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Skjaldbakka
2007-03-04, 07:41 AM
The Aristocrat, Machiavellid20

I am going to outline a model for building an army that works in a D&D setting. This is strictly game mechanics based, so that there can be no argument
that can't be just 'looked up'.
You start with the King, a level 20 aristocrat
According to the wealth-by-level chart, a level 20 NPC (CR 10) is supposed to have 200,000 g.p. worth of equipment.
This NPC is going to be given the elite array (15,14,13,12,10,8).
That gives him a 15 cha, 14 int, 13 wis, 12 con, 10 dex, 8 str
Please keep in mind that the entire force I am about to bring down on your level 10 party is only CR 10. I am going with that because othewrwise I would
have to calculate epic NPC starting gold, and I don't want to do that right now. If the thread gets popular, I will write up the CR 20 version.
As we are obviously going to be exploiting Leadership, lets go ahead and see what it takes to get our level 20 guy to the maximum of 25 leadership score:
with a 15 base charisma, we put our 5 level-based stat-boosts into charisma, giving us a 20 (+5). That gives us level + 5 leadership score, which meets
our goal right away. Our money is going into making sure all our cohorts hit a 25 leadership score then.
YOur first cohort is level 17, because thats the max. He gets to have PC levels, so he will be a wizard. That works with the concept too, the
'wise councilor', Merlin/Gandalf type. We like the default array, so he will have a 15 int, 14 cha, 13 wis, 12 con, 10 dex, 8 str. He gets 4 stat
bumps which go into intelligence, giving him the requisite 19 to cast 9th level spells. We would like for him to go ahead and start the Wish factory,
but that takes xp, and he is a flat level 17 character, so we need to generate xp for the cohort. D20 SRD gives us what we need to give xp to cohorts.
since that is by definition OGL, here we go :

"Cohorts earn XP as follows:
The cohort does not count as a party member when determining the party’s XP.
Divide the cohort’s level by the level of the PC with whom he or she is associated (the character with the Leadership feat who attracted the cohort).
Multiply this result by the total XP awarded to the PC and add that number of experience points to the cohort’s total."

So in order for my cohort to gain xp, I have to gain XP. How do I orchestrate this. . . we will save this for later, as I need to figure out how many
wishes, and thus how much XP, I need.
We need to get our level 17 character to have a 25 leadership score. That is a difference of 6, counting his current charisma mod. He is a wizard, and
thus has a familiar, which widens the gulf to 8 (familiar is a -2). We are going to be an enterprising monarch, and se our skills to the benefit of our
friend the wizard. As an aristocrat, perform, bluff, and disguise are class skills, and we get 4+int/lvl. We will go ahead and put max ranks into perform,
bluff and disguise and use them to increase the reputation of our pet wizard. We should easily be able to increase his reputation, giving him
great renown (+2 leadership score), and spread rumors that he has some special power (+1 leadership score). Just to be safe, we won't use the same special
power more than once, that way if it ever comes into question, too many claims will come up at once for any of them to given enough credit to need proving.
While we are at it, we will keep all the money gathered from these perform checks, and distribute them to the poor. That will give credit for the wizard's
'fairness and generosity' (+1 leadership). We are now short 4 leadership points. I would love
to give him a guildhouse, but I can't find the costs for that online (and therefore assume it not to be OGL), so I won't use it. Instead we will buy him a
+6 cloak of charisma and make him an old wizard (-3 physicals, +2 mentals). Leadership score of 25 accomplished, and this old bat isn't even min-maxed for
it. That cost me 36,000 gold.
Our wizard gets a level 15 cohort, who gets a level 13 cohort, who gets a level 11 cohort, who gets a level 9 cohort, who gets a level 7 cohort, who gets a
level 5 cohort. I don't expect to hit 25 leadership with all of these people. Here is a summary so far:

