Some rules to make the level-based system work.

[Alansmithee]

If you can already shoot firebolts out of your hands, why would you care about a level of Archer (saving for the fact that you can kill salamanders with arrows and not with fire bolts)? If you already have the ability to hit people with the Touch of Death, what do you care about learning how to hit people with a hammer?

For those situations where you can't just touch of death something (like immunities, etc). Or because you need to be able to keep up with all the other mage/fighters. Its more the fact that the benefits far outweigh the costs. If you will always be everyone's equal in melee, why not? Why be the 1 person who sucks in melee?

Think about it in terms of Diablo II. Sometimes you see a Fire/Ice Sorceress, sometimes you see an Ice/Lightning Sorceress, and sometimes you see a Lightning/Fire Sorceress. If you opened things up so that you could be a Fire/Bow Sorceress or a Lightning/Spear Sorceress, you'd see those character types as well.

But in Diablo II, the Sorceress doesn't have the same weapon skill as the amazon/assassin/barbarian. All stats being equal, the sorcs melee isn't equal to those other classes. And all sorcs would use some melee if you made it equal, you just wouldn't specialize, you wouldn't have to. You would essentially become a cleric archer (or a sorc zon). To give a reverse example, sorcs became near-obsolete in pvp after they added something that let the more melee-oriented classes teleport (a major sorc power).

Hitting enemies with a stick is not special. There is no wonderous thing that makes physical damage so maniacally important that everyone needs or wants to be able to inflict it. Whirlwind Sword Attack is just one attack, like Wall of Fire, and not everyone even wants it.

It is very important to fighters, and melee classes in general. It's what they are all about. And if not everyone wants it, you need to make it so those who want to be really good at hitting with a stick can be better at stick-hitting than the guy who wants to summon foo monsters.

That means that you will see a lot more people who fight with Sword and Ice Blast (since you haven't been able to make a satisfactory character who did that since "Elf" stopped being a character class)

Define "satisfactory"? I think a ftr1/wiz6/ek10/spsw3 is fairly good at swording and ice blasting ( 17th lvl caster(20 w/ practiced spellcasting)/bab +17). And that was just off the top of my head, I know for certain that both bab and caster level can be better. A pure melee or caster is still better at melee or spellslinging, respectivly, but not too significant in either.

[User3]

A straight wizard/incantatrix with that stupid feat that grants you a cleric domain (and the domain is war, competition, or hero) will completely ass-rape the character you proposed at combat, though, without giving up a damn thing and getting a cubic assload of abilities in turn.

And the character isn't even overpowered (in melee). Weapon damage is an /aspect/ of melee. The only reason why the Frenzied Berserker shows up is because he is also unkillable by hp damage. The 4x power attack and massive strength bonuses are just icing on the ass-shaped cake. I don't see why we should preserve the archetype of 'rolls big numbers'.

[Alansmithee]

I've given up comparing anything involving divine casters/abilities to anything else in terms of spellcasting (I'm assuming you are figuring to use divine power from the domains?). I mean, thats the whole problem with druids or clerics-they do what you do just as good, and give up next to nothing. Also, a problem with polymorph (which that alone can be enough to beat my build, getting poly/PAO/shapechane 2/2/3 levels earlier). But any gish will usually lose to a caster who buffs for melee. A problem with buffs, not with the system, which allows for a sword and ice blast guy.

[RandomCasualty]

Actually the diablo 2 analogy is contrary to your arguments, since DIablo 2 is based basically on spell levels or skill ranks and is based on your skill rank, not your character level.

If you wnat to be a jab based amazon, you've got to put tons of ranks into jab. If things were based on your paradigm there's no reason every sorceress wouldn't be fire/lightning/cold all at once, plus whatever other abilities you'd let her take. Because you don't have to keep putting ranks in fireball, under your system you take fireball once and you're a master of fire, for life.

And considering that your most common and useful abilities are the ones you take first, that's not ok. All abilities are not equal in your system, and as was stated, having some crap like lead troops, a highly circumstantial bonus is significantly worse than the abilities you got at earlier levels and that's just not ok.

For all the complaining everyone does about disposable PrCs that become useless after a certain level I'd think you'd learn that lesson and not make classes that you're going to abandon after one level.

While fighter/mages working should be a concern, you've also got to also be concerned about fighter/mage balance versus straight fighter or straight mage. Right now I see no reason why anyone would ever make a straight fighter.

