The army behind the army

[DnD_Dad]

The sword of truth series by goodkind details fantasy armies and battles, which could be wholly compared to medieval armies because of magic users and their ability to change outcomes by themselves.

 

[Celebrim]

Or assume that for some reason, the gods (and arcane magic) are NOT on the side of the big battalions, but instead favor the brave.

To a certain extent, that's my point - though you seem to be looking at primarily the non-logistics side of the equation.

If in fact the rules of the world don't favor big battalions, then long ago - long before the player characters showed up - such a world would have ceased to bother with the enormous expense of big battalions with their necessary baggage trains, foraging parties, and system of depots. In a world were armies don't work, and are defeated and defeatable by small units of heroes, you don't bother levying armies or paying for them. What would be the point?

On such a world, battles featuring more than a hundred on a side would be rare events, and battles involving a handful would be considered sufficient to settle the fate of mighty empires. There might be in such empires armed bureacrats of various sorts - tax collectors and thief takers for example - but those you'd never send in to the field to do battle.

On such a world, logistics are a moot point, and it is not studied. Bean counters have no role in the maintenance of an army. Transport? Teleportation or flying carpet. Baggage? Bag of Holding or Portable Hole. Food supply? Create food and water solves most problems, but the demands of the 'army' (such as it is) can easily be met by raiding a single inn on the way - with or without the hostler's cooperation. Sanitation? Purify food and water and Cure Disease solves all. In short, in such a world where truly fortune favors the brave and not the numerous and well equipped, then there aren't armies, castles, or seige weapons and the entire history of military invention is irrelevant.

 

[Derren]

In a world were armies don't work, and are defeated and defeatable by small units of heroes, you don't bother levying armies or paying for them. What would be the point?

Because heroes are rare and can't be everywhere.
Because heroes are poor garrisons.
Because it is easier to controll armies than heroes with superpowers.
Because laying siege to a city with just 4 persons is impossible.

 

[haakon1]

Heroes are rare, and heroes are expensive.

It costs what, 500 gp to hire a party of 4 1st level adventurers to go deal with a goblins, in a week's work?

You could hire a lot of Warrior 1's for a long time on that money.

 

[Celebrim]

Because heroes are rare and can't be everywhere.

This is pretty much irrelevant. If you can't hold territory with your army, and if you army is in fact a liability, then you still will never see set peice battles and large standing armies. You might see something like guerilla warfare or banditry, but that's an entirely different issue and it notably is a way of skirting the issue of logistics in the first place.

Because heroes are poor garrisons.

Again, irrelevant. You have garrisons to place a sufficient portion of your army near a strategicly important position in order to thwart or delay the other guys armies. In a world where numbers don't really matter, you don't bother with garrisons because numbers don't matter. You have a messenger service that runs and gets heroes whenever there is trouble, because the other guy doesn't have an army either to thwart. The equivalent of a garrison in this world is a frontier castle with a hero in it.

Because it is easier to controll armies than heroes with superpowers.

Again, irrelevant. Because the whole premise of this excercise is that you can't control heroes with superpowers with an army either. So, nothing prevents the heroes from dethroneing and replacing you. In this world, if you aren't a hero, you aren't fit to be king. And if you are king, you (and possibly your buddies) are the army. This is King Arthur and the knights of the round table world. This is one riot, one ranger world. There are no armies because armies lose to heroes so noone bothers with the great expense of creating armies.

Because laying siege to a city with just 4 persons is impossible.

No, it's not. Four 17th level characters can lay seige to a town by themselves just fine, or smash it down if that's thier preference. But even that is irrelevant because why would they lay seige in the first place? The whole reason you lay seige is that you can't take something by force, and you try to win through a battle of logistics. The whole reason you stop to lay seige at a fortified place is that you can't afford to leave a garrison behind you because they could then cut your supply lines. Well, in this world walls and garrisons are no defense at all (and believe me, as far as that goes, I've played in this world). And in this world, no one has a supply lines and baggage trains to raid or cut. And because in this world fortifications are no defense at all, no body bothers with them. And conversely, if its the heroes besieged by an army, there is no way in heck that a mere army can win the battle of logistical attrition with four heroes. The heroes for all intents and purposes have trivial food and water needs, and for that matter can indefinately supply their own needs. Meanwhile the army suffers the problems of disease, exposure, and heavy dependency on a supply line (because its staying in one place and can't forage for supplies). So noone in this world ever bothers to lay seige. There is nothing to knock down, and to the extent there is, heroes can knock it down or simply bypass it.

