RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16
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It will help you think about this topic if you think about what wizards, monsters, etc. bring to the table by Warfighting Function (WFF). This is the framework the IRL military (at least the US Army) organizes capabilities.
Maneuver- infantry, cavalry, anything that applies combat power by maneuvering around the battlefield and engaging enemy forces directly.
Fires- primarily artillery, mortars, rockets, close air support, and the like, but also includes anything that produces effects. Information ops, psychological ops, and other nonlethal capabilities are considered fires.
Intelligence- military intelligence, but also recon. Anything that gathers information.
Protection- capabilities that protect the force. Engineers are often considered protection because they dig foxholes and bunkers. Chemical is protection.
Sustainment- logistics, supply, medical, personnel.
Mission Command- command, control of friendly forces, communications.
Casters can fulfill any of these functions, but will excel at a few based on their class spell lists.
Maneuver- casters are generally not who you want doing this. Sure, they can summon monsters, but summon spells are rounds duration--not long enough to generate a sustained maneuver force. Casters can aid maneuver, but you aren't going to have a force of 100 wizard 5's flying around your typical battlefield with bows and longspears. Magical armies will still leave maneuver to infantry and cavalry forces.
Fires- evocation spells are what you'll think of first, but battlefield controls, enchantments, and illusions are all great examples of fires capabilities. Casters can blow the enemy to smithereens, incapacitate them en masse, make them flee, even deceive them with illusions to influence their actions.
Intel- divination would change magical warfare far more than fireball.
Protection- all those maneuver guys are going to need protection from enemy casters. That's where friendly casters come in. Think abjurations, transmutations, and protective illusions. Also think about spells like move earth and permanent walls. Fixed installations will probably be protected by hallow; particularly high security areas also by the likes of guards and wards or forbiddance. Lyre of building and mattock of the titans will be far more useful than their gp values might indicate.
Sustainment- create food and water is too expensive to ever fully replace actually carrying rations, but purify food and drink will be incredibly important. Any army that can afford one will want a decanter of endless water, for a variety of reasons. Clerics or life oracles will be the gold standard for combat medical care. Any kind of instantaneous or long-duration transportation magic will be used for resupply.
Mission Command- status, message, scry, sending, and even using silent image for signaling will greatly simplify mission command.
Standing Army, in this case, would be all your knights and squires and soldiers who are out riding the borders, hunting down bandits, and such.
Er,... most knights were primarily administrators. They weren't busy riding the borders, but ruling their holdings. Squires weren't even fighters; squires were knights-in-training, and usually just kids. The idea of calling someone's fourteen-year-old personal servant part of a "standing army" is rather silly.
And there's a huge difference between law enforcement and the army.
Most countries had a standing army, they just didn't call them that.
Er, no. Most countries had law enforcement, because a standing army is a lousy way to deal with poachers. Poachers don't stand their ground and fight the sheriff, they run and hide, and you have to ask around and figure out that Fat Adam's the one who's been nicking all of the Duke's pheasants. You can't rely on being part of Duke Fred's First of Foot when it's just you and maybe a deputy.
And, of course, they weren't trained to fight as part of an army, because a pike -- or even a halberd-- is a lousy weapon to use in a law enforcement setting. Yes, some of the wardens were awesome woodsmen and archers... and there's a PC class for them, called the ranger.
They called them bailiffs and sheriffs and wardens and all those other people who basically kept people from poaching, from stealing, city guards, town guards, etc. Again, all those people should be trained in PC classes, because it makes no sense to train them in NPC classes.
Also note that while countries didn't usually have standing armies, there were always 'the King's men' who were usually two or three times the size of the largest Baron's force. And the various barons and such had men at arms to guard their land against thieves and cut throats (really it was to keep the next baron over from taking a choice field).
Er,.... no. History really was nothing like that.
I agree that it might be a problem if the next country over sneak attacked you, and you don't have time to train people out of being warriors (village peacekeeper) and commoners (farm hands) and into fighters and cavaliers and such, but, other than utterly failing your keeping track of your enemies movements, you should have a good 6 to 12 months warning your neighbor is gearing up and allowing you to gear up.
Yes, but you know what you call that six month period? Planting season. Medieval warfare was very much a seasonal thing that happened mostly during the summer. If you pull the farmers off their land during planting season, there's not going to be enough food to go around next winter. And if you don't get your soldiers back before harvest season, you'll have a similar problem. Fortunately, your opponent had exactly the same problem you did, because he was also living off his land.
Ok,
I'm confused. Are we playing '1492 Simulator' or are we playing 'fantasy RPG'?
My points are about what, given standard tropes, the makeup of the countries should be based on the general genre seen in most fantasy books.
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16
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OK, here's another issue. Is True strike worth it?
Let's compare troops: a spellcaster armed with a composite longbow and a wand of True strike costs 850gp (let's assume he got the proficiency somewhere; either he is an elf or he burns a feat to get it or something). 20 of them will cost 17,000gp
For that price I could outfit 170 bowmen with a composite longbow. So let's compare these 2 troops against our lightly armoured skirmishers.
Let's give our targets the best possible armour - a chain shirt, and let's say they have a generous dex of 14, but no shield. So, AC 16.
at extreme range (1100'), the ordinary bowmen get a grand total of -14 to their attacks (+1BAB, +3Dex, -18Range). That means they only hit on a natural 20. That's a 1/20 chance of hitting or an average 8.5 hits.
our spellcasters get +0BAB, +3Dex, -18Range but they also get +20 for True strike. net bonus: +5. That means they need to roll 11 or more to hit, or 50%. That's 10 hits.
the next round, the enemy has run into the next range bracket. Our normal bowmen get a total of -12, so still need a 20 to hit, another 8.5 hits.
our spellcasters are now at a bonus of +7 for a hit on a 9 or more or 60% hit rate. That's 12 hits.