[fbmf]

What's a "gish"?

Game On,
fbmf

[Username17]

For those situations where you can't just touch of death something (like immunities, etc). Or because you need to be able to keep up with all the other mage/fighters. Its more the fact that the benefits far outweigh the costs.

If something is immune to Touch of Death, why would you take sword fighting to get around it instead of breathing fire? The costs are the same, and any particular creature can be resistant or not to any particular attack without reference to anything at all.

I'm just not seeing how the benefits are supposed to outweigh costs here. The costs are that you give up one possible action (for example: Thundershock) and get another possible action (for example: Thrash), and I'm just not seeing it.

You let every Pokemon put any move into any slot they want. The number of slots aren't different, so why is everybody going to put a Fighting Move into one of their slots? The argument makes just as much sense to ask why everyone wouldn't take a Water Move. You can take a Water Move, and some creatures are resistant or immune to Fighting Moves, so why be the only guy who doesn't have a Water Move?

There is nothing special about the Fighting Type Moves that makes people who have or do not have them evolutionary superior to those who don't. If you want to be the pure water guy, there should be enough Water Moves to support that, and if you want to be the pure fighting guy there should be enough moves to support that as well. But asking why anyone would not take moves from one list or another doesn't make a damn bit of sense.

But in Diablo II, the Sorceress doesn't have the same weapon skill as the amazon/assassin/barbarian. All stats being equal, the sorcs melee isn't equal to those other classes. And all sorcs would use some melee if you made it equal, you just wouldn't specialize, you wouldn't have to. You would essentially become a cleric archer (or a sorc zon).

No they wouldn't. In Diablo II you have enough skill points to specialize in like 2 things. At the Hell Difficulty you actually need to pump out your masteries to get anywhere with an attack type. Not everyone would take bow or spear skills for the same reason that every Sorceress shorts at least one of the fields of spell attacks. At hell difficulty you don't see anyone who cycles between Ice, Lightning and Fire. It just doesn't happen, you don't have the skill points.

And if you put skill points into Bows or Spears to make that good, you'd do it by shorting one of the spell types. And some people would do that. And some people wouldn't. And that's the point.

For all the complaining everyone does about disposable PrCs that become useless after a certain level I'd think you'd learn that lesson and not make classes that you're going to abandon after one level.

I learned the opposite lesson - having a shit fit about people abandoning classes is retarded. The vast majority of class levels should be selectable as level one. Most classes should allow their class levels to be taken in any order at all. You shouldn't have to slog through a level you don't want ever.

If you want to be a great mounted warrior, you shouldn't have to wait til level five of Paladin, that's just dumb. You should be able to select that right away, and if you want to take other Paladin Levels, you can go ahead and take those afterwards.

In short, just about everything should be designed as a "class" that is only one level long and gies you everything you really want out of that.

-Username17

[Catharz_Godsfoot]

1096577059[/unixtime]]

Think about it in terms of Diablo II. Sometimes you see a Fire/Ice Sorceress, sometimes you see an Ice/Lightning Sorceress, and sometimes you see a Lightning/Fire Sorceress. If you opened things up so that you could be a Fire/Bow Sorceress or a Lightning/Spear Sorceress, you'd see those character types as well.

But in Diablo II, the Sorceress doesn't have the same weapon skill as the amazon/assassin/barbarian. All stats being equal, the sorcs melee isn't equal to those other classes. And all sorcs would use some melee if you made it equal, you just wouldn't specialize, you wouldn't have to. You would essentially become a cleric archer (or a sorc zon). To give a reverse example, sorcs became near-obsolete in pvp after they added something that let the more melee-oriented classes teleport (a major sorc power).

Alansmithee, If you made all classes equal in all respects in any game, there woulden't be any classes.
Teleport is a one point ability. You don't need to specialize because specializing dosen't improve your teleportation at all.
Sorceresses are still powerful in PvP because there is more to them then teleportation. They can also out-damage any other class in the game. They can become near invulnerable with Energy shield. And not everyone in the game can afford Enigma (last time I played, I haven't played in months).
There actually are Fire/Bow sorceresses, but only because of Enchant (which stacks).
If a character could simply choose which three Diablo skill trees they would use on character creation, almost everone would take their primary damage tree (Fire) and then two buff trees (Warcries, Offensive auras). There isn't any in-game benefit to not specializing completely, and D&D is exactly the same way.
Letting a character 'multiclass' lead to an ever greater level of specialization. Although there would probably be a 'Cleric archer' using Enchant, Strafe, and Electricity aura

1096583237[/unixtime]]What's a "gish"?

