That range is a guideline of assumptions for GM's to work with. A defined world however will have a much more narrow or even predefined list. I would not use the same set of assumptions for Greyhawk, Golarion, and Athas. And since we know that Golarion hasn't fielded squadrons of arcanists in their wars we know that for that world, drafting legions of spellcasters is not as feasible as you might think.
So, as I said about 50 times so far, if you're going to houserule magic to be minimal, then yes, you can ignore the rules and assume magic is rare and that traditional real world warfare is the norm? So basically, you are actually agreeing with me in a confrontational way?
10,000 house ruled reasons why magic doesn't mix with war.
Again, for the 51st time. If you are going to houserule your setting to make gods pull magic during wars, and patrons pull magic during wars, and the arcane magic fairy says 'no magic for you' during wars, then that's just fine. Have at it.
But you are arguing that your house rule for a specific setting applies to everyone who plays this game, and you are 100000000% wrong.
Please notice that I have not once argued that what I do in my own game world is canon now have I? My own game world has some major magic modifications that throw out quite a few of the default assumptions of the system.
And that is perfectly fine, and it's perfectly fine if you do the same. But stop arguing that your houserules are the rules. They aren't, they are your house rules. By RAW, the default assumption of the system is as I have stated, high magic. Which means that wars within the rules of the system, not your houseruled setting nor my houseruled setting would include lots of magic.
The purpose of this thread is 'what if war with magic in the system'. Not 'what if war with Billy's house rules vs Tommy's house rules vs Janine's house rules vs Dotty's house rules'. We have to have a common starting point (AKA the RAW).
That gods can turn clerics into ex-clerics is not a house rule. It's a fundamental aspect of the game.
That other external power sources with their own will can also withdraw their power is simple common sense.
That sorcerers are rare is fundamental to their fluff. I suppose you could have a setting where eidolons are coming out of the woodwork, but that's a lot more nonstandard than one where they're rare.
Yet nothing in the base rules say anything about gods removing magic from people engaged in a war.
You are arguing that the ability to remove magic for violating tenets of faith (which are setting specific, unless you wish to dictate the gods for everyone) will require that magic can't work in combat. Directly opposing such things as the war domain or evil gods who like chaos and death.
I don't see anything in the sorcerer fluff that says they are rare, it only says that they have the blood of something powerful in their ancestry. You can trace every human being on earth back to a single female in africa 20,000 years ago. This is through mitochondrial DNA. So, everyone on the earth has that same special ancestor in their bloodline.
Nothing in the summoner fluff says they are rare or unusual. Again, you are positing your house rules as The Rules.
Might as well start with some easy reading
TL:DR
Spellcasters tend to be more like machine guns -- you have to use them carefully when you also have to pack all their ammunition with you. They are fairly easy to sideline, due to lack of range, Area of Effect, and duration. Most of what they bring to the table are things that warfare has already had for millennium.
Not entirely sure I agree: The Fireball I mentioned would have a range of 600', which only the crossbow can equal, so one lone guy with the proper equipment (i.e. a scroll of fireball) can stay out of range of any missile weapon except crossbows and destroy the troops.
Even the crossbows would get one chance to hit him (If they got initiative) and would be hitting at -8 (although if there are twenty of them, someone is bound to hit). But for another 325gp, you can make ithe scroll a 6th level caster so range becomes 640', beyond the range of even crossbows.
So I don't think lack of range is a problem for the spellcaster. lack of duration might be, but what if you had a troop of spellcasters, each armed with a scroll of fireball? The cost is about the same as outfitting a troop of knights (maybe a little more), but much more effective.
I've heard the fireball slinger counters all types of fantasy troops argument before.
Mostly they get shot to pieces by rangers. Terrain can conceal hit teams sent to job them.
Fireball scrolls could be very cost effective, but if you lose a wizard with a few of them, then they are in the hands of the enemy.
One dm I knew years back ran a magic war game. Lot of spells, lot of ranged. Not much up close fighting. A dull affair, but very American bombing campaign-esque.
So, as I said about 50 times so far, if you're going to houserule magic to be minimal, then yes, you can ignore the rules and assume magic is rare and that traditional real world warfare is the norm? So basically, you are actually agreeing with me in a confrontational way?
That range is a guideline of assumptions for GM's to work with. A defined world however will have a much more narrow or even predefined list. I would not use the same set of assumptions for Greyhawk, Golarion, and Athas. And since we know that Golarion hasn't fielded squadrons of arcanists in their wars we know that for that world, drafting legions of spellcasters is not as feasible as you might think.
Magic is typically minimal at low level across games.
Tripped over the +5 bastard sword, who left that here?
Spellcasters? They are often sub bosses or actual bosses. Never seen an encounter in any module where you enter a room of summoners eating breakfast like they are just common folk. Waves of eidolons and then summoned monsters hit the party because you walked into the summoner convention (Eidolpax).
That gods can turn clerics into ex-clerics is not a house rule. It's a fundamental aspect of the game.
That other external power sources with their own will can also withdraw their power is simple common sense.
That sorcerers are rare is fundamental to their fluff. I suppose you could have a setting where eidolons are coming out of the woodwork, but that's a lot more nonstandard than one where they're rare.
Yet nothing in the base rules say anything about gods removing magic from people engaged in a war.
You are arguing that the ability to remove magic for violating tenets of faith (which are setting specific, unless you wish to dictate the gods for everyone) will require that magic can't work in combat. Directly opposing such things as the war domain or evil gods who like chaos and death.
I don't see anything in the sorcerer fluff that says they are rare, it only says that they have the blood of something powerful in their ancestry. You can trace every human being on earth back to a single female in africa 20,000 years ago. This is through mitochondrial DNA. So, everyone on the earth has that same special ancestor in their bloodline.
Nothing in the summoner fluff says they are rare or unusual. Again, you are positing your house rules as The Rules.
The claim of one ancestor is not accepted by all countries and people. I know Japan and China consider themselves to be distinct and separate to African ancestors, and the Chinese go back a long time in being based around the Yangtze. Pre-history is tricky business and there is opposition to the out of Africa theory.
Magic is typically minimal at low level across games.
Tripped over the +5 bastard sword, who left that here?
Spellcasters? They are often sub bosses or actual bosses. Never seen an encounter in any module where you enter a room of summoners eating breakfast like they are just common folk. Waves of eidolons and then summoned monsters hit the party because you walked into the summoner convention (Eidolpax).
There's a good reason for that.
It's the same reason that Comic Book heroes almost always win, that the main characters in detective stories don't get hit by any of the bullets shot at them (other than flesh wounds), etc...
It's called 'Having the Writer on Your Side'. Be that the AP writer, or the GM who makes up custom stuff. In both cases, the Writer is pitching them not at something that fits based on the world, but based on their level and what they can handle.
Imagine that 100 adventurers start adventuring this month. By the end of the month, 10 are dead from misadventure. By the end of the year, 30 are dead. By the end of 5 years, 95 are dead.
The story of the PCs is the story of those 4-5 who made it to 5 years.
You can see this because of how the game works, as the PCs level up, they are able to go take on bigger challenges. Those challenges didn't magically appear in the world 1 minute before the PCs encounter them, they were there all along. But the PCs weren't powerful enough to threaten, and the challenge didn't notice them.
