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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Arkhandus" data-source="post: 4521145" data-attributes="member: 13966">If using the guidelines in the 3.x DMGs, even a metropolis of over 25,000 adult residents would only have about 4 wizards of roughly 14th-level, 8 of 7th-level, 16 of 3rd-level, and 32 of 1st-level.  And an equal number of sorcerers.  Combined, that's 0.0048 percent of the population.  But of course, only a total of 24 mages capable of casting Fireballs or similarly-devastating spells, so 0.00096 percent of the population is actually useful to a war effort (the remainder of the mages are barely equivalent to green-recruit archers, with just a little bit more tactical ability but far less firepower).And even assuming you could somehow convince/force all 24 of those mages to fight for you in the war, they'd probably be nullified to some extent by the enemy force's recruited mages.  Each side's mages would probably spend half their time counterspelling, and only a few spells would actually get through.  So I don't think having mages around in the world would significantly impact the tactics and the development of castles.Any given opposing force may have a similar number of mages to counter the other force's magic.  Clerics and druids are even less likely to participate, aside from the few dedicated to war gods or similar, and the rest might just help out with healing the wounded and supplying food/water to the soldiers, if they help out at all.  And trying to force recruitment of casters can result in high casualties for the military when those casters really don't want to fight that war/risk themselves in it.The vast majority of combat would be handled by warriors, while casters would be fairly busy making sure the opposing force's casters don't destroy their warriors or their fortifications (or most importantly of all, the mages themselves, since they will generally put their own lives first).  The casters would not only have to deal with each other, but with the opposing force's archers; and if an enemy mage is casting Magic Weapon on their archers' arrows, then even a Protection from Arrows spell won't save the poor mages from being perforated.I think the only significant difference would be that troops would start out in spread-out skirmish formations until the enemy casters were found and busied by the allied casters.</blockquote>

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