in joining the roman armys then they wouldnt have held so much land for sooooooo long. As far as the 10th lvl officers, thats a bit much, i would say maybe 4th fighter/ 2 aristacrate. That sounds about right. And yes Gedrin that little iteam does sound like a winner however if it so easy to produce, then why wouldn't a roman style army have em as well. There entire sociaty revolves around war. As for mages makeing magic iteams for armys.....i think not. It costs xp and if you train your entire life to become something and then you get told you have to spend the next few months working in a factory to produce magic iteams till you wither to nothing. I'd be like screw you *fireball* WHAT NOW!!!! *cough* anyway, but thats just me. Puck King of Guam
Clawhound 03-14-05, 01:18 PM	I'm late to this conversation, too. A key thing about armies is size. In one battle between Alexander and the Persians, he had 50,000 vs. their 100,000. Yes, that is Return of the King sized. That was a huge battle and among the largest that I've read about in the ancient near east. The larger that an army is, the more invulnerable to magic it becomes. And the men, if trained well, will keep going to the death mill. If you don't believe me, watch a WWI film, like Gallipoli. There were devastating battles in WWI whose death toll would astound you. Suffice it to say, given all the horrors of modern warfare, that we have discovered that there's no replacement for a footsoldier. Magic can win a battle, but it's people who control a territory.
Vanigo 03-14-05, 01:42 PM	The larger that an army is, the more invulnerable to magic it becomes. What? Sure, a larger army is more resistant to one wizard - heck, a larger army is more resistant to the same amount of just about anything - but as long as the soldier:magic ratio stays the same there shouldn't be much difference.
weasel fierce 03-14-05, 02:14 PM	In our world, as firepower increased, so did manpower. Unless you have good reasons otherwise, I'd expect the same to happen in a D&D'ish high magic setting
Decepticons 03-14-05, 02:14 PM	As for mages makeing magic iteams for armys.....i think not. It costs xp and if you train your entire life to become something and then you get told you have to spend the next few months working in a factory to produce magic iteams till you wither to nothing. I think another thing to remember is that these fictional characters we're creating don't know they have XP. XP is an arbitrary number on a piece of paper or a computer hard drive somewhever. A mage can't say "hmmmm, if I make one more ring, I'm going to lose a level." I think after cranking out some items a mage might begin to realize he's "losing his edge," or "needs to get back to the field," or he simply can't produce high quaility items like he could a month ago. In an organized, military society though, this would be understood, and mages would (I think) be rotated back and forth. For example a battle-mage type might spend 10 months out of the year in the field with the army, a month producing items, and have a month of personal leave. In fact, thinking about this, it might be more logical for a mage or cleric to get more "personal time" than an average soldier. So just spitballing off the top of my head...in a military society/country lets say a low level mage (1-3) spends time with a more advanced battle-mage, serving in the army. At level 4-6 maybe they begin to spend some time making minor items (mostly scrolls or potions), plus continuing to spend a majority of their time "in the field". Also, during this period they are expected to take an apprentice. In return for their service, the country they serve provides them with a year (in say, two six month periods or something) during which these wizards can go out and do their own thing, or study in the vast magical libraries of the capital city. At higher levels, these mages begin to get positions of power or become noted scholars. In Roman society, people were constantly striving for power, especially the upper crust. Everyone wanted to climb on rung higher on the ladder. If the means to getting that power ment service to the army, a mage might put aside personal growth for a period of time if he/she knew it ment social advancement.
The Wasp 03-14-05, 02:38 PM	Typical Arms and Armor of an Alternative Soldier: Studded Leather: 25gp Short Sword: 10gp Javelins X4: 4gp Heavy Shield: wood: 7gp, steel: 20gp Use Activated Magic Item: Sleep cast at first level (better than 50% chance of rendering a soldier helpless for 10rounds, perfect accuracy to 110feet, effects up to 4 soldiers, no special Feats, Skills or Class required to use). 50gp, 2xp. Cost to Equip Alternative D&D Soldier: 96 to 109gp, plus 2xp Hold it! This is not a fair comparison. A use activated item costs 50 gp - if it's only usable one time. You're only looking at that man's effectiveness at one battle, compared to the legionary's effectiveness over the whole of his career. If you want to do a fair comparison, you have to give the alternate an item that's usable more than once (once a day would be fine). The effective price should be closer to 200 gp for that item. Also, your number only work against an army of greens. Veterans will have more HD. If the have 2 HD you'll only take out 1 per spell cast. if they have 3 HD, you'll average less then 1/2 person per spell cast.
The Wasp 03-14-05, 02:44 PM	Romans using chainmails in the 1st century?I'm pretty sure chanmail wasn't common until 7th or 8th century at least. And If I'm not mistaken, the East roman empire used scale mail before chanmail even. By banded mail I think you mean lorica segmentata, right? The reproduction of those armors seem alot lighter and flexible than the D&D banded mail at least. Perhaps something more akin to chain shirts or scale mails. I may be mistaken, by in most films I've seen the Romans typically wear leather armors, or breastplates for officers. Chainmail is very old. the Romans actually used it before they developed the segmentata armor. If you want to model it, use a chain shirt, as roman armor generally only covered the torso. To model lorica segmentata, just use the same stats as chain shirt. I like to reserve breastplate (and full plate) for blast furnace technologies.
The Wasp 03-14-05, 03:04 PM	The DMG is based on FUEDAL period armies. The Romans we VASTLY more developed. Fuedal armies were, for the most part, conscripted soldiers, with a few "noble" units like knights (foot and horse) being professional soldiers. The DMG does not consider a roman style civilization. In a society that spent nearly its entire history at war, or training for war...where young men were nearly all trained from an early age in the arts of combat, you would expect a much higher average level. At least I think you would. A very crude stereotype of feudal armies. Feudal military technology was considerably better than the Romans - halberds, longswords, stirrups, warhammers, and of course plate mail make a mounted knight far more dangerous than a Roman legionary. but don't think that a traditional medieval army was just a peasant knight dichotomy. most armies relied heavily on non-noble guardsmen and mercernary companies who could provide a solid infantry core to a medieval army. Massive Peasant consription was generally a choice of last resort.