The claim of one ancestor is not accepted by all countries and people. I know Japan and China consider themselves to be distinct and separate to African ancestors, and the Chinese go back a long time in being based around the Yangtze. Pre-history is tricky business and there is opposition to the out of Africa theory.
Pick any theory you want. Adam & Eve. Stars from heaven. Simultaneous evolution on multiple continents.
The point is, if you go back far enough, most european descendants have a common ancestor. Same for Asia, etc.
The point being, having just one Dragon impart his draconic essence into humans could, a thousand years later, result in tens of thousands of people with his DNA smouldering around in their genes. Then do that for jennies, efrit, elementals, vampires, and so on... Doesn't take many boinkers to spread sorcerer genes around.
I'm not assuming anything, I using the book as written.
A sorcerer is not a half-dragon (or at least, doesn't have to be).
Sorcerer specifically says :
Bloodline: Each sorcerer has a source of magic somewhere in her heritage that grants her spells, bonus feats, an additional class skill, and other special abilities. This source can represent a blood relation or an extreme event involving a creature somewhere in the family's past. For example, a sorcerer might have a dragon as a distant relative or her grandfather might have signed a terrible contract with a devil. Regardless of the source, this influence manifests in a number of ways as the sorcerer gains levels. A sorcerer must pick one bloodline upon taking her first level of sorcerer. Once made, this choice cannot be changed.Abyssal
Generations ago, a demon spread its filth into your heritage. While it does not manifest in all of your kin, for you it is particularly strong. You might sometimes have urges to chaos or evil, but your destiny (and alignment) is up to you.Arcane
Your family has always been skilled in the eldritch art of magic. While many of your relatives were accomplished wizards, your powers developed without the need for study and practice.Celestial
Your bloodline is blessed by a celestial power, either from a celestial ancestor or through divine intervention. Although this power drives you along the path of good, your fate (and alignment) is your own to determine.Draconic
At some point in your family's history, a dragon interbred with your bloodline, and now its ancient power flows through your veins.
I could go on quoting, but you get the idea. Draconic says it's some point in your families history, not 'your grandpa or pop'. Demon it's 'Generations ago'. Nothing in the class says it's a recent ancestor, in fact, it tends to read as being somewhere back lost in your family history.
I never said sorcerers were half-dragons, or even close to that. You don't seem to understand my point at all. I suggest re-reading it because I was talking about "Generations ago" as well and the likely-hood of those traits actually being passed down over a very long period of time.I'm not assuming anything, I using the book as written.
A sorcerer is not a half-dragon (or at least, doesn't have to be).
So we're back to house rules about setting specific rules?
I cannot debate house rules. You are always correct on house rules, because they are . Since you are arguing your house rules, you are always correct.
If you want to debate what is in the book, that's fine. What's in the book puts no limitations on stats or percentages of sorcerers in the setting, it only says you have an ancestor of that type. Add on to that the high magic setting the base rules assume (see the dozens of posts I've posted that prove that), and the base rules do not assume that sorcerers are super rare. Maybe a specific bloodline (or even more likely a wildbloodline) are rare, but the sum total of all sorcerers is not an 'ultra rare' occurance.
Let's say you had only one ancestor for a given bloodline, after 10 generations, assuming only two kids per generation...
2^10 = 1024 people with that bloodline.
Go another 10 generations, and you have millions with that bloodline.
And that's only 1 dragon, or one demon.
Even if you submit that only 1% of the people with a bloodline will be a sorcerer, after 10 generations, that's 10 people. And after 20, it's tens of thousands.
I love how anything I come up with is useless to do, but your house rules being called out as house rules is a non-starter for the debate?
Pot meet kettle.
Either we have to use the rule set provided as a common frame of reference or we use your house rules or my house rules.
I'll debate the common framework of what is published in the books all you like.
I can't debate your house rules. If you really want to debate my house rules instead, I can do that, but I will give you a hint right now, you lose, first time, every time, and twice on Sunday.
No matter how many times you make the claim magic is scarce, the core rule book negates the statement as a matter of course, and I've pointed to the places in the rule book that negate it. Nobody has been able to counter with anything from the book, only vague 'it should be' or their own house rules, but nothing in the printed text.
Aren't you curious why? I can tell you, it's because the printed rules assume an absolutely saturated magic setup. And it also assumes quite a few people are above 3rd level (despite that BS argument showing up all the time).
So, again, if you want to debate the published RPG materials and how that framework affects magic and battle, I'm all ears (or maybe fingers and eyes, given the medium we're posting in). But vague handwavey 'I think it should be this' stuff is right out. And if you want to use that as your argument, it proves your argument is weak and unsubstantiated, because all you can point to is your belief that's how it should work. No rules or fluff or crunch to back it up.
I agree, it is just as much a houserule.
In response to a house rule that gods would stop their clerics from engaging in war, even the war gods!
So, we agree then? They are both houserules, or at best, setting specific limitations that might apply, but not part of the published rules?
Excellent!
I never said sorcerers were half-dragons, or even close to that. You don't seem to understand my point at all. I suggest re-reading it because I was talking about "Generations ago" as well and the likely-hood of those traits actually being passed down over a very long period of time.I'm not assuming anything, I using the book as written.
A sorcerer is not a half-dragon (or at least, doesn't have to be).
Killing a line is not hard, just spam hobgoblins. That isn't the worst thing that could happen either.
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Ah, the 'only my side has magic' method of debate. Uhm, why is there only one wizard? And why do you get him?
This discussion began over the belief that one army using magic to win a battle. then suddenly everyone else would be doing the same. It really doesn't matter where said wizard came from in the overall discussion.
Not really. Cavalry yes, but not organized mass fighting. Or at least, not because it was something new. We just didn't have the population odo it. We did mass up as many club wielders as were in the area though for battles.
Organized forces doesn't require a set number of people to be used. And it's quite different then wildly charging in without any form or tactic.
Again, the default assumption within the rules (and I quoted things to back that up, odd how nobody arguing against me can quote one single thing from the rules stating magic is rare or only recently discovered), is that magic has been around for tens of thousands of years. So no, saying it would take a few generations is like saying it would take me a couple of weeks to make a few hundred arrows, so bows are useless in a fight.
Aside from the fact that we were discussing a specific situation, not a general one, I'm not sure what rules you are talking about. The core books all pretty much imply that magic is uncommon, and high-level casters are rare.
From the Core Rulebook: This cost assumes that you can go to the spellcaster and have the spell cast at his convenience (generally at least 24 hours later, so that the spellcaster has time to prepare the spell in question). If you want to bring the spellcaster somewhere to cast a spell you need to negotiate with him, and the default answer is no.
Furthermore, if a spell has dangerous consequences, the spellcaster will certainly require proof that you can and will pay for dealing with any such consequences (that is, assuming that the spellcaster even agrees to cast such a spell, which isn't certain).
In addition, not every town or village has a spellcaster of sufficient level to cast any spell. In general, you must travel to a small town (or larger settlement) to be reasonably assured of finding a spellcaster capable of casting 1st-level spells, a large town for 2nd-level spells, a small city for 3rd- or 4th-level spells, a large city for 5th- or 6th-level spells, and a metropolis for 7th- or 8th-level spells. Even a metropolis isn't guaranteed to have a local spellcaster able to cast 9th-level spells.
