Creating Armies in DnD

[Hussar]

There's a number of these threads floating around talking about how armies in a fantasy setting should be created. Most tend to focus on either the effects of high level characters or the numbers of mooks that will comprise the army.

IMHO, this ignores one very important aspect of creating an army in a fantasy, and particularly DND setting. Yes, an army will have high level characters and it will have mooks. That's true. But, the group funding the army should have resources beyond that. Any state, whether a nation state, city state or even nomadic tribesmen have two things going for them - resources and time. While an individual leader (usually) can only oversee projects for a few years, a nation can oversee projects that last for decades or even centuries. (Yes, yes, I know, the elves can do this, but, then again, MOST races don't live for centuries. Sit down in the back and let me finish.)

The point of this is, nations, starting from very small beginnings, can amass very large resources simply by accreting them over time. I'm really thinking about breeding programs. Any nation state worthy of the name is going to start into these as soon as they can. It isn't all that terribly expensive to maintain groups of various critters, train them and use them on the battlefield. Their effect would be far greater than their numbers suggest.

Think about it. Flying creatures like griffons or hippogriff or giant owls or eagles make perfect spotters and information gatherers, similar to the use of planes before and even into WWI. Looking through the MM we can see a host of creatures that could be bred for shock troops. Why not keep a family of hill giant slaves well fed and comfortable to use as field artillery when you need the castle wall to come down? Blink Dog troops could be kept on hand to be the ultimate hit and run units. Giant insects would breed easily, be fairly simple to keep and could be unleashed in the midst of enemy formations - dangerous, but possible. Grey Renders make perfect guardian type troops. Imagine the shock a small unit of enemies gets when they try to move through a forest sheltering a couple of these babies. Krenshar, Otyugh, heck, Rust Monsters could all be pretty devastating in even small numbers.

When designing an army for a fantasy realm, I really think this sort of thing has to be taken into account. IMHO, even a town or village would likely be able to keep some of these things on hand for protection. All it takes is a couple of breeding creatures and you get an instant industry of providing beasts and what not for communities around the nation.

Or am I just way off base here?

 

[S'mon]

Not all beasts are necessarily trainable - IRL some animals can't be reliably trained, and many will not breed in captivity. Eg historically cheetahs could be trained to hunt alongside humans, but won't breed (unlike dogs or domestic cats) so had to be taken as cubs.

Basically it all depends on whether you wish to make magic beasts common, trainable, and breedable. IMC there are some nations with domesticated griffins, hippogriffs, wyverns, even war dragons (not the spellcasting kind), but not rust monsters or xorn.

 

[TerraDave]

Right. Of course magic could also be involved...but this may reinforce the (percieved) trend of druids as "masters of battle"...ironic?

 

[DM-Rocco]

I have not really read any of these threads, but the one things I think a lot of people miss is magic. In my game, I gave the players a chance to make a difference to stop an approaching army, they flew over the army to see what it comprised of and it wasn't until they landed that they found out that the army had been where they landed days before. From above they were effected by an illusion that not only masked the numbers and types of beast and troops in the army, but also when they were there.

Had they actually faced the army, they would have been surprised by new magic custom built just for warfair. I won't list them here, the players read the forums like a hawk and even grab copies of modules that I run, those bastards, forces me to run stuff of my own creation and then they bitch that that is not fair, go figure.

Bottom line, in a D&D world there will be magic and you can bet that nations will have their own wizards and cleric that can mask the numbers of troops or protect the walls of your castle or prevent you from teleporting in.

 

[gizmo33]

Cool post - I agree it's something to think about when building fantasy kingdoms. As far as getting "monsters" involved in serving a kingdom/tribe you could go as far as the LotR example of Aragorn recruiting ghosts for his army. I suppose it wouldn't have to be just animals/beasts - a DM could address TerraDave's comment about druids if clerics were also to have allied creatures.

Some other thoughts:
- intelligent creatures would have to be bargained with or enslaved. Bargaining could create an interesting bit of history for the campaign. For example: what is the nature of the agreement between Tribe X and the Blink Dogs.
- enslaving creatures would probably depend on the kingdom's alignment
- In a battle between archers and an Otyugh, my money is on the archers - but I suppose the specifics would be worked out by any given kingdom:
> "Seargent of the blobs! What is your status report !?"
> "We've been guarding the trash pile for days sir. No sign of the enemy."

