Questions on medieval armies!

[Carnifex]

If you want to know how more conventional army tactics remain perfectly viable, look at the Warhammer games for solutions. i know many people dislike GW for a variety of reasons, but nonetheless - that ehavy cavalry charge suddenly becomes a killer when your wizards laugh, lob fireballs at it, and the knights magic banner glimmers and the fireballs dissipate. Mere moments later your scattered, low-manpower army is flattened into the dirt by knights pounding over them.

Or perhaps amongst those archer regiments you have a single peasant champion, a guy who's the best in his village with a bow, who's been given a handful of special arrows for killing those wizards. Cheap, cheerful and allows a low-level character to take out wizards very easily, especially with an arrow of slaying attuned to spellcasters since arcane spellcasters usually have low Fort saves.

 

[S'mon]

If you want to know how more conventional army tactics remain perfectly viable, look at the Warhammer games for solutions. i know many people dislike GW for a variety of reasons, but nonetheless - that ehavy cavalry charge suddenly becomes a killer when your wizards laugh, lob fireballs at it, and the knights magic banner glimmers and the fireballs dissipate. Mere moments later your scattered, low-manpower army is flattened into the dirt by knights pounding over them.

Or perhaps amongst those archer regiments you have a single peasant champion, a guy who's the best in his village with a bow, who's been given a handful of special arrows for killing those wizards. Cheap, cheerful and allows a low-level character to take out wizards very easily, especially with an arrow of slaying attuned to spellcasters since arcane spellcasters usually have low Fort saves.

I've actually just written a brief Warhammer to D&D conversion - see attached. I was using 2nd ed Warhammer as my base, and a 100:1 scale, where each figure represents a company of troops, with 3-minute turns. This lets the D&D high-level fighter roll to kill 1 company every turn!
For wizards, they can cast 30 spells/turn, but need to eg lob a lot of fireballs to kill 1 enemy company - a kill is defined as 75% of the unit by area, which requires anything from 4 fireballs (for close-packed infantry) to 12 (for a cavalry company). Usually Warhammer morale rules can be used to determine how the rest of the Battalion (of 5-10 companies) react to the loss of 1 company.

 

[xrpsuzi]

Not exactly - based on medieval demographics, 90% of the population would be in thorpes (under 100 people) or hamlets (100-300), in richer areas,

I think that's 90% that doesn't live in urban environments (small towns or larger) so you also need to through villages in the mix, (whose population goes up to 900 people)

which according to the DMG don't generate high-level NPCs. But you would get lots more low-level spellcasters, agreed. The proportions from the DMG town table are really wacky anyway - the % of classed characters actually decreases in the larger cities, it creates a small number of mostly very high-level characters in metropolises

I didn't find that to be the case (see jgbrowning's average # of spellcaster chart earlier in the thread). The percentage of each class increases the larger the community. Not that the system is perfect (epic level commoners in the city?) but it's a common starting point for everyone to adjust for their campaign needs (which is how I view the core rules. if we can all start at that base, then any deviation from the core doesn't seem so far off)

As for a small number of mostly high-level characters in metropolises, for every 15th level person, you have 128-1st level caster, 64-3rd level caster, 32-5th level casters, etc....

Those low level guys can make a big difference. When you have that many in city that is apart of a society, they have obligations and duties expected of them. Every wizard can use a wand and read a scroll. For a slightly tangenical exercise, consider the effects of a cleric with an average intellegence of 11 and the domain of magic. they too can double like a 1st level or 2nd level wizard with enough low level scrolls and other magic items (on top of clerical magic)

Just some thoughts on the impact of having lots of low magic users.

suzi

 

[xrpsuzi]

No losers in war...? I've heard the inverse suggested before, but both sides "win"? Maybe there are degrees of victory and maybe if both sides go in with non-competative goals that somehow still require that they go to war with one another, then it is possible for both sides to "win"...but a game where two armies come together to fight inherently requires that they do battle and that one be triumphant and the other be vanquished. I suppose you could create a seige game where no one actually ever attacks the other, you keep track of rations and supplies and play it to a point where one player acknowledges they are no longer interested in playing (and agree to a stalemate) but I really do not see the point. You'll have to bring me up to speed on this but I think maybe that you have chosen a specific meaning for "win" that is not akin to my own.

Joe told me I was going to get flack for this one

Well, I think all the ideas you came up with are good examples of how there doesn't have to be a winner or loser (except the siege one... I agree, that sounds awefully tedious to me, but I'm sure someone is in to it.)

For example, how do wars end? Well, of course there is complete domination (wipe out the entire opposite army, or take all the lands over and occupy them/assimalate), but there are many other wars that are not so clearcut, and the war was over when both parties decided to cash in the chips (not enough money, not enough men, stalemate, another common enemy rises, etc.) and it's possible for both parties to walk away and think they are "winners" to some degree.

