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Message: <blockquote data-quote="SWBaxter" data-source="post: 2322370" data-attributes="member: 27926">You can't really discuss military issues without discussing the economy that pays for it, and D&D doesn't do economy very well - the basic assumptions of magic item availability and character wealth by level require that there be millions upon millions of gold pieces worth of stuff produced just for a single group of high level adventurers, and it's hard to see where that wealth comes from in a pseudo-medieval setting. There are some systems and settings that try to be relatively realistic - HarnWorld, for example. The Shorkyne regional module prices out the cost of the Shorkyne Royal Army (Shorkyne is roughly analogous to medieval Germany with some France thrown in). It consists of about 2200 soldiers, and costs a little over 2.2 million silver pennies per year. So using D&D conversion rates, that's 220000 GP per year - less than equipping three parties of 7th level characters. This is not the total forces Shorkyne can muster, just the standing army - there's also a feudal levy (military service owed by knights in exchange for their land) that can in theory add up to 11680 more combatants during campaigning season. Those forces are paid for by the nobles who owe service, so the general leading them doesn't have to finance them. A lot of the cost of putting an army in the field is supply. If I were a fantasy warlord of a kingdom with some staying power, I would probably look into troops that don't require as much support - undead or constructs. If you've got around 200000 GP a year to spend, then that's a pretty decent number of golems, particularly if the nation's been doing that for a century or two. Of course, going down that road leads to an increasingly bizarre arms race.</blockquote>

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