Please correct my understanding of a feudal army

[Storm Raven]

In this situation, military tactics are very basic. Your forces are fractious, morale is low, and to boot you are most likely starving (You try to feed 10 000 men and the follwers with whatever you can scavenge!). You hope to get things over quickly; the knights and so on charge with their peasants in tow. The army to break first is slaughtered.

Advanced tactics simply are not possible unless you can somehow instill some discipline into your troops. You can only charge, flank, ambush and basically hope for the best. The moment your peasants break you are finished.

Medieval battles were desperate, hungry affairs basically. So when thinking about how many men a king may have, think about how the wars themselves are conducted.

On a related note - the low level of morale among typical troops has an interesting side effect - it means that most people who are regarded as superior generals have, as their primary skill, the ability to inspire their troops rather than being brilliant tacticians or strategists. Charles Martel, the Black Prince, Henry V, and so on were regarded as great leaders primarily because they could inspire their men to stay on the field and fight. Their tactics and strategy were very basic, and not particularly inspired for the most part - but their ability to convince men to stay and fight was what counted. It wasn't until the Renaissance and the redevelopment of professional armies that tacticians became a big deal.

 

[jgbrowning]

Example: Agincourt. Less than half of the mounted knights even bothered to show up to the battle because there was bugger all ransom in the English army anyway, leaving the unmounted knights to get slaughtered in hand-to-hand combat.

Indeed. Ransom is a very important aspect of creating a medievalesque war.

joe b.

 

[Alratan]

Actually the existance of a few high powered individuals (ie PCs) and the abundance of aggressive threats to safety (ie Monsters) would tend to make Feudalism more likely. Moreover the High Level character has the means to enforce the service and tribute demanded from vassals. You might tend to get a flat hierarchy more along the lines of the 'competing warlords' of early dark ages Feudalism but the ability of an individual to rise up as 'King' due to both level and charismatic maneuvering isn't out of the question

It only takes a a slight twist to make it much more likely. Say that most PC classes require intensive training to enter (like historical Knights, intensively trained from age 7, as described above). This means that only the children of PCs classed (i.e the aristocracy/gentry) can generally become PC classed, as the others need their children working to produce the surplus required to maintain their protectors.

This is compounded by the difficulties in magic item access in a sensible context where there isn't the wealth of nations buried in a hole in the ground just outside the kingdom. Families will horde magic items accumulating and passing them on to the next generation to go out to accumulate more. Consider then that there is a 30% discount on magic items which only your family can use, so when commissioning magic you'd always want to ensure they had that property (also so they're less worth stealing).

Developing the idea in a more sinister direction - why do the fantasy feudal lords keep peasants around anyway? They don't need the food, any reasonably old lineage of aristo-adventureres will have procured items which magically produce food, and have access to food creation spells anyway. No, the key to remember is that willing people can donate their XP for magic item creation. That's what peasants in a fantasy world pay their tithes in, their own life force, which is used to fuel the rituals which empower and items which equip their guardian-masters. They do this willingly, because without sufficiently powerful protection, they're just prey to the next rampaging monster that comes along.

It's a little bit like the Runelords books, but with a much more pressing need for the peasants to donate, and a more versatile use of the donated life force.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

On a related note - the low level of morale among typical troops has an interesting side effect - it means that most people who are regarded as superior generals have, as their primary skill, the ability to inspire their troops rather than being brilliant tacticians or strategists. Charles Martel, the Black Prince, Henry V, and so on were regarded as great leaders primarily because they could inspire their men to stay on the field and fight. Their tactics and strategy were very basic, and not particularly inspired for the most part - but their ability to convince men to stay and fight was what counted. It wasn't until the Renaissance and the redevelopment of professional armies that tacticians became a big deal.

This has been brought up to me by a historically-minded player; he wishes the enemy NPCs would have to check morale or flee after taking X% casualties, would have some percentage chance of failing to follow orders during a chaotic battle, and so on.

I'm not sure if it's worth bringing morale back, but my current campaign has a fair number of skirmish-sized battles (~40 enemy soldiers).

 

[Prince of Happiness]

This has been brought up to me by a historically-minded player; he wishes the enemy NPCs would have to check morale or flee after taking X% casualties, would have some percentage chance of failing to follow orders during a chaotic battle, and so on.

I'm not sure if it's worth bringing morale back, but my current campaign has a fair number of skirmish-sized battles (~40 enemy soldiers).

I rather liked the morale rules and even had the 2E conditions for morale checks pretty much memorized (1st casuality, visible spell use, 50% force strength, fallen leader, etc.). Kept situations from being MAXIMUM BATTLE 24/7 REST AFTER ONE COMBAT. At lower levels (especially in BD&D), it behooved a smart player to force the monsters to make (and hopefully fail) morale checks, since they wouldn't be able to stand in end-to-end casuality combat unless there was a good dice night going on. It also made for good in-character strategy ("Kill the sergeants & officers first! Make them break!").

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Indeed. Ransom is a very important aspect of creating a medievalesque war.

Any suggestions on setting appropriate ransom levels? Would the average treasure for a particular EL encounter be suitable?

I rather liked the morale rules and even had the 2E conditions for morale checks pretty much memorized (1st casuality, visible spell use, 50% force strength, fallen leader, etc.).

I've toyed with making morale checks for armies be equal to their average Will save, with a pretty low DC, and increasing levels of penalties (shaken, frightened, panicked, etc) upon failure. Has anyone produced such a mechanic?

 

[Delta]

I've toyed with making morale checks for armies be equal to their average Will save, with a pretty low DC, and increasing levels of penalties (shaken, frightened, panicked, etc) upon failure. Has anyone produced such a mechanic?

I actually did directly convert 1E morale rules in this way. Set the Will DC thus:

Neg. -- Surrender
0 -- Flee in panic
4 -- Disengage-retreat
7 -- Fall back
10 -- Stand fast

1E modifiers convert by diving percentage by 5. You'd also have to say that "mindless" creatures don't ever make morale checks. However, I've never actually played with these rules, I guess it's kind of complicated now that I look at it (esp., rolling for each individual in battle).

 

[Prince of Happiness]

I actually did directly convert 1E morale rules in this way. Set the Will DC thus:

Neg. -- Surrender
0 -- Flee in panic
4 -- Disengage-retreat
7 -- Fall back
10 -- Stand fast

1E modifiers convert by diving percentage by 5. You'd also have to say that "mindless" creatures don't ever make morale checks. However, I've never actually played with these rules, I guess it's kind of complicated now that I look at it (esp., rolling for each individual in battle).

I simply had the opponents retreat according to their nature: Every orc for himself, sometimes tossing his fellows in the way of the rampaging adventurers; Hobgoblins maintaining an orderly fighting retreat; goblins surrendering to their new masters (third time in a week!); ogres retreating by charging straight through the party. Villains to a convenient out-of-range vantage point, hopefully far enough away from missile weapons and spells, but close enough to deliver a speech.

 

[jgbrowning]

Any suggestions on setting appropriate ransom levels? Would the average treasure for a particular EL encounter be suitable?

Btb that would be my suggesstion. Not btb, I'd work up a very complex table based upon several variables....

joe b.

 

[Mark CMG]

Btb that would be my suggesstion. Not btb, I'd work up a very complex table based upon several variables....

joe b.

Ah, yes. A Table. A Table of Gygaxian Proportions!


(He's quite mad, I tell you.)