So while you may find a caster in a village to case a 3rd level spell, normally you would have to go to at least a small city to guarantee it. And even then, there's no guarantee that the caster in question will even help you, especially with a spell that has a dangerous consequence (like making said wizard the enemy of an entire country).
The Ultimate Campaign mentions how a 3rd level Wizard would likely have to move to a large town or city to not be noticed. Then there's the fact that by RAW, a wizard (the only caster that can be “made”) isn't even prepared for 1st level til they reach the ages of 22. At best, they could stumble upon one of the intuitive casters at the age of 17, but even then we're talking about a 1st level caster. I don't see anything disagreeing with the claims I've made. If it takes at least seven years of training to get a 1st level wizard, then as said, it's gonna take a few generations til they reach a high enough level to actually be of help. And as the Core Rulebook states, buying the services of a high-level caster will completely depend on if said caster is willing, and even then it'll cost quite a bit for a single spell.
And again, I love the argument that this magic that's been around for thousands of years, and for which there are casters all over the freaking place cna only be had by one army, not the other. It's hilarious. Utterly bogus and dumb argument, but hilarious.
Aside from that not being the case, that was never the argument being made.
The assumption that gods are perfectly happy to have their clerics forced to fight in wars is just as much a house rule as anything you're complaining about and just as irrational as the claim that 90% of the adult population is first level.
Gods who aren't Gorum tend to be a bit discerning about who their church fights for.
Historically speaking, i have never heard of a religion that stopped wars. Even wars between people of the same religion were common, and clerics were on both sides. The only thing that religion did was to change the rules of engagement and the justification for war, but people soon got round that.
Even pcs follow this; when was the last time you heard a cleric saying they couldn't fight a certain being as it was forbidden by their God (though it might be interesting to RP such a character, I suspect they would quickly become a pain in the butt and dropped from the party).
Logically, clerics would also be part of the army (they don't have to be drafted, they could be there to "bless" the troops, or to encourage them). In Europe, each lord would have had his own priest and Greater Lords might have Bishops, Archbishops or even the Pope. William the Conqueror sought and received permission from the Pope to invade England. The Bayeaux tapestry has a caption on it saying "Bishop Odo encourages the troops" (it shows him standing behind them with a spear, jabbing it up the backside of anyone who is tardy, lol). The English would have had their own priests to bless their troops, no-one said this was against the principles of Christianity and God would not Bless it.
Applying this to our pseudo-mediaeval RP world, it would be logical for Clerics and other divines to be on both sides, unless it was quite obviously against that religion (e.g. The crusades - though that would have had priests of different religions on both sides). In fact I am hard pressed to think of a reason why some sort of Cleric or Divine would NOT be on one of the sides.
That doesn't mean they are two a penny. They would be common enough to be noted, but not common enough that entire bands of them exist. Much like Arcane spellcasters.
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Since this keeps propping up, I fear that the two camps here are arguign at cross purpose.
Folks like Ravingdork and mdk are attempting to argue based on observable rules mechanics and apparently getting annoyed by people 'house ruling' as they see it.
Folks like me are arguing from real life and observable non-rules basis for our arguments and getting annoyed by all of the RAW.
I don't think we're going to get anywhere valid in this discussion when the camps aren't even arguing in the same universe as each other.
The rules in this particular discussion, don't really mean anything. The amount of treasure in a room, the fact the rules don't say a class is restricted, the 'freebie' nature of magical components, this is all completely irrelevant.
Essentially trying to argue this from a RAW perspective is trying to argue the Brian Van Hoose method where one should be able to buy limitless sheep as long as you have the copper pieces for them and collapse areas into mass singularity, use diplomacy to make someone cheat on their spouse of twenty years in the drop of a hat by waving your hand at them for six seconds or that every town has whatever items you might desire beneath an arbitrary price limit.
In this rules-based mindset you could cripple certain mages just by changing your currency basis so that all their gems are now under priced to function as the required material components (which are cited on a monetary basis). Saying that it doesn't work that way would however likely be derided as a 'house rule,' but others would just view it as sanity as the cost requirement is an abstraction meant to represent value.
Its not 'house ruling' in most cases, its making sense out of something that never tries, nor claims, to be an accurate simulation. RPGs aren't video games, and their mechanics aren't set in stone.
Is it a house-rule that the 2nd level expert owns several thousand dollars worth of gear (his sale stock and house) while he gleefully violates the wealth by level 'rules?'
Is it a house-rule that creatures can resolve combat off-screen without the DM rolling for it? I don't see DMs rolling dice every second to represent every bar fight, school yard scuffle, wolf attacking deer, or cooks making their profession rolls?
I'm not trying to be patronizing here. I'm trying to make it clear that when we're attempting to discuss the effects of the economics of a military in a fantasy setting, the setting is what matters, and therefore the fluff takes precedence over whatever the hell a given chapter and verse of rules says or (as in the case of the 'we have no restrictiosn on...') doesn't say.
In the context of this discussion, the effects on military tactics and the like is resolved by stuff that isn't found on page suchandsuch of the core rulebook, its resolved by things that aren't covered like logistics, opportunity cost, societal structure and the like. Even the rules in Ultimate Campaign are abstractions and don't really enter into this discussion. There is no truly 'generic' campaign setting, not golarian, nor the old forgotten realms, nor anything else.
Every setting brings its own stuff to bear, as well as its own history.
We have to look at the squishier sciences of psychology, economics (its in the title of the thread), risk-reward and politics. The argument's not going to be resolved by pounding the rulebook.
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The rules in this particular discussion, don't really mean anything. The amount of treasure in a room, the fact the rules don't say a class is restricted, the 'freebie' nature of magical components, this is all completely irrelevant.
Incorrect. The rules are the only common ground in a PF discussion thread. Anything else and we are no longer in PF.
In this rules-based mindset you could cripple certain mages just by changing your currency basis so that all their gems are now under priced to function as the required material components (which are cited on a monetary basis).
Changing the way money works is a house rule. So to do this "crippling" you have to leave RAW.
We know the range of wealth for towns of various sizes. We know the wealth by level of the classes. We know the rules by which magic is used in PF and what their limitations are. We even know how to create, build, and maintain a kingdom's economy. All RAW.
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I disagree. The original predicate of this was how combat would work in a fantasy setting with magic available (the OP cited pricing for scrolls versus kit for knights) and whether it was justifiable.
And I again state, WBL is an abstraction, wealth by town is an abstraction, and the economics in Kingmaker/Ultimate Campaign is an abstraction.
RAW does not lead to a path of wisdom in this case, and to be honest we're not arguing 'Pathfinder' at least not according to the OP's original posting.
I want to establish this thread to try and figure out how warfare would evolve in a fantasy world and how that differs from the real world.
Still, like I said the RAI and RAW folks are butting heads, so let me try to get a little RAW here to make my point better.
I want to establish this thread to try and figure out how warfare would evolve in a fantasy world and how that differs from the real world.
But lets assume since this is the Paizo forum and this is General Discussion Pathfinder RPG that the fantasy world in question is Golarian, the generic setting for Pathfinder RPG.