On the third round, bowmen get -10 and still ned a natural 20 so another 8.5 hits. Spellcasters have a 70% hit rate and get 14 hits.
on the 4th round: -8 and +11 for 8.5 and 16 hits.
On the fifth round the enemy troops meet your own side and a melee forms. let's say the bowmen have precise shot, the spellcasters do not.
The bowmen are at -8 for 8.5 hits. The spellcasters are at +9 for 14 hits. This will continue until the battle ends.
As you can see, the spellcasters outperform the bowmen for the same price. A worthwhile investment. The bowmen are only worth having if they move forward into a better range bracket (let's see...the spellcasters can get a max of 19 hits, to outpeform that 170 would need to get approx. 15% hit rate or 3/20. against AC16 that's -2AB or Higher. that's 4 range...
The archers will more likely split into 10x17 man platoons, with one making the attack roll and the other 16 using Aid Another. With +32 to hit, they'll get an expected 10 or so hits, and they only use 8.5 gp worth of arrows per volley instead of 300 gp worth of wand charges. Precision is great, but past a certain point mass is better.
OK let's talk about battle standards. her's my understanding of their purpose:
Let's say your an ordinary pleb. Maybe you've been given a bit of training, maybe not. maybe you've just been shoved into a suit of nice shiny chainmail, given a nice shiny sword to wave about and pointed in the direction of the enemy and told to "go get 'em".
So you charge the enemy, along with all the rest of your troop. Some get killed along the way by bowmen; some by a fireball that gets tossed off, but you get lucky. You survive to reach the enemy. You hack at a few of them, run past others who are too far away to hit. Some of them run past you. You dodge a few attacks.
Suddenly you are not sure who's the enemy and who's an ally. they all look the same, and you pause and look around in confusion, trying to figure out what's going on.
Well the powers that be do not want their armies wandering around in confusion instead of fighting one another (or worse, turning on their allies by mistaking them for enemies), so what do they do? they give you battle standards. Seeing the standard gives you a reference point; anyone defending it is an ally, anyone attacking it is an enemy. Any enemy standard will be surrounded by the enemy who you can go hit with impunity.
So far so good. Now comes the magic bit.
What if you used Silent image to changed the enemy standard. If you changed it to look like an allied standard, it would confuse the enemy, but it would also confuse your own side. If you made it look like a completely different standard, no-one woud rally to it. But if everyone on both sides did that, no-one anywhere would rally and fighting would effectively cease in confusion. How doi you ensure that this avoided? mutual consent?
If you don't do that, how about creating a fake standard? some people would rally to it only to discover it's an illusion and be out of position.
or how about drop a fireball on it when the enemy have rallied around it? you might lose a few of your guys, but you'd kill a lot more of them.
If this becomes a standard tactic, how do you rally troops without becoming the target of a spell?
The only way I can see to do it is to wear some kind of uniform or Livery. This does not prevent a mage from casting an Illusion that you are wearing enemy uniform, making you the target of your own side. Any ideas?
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The argument about the skills is fine for why someone with poor stats would be in those, but that would be the people who can't actually get a job as a city guard or forest warden or body guard.
The module and AP writers who often cast Warrior 1s and 2s in the role of town guard would disagree with you. In Snows of Summer for instance, the universally-feared jack-booted thugs of a totalitarian regime, terrors of the countryside (that is, the Pale Tower guards)...
That said, the few humanoid Winter Guard mooks you meet in the next book have PC classes too.
Again, all those men (thousands for a big country) should be PC classes. Now, there's nothing in the game rules about it being faster to train a warrior than a fighter, nor an expert over a rogue.
Not from scratch, sure, but people aren't built from scratch. Train someone from birth to be a soldier, and sure, he'll have the high stats to be a soldier and will probably take a class that compliments his capabilities and tastes. Conscript someone off the street or field, or take on a volunteer, and you have to deal with the baggage they bring with them. Pathfinder lets you deal with that via retraining, changing out one class level for another. And that takes time. For characters with NPC classes who can't take advantage of synergies, it takes two weeks to retrain an NPC class level into a PC class level. That time can be cut in half by relying on expert trainers. A Commoner 1 can be trained to be a Fighter 1 in a week by another Fighter 1, or can train "himself" (I'm presuming this is actually happening in groups) to become a Fighter 1 in two weeks. But a Commoner 3 being trained by that same Fighter 1 can only take advantage of that Fighter 1's expertise to retrain one Commoner Level to Fighter. He'd need to either be satisfied with his two Commoner levels, retrain his other two Commoner levels "himself", or find a higher level Fighter to keep training him. Best case scenario for our hypothetical Commoner friend and those like him, the army can spare a Fighter 3 for three weeks to train them (assuming one trainer can train many trainees; Ultimate Campaign is unclear on the issue, and the strictest reading says that one trainer can train one trainee, as silly as that sounds).
I agree that it might be a problem if the next country over sneak attacked you, and you don't have time to train people out of being warriors (village peacekeeper) and commoners (farm hands) and into fighters and cavaliers and such, but, other than utterly failing your keeping track of your enemies movements, you should have a good 6 to 12 months warning your neighbor is gearing up and allowing you to gear up.
Alternatively, you did your due diligence by way of intelligence gathering, but your enemy just had better counterintelligence. Though I suspect these are two different ways of saying the same thing.
And yes, considering a warrior 1 get's 1 feat, and a fighter 1 get's 2 feats, that's a big bonus. And a rogue with 1d6 sneak attack vs an expert (plus bonus skill points) is much better.
