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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Errant" data-source="post: 171081" data-attributes="member: 1926">Re: Re: Actually clockwork...You're forgetting relative costs. 100 level 1 warriors (lets call them mercenary footmen) will cost 40 Gp per day on standard DMG costs (& thats allowing for double/hazard pay) while paying a 15th level wizard to unload all the spells he can cast in one day would cost 15,000 Gp, not including hazard pay. Not including the costs to equip each of them with typical equipment for their respective levels, and assuming you could find a patriotic wizard prepared to risk himself in battle, and how about the time it takes to train those 15th level characters? How many 1st level anythings can you conscript, train & field in the time it takes to do that?If I was king/emperor/whatever, I'd be treating my 15th level+ wizards (etc) as national assets & keeping them out of harms way, or in reserve, until absolutely necessary. My wizards would be tucked away in a heavily warded & guarded secret location cranking out wands, scrolls & magic items for the troops. (How much story-award experience would it be worth to spend your time making magic items for your realm - at cost - & studying to make more? Enough to make it self-sustainable in experience point terms, I'm sure)My fighters would be leading magic-heavily equiped squads held in reserve to protect my generals or to lead strikes against nasty's summoned onto the battlefield by the enemy.My clerics (those I could 'enlist' from their temples with the promise of continued permission to preach their faiths in my realm) would be kept right next to my generals to protect, heal & keep them alive.And so on.High level characters are FAR too valuable to risk unnecessarily. Yes they're effective, but they're also prime targets for the enemy's high level characters & they're far too difficult to replace.As I see it, costs (in gold AND time) make hordes of low-level grunts, strategically, at least as valuable as high level heroes. Sure, tactically, your archmage can take out my first thousand grunts without breaking a sweat. But when your archmage is low on/out of spells, the Vrock(s) summoned by my archmage eats your archmage & my next few thousand grunts don't have to worry about your arch-mage anymore.[edit: corrected spelling/formatting errors]</blockquote>

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