D&D General How the heck do you fight a medieval war in winter?

[Lanefan]

Nope. It's still not hood because you need it a lot.

5000 person army 500 castings per dsy. If you can do that other army has bigger problems.

My army would have a Druid Training Division, whose sole purpose is to churn out 1st-level Druids that are then each assigned to a decate (10-person troop including the Druid) and tasked with keeping that unit fed and watered.

 

[Zardnaar]

My army would have a Druid Training Division, whose sole purpose is to churn out 1st-level Druids that are then each assigned to a decate (10-person troop including the Druid) and tasked with keeping that unit fed and watered.

Well smaller amount of druids would before useful boosting harvests and plowing.

I don't think you xan really mass produce druids for warfare it's not exactly their jam.

War god mass trading clerics maybe.

 

[Hussar]

I wouldn’t look at spells above 1st level, maybe 2nd, unless we are talking a very high magic world.

Casters of the level needed to cast those higher level spells wouldn’t be common enough to lend to mass armies…and if they were it would make the army way too dependent on them. You take out one person and the army starves…that’s too great a risk.

I will say on the cantrip vs bow debate. I recently read several articles talking about the expense of arrows…limited ammunition is actually quite a big factor in the power of volley bows. But on the flip side how many people would realistically have attack cantrips

Well, considering the time and expense to train archers, it’s not too unreasonable to train 1st level wizards. Or to simply have magic initiate feats.

Iow, there’s no real way to know.

Interestingly, the Steven Eriksom Malazan novels talk a lot about the military application of casters.

 

[Hussar]

My army would have a Druid Training Division, whose sole purpose is to churn out 1st-level Druids that are then each assigned to a decate (10-person troop including the Druid) and tasked with keeping that unit fed and watered.

From a world building perspective, divine casters get a bit dicey when it comes to military applications. When more than 10% of your forces are loyal to someone that isn’t you, a lot of militaries start having problems.

I’m certainly not saying it’s impossible but there are some really serious political and social ramifications of having what is effectively a cult be the main source of food for your army.