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What Magic Would Be Most Realistically Most Impactful?
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7643792" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>I suspect hardly anyone actually followed the DMG demographics, including Gygax, which seem to imply things like only 2% of humans are 0 level man-at-arms - much less classed. The hard line regarding demographics taken by the DMG was I suspect entirely done to give DMs teeth with respect to resisting plans by PC's to do the sort of things you are suggesting or otherwise raising armies that took the focus off the heroics of the PCs. As with most of the seemingly adversarial advice in the DMG, I don't think Gygax means the DM to follow it strictly, but simply means to set a standard so harsh that any rules lawyerish PC familiar with the rules will have no grounds to complain that their DM is being overly strict. The real underlying meaning of it all is "Don't be a pushover."</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>There is to my knowledge no direct guidelines for figuring out how many classed individuals there are in a setting. The write up of henchmen certainly implies that NPCs capable of advancing in a class are rare, and it gives a rough percentage of the population that are potential henchmen and you might could perhaps infer something about the total percentage of classed NPCs from that but it would be all guesswork. There is a table of attributes for normal humans that suggests that a fairly high percentage of the population is <em>less</em> than 0th level, but it gives no percentages that fall into the various classes. The rules on rebellions imply about 1/5th of a population at most is capable of taking up arms, and that of that if trained about 10% (2% of the total) will become full 0th level men-at-arms (4-7 h.p., 0th level fighter THAC0). </p><p></p><p>But all of that is just guesswork and will involve various assumptions. Again, I think that's probably deliberate if the real purpose of all this is to prevent players of PC lords from dictating to the DM what sort of characters exist in their dominions, or from being able to pursue a program where they tell the DM that they set up classes to teach spellcraft to the population and turn every NPC with 9+ INT into a M-U. If you look at demographics as they actually existed, as you point out, now town, village, or hamlet is so restrictive.</p><p></p><p>Some idea of what the normal percentage of wizard combatants was expected to be can be inferred by the description of armies of 'Men' - whether bandits, pilgrims, pirates, or what not - in the Monster Manual. I don't think you can find support for the concept of armies of low level M-U's in AD&D. But you are free to develop whatever demographics and evolve the nature of warfare however you like.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Perhaps. The Sage in the DMG although not explicitly a class nonetheless has pretty decent hit points and some ability as a caster (up to 6th level spells if I remember correctly). But Sages break the PC rules for spell progression and caster level and all the rest really are probably so rare as to hardly be worth mentioning, and in any event given the prima donna nature of the Sage as described in the entry they certainly aren't going to be roped into joining the army.</p><p></p><p>I have very extensive experience with mass combat in 1e AD&D. Any high level character is capable of matching up with veritable armies in AD&D. A 16HD elemental on the battlefield is something that I've definitely seen in a non-theoretical manner. What tends to happen is that essentially the high level characters are busy countering each others moves. If you have some M-U sitting back behind the battlefield and their main move is going to be conjuring an elemental, then either you have M-U's on the other side that focus on that elemental in some fashion, or the high level fighters focus on the elemental. That leaves the rest of the army maneuvering against their army in some fashion. The question of what warfare evolves to in a world where high level characters are worth scores or hundreds of low level characters is not an easy one to answer, and mostly comes down to, "What do you want this to look like?"</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7643792, member: 4937"] I suspect hardly anyone actually followed the DMG demographics, including Gygax, which seem to imply things like only 2% of humans are 0 level man-at-arms - much less classed. The hard line regarding demographics taken by the DMG was I suspect entirely done to give DMs teeth with respect to resisting plans by PC's to do the sort of things you are suggesting or otherwise raising armies that took the focus off the heroics of the PCs. As with most of the seemingly adversarial advice in the DMG, I don't think Gygax means the DM to follow it strictly, but simply means to set a standard so harsh that any rules lawyerish PC familiar with the rules will have no grounds to complain that their DM is being overly strict. The real underlying meaning of it all is "Don't be a pushover." There is to my knowledge no direct guidelines for figuring out how many classed individuals there are in a setting. The write up of henchmen certainly implies that NPCs capable of advancing in a class are rare, and it gives a rough percentage of the population that are potential henchmen and you might could perhaps infer something about the total percentage of classed NPCs from that but it would be all guesswork. There is a table of attributes for normal humans that suggests that a fairly high percentage of the population is [I]less[/I] than 0th level, but it gives no percentages that fall into the various classes. The rules on rebellions imply about 1/5th of a population at most is capable of taking up arms, and that of that if trained about 10% (2% of the total) will become full 0th level men-at-arms (4-7 h.p., 0th level fighter THAC0). But all of that is just guesswork and will involve various assumptions. Again, I think that's probably deliberate if the real purpose of all this is to prevent players of PC lords from dictating to the DM what sort of characters exist in their dominions, or from being able to pursue a program where they tell the DM that they set up classes to teach spellcraft to the population and turn every NPC with 9+ INT into a M-U. If you look at demographics as they actually existed, as you point out, now town, village, or hamlet is so restrictive. Some idea of what the normal percentage of wizard combatants was expected to be can be inferred by the description of armies of 'Men' - whether bandits, pilgrims, pirates, or what not - in the Monster Manual. I don't think you can find support for the concept of armies of low level M-U's in AD&D. But you are free to develop whatever demographics and evolve the nature of warfare however you like. Perhaps. The Sage in the DMG although not explicitly a class nonetheless has pretty decent hit points and some ability as a caster (up to 6th level spells if I remember correctly). But Sages break the PC rules for spell progression and caster level and all the rest really are probably so rare as to hardly be worth mentioning, and in any event given the prima donna nature of the Sage as described in the entry they certainly aren't going to be roped into joining the army. I have very extensive experience with mass combat in 1e AD&D. Any high level character is capable of matching up with veritable armies in AD&D. A 16HD elemental on the battlefield is something that I've definitely seen in a non-theoretical manner. What tends to happen is that essentially the high level characters are busy countering each others moves. If you have some M-U sitting back behind the battlefield and their main move is going to be conjuring an elemental, then either you have M-U's on the other side that focus on that elemental in some fashion, or the high level fighters focus on the elemental. That leaves the rest of the army maneuvering against their army in some fashion. The question of what warfare evolves to in a world where high level characters are worth scores or hundreds of low level characters is not an easy one to answer, and mostly comes down to, "What do you want this to look like?" [/QUOTE]
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