THE KING: Leadership 25 (accomplished with base stats)

level 17 wizard cohort: Leadership 25 (great renown, special power, fairness and generosity (king's perform/bluff, and +6 cloak of charisma, and old age)
level 15 cleric cohort: Leadership 22 (+6 cloak of charisma, 15 into wisdom, 3 stat boosts into wisdom, 100,000 gp into a temple)
level 13 paladin cohort: Leadership 22 (15 base cha, +3 from level, +6 cloak of charisma, great renown (cleric's sermons))
level 11 fighter cohort: Leadership 14 (10 base cha, +6 cloak of charisma)
level 9 rogue cohort: Leadership 11 (10 base cha, +4 cloak of charisma)
level 7 bard cohort: leadership 21 (15 base cha, +6 cloak of charisma, venerable, 1 stat boost into cha, +5 cha from wish (total cha is 30) great renown (is
a bard with a +25 perform check), fairness and generosity (always donates his performance earnings), special power (suggestion))
level 5 fighter cohort: leadership N/A: bodyguard for the bard.
level 6 followers (x6) : leadership score 6 (base stats)
level 4 cohorts (x6)
level 5 followers (x7)
level 4 followers (x14)
level 3 followers (x26)
level 2 followers (x47)
level 1 followers (x501)

At present, assuming we want everyone equipped appropriatly for their level, I have a national debt of 333,500 g.p. The King's personal treasury is 200,000
g.p. VALUE. Sale value is 1/2 market price, which means a level 20 NPC is assumed to have 'stuff' that will SELL for 200,000 g.p. Which means that
200,000 value equates to 400,000 gold worth of stuff, which covers the cloaks of charisma, the temple, and the +5 tome of leadership for the bard, with
66,500 gold to spare (which sadly, is only 33,250 g.p. in the treasury).
Now what are the economics of the 'kingdom'? (616 loyal followers). These followers make 4,458 gold in a week via profession checks (which they all have max
ranks in). Keeping them in lodgings costs nothing, because you use magic to keep your servants in extended magnificent mansions (68 hours/cast, houses
approx 200). This means for every week of peace, you make enough money to field an army of about 1,500 mercenaries for a week, plus your own personal elite
force of 600. All with equipment appropriate for their level. You also have 33,250 g.p.

Closet_Skeleton
2007-03-04, 08:30 AM
This would be a lot simpler if there was some kind of Feudal System feat.

Thomas
2007-03-04, 09:01 AM
First of, a level 20 NPC class is CR 19, by the book. The "NPC classes are always nonassociated" only applies for monster (i.e. for something that has racial HD).

Secondly, if you want to play kings and the like, get Power of Faerûn. There's actual feats for that level of leadership there. (Also, Heroes of Battle.)

TheElfLord
2007-03-04, 12:42 PM
This means for every week of peace, you make enough money to field an army of about 1,500 mercenaries for a week, plus your own personal elite
force of 600.

Sorry, this just struck me because of your thread title and I had to mention it.

Machiavelli said to never use mercenaries.

Cybren
2007-03-04, 07:30 PM
Mercenary in that context could mean his general standing army that he has to support, unlike his automatically loyal followers

mystikphish
2007-03-04, 08:45 PM
So, rather than use your "peace profit" to hire your own mercenaries, you use it to pay off your enemy's mercenaries at key points of any conflict. Much higher ROI that way...

I believe that's how Machiavelli would have done it. :smallbiggrin:

Tor the Fallen
2007-03-04, 09:01 PM
"We should easily be able to increase his reputation, giving him
great renown (+2 leadership score), and spread rumors that he has some special power (+1 leadership score)."

He's a level 17 wizard. By definition he would have "great renown" and "special power."

Spend the skill points on bluff, sense motive, diplomacy, intimidate and knowledge.

Skjaldbakka
2007-03-04, 11:22 PM
First of all, this is not from the perspective of a PC, but from the perspective of a DM (as well as not wanting to further hijack the other army thread) whose players sometimes think they are 'all that' and should take on an army.

