Questions on medieval armies!

[Greybar]

A metropolis is to be expected in a kingdom of 2 or more million. Most kingdoms have more than 2 million people.

Joe, we started this by saying that England circa Agincourt only had 2 million people. Thus that's a reasonable number to work with.

If we do a quick rundown of a kingdom with 2 million adults, you'll end up with something like 60k spellcasters, most of them 1st -3rd level.

Yup, no fireballs there. But like I said, plenty of bless and inspire courage.

As was said earlier, we expect an army of 5,000. Your metropolis is 25,000+. Somehow you are coercing the most powerful individuals in the metropolis to fight for you, apparently. Good luck in convincing that 13th level wizard to fight your battles for you.

Instead, let's take a Large Town as an example (pop max of 5,000) so we get an "apples to apples" comparison. Now we have a max of level 7 for spellcasters...

John
p.s. kudos and best of luck on the new product, by the way. I suggest you link to the RPGNow (or equiv) link in your .sig [grin]

 

[jgbrowning]

Joe, we started this by saying that England circa Agincourt only had 2 million people. Thus that's a reasonable number to work with.

sorry, i missed that part. its probably not very accurate, though. Cippolla suggests closer to 5 million for the british isles and dropping it down to around 3 million after the plague. Pound, oddly, leaves england out of his numbers but offers 1.2-1.5 for the low countries, 17-18 for france, 10-12 for germany, 600-650k for switzerland, 1.5-3 for poland, 3-4 for hungry, 4-6 for the balkans, 7-9 for italy, 5-7 for spain +port, and 1-2 for scandinavia.

Yup, no fireballs there. But like I said, plenty of bless and inspire courage.

they'll be using wands (mostly magic missile/sleep wands since they are dirt cheap) and scrolls (again magic missle/sleep). kings aren't going to only tax spellcasters fiscally, they'll have magic taxation as well. The spellcasters will also be required to bring their own equipment as well. And they will, they'll bring everything they have personally because they don't want to die.

Yep, bless and inspire would be important non-direct combat spells.

As was said earlier, we expect an army of 5,000. Your metropolis is 25,000+. Somehow you are coercing the most powerful individuals in the metropolis to fight for you, apparently. Good luck in convincing that 13th level wizard to fight your battles for you.

Actually that 13th level wizard's probably a landowner with feudal obligation, so there's a good chance its his battle as well. Not to mention that there are social pressures (guilds, churches, kings). Non-landowning wizards won't be able to say no. If he does say no, those who do fight will kill/coerce him because they make the laws and they're more of them than him. We're not talking about convincing anyone... the medieval period, however complex and interesting, is still just a bunch of thugs.

assumption: wizards guild's are not monolithic like the roman catholic church.

Instead, let's take a Large Town as an example (pop max of 5,000) so we get an "apples to apples" comparison. Now we have a max of level 7 for spellcasters...

**an army of 5k is not comparable to a community of 5k. I'm not sure if that's what you meant to imply or im misreading**

ok, lets look at large towns....

with 2 million people at least 7-10 large towns.. you'll end up with an average of 56-80 wizards, 56-80 sorcs, 91-130 clerics, 91-130 druids, and 91-130 bards. The wizards and sorcs will max at 7, the others will max at 9. So minimum you have 385 spellcasters (not including adepts, rangers or paladins, were we to include them that would bump up to 476). Even if only 1/2 of them are conscriptable, thats a goodly amount.

The item taxation involved here is going to be immense. Scrolls, potions.. all sorts of things lower levels can make. There's going to be a lot of pressure to focus on item creation feats over others (it makes money, it makes the people in charge happy) so these guys are going to be pumping out the magic.

'course, the king could just stroll by and say, "Give me your magic." Purveyance adds a lot of magic in times of need. Just try to say no....

Magic would really change almost everything. Imagine we have two armies like the one you discribed. Fairly low magic. But one side just happens to have that 16th level wizard from the metropolis. Opps... Battle Over.

And that's my main reason for beliving that they'll be a hell of a lot of magic involved. Its the universal fear... "He has it and I don't."

joe b.

PS. Thanks for the congrats! I'm pretty excited and i'll take your advice and stick the direct link in my sig. I'd like to take more time and explain my ideas, but that'd be too long.

 

[Black Omega]

A few random thoughts.

Crossbows were very popular because they took so little training. Take some peasants, give them an afternoon of training, if that. And they can use a crossbow. Use of a longbow was more of an issue because it took much greater physical fitness to use effectively.

