Type of troops in army irrelevant?

[Yora]

Looking over the rules for making armies, the type of soldiers you have in an army seems to be pretty much irrelevant. The CR of the army defines everything and only the size of the Hit Dice any any special abilities makes any difference to how the army will perform.

Is that intentional or am I missing something?

Of course it adds some flavor to your troops if you can say "these are the elven archers I got from the hidden village after I defeated the green dragon". But I think it would also be nice if a unit of "ten elven ranger 9" or "25 human barbarian 7" would be different in any way from a bunch of "500 human warrior 1" that I just recruited from my farms.

[tonyz]

It's intentional. The system is designed to be VERY abstract and VERY fast (to the point of craziness, e.g. it's as expensive to give 1000 troops magical plate mail as it is to give 20 troops magical leather). If you want more detail, you'll have to work it into the rules yourself.

[jabberwoky]

While I agree with Tony's answer, there are actually are two things that differentiate the armies with the type of troops you're using.

1. Hit dice. Most fighting classes use d10s for hit dice, except for barbarians, which use d12s. Similarly, you could make an arcane army of wizards which use d6s as hit dice, or use summoners which use d8s.

2. Spellcasting. If you're using a class that uses spells for an army, calculate the highest level spell a character could cast at that level. The highest level spell they can cast count as a bonus to their offensive and defensive modifier, as well as possibly gaining the ranged capability. For example, an army of level 3 wizards gain a +2 to their offensive and defensive modifier.

That does make me wonder, however, if recruiting rangers for an army count as a divine army as opposed to a martial army, since they gain divine-based spellcasting at higher levels.

[Yora]

Does it matter? I don't see any difference between them.

What about hiring mercenaries? Mercenaries would have the advantage to come with tactics they have already learned, and resources that have already been paid for. Because of that, they should be more expensive regarding consumption than normal maintainance for a unit of that CR.
But obviously, Cavalry with magic armor and weapons would be a lot more powerful than a unit without them, so they should factor into the price in some way. That makes a flat increase of the normal maintainance consumption by 50% impractical.
How about this: The price to hire mercenaries is the regular consumption plus 1 BP for every tactic they know, plus 1 for every 5 BP worth of resources?

100 5th level fighters (regular) = 2 BP
100 5th level fighters (mercenary) + 3 tactics = 5 BP
100 5th level fighters (mercenary) + 3 tactics + Impr. Weapons and Armor = 7 BP

But maybe Ultimate Combat will come up with answers to some of these things.

[CalebTGordan]

Oh I hope Ultimate Campaign changes things for this system. You touched on just one of the points that are preventing me from using the current system.

[Rickmeister]

+1 on the "Ultimate Campaign".. I want it, I need it, I must have it!

And hope it's good xD

[Yora]

Hurry! ^^

There are lots of things announced for that book that I am really interested in. Can't wait for the rules to get public. (Yes, I am cheap, but if I had the cash I would get the hardcover right at release.)

[Rickmeister]

Announced? Where?

**twitch**

[CalebTGordan]

Rickmeister wrote:

Announced? Where?

**twitch**

The Paizo blogs have plenty of tasty details on Ultimate Campaign.

[Yora]

[1], [2], [3], [4], [5]

[Rickmeister]

Thanks a million!! :-)

[Philip Knowsley]

Rickmeister wrote:

Thanks a million!! :-)

Only a million?! I think this book will be worth WAY more than that Rick!

:)