As for a level 20 NPc class being CR 19, I find that to be odd, as I have always run 2 NPC levels/CR against my PCs, and it turns out to be an appropriate match. So from that experience, I would have to say No, NPC levels are always non-associated means exactly that. In terms of ECL, I don't let players get any advantage if they want to play an NPC class, but in terms of CR, an NPC with NPC classes does have a CR of 1/2 his level.

On the note of the mercenaries, it is true that Machiavelli didn't much care for the idea of using mercenaries, but they are all level 1 warriors, and thus get to be cannon fodder mostly, buying you time to get your troops dispositioned properly.

Speaking of dispostions, I will be finishing this post sometime soon (have to start work soon).

Thomas
2007-03-04, 11:56 PM
NPCs don't / shouldn't have Leadership. They have other NPCs running around.

And you can find whatever you want balanced, but the DMG is very clear about the NPC class CRs. It's level - 1. There are examples. The nonassociated stuff is in the Monster Manual, and applies to giving class levels to monsters.

DMG, page 38, bottom of the right-hand column, says a dwarf War1 is CR 1/2, War2 is CR 1, and War10 is CR 9, while a Fig1 is CR 1, Fig2 is CR 2, and Fig10 is CR 10. (They have the ogre's CRs totally wrong, though, for each level.)

From the same page: "For an NPC with an NPC class, determine her Challenge Rating as if she had a PC class with one less level."

The MM associated/nonassociated stuff overrides the part in the DMG talking about adding class levels to monsters, but that's it.

Tor the Fallen
2007-03-05, 01:17 AM
Frankly, I'm getting a little tired of all these threads supposing NPCs must follow the same rules as the PCs.

Seatbelt
2007-03-05, 01:37 AM
Exactly. My DM wanted his Elans to have a rate of return on their damage shield power of 1/4. So he made up a class that did it. And one of the players bitched because our Elans didnt have that option. *smack* NPCs dont follow PC rules. :P

Sergeantbrother
2007-03-05, 02:16 AM
Frankly, I'm getting a little tired of all these threads supposing NPCs must follow the same rules as the PCs.

I have been thinking the same thing. If you want your NPC to have X number level Y followers just make it so. If you want your dragon to have 1,000 hit points just give it 1000 hit points. DM's don't need to follow the rules when making NPCs. As long as the DM is fair to the PC's everything is allowed.

Tor the Fallen
2007-03-05, 02:36 AM
Changing special abilities slightly, ability scores, spot checks, resistances, etc. are usually ok in my book, as well. Prevents metagaming. If the complaining character has either
a) enough ranks in knowledge: the planes to know the difference between a demon and a devil
or
b) has personal intimate dealings with either,
then I probably won't inform him that sometimes their immunities are different.

Skjaldbakka
2007-03-05, 06:46 AM
There seems to be a conflict between the DMG and the Monster Manual in regards to NPC classes and CR. This strikes me as something worth clarification, and then I will continue with part two of my original post (the disposition and general gear and prep magic).

Let us take for an example the humble level 6 warrior. According to the monster manual, this is CR 3, but according to the DMG he is CR 5.

What do we do when we are unsure of the CR of something? We compare it to other things that are of the same CR, and that work to challenge the party in similar ways.

Our comparisons will be the troll, weighing in at CR 5, and the dire wolf, CR 3.

There are some things that all three challenges have in common.