Game On,
fbmf

Its the Githyanki Fighter/Mage.

[Alansmithee]

I think the pokemon reference finally made me understand what you are getting at. Pretty much this is what people see as a level in 3.x:

Class BAB F/R/W Abilities

What you are proposing is this:

F/R/W(/AC?) Abilities

With BAB instead becoming some omnivalue used for all offensive actions, that is based on your level and independent from what your abilities happen to be. I'm unsure if you think saves should be "class" or level dependent (which honestly hasn't been discussed). And I personally think this would eliminate classes, hence why I left that off. The characters would be very organic; however I think it would either be a nightmare keeping track of everything or trying to design any sort of balance, or be overly simplified. If you were to try something like this currently the melee archetypes would have to be eliminated, or a set of melee "spells" would have to be devised to balance somewhat against the variety of available magic spells.
---
Also, a gish is a term used frequently on the WotC Character Optimization boards. It's just a fighter/mage.

[RandomCasualty]

1096588432[/unixtime]]
I learned the opposite lesson - having a shit fit about people abandoning classes is retarded. The vast majority of class levels should be selectable as level one. Most classes should allow their class levels to be taken in any order at all. You shouldn't have to slog through a level you don't want ever.

The problem isn't so much slogging through levels, it's creating levels that are grossly frontloaded and then levels that people are never going to wnat to take in an effort to mechanically force people to do different things.

You say yourself you dont' want to give PCs inferior choices. Then you let them choose between lead troops (a truly ass ability) and a wizard spell at full character level power. What your'e really doing is saying "yeah you can continue advancing to a fighter or you can be a fighter/mage, which is what I really want you to, so you might as well just all be a fighter/mage or you suck ass."

Lets look at your list again and see what's wrong with it.

A dark knight, who runs around in monolith armor, striking enemies with his doom scythe, striking terror in foes, and raising the dead.

A fire lord, who rides around on his bronze steed with his lance, shooting firebolts at distant foes.

A sacred archer, who wears a blindfold over his eyes while pcking off distant targets with his mighty bow; who counteracts demons, sickness, and misfortune with his sacred chants.

A fey fencer, who dances around with his rapier, masking his movements with illusions, putting enemies to sleep, and distracting the weak of will so that he can strike for the heart.

All these guys, every single one is a fighter mage... and that's where your favoritism lies.

Your system should be able to support fighter/mages, but it must be able to support straight fighters too without making them total ass.

And when your choice is between illusions or "lead troops" or firebolts and "lead troops" you're never going to choose to lead troops.

And as long as you're giving the fighter concept guys total ass for abilities, you're forcing people to become fighter mages or make inferior choices.

[Maj]

How can anyone judge the merit and excellence of an ability that has yet to be written up? If leading troops is anything like the Leadership feat, you better believe I'd take it over being able to shoot a firebolt. If leading troops is more like yelling loud so all allies within 10 feet gain a morale bonus of +1, then yeah... I'll take the firebolt.

[Username17]

Um... yeah, what Maj said.

The idea is that crap like "+1 to all allies" shouldn't exist, because that's a class dependent numeric bonus. If you catch them all (or at least, if you catch 20 of them), you've shifted things all the way off the random number generator and the game stops working.

Leading troops is just like summoning monsters, but with a different special effect. As for being ass... that entirely depends upon how good the little dudes are. If your little dudes are as competent as the guys pulled out of Leadership, it's crazy overpowered (take it or its equivalent four times and you've just doubled your character power). If they are as good as the guys you get out of Planar Binding, it's so crazy awesome that it eclipses all other abilities that your character could get at that level - or even all levels up to that point (since you can grab multiple monsters that are individually better than you are). And if the creatures you lead are as butt as the creatures that pop out of Summon Monster - then the ability is butt. If the creatures are as totally perplexingly worthless as the summoned undead out of the Web Enhancement 3.5 Master of Shrouds... then the abiltiy is so sucky that I'd rather have a character sheet that was orange and written in a gothic script - because it would be just as completely meaningless in game, but at least it would look cool on the table.