The opinion posited of mages being so numerous that they can fill out major combat roles isn't supported by the source material. Unless the RAW crowd wants to declare the sourcebooks and the novels to be apocrypha they can't site sola scriptura basis for their arguments an try to thump people with the rulebooks. And then the logical counter argument would be that they're narrowing the field of evidence to the point where it only supports their argument.
The sourcebooks (and I assume novels/comics as I haven't read them) themselves don't indicate massive wizard armies operating like magical F-15s, nor do the combat rules spelled out in Ultimate Campaign seem to expect massed wizard conflicts (funny if the rules as written were designed with that as its intention).
As stated, I believe personally wizards would operate primarilly in support and communication roles, but the majority of combat would still be conducted by poor schlubs in padded armor and handweapons solely because the effect of low level wizards on the battlefield would not prove significant, and high level wizards would be such a high investment they would either be countered by opponents of similar type on the opposing side, or attempt to operate behind the scenes as force multipliers (events which both tie into the roleplaying game ethos: IE: "Go take out their specialists so our army can win", and "The Dark Wizard's Crystal of power must be broken if our forces are to carry the day)".
Its also important to note that while the rulesbooks don't expressly forbid it (which seems to be the basis of some arguments) this also doesn't account for the fact that not everyone has the supporting evidence on combat sufficient to understand the relatively new ideas of combined arms, trusting the battleplan to the lowest denominator possible (something so called modern miltiaries in some countries have trouble with) or squad tactics.
Terrain, a barely unrecognized factor in the RAW also effects combat style and effectiveness beyond such hullaballo as which weapon has the best crit range or damage options, etc. The people who live in forest coated hills aren't likely to utilize mounted cavalry and are equally as unlikely to use long range magics. The folks who live on open deserts are more likely to have swift light units. And so on.
But the rulebook doesn't really represent that, and the optimizers step in and we'd end up with armies of falcata equipped PC class folks just because 'the rules don't forbid it,' and 'fighters/wizards/whatever' are common. Hell, they could all be ifrit master summoners, and imagine how that would change battleplans.
I'm doing some reductio ad absurdum here, and I again apologize if I sound patronizing (I sound like a jerk in text), but I feel this point needs to be made.
This question will not be resolved out of the rulebook.
I disagree. The original predicate of this was how combat would work in a fantasy setting with magic available (the OP cited pricing for scrolls versus kit for knights) and whether it was justifiable.
And I again state, WBL is an abstraction, wealth by town is an abstraction, and the economics in Kingmaker/Ultimate Campaign is an abstraction.
RAW does not lead to a path of wisdom in this case, and to be honest we're not arguing 'Pathfinder' at least not according to the OP's original posting.
Not sure where you get this. He's posting in a pathfinder forum and used prices from PF as an example of how much kit for a knight would cost.
But lets assume since this is the Paizo forum and this is General Discussion Pathfinder RPG that the fantasy world in question is Golarian, the generic setting for Pathfinder RPG.
The generic setting for PF is just the rules themselves.
Golarian is a setting outside the core rulebooks. It's quite specific, not generic.
So why are we using your assumption that gods and witch patrons are all doormats for anyone that comes by with a writ of impressment rather than the more common position that powerful outsiders have at least metaphorical spines?I agree, it is just as much a houserule.
In response to a house rule that gods would stop their clerics from engaging in war, even the war gods!
So, we agree then? They are both houserules, or at best, setting specific limitations that might apply, but not part of the published rules?
Excellent!
Fine, please point to something in the published rules framework that backs up your assumption. I have already pointed to several things that work for the assumption that gods do not pull their powers. War domain, Chaos Domain, Death Domain, Evil Domain. And their subdomains. For Witches, Plague Insanity and Trickery patrons all seem like the types that would be pro war. I never said every magic user would be willing in war, or even capable in war.
I find your assumption that every magic user loses powers to be dumb. Honestly.
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I'm using the basis that the developers of the game created that setting, created their rules, and generally that setting would operate as a sort of showcase or demonstrative place for those rules to be demonstrated or carried out.
I don't think thats an illogical assessment.
I'll say again, it terrifies me how often these arguments seem to remind me of my old theology classes and the debates in them from my college days. RAW and RAI always remind me of Sola Scriptura and Tradition.
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I'm using the basis that the developers of the game created that setting, created their rules, and generally that setting would operate as a sort of showcase or demonstrative place for those rules to be demonstrated or carried out.
I don't think thats an illogical assessment.
I play PF and don't ever use that setting. The only thing we can all be guaranteed to have in common is the rules.
The game is the rules. Various settings, no matter who published them, are implementations on top of the rule set.
Paizo is also the host of Pathfinder Society. But it would be disingenuous to claim that nobody in an army can be a cleric of a philosophy, or that a synthesist summoner can't be on the battlefield.
I'll say again, it terrifies me how often these arguments seem to remind me of my old theology classes and the debates in them from my college days. RAW and RAI always remind me of Sola Scriptura and Tradition.
Reminds me much more of arguments/discussions among mathematicians, since this branch is essentially set theory. But I'll grab a torch and start shouting "iconoclasm!" if you like. :)
Ah, the 'only my side has magic' method of debate. Uhm, why is there only one wizard? And why do you get him?This discussion began over the belief that one army using magic to win a battle. then suddenly everyone else would be doing the same. It really doesn't matter where said wizard came from in the overall discussion.
No, this discussion is supposed to be, how magic would affect the tacitcs used in war. Not, what happens when one side has magic and the other doesn't.
Not really. Cavalry yes, but not organized mass fighting. Or at least, not because it was something new. We just didn't have the population odo it. We did mass up as many club wielders as were in the area though for battles.Organized forces doesn't require a set number of people to be used. And it's quite different then wildly charging in without any form or tactic.
Large scale organized combat does require a lot of people. And if you think that all of human history until 500 years ago was 'wildly charging without any form or tactic' you need to go do some research. Assuming that primitive = stupid is a major idiocy.
Again, the default assumption within the rules (and I quoted things to back that up, odd how nobody arguing against me can quote one single thing from the rules stating magic is rare or only recently discovered), is that magic has been around for tens of thousands of years. So no, saying it would take a few generations is like saying it would take me a couple of weeks to make a few hundred arrows, so bows are useless in a fight.Aside from the fact that we were discussing a specific situation, not a general one, I'm not sure what rules you are talking about. The core books all pretty much imply that magic is uncommon, and high-level casters are rare.
From the Core Rulebook: Same rules MDT quoted
A) We're not discussing a specific situation, we're discussing how magic affects war tactics, not sure how you can get more general than that.
B) You proved my point. How is magic rare or uncommon when even a 100 person village has several 5th level casters? You read it as saying that's rare. If I have 100 people and have at least 3 casters of 5th level in that group, then that means if I have 100,000 people in a country, then I have at least 3,000 5th level casters. That's not rare. That's common. I could just as easily have 3,000 nobles and nobody would think you couldn't find a noble. And that's only 5th level casters. Let's look up the minimums.