Drachasor 03-14-05, 03:29 PM	Well, the DMG doesn't go over armies and the like very much because in a standard D&D world they probably function quite differently. One 17th level caster* could easily destroyed a normal medieval army, as well as castles and the like. Going into how magic would dramatically change the military world isn't what the DMG is for (as mass troop battles isn't what D&D is for). Naturally this is probably why the PHB doesn't have a lot of spells a large army would want, like 5th levels spells to create massive amounts of rations, or 6-7th level spells to defend large numbers of troops. Spells that would be largely useless in a D&D game where a party typically has 3-6 people, maybe a couple more. -Drachasor *Remember that a sizeable kingdom of any power is going to have various high level characters loyal to it. The Court Wizard, his apprentices, and the like (probably one of the most powerful wizards in the realm) are definitely going to have to defend the troops now and then, as the King can't afford to lose them.
Decepticons 03-14-05, 03:42 PM	Feudal military technology was considerably better than the Romans - halberds, longswords, stirrups, warhammers, and of course plate mail make a mounted knight far more dangerous than a Roman legionary. Going way off topic here but I disagree with this. Military styles may have changed during the Feudal period, but the technology didn't change much...in fact, in a lot of areas technology took a giant leap backwards after the fall of the roman empire for 100's of years. It wasn't until well into the renisance period that many technologies that were common in the Roman Empire began to reemerge. The roman army was an army based on close infantry tactics. Many fuedal armies relied on cavalry to act as their shock troops. Individually, a mounted knight might be far more dangerous than a roman legionary, but had the roman empire survived, I would have bet money on them beating any other fuedal era power up until firearms became common. It was also incredibly expensive to field heavy cavalry. Most nations during the fuedal period couldn't field more than a few companies of heavy cav, while the Romans fielded huge armies of legionaries.
JadeFox 03-14-05, 03:51 PM	I skipped a lot of this thread so pardon me if some of this has been covered. Fox, I think a lot of people lack the understanding of an armed society, like the Romans. I think you are pretty much correct in your level breakdowns. Light, skirmishing infantry might be level 1 or 2 warriors, led by maybe a 4th level ranger. Heavy infantry, like Roman princeps (or later, even heavier infantry) I can see being in the level 3-5 range. Most of these units were equipped with Rome's money, not their own. However, an important fact to remember is that in a Roman style army, being in the army is a BIG honor, not a burden, in the vast majority of cases. Roman society was based in large on military service. Only thing you might want to do is, in the case of officers, give them equal levels of aristocrat, as many roman officers were also minor nobles. So an infantry commander might be say a Fighter 5/Aristocrat 5. I don't really see the problem in terms of magic item production either. Rome's civilization WAS it's army. Lets not forget these people held the largest empire this world has ever seen...and they did it 1,000+ years ago when you couldn't hop in a HUMVEE, they marched on foot. So in a romanesque civilization that included magic, I think it would be perfectly resonable for there to be "assembly line" wizards cranking out magic items. Yes, they pay an XP burden, BUT, like the soldiers, in a society like this being the paty of the army that keeps bellies full and men on the move would be an honor. Soldiers in a society like this are not likely to run off with their equipment because A) it would be disgraceful and B) no one in the society would likely buy it from them...it would be tainted goods. Roman-style armies would probably also include a large number of people with levels in Expert, including engineers, smiths, fletchers, animal handlers, and so on. Some other things you might consider: 1. Each company of infantry includes a wizard who's main purpose is counter-spelling. This could reduce the effectiveness of Area Effect spells while keeping more to the true roman-style grouped-infantry tactics. Part of the Roman legions success was their ability to fight in unison, with overlapping defenses. If a company of soldiers included a specialist evoker geared (with feats) towards counter-spelling, it would go a long way towards defeating enemy spell-casters. 2. Each company of infantry includes a cleric or two of up to 5th level. Again, I don't see any problem with a martial civilization pumping out clerics, especially those with war/law domains. These clerics act as living first-aid kits, able to restore moderatly wounded soldiers to front-line status in the heat of combat. 3. Another thing you might consider, if you haven't is giving a Roman-style army some different class skills, like giving every member of the army some ranks in survival (to live off the land) and heal (to represent the fact that in a society that spends a lot of time at war, medicine tends to advance more quickly and that more members of the population know how to do simple things like treat infections, clean wounds, use splints, etc). All that being said, I think a Feudal society (which seems to be the norm for DnD settings) army would mostly be conscripted level 1 commoners, with a smattering of level 1 warriors. A "trained" infantry unit might be mostly level 1 warriors with a few level 2 or 3's in there...because feudal training didn't consist of much more than knowing which end of the sword was the dangerous one in most countries. Wow, thank you for that excellent summery. And yes, that's what I was trying to say, but I suppose a Roman'style civilization isn't exactly "Standard" D&D.
