Military Campaign

[Burn_Boy]

I'm considering running a military campaign for my next campaign. The players in a special forces unit etc. we're Pathfinder but I'm adapting the stuff from 3.5s Complete Warrior and I've got a lot of the trouble spots figured out but one is still bothering me.

Treasure.

Although the players aren't going to be on the front lines, there's not going to be a lot of time to perform a cavity search on each enemy like they do usually in battles but it doesn't exactly make sense for their reward to be a nice big pot of treasure filled with exactly what's rolled in the treasure table. What I was thinking about doing was, making the gold their "salary" so to speak and then, depending on how fast or how cleverly they complete the mission, they get priority in the requisition system or something like that. Thoughts?

 

[SolosAddie]

Sounds good

I don't see too big a problem with it, I would establish guidelines. Maybe somethings are assigned out only for specific missions and must be returned at completetion. Perhaps certain items are not supplied or illegal and side missions/black market dealings are needed to aquire wanted goods.

I would also look into differentiating between the PC's personal belongings and what belongs to the army/nation.

 

[ruemere]

Depends heavily on type of military forces in question. Also, the position of characters may change over time.

You may want to assume that characters are not allowed to keep the spoils at all, however they are being equipped as per expected mission type. In addition, particularly successful mission result in special grant of equipment (essentially, characters are allowed to keep a select piece).

Regards,
Ruemere

 

[Azgulor]

If spoils of war aren't viable (which as a player I'd question since that was a prime attractor for the medieval soldier), then I'd go with the treasure rewards coming as part of the mission-supply process. Special forces or not, if they are actually part of the military, you're going to have a hard time justifying why they get paid thousands upon thousands of gold vs. the average soldier.

Even if, the powers-that-be justify it, I'd expect the rank-n-file soldier to strongly resent the PC-Prima-Donas making more in a month than what they'll make in a lifetime. Also, once those soldiers start talking, expect people to come out of the woodwork seeking to relieve the PCs of their wealth. They might find it safer to stay deployed...

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Modern armies work on a strict pay-is-all-you-get basis. Taking trophies is frowned upon, but is tolerated as long as it is minimal.

Many medieval armies had salaries, but also allowed some pillaging/looting...depending upon the commanding officer's standing orders and tendencies to "look the other way." In some, the salary was so low that looting was expected...it was, essentially, a benefit of being a soldier.

Some armies- usually those of a tribal/barbarian nature- had a policy that everything captured belonged to the commander/ruler, who then distributed wealth as he saw fit. Some played favorites. Some believed in rewarding merit.

And an RPG army can follow any such model.

 

[gamerprinter]

WraithRecon from Mongoose Publishing works this way (though I've actually never played, did some maps for it though, and read about it at the time.) Missions aren't about treasure, rather the mission. Members are equipped with goggles that upgrade with darkvision, a commo link between members and with commander. As characters level up they get better equipment and more salary, but are typically not allowed to take what they want from booty. Of course, this is more like modern special ops missions, rather than medieval mercernary wars, so taking treasure is discouraged. The art used made them look more like modern black ops A team, than a typical adventure party.

It would be too difficult to get the treasure taking aspect from my players to try such a campaign, but I've always been interested myself in that concept.

GP

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

From the Law of Unintended Consequences department: If the party's rewards are not coming from looting bodies and finding treasure, Power Attack/Sunder makes a LOT more sense from the PC side of things.

Just sayin'.

 

[Herobizkit]

d20 Modern has a "Wealth" system that could easily (?) be retrofit to a Fantasy economy, especially when you factor in Magic Items.

In short, whenever a PC needs an item, he makes a "Wealth" check based on the value of the item. If he succeeds, he gets it, and depending on how expensive the item is, his overall Wealth score may go down.

Spycraft d20 has a similar (better, actually) mechanic for requisitioning items from an organization.

 

[Thanael]

Make them specops or spies. One of the sourcebooks has the different spy organizations incl. prestige classes. You could also read the Thorn of Breland novels for inspiration.