Note : Caster Count is Minimum to cover 90% of available spells
Thorp : 10 People average, 3 1st level casters : 30%
Hamlet : 40 people average, 3 2nd level casters : 7.5%
Village : 100 people average, 3 5th level casters : 3%
Small Town : 1000 people average, 3 7th level casters : 0.3%
Large Town : 3500 People average, 3 9th level casters : 0.085%
Small City : 7500 people average, 3 11th level casters : 0.04%
Large City : 17500 people average, 3 13th level casters : 0.01%
So, in a 100,000 person kingdom, you'd expect (and again, this is an unrealistic minimum because it assumes the absolute minimum to provide the raw listed spell casting services) the following :
100,000 * 0.30 = 30,000 1st level casters.
100,000 * 0.075 = 7,500 3rd level casters.
100,000 * 0.03 = 3,000 5th level casters.
100,000 * 0.003 = 300 7th level casters.
100,000 * 0.00085 = 85 9th level casters.
100,000 * 0.0004 = 40 11th level casters.
100,000 * 0.0001 = 10 13th level casters.
Also note we need to add another 3 15th level casters, assuming a kingdom has at most one metropolis in it given it would require 25% of the population to populate it.
So our total caster population of the kingdom, by minimum is : 40,938 out of 100,000. That is, by the rules as presented in the book, 41% of the population has some ability to cast spells. And that's at a minimum. Even if you went with the 1 caster instead of 3 (remember, rules say you can get any spell cast, which requires 3 casters of the given level) then that's still 13,646 casters per 100,000 (or 13.6% of the population), or over 1 out of 10 people. That's not rare. I'm sorry, but it's not.
Since this keeps propping up, I fear that the two camps here are arguign at cross purpose.
Folks like Ravingdork and mdk are attempting to argue based on observable rules mechanics and apparently getting annoyed by people 'house ruling' as they see it.
Folks like me are arguing from real life and observable non-rules basis for our arguments and getting annoyed by all of the RAW.
I don't think we're going to get anywhere valid in this discussion when the camps aren't even arguing in the same universe as each other.
The problem with arguing your house rules is, they are your house rules. You win. Congratz. Nobody can say your house rules are wrong, because they are your house rules.
I'm using the basis that the developers of the game created that setting, created their rules, and generally that setting would operate as a sort of showcase or demonstrative place for those rules to be demonstrated or carried out.
I don't think thats an illogical assessment.
I think it's illogical to say your house rules should be the setting we are using. We are not arguing Golarion, we are arguing PF core rules. We don't have your house rules in front of us, anymore than you have our house rules. The only thing we all have is the published rules.
To say we should not argue those, but should instead argue house rules is absurd.
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Fascinating discussion currently happening. I'm of a slightly different mind to many (though I think I stand with mdt on many of his points).
The core question is this: how prevalent is magic use in warfare?
The possible answers range from "ubiquitous" to "spell casters stay out of wars", and a whole range of differing alternatives. My personal answer is "as prevalent as needed to help the plot".
Unless your setting has nations that conscript spellcasters; unless a particular nation has a specific patron deity (say, of peace, or of war); unless a particular nation distrusts spellcasters; unless there is a multinational organisation of wizards/priests/sorcerers that are pacifists/warmongers/mercenary; unless one of any more of hundreds of reasons that a specific setting could have higher or lower numbers of spellcasters working with or for military forces, then the only answer you'll get is "some".
I'd be more interested in gaming out some examples than arguing back and forth. Throw a thousand foot soldiers with spears up against 50 5th level wizards with combat spell load outs. Or illusions. Try out different tactics, like stealth, close order, open order, single lines, stacked lines, archers supporting both sides, or just one. See what happens. Go bigger, go smaller, what would a small force of Rogues with UMD and wands of cure light wounds and wands of fireball be able to do?
Don't try to fit the story to the system. Figure out what makes a balanced fight, what are good tactics, how much effect does a heavy cavalry unit consisting of cavaliers have? Find the balance point. And then when you have to run a story you can change the balance to make life as interesting or easy for the PCs as you need.
I'm not a fan of theorycrafting. Theorycrafting says my 20th level fighter has a DPR of about 230 versus AC 40. Two lucky dice rolls of 17+ allow his damage to exceed that without even rolling a single dice for damage. Sure, I understand probability, and know that's not a sustainable expectation, but it's also not unrealistic.
There's a lot of "oh, yeah, well, I dodge!" in this thread. We have the rules. I can also guarantee that everyone posting here has access to some form of computer/tablet/phone to crunch numbers with. We could figure out what works and what doesn't, not just in theory, but in practice, too. And you can bet your bottom dollar that any experienced or wise military tactician has gamed out scenarios and knows how to use their troops in ways that work when magic exists on the battlefield, whether it's a single Mage popping off fireballs from a wand, or True Strike archers, or an entire army of spellslingers.
Just my 2 cp.
I think if I were a powerful kingdom I'd pay whatever I could to keep a couple of high level casters on retainer. Or at least some high level "only in emergencies" scrolls/items. A couple of Summon Monster IX's could potentially single handedly win a war if used intelligently.
An elder fire elemental could run up and down a battlefield and with only it's burn ability lay waste to a massive number of mooks.
Edit: Hell, one moderate level Master summoner could stay in a well fortified keep and let his summoned creatures lay waste to an encamped army with very little personal risk.
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Fascinating discussion currently happening. I'm of a slightly different mind to many (though I think I stand with mdt on many of his points).
The core question is this: how prevalent is magic use in warfare?
The possible answers range from "ubiquitous" to "spell casters stay out of wars", and a whole range of differing alternatives. My personal answer is "as prevalent as needed to help the plot".
Unless your setting has nations that conscript spellcasters; unless a particular nation has a specific patron deity (say, of peace, or of war); unless a particular nation distrusts spellcasters; unless there is a multinational organisation of wizards/priests/sorcerers that are pacifists/warmongers/mercenary; unless one of any more of hundreds of reasons that a specific setting could have higher or lower numbers of spellcasters working with or for military forces, then the only answer you'll get is "some".
I'd be more interested in gaming out some examples than arguing back and forth. Throw a thousand foot soldiers with spears up against 50 5th level wizards with combat spell load outs. Or illusions. Try out different tactics, like stealth, close order, open order, single lines, stacked lines, archers supporting both sides, or just one. See what happens. Go bigger, go smaller, what would a small force of Rogues with UMD and wands of cure light wounds and wands of fireball be able to do?
Don't try to fit the story to the system. Figure out what makes a balanced fight, what are good tactics, how much effect does a heavy cavalry unit consisting of cavaliers have? Find the balance point. And then when you have to run a story you can change the balance to make life as interesting or easy for the PCs as you need.
I'm not a fan of theorycrafting. Theorycrafting says my 20th level fighter has a DPR of about 230 versus AC 40. Two lucky dice rolls of 17+ allow his damage to exceed that without even rolling a single dice for damage. Sure, I understand probability, and know that's not a sustainable...
Well the trick here, or my 'house rules' as mdt posits them, is that we can't really play this thing out. The issues of terrain, logistics, and the like are what really decides things, not how many flying bodies there are. The rules though don't represent realities such as logistics, baggage trains, shell shock and the like very well without the 'house ruling' which is a necessary portion of the system's proper adjudication. The system doesn't accomodate that the mages might not want to go, or the thousands of other squiggly little detail that a guy designing a heroic fantasy RPG just doesn't care about.
Its not a mechanical or rule issue at all. We're arguing from two entirely different mindsets, which is why I fear we're not getting anywhere.