But since "leadership" abilities currently run that line; all the way from completely worthless (even disadvantageous in some instances), to instantaneously game breakingly powerful - the statement out of the blue that ahead of time such an ability is underpowered is contrary to everything we have ever learned from Conjuration Specialists ever.

All these guys, every single one is a fighter mage... and that's where your favoritism lies.

Yeah... it was a list of Fighter Mages. That was the whole point. It's also a list of characters that the game doesn't represent very well because of the current bias against Fighter Mages.

Prince Charming should be competitive with them, but neither overpower them nor be forced to sit on his hands whenever they fight something decent. The abilty to have a spiffy mount or a pack of crossbowmen at your back is potentially just as good as the ability to put up illusions. Actually, it's potentially game breaking unless there are deep controls on it, since it lets you break the action paradigm.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1096615204[/unixtime]]
But since "leadership" abilities currently run that line; all the way from completely worthless (even disadvantageous in some instances), to instantaneously game breakingly powerful - the statement out of the blue that ahead of time such an ability is underpowered is contrary to everything we have ever learned from Conjuration Specialists ever.

The main thing that sucks about leadership tends to be that it's based around getting other guys who do shit better than you do. Basically it's the fighter who gets a wizard cohort who actually solves most of the problems and shit, and that sucks. I personally hate the idea of the leadership feat for this reason.

Not to mention it's the only feat powers that you can lose when the cohort dies. More often than not, it's just an excuse to make a magical item sweatshop and pass the shit onto your cohort as opposed to actually bringing anyone into battle with you.

Prince Charming should be competitive with them, but neither overpower them nor be forced to sit on his hands whenever they fight something decent. The abilty to have a spiffy mount or a pack of crossbowmen at your back is potentially just as good as the ability to put up illusions. Actually, it's potentially game breaking unless there are deep controls on it, since it lets you break the action paradigm.

I agree with the first part, but I disagree with the second. Having a mount might be decent, but usually isn't that much of a factor. Usually having a good mount simply means that your mount is harder to kill and lets you use your mounted charge abilities longer. At higher levels mounts are gradually phased out of actual damage dealing. Though at 1st and 2nd level having a heavy warhorse is actually broken, because they outdamage and outfight normal characters.

As for crossbowmen or other NPC backup, as I stated before, I tend to hate those abilities, because it makes your character look like a pansy and in a heroic game your character should be doing most of the shit when you actually go into a dungeon. Also, I don't particularly want 20 1st level retainers cluttering the battlefield. They just basically waste actions doing inneffectual shit most of the time, and if the majority of your character's ability is yelling "Crossbows... FIRE!" then that's kinda lame.

D&D isn't about full blown wars, and an ability that lets you get NPC allies just sucks for the most part usually especially for a fighter. A physically weak necromancer with a skeleton is kinda cool, mostly because part of the necromancer's concept is summoning, but the fighter shouldnt' be forced to rely on backup like this. If you wanted to make a general class that lead big groups, I guess you could, but as I said before adding lots of figures to the battlefield needlessly tends to just bog down combat.

I guess maybe if you could somehow treat the group of crossbowmen as a "swarm" type or something and resolve them with one attack roll, then that'd be ok, but generally adding huge teams of NPCs is annoying as hell and not something welcome at the table.

[Username17]

Um... so to break it down:

Random Casualty only wants to move one miniature around the board. Therefore leadership, conjuration, animal friendship, necromancy, familiars, mounted combat, object animation, and all other abilties that involve putting extra pieces or tokens on the map are poor mechanical choices.

Right. That argument is dumb. The fact that there are so damn many of these abilities sitting around means that quite obviously many people do like putting extra tokens on the board. And since there are so damn many of them, you're going to have to balance them anyhow - so the ability to lead some troops really isn't any more of a pain in your ass than it already was.

Basically, your entire objection, while it claims to be about how these abilties are "crap", is actually about how you don't want to have them on your character. That's not a valid argument that other people don't want them.

-Username17

[Username17]

I think the pokemon reference finally made me understand what you are getting at.

You have no idea how long I've waited to hear those words!

With BAB instead becoming some omnivalue used for all offensive actions, that is based on your level and independent from what your abilities happen to be. I'm unsure if you think saves should be "class" or level dependent (which honestly hasn't been discussed). And I personally think this would eliminate classes, hence why I left that off. The characters would be very organic; however I think it would either be a nightmare keeping track of everything or trying to design any sort of balance, or be overly simplified.

