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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Trickstergod" data-source="post: 1253217" data-attributes="member: 10825">Nations wouldn't be unstable and rare; for that matter, it seems people are under the impression that just because the king (or whatever) couldn't protect himself should he be attacked, that he doesn't have any number of individuals who could protect him. The fact is, outside of a few, fairly primal societies, I'm tempted to say that most leaders would be, if forced into a one-on-one fight, soundly beaten to within an inch of their lives by just about everyone. Leaders do not rely upon personal power - they rely upon others. That's why they're leaders. They get other people to do things for them. The leader is not the one training every day in the art of swordplay, the leader is the one saying, "You, go train those men in swordplay. You, go collect my taxes and make sure they're all there. You, go spy on these rabble-rousers for me. You, go do research into this subject and come back to me with a report and advice on it," and so on. Very few leaders are particularly dangerous in and of themselves, and there's any number of dangerous people out there who can kill you 200 different ways, knows how to set up a bomb and by-pass security measures, and more besides, who don't rule. In fact, they probably take their orders from someone they could kill with relative ease if they wanted to. Perhaps they would - but then, what about those other 11 guys who are more or less as equally trained to kill who work for the authority figure? Perhaps they're not particularly loyal, either, but who says they'd be loyal to the assassin? Chances are, they'd use the rulers murder as a justifiable excuse to kill the murderer and take the place the assassin wanted in the first place. Even when a leader is fairly well versed in the ways of warfare, whatever form it may take, they are very rarely the best at it (outside of perhaps tactical or strategic knowledge). The same should hold true in D&D.</blockquote>

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