Not in terms of mass combat as laid out in Ultimate Campaign. A Gargantuan army of Commoner 1s and a Gargantuan army of Fighter 1s are CR 5 and 6 respectively. That's not really all that big a difference, and if this thread and Abraham's are to be believed about the real capabilities of massed low-level d00dz (that is, that they're actually quite impressive given the cost to equip and field them when compared to the flashy stuff), that's as it should be.
EDIT: something else to keep in mind when thinking about armies...Golarion, like late-medieval/early modern Earth, is fairly sparsely populated. There are two cities with populations over three hundred thousand: Absalom and Goka. Perhaps not coincidentally, these are independent city-states (well, Absalom has dominion over Kortos, including the town of Wispil, but the Isle's small enough not to matter much). Cities of bigger polities tend to be smaller; Westcrown has about a hundred thousand people about the size of Venice, while Egorian boasts eighty thousand, about the size of Paris. Armies tend not to get much bigger than two or three percent of the whole population when mobilized, because as Orfamy alluded to above, mobilizing more people tends to wreck the economy. Given this, it's reasonable that Ultimate Campaign caps the size of independent armies (that is, nations can have bigger militaries, but they can't glom them together into a single force for purposes of mass combat) at about two thousand units. Armies really aren't all that large, and shouldn't be expected to be.
Bards. Bards would be more important than any wizard.
also, towershields stop fireballs, since bursts don't go around cover.
Fireballs are spreads, and go around tower shields.
The archers will more likely split into 10x17 man platoons, with one making the attack roll and the other 16 using Aid Another. With +32 to hit, they'll get an expected 10 or so hits, and they only use 8.5 gp worth of arrows per volley instead of 300 gp worth of wand charges. Precision is great, but past a certain point mass is better.
Good point.
The archers will more likely split into 10x17 man platoons, with one making the attack roll and the other 16 using Aid Another. With +32 to hit, they'll get an expected 10 or so hits, and they only use 8.5 gp worth of arrows per volley instead of 300 gp worth of wand charges. Precision is great, but past a certain point mass is better.
Actually, you're wrong:
Aid Another
In melee combat, you can help a friend attack or defend by distracting or interfering with an opponent. If you're in position to make a melee attack on an opponent that is engaging a friend in melee combat, you can attempt to aid your friend as a standard action. You make an attack roll against AC 10. If you succeed, your friend gains either a +2 bonus on his next attack roll against that opponent or a +2 bonus to AC against that opponent's next attack (your choice), as long as that attack comes before the beginning of your next turn. Multiple characters can aid the same friend, and similar bonuses stack.
You can also use this standard action to help a friend in other ways, such as when he is affected by a spell, or to assist another character's skill check.
(emphasis mine)
Aid another can only be used in melee combat.
Which is stupid, and why Star Wars Saga is better.
Which is stupid, and why Star Wars Saga is better.
Not sure if you're joking here. I can see how Aid Another can help in melee: you get in the defender's face, stop him ducking out of the way, etc. But how do the other 16 archers help? Say "Left a bit, up a bit"? All pull on the bowstring? Blow on the arrow?
You've never seen a sniper team have you mudfoot?
Which is stupid, and why Star Wars Saga is better.Not sure if you're joking here.
I stated truth, though I may have exaggerated the emotion. A large volley of arrows SHOULD be a threat no matter who it rains down upon. And Saga does indeed present an elegant rules system.
The basic problem, of course, is that Pathfinder doesn't really thin about, or try to simulate, army combat, or the very important factors in mass maneuvers, like organization and morale.
actually if you want to use effective sniper attacks, instead of aid another, ( which some people say works, others don't ) .. just have the squad of archers use suppression fire, and target the area the mage is in. He takes automatic damage.
actually if you want to use effective sniper attacks, instead of aid another, ( which some people say works, others don't ) .. just have the squad of archers use suppression fire, and target the area the mage is in. He takes automatic damage.
I don't remember rules for suppression fire being part of Pathfinder, and from an economic point of view, traditional 20th-century-style suppression fire would be very burdensome to any army that relied on them. Arrows are 1/2 sp apiece, so two arrows covers a conscript soldier's costs for the day.
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The argument about the skills is fine for why someone with poor stats would be in those, but that would be the people who can't actually get a job as a city guard or forest warden or body guard.The module and AP writers who often cast Warrior 1s and 2s in the role of town guard would disagree with you. In Snows of Summer for instance, the universally-feared jack-booted thugs of a totalitarian regime, terrors of the countryside (that is, the Pale Tower guards)...
** spoiler omitted **
And I posit that an AP written to have warrior 1 and 2s as the 'jackbooted thugs who terrorize the countryside' is a poorly written AP. I'm sure I can go out and find an AP that justifies the most stupid game ruling in the world if I go look for it (like say, paladins of a LE god?). That doesn't make it sound game design, and it doesn't make it make sense. A level 1 warrior is not a jackbooted thug unless you have them by the thousands. And even by the thousands, they'll fall like wheat to the chaff before a trained mercenary unit. Or, you know, a single 5th level wizard.
Not from scratch, sure, but people aren't built from scratch. Train someone from birth to be a soldier, and sure, he'll have the high stats to be a soldier and will probably take a class that compliments his capabilities and tastes.
Unless you're positing that eugenics somehow got put into the mideival kingdom rules, yeah, people are not generally trained from birth to be fighters. They're trained from their teens. And, believe it or not, farm work actually works pretty well as a training tool (it buffs your muscles, get's you used to swinging axes, walking from sunup to sundown).
If you want a real world example, look at the modern army. We don't train people from birth to be soldiers, but the army cranks out decently trained soldiers in 9 to 14 weeks. That's how long Basic Training takes to complete. That would be basically taking a farmer and getting him his first combat level of fighter. Probably by converting a commoner level to a fighter level in game terms. Not really adding any experience, just retraining.
