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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 1485021" data-attributes="member: 3146">I don't know about the last bit there. I think it depends far too much on a modern-style division of labor for my tastes. Certainly, in the ancient world it was much different. Defending the village from raids was the job of every male villager of age--not just those with special training and experience as warriors. On the American frontier, it was the same, as I understand it. Even in the late middle ages/renaissance/reformation era when professional armies were beginning to predominate in the wars of Europe, an ordinary burgher was expected to serve his city in time of war. And peasants would at least attempt to defend their ancestral rights and ways of life against their lords in periodic peasant revolts.Even in the revolution of 1525, the armies of the rebellious peasants were organized and trained along the lines of mercenary companies. Their military weakness vis a vis the armies of the Swabian league, et al was primarily in their lack of artillery, their lack of coordination and common leadership, and the fact that they had to rotate who was serving in the army on a regular basis so that people could go home and harvest their crops.Only slightly later, one of the major complaints of city governments agaisnt the anabaptist movements was that they would typically refuse to bear arms in service of their city or lord.All of that points toward the position that there was no strong distinction between common "warriors" and civilians in any of the time periods that D&D draws its aesthetic influence from. It's certainly true that there were professional mercenaries. However, when it came to defending their village from marauders or defending their city from an invading army, every male of age was expected (and able) to bear arms in defense of their home.I would expect this tendency to be even more pronounced in elven and dwarven cultures given their traditional presentation in D&D.Even in human cultures, however, I would expect commoners to use at least one of their two simple weapon proficiencies for a weapon used by the local militia. In frontier cultures, I wouldn't be surprised if all the human commoners had proficiency in longspear and light crossbow and took combat reflexes as a feat. While a force of 40 Com 1-4s with longspears (and combat reflexes) and crossbows led by their mayor (Exp 5 with a heavy mace (a sign of office) and light crossbow), part time captain of the militia (Ftr 3/Com 2 middle aged retired mercenary) and priest (Com 2/Clr 1 or something) might not be a significant threat to PCs past level 4 or so, it might well be sufficient to fend off a typical orc raiding party or to hold a palisade for a few days against an orc tribe on the warpath. (Hopefully, it would be long enough for the cavalry to arrive). Historically, in defending the palisade, they would probably also have help from the women and girls as well--either in carrying up millstones, etc to drop on the heads of the orcs manning the ram or scaling the walls or in carrying ammunition and reloading crossbows, etc. In fact, even in the wealthy, advanced FR nations like Cormyr, I would expect the merchants and commoners to have one or two combat feats or proficiencies to reflect militia training and duty.</blockquote>

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