JadeFox 03-14-05, 03:59 PM	Typical Arms and Armor of a Roman Legionnaire First Century Legionnaires wore either chain or banded armor, depending on the legion. (Chain Mail: 150gp, Banded: 250gp) Heavy Shields were common (Wooden Heavy Shield: 7gp, Steel Heavy Shield: 20gp) Weaponry included; short swords for close combat, a pilum (short spear), and javelins (say…4, max range 150feet), some units carried a longer spear than the pilum called a hasta. Short Sword: 10gp, Short Spear: 1gp, Longspear: 5gp, Javelins X 4: 4gp Cost to equip a typical member of a Roman Legion: Between 172 to 287gp Typical Arms and Armor of an Alternative Soldier: Studded Leather: 25gp Short Sword: 10gp Javelins X4: 4gp Heavy Shield: wood: 7gp, steel: 20gp Use Activated Magic Item: Sleep cast at first level (better than 50% chance of rendering a soldier helpless for 10rounds, perfect accuracy to 110feet, effects up to 4 soldiers, no special Feats, Skills or Class required to use). 50gp, 2xp. Cost to Equip Alternative D&D Soldier: 96 to 109gp, plus 2xp Posed against each other, the Alternative Soldier’s units are likely able to eliminate 2 Legionnaires (presuming about half pass their Will save) for every one of themselves, at a range of 100 feet or more. Even a dispersed unit of Legionnaires wouldn’t fare much better, because the numbers of sleep items that can be fielded allows them to be used against smaller units of soldiers. You could have more smiths than magic item makers, and win by numbers… Except, a skilled smith takes 2 or 3 days to make a sword (according to Craft), and a Wizard can sip lattés while making 1 sleep item a day. A more potent version could be made, with 50 charges, could be made for 1,000gp and 40xp, also taking 1 day to make. Also, I’m certain a “Military-Mystical Complex” could find either: a way to get working wizards 2xp/day, or a way to save on XP spent for magic items(Liquid Pain, Pain Extractor both work for evil powers). The traditional army can’t stand up to this kind of firepower. To compete in a world with D&D style magic, and where wizards are fostered by the kingdom/state as military assets, a radically different military paradigm is needed. Except that your assuming the soliders have really bad will Saves, and are first level (1HD). That directly contradicts the point made above. That logic would work against roman Auxiliries, but not against Leigonares. The DMG is based on FUEDAL period armies. The Romans we VASTLY more developed. Fuedal armies were, for the most part, conscripted soldiers, with a few "noble" units like knights (foot and horse) being professional soldiers. The DMG does not consider a roman style civilization. In a society that spent nearly its entire history at war, or training for war...where young men were nearly all trained from an early age in the arts of combat, you would expect a much higher average level. At least I think you would. Again, I agree that in a feudal society, mages and clerics are rare, but in a Roman style society I think they'd be much more common. Serving in the army is a high honor, and having a place of importance in an army (mage or cleric) even higher. Families would all be having their sons (and maybe even daughters?) tested at a young age to see if they had that spark that might lead to a job as a mage in the army, thus bringing more honor to the family. In a feudal army, being in the army usually ment being plucked from your normal life, given limited training (if any), and marched to the line. In a roman style society, people wanted to be in the army, and they wanted to stand out in the army. You cant use the DMG as a guide for creating roman-style civilizations. Even in highly fleshed out campaign worlds like FR, there are no countries (unless they are player added) that resemble a roman one. The Zhents may come about as close as anything, but I still see them as more of a well-trained fuedal society. Also, the Zhents have a very small population base to draw from. Still, if I did some sort of fleshing out of Zhent-controlled areas, they would probably average a few levels higher than a less war-like country. You make my point far more elequently then I did. Thank you. I would also add that certian magical skills (such as wizardry) that are done by a stricly master/apprentice system in fudal D&D could be done in a more late-roman republic school style thus increase their numbers. As for mages makeing magic iteams for armys.....i think not. It costs xp and if you train your entire life to become something and then you get told you have to spend the next few months working in a factory to produce magic iteams till you wither to nothing. I'd be like screw you *fireball* WHAT NOW!!!! *cough* anyway, but thats just me. Perhaps some people would do that, but seeing people who tried that cruicifed along the sides of the roads might dissuade future rebels. Besides, your forgetting the honor factor. A very crude stereotype of feudal armies. Feudal military technology was considerably better than the Romans - halberds, longswords, stirrups, warhammers, and of course plate mail make a mounted knight far more dangerous than a Roman legionary. but don't think that a traditional medieval army was just a peasant knight dichotomy. most armies relied heavily on non-noble guardsmen and mercernary companies who could provide a solid infantry core to a medieval army. Massive Peasant consription was generally a choice of last resort. And Soviet WWII era war technology was centuries ahead, that dosn't change the fact that they had no organization and were throwing untrained men into battle with little to no equipment. A midevil army does have superior technology, but a roman-style army with midevil level technology would defeat the midevil army hands down.
deadDMwalking 03-14-05, 04:13 PM	Since this has come to be a debate on the merits of a roman style of military, I thought I would point out a few things. 1) The Roman army was never static. The historical records indicate a number of varieties, depending on which period in which we are discussing. Very basic elements, such as who could be a soldier and how one became soldiers changed. 2) The Roman period is very long. Calling it 1000 years is easy. 1500 years at a stretch. Technology may not have changed as rapidly as it seems to today, but that was a lot of technology. 3) The Roman army was defeated a number of times by contemporaries. The critical weakness of the Roman armies is ANY period was a lack of proper cavalry. The Huns were very successful against the Romans because they refused to be penned in and engage in a "Roman-style" battle. 4) Even discipline can be overcome by superior strategy. If you study Hannibal's campaigns in Italy, you will find out a number of obvious weaknesses to the Roman military. I have to return to work, but the Roman army was not unbeatable. It should have been more innovative, and it should have focused on teaching more "specialized tasks" like cavalry....