Conscript someone off the street or field, or take on a volunteer, and you have to deal with the baggage they bring with them. Pathfinder lets you deal with that via retraining, changing out one class level for another. And that takes time. For characters with NPC classes who can't take advantage of synergies, it takes two weeks to retrain an NPC class level into a PC class level.
Which works very well with the 9 to 14 days of basic training above.
That time can be cut in half by relying on expert trainers. A Commoner 1 can be trained to be a Fighter 1 in a week by another Fighter 1, or can train "himself" (I'm presuming this is actually happening in groups) to become a Fighter 1 in two weeks. But a Commoner 3 being trained by that same Fighter 1 can only take advantage of that Fighter 1's expertise to retrain one Commoner Level to Fighter. He'd need to either be satisfied with his two Commoner levels, retrain his other two Commoner levels "himself", or find a higher level Fighter to keep training him. Best case scenario for our hypothetical Commoner friend and those like him, the army can spare a Fighter 3 for three weeks to train them (assuming one trainer can train many trainees; Ultimate Campaign is unclear on the issue, and the strictest reading says that one trainer can train one trainee, as silly as that sounds).
I think trying to read a book written to the perspective of the recruit as limiting the teacher is counter-intuitive. If you look at how we train people in job lots for mass training (which is how you train armies and squads), then it becomes obvious you get one trainer and multiple students. Look at any monastic training, you don't see individual training except in exceptional cases (gifted or problem students).
And yes, the army can spare a Fighter 3 for the 3 weeks it takes to train 10-20 commoners up to his level. That's a major force multiplier. Please note that those trainers are going to be people who need a time out anyway, are on injured reserve, before they'll be able bodied and ready to work, but it takes a lot less physical energy to teach than it does to actually fight.
And note that even 6 weeks is not an unreasonable time to retrain commoner 3's to fighter 3's.
Not in terms of mass combat as laid out in Ultimate Campaign. A Gargantuan army of Commoner 1s and a Gargantuan army of Fighter 1s are CR 5 and 6 respectively. That's not really all that big a difference, and if this thread and Abraham's are to be believed about the real capabilities of massed low-level d00dz (that is, that they're actually quite impressive given the cost to equip and field them when compared to the flashy stuff), that's as it should be.
It's the same cost to equip 100 C1's as it is 100 F1's, and the same as 100 F3s, because they're all going to have normal armor and weapons. So cost isn't a factor as far as equipment goes.
As to the difference, in a single combat, no, that's not a huge difference, but it is a CR 1 difference. And over the long term, baring bad luck, that CR 5 is going to lose to the CR 6. With no difference in cost in equipment, you're actually making my argument for me. Assuming you have 2 weeks warning, even the C1's can self train to F1. No reason in the world not to take that bonus. In war, you want every bonus you can get, and even a single CR point can make a difference.
How many games do you work hard for every +1 to hit? Every +1 to damage, that you can get?
EDIT: something else to keep in mind when thinking about armies...Golarion, like late-medieval/early modern Earth, is fairly sparsely populated. There are two cities with populations over three hundred thousand: Absalom and Goka. Perhaps not coincidentally, these are independent city-states (well, Absalom has dominion over Kortos, including the town of Wispil, but the Isle's small enough not to matter much). Cities of bigger polities tend to be smaller; Westcrown has about a hundred thousand people about the size of Venice, while Egorian boasts eighty thousand, about the size of Paris. Armies tend not to get much bigger than two or three percent of the whole population when mobilized, because as Orfamy alluded to above, mobilizing more people tends to wreck the economy. Given this, it's reasonable that Ultimate Campaign caps the size of independent armies (that is, nations can have bigger militaries, but they can't glom them together into a single force for purposes of mass combat) at about two thousand units. Armies really aren't all that large, and shouldn't be expected to be.
This is a setting specific thing. I agree no single unit should probably be more than 2000 units or so. But, just to play devil's advocate with you...
Battle of Thermopylae : Greeks approximately 7,000, Persians estimated between 100,000 and 150,000.
Battle of Zama : Hannibal's army of 45,000 infantry, 4,000 cavalry, and 80 war elephants, vs Carthogenian's army of 34,000 infantry and 6,000 cavalry.
Battle of Hastings : Estimates of around 10,000 for William and about 7000 for Harold.
Battle of Agincourt : Henry's army approximately 1,500 men-at-arms and 7,000 longbowmen, while the French deployed an estimated 18,000 men (and lost an estimated 5,000 due to idiot commanders who insisted on being in the vanguard so they could ransom rich english nobles).
Note that I didn't just pick battles with big numbers, I did a google on 'Important battles' and picked the first 4 battles off the list. List of important battles
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One thing nobody seems to be taking into account is that wars don't last one battle (baring utter stupidity on their commanders part), and that there's a lot of travel.
A lot of those conscripts are going to survive the battles, and they are going to gain experience fast and level up fast, and those new levels are going to be PC class levels. On top of that, they are going to be self-training along the way. If they camp out for 2-3 days, those soldiers aren't sitting around twiddling their thumbs, they are training. Even if you posit only a 3 month window to battle to avoid planting season (which historically was not a given in areas of the world that didn't have hard winters, like Europe did), then that's a lot of marching and sitting and manuevering between battles. Plenty of 'down time' to self train and trainer train those levels from NPC to PC classes.
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You seem to miss another possible way battles could be fought just use low level monsters as war slaves then have someone with summon monster iv to demoralize behind enemy lines or supply lines.
Summon Monster IV is a 4th level spell. It requires a 7th level arcane spellcaster ... and they don't exactly grow on trees.
This is a setting specific thing. I agree no single unit should probably be more than 2000 units or so. But, just to play devil's advocate with you...Battle of Thermopylae : Greeks approximately 7,000, Persians estimated between 100,000 and 150,000.