There's the RAW Camp which is saying the rules don't represent the social or non-crunchy factors, or that they represent them very vaguely.
And the RAI Camp which is looking at the idea of flocks of wizards running around and saying 'thats not whats intended.'
Its like the old joke about how the artist takes twenty years to paint a parchment and the engineer is like 'I could paint it in five minutes with a roller.'
Different mindsets on 'paint,' just like different mindsets on 'pathfinder.'
I for example don't believe the rulebook represents pathfinder, I believe the rulebook is just pathfinder's framework.
And yeah the iconclasm shouts'd be great. Personally I'd love to be called a Paizist (after the term for Papist) to represent the fact that I believe traditional understanding trumps the raw dead words in the rulebook when it comes to adjudication.
That being said, I feel like I'm hijacking this thread so I'm going to try to have that be my last statement on that.
You proved my point. How is magic rare or uncommon when even a 100 person village has several 5th level casters?Hold the phone. Where did you get this from? According to the goods and service rules for spell casters you aren't even guaranteed ANY spell casters at all until you reach a small town (200-2000 pop)which would be guaranteed to have a handful of first level casters.The numbers you listed were the maximum that an adventuring party could expect from any given settlement.
Using your calculations, with that in mind, there would be hundreds of casters, not tens of thousands.
This is the latest/greatest from Paizo on settlements, their populations, and what services are available. Being the most recently published set of rules on services available, it supersedes previous commentary.
ERGO, I'm using the most up to date published ruleset.
And, you are not using them if you state you need to get 200-2000 people to get any spell casting. The settlement rules are quite clear on that. You need a thorp (5 to 20 people) to get 1st level spellcasting services.
Spellcasting: Unlike magic items, spellcasting for hire is listed separately from the town's base value, since spellcasting is limited by the level of the available spellcasters in town. This line lists the highest-level spell available for purchase from spellcasters in town. A town's base spellcasting level depends on its type.
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I'd also like to note in support of LazarX that I don't think the rules give us the precise number of thorps, towns, cities, or number of countries, or similar data in a given 'generic' campaign setting.
Meaning just the supposition that there /is/ a town or two would qualify under this view as a 'house rule.'
Dang it, I keep dragging myself back into this side convo.. Forgive me OP!
The problem is that the rules are designed for a narrative approach to gaming (quite rightly so) with a nod to simulationism. The rules as they exist allow for any narrative approach on a battle; but what they don't allow for is rules on massed battles outside of the narrative. How magic gets used in a battle is left up to the GM to narrate with out any consideration to how battles would really evolve; as someone has pointed out, for the cost of a scroll of fireball you could arm 3,750 people with clubs. The Fireball might get 10 to 20 if they bunch up, but the other 3,700+ will club to death that mage. In reality however, noone would seriously consider such an army if they can equip and train them better partly because of constraints on the number of people available but mostly because they would likely run away the first time they got hit with a Fireball (They've got Fireballs and all I've got is this lousy club?) or saw a buch of enemy knights or close order infantry.
RAW there is nothing stopping you getting your clubmen. RAW there is nothing stopping the GM putting a 20th level wizard in a thorp or hamlet. These are narrative choices and if the GM feels he needs it, he is free to put it in there. He could also decide there are no spellcasters in the thorp or hamlet, if that's part of the narrative.
But these narrative choices do not help us determine what the composition of a typical army would be, how common magic is and therefore what effect it would have on combat. The settlement rules are there for when the GM has no particular preference on narrative choice, they are not definitive rulings on what percentage of the population are spellcasters. It assumes a standard settlement pattern which may or may not be the case and makes no rulings on farmsteads (settlements smaller than a thorp or hamlet), nor does it tell us how many farmsteads, thorp/hamlets, villages, towns, cities and metropolises to expect in a kingdom. Manipulate these and you can get anything you like. But it does nothing to help us in answering the question: how would magic be used?
I have assumed that low level spells (1st-3rd) would be freely available. beyond that deployment gets steadily more difficult, but the final model ultimately deoends in how common you suppose magic is
No, this discussion is supposed to be, how magic would affect the tacitcs used in war. Not, what happens when one side has magic and the other doesn't.
I responded to your scenario about one side using a magic-user. That's what began this discussion between us.
Large scale organized combat does require a lot of people. And if you think that all of human history until 500 years ago was 'wildly charging without any form or tactic' you need to go do some research. Assuming that primitive = stupid is a major idiocy.
No it doesn't. For example, a Roman unit called a Centuria only contained between 60 to 80 men. And historically, it would be about 5,000 years.
A) We're not discussing a specific situation, we're discussing how magic affects war tactics, not sure how you can get more general than that.
We, you and I, were discussing a specific situation.
B) You proved my point. How is magic rare or uncommon when even a 100 person village has several 5th level casters? You read it as saying that's rare. If I have 100 people and have at least 3 casters of 5th level in that group, then that means if I have 100,000 people in a country, then I have at least 3,000 5th level casters. That's not rare. That's common. I could just as easily have 3,000 nobles and nobody would think you couldn't find a noble. And that's only 5th level casters. Let's look up the minimums.
Note : Caster Count is Minimum to cover 90% of available spells
Thorp : 10 People average, 3 1st level casters : 30%
Hamlet : 40 people average, 3 2nd level casters : 7.5%
Village : 100 people average, 3 5th level casters : 3%
Small Town : 1000 people average, 3 7th level casters : 0.3%
Large Town : 3500 People average, 3 9th level casters : 0.085%
Small City : 7500 people average, 3 11th level casters : 0.04%
Large City : 17500 people average, 3 13th level casters : 0.01%So, in a 100,000 person kingdom, you'd expect (and again, this is an unrealistic minimum because it assumes the absolute minimum to provide the raw listed spell casting services) the following :
100,000 * 0.30 = 30,000 1st level casters.
100,000 * 0.075 = 7,500 3rd level casters.
100,000 * 0.03 = 3,000 5th level casters.
100,000 * 0.003 = 300 7th level casters.
100,000 * 0.00085 = 85 9th level casters.
100,000 * 0.0004 = 40 11th level casters.
100,000 * 0.0001 = 10 13th level casters.Also note we need to add another 3 15th level casters, assuming a kingdom has at most one metropolis in it given it would require 25% of the population to populate it.
So our total caster population of the kingdom, by minimum is : 40,938 out of 100,000. That is, by the rules as presented in the book, 41% of the population has some ability to cast spells. And that's at a minimum. Even if you went with the 1 caster instead of 3 (remember, rules say you can get any spell cast, which requires 3 casters of the given level) then that's still 13,646 casters per 100,000 (or 13.6% of the population), or over 1 out of 10 people. That's not rare. I'm sorry, but it's not.
How so? The rules outright state that while it's possible, you wouldn't likely be able to find a 1st level caster unless you go to a small town. Nowhere was it stated that you would always find a caster. So your claim about finding a 5th level caster in a village, much less several is wrong. It's not gonna be 3 out of 100 in a village. At best, it would be 3 out of 1000 of a small town.
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Mr Tomo, please follow the link to the PRD that I posted earlier. If you're going to ignore the PRD, I don't see how we can have a discussion.
You and I never started a discussion about one side having magic and the other not having magic. I've never tried to talk about that because it's a dead end conversation.