Mahni LeGuin 03-14-05, 05:43 PM	Lots of comments here make it sound like high level characters are common, and mid level ones are coming out of the woodwork... with so many mid to high level people around, why are kobolds such a problem? So, in the interest of having fun... Typical end of 1st year training Roman Legionaire. 1st level fighter (human) feats Endurance. They weren't called Marian's Mules for nothing. Weapon Finesse or Weapon Focus:Short Sword. They were pretty good with that thing. I forget the name of the feat, but it gave you a AC bonus if you happened to be standing next to a friendly guy with a tower shield... Now, give him that tower shield, scale mail, a short sword, 3 javelins, a dagger, a shovel, some sharpened stakes, and he's ready for business. Of course, this is a junior guy. Your priceps would probably be 2-3rd level, and the Centurian 4-5th. And the officers... noblemen/wealthy. 1 level of fighter, 1-5 levels of aristocrat. Roman officers PURCHASED thier positions. Many of them had just basic training and wealthy relatives. And there is the most elite army of thier age. Think about it. Couldn't a King be a 18 year old 1st level aristocrat? He'd be a puppet or dang smart/manipulative, but...
FriendoftheDork 03-14-05, 06:47 PM	The DMG is based on FUEDAL period armies. The Romans we VASTLY more developed. Fuedal armies were, for the most part, conscripted soldiers, with a few "noble" units like knights (foot and horse) being professional soldiers. The DMG does not consider a roman style civilization. In a society that spent nearly its entire history at war, or training for war...where young men were nearly all trained from an early age in the arts of combat, you would expect a much higher average level. At least I think you would. Again, I agree that in a feudal society, mages and clerics are rare, but in a Roman style society I think they'd be much more common. Serving in the army is a high honor, and having a place of importance in an army (mage or cleric) even higher. Families would all be having their sons (and maybe even daughters?) tested at a young age to see if they had that spark that might lead to a job as a mage in the army, thus bringing more honor to the family. In a feudal army, being in the army usually ment being plucked from your normal life, given limited training (if any), and marched to the line. In a roman style society, people wanted to be in the army, and they wanted to stand out in the army. You cant use the DMG as a guide for creating roman-style civilizations. Even in highly fleshed out campaign worlds like FR, there are no countries (unless they are player added) that resemble a roman one. The Zhents may come about as close as anything, but I still see them as more of a well-trained fuedal society. Also, the Zhents have a very small population base to draw from. Still, if I did some sort of fleshing out of Zhent-controlled areas, they would probably average a few levels higher than a less war-like country. Of course romans were more disciplined and trained than medieval armies, but that doesen't make you high level, experience does. A fresh legionaire, no matter how well trained is still raw, and probably just 1st level. But he's a fighter, and will defeat a medieval soldier who probably just is a warrior. Since the romans were constantly at war, they had alot of experienced soldiers to draw on, but there were still fresh recruits needed to fill the gaps. I agree with Mahni Leguin's roman soldier levels. No civilizations in FR is exactly like romans, those that resemble it the most are the dead empire of Chondath (the roots of Cormyr, Sembia, Dalelands etc.) Which makes the newer nations more akin to european medieval nations. The existing socety that is very romanesque at the time is the Goblin city of Grodd, which was heavily influenced by the ancient dragon Nalavara who probably was inspired by Chondath society.
psychognome42 03-14-05, 09:30 PM	seems to me that instead of using large quantities of (relatively) low-level magic items in conjunction with large amounts of low-level soldiers, you should just take the kingdom's maybe one or two 17th-level clerics or wizards and have them out with the army at several crucial battles, using well-placed "miracles" or "wails of the banshee" to take out entire enemy forces and swing the tide of the entire WAR. it seems more efficient than figuring out a viable method of mass-producing magic items.
Drachasor 03-14-05, 10:22 PM	seems to me that instead of using large quantities of (relatively) low-level magic items in conjunction with large amounts of low-level soldiers, you should just take the kingdom's maybe one or two 17th-level clerics or wizards and have them out with the army at several crucial battles, using well-placed "miracles" or "wails of the banshee" to take out entire enemy forces and swing the tide of the entire WAR. it seems more efficient than figuring out a viable method of mass-producing magic items. Which means that the relatively very few high levels guys are going to be critical to any confrontation between nations. If your nation isn't fielding them, then the enemy will march all over you. That's what I was getting at in my post above. Of course, there could be a lot more spells very useful for entire armies that simply don't appear in the books because they aren't focused on that. A Death Ward spell that protects a limited number of hit dice of creatures, and the like. -Drachasor
Chosen of the Dark Sun 03-14-05, 10:59 PM	For the amount that it would cost to get all those rings, provided that you could, I would just hire the most powerful assassin I could find and kill their leaders directly, thereby ending part of the motivation and probably a good deal of the command structure with it. Why by the rings when you could as easily have no enemies.
Vanigo 03-15-05, 12:44 AM	Perhaps some people would do that, but seeing people who tried that cruicifed along the sides of the roads might dissuade future rebels. Besides, your forgetting the honor factor. Even if "work yourself to death or I'll kill you" would motivate someone capable of taking out an entire infantry brigade or fleeing to the opposite side of the world in seconds, it's just plain wasteful. (Assuming we're still talking about guys capable of making rings, that is. If we're talking about mages in the 5-7 range, it's more motivating, but no less wasteful.)
BW0222 03-15-05, 12:55 AM	Given a nation of 5 million people can someone please give me a break down of: a) The percentage of people who live in large cities. b) The percentage of people with PC classes. c) The percentage of wizards amounts allowable PC classes. d) The percentage of people between 1st-3rd, 4th-6th, 7th-9th, 10-12th, etc. e) The percentage of 12th+ level wizards who have the forge ring feat. f) The percentage of such wizards who are controlled by the king willing to craft themselves away from leveling. In such a way you can multiply all these together and get 1000 or even 100 necessary to make so many rings. Once done, can someone please tell me how this compares with the standard level distribution tables in DMG p139. Finally, can someone explain why a king with access to so many wizards and other high-level PCs classes needs an army of a few hundred 1st (or even 5th-level) soldiers? My numbers say: (a) 50%, (b) 10%, (c) 10%, (d) 10%/1%/0.1%/0.01%, (e) 25%, and (f) 25%. My math says 5 million x 0.5 x 0.1 x 0.1 x 0.0001 x 0.25 x 0.25 = 1.5. Maybe the king has one or two 12th-level wizards with the forge ring feat as his disposal. Looking at p132, a metropolis is going to have 4 wizards at 1d4+12 level. Say 4x 13th-level wizards. (plus 8x 7th-level wizards, 16x 4th-level wizards, etc.) Assuming that 25% of these wizards have forge ring and 25% are aligned to the king, and there are four large cities in the kingdom, that works out the the king having access to one or two 12th+ level wizards with the forge ring feat. This is reasonable close to the numbers I use. You can even double or tripple these numbers for a high-level magic campaign and you still don't get within an order of magnitude of the hundreds of wizards needed. It is not possible to use the standard DMG level distributions to come up with a kingdom in supplies 100 12th+ level wizards with the forge ring feat. As such, I stick by my opinion that such a scheme is not possible in a standard D&D campaign.