Battle of Zama : Hannibal's army of 45,000 infantry, 4,000 cavalry, and 80 war elephants, vs Carthogenian's army of 34,000 infantry and 6,000 cavalry.
Battle of Hastings : Estimates of around 10,000 for William and about 7000 for Harold.
Battle of Agincourt : Henry's army approximately 1,500 men-at-arms and 7,000 longbowmen, while the French deployed an estimated 18,000 men (and lost an estimated 5,000 due to idiot commanders who insisted on being in the vanguard so they could ransom rich english nobles).
Note that I didn't just pick battles with big numbers, I did a google on 'Important battles' and picked the first 4 battles off the list. List of important battles
I agree that in a fantasy setting the numbers could very well be much much larger then mideval europe. Ancient Rome and Byzantium had a peak population around 1 million, classical armies were much much bigger then their medival counterparts. Mostly that is because the ancient world had better infrastructure, communication, and healthcare then the medival world until nearly the modern era. With magic (particularly divine magic) the ability to feed and care for larger populations would at least match that of the classical period, so a setting could justifiably have much larger populations and thus larger armies.
Note that Byzantium took about a year of training to make a professional cataphract. Guns are much easier to train for than bows and lances.
I agree that in a fantasy setting the numbers could very well be much much larger then mideval europe. Ancient Rome and Byzantium had a peak population around 1 million, classical armies were much much bigger then their medival counterparts. Mostly that is because the ancient world had better infrastructure, communication, and healthcare then the medival world until nearly the modern era. With magic (particularly divine magic) the ability to feed and care for larger populations would at least match that of the classical period, so a setting could justifiably have much larger populations and thus larger armies.
Yep, but even the big medival battles I posted had thousands of men. In fact, Agincourt was reported that the french reserves (the guys NOT committed to the battle) were around 50,000 troops. So even in medival times, a country could put out a massive army.
Agincourt really was a massive cluster**** on the french noble's part. They were so greedy, they insisted on being in front. They never even let their archers and crossbowmen fire. The approach was narrow enough that they couldn't get a lot of their army on the field, so instead of fighting archers with archers, they fought archers with charging nobles.
Yeah, having your leaders taken out in front of the men is really really bad for morale. And charging massed archer fire is a really bad idea. Send in your knights and armored guys as a shield and put your archers behind them to volley into the enemy archers. When they stop firing, then send the infantry in to charge.
Note that Byzantium took about a year of training to make a professional cataphract. Guns are much easier to train for than bows and lances.
We don't have rules for time. But I'd be fine with 100 F1's with crossbows and short swords instead of 100 C1's with crossbows and shortswords.
Everyone please remember, while it's fun and somewhat useful to point out real world history, we're also talking about a game system with rules, not reality here. :)
I only posted about the real history battles to illustrate the idea that having 10,000 man armies is not as odd as people seemed to think.
Just like Alexander the Great, the best armies would be the ones that don't rely on any one thing or tactic. First send a couple fireballs into the enemy position (or even imagine the fireballs to be a decoy/smoke tactic to mask an army of warriors charging straight in). After the fireballs have a volley of arrows to hit the dispersed and smoked out troops. The chaos would be then good to send a charge of knights, while the main force gets buffed by cleric and spell casters. Then magic missile.
I just ignore warriors for the most part. If I want a warrior 3, I just do a fighter 2.
And, yeah, training rules aren't part of the game.
Just like Alexander the Great, the best armies would be the ones that don't rely on any one thing or tactic. First send a couple fireballs into the enemy position (or even imagine the fireballs to be a decoy/smoke tactic to mask an army of warriors charging straight in). After the fireballs have a volley of arrows to hit the dispersed and smoked out troops. The chaos would be then good to send a charge of knights, while the main force gets buffed by cleric and spell casters. Then magic missile.
Massed charges would be extremely dangerous with the enemy casters popping pits and blade barrier spells in front of them. I do agree that when talking about large armies (1000+) that magic would make charging battle lines like in most movies (Braveheart, I'm looking at you here!) stupidly suicidal. Just as suicidal as a defensive line.
Above a certain number of troops, it just becomes a disadvantage to mass, and it's better to break up into squads. Sure, that fire ball might hit one squad and do major damage (about like a hand grenade hitting a squad on Normandy Beach) but the other 50 squads are going to keep going.
Actually, the first 15 minutes of Saving Private Ryan is probably a decent idea of what a battlefield with wizards on it would look like, but for both sides. Until the wizards had shot their wad of major magic, and were down to wands and scrolls.
I just ignore warriors for the most part. If I want a warrior 3, I just do a fighter 2.
And, yeah, training rules aren't part of the game.
There's a good reason for that. Warriors aren't as good. :) Thus my comments about no sane military training warriors.
What I use warriors for is for bandits or creatures with limited intelligence that just don't get tactics. So orc hordes have warriors.
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As was said earlier, a lot of the reasons for how militaries are formed don't show up as much in the fantasy setting.
Planting season was a big problem as modern as the American Revolutionary War, with its muskets. Agrarian socities tend to live almost hand to mouth, with industrialization marking times when all of a sudden people have food, and don't need to make their society revolve around wheat, salt or rice.
It was actually posited as a conspiracy theory that the Flu Pandemic and First World War was some mean plan to winnow out the huge populations from the old agrarian socities that were being phased out thanks to the Industrial Revolution. Frankly, I think its b.s., but that mindset alone shows a major difference.
Automation changed a lot. Huge armies became less necessary and people began looking to the idea of a Professional Military (tm). This wasn't a common occurance mind. There were career military people, but even up through WW2, Korea and Vietnam, the military had a high component of conscript forces or people who joined up out of patriotic fervor as opposed to people who made it their jobs. Generally the modern military in the US isn't a fan of conscripts, they'd rather have warfighters who want to be warfighters which is a reason the draft being brought back is looked at unfavorably by the Military.