 

[TerraDave]

I have not really read any of these threads, but the one things I think a lot of people miss is magic. In my game, I gave the players a chance to make a difference to stop an approaching army, they flew over the army to see what it comprised of and it wasn't until they landed that they found out that the army had been where they landed days before. From above they were effected by an illusion that not only masked the numbers and types of beast and troops in the army, but also when they were there.

Had they actually faced the army, they would have been surprised by new magic custom built just for warfair. I won't list them here, the players read the forums like a hawk and even grab copies of modules that I run, those bastards, forces me to run stuff of my own creation and then they bitch that that is not fair, go figure.

Bottom line, in a D&D world there will be magic and you can bet that nations will have their own wizards and cleric that can mask the numbers of troops or protect the walls of your castle or prevent you from teleporting in.

Oh, magic comes up. But you make some interesting points.

I think the debate tends to boil down to something like "does magic make traditional (low level warrior) armies and castles more or less effective?" Answer tends to be "it depends".

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

The thing with those big creatures like Griffons and such is that:

A) they're more difficult to train than the average domesticated horse
B) they've got a much more expensive diet - Griffons EAT horses. The cost has got to be astronomical.

 

[Hussar]

Oh true, a griffon would be much more expensive than a horse. Personally, I'd prefer hippogriffs since they mature faster and are easier to feed. However, keeping a griffon isn't that much more expensive than say, keeping elephants.

Something else to remember is that once you start breeding a creature, you can control how it develops to some extent. Ask any dog breeder and he'll tell you the same thing. Certain creatures might not be very trainable to begin with, but, given a few generations, their offspring might be very trainable. Essentially, that's how domestication works. Take a wild animal, breed out the traits you don't like and go from there. Add in magical controls and experimentation, and you can really create very useful creatures.

As far as the slavery thing goes, that's true that it depends on the alignment of the nation. Then again, it also depends on the nature of the slavery as well. Captured giants could be forced to work and act as mobile siege weapons. This is tantamount to slavery, but I doubt many nations would have a large ethical problem with it. But, you get the idea.

Even intelligent monsters might jump on the bandwagon. In return for not chopping down your forest Mr. Treant, you pledge your allegiance to my nation. Otherwise, we sit back and lob in fireballs until all the trees are gone. Or, it might even be fairly amicable. A nomad tribe stumbles across a blink dog back and gives them food. The blink dogs trail the tribe picking up more food. They start working together and before you know it, the tribe and the pack are inseparable.

I can really see this sort of thing happening frequently. The thing is, it doesn't really matter how rare a creature is. All that is required is a small handful of breeding stock and away you go. The fact that breeding pairs exist is enough to allow this to be possible.

 

[Stalker0]

I agree with your Hussar, magical beasts probably should be looked at more from a military standpoint in dnd.

 

[Hussar]

I suppose, the question becomes, how would one go about it? What factors would you have to take into consideration when determining the "fantastic" content of a particular nation's army? And, as a sidebar, what uses could these elements have outside of a standing army? Creatures that sit around waiting for a war to start don't particularly contribute to a nation except in times of war. Most feudal states lack the resources to maintain large standing armies in peacetime. Being able to gainfully employ a group of fantastic creatures could offset the costs of maintaining those creatures.

With that in mind, how does this look for a checklist for figuring out what a nation might have?

1. Climate and terrain: This is an obvious place to start. Since you aren't likely going to find owlbears in the desert, the most likely thing is to find creatures that are native to a particular area. Imported creatures would likely be limited to very small numbers and only for very wealthy nations.

2. How difficult would a particular creature be to keep? What special resources would be necessary to maintain the critter and would a state logically have them?

3. How much space does a particular critter need? Horses are easy to maintain, because all you need is grazing land. Maintaining a flight of Roc's becomes slightly more problematic since they need so much room.

4. What training and how much training would the creature need in order to be useful. Smarter creatures can be trained in more roles, so would be likely more desirable than stupid creatures.

5. Are there any moral implications to domesticating a particular creature. Pegasi, for example, are intelligent. Human level intelligent. Domesticating pegasi is essentially slavery. Would a particular nation care? Would other nations care? Undead also come to mind pretty quickly. Not too many states would be terribly happy about armies of skellies or zombies wandering around.

6. How fast can the creatures be bred? Some creatures have extremely long lifespans, which make them more difficult to breed since they don't very often. Griffons, IIRC, live a very long time, so likely don't breed too much.

Anything else come to mind?