Well, actually less so than a current Wizard or Cleric. The 3.x spellcaster every level gets several new abilities, reconfigurable every day, which are then on charges.

What we are doing here is giving everyone a fixed set of abilities which are larger than most people get, but actually smaller than what a spellcaster gets. And the abilities are by nd large unlimited by charges/day. So the Wizard has less to keep track of, because he doesn't have to worry about charges and has less abilties in total. Everyone else gets more, but that's balance for you. :shrug:

If you were to try something like this currently the melee archetypes would have to be eliminated, or a set of melee "spells" would have to be devised to balance somewhat against the variety of available magic spells.

Well, I prefer "melee actions", but yeah.

The big problem I'm seeing in terms of game balance is the same one that D&D struggles with in terms of Wizard Power. Namely, that there's little reason for people to have fire bolt and fire blast, when they can have fire bolt and cold blast.

The thing that has to be done for that, I think, is to shift the emphasis from damage types to tactical utility. If horde monsters come in groups of like ten to fifty, and bolt spells do like triple damage, and elemental resistance is relatively rare - then the fact that you have bolts and blasts is way more important than whether you have fire and ice damage available.

Thought experiment: if you put the tactical deployments in the same order every time (ie.: first you get a bolt, then a blast, then a wall), the guy who could throw fire and ice would actually be underpowered. So it's not like it isn't easy enough to go overboard in discouraging people to get moves from different lists.

--

I suspect that the easiest way to get people to specialize in an attack form is to give out the occassional special level that requires you to have taken at least X number of abilities that are related. So for example, Spirit Call (which we want to only be available at levels 5+) might require at least 4 other Necromancy levels to have been taken before it becomes available. As long as the restricted levels were "awesome and exclusive" without being "more powerful" it would act as an incentive without actually forcing people's hands. And that's the goal, right?

We want to entice people to occassionally make a "Pure Knight" or a "Frost Mage" without actually making specialization overpowered. And the best way I can currently think of to do that is to essentially allow taking N levels of specialization to get through to levels of diversification that you can't get any other way.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1096654876[/unixtime]]
Random Casualty only wants to move one miniature around the board. Therefore leadership, conjuration, animal friendship, necromancy, familiars, mounted combat, object animation, and all other abilties that involve putting extra pieces or tokens on the map are poor mechanical choices.

Great way to misinterpret what I said.

I said it's ok to have some help. A necromancer with a skeleton for instance, or a mount. Those are ok. But having something like 20 archers fro instance is a waste of board space. It's 20 extra die rolls that will mean essentially nothing to the game.

I don't object to companions, but I do however object to armies.

D&D just isn't built to handle armies. It slows the game to a grinding halt. It's not that it's too powerful, it's just too damn slow. If you were running the game on a computer then an ability like 20 1st level archers following you might actually be ok. Otherwise it's just too many dice and too many stats to keep track of.

So that doesn't work from a practical standpoint.

As for some other companions, unless your concept heavily depends on others, like a summoner or a general, you really shouldn't have it. So it's not a great abiltiy for a generic warrior. Warrior =a guy who fights well, Not the guy who calls on others to fight for him.

I've always thought NPC help should be dealt with via roleplaying anyway. Instead of "my class says you twenty guys gotta come with me and be my cannon fodder, it doesn't say anything about you getting a share either... so looks like you guys are just hosed."

That just doesn't sit well wtih me. Unlike a summoner, you've got to actually describe where these guys come from and why they're following you.

And given what problesm we have with planar binding... having abilities that give you followers probably isnt' a great idea, unless you absolutely have to have them such as a summoner or necromancer concept.

[Username17]

In original D&D, every Fighter got his own army automatically at 9th level - the only class feature they actually had after weapon and armor proficiency at first level. So I'm just not feeling you on the "Warriors Are Not Generals" thing. In real life, always a dangerous comparison in D&D I know, anyone who was sufficiently badass in a feudal society would be rewarded with being a Lord, the distinction being that you commanded the obedience of other warriors.

The only actual ability that being a warrior comes with is leading troops. So I don't see what your hang up is about it. It was only one thing on a list of other open-ended concepts, and it's the only thing that warriors have ever really gained from "going up levels". Quit your whining, the ability to be a general totally stays and is totally integral in any warrior build based on any actual warrior of any note ever.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

Well I have no problem with warriors having armies in the background, that's cool, it's just you dont' take your armies on adventures. You can rule cities and have all kinds of cool followers, but they're flavor text basically and you shouldn't actually be charged anything for them. You don't even have a system in D&D for handling mass combat so armies are by definition purely flavor and plot device.

