D&D and war

[NimrodvanHall]

Can anyone tell me a logical reason of fielding an army of lvl 1 warriors in a tipical D&D setting?
Due to the prevailance of mid to high lvl characters, monsters and what not, It seems like mass sacrafice to me.

 

[Quasqueton]

People throughout history have said similar things about the Real World "boot soldier".

Why field infantry when we have tanks?

Why field tanks when we have planes?

Why send planes when we have long range missles?

Etc.

Quasqueton

 

[diaglo]

the large majority of the D&D world's population are Commoners...

only what...(i'm not too good on the new edition rules but somewhere in the DMG is a breakdown of what you would find in a village/town/city) 1 in 10 are classed otherwise....

so you use what you have available.

it may seem like there are huge numbers of mid level NPCs. but in fact there aren't in comparison to the total population. take a look at the denominator.

 

[Numion]

Can anyone tell me a logical reason of fielding an army of lvl 1 warriors in a tipical D&D setting?
Due to the prevailance of mid to high lvl characters, monsters and what not, It seems like mass sacrafice to me.

War is mass sacrifice.

The reason why you need big armies is that they can occupy land. High-level 'special forces' can zoom from hotspot to hotspot, but they cant hold a large tract of land by themselves.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Considering that the lvl 1 soldiers outnumber the others and are cheaper to field that is sort of like asking 'why do we have a National Guard when there are Marines?'

The Auld Grump

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Well, as has been pointed out in another thread, if you use the instant kill rules, and 8000 first level soldiers attack a twentieth level character, he will die.

 

[S'mon]

Well, as has been pointed out in another thread, if you use the instant kill rules, and 8000 first level soldiers attack a twentieth level character, he will die.

Indeed.
Personally I use a demographic where only 50% are War-1s, 25% War-2, 12.5% War-3 etc.
The DMG's "war" section assumes armies include masses of War-1 expendables. That gives D&D warfare a very WW1/WW2 or Napoloeonic Wars feel. If you're modelling something like War of the Roses, armies will be far smaller and far better equipped - the baseline troops will be highly equipped Fighters with large proportions of higher level knights.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

You use them to occupy territory. Sure, sending them up against powerful spellcasters, big monsters and the like is a waste of manpower. But patrolling occupied village full of 1st level commoners is another thing entirely. Not only do they keep the population in check (and make sure that the taxes get paid), but they also serve as a warning system - if whole patrols vanish before reporting, you know you should send some more skilled people to investigate...

Sure, if you are powerful enough, you can easily kill the leadership of a nation and proclaim yourself king. But this won't help much unless you also have hordes of underlings who keep things running. And that's what your army is...

 

[Umbran]

Small groups of elite, powerful troops may be great for tactical use on the battlefield, but they don't hold territory very well at all. They simply don't have enough eyes, ears, and hands to cover everything.

 

[S'mon]

Being a War-1 facing high level opponents in D&D must be a lot like charging head-on at a machine gun nest in WW1 - the chances of survival are tiny, it's hard to imagine anyone doing it, yet they did...