Hammerhead
Explorer
Paladins are probably the only warriors with good saves, and even that depends on high stats. And paladins are probably more rare than wizards.
Mass Combat: Militray Tactics Old and New!
- Thread starter Leopold
- Start date
Bhadrak said:
Heheh, well said. He's just dashing out there to cast fireball though. It's not like he's hanging out that for very long. Plus, if he's smart, he'll have shield and mirror image up too!
To be honest, I think using a fifth level wizard like that to cast a single fireball into the enemy is a gross waste of resources. Wizards are harder to train than soldiers. Any slob can be given a spear and taught to march in formation. Only a select few will show arcane gifts. Because of their rarity, it would be too risky to put them on the front lines.
Thats rather campaign specific. The rules only require that someone have an INT of 10 or more (13 for 3rd level spells) and access to teaching resources to become a wizard
Taking that logic to one conclusion, full 33% of the populous (INT 12+) can learn to cast 3rd level spells by 5th level.
mmadsen said:
Remeber our wizard may have magic items as well.
A few scrolls of Invisiblity, Fireball, Fly and Protection from Missles and you have an attack chopper
Basically the tactical use of magic depends very heavily on your world details.
In a low magic game illusions and tricks will be as usefull in battle as attack spells
In a high magic game wizards rule and in general can only be countered by other high level types.
Falcon said:That's even more High-Magic than FR.
WOW!!!!
Well most people don't have the 6 years to dedicate to full time schooling to become a 5th level mage so the numbers are more in line.
IMC magic is science. Just as most people IRL don't have the time and resources to have a doctorate, most people can't study magic full time.
I figure it this way
It takes 6 months to become an apprentice level mage
2 years (an associates degree in magic if you will) will get you to 2nd level
4 years (a BSM Bachelorette sciences magical) will get you to 4th
5 years (graduate Emeretis-- ) 5th level
6 years (doctor of magic) 6th level.
Most people "peak" or reach the limit of what magic they can use soon after
If they are the fairly rare types with the barins to go farther--
It will take 3 years or so to master each new spell level up to 6.
For the even less common folks, the 2 percent or my "mensa" types 4 years each will get you through 7, 8, and 9
Add a few years for lazy/peacefull mages and subtract a few for adventuring ones.
An example-- A military veteran
Human male age age 38 (20 years experience)
STR-14
INT-16
WIS-10
DEX-12
CON-14
CHA-12
Wizard- 11
Fighter- or some PRC that doesn't add spells levels 1
He will have a bunch of potions and 4 or 5 magic items.
Magic items aren't quite as common IMC as they require power components.
These guys aren't super common---
The bulk of the army by comparison is made up of War3 types.
And yes I run a spell heavy game with lowish levels of permenant magic items.
Exactly. A denser force can achieve better localized odds.
Any serious mass-combat game needs to take morale seriously, because historical battles were won or lost based on who broke and ran and who didn't.
Does anyone know any games that have an elegant morale system?
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In my game there would be a lot more cooperative spellcasting to do things to affect the area. IE, get 12 lower level wizards together to cause a huge area to swell up with fog for a few days (The wizards would concentrate on this). The enemy wizards would then focus their arts on dispelling the fog and sending out their fireball wizards to finally see what's going on. Maybe strong winds if they're short on archers, or still the winds if they have an archer advantage.
It's not true to the core rules, but the core rules were designed for adventure and PC vs NPC magic. It wasn't designed to handle nation vs nation magic. I don't have any rules for it, just common sense stuff.
It's not true to the core rules, but the core rules were designed for adventure and PC vs NPC magic. It wasn't designed to handle nation vs nation magic. I don't have any rules for it, just common sense stuff.
Lets figure we have 500,000 commoners in this fake country making 1sp per day, and 50,000 artisans making 1gp per day. Arbitrary figure, but we'll use it as an easy to figure base point.
That's 100,000gp per day in this imaginary country. If they work 6 days a week 52 weeks a year that's 312 work days. 31,200,000 gp would be the Gross Domestic Product. Per Capita that's 56.72gp per person per year (The United States has $33,900 per person in 1999). Anyways, the military budget is 3.2% of the GDP for the US in 1999. 3.2% of our imaginary GDP of 31,200,000 would give us an imaginary military budget of 998,400gp per year for a fairly well prepared but not actively engaged military. Israel has almost 3x our military budget compared to GDP, that would be 3 million gold peices per year! Yikes.
Now, 1 million gold pieces a year sounds like a lot, but a wand of fireballs, 5th level is 11,250gp. That's 1.1% of the military budget for the year - ouch. 1.1% of the US budget is 3.1 billion dollars - lots of loot for one guy to be carrying around!!
Granted this is all comparison, but your "average" citizen (10 parts commoner, 1 part skilled artisan) who makes 56.72gp per year and contributes 1.81gp per year to the military budget means you'd need 6215 people laboring for 1 year paying taxes just to put that wand in the wizards hand, and that doesn't include paying him either! Would your 5th level wizard find a job for 1gp per day? Nah, you'd want far more then that and so would this NPC wizard.
Anyways, that's all just theory.
That's 100,000gp per day in this imaginary country. If they work 6 days a week 52 weeks a year that's 312 work days. 31,200,000 gp would be the Gross Domestic Product. Per Capita that's 56.72gp per person per year (The United States has $33,900 per person in 1999). Anyways, the military budget is 3.2% of the GDP for the US in 1999. 3.2% of our imaginary GDP of 31,200,000 would give us an imaginary military budget of 998,400gp per year for a fairly well prepared but not actively engaged military. Israel has almost 3x our military budget compared to GDP, that would be 3 million gold peices per year! Yikes.
Now, 1 million gold pieces a year sounds like a lot, but a wand of fireballs, 5th level is 11,250gp. That's 1.1% of the military budget for the year - ouch. 1.1% of the US budget is 3.1 billion dollars - lots of loot for one guy to be carrying around!!
Granted this is all comparison, but your "average" citizen (10 parts commoner, 1 part skilled artisan) who makes 56.72gp per year and contributes 1.81gp per year to the military budget means you'd need 6215 people laboring for 1 year paying taxes just to put that wand in the wizards hand, and that doesn't include paying him either! Would your 5th level wizard find a job for 1gp per day? Nah, you'd want far more then that and so would this NPC wizard.
Anyways, that's all just theory.
