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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 5394605" data-attributes="member: 82106">Notable for its rarity. I mean you can certainly come up with signaling systems, it IS a magic world, but the point is that mustering any significant force of men was a pretty slow process. There were exceptions but few areas in medieval or ancient times had terribly effective militias. There can be exceptions, like the Swiss, maybe Spartans, etc. but typically these are associated with larger communities. You're not going to find too many of these kinds of things in PoLand. The DM can certainly decide to equip his militias with sending stones and lightning rails too, but then you have a whole different set of assumptions.I mean as an interesting scenario for PCs to get involved in this would be cool. The local militia, unable to come to grips with Thargrax the Terrible without of course the assistance of the PCs. Now, I wouldn't really run that as an epic scenario, more like a good low paragon kind of thing, maybe high paragon depending on your settings tone.In an epic scenario I'd say any militia would be at best a plot device. Yes, 100 minions with bows (even level 1 ones) can be pretty dangerous. But that's another point. Although the English mandated longbow practice practical considerations limited the number of men that were called up. Bows were expensive and thus limited, and by far not all men of the right age actually got sufficient training to be useful. Another consideration is that most medieval armies had such crappy supply that 2-3 arrows per man was quite typical. Now, a bunch of militia and trained soldiers defending a castle? Sure, I can see them driving off a dragon attack. In the open, not really. Considering the dragon can strike quickly from any direction I doubt anyone outside arrow range of a heavily fortified area would be safe. Open battle at poor odds simply wouldn't happen anyway, Mr Dragon can burn crops until said army has starved.And again with any other epic or high paragon monster threat it is perfectly feasible that a wealthy and well-organized state of some size or other can hold some of them off. Generally settings assume that most of the countryside is empty and large well-organized states are rare or don't exist. You could have a more epic version of the dragon vs kingdom thing though with an invasion of dragons. Now, sure there can be castles and cities that can brush off a single dragon, but can they defeat the Lords of Scale? Probably not. Instead it would be PCs, maybe with some appropriate level allies in some scenarios taking on the enemy's leaders, leading battles, etc.</blockquote>

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