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Message: <blockquote data-quote="cptg1481" data-source="post: 1178410" data-attributes="member: 5360">Woa Hoss where's Little Joe and Hop Singh....Think you missed the last lines of my post......last paragraph.Now this also assumes you use a large scale combat system that rewards military leaders for having said skills. If you are assuming that all leaders are fighters and earn their way right to lead by skill at arms and that fits in with your world I think the highest level fighter would work out just fine. You could make him what ever level you want. Not for me and mine but there is absolutely nothing wrong with that method.  That said I think you either must be posting to see yourself post (not uncommon around here) or just to argue.  So I call you on your statements above about "medieval leadership".  I have a degree in history with most of those hours concentrated on military history and those remaining on medieval England and countless hours of practical hours spent war-gaming battles with military officers in military professional development courses.  I have learned from these studies that only recently in history say after the American Civil War did the concept of fighting leaders even develop.   Even 18th century commissioned officers of field grade simply watched battles they did not engage the enemy.  Of course I'd love to see an example.  Before that time with rare exceptions the leaders of larger sized units even take the field with their troops.  (They do in the movies, but that because you can't have the hero watching from the nearest hilltop, which would in fact be most likely historical correct.)  The time period we are talking about specifically is medieval and I'd take it European as well.  During that time there were few if any standing armies at all, therefore the development of a well trained and tested core of leaders who would rise to the top based upon their heroic nature or their ability to fight would have been all but impossible.  The leader of armies in those times was the man paying the bill for raising it.  He might hire some professional officers to handle his logistics, training, and plans, and they most likely came from the nobility and had never seen the business end of a sword in real battle.  A select few of these higher level leaders might be landless knights  say who did earn the right to command larger units through strength of arms but they are the exception no the rule.  Leaders in those times came from nobility and that is it.....there was almost no chance to better ones position in war.  It did happen but rarely.  Now the argument will be made that the nobility are the ones who had horses, armor, and spent time training and such but to tell the truth they were often less effective in combat than their own squires and men at arms who were usually hired by the father to protect their &*$%ed up sons in battle so they'd come back.  if you think that medieval leadership was earned and based on heroics you must be watching too many movies. They trained yes but its no different than say a guy who goes to the shooting range every day, yea he's a great shot and knows a lot about guns, but he's not a professional soldier and most likely would be clueless in combat these days.  You see jousting and tournament fights are very different than battle.  Again I say though that is you want the leaders in your armies to earn it and be the best fighters then so be it there is absolutely nothing wrong with it from a fantasy perspective.  In the end each world is different and the DM can do what he/she wants but I think that to say medieval leadership was earned through strength of arms and is carried out through heroic actions is simply wrong and there is absolutely no evidence of this in history.</blockquote>

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