As to Roman Units, again, I'm not sure what you're arguing there. Are you arguing that a 60 to 80 man unit was their standard unit? it wasn't. It was just a specific unit. C/P from Wikipedia...
Pre-Marian structure of the legions :
Contubernium - The smallest organized unit of soldiers in the Roman Army. It was composed of eight legionaries led by an officer called a decanus. When on the march a Legion would often march contubernium-abreast (8-abreast) and in the Imperial Legion, ten contubernia formed a centuria.
Maniple (Maniplulus) - a Maniple was the Pre-Marian sub-unit of the Roman Legions, consisting of 120 men (60 for the Triarii).
Legio (Republic) - Legions in the Pre-Marian armies consisted of 60 maniples of infantry and 10 Turmae of cavalry. By 250 BC, there would be four Legions, two commanded by each Consul, two Roman legions which would be accompanied by an additional two allied legion of similar strength and structure. For every Roman Legion there would be an allied Legion
Turma - a unit of cavalry in the Pre-Marian army, which usually consisted of 30 horsemen
Post-Marian structure of the legions :
Contubernium - The smallest organized unit of soldiers in the Roman Army. It was composed of eight legionaries led by a non-commissioned officer called a decanus. Ten contubernia formed a centuria.
Centuria - A centuria consisted of 80 men under the command of a Centurion and his Optio. Six centuria formed a cohort.
Cohors (Cohortes) - A cohort consisted of 480 men. The most senior ranking centurion of the six centuria commanded the entire cohort.
First Cohort (Cohors Prima) - The first cohort was a double strength cohort (consisting of five double-strength centuria) with a size of 800 men (excluding officers). The centurion of its first centuria, the Primus Pilus, commanded the first cohort and was also the most senior Centurion in the legion.
Legio (Imperial) - A legion was composed of nine cohorts and one first cohort. The legion's overall commander was the legatus legionis, assisted by the praefectus castrorum and other senior officers.
Vexillatio - These were temporary task forces composed of one or multiple centuria detached from the legion for a specific purpose. Vexillations were under the command of an officer appointed by the Legatus.
The legions themselves varied in size over the years, from about 125,000 to 180,000 men. Note that that was the legions, the auxilia (or the auxiliary, kind of like a national guard, but not) was anywhere up to 250,000 men.
Not sure what any of that has to do with this discussion, other than the fact that even if you only had 1% of the population as casters, in 430,000 man army that would still be 4,300 casters (and based on the rules under settlements, in the PRD, from the Gamemastery guide, spell casters are more common than that). If we go with the minimums I showed above, that's a lot of casters.
Also, please note the rules I pointed you to don't say 'it's possible' to get someone to cast a spell, it says that that is the level of spell casting that is available. It doesn't say that is the maximum possible spell level, if you do find a spell caster, which is how you are reading it. It says 'In a thorp, you can find spell casting services of spells level 1 or lower'.
The game gives very broad guidelines. The moment however you start deciding specifics in your world, you're in house rule territory. You can't run a campaign or build a world with any character or definition without house rules. And I really think that we have to start moving away from the pjeorative connotation we seem to give that term.
Which is why I gave specific percentages, which can be picked up from the rules as published. It's rather simple math. You can even get a minimum population needed to support a country if you give a specific maximum settlement size, per the rules.
However, I'm fine if you don't want to call it house rules, it's setting specific rules. So again, if you want to argue your setting specifics, then this is a moot conversations. If you want to argue mine, it's a moot conversation (I'll give you a hint, the person who makes the setting specific rules wins the debate, this time, every time, and twice on Sunday). So, going with a setting agnostic ruleset as published, magic is not rare. That is the inescapable conclusion one must draw from the rules of magic item availability and spellcasting availability. In other words, the default assumption of the system is magic galore.
Mr Tomo, please follow the link to the PRD that I posted earlier. If you're going to ignore the PRD, I don't see how we can have a discussion.
I've seen the link, and the fact remains that it does not work the way you're trying to use it. You're trying to use optional rules meant merely for world building as the standard, and completely ignoring the actual core ruling on the subject.
You and I never started a discussion about one side having magic and the other not having magic. I've never tried to talk about that because it's a dead end conversation.
So you don't remember our discussing magic being used in battle and "exploding" in usage by your own words. That belief only works under the assumption that magic had never been used before, so how were we not discussing that?
As to Roman Units, again, I'm not sure what you're arguing there. Are you arguing that a 60 to 80 man unit was their standard unit? it wasn't. It was just a specific unit. C/P from Wikipedia...
I was arguing the fact that a group of less then a hundred was still viable for organized military combat, so there didn't have to be a large number of people for that.
Not sure what any of that has to do with this discussion, other than the fact that even if you only had 1% of the population as casters, in 430,000 man army that would still be 4,300 casters (and based on the rules under settlements, in the PRD, from the Gamemastery guide, spell casters are more common than that). If we go with the minimums I showed above, that's a lot of casters.
Except that you're completely ignoring the fact that the majority of the casters in a population would not be suitable for military usage and therefore wouldn't be in the army. That logic makes no sense. It would be like saying that because half the population is women, then half an army would be made up of them.
Also, please note the rules I pointed you to don't say 'it's possible' to get someone to cast a spell, it says that that is the level of spell casting that is available. It doesn't say that is the maximum possible spell level, if you do find a spell caster, which is how you are reading it. It says 'In a thorp, you can find spell casting services of spells level 1 or lower'.
You mean the rules meant solely for building a settlement? Where precisely does it said that the rules for spellcasting was changed/modified? Nothing in the Game Mastery Guide states that one will always find a caster. So unless you have another ruling explaining that we should ignore the core ruling...
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As to Roman Units, again, I'm not sure what you're arguing there. Are you arguing that a 60 to 80 man unit was their standard unit? it wasn't. It was just a specific unit. C/P from Wikipedia...
I am a classicist, and, speaking as such, a Wikipedia listing of the names and sizes of Roman formations is not an adequate source to turn to for an understanding of Roman military operations or the revolutionary nature of Roman small-unit tactics.
The century was the standard Roman unit (of a certain time period of the Roman army) in that it was the basic unit of tactical maneuver, not in that it was the basic unit of strategic organization. The smallest unit expected to carry out its own tactical maneuvers during a larger battle. Similar to what the maniple had been in an earlier era of Roman military tactics, and revolutionary compared to earlier classical military organization which relied upon far larger and closer-order (and therefore far more unwieldy) basic units of maneuver, such as the Macedonian phalanx.
Large scale organized combat does require a lot of people. And if you think that all of human history until 500 years ago was 'wildly charging without any form or tactic' you need to go do some research. Assuming that primitive = stupid is a major idiocy.No it doesn't. For example, a Roman unit called a Centuria only contained between 60 to 80 men. And historically, it would be about 5,000 years.
However, this feature of the Roman military was not the norm among ancient armies. The Roman infantry grew into the most maneuverable heavy infantry seen anywhere in the entire world up to that point; it is not a good example of a typical ancient military, because Roman proficiency in the command and control of small, flexible units of maneuver was thoroughly exceptional.
That's not really true. It took hundred of years for firearms to spread, and even longer for them to become a regular part of the military.
