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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tratyn Runewind" data-source="post: 1112742" data-attributes="member: 685">Hello all, Birthright is one of my two favorite campaign worlds, and I would also dearly love to see a well done 3.5e version that integrated the new rules into the world and corrected certain problems in the domain rulership and mass combat systems.  But the best actual module I've ever seen dealing with warfare and large-scale strategy and diplomacy is Module X10:  Red Arrow, Black Shield.  It is set in my other favorite world, Mystara/The Known World, and it uses BD&D's War Machine mass combat rules and perhaps the old Battlesystem supplement.  It is a sequel to Modules X4 and X5, and, similarly to your original idea of sweeping the characters into a war, starts out with the PCs in a town that is being invaded.  You may want to give it a peek for useful ideas, if you can get your hands on a copy.  I don't know that I'd go this far - the real purpose of basic training is to weed out the obvious incompetents and misfits, and get recruits familiar with the rudiments of military courtesy, discipline, bureaucracy, and emergency procedures.  I'd simply say pretty much anyone with the skill points and weapon proficiencies of any 1st-level adventuring class, and no ability scores below 8, has what it takes to get through basic, though regimes with a dislike of particular alignments will probably set up basic training to detect such alignments and throw them out with the other misfits.  The soldier-versus-adventurer question can indeed be an interesting one.  Many players chafe at anything resembling military discipline and obedience, especially on the salary of a private soldier (which, in medieval times, was often nothing - give your liege forty days military service a year, at no pay, buy and bring your own weapons and often your own mount).  But mercenaries and freebooters often have an unsavory reputation - "pickers of bones, meddlers in other men's sorrows, carrion-fowl who grow fat on war."  And privileged "elite" units who operate with minimal discipline and supervision can create resentment within armies even today.  It's a choice that can have a major effect on campaign atmosphere, depending on how the GM wants to use it.  A good read through some of Harry Turtledove's "Videssos" and "Darkness" books, Glen Cook's Black Company and its sequels, and Poul Anderson's Operation Chaos might also provide some inspiration.  Hope this helps!  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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