weasel fierce 03-15-05, 01:55 AM	Of course, if these options were available to someone, they'd be available to their enemies as well. If you play a game where entire armies are equipped with magic items, war would likely be decided by a few wizards zipping each other.
LordArkan 03-15-05, 03:41 AM	According to the Domesday book, a nation the size of modern-day Germany would have about 9-10 million people, 2 metropolises, and 5-10 large cities. Such a nation would also have about 250 castles, though 20-40 of them would be ruins. Where would the nation get the money to build those? What do you mean they didn't build them all at once?
The Shaman 03-15-05, 09:29 AM	*snip* I'm in the same camp as BW0222 on this one - I spent a great deal of time on demographics for the threepointoh campaign-setting that I 'brewed ('cause I'm nerdy like that) and there was simply no way for a magical 'factory' to exist to pump out magic items in sufficient quantities to equip an army with anything in even the most populous kingdom in the game. I also didn't have 'units' of spellcasters, arcane or divine, attached as 'shock troops' with the armies of the world - while that may be a 'logical inference' to some gamers, this is a modern way of thinking that destroys much of the romance of fantasy for me, as would giving every archer a quiver full of magic arrows or every man-at-arms an enchanted spear. It makes the exceptional mundane, which is the antithesis of what I want in a fantasy game.
Vanigo 03-15-05, 05:22 PM	According to the Domesday book, a nation the size of modern-day Germany would have about 9-10 million people, 2 metropolises, and 5-10 large cities. Such a nation would also have about 250 castles, though 20-40 of them would be ruins. Where would the nation get the money to build those? What do you mean they didn't build them all at once? Sure, but one castle does a country some good, so each new construction was helpful in and of itself. What benefit does a nation get from a single ring of sustanance? Not many rulers embark on projects that'll take generations to pay off, you know.
JadeFox 03-15-05, 06:16 PM	I'm in the same camp as BW0222 on this one - I spent a great deal of time on demographics for the threepointoh campaign-setting that I 'brewed ('cause I'm nerdy like that) and there was simply no way for a magical 'factory' to exist to pump out magic items in sufficient quantities to equip an army with anything in even the most populous kingdom in the game. I also didn't have 'units' of spellcasters, arcane or divine, attached as 'shock troops' with the armies of the world - while that may be a 'logical inference' to some gamers, this is a modern way of thinking that destroys much of the romance of fantasy for me, as would giving every archer a quiver full of magic arrows or every man-at-arms an enchanted spear. It makes the exceptional mundane, which is the antithesis of what I want in a fantasy game. Unless a nation devotes most of it's magical item building ability not to trivial war items, but too utilites. Take what would be fertile land if it wern't competly dry, and build an irrigation system around 10 decanters of endless water. Have a golem or 3 do shifts around the country helping farmers. Build cities in remote areas with your nations 1 emergency back up "Basket of Endless food" etc etc. Thus freeing up more resources.
The Shaman 03-17-05, 11:39 AM	Unless a nation devotes most of it's magical item building ability not to trivial war items, but too utilites. Take what would be fertile land if it wern't competly dry, and build an irrigation system around 10 decanters of endless water. Have a golem or 3 do shifts around the country helping farmers. Build cities in remote areas with your nations 1 emergency back up "Basket of Endless food" etc etc. Thus freeing up more resources. If I understand you correctly it seems you're suggesting that magi-tech would allow a civilization to somehow produce more higher-level wizards capable of creating more magi-tech. I don't think you're accounting for the fact that there are ability limits that come into play as a part of demographics - the proportion of wizards with the requisite intelligence to cast higher-level spells is pretty low. For example, let's assume that we have a kingdom that produces four wizards of 12th-level or greater. If we are relying on an internally consistent demographics pattern, it's unlikely that all four of those wizards are smart enough to cast even sixth or seventh level spells (e.g., INT 16 or 17). There may be one wizard in a generation smart enough and of high enough level to create some of the more powerful magic items available in a game-world. As GM you can certainly hand-wave all of this away if you like - the magic was produced over many generations, people here are smarter or wiser than they are elsewhere, and so on - if that's what you want. I think it's great that GM's want to personalize their games and make them distinctive. I do find it curious that GMs like to explore the "logical ramifications" of magic on a society without considering the demographics of society in the first place, however.