What this generally means is that a Professional Military would be one with Fighters. It would be like Sparta, or the modern military. Boot camps, training camps, organized infrastructure, bases everywhere, and so on.
The normal armies of yesteryear would be mostly warriors as they were people who could fight but for whom it wasn't their primary profession, and the occasional fighter to represent the career general, old campaigner or veteran.
The idea of 'I will train you to be all fighters!' has that gamist flavor about it where people have their levels and alignments written in marker on the hem of their underwear and bars offer drinks that do 1d4 hit points of damage to winnow out the 0-level characters.
That pikeman? Probably a warrior.
Knight? Probably fighter or cavalier.
Archer? Warrior. Train him enough to use the bow.
Crossbowman Mercenary? If you're a merc, you're probably a fighter.
Why are orcs, kobolds and the like all warriors? They aren't really well taught, disciplined combatants, they are mostly thugs with muscles, cunning and malicious intent. Thats why their bosses tend to be fighters and classed people, they're more dedicated to their talents and more badass.
Also regarding the 'hit guys at max range,' keep in mind that the armor most of these guys are getting, isn't chain. Its paddded.
Just like Alexander the Great, the best armies would be the ones that don't rely on any one thing or tactic. First send a couple fireballs into the enemy position (or even imagine the fireballs to be a decoy/smoke tactic to mask an army of warriors charging straight in). After the fireballs have a volley of arrows to hit the dispersed and smoked out troops. The chaos would be then good to send a charge of knights, while the main force gets buffed by cleric and spell casters. Then magic missile.Massed charges would be extremely dangerous with the enemy casters popping pits and blade barrier spells in front of them. I do agree that when talking about large armies (1000+) that magic would make charging battle lines like in most movies (Braveheart, I'm looking at you here!) stupidly suicidal. Just as suicidal as a defensive line.
Above a certain number of troops, it just becomes a disadvantage to mass, and it's better to break up into squads. Sure, that fire ball might hit one squad and do major damage (about like a hand grenade hitting a squad on Normandy Beach) but the other 50 squads are going to keep going.
Actually, the first 15 minutes of Saving Private Ryan is probably a decent idea of what a battlefield with wizards on it would look like, but for both sides. Until the wizards had shot their wad of major magic, and were down to wands and scrolls.
I think modern combat is a good indicator of what the battlefield would look like. Casters are sort of like Helicopter Gunships and Fighter Bombers. High impact, devastating to infantry, but have a limited shelflife. But the end result is that you cant have tight formations or massed infantry. It simply isnt an option. You would have spread out loosely associated formations that use terrain and cover to cover their advance.
Actually, I can see things moving towards modern warfare.
Let's say an army deploys, in a line as usual. What if the other side doesn't? They deploy a few mages hidden (either with invisibility or with stealth). At the appropriate range, they let off a few fireballs, then retreat. The remaining army would carry on, into the next batch of mages who would fire and retreat, meanwhile the first batch are in position...rinse, and repeat. (btw if you do this, make a running battle it would make sense to use wands rather than scrolls). It involves trading territory for strategic advantage, so you would need the strategic depth to be able to do it.
It doesn't take a genius to realize that masssed charges are suicide. So you spread out. You send out small groups to take small objectives (a building, a wood, a hill, etc) advance bit by bit. You post True strike archers at high spots (or send them sniping onto the battlefield). You make sure your guys use cover and concealment as much as possible. Your Troops become a means to conceal the identity of the mage and protect him, providing muscle and meat shields. Your mage provides communication, artillery support, buffs and battlefield control.
The main problem I have with this is that apart from the Mongols, small unit tactics did not really arrive until WWII. It relies heavily on large numbers of officers, which simply did not exist in the mediaeval mindset. You are talking about elevating large numbers of people to a position considered that of the aristocracy - the aristocrats wouldn't accept it without a fight.
But this is fantasy. It is only loosely based on the mediaeval world. If that's what you want, hey go do it.
For me, I am thinking that there should be a mongol type invasion with True strike empowered archers. They don't need fireball, they just sit out of range and pepper you with arrows until you are dead.
actually if you want to use effective sniper attacks, instead of aid another, ( which some people say works, others don't ) .. just have the squad of archers use suppression fire, and target the area the mage is in. He takes automatic damage.
I don't remember rules for suppression fire being part of Pathfinder, and from an economic point of view, traditional 20th-century-style suppression fire would be very burdensome to any army that relied on them. Arrows are 1/2 sp apiece, so two arrows covers a conscript soldier's costs for the day.
I have almost all the pathfinder books.. I know i've seen it.
I dont recall which book(s) it's in for rules.. but I KNOW its in the baba yaga adventure path.
It will help you think about this topic if you think about what wizards, monsters, etc. bring to the table by Warfighting Function (WFF). This is the framework the IRL military (at least the US Army) organizes capabilities.
Maneuver- infantry, cavalry, anything that applies combat power by maneuvering around the battlefield and engaging enemy forces directly.
Fires- primarily artillery, mortars, rockets, close air support, and the like, but also includes anything that produces effects. Information ops, psychological ops, and other nonlethal capabilities are considered fires.
Intelligence- military intelligence, but also recon. Anything that gathers information.
Protection- capabilities that protect the force. Engineers are often considered protection because they dig foxholes and bunkers. Chemical is protection.
Sustainment- logistics, supply, medical, personnel.
Mission Command- command, control of friendly forces, communications.Casters can fulfill any of these functions, but will excel at a few based on their class spell lists.
