Some thoughts on D&D warfare

[painandgreed]

What about assassins? Given that high level (or just leveled) characters would rule the battlefield, seems that such things would be dealt with before the battle even began. Prior to mobilizing the army, send in assassins against the enemies high levels, taking efforts to keep them from being raised. for that matter, take out those capable of raises first. Plot traps for them. Orcs bothering the western border? Adventurers take off to resolve the problem only to discover that it is a trap and the orcs have giants and the otehr sides high levels waiting to attack with overwelming force. If they succeed, the armies march. If they don't, then the cold war continues. I suspect that in a D&D type setting with leveled characters, by time the armies march, the end result has pretty good odds one way or the other.

 

[Celebrim]

Which would necessitate, of course, that armies be raised only from noble children (the only ones with enough money to have the equipment to actually be competent combatants).

Which I should point out was exactly how armies were raised through much of the fuedal period.

If you want a large army, you have to either conscript or provide wages and equipment.

Which just about noone was doing in Europe between the 5th and 16th centuries. Of course, during this period large armies were rare in Europe, so you are probably at least in one sense correct.

However, hiring mercenaries is the third option, and the one that most European powers were doing once European rulers collected enough coin to make this practical. Soldiers were paid wages according to the weapon that they provided for themselves. They were not equiped by thier employers.

On the other hand, D&D societies are generally so prosperous and coin so uber-plentiful that equipping and training national standing armies (which is what most players assume happens because thats what happens today) is probably not that unrealistic in your average D&D game world.

There are broad swathes of my game world though were mercenaries and noble born armies are the rule of the day and no ruler has enough coin to be buying up chainmail and longswords in large quanities.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Looking at what levels represent in terms of 'animal-fighting ability' and 'getting hit with a sword or gun survival chances,' an average medieval adult should be at least a 3rd level commoner, expert or warrior.

A fit, adult, male human, unarmed, will lose to a mountain lion only about half the time. Armed with a melee weapon, he'll usually win (assuming the cat attacks at all, which it probably won't if it recognizes a weapon).

A mountain lion is a 3 hit dice, 19 hp creature with the potential to attack five times in a round for a total of 1d6+4d3+7 damage, average 18.5 if it hits with all attacks, which it generally won't - CR 2. Even a War3 can't reliably beat that, and frankly, he should be well out of the mountain lion's 'easy prey' range.

Most people, unless hit in a vital area (i.e., critted) will survive a gunshot or slashing wound. They will also, to take the perennial fireball example, survive being burned fairly severely. A War3 can survive, but dies to a typical crit, as he should.

 

[Storyteller01]

Haven't read the whole thread yet...

MPG has a nice mass combat system set up. It's an enlargement of the standard stat block (HP = the units total HD, damage is based on the average damage of the weapons used, etc). PC's and nasties work alone ( if you kill 5 1st level humans in a unit, your attacking unit has 5 HD less to deal with).

It also goes into cost. That alone goes a long way towards deterring spellcasters.


Personally, war strategies are going to be based on the culture and environ. D&D has a defined idea on war, but all of us here can look to history for a little spice!

 

[JackGiantkiller]

A fit, adult, male human, unarmed, will lose to a mountain lion only about half the time. Armed with a melee weapon, he'll usually win (assuming the cat attacks at all, which it probably won't if it recognizes a weapon).

.

What the heck? You actually believe a normal, clawless, furless human wins half the time against a specialist predator in unarmed combat?

A trained fighter with a reach weapon, sure. A trained fighter with a sword, ok. Guy with a gun, absolutely. But a normal guy, unarmed? No way.
We are not built for killing quite the way they are. Our only strength is tool use. I'd win against a mountain lion by doing something clever (ambush, deadfall, big darn rock)...which fighting it unarmed manifestly isn't.

Normal humans lose against angry dogs and housecats. Mostly because of fear.

 

[Storyteller01]

What the heck? You actually believe a normal, clawless, furless human wins half the time against a specialist predator in unarmed combat?

A trained fighter with a reach weapon, sure. A trained fighter with a sword, ok. Guy with a gun, absolutely. But a normal guy, unarmed? No way.

Actually, a trained woodsman (not a fighter, per se. closer to an expert) with a good knife has a 50/50 chance. Don't sell the human body short.

Unarmed; probably wouldn't win, but if your too much trouble said mountain lion (cougar, panther, etc. same critter) will move on, a technical defeat. At the very least, they're smart enough to hit you, then stalk you while you bleed out.

The reality is rather wierd; neither will attack the other unless they're desperate.

 

[S'mon]

IWell, I don't know what to make of your experience, if only because it appears its colored by even more house rules than I have, but I would say that the above represents a break down in party cohesion that would be utterly shocking to the players I'm most used to playing with. When the chips are down, players expect the other players to be part of the team and they expect them to be highly skillful members of the team that regularly save each others bacon.

My experience is that what you described isn't related to level. Wizards and rogues are expected as part of their unwritten 'terms of employment' to be able to perform solo undertakings that are valuable for achieving party goals, but when the party is collected they are expected to act like the components of a well oiled machine.

FWIW I've seen similar to Gizmo, with cowardly Wizards regularly teleporting away and letting the non-spellcasters be slaughtered. In fact this seems to be expected behaviour (judging by the text description of Expeditious Retreat!). The Wizard player in my current game supports the team, but they're only 3rd level currently. He does have a Wiz-18 in my high level game & he doesn't do this, but a previous Wizard player did it all the time. Other players grumbled as their PCs died in droves, but put up with it. My NPC Wizards tend to be reluctant to engage in combat also, and often not very good at it. Sorcerers tend to be more combat-focussed.

 

[Anaxander]

Which would necessitate, of course, that armies be raised only from noble children (the only ones with enough money to have the equipment to actually be competent combatants). If you want a large army, you have to either conscript or provide wages and equipment.

If you have a feudal society, wartime mobilization / defence could be part of the peasants' obligations.

 

[S'mon]

Typical demographics of army of 20,000 IMC:

10,000 1st level
5,000 2nd
2,500 3rd
1,250 4th
625 5th
312 6th
156 7th
78 8th
39 9th
18 10th
9 11th
4 12th
2 13th
1 14th

Levels assume NPC-class, mostly Warrior plus some Experts & Adepts; a proportion will be PC class, typically 5-10% but higher at higher levels, being 1 level lower than equivalent NPC class. Characters level 11+ are almost always PC-class.

 

[Anaxander]

How are they going to kill anything with no armor and only spears?

How many critical hits would 10 000 1st level warriors make?

If you treat sections of your army as a mob, even 1st level warriors could be devastating.