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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 5389208" data-attributes="member: 82106"><p>If you think about military type gear in terms of a say early Medieval economic model it starts to make good sense. Castles, warhorses, high quality armor and weapons, specialized training, etc. were VERY expensive items by the standards of the time (castles often required decades of labor to construct for instance and high quality metal was hugely rare and expensive). They were restricted to a small segment of the population (less than 1%). Costs were vastly greater than the income of the average person (a peasant farmer). In fact a fully equipped warrior of that period would have several hundred peasants supporting him. </p><p></p><p>So consider that to be the situation in a D&D campaign. A highly trained elite warrior is maybe a bit of a grade above your 'human guard'. So the guard, with maybe 50gp worth of equipment is the type of guy that a knight might supply a couple of to his lord, plus his own equipment, worth several hundred gp. These guys are about on a par with level 1 adventurers with their 100gp worth of equipment. So if you equate the knight with trained and well-equipped modern military personnel you have the idea. A modern soldier is carrying easily a $100k worth of combat gear. The human guard is more like your average reservist, nothing TOO fancy but still a pretty decent chunk of change to equip and more than normal people could afford on their own.</p><p></p><p>Your adventurers then at level 1 are basically like veteran soldiers, well trained and equipped but not the very best equipped, like average mercs. By 3rd level they're about like some really elite military personnel and beyond that they are super specialists with equipment that couldn't possibly be afforded by individuals normally but would be within reach of someone who was quite wealthy (tanks, aircraft, artillery, etc). Once the adventurers get much into the top of heroic tier they're probably the best equipped people around, period. There will be an occasional NPC with nearly equivalent gear, but they're not as well trained etc. </p><p></p><p>I think it works out mostly. Remember, in a less advanced society than our own wealth is pretty rare and restricted to a small segment of the population. There really is almost no 'middle class'. The rich are very rich by the standards of their times and most everyone else is dirt poor, on the order of people today living in Haiti or something like that. Comparing the situation to someone in the US or Europe for example just doesn't really work unless your world has a very different sort of economics and wealth distribution than the presumed model of the PoL kind of setting D&D assumes.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 5389208, member: 82106"] If you think about military type gear in terms of a say early Medieval economic model it starts to make good sense. Castles, warhorses, high quality armor and weapons, specialized training, etc. were VERY expensive items by the standards of the time (castles often required decades of labor to construct for instance and high quality metal was hugely rare and expensive). They were restricted to a small segment of the population (less than 1%). Costs were vastly greater than the income of the average person (a peasant farmer). In fact a fully equipped warrior of that period would have several hundred peasants supporting him. So consider that to be the situation in a D&D campaign. A highly trained elite warrior is maybe a bit of a grade above your 'human guard'. So the guard, with maybe 50gp worth of equipment is the type of guy that a knight might supply a couple of to his lord, plus his own equipment, worth several hundred gp. These guys are about on a par with level 1 adventurers with their 100gp worth of equipment. So if you equate the knight with trained and well-equipped modern military personnel you have the idea. A modern soldier is carrying easily a $100k worth of combat gear. The human guard is more like your average reservist, nothing TOO fancy but still a pretty decent chunk of change to equip and more than normal people could afford on their own. Your adventurers then at level 1 are basically like veteran soldiers, well trained and equipped but not the very best equipped, like average mercs. By 3rd level they're about like some really elite military personnel and beyond that they are super specialists with equipment that couldn't possibly be afforded by individuals normally but would be within reach of someone who was quite wealthy (tanks, aircraft, artillery, etc). Once the adventurers get much into the top of heroic tier they're probably the best equipped people around, period. There will be an occasional NPC with nearly equivalent gear, but they're not as well trained etc. I think it works out mostly. Remember, in a less advanced society than our own wealth is pretty rare and restricted to a small segment of the population. There really is almost no 'middle class'. The rich are very rich by the standards of their times and most everyone else is dirt poor, on the order of people today living in Haiti or something like that. Comparing the situation to someone in the US or Europe for example just doesn't really work unless your world has a very different sort of economics and wealth distribution than the presumed model of the PoL kind of setting D&D assumes. [/QUOTE]
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