BW0222 03-17-05, 05:27 PM	JadeFox, >Build cities in remote areas with your nations 1 emergency back up "Basket >of Endless food" etc etc. Thus freeing up more resources. Well a Murlynd's spoon produces enough gruel per day to feed 4 people each day for 5,400gp. Increasing it's power to 500 people per day would be 675,000gp and 27,000xp. (so no non-god could make it under the rules). Ok, make 5 at 5,400xp each, draining a few mid-level wizards. How long can people each just gruel? What do the horses eat? Since peasants still need firewood, clothing (furs), construction materials (logs), stone/slate for housing, clay, etc., etc. Why not just allow them to hunt, farm, fish, etc? How much does it cost to guard a temple full of 675,000gp of magical items? Wouldn't unguards items of that value just invite and attack? What ruler has over a half a million gold just to keep 500 peasants fed? Why not just take 25,000gp, built 25 farms, have some peasants work it and then send the food to the new village? The gold is a one time cost, the peasant work for room and board, you still own the land, you likely make a profit, and peasant like you since they have work? Land is cheap, peasants are cheap, insanely powerful magical items aren't cheap? How do you distribute such food? With 1,000 people having to all line up in the snow and collect their cruel, I'm seeing images of the old Soviet Union bread lines. Your arguements still aren't working out. Again, you still avoid putting numbers next to your ideas. Try putting two sets of numbers next to everything you suggest -- the numbers, gold cost, and XP needed in your scheme, and the cost of the mundane method you are replacing. The Shaman, We appear to be agreeing with general demographics arguements. >For example, let's assume that we have a kingdom that produces four >wizards of 12th-level or greater. ... it's unlikely that all four of those wizards >are smart enough to cast even sixth or seventh level spells (e.g., INT 16 or >17). However, I'll disagree that high-level wizards don't have high int scores. * In order to survive to high-levels, you likely have exceptional ability scores. * You have three ability score bumps at 12th. Even a 13 starting int, gives you a 16 by 12th. * If you didn't have the high int, you'd likely have stopped aventuring, teaching, and/or multi-classed. * Standard DM charts for NPC wizards give an 18 int by 12th. Even non-exceptional stats would give you a 16 or 17. >I do find it curious that GMs like to explore the "logical ramifications" of >magic on a society without considering the demographics of society in the >first place, however. I definitely agree. You need a basic logic in the game of how "normal" people live. Without it, all logic breaks down and nothing is extraordinary.
The Shaman 03-17-05, 08:10 PM	We appear to be agreeing with general demographics arguements....However, I'll disagree that high-level wizards don't have high int scores. * In order to survive to high-levels, you likely have exceptional ability scores. * You have three ability score bumps at 12th. Even a 13 starting int, gives you a 16 by 12th. * If you didn't have the high int, you'd likely have stopped aventuring, teaching, and/or multi-classed. * Standard DM charts for NPC wizards give an 18 int by 12th. Even non-exceptional stats would give you a 16 or 17.The vast majority of the NPCs in my game-worlds have a 15-point stat array, so starting INT is 13, as you mentioned - that means by 16th-level the best spells they can hope to cast are 7th level. As we've both stated, the number of wizards of this level are few and far between. NPCs with a 25-point buy (starting INT 15) tend to be exceptional individuals that I place by hand, not using demographics standards, and I have precious few of those. One could make the argument that all higher level wizards (maybe 15th and up?) should have the exceptional array, but I try to mix it up a bit by having high-level wizards who really just plugged away at their craft without relying on exceptional ability - in my games these tend to be the wizards who serve as advisors to the monarchy or are aristocrats in their own right, rather than present or former adventurers. Of course, that's my 1e heritage showing - after all, by the time a magic-user reaches 12th level, she's usually cleared land and built a stronghold, ruling the land much like a noble, right? ;) As far as the NPC charts go, they seem to break the games own rules - that's fine, of course, as I think the goal should be to achieve a level of internal consistency more than anything else. Whether a campaign features high-level mages working in magical sweatshops, a few immensely powerful mages, or a few high level journeymen magic-users, internal consistency is a key to verisimilitude. I know which approach I prefer.
JadeFox 03-17-05, 08:30 PM	JadeFox, >Build cities in remote areas with your nations 1 emergency back up "Basket >of Endless food" etc etc. Thus freeing up more resources. Well a Murlynd's spoon produces enough gruel per day to feed 4 people each day for 5,400gp. Increasing it's power to 500 people per day would be 675,000gp and 27,000xp. (so no non-god could make it under the rules). Ok, make 5 at 5,400xp each, draining a few mid-level wizards. How long can people each just gruel? What do the horses eat? Since peasants still need firewood, clothing (furs), construction materials (logs), stone/slate for housing, clay, etc., etc. Why not just allow them to hunt, farm, fish, etc? How much does it cost to guard a temple full of 675,000gp of magical items? Wouldn't unguards items of that value just invite and attack? What ruler has over a half a million gold just to keep 500 peasants fed? Why not just take 25,000gp, built 25 farms, have some peasants work it and then send the food to the new village? The gold is a one time cost, the peasant work for room and board, you still own the land, you likely make a profit, and peasant like you since they have work? Land is cheap, peasants are cheap, insanely powerful magical items aren't cheap? How do you distribute such food? With 1,000 people having to all line up in the snow and collect their cruel, I'm seeing images of the old Soviet Union bread lines. Your arguements still aren't working out. Again, you still avoid putting numbers next to your ideas. Try putting two sets of numbers next to everything you suggest -- the numbers, gold cost, and XP needed in your scheme, and the cost of the mundane method you are replacing. The Shaman, We appear to be agreeing with general demographics arguements. >For example, let's assume that we have a kingdom that produces four >wizards of 12th-level or greater. ... it's unlikely that all four of those wizards >are smart enough to cast even sixth or seventh level spells (e.g., INT 16 or >17). However, I'll disagree that high-level wizards don't have high int scores. * In order to survive to high-levels, you likely have exceptional ability scores. * You have three ability score bumps at 12th. Even a 13 starting int, gives you a 16 by 12th. * If you didn't have the high int, you'd likely have stopped aventuring, teaching, and/or multi-classed. * Standard DM charts for NPC wizards give an 18 int by 12th. Even non-exceptional stats would give you a 16 or 17. >I do find it curious that GMs like to explore the "logical ramifications" of >magic on a society without considering the demographics of society in the >first place, however. I definitely agree. You need a basic logic in the game of how "normal" people live. Without it, all logic breaks down and nothing is extraordinary. OR, a high level mage could design a magic item that has a more efficent food/people ratio then Murlands Spoons. And it was just an example, even if food dosn't work, your overlooking my point of using magic to increase population and thus army size.