The fact that you can lead troops is fine, but nobody is actually going to pay for that because the average DM doesn't want armies cluttering up the battlemat.

I don't know if I'm abnormal or not, but I'd never allow a PC to add another 20 miniatures to the battlefield like that, especially pathetically minor ones, simply because It'd slow combat to a crawl. I don't know if that makes me an ass of a DM or what, but that's the way I am.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

Now, wait a minute. So what your saying is that if I want, I can have an army at my command, but I just can't use it for anything signifigant? That I can't mount a campaign against the Orcish Barbarian Kingdoms? That I can't use them to unseat a despotic warlord and take control of a kingdom?

Fuck.

That.

I want my character to have an impact on the world, and I want to be able to do that by taking the map and writing my name on a swatch of land if I so choose.

-Desdan

[User3]

Honestly, I'm not paying class features for something thats basically an RP feature.

When someone can tell me how a Leadership army is definitively better than an army I can build at 2nd level with gold and some good social skill checks, then I'm open to listening.

I know that some people are like "Your Leadership army won't run from crazy supernatural crap and a mercenary army will."

That sounds like bull to me. A Leadership army should run from crazy supernatural crap simply because they'd get their asses handed to them if they didn't, and as the guy that has to pay death benefits to their widows, I'd prefer it if they didn't get turned into Winter Wights that I have to kill and cost me gold to boot.

Really. Why the hell should I pay class features for something I can get in RP? Unless those soldiers are at least 3-4 levels lower than me, then I'm only going to use them to carry loot and guard my castle when I'm off adventuring.

I mean, at 1st level a Wizard gets Charm person, meaning that with a lucky roll the 9th level Fighter walking through town would be perfectly willing to fight a few orcs and split the gold and glory with his new buddy. Hell, with a decent story and a few good social checks, a 1st level Rogue or Bard can rouse the village to attack the nearest orcs, or convince a Lord to send his massive army.

(Summoned monsters are a different story. As "throw away" monsters with decent AC, immunities, and hp, they can usually be used to tank or set off traps or use magic powers or distract the real enemies for a few minutes. Armies of 1st-3rd level guys are classed with the "things that die the first time Fireball gets cast.")

[Username17]

Why the hell should I pay class features for something I can get in RP?

The same reason you would pay class features for a death touch attack when you could just get the hand of vecna in RP? You can get anything in RP. There is literally no limit whatsoever to what can be afforded to your charcter as the result of RP - be it an ability, an army, a stat boost, or a really cool pair of sunglasses.

Mercenaries, even in D&D land, do not grow on trees. Neither do staves which allow you to call lightning bolts out of the sky. Both are available, however, and if you can't see through to wanting the class feature that lets you have a bunch of guys under your command - I daresay I couldn't interest you in a class feature that let you change the weather either. Right? You can get the weather orb in RP, so obviously there's no point in getting a class feature that lets you change the weather on your own, right?

Wrong. There's no holy writ that guaranties you access to a loyal and hirable army wherever you happen to go. That sort of thing is actually hard to come by. Whether it is more or less difficult to get than a weather orb will depend upon your setting, but any class feature that gives you intrinsically an ability that would otherwise have to be found as treasure in an adventure is not itself worthless.

The worthless abilities are the ones that give you things at the end of adventures which could be had by yo at the end of an adventure. So the ability to collect some crazy quest items and make a magic item is a worthless ability. The ability to lead troops which you have already hired is a worthless ability. The ability to have people show up for no god damned reason and join your army is not a worthless ability. The ability to pop a magic item out of your ass before going on an adventure is not a worthless ability. The ability to have all the benefits of a magic item that you don't actually have is not a worthless ability.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1096672208[/unixtime]]Now, wait a minute. So what your saying is that if I want, I can have an army at my command, but I just can't use it for anything signifigant? That I can't mount a campaign against the Orcish Barbarian Kingdoms? That I can't use them to unseat a despotic warlord and take control of a kingdom?

You can do stuff like that, but there's no system for that... so basically it's just a plot device thing. What you can't do is bring them on an adventure with you... but they can go to war and stuff of course. Armies do army things and adventurers do adventurer things, they really don't mix well at all.