1) they all have 6d8 HD
2) they are all predominantly melee combatants

First, lets say that the level 6 warrior is an equal challenge to the troll:

What has the warrior got?
Equipment: a level 6 warrior has +1 weapons and armor, and maybe a +2 stat boost or AC item. (guess)
+6 BAB

What has the troll got?
+4 BAB, but the strength difference makes up for the loss of to-hit, and claw/claw/bite makes up for the loss of an extra attack.
Universally better Str/Dex/Con
Regeneration
Scent

Clear and obvious advantage- Troll

Next, lets say that the warrior is a match for the Dire Wolf (CR 3)

Warrior:
+6 BAB (extra attack)
Equipment (see above)

Dire Wolf
Strength makes up for the lower BAB, but still only gets one attack a round, leaving some advantage to the warrior.
Trip
Scent

Advantage- I would say dire wolf, but the dire wolf's lower AC makes the iterative attack more likely to hit, and thus more valuable. I would still rather fight a level 6 warrior than a Dire Wolf though (as a level 6 fighter).

In conclusion (of this side-debate), I think it is clear that the level 6 warrior is closer to the Dire Wolf than the Troll in CR, and the conclusion we can draw from that is . . . the monster manual is correct, and NPC levels are worth 1/2 CR a piece. If you still have doubts, compare a troll with warrior levels to a human warrior of the same (according to the DMG) CR. Troll Wins.

Thomas
2007-03-05, 07:12 AM
Hey, I'm just telling you what the rules are. You can houserule it any way you want in your own game, but when discussing something by the RAW on the boards, them's the breaks.

There's no conflict, because the section that talks about associated and nonassociated classes (MM pages 293 and 294) talk about monsters, not NPCs (i.e. humans and others with no racial hit dice, just class levels). To quote directly: "When adding class levels to a creature with 1 or less HD, you advance the creature like a character. Otherwise, use the following guidelines."

paigeoliver
2007-03-05, 10:49 AM
NPCs don't have to follow a lot of the rules that PCs do, particularly when it comes to things like followers and the like.

But here is how I do it for both PCs and NPCs.

No one needs leadership to recruit a cohort. If they recruit a cohort in play then they have a cohort, however if they don't take leadership the next time they get a feat they are going to accidently gravely insult their follower (bah, they spent all this time working on their spiked chain and spent no quality time with their follower), and will probably lose them. They will certainly lose them if it happens twice.

Kings may or may not have leadership and leadership boosting feats such as leadership focus. Also note that kings might very well be 1st level characters. Being a king does not make a person 20th level. Kings can recruit followers completely outside of the idea of cohorts and followers simply because they are kings. A King gets the PERCEIVED best of all the characters serving the kingdom.

Note how I emphasized the word perceived. You can't tell what level someone is. If you want to be realistic then the king's personal followers should have some high charisma/low level characters in addition to the high level ones that everyone expects.

Skjaldbakka
2007-03-05, 10:27 PM
There is no freaking way that a level 6 warrior is CR 5. If the RAW says they are, then they are Horribly Wrong. If you read past the first paragrah of my post, this is clear as crystal. However, I don't want to continue this discussion on this thread. I am going to start a new thread on the WotC boards on the subject, that way we can get some alternate input. I will edit the link in later.

This way I can stop going on tangent and actually finish part two.

http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?p=11678268#post11678268

Yahzi
2007-03-13, 11:19 PM
I have been thinking the same thing. If you want your NPC to have X number level Y followers just make it so. If you want your dragon to have 1,000 hit points just give it 1000 hit points. DM's don't need to follow the rules when making NPCs. As long as the DM is fair to the PC's everything is allowed.
There's railroading... and then there's "The entire universe obeys whatever set of rules are necessary for the story to play out the way I want it to." A Japanese bullet-train of a railroad.

The point of rules is so that the DM knows what's "fair" to the players. If the DM has to ad-hoc every single HP of every single monster, he might as well make up his own set of rules and save the money.

I guess it's just a difference in play-style. Personally, I find the whole "I'm a PC so I get paid twice as much for doing the same job as you NPCs" to just be... icky. There is one Master Race and they are the PCs; everyone else in the world is simply window-dressing to showcase the player's awesomeness. Can you say "Narcissistic Personality Disorder?"