Actually, in the case of Europe, the first crude firearms arrived in the first half of the 14th century and hand cannons were developed within 50 years. Through the time period of the 14th through 16th century, the military revolution spawned in part by artillery and small arms had radically transformed the face of war. A 16th century army appeared very different than a 14th century army. There's a lot of controversy over the Early Modern Military Revolution, but pretty much everyone agree there was a huge amount of change in military tactics and strategy. The bottom line is that technology does get used, and will lead to changes in warfare. Magic can easily be used as such.
If I recall correctly, men to men fighting was still going on for quite some time, up til WW1.
The most recent English bayonet charge was in 2004. And armies in W.W. II commonly used mules and horses to move supplies abd artillery. In neither case should one conclude that this means those militaries were in any way similar to armies from the 14th century.
Now, as far as magic goes, there's a minimum number and a minimum level of magic-users required for either strategic or tactical use of magic. Oddly enough, strategic use of magic requires far fewer magic-users, and in fact, the fewer the number of spellcasters, the more disproportionate their influence, as frankly, it takes a mage to properly counter a mage. The minimum level for strategic use of wizards is 7th. At that point,a mage could Dimension Door in, cast fireballs, and Dimension Door out. A supply center, camp, or harbor is destroyed. Repeat until enemy surrenders. At ninth level a mage could teleport in, destroy a city, and teleport out.
Someone mentioned that mages would counteract each other. And indeed they could. With enough mages, they would be preoccupied with taking each other down in preparation for a scry-and-die attack. Think of ballistic missile subs vs. attack subs. Of course you needed enough mages to do this: the fewer mages you have the mite offense is favored.
Also, as far holding mages back for a critical event-remember, the first side to use magic to say, scry and kill a general, will have the advantage.
And don't forget logistics; pre-modern armies had to live off the land, and were limited to sizes under 50,000 people. But anyone with access to a 3rd level cleric spell and Create Wondrous Item can create a trap that gives unlimited amounts of food. Suddenly food logistics are not a problem, and we can have armies the size of Napoleonic armies.
One can of course jump through hoops to create a situation where mages won't affect warfare, but honestly, in that case one might as well save the trouble and not use D&D style magic in the first place. And really, the name of the thread is not "How can we make fantasy warfare look exactly like medieval warfare".
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Historically speaking, i have never heard of a religion that stopped wars. Even wars between people of the same religion were common, and clerics were on both sides. The only thing that religion did was to change the rules of engagement and the justification for war, but people soon got round that.The assumption that gods are perfectly happy to have their clerics forced to fight in wars is just as much a house rule as anything you're complaining about and just as irrational as the claim that 90% of the adult population is first level.
Gods who aren't Gorum tend to be a bit discerning about who their church fights for.
Hinduism did a fairly good job of it in South Africa and India, at least when Mahatma Gandhi was still alive. Well, it was more of a "movement with extremely religious aspects stopping two occupations and a small scale war."
I see Mr. Tomo.
Published rules are not applicable. Only your stance on how you think rules should be applied is viable? Sorry, either it's published rules, ro it's not.
And before you say 'it's optional rules' it's not, that section expands on the existing core table for settlements (check it out).
However, I see no reason to waste time arguing this any more. People who want to go by published rules are welcome to debate with me. If you want to debate your own setting specific rules, then post them. I'm sure someone will debate with you. I see no reason to waste my time doing so.
@Coriat
the person who said one Wiki is not sufficient...
http://library.thinkquest.org/26602/armyunits.htm
http://www.fectio.org.uk/articles/numbers.htm
http://www.roman-empire.net/army/army.html
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/roman_army_and_warfare.htm
Sorry, i don't feel like looking up any other sites, I'm sure you can figure out how to google it. I suggest you do so in the future before you claim a link is not valid. Just because I only bothered using the most thorough and well compiled link doesn't mean I didn't do some looking up of things. The entire point of me mentioning romans several pages ago was to counter the idea that wars would be only fought by a few thousand people, which was spouted earlier by 'experts' to poopoo the idea of large armies as being too expensive for kingdoms to maintain. Which is hogwash.
if you really do know anything about history, I'm shocked you'd agree that before Romans came around, everyone committed to battle by basically running around screaming like barbarians and never using tactics until the Romans (granted, the barbarian hordes probably did run around screaming like barbarians, but not everyone was barbarian hordes). The idea that primitive = stupid is stupid.
@ericthetolle
I agree with almost all you said, but pre-modern armies were not limited to 50,000 people. There are historical accounts, which have high degrees of validity, that armies did come larger (the Persians attacking Greece had around 200,000 men per accounts, and that was in one deployed army). The French theoretically had 50,000 men at the Battle of Agincourt alone (which they lost spectacularly to a fraction of that many men).
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Sorry, i don't feel like looking up any other sites, I'm sure you can figure out how to google it. I suggest you do so in the future before you claim a link is not valid. Just because I only bothered using the most thorough and well compiled link doesn't mean I didn't do some looking up of things. The entire point of me mentioning romans several pages ago was to counter the idea that wars would be only fought by a few thousand people, which was spouted earlier by 'experts' to poopoo the idea of large armies as being too expensive for kingdoms to maintain. Which is hogwash.
if you really do know anything about history, I'm shocked you'd agree that before Romans came around, everyone committed to battle by basically running around screaming like barbarians and never using tactics until the Romans [...]
Take a deep breath, step back, take a moment to consider my post and see if it actually says any of the things you are so dramatically disagreeing with. You may find that it does not.
It explains to you (since you had said you did not understand it) what he (likely?) meant when he said that the century was the standard Roman unit, as well as asserting that the Wiki page you consulted was inadequate to provide any understanding whatsoever of such (not because it is an invalid link, by the way, but because that is not what that Wiki page is for).
It also argues to him that the Roman century is not a good example, because Rome's organization was revolutionary, not at all typical of the armies fielded by most powerful ancient states. An exception should not be treated as if it were the rule.
It is also not good because while the century was indeed the unit of tactical maneuver, it was still wielded (as I said) as part of a larger battle - at least when it came to open, high intensity warfare.
(as a note, given that we know that firepower increases dispersion and that magic - in sufficient quantities - does offer at least limited firepower, low-intensity Roman warfare might provide a more interesting template for fantasy warfare. For example, the later stages of the Roman counterinsurgency campaign against Tacfarinas might be a good idea mine: small sized units formed in independent garrisons supported by flying columns of light infantry and light cavalry.
Some resemblance to low-intensity medieval warfare as well, where you might see the basic unit of a lance of 3-12, operating semi-independently and falling back on a garrisoned fortification at need (but with a diminished tendency to be gathered together into mass formations for the large set-piece battles of high intensity RL medieval warfare).
Thinking of these, probably medieval and ancient - not only modern - counter-insurgency and low intensity warfare in general provide good models to build fantasy warfare on.)
As another end note, please, don't tell me that I have to Google the field of my degree so that I will be qualified to post with you about it. Especially don't do that right after telling someone else that you don't understand their argument about that field in the first place. :p
@coriat
Sorry, I completely misread your post. :) That's what happens when you post after being awake for 18 hours. :)
Rereading, and with your further explanation (justified rebuke?) I agree with you. :) I've never claimed to be an expert at ancient battlefield tactics, only what I can glean from reading what's on the internet (which as we all know, is only truth) :).