If you have 200 soldiers with you, it's no longer an adventure and it's now a war, and I'm not going to resolve that with dice rolls.

[fbmf]

1096681029[/unixtime]]
If you have 200 soldiers with you, it's no longer an adventure and it's now a war, and I'm not going to resolve that with dice rolls.

Why?

Game On,
fbmf

[Essence]

Just choose one of the like thirty d20 Mass Combat Resolution Systems that people have invented, and use it. Seriously -- the simplest involves writing up each "squad" as a character, with the squad having it's own S/D/C/I/W/C, HP, AC, Atk, F/R/W, etc. Then you put it on the map the same way you'd put a Collosal+ creature on the map, and go to town. It doesn't have to be "one attack roll per individual" -- and it can still be all kinds of awesome.

[User3]

There's no holy writ that guaranties you access to a loyal and hirable army wherever you happen to go.

Right. But, given a few months work and some gold, there is no reason why you can't have it.

And its not like thats even useful. Twenty 1st level archers don't mean dick at 6th level when you get them with Leadership and they mean even less during later levels.

They are an RP device to affect the game world that has no bearing on whether you can kill the Dragon of Thunder Gap, or unravel the Riddle of the Black Fang.

There's no golden rule that says you can't go to reasonable town and hire a few dudes. Sure, it may take a few years and a lot of gold to build a reasonable army, but thats crap you can do off-camera while the wizard is researching spells.

Having an army doesn't make you a better adventurer, and it shouldn't cost class features for the fighter when the wizard can Charm Person a few commanders and get control of a army during a lazy afternoon.

There should just be a "Recruit Army" DC on some social skills, and you pay your gold and depending on the check and the size of the community you get a few guys. If you have some big RP reason to have an army, you should be able to build one without blowing non-replacable class features. Then, when you go on the adventure in the Plane of Water, you aren't down a class feature because you couldn't take your army with you.

[RandomCasualty]

1096742681[/unixtime]]Just choose one of the like thirty d20 Mass Combat Resolution Systems that people have invented, and use it. Seriously -- the simplest involves writing up each "squad" as a character, with the squad having it's own S/D/C/I/W/C, HP, AC, Atk, F/R/W, etc. Then you put it on the map the same way you'd put a Collosal+ creature on the map, and go to town. It doesn't have to be "one attack roll per individual" -- and it can still be all kinds of awesome.

Care to point me to a good mass combat system? I have yet to find a decent one... in fact I really haven't seen many at all.

Why?

About the only time you can get a reasonable damage output from an army is if they all have bows and are focus firing on one thing and you add up the number of average natural 20s you get.

This assumes a few things that rarely happen in adventures, first it assumes an open field battle and a monster right out in the open and it also assumes your monster doesn't just fireball the hell out of the troops or what not and kill them all before they start to fire. Further things like DR totally nullify troops.

And of course, there are lots better things to spend money on than simply equipping a bunch of 1st level guys with chain shirts and longbows. I mean do the math compared to equipping yourself with better magical gear. Chances are you're going to go with the ring of protection every time.

Further, it's not particularly heroic when you've just got a mass of men firing at a small group of creatures. I mean one of two things are going to happen. either you yell "Archers fire!!" and everything dies, or the arrows harmlessly bounce off. And either way that pretty much sucks.

The heroes should be the center of the story, and generally when there's a war you focus on the little battle the heroes happen to be in rather than trying to simulate the entire war, and you list the casualties later. Because D&D isn't about wars, very ironic considering it started as a wargame, but also very true. Mass numbers of troops are no match for a dragon or a wraith. So most of the time your troops are good for nothing and might as well be unarmed. As weird as it may sound, armies are nothing but victims in the D&D universe and they need as much help as anyone else.

Now if you want a game where masses are more effective, you can play gurps or white wolf, but in D&D, a 10th level wizard is likely to just laugh at an army and kill them all. Armies in D&D are really just a plot device. They do stuff, but almost always off camera or on the periphery, because if you start actually worrying about them doing stuff, you find they suck at everything they do. A group of 10th level characters could easily slaughter an entire army of 20,000 men without any problem. And when that's true, the strength of the army just can't hold any weight in D&D as an actual military unit of any real power.

I mean lets face it, people take leadership solely for the cohort powergaming wise. The rest of the army can just sit back at base camp jerking off and nobody is really going to care much, so long as they don't ever come to you with expenses... the moment they actually do that you tell them to take a hike.