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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DM with a vengence" data-source="post: 675822" data-attributes="member: 1679">Large medieval armies would be almost useless for conventional attacks in a D&D world. According to the DMG, a 1st level NPC has 900 gp worth of equipment, while a wand of Fireballs cost 11250.  This means that a Wand of Fireballs cost as much as 12.5 1st level soldiers.  In any sort of confrontation at battlefield ranges, the wizard with the wand is going to mop the floor with the soldiers.  However the wizard has his won enemy, elite units such as PCs or monster that can utilize high hitpoints and superior mobility to attack them in melee combat.  However these elite units are vulnerable to massed ranged weapons fire from large numbers of low-level soldiers, so a D&D battle looks something like this.Each side picks a high hill or other defensible position to place its wizards on.  Screens of low-level characters move out to try and interdict high level characters from breaking through. Invisible elites and summoned extra-planar allies attempt to break through the cordon of bodyguards around the wizards and take them out so their own troops can advance.  Meanwhile, armies are clashing on the field, mages are throwing spells every which way, and chaos consumes everything.Behind the lines, teleporting wizards fireball towns and summon Demons to raise the dead for a massive zombie army.  (Many evil outsiders get Animate Dead as a spell like ability.  If you don’t have any specific tactical plans for your undead army, just animating corpses and telling them to march towards the capital, killing as they go, would put a major crimp in your enemy’s supply lines.)  Crack squads of Druids shift weather and poison crops to cause famine, while Rogues assassinate leaders and bring down the economy.Castles would be very valuable, because they can protect your fragile casters form enemy special forces.Wands of Fireball would also be pretty common.  I did some calculations and a D&D Nation with 100 randomly generated towns (pop 283,845) has 127 wizards capable of making Wands of Fireballs.  A nation that had spent a long time preparing for war could have several hundred wands, enough fireballs to level a city or three.</blockquote>

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