I also have a smiliar complaint of the experience system (all comabt based and there has to be win or lose). I heard Bruce... bruce... can't remember his last name but he's the one writing up gamma world.... darn it, I'm too young to be losing my memory

But that's what I mean by "win." If you had to assign each side experience points, a way for both of them to get some (not necessary equal, but some)

Hope that helps clarify my previous post.

suzi

 

[jgbrowning]

If you want to know how more conventional army tactics remain perfectly viable, look at the Warhammer games for solutions. i know many people dislike GW for a variety of reasons, but nonetheless - that ehavy cavalry charge suddenly becomes a killer when your wizards laugh, lob fireballs at it, and the knights magic banner glimmers and the fireballs dissipate. Mere moments later your scattered, low-manpower army is flattened into the dirt by knights pounding over them.

The problems i have with this is..

1. the base assumption of the game involves the concept of knights on horses. so magic is used to negate magic that would negate heavy cavalry.

2. there are no banners that negate physical damage. Odd, huh? Banners of something like stoneskin, i suppose.

3. the best way to stop a cavalry charge isn't attack spells. its wall spells. ouch! People wouldn't full charge in a world where stone walls appear out of thin air.

joe b.

 

[jgbrowning]

Er, a figure of 3 million in the whole British Isles post Black Death (late 14th century) ties in pretty much perfectly with a figure of 2 million for England in the early 15th century...
England was much less dominant population-wise back then than it is now, no more than 2:1 vs the Celtic fringe. But let's say 2.5 million if you like...

by 1500, the figures seem to be back up around 5 million, again for the whole british isles. i wish i had more references than i do about england. its funny how i have so many books about england, but my demographics books focus more on the continent.... hrm...

i'd more go with the 2.5 million around 1415, but as you probably know... these numbers are all guesses anyway. its one of the reasons why i chose 1 million as the smallest number for magical medieval kingdoms. england would be a small kingdom, but capable of a much higher level of mobilization than france. who usually had 5-10x as much a population. (actually shouldn't really think of frace as "france" yet.. but there's no better term)

joe b.

 

[Wippit Guud]

I would say, actually, that magic would be a lot more prevalent in armies, given what may be in armies within the world. For example.

On the good side: 500 pikeman

vs

On the bad side: 5 gargoyles

I think we can just write off the people who probably can't do 16 points of damage a hit.

 

[Greybar]

suzi yee:

it's possible for both parties to walk away and think they are "winners" to some degree.

Absolutely. The ability of the leader of each side to proclaim victory is essential to remaining in power. With repetition and a good PR system (loyal bards in the D&D sense), the people back home will believe that the loss of a minor territory and hundreds of men was a victory. Heck, look at how Iraq's leadership has spun the effective decimation of their army and loss of their newly-conquered land as a victory against the superpower US. Considering a feudal world that is very much about personal-relation politics, then "teaching that bastard king a lesson" is a victory, and something that both sides could claim simultaneously.

Wippit Guud:
I remember (years ago) playing the old D&D Battlesystem (I think that was what is was called). I seem to remember that there was a severe morale check when a unit ran into an enemy it couldn't even damage. Taking a fireball in your midst wasn't good for morale either. That's where keeping heroes in reserve was critical. Our PCs took part in a couple such battles, and a big job for us was to be able to rush forward and personally contend with forces that the line troops weren't equipped for. Fly spells were very important for that. Of course when we dedicated our top fighter out to break an enemy elite group, they sent out their champion to take him down.

I seem to remember a troop of dwarves equipped with +1 axes and +1 shields being quite effective.

Anybody still have that Battlesystem? It was counter-based, though we used minatures for the heroes and other notable folk. Wargame style play in inches ...

John

edit: found a
conversion for Battlesystem to 3E page.

 

[Greybar]

Rather than editing my edit, I further found that Battlesystem has been ESD'd for a mere $5. Tempting if I ever do need to do battles, and perhaps a good way to test people's theories on this (and many other) threads:

Battlesystem, 2nd edition ESD

John

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

My favorite win-win scenarios are from Thucydides, many of the battles were so confusing that both sides withdrew from battle believing that they had won and having honestly achieved their goals.

Both sides would then send men to the battlefield to set up memorials to their victory, see that the other side was claiming it had won, and have to decide whether or not it was worth fighting the battle over again.

In at least one circumstance they simply moved the memorials far enough apart that you couldn't see one from the other.

My own opinion on the high magic making pitched battles improbable and leaning the forces more towards elite units is not that makes medieval armies more like modern armies.

That makes both armies more like medieval armies. Pitched battles and large formations were an extremely rare manifestation of conflict in the middle ages. The 100 years war we are basing much of our assumptions on army organization from had less than ten large pitched battles in the decades of conflict that occured. Most of the war was made up of sieges and bands of lead by people like the black prince and Joan running around and either providing the necessary edge to end a siege, raiding, or kidnapping people.

Essentially acting just like special forces that had to be a lot less worried about stealth since noone had that high an intelligence capability in the first place.

Even with magic you don't need to work that hard to surprise someone in DnD. Detect spells have limited ranges and just a modicum of magical support makes scrying a lot more difficult.