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Message: <blockquote data-quote="S'mon" data-source="post: 730927" data-attributes="member: 463">I was discussing my experience in my own campaign world, not generalities.   My world does not have a vast number of spell-mimicking magic items, for instance - a battle with 100,000 men on each side might involve a couple of wands of fireballs and a few area-effect spell scrolls, rarely enough to be decisive unless deployed at a critical point.Re morale - if you're in an army of 500,000 and it's hit by a couple of fireballs, you're unlikely to notice, much less run away, unless they just happen to go off right beside you.  If you're in an army of 500 the effect is very different.Generally speaking, 20th century warfare provides a good guide as to warfare in a typical D&D world, replacing technology with magic.  Most of the attack spells seem oddly similar to modern artillery in AoO, for one thing...Reading real accounts & dramatised versions of 20th century battles, you can see that eg air superiority is important, but it wasn't uncommon for masses of poorly armed 'spear-carriers' to overwhelm technologically superior enemies - guns run out of bullets, as mages run out of spells (and spell components, if the GM is firm!).  And troops could be induced to stand up to aerial bombardment that killed a high percentage of them, either through training & morale or threat of a worse fate from their own side.</blockquote>