For army size, really just decide what era works best for your game. For my Rokugan game, I use more Japanese army sizes. Really big battles might have 100,000 on each side.

Decide what effect you want magic to have on the world. do you want big battles? do you prefer battles to be smaller and more highly specialized? Based on this decide how magic works for battles.

 

[jgbrowning]

For army size, really just decide what era works best for your game. For my Rokugan game, I use more Japanese army sizes. Really big battles might have 100,000 on each side.

rice is an amazing food.


joe b.

 

[Black Omega]

rice is an amazing food.
joe b.

Too true. Ideally, each ashigaru would carry enough rice to feed him for ten days. Once you work out how much dry rice that is, it's really not very bulky at all. This was a big edge asian armies had. the two sides of the Onin War of 1467 in Kyoto worked out to over 160,000 warriors.

 

[jgbrowning]

Too true. Ideally, each ashigaru would carry enough rice to feed him for ten days. Once you work out how much dry rice that is, it's really not very bulky at all. This was a big edge asian armies had. the two sides of the Onin War of 1467 in Kyoto worked out to over 160,000 warriors.

rice is less bulky for more calories.. what is it? something like 40% more calories in rice than wheat... hrm... can't remember.
multiple harvests too!

and the best part of rice

Noong! (the crispy bottom of the pot... yummy... like a rice potato chip without the oil.. )

joe b.

 

[DM with a vengence]

I've did a spreadsheet with this sort of information a while back, so here's what I have.

Our imaginary Nation consists of 100 randomly generated towns from the DMG. It has a population of 285,000, so a real country would have around 5-10 times as many people, with a proportinate increase in spellcasters.

This nation has an army (watch+militia) of around 1700. It has 1450 Arcane Casters and 1450 Divine Casters. Of these 332 are above 5th level, divided evenly between Arcane and Divine. I choose 5th because this is the prequisite for Craft Wand and 3rd level spells. This nation has a total free cash of 345,949,425 GP, so if only 1% of this is invest in the military, that's 3,459,494 gp of killing stuff. 3.5 Million GP. If you devote a third of this to wands of fireball (standard attack) you have over 100 wands of Fireball. That is to say 5000 Fireballs (at 225 gp a pop), each on of which is capable of stopping a charge on it's own. A group of five mages + bodyguards and windwalls could anniliate a standard army in minutes. Fireballs aren't even the best way to go, Entangle is much cheaper (15 gp a cast), and coupled with archers is nearly as effective. And this is a small country that isn't focused much on military spending.

A real D&D army would look much like the modern US one. Since conscripts are so easy to kill with magic, small groups of elite soldiers spread out to avoid fireballs is the way to go. Of course that leaves then vulnerable to a cavalry charge, but anybody stupid enough to bunch up like that deserves to be roasted in their shiny armor.

In short, the level of magic completely changes the game, the ramification of which we have only begun to discuss.

 

[jgbrowning]

In short, the level of magic completely changes the game, the ramification of which we have only begun to discuss.

I like cavalry. Especially the way their use of horses makes them roll twice on saving throws. "Sorry Bob, you made your save but your horse didn't. You're now running away"

I think there are two basic ideas that have to be hashed out before you can honestly begin talking about war with magic.

1. Do you accept only core- book magic? (ie. no magic plows)

or

2. Do you make up magic that you think would occur? (magic plows)

These two views are where most of these discussions fall apart at. One guy goes one way, the other the other and nothing really gets talked about.

joe b.

 

[Mark CMG]

Sure.

Cool.

However, the only way I'd lose is if the system doesn't properly extrapolate DnD rules onto the mass combat level.

Let me know when the system arrives that you feel gives you the best opportunity to show off your abilities, and we'll play it out. Of course, you're stacking the deck since you can claim, even after the fact, that any system where I kick your butt will not have met your parameters but kicking your butt will be enough for me.

 

[xrpsuzi]

Let me know when the system arrives that you feel gives you the best opportunity to show off your abilities, and we'll play it out. Of course, you're stacking the deck since you can claim, even after the fact, that any system where I kick your butt will not have met your parameters but kicking your butt will be enough for me.

Good to see you're taking the high road mark... The greatest measure of a game is if you win

*jgbrowning interjects from his migraine "I bet you play a mean game of chutes and ladders."

suzi
p.s. yes, the truely nerdy couples do tag team posts at 1 in the morning.....