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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DM with a vengence" data-source="post: 732748" data-attributes="member: 1679">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.</blockquote>

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