Love for martial characters (rulership, military leadership, and human intelligence)

[EWHM]

I've commented several times that what martial characters (particularly the rogue and the fighter) need is a sphere at upper levels that they conclusively own. This is because high level spells, particularly spells of divination, transmutation, and transportation make casters dominant outside combat past around level 8 while remaining extremely strong within the combat sphere as well. Previous editions accomplished this by providing an end-game wherein PC's became movers and shakers within the wider world, typically starting around level 9 or so, and making the martials simply much better at that function. In my own games, I accomplish this by putting my thumb on the scale heavily in these spheres, but in this post I'll try to quantify and operationalize it, so as it can be used in a coherent fashion by the reader.
Let's start with some basic assumptions. I'm using analogs from our own history and present to anchor the capabilities I'm going to be handing out. Key among those assumptions is that most people in the real world who are competent in these tasks are from 1-3rd level. People who are very noteworthy might be 4th level (called 'hero' in the old 1st edition parlance). People that'd make a top 10 list in their area could be around 8th level ('superhero'). The very top end, near legendary, would be around 10th level. So the military leadership capacity of a fighter, at, say 8th level, would be equivalent of one of the great captains of history.

We'll define three new ratings: Rulership, Military Leadership, and Intel.
Rulership is the capacity of a character to lead groups beyond the Dunbar number (about 150 tops). It is basically how good you are at maintaining a domain with substantial numbers of people in it. Here are the possible levels:
Rulership:NONE You have no particular capacity at this and your reign will be pretty inefficient and poor. Lots of real rulers are this bad. Reduce your effective tax income by 50% for budgetary purposes. You're also exceptionally vulnerable to coups, usurpers, and the like because you inspire no particular loyalty or feeling of legitimacy among your people.
Rulership:0 You have the benchmark level of rulership capacity. No tax income modifier, your government is as inefficient or efficient as the norm. Loyalty is also within the normal bounds, modified slightly for your charisma and more heavily by your track record and reputation.
Rulership:1 Your government actually works very well. You gain a +50% tax income modifier (for the same effective rate of taxation, which I generally assume the norm is around 20% of GDP). Loyalty is generally pretty high, making destablizing your rule very difficult. You can get away with things like actually holding together someplace like the Balkans.
Rulership:2 Your government works extremely well, better than any present in our own world at this time. You gain +100% tax income modifier (again at the same effective rate of taxation). You've also totally broken the small group-large group boundary (you know, when you say...if everyone did X, this would work) and your orders are carried out with a reasonable degree of initiative. Basically you've got sub-150 person size group cohesion in most of your nation. You're a serious cult of personality. Loyalty is off the charts, making human intel against your realm much more difficult.
Rulership:3 As rulership 2, but with +150% tax income
Rulership:4 +200% tax income

Who gets what?
Fighters/Aristocrats Rulership:0 at level 1, Rulership:1 at level 4, Rulership:2 at level 8, Rulership:3 at level 14, Rulership:4 at level 20
Barbarians/Rangers/Paladins: Rulership:0 at level 4, Rulership:1 at level 10, Rulership:2 at level 15, Rulership:3 at level 20
Subtract one level of rulership for paladins if the cultural alignment doesn't match theirs
Rogues: Rulership:0 at level 8, Rulership:1 at level 16
Clerics/Druids (add one level of rulership when more than 4/5 of the population follows your particular faith)
Rulership:0 at level 10, Rulership:1 at level 20
Bards: Rulership 0 at level 10, Rulership 1 at level 20
Wizard/Sorceror: Rulership:0 at level 10

Basically, Fighters and Aristocrats are very good at rulership, Barbarians/Rangers/Paladins are in 2nd place. Rogues are in third place. Clerical types and bards in 4th, unless they're in a strong theocracy, in which they're in a 3rd place and arcane casters dead last.

In my next post, I'll define military leadership and in the last, human intelligence. Any comments or suggestions?

[Thomas LeBlanc]

To implement your rules, you would need to add a tax value to the settlement tables. And maybe lower the tax value to +25%/level.

I also think your leadership should influence the settlement modifiers. Maybe at levels 2 and 4.

You could also add a settlement quality at level 1. And remove a disadvantage, if any, at level 3.

I think the types of rulership could be based on class, knowledge, or Profession (councilor, merchant, leader, etc). I would use the following areas of rulership:

• Civilian - Knowledge (local or nobility)= any class
  
• Magocracy/Mage Guild - Knowledge (arcana)= bard, sorcerer, summoner, wizard
  
• Military - Knowledge (history or engineering)= barbarian, cavalier, fighter, ranger
  
• Theocracy/Religious Order - Knowledge (religion or planes)= cleric, inquisitor, oracle, paladin
  
• Specialized - Knowledge (whatever applicable)= druid, monk, rogue, summoner, witch

Specialized would include thieves guild, merchants guild, monastery, spy agency, cabal, etc. I would not restrict classes to those above, just a guideline. If a fighter has alot of Knowledge (arcana) he could lead a magocracy with his intimate understanding.

[EWHM]

I figure each GM has their own idea of base tax values. I presume, for instance, that people with a skilled craft are about 10% of the population and make about 1 gp/day, whereas the unskilled make about 1 sp/day. Different GMs will have different economic assumptions---and that'll vary across nations in their world. My base assumption is that the 20% that government takes in taxes is what supports your 1% of so of the population that is your nobility and government, which produce little of their own base income. So every 10 people on average would produce about 2 gp/day, giving you an economy producing around 1/5 the population in GP value (not gold mostly, stuff like vegetables, grains, iron, weapons, glassware, textiles, etc) each day. About 20% of this is sucked off by the government (the US federal government, for instance, has consistently taken about that much of the GDP). A particularly low-tax state might be 10%, a very high one 30%, which would have significant growth modifiers for a nation. I'm trying to avoid basing things on skills though, opting more for essential class features, because, for one thing, wizards have TONS of skills at higher levels, particularly knowledge ones, because of the high int they need for other purposes.