Maneuver- casters are generally not who you want doing this. Sure, they can summon monsters, but summon spells are rounds duration--not long enough to generate a sustained maneuver force. Casters can aid maneuver, but you aren't going to have a force of 100 wizard 5's flying around your typical battlefield with bows and longspears. Magical armies will still leave maneuver to infantry and cavalry forces.
Fires- evocation spells are what you'll think of first, but battlefield controls, enchantments, and illusions are all great examples of fires capabilities. Casters can blow the enemy to smithereens, incapacitate them en masse, make them flee, even deceive them with illusions to influence their actions.
Intel- divination would change magical warfare far more than fireball.
Protection- all those maneuver guys are going to need protection from enemy casters. That's where friendly casters come in. Think abjurations, transmutations, and...
I must have missed this last time I looked at this thread (serves me right for skimming).
A very helpful post, thankyou.
OK, I have been considering the other big spell: Fear. While it looks powerful, having the ability to clear hard points (defensible buildings and any other area with cover) and destroying Testudo formations (or shield walls, etc.) the counter is a first level spell.
Fear costs 375gp per go, remove fear costs 25gp but only affects one person (or 125gp to affect 2). In the case of important buildings (like castles) Hallow can be used to make it a permanent effect. In the case of impromptu earthworks or tower shield formations, a better way needs to be found. Either every member of the troop needs to be a divine caster or we must have divines using a wand (750gp) just before the battle. One wand covers 50 people and lasts 10 min, but takes 1 person 50 rounds to administer (I think that's 5 minutes - half the duration of the spell). Some way needs to be found to cast it en masse or else it takes too long.
I have to go now, so I don't have time to look for anything, but any suggestions would be welcome.
You have to be very intelligent to be a competent wizard and that level of intelligence simply isn't that common. Of those people, few of them will even become wizards, and of those, many of them aren't going to make themselves available for military duty.It's really not something you can mass recruit for the way you can with pikemen and archers.
Sure you can, it just requires some foresight, capital outlay up front and a royal decree.
"The king hereby declares that all children in the kingdom shall report to a Royal Magi between their 10th and 13th year for evaluation."
Then you have a handful of 2nd to 5th level wizards or sorcerers or witches or whatever go out to the small cities and spend a week in each one every other year. Families bring or send the kids up to be evaluated. The Magi evaluates them on how smart they are (below average, average, above average, exceptional) and records their names and villages/cities. The big bonus here is anyone exceptional the king can issue a warrant for them to travel to the capital to join his Magi Academy as an apprentice. Anyone else, they can keep track of and if it looks like a war is going to start, they have the option of picking up a few above averages (or even exceptionals if they have more than they needed originally) and put them through some brutal but effective crash training and get them up to a first level whatever.
Given how much of a power shift magic makes on the battle field, any king worth his salt wants to have as much potential to call on as he can get. Even the ones that aren't suited to being magi due to personality can always be trained at something else (spies for example). :)
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I somehow doubt that mandatory lifelong compulsory military service for your intelligent children is going to engender love and loyalty from his populace.
I see situations where villages teach children to pour marmlade down their pants, or teach them the wrong math as kids just to keep the king from taking their brightest and having them be his magical jannissaries.
Again, it strikes me as gamist thinking. The same thinking we encountered earlier where it was 'why would anyone train to be a warrior and not a fighter,' and similar nonsense.
Also, thats a hell of a lot of infrastructure.
Not to mention the Laffner curve abuses inherently in wasting your most intelligent people on Government work.
Given that the original post of this thread is assuming that “knights” are somehow all 1st level, I think the equally logical assumption to the “fireball problem” is peasant rail guns.
Barring that, you can use a group of mages with floating discs, a ring gate and overland flight to create a suborbital mass-driver or way to deliver lots of lamp oil over enemy combatants as a modified fuel-air explosive, I guess. Just fly up high enough that the Perception penalty to spot you is so high for range that you are effectively invisible and use scrying to pin-point deliver your payload to the appropriate C&C areas of the enemy combatants.
-TimD
Edited to remove classical reference originator from floating disc name
Who said it would be compulsory life long service? I'm thinking a 10 year hitch after training. And I used Magi to cover Magus, wizard, witch and Alchemist because I can't think of a less clunky word (spellcasters include clerics, arcanists include bard). Blech, no easy word anymore.
But yes, as was stated above, being poor sucks, and if you have a chance for your child to be educated, fed, and clothed on the king's dime, and for him to become what will be an exalted member of society (magic user, court functionary, or even possibly a merchant after retirement from public service) then yeah, most (not all) parents are going to send them off and request visits home. :)
@EWHM
Yep, but, there's nothing in the system that says Warrior easier than Fighter, it's just assumed. And the major difference between them at level 1 (actually, the only difference) is a single feat. Everything else is the same. So, it can't be all that much more difficult to be a fighter than a warrior at low levels.
And since the system gives 'retrain' NPC to PC class rules in ultimate campaign (and it's not years, it's weeks) then that argues that it really does just come down to a little extra training.
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Reading this thread I can't help but think of the Total War Games. The most recent of which I've played being Total War: Shogun 2 (I'm patiently waitin for the release of Rome 2). I think wizard/sorcerer equivalency to siege weapon is pretty accurate, devestatingly power against certain high priority targets, but not really great against other things. It's very situational and very tactical. Now, in Shogun 2 archers are good, in fact they're too good but that's a different discussion. The fact of the matter is that there aren't enough siege units (wizards) and ammunition to wipe out all the enemies, especially when you expect to fight them and know how to avoid their damage to an extent. Further, seiege units are exceptionally vulnerable if not properly supported. Sure you seige unit can take out all the archer tower and destroy the gate to the castle, but if you put it far away from all your troops the enemy sallies out of the gate and runs down your seiege unit before it can cause much damage. Now imagine staggered charges by a few mounted men, they stagger themselves so you can't get more than 1 in a fireball and your wizard is all alone. Sure, he might get a few, depending on how many scrolls he has and how quickly he can get to them, but all they need to do is reach him and he's done. Then you say, well why do I leave him unprotected? Well you act as if the wizard can do this all alone.
