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Message: <blockquote data-quote="A'koss" data-source="post: 1098753" data-attributes="member: 840">It's very much dependent on HL demographics, how long civilization has been in place and, again, the numbers of monsters (especially the intelligent ones). If we look at the DMG demographics, does that include all the high level characters in the setting, or only those that dwell within the confines of a city? Do those demographics include the large numbers of HLers who set up their own small fiefs, wandering HLers, HLers who have their own remote fortification/home of their own, and so on? You could argue that the demographics we see in the DMG are only a portion of the total number. If there are a fair number of HLers out there, standing armies would only be used to keep the peace in the territory your HLers have already conquered. HL, well-equiped, highly coordinated, teleporting hit squads will be the ones actually be waging the wars. The have all the advantages - speed, mobility, intelligence, surveillance, swift recovery, heavy artillery, stealth, etc. The only thing they have to concern themselve with are other HLers. Therefore HL alliances will crucial in such worlds - the more you got, the... uh, more you got. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />  An important point to keep in mind is the ease of resurrection in D&D and what factor that will play. Death essentially holds no fear for a HL band, as there are so few ways to permanently kill someone in D&D. The only real problem is old age (which isn't so easy to circumvent) or imprisonment (but that can be circumvented). See above for my thoughts on the DMG demographics. It is "expensive" (mostly in an attrition kind of way) to get PC race into the high levels, but once there, they are ridiculously cheap for what they can accomplish and entirely self-sufficient. They are far superior to conventional canon because of little things like flight, invisiblity, teleportation, incorporeality and the vast versititility a HL band has to offer. A single HL wizard flying high above a city, at night, under the cover of improved invis. and mind blank could rain unholy terror that would decimate a city with impunity. Undetectable, so long as he didn't use spells that originate from his position, he'd be out of range of see invisiblity and teleportation magic is readily available should he need it. Hit and run/replenish until the city is leveled. That's just one wizard, now imagine what a coordinated strike involving many HLers could accomplish. Replenishing lost HLers is typically not an issue, they have access to resurrection magic and therefore can essentially act without fear. Just make sure you grab your fallen comrades or have contingencies for such eventualities. Again, this is highly dependent on HL and monster demographics but I could easily see a world in ruins after years and years of HL wars involving PC races, powerful, intelligent monsters and spawn-creating undead.  A'koss.</blockquote>

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