Vanigo 03-17-05, 08:50 PM	OR, a high level mage could design a magic item that has a more efficent food/people ratio then Murlands Spoons. And it was just an example, even if food dosn't work, your overlooking my point of using magic to increase population and thus army size. Such as the everful larder I mentioned earlier, which has a theoretically infinite food/people ratio. In practice, there's going to be a certain limit to how fast you can pull food out of it, but it's going to be really high. As for casting higher-level spells, what kind of 12th level wizard with a liking for item creation can't make himself a headband of intellect?
BW0222 03-17-05, 10:06 PM	JadeFox, >OR, a high level mage could design a magic item that has a more efficent >food/people ratio then Murlands Spoons. And it was just an example, even if >food dosn't work, your overlooking my point of using magic to increase >population and thus army size. What item? Give me the DMG page number, otherwise it certainly isn't in any standard campaign world. You claim this is a standard D&D campaign and then you dream up items which don't exist. How much does it cost? How much XP does it cost? How can such an item be more cost efficient than a core item and still follow the magical item creation rules in the DMG? Even assuming that you violated every rule of the game and could make an item ten times more powerful than an existing item at no extra cost or XP penalty. You have super-Murland spoons at the same cost. 675,000gp still only feeds 5000 people. It still isn't cost effective. Farms are still less expensive to produce food. 675,000gp will buy a hundreds and hundreds of farms, thousands of cattle, and tens of thousand of sheep. Again, as expected, you don't provide numbers. Each time, your ideas are challenged with real numbers, you just dream up more things which don't and can't exist under the rules in order rather than admit the answer to your original assumption is "No. It isn't possible under a standard campaign to create hundreds or thousands rings of sustenance for an army." Anything is possible if you are going to break core rules. Why not have rings of infinite wishes for 5gp and 1xp each? The Shaman, >The vast majority of the NPCs in my game-worlds have a 15-point stat >array, Commoners (commoner, expert, adept, arristocrat, warrior, etc.) fine. However, even in that low-score system, I'd expect the 1 in 10 folks with PC classes to be above average (say 18-point). Wizard, rogue, or fighter guilds aren't going to accept just average people into the guild. Something like: Common classes (1st-3rd): 15pt. Common classes (4th-6th): 18pt. Common classes (7+): 20pt. PC classes (1st-3rd): 18pt PC classes (4th-6th): 20pt. PC classes (7th-9th): 22pt. etc. PCs start with 25 (28 or 32) points because you want to give them a chance to reach the higher-levels. i.e. they are exceptional. >NPCs with a 25-point buy (starting INT 15) tend to be exceptional >individuals IMO, it's fair to say that most 8th+ level NPCs would be exceptional. If not, the chance of making it to those levels would be pretty low. >that I place by hand, not using demographics standards, All higher-level NPCs should be placed by hand. You typically need rational for them to be there, their affect on the area, etc. It would to rare for such high-level NPCs not to have exceptional (stats). >in my games these tend to be the wizards who serve as advisors to the >monarchy or are aristocrats in their own right, rather than present or >former adventurers. I tend to use bards as advisors. A knowledge bard build, makes a better advisor than most wizards. However, I wouldn't be surprised if an exceptionally powerful ruler had a wizard beside her. >Of course, that's my 1e heritage showing - after all, by the time a magic- >user reaches 12th level, she's usually cleared land and built a stronghold, >ruling the land much like a noble, right? Well, there are only two to four of them per large kingdom. There are only a couple of handfuls other people of equal levels. I generally assume that wizards have better things to do than rule like a noble, but at 12th-level the wizard is something 99.99% of the population is going to either fear or respect. >As far as the NPC charts go, they seem to break the games own rules - >that's fine, of course, as I think the goal should be to achieve a level of >internal consistency more than anything else. Bingo. For me, the NPC charts are good baselines if for what a typical high-level NPC would have to have gone through. For each 12th-level person, there are hundreds other folks of lower levels which likely don't have the exceptional score of the 12th-level person -- and won't be making it to 12th-level! >Whether a campaign features high-level mages working in magical >sweatshops, a few immensely powerful mages, or a few high level >journeymen magic-users, internal consistency is a key to verisimilitude. I >know which approach I prefer. Bingo. The moment you have 500 rings of sustenance in an army and can explain how they came into existance keeping a straight face, you then need to explain why a party can't make a make 20,000gp pieces by fireballing a group of guards each day and collecting their rings, or why they can't use that 25,000gp to order six wands of fireballs from the same factory, or can't then take those wands and kill sixty guards, collect their rings, and repeat the process.
The Wasp 03-18-05, 06:34 AM	but had the roman empire survived, I would have bet money on them beating any other fuedal era power up until firearms became common. Then you would have lost money. The Roman army DID survive - under the Eastern Empire. The Byzantines of 1000 AD in fact had far more versatile tactics than the republican armies. And while they were often able to defeat western Frankish or Norman armies, they lost quite a bit too. Back on topic: The Roman armies were very powerful, no question. The main things that distinguished them were excellent logistics, esprit de corps, discipline, and a large population base to draw on (that last one is the what let them beat Hannibal). If you want to have a D&D army similar to them, those are probably good things to start with.
