How can nations afford armies?

[clockworkjoe]

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reost above

That's all campaign specific. After all, maybe some crazy hermit arch mage sees an army marching nearby, gets paranoid, and decides to destroy it. Or a single archmage is trying to protect his hometown from invasion. Or any number of situations. I don't care. I just wanted to make the point that in 3e higher level characters are disproportionally more valuable than lower level characters in military situations. The arch mage vs 1000s of level 1 archers is just the most obvious example of that.

Yeah, one man is not an island. This is true. One character probably couldn't take on an entire nation/army by himself no matter what his level. But that guy could probably make a hell of a dent.

 

[LostSoul]

I think the high-level characters would be the ruling elite.

Therefore, the question comes down to this:

Is it better for high-level characters to spend thier money on armies or magic items?

(Given that you accept the first point.)

 

[S'mon]

I think the high-level characters would be the ruling elite.

Therefore, the question comes down to this:

Is it better for high-level characters to spend thier money on armies or magic items?

(Given that you accept the first point.)

For most worlds a mix is best - a few hundred soldiers plus a wand of fireballs gives a good mix of capability, much better than 2 wands or twice as many men without magical support.

It's a fact of D&D that 'armies' of a few hundred without magical support are easy meat to high level PCs. Armies of a few thousand or tens of thousand with moderate magic support (say NPC casters half the level of the PCs) are almost never stoppable by PCs, when I've seen it tried the PCs usually come to grief - and that was in 2e when Protection from Normal Missiles was far more powerful.

Still, D&D battles do resemble 20th century warfare in that offensive actions rely on air superiority for success, an army without air superiority will suffer a lot of attrition from flying fireballers. Maybe not enough to stop a large army, but it certainly hurts.

 

[Dispater]

What this debate really depends on is the sort of campaign the DM is running.

I'll give two examples:
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If its a high magic campaign, with many archmages and powerful magical items, I think warfare would be dramatically changed. Fewer induviuals would participate in a battle, yet of these would be of high level and w. magical items and spell casting abilities. Lets' face it: no general would try to match a dozen archmages with thousands of 2nd - 3rd level warriors. He would rather have a band of perhaps 200 high level fighters, paladins, clerics and wizards who could stand a chance against their magic. A battlefield would more or less look like an inferno of fireballs, lightning bolts, ice storms, summoned monsters and the like. No way a lowly solider is going in there!

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Then there's a low fantasy campaign where magic items äre rare and magic users far inbetween. Here the one who controls magic has a great advantage. A 5th level wizard would be ultra-powerful, for he could toss a fireball and kill a dozen men-at arms in one stroke. But then he would vulrnable, given that he is not of too high level and don't have a lot of magic items to protect him. So ultimately, he would need an army of his own to win a batle. Someone with a wand of lighting bolts, horn of blasting or equivalent item would also have poweful offensive cababilities, since there is no other magic to counter it. But in general, the threat of magic is not sufficient. Battles will still be fought the traditional way.

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I think people are wrong when confuse those two styles of play. You have to consider the logical causes of magic and its effect on the campaign world.

 

[Bob Aberton]

Alright, I back down on my earlier stance. However, from a national POV, it is far more sensible to have your military might invested in a few thousand "grunts" than 1 or 2 high-level mages. Imagine this: One nation has 5,000 grunts, and maybe 100 or so low-level mages, fights a country with a military consisting of 2 archmages. Who will eventually win?

It makes a lot more sense to spread out your military power than to have it all invested in 1 person.

 

[SHARK]

Greetings!

Dispater, those are some excellent distinctions that you have made. It is precisely those presuppositions that dramatically change everything that follows from them in the campaign--quite literally everything, you know? Most people tend to assume whatever their favorite is is the standard. Actually, however, though I like many elements of "low-fantasy" the fact remains that the rules, and the books and modules all assume a much higher magic standard than people that champion "low-fantasy" campaigns. It is from this fact that I would say that mid-to-high magic assumptions are pretty standard, and the "low-fantasy" campaigner must then make the appropriate qualifications. Prima facie, the rules assume a much higher level of magic throughout a typical campaign. It is from these presuppositions that would lead one to believe that most battles fought in the D&D battlefield would be at least significantly more spectacular than the seemingly stereotyped 14th century Medieval European battle.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

 

[Turlogh]

A couple of points:

How armies were paid for-
1) Taxes of course
2) Loans
3) Out right theft- from those disenfranchised from popular society, or out of favour with the rulers.
4) Tribute- the losers of the battle or war generally paid huge yearly sums to the winners (if the point wasn't conquest- if it was they got big taxes)
5) Ransom- captured nobles, knights and royalty were ransomed back to their people for large amounts of money.
6) Looting, pillaging, etc.

About Adventurers in armies-
1) it would be very expensive for a king/ruler to field many and they would be treated as mercenaries (ie get the dangerous jobs and with little likely hood of seeing their pay or surviving)
2) If one army had adventurers why wouldn't the other side? In the end adventurers would just be fighting adventurers and the armies would go on fighting as they always have.