 

[Celebrim]

Heroes are rare, and heroes are expensive.

It costs what, 500 gp to hire a party of 4 1st level adventurers to go deal with a goblins, in a week's work?

You could hire a lot of Warrior 1's for a long time on that money.

In a world where the heroes are 1st level, numbers still matter and victory still goes to the people with the bigger batallions. So effectively, your objection is to propose that the world doesn't work according to the premise - the universe has fundamental laws that grant victory to heroes and not the bigger batallions.

It's an important premise because unreflective D&D tends to in fact work according to those rules. A great many settings have character level demographics that suggest 8th level and even much higher level characters are quite common. Since your average 10th level hero can slay 200-300 1st level warriors in pitched battle, it doesn't take that many heroes to equal an army. Garrisons aren't stumbling blocks - they are oppurtunities to destroy an army peice meal. Castles aren't obstacles - they are oppurtunities for the hero to isolate the opponent's missile fire so that you can be attacked only by a narrow firing lane overlooked by a few archers when you make your assault. Once inside, they are are yet again opportunities to isolate armies in small grounds in choke points so that their numbers can't be made to tell.

I've played this game. It doesn't take long to realize that the army is basically irrelevant. There is a reason you don't get XP for killing things more than 8 CR below you.

And again, we haven't even addressed the danger magic plays to traditional logistics. We're primarily still addressing the danger the notion of levels and superheroes plays to Sun Zu's maxims about the relative sizes of forces. If you change the fundamental laws of the universe by having people with ablative hit points who can rapidly recover from wounds, don't expect that notions like 'armies' will survive intact without a lot of thinking and compensating.

 

[Derren]

This is pretty much irrelevant. If you can't hold territory with your army, and if you army is in fact a liability, then you still will never see set peice battles and large standing armies. You might see something like guerilla warfare or banditry, but that's an entirely different issue and it notably is a way of skirting the issue of logistics in the first place.

Sure it is relevant. When there are no heroes present the armies rule. You seem to think that heroes are everywhere. Bad thing is, in most settings those are rare and when they are gone dealing with the other sides heroes the armies keep marching. And if heroes are common you have an army of heroes.

Again, irrelevant. You have garrisons to place a sufficient portion of your army near a strategicly important position in order to thwart or delay the other guys armies. In a world where numbers don't really matter, you don't bother with garrisons because numbers don't matter. You have a messenger service that runs and gets heroes whenever there is trouble, because the other guy doesn't have an army either to thwart. The equivalent of a garrison in this world is a frontier castle with a hero in it.

No, without garrisons you can't rule anything. How to make sure that the conquered village/town is actually doing what you want? Keep a hero in every town? Then you hardly have heroes left and have to rely on armies.

Again, irrelevant. Because the whole premise of this excercise is that you can't control heroes with superpowers with an army either. So, nothing prevents the heroes from dethroneing and replacing you. In this world, if you aren't a hero, you aren't fit to be king. And if you are king, you (and possibly your buddies) are the army. This is King Arthur and the knights of the round table world. This is one riot, one ranger world. There are no armies because armies lose to heroes so noone bothers with the great expense of creating armies.

So you just send some heroes with the army. Army + heroes > lone heroes. In WW2 infantry was, at least in the beginning, pretty useless against tanks and aircrafts. But did nations stop using infantry?

No, it's not. Four 17th level characters can lay seige to a town by themselves just fine, or smash it down if that's thier preference. But even that is irrelevant because why would they lay seige in the first place? The whole reason you lay seige is that you can't take something by force, and you try to win through a battle of logistics. The whole reason you stop to lay seige at a fortified place is that you can't afford to leave a garrison behind you because they could then cut your supply lines. Well, in this world walls and garrisons are no defense at all (and believe me, as far as that goes, I've played in this world). And in this world, no one has a supply lines and baggage trains to raid or cut. And because in this world fortifications are no defense at all, no body bothers with them. And conversely, if its the heroes besieged by an army, there is no way in heck that a mere army can win the battle of logistical attrition with four heroes. The heroes for all intents and purposes have trivial food and water needs, and for that matter can indefinately supply their own needs. Meanwhile the army suffers the problems of disease, exposure, and heavy dependency on a supply line (because its staying in one place and can't forage for supplies). So noone in this world ever bothers to lay seige. There is nothing to knock down, and to the extent there is, heroes can knock it down or simply bypass it.