Alcari Ambaron 03-18-05, 08:25 AM	dont forget about strategy and training. The roman army was one of professionals. I've run a few games which involve armies (of a sort) but most consist of of a large group of conscripted men (and women) with a small core of better soldiers, which was what most armies looked like in the middle ages you'd be a big idiot if you gave everyone Rings of sustenance. You could spend all that money to quadruple your army size and still provide them with food the "regular" way, import it isf you must, it's certainly cheaper then making all those rings/spoons/decanters etc a pound of flour or a chicken costs 2cp that would make 2cp to feed one soldier one day (1cp for food+ 1cp for transport) ring of sustenance 2500gp = 250 000 cp so you can feed one soldier for 250 000/2 = 125 000 days for one ring of sustenance....thats about 342 years
Vanigo 03-18-05, 03:42 PM	JadeFox, >OR, a high level mage could design a magic item that has a more efficent >food/people ratio then Murlands Spoons. And it was just an example, even if >food dosn't work, your overlooking my point of using magic to increase >population and thus army size. What item? Give me the DMG page number, otherwise it certainly isn't in any standard campaign world. You claim this is a standard D&D campaign and then you dream up items which don't exist. How much does it cost? How much XP does it cost? How can such an item be more cost efficient than a core item and still follow the magical item creation rules in the DMG? Even assuming that you violated every rule of the game and could make an item ten times more powerful than an existing item at no extra cost or XP penalty. You have super-Murland spoons at the same cost. 675,000gp still only feeds 5000 people. It still isn't cost effective. Farms are still less expensive to produce food. 675,000gp will buy a hundreds and hundreds of farms, thousands of cattle, and tens of thousand of sheep. Again, as expected, you don't provide numbers. Each time, your ideas are challenged with real numbers, you just dream up more things which don't and can't exist under the rules in order rather than admit the answer to your original assumption is "No. It isn't possible under a standard campaign to create hundreds or thousands rings of sustenance for an army." Anything is possible if you are going to break core rules. Why not have rings of infinite wishes for 5gp and 1xp each? You assume anything that's better than anything else in any way must be breaking the rules. As I can only assume you've noticed me saying and just decided to ignore, there's a magic item in the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook on page 76 called the everful larder which has no limit to the amount of food it can produce a day. Now, it's not core. If you insist, we can therefore compare it to the core item it most resembles - Murlynd's spoon - to check for balance. Murlynd's spoon has about a third the cost and can only keep four people fed. An everful larder can keep lots and lots of people fed, but it's a largely immobile piece of furniture. Which is better? Well, it depends on what you're doing. If you need something you can move around without a wagon, Murlynd's spoon is obviously the way to go. If you want to keep a fortress's defenders fed during a siege, you want the everful larder. Before you go and say that because it can produce infinite food it should cost an infinite amount of gold, I'd like to point something out. The guidelines in the DMG say that at item that can be used infinitely normally costs five times as much as an item that can only be used once a day. If we apply this to Murlynd's spoon and the everful larder, we can say that the larder would cost around 27000 gold before we take the discount for being really big and heavy into account - and that's if we say feeding four people counts as one use. Now, the guidelines in the DMG are far from the end-all and be-all of magic item pricing; I'm the first person to yell that at people who propose a ring of cure light wounds. However, they do have their uses, and using them as a meterstick to compare two similar items seems fairly reasonable to me. Not guarenteed correct, mind you, but reasonable.
JadeFox 03-18-05, 04:16 PM	You assume anything that's better than anything else in any way must be breaking the rules. As I can only assume you've noticed me saying and just decided to ignore, there's a magic item in the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook on page 76 called the everful larder which has no limit to the amount of food it can produce a day. Now, it's not core. If you insist, we can therefore compare it to the core item it most resembles - Murlynd's spoon - to check for balance. Murlynd's spoon has about a third the cost and can only keep four people fed. An everful larder can keep lots and lots of people fed, but it's a largely immobile piece of furniture. Which is better? Well, it depends on what you're doing. If you need something you can move around without a wagon, Murlynd's spoon is obviously the way to go. If you want to keep a fortress's defenders fed during a siege, you want the everful larder. Before you go and say that because it can produce infinite food it should cost an infinite amount of gold, I'd like to point something out. The guidelines in the DMG say that at item that can be used infinitely normally costs five times as much as an item that can only be used once a day. If we apply this to Murlynd's spoon and the everful larder, we can say that the larder would cost around 27000 gold before we take the discount for being really big and heavy into account - and that's if we say feeding four people counts as one use. Now, the guidelines in the DMG are far from the end-all and be-all of magic item pricing; I'm the first person to yell that at people who propose a ring of cure light wounds. However, they do have their uses, and using them as a meterstick to compare two similar items seems fairly reasonable to me. Not guarenteed correct, mind you, but reasonable. Exactly, thank you. -- BW0222, you are full of the mysterious and illusive substance known as "It". The DMG has rules for new item and new spell creation, and as Vangio said, there are lots of examples of high powered items that are blatently superior to thousands or hundreds of equlivent low powered items. And I'm not using this as a subsititute for farmland, I'm usingthe food example as somthing you would use when there is no farmland nearby.
Gunslingel2 03-18-05, 04:57 PM	First of all your not going to find some merchant with 1000 magic rings to fit your army. It would take a long time to accumulate them or have them made. Second of all soldiers are ment to be expendable. Not even 3-5 lvl PCs join armies to sit on the front line, they do special taskings. Third of all, if im an evil overlord whose short on cash, your army and fancy rings would be first on my list. Think about it: One victory against your army and your out 2 million GP. And lastly, why would you spend all that money when you cloud use it to expand your army.
BRJN 03-18-05, 08:30 PM	JadeFox, During the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) it was common for whole units to lose interest in a battle and just wander off, or maybe plunder the baggage train (preferably not their own) on their way off the battlefield. If one of those wandering away happened to have a Ring of Sustenance awhen he left, somebody (or a whole bunch of somebodies) WILL have to be fed using army money. Also during this time, there were soldiers who "did not know what pay was" - after many years of service! - because they never had been. So the costs you list for normal operations are too high. If I retire from the service and take the Ring of Sustenance with me, won't I make the family farmstead worthless when I get back?