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Message: <blockquote data-quote="billd91" data-source="post: 4843944" data-attributes="member: 3400">I'm not disputing the usefulness of an army of dogs, under some circumstances as my post up the thread show. But armies of anything have ripple effects, particularly when it comes to replacing (or feeding) the units within that army. Press all the readily available dogs into service and you need to go further afield, for a higher cost, to replace them.  Yes, coins take a while to mine, refine, mint... but once that's done the coin can be transfered a virtually unlimited number of times. Dogs, when used as meat shields get used up. Use them a lot and they get used up fast, demand exceeds supply, price goes up.  Why not 5 miles? Could be more. Radius used as an example. Doesn't matter if it's 5 miles or 500, depending on the scale of the operation, the resouces within that radius could be stretched or depleted driving up the price. Even with a network of traders, the price for a sustained operation is higher than buying one or two dogs from the local huntsman for a limited purpose.  Shifts  in distribution of dogs. You're the one who says that shifts will occur, I'm just saying they'll take time and raise the price. And, yes, it is simulationist to drive the price up and have temporary shortages that keep things from the market. Unless you're simulating modern distribution networks and even then stuff ends up on backorder.  Because monsters, hoards of treasure, and dangerous ruins to explore grow on trees seasonally?  Which adds to the competition to get some of the resources the PCs are trying to get their hands on. And the competition may have political power too. Buying up all the dogs to run roughshod over the local humanoids may work for a while, but if you keep buying them, the king might decide to institute controls so that his own sources of them don't sell just to the PCs and still have stock for the kingdom. But this is already in evidence. PCs stock up on various resources all the time and the game expects it. Things like scrolls, potions, wands of fireball. But these specific things aren't considered problems. Or are you saying they are?The problem I'm seeing is people using things in an unreasonable, unrealistic manner. Thus, I have no problem with using dogs to a certain extent. People have done the same for thousands of years throughout history. But over-relying on them in the super-dangerous fantasy environment where the dogs are fighting ogres, owlbears, or bulettes is a far cry from their historical uses, and they'll probably die in droves. They're not the best tactical tool for those jobs and their relative cost compared to benefit should rise if the PCs persist. The same would be true for over-relying on a wand of fireballs in during bar fights. The tool can be used, but it's not the right one. Here, the opportunity cost should probably be a trip to the gallows rather than the expenditure of more money obtaining scarcer dogs to throw away for less payoff.</blockquote>

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