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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 4929260" data-attributes="member: 4937">I come from a wargaming background.  I've played in campaigns were mass combat was a major - maybe the major - feature of the campaign.  I've played battles with 6000+ tokens on the battlefield representing units, and with 60 plus fighting ships containing 10's of thousands of marines and thousands of seige weapons.Yes, high level characters especially spell casters have a huge role in these combats and if present in significant amounts can completely dominate them.  One thing we discovered very early on is that fantasy warfare could not look exactly like real world ancient warfare and if it was to look even something like it some significant assumptions had to be made.   One such assumption was that magic was an accepted part of warfare and that appropriate magical defenses were available and would be employed as a matter of course by the great powers.  So, for example, if you want a game that features wooden sailing ships but also spellcasters with the ability to conjure fire, you have to assume that major military power take magical precautions to defend their sails and perhaps even their hulls from magical attack as part of the normal cost of building a warship.  Otherwise, building a wooden ship that depends on cloth for its mobility is a total waste of resources and it just wouldn't happen.  It's not like the PC's discovered magic.  If its been going on for thousands of years, society has been shaped accordingly.Another assumption we had to make was that professional armies were trained to deal with enemy wizards and had tactics that were modified accordingly.  For example:1) Heavy infantry knows knows how 'turtle' up and use its shields to obtain 90% or better cover from evocation spells (as well as normal missile fire), and will do so if they expect fireballs or witness one.  Similarly, pavais and mantlets will be deployed to provide protable or semi-portable cover.2) Armies deploy skirmish lines of lighter forces about their heavy forces specifically tasked with seeking out harassing enemy spellcasters (as well as thwarting opposing skirmishers from doing the same).3) Armies in the field will dig in in much the same way that modern armies dig in when expecting fire from artillery or firearms.4) Allied spellcasters will be expecting the usual gambits and will attempt to counter them.  I've seen a major battle turn on the employment of a wand of quenching.5) Allied archers will concentrate their fire on any obvious wizard in the area.  (Massed missile fire is usually quite effective at overwhelming low to mid level wizards defenses.)6) Major military powers will have magic items - standards, banners, musical instruments - with powers designed to protect an entire unit from magical attack and in particular the usual gambits.7) Major military powers will not be content with fielding armies of merely mundane creatures.  Armies - even the good guys - can be expected to field fantasy creatures rather than merely horses and stalwart men-at-arms.  Thus various combinations of griffin riders, giants, worgs, mastadons, zombies, golems, ogres, etc. will be present and will be deployed preferentially against the strongest threats fielded by the other side - which often means high level characters.8) Seige weapon rules in D&D are often broken, making firing ballistas, catapolts or mangonels at PC's and other high level characters a very viable option and a consequently a very credible threat.</blockquote>

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