Merlin the Tuna
2007-03-14, 02:09 AM
There's no conflict, because the section that talks about associated and nonassociated classes (MM pages 293 and 294) talk about monsters, not NPCs (i.e. humans and others with no racial hit dice, just class levels). To quote directly: "When adding class levels to a creature with 1 or less HD, you advance the creature like a character. Otherwise, use the following guidelines."There is a direct conflict with regards to monsters though, which implies that some miscommunication happened along the way.
For a creature with monster levels in addition to NPC class levels, add the NPC levels -1 to the creature's base CR (always adding at least 1).
Levels in NPC classes are always treated as nonassociated.The first says "CR = Monster + NPC -1" and the second says "CR = Monster + (NPC/2)" That there's something wacky going on there means that, somewhere along the line, someone screwed up the interaction of NPC classes and CRs. Further, there needs to be consistency, or else you end up with nonsense like Ogre Warrior 8 and Human Warrior 8 both being CR 7 -- something which quite clearly can't be right.

CASTLEMIKE
2007-03-14, 04:53 PM
There seems to be a conflict between the DMG and the Monster Manual in regards to NPC classes and CR. This strikes me as something worth clarification, and then I will continue with part two of my original post (the disposition and general gear and prep magic).

There are plenty of inconsistentcies in the game.

A level 5 Fighter or other PC classe is a CR5 encounter.

A troll is a CR5 encounter for PCs as a monster.

If a PC wants to play that same troll he is now a Level 11 Player Character and a Level 12 Character according to the rules using Savage Species and ECL of course he will have more gear than the typical troll PLUS now a PC he is now also upgraded and rated either a CR 11 or CR 12 encounter.

It doesn't appear that combat experience is always very balanced particularly factoring in ECL but when you find something you don't like just tweak it some people will agree with you and others won't.

As a player character troll with one PC level in the average level 12 party I should be facing CR 12 encounters in this example a good CR11 encounter would be 8 Trolls not forgetting that the 4 member level 12 party is rated at CR16.

Regarding the original post using the Leadership Feat. The DMG clearly and specifically says the DM can disallow the Feat if it is disruptive to the campaign.

Many games that allow the feat for PCs disallow the Leadership feat for subordinate NPC cohorts and underlings to prevent leveraged leadership feat abuse. If the PCs can leverage an army so can the NPCs.

If you want more mercenaries or soldiers than the normal leadership feat provides consider taking the Expanded Leadership feat which doubles followers without a second bonus cohort or a PRC like Great Captain or the Dreadmaster that provides those benefits at the cost of others. Most DM will let you pay for extra mercenaries if you pay and treat them well.

Rumda
2007-03-14, 07:55 PM
you have to remember that a single lvl 5 pc could not take on a CR 5 encounter solo, he would have to be lvl 9 so the discrepancy is not as bad as you make out, and could be removed entirly if you give the NPC troll decent ability scores

You seem to be forgetting that CR as designed for a party of four characters of that lvl

The_Blue_Sorceress
2007-03-14, 10:02 PM
There are plenty of inconsistentcies in the game.

A level 5 Fighter or other PC classe is a CR5 encounter.

A troll is a CR5 encounter for PCs as a monster.

If a PC wants to play that same troll he is now a Level 11 Player Character and a Level 12 Character according to the rules using Savage Species and ECL of course he will have more gear than the typical troll PLUS now a PC he is now also upgraded and rated either a CR 11 or CR 12 encounter.



Oo! Ooo! I know the answer to this one!

The inconsistancy you point out has to do with the fact that a PC troll will have more impact on the game long-term than an NPC troll that has been set up as an encounter for the PCs to deal with. Fighting an killing a troll is only a CR 5 encounter, given a fairly neutral battle field, but a troll in the party is going to have a whole lot more impact on long-term play. As an encounter, the troll in question will still, however, be CR 5. It all has to do with the differences between ECL/CR/and level adjustment.

-Blue