The ultimate point in warfare is there is always a possible counter, winning a battle requires good diversity of forces and tactical acumen. Knowing how to counter each type of enemy effectively and using that to your advantage.
Know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle. - Sun Tzu
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@EWHM
That may be the intent, but that intent would be for Golarian, not the core rules. The Core Rules are world agnostic. And if you look at the Bestiary, that idea of warriors/adepts/experts being 'average' isn't really backed up.
Aasimar : Cleric
Catfolk : Ranger
Dhampir : Fighter
Drow : Warrior
Drow Noble : Cleric
Duerger : Warrior
Fetchling : Rogue
Goblin : Warrior
Grippli : Ranger
Hobgoblin : Fighter
Ifrit : Sorcerer
Kobold : Warrior
Orc : Warrior
Oread : Fighter
Ratfolk : Expert
Suli : Ranger
Svirnefblin : Ranger
Sylph : Rogue
Tengu : Rogue
Tiefling : Rogue
Undine : Cleric
Vanara : Monk
That's 22 class defined races in the 3 bestiaries. Of those 22 (and remember, the bestiary entry lists an average member of that race, using standard NPC stat array, we have 6 having NPC classes, and the other 16 having PC classes. That's over 70% having PC levels, not NPC levels.
I would say just based on the printed materials that NPC classes are not really as prevalent as is touted on the boards. :) Nor is NPC stat arrays too low to achieve them (as pointed out amply above).
Interesting which ones got the NPC classes too. Mostly the 1st and 2nd ed grunt monsters.
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I somehow doubt that mandatory lifelong compulsory military service for your intelligent children is going to engender love and loyalty from his populace.
I see situations where villages teach children to pour marmlade down their pants, or teach them the wrong math as kids just to keep the king from taking their brightest and having them be his magical jannissaries.
Again, it strikes me as gamist thinking. The same thinking we encountered earlier where it was 'why would anyone train to be a warrior and not a fighter,' and similar nonsense.
Also, thats a hell of a lot of infrastructure.
Not to mention the Laffner curve abuses inherently in wasting your most intelligent people on Government work.
Actually, I disagree. You have to remember that that average person lived life hand to mouth; each year they risked death from starvation, disease, war or any number of things. Very often children can become extra mouths to feed that drain more from the family than they add. It was not unusual for children to be sold in these circumstances (one explanation of the pied piper of Hamlet is that is what happened, that it describes children being sold into labour in the New territories to the East).
Along comes the King and offers to take one of your children, educate him and give a job for life, a meaningful position that pays well and demands respect. They will never know starvation, have access to the best healers and if they are at risk in war? well, they would be at risk from war anyway. You no longer have an extra mouth to feed, and maybe there is a small reward you can use to get some little extras. You'd be a fool not to agree to it.
Of course this postulates that the economy is mediaeval in nature (i.e. Agrarian) and unaffected by Magic. But if we are changing the society that much, aptitude tests would be an acceptable change anyway.
The key is to offer them something more than they would get if they stayed home. Given the poor state of most homes, that would not be difficult. Even those who had no intention of pursuing a life as a Wizard can benefit from an education; and your society would benefit too. What society would not want to produce Engineers, artists, Doctors, merchants, etc.
Reading this thread I can't help but think of the Total War Games. The most recent of which I've played being Total War: Shogun 2 (I'm patiently waitin for the release of Rome 2). I think wizard/sorcerer equivalency to siege weapon is pretty accurate, devestatingly power against certain high priority targets, but not really great against other things. It's very situational and very tactical. Now, in Shogun 2 archers are good, in fact they're too good but that's a different discussion. The fact of the matter is that there aren't enough siege units (wizards) and ammunition to wipe out all the enemies, especially when you expect to fight them and know how to avoid their damage to an extent. Further, seiege units are exceptionally vulnerable if not properly supported. Sure you seige unit can take out all the archer tower and destroy the gate to the castle, but if you put it far away from all your troops the enemy sallies out of the gate and runs down your seiege unit before it can cause much damage. Now imagine staggered charges by a few mounted men, they stagger themselves so you can't get more than 1 in a fireball and your wizard is all alone. Sure, he might get a few, depending on how many scrolls he has and how quickly he can get to them, but all they need to do is reach him and he's done. Then you say, well why do I leave him unprotected? Well you act as if the wizard can do this all alone.
The ultimate point in warfare is there is always a possible counter, winning a battle requires good diversity of forces and tactical acumen. Knowing how to counter each type of enemy effectively and using that to your advantage.
Know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle. - Sun Tzu
So, you stick your mages on horseback, Now they can run away/evade as fast as their pursuers.
Or you use invisibility (a more expensive option, and a more limited one, but prevents the necessity of training them to ride).
I'm not saying I would leave them undefended, but unlike siege engines or cannons, they are highly maneouvrable so if it comes to it they would have no problems avoiding the opponent.
I really want to believe that there is an effective counter for spellcasters, but their sheer versatility means that are likely to be able to have an answer to any problem. So far I have just 2 effective solutions: sneak up on them and ambush them, or shoot them from extreme range with a bow and True strike. Both rely on being able to identify who is a spellcaster (and I don't think they will be wandering around the battlefield with a pointy hat, lol). alternatively, you could attack everything on the basis that some will be spellcasters, but that's a bit hit or miss.
Just how do you figure out who is a spellcaster and who not? preferably before they start blasting you with Fireball and fear?