You run a very strange game. Of course lvl 17 heroes have a supply line. Just that the supply takes the form diamonds and other arcane materials. Cut that (by destroying the mines, etc) and even they get problems. And break their magic stuff and they have a hard time getting it back.
Also what are the enemies 17th level heroes doing? They can fortify a place like heck. So, siege.

 

[haakon1]

If you can't hold territory with your army, and if you army is in fact a liability, then you still will never see set peice battles and large standing armies.

Ah, I spotted your error.

"Fortune favors the brave" -- the nature of magic (arcane magic) and the will of the gods and dark powers (divine magic) is to help small groups of heroes.

That does NOT imply armies are irrelevant.

It just means MAGIC doesn't favor them, answering your original conjecture that magic was somehow broken because magic is focused on adventurers instead of logistics or agriculture.

It's not broken at all. It's just the nature of magic to not be "interested" in boring mundane stuff like the crop reports, primary school education, or military logistics, when it could be on the edge of its seat seeing what happens with SEAL Team 6.

You can argue that magic's priorities are wrong, but it doesn't matter -- it's magic/the gods, to it does what it wants.

"Vaccination Campaign" would be a very effective spell . . . but the gods are much more interested in "Hero's Feast". Why? I dunno, I'm not the Elder God of Magic.

 

[haakon1]

nothing prevents the heroes from dethroneing and replacing you. In this world, if you aren't a hero, you aren't fit to be king. And if you are king, you (and possibly your buddies) are the army. This is King Arthur and the knights of the round table world. This is one riot, one ranger world. There are no armies because armies lose to heroes so noone bothers with the great expense of creating armies.

I REALLY doubt you run your campaign this way. From most of what you post, you don't seem interesting in running a "Super Friends Boss the World" campaign. I assume you see how incredibly boring that kind of campaign world would be.

When the campaign you're describing is more out of control than anything run in Knights of the Dinner Table, I wonder what the heck you're talking about.

Four 17th level characters can lay seige to a town by themselves just fine . . . in this world walls and garrisons are no defense at all . . . fortifications are no defense at all, no body bothers with them. And conversely, if its the heroes besieged by an army, there is no way in heck that a mere army can win the battle of logistical attrition with four heroes. The heroes for all intents and purposes have trivial food and water needs, and for that matter can indefinately supply their own needs.

<Shakes head> I'd never allow this crap as a DM. Again, I'm surprise if you would. If it starting going this way, if the peasants didn't get them with poison, eventually something like those would happen.


Player: I'm unstoppable! I'm king of the world! Nothing can touch me!

DM: Really? You're quoting Titanic now? The clouds darken, and lightning flashes -- three bolts. (Rolls, rolls, rolls.) One of them hits you! For (rolls a ridiculous number of dice), oh not good, 87 hp. The two other lightning bolts sizzle on the ground and coalesce into men. One is an old man, clad in a toga, wearing a crown. The other is younger, wearing a horned helmet and carrying a large warhammer. The older man says, "What mortal dares call himself king of the world?"

. . .

And so, the lightning bolt from Zeus and the hammer of Thor hit you simultaneously. Both are automatic crits, and because of a special cross-pantheon chaining crits that I just made up, you take this much damage (dumps all of the dice on the table), squared. You're dead. Turn in your character sheet.

 

[haakon1]

Sure it is relevant. When there are no heroes present the armies rule. You seem to think that heroes are everywhere. Bad thing is, in most settings those are rare and when they are gone dealing with the other sides heroes the armies keep marching. And if heroes are common you have an army of heroes.

No, without garrisons you can't rule anything. How to make sure that the conquered village/town is actually doing what you want? Keep a hero in every town? Then you hardly have heroes left and have to rely on armies.

So you just send some heroes with the army. Army + heroes > lone heroes. In WW2 infantry was, at least in the beginning, pretty useless against tanks and aircrafts. But did nations stop using infantry?

You run a very strange game. Of course lvl 17 heroes have a supply line. Just that the supply takes the form diamonds and other arcane materials. Cut that (by destroying the mines, etc) and even they get problems. And break their magic stuff and they have a hard time getting it back.
Also what are the enemies 17th level heroes doing? They can fortify a place like heck. So, siege.

I agree with everything you say. Good point about tanks and infantry.
And infantry can take out tanks . . . with panzerfausts/arrows of slaying.