Racial wars.

[8wGremlin]

So reading the how do wizards fight armies thread, got me thinking about old thoughts about how good each race is in a battle.

Say you have a unit of 20 identical 1st level characters, led by a 3rd level character of the same race. (standard array)
facing the same size unit of another race, who would win?

I'm thinking Variant Humans (vHumans, or Vumans) would be a potent force.
The feat makes things quite different, what are your thoughts.


Example Units.

"Order of the Celestial Host" - 20 x 1st level vHuman Arcana clerics (chill touch, booming blade), Feat: Magic Initiate (druid) - Shillelagh, Produce flame, Goodberry . Take Perception. medium armour, shields, dex:14, wis:16


"Harrying Harpers" 20 x 1st level vHuman Bards, feat: crossbow mastery - extra attack with hand crossbows?

[Unoriginal]

Character classes aren't good for that kind of challenge.

When PCs clash, the one who wins is almost always the one who won the initiative, due to how PCs are built.

I had started to calculate which species had the stronger Commoners, and which had the stronger Guards, but I dropped it.

[Naanomi]

20 Dragonborn breath weapon attacks is pretty devastating to an opposing low level force...

[8wGremlin]

20 Dragonborn breath weapon attacks is pretty devastating to an opposing low level force...


Very true, but have to get in range first...
What classes would you pick for your troops?
Any specific tactics?

[8wGremlin]

Character classes aren't good for that kind of challenge.

When PCs clash, the one who wins is almost always the one who won the initiative, due to how PCs are built.

I had started to calculate which species had the stronger Commoners, and which had the stronger Guards, but I dropped it.

I quite agree, this is more a thought exercise of 1st level with a leader, and less of a PC battle scenario.
I'd love to see what your analysis of commoners and guards was, do you still have the information?

[Unoriginal]

20 Dragonborn breath weapon attacks is pretty devastating to an opposing low level force...

So is a volley of 20 arrows.

Lvl 1 PCs have low HPs and high damage output. The opponents will be dead in two hits, max. The question is who manages to hit twice first.

[Naanomi]

So is a volley of 20 arrows.

Lvl 1 PCs have low HPs and high damage output. The opponents will be dead in two hits, max. The question is who manages to hit twice first.
Hrm... hits... so Tortles are in the running then via durability? Also, Half-Orcs will be dead in three hits, so have survivability to consider as well. A level 1 Half-Orc barbarian may even survive four hits.

On the other hand... Variant Human fighters with the Sharpshooter feat and long bows have some very significant range advantages...

[Mith]

Hrm... hits... so Tortles are in the running then via durability? Also, Half-Orcs will be dead in three hits, so have survivability to consider as well. A level 1 Half-Orc barbarian may even survive four hits.

On the other hand... Variant Human fighters with the Sharpshooter feat and long bows have some very significant range advantages...

Plus, with the +10 to damage, they can fairly easily do Massive damage to weaker opponents.

If we are doing classes, we can consider wizard ambush with sleep and magic missile.

[Galactkaktus]

Whichever force that gets to attack first is probably the one that will win. So variant human with 16 dex and alert/lucky seems to be pretty strong. I whould probably make them wild magic sorcerers in order to use tides of chaos to get advantage on the initiative roll and equip them with light crossbows and the magic missile spell.

[Specter]

Variant Human, Alert.
The leader also has Alert.

As stated above, initiative is king at low levels. +1s and whatnot are nigh irrelevant.

[jojo]

Introducing character classes really moves away from the stated intent of "how good is each race in battle."

For instance, an optimized Arcana Melee Cleric with a feat is not representative of an average Human. That would be things like Commoner/Aristocrat, I could see an argument for things like Acolytes being thrown in there.

This would be against an equally representative member of the opposing race, I.E. Goblin as opposed to Goblin Warboss etc.

The MM and the CRs listed therefore provide a solid evaluation of which race is best. When you start to introduce equipment into the mix you change what's being measured to "tactics" I.E. ranged versus melee combat, longbow versus sling, reach weapons versus finesse weapons. Sword and board versus two weapon fighting versus great weapon.

When you introduce classes into the mix (as with the example in the OP) you start talking about and comparing roles instead of races.

Using the examples in the OP, you're really asking whether:

"Bards are better than Clerics" and whether or not "ranged combat is better than melee combat."

[Naanomi]

I agree tha classes make the comparison too messy. I’d go with a commoner fight like...

-No class abilities
-+2 Proficiency Bonus
-10s in Stats, 12 if +1 Racial Bonus, 14 if +2 Racial Bonus
-1d6 Hit Die (so 6hp plus any mods)
-Access to daggers, quarterstaffs, slings, darts, light crossbows
-races with weapon proficiencies can access their racial weapons
-mountain Dwarves get hide armor
-hobgoblins get padded armor

[PopeLinus1]

Well... for now i’m going to just include humans, halflings, elves and dwarves.
The rest of the races rarity changes from setting to setting so for now i’ll shelve them.
For large scale battles PC classes won’t work. So let’s use some basic statistics to create our army. The common soilders will be guards and bandits.(in stats only, or not depending on the nations they are fighting.) In command we will have veterans and a few of the soilders could be replaced with apprentice mages. Maybe some bards to back the army up?
But back to the matter at hand.

A +2 to STR and CON will give the dwarves an advantage in combate for sure but the rest still have some things to throw...
The elves can replicate the dwarves attack bonus with a +2 to dex for ranged and finesse weapons., however depending on the subrace they could have other bonuses.
Wood Elves will most likely be bringing some of the weak Druid’s to bear, no pun intended. The High elves all can cast basic magic, and will probably have far more mages than the other races.
I never really see Haflings in an engine of war, but they have a +2 to dex, so they should be able to hold their own. They also will likely have more spy’s, and fight unconventionally. However if it comes to a straight up fight, in the Hight of battle I might not be able to Tall
And now for the last of the common races. Humans. Humans can, and likely will have all of the soilders mentioned. So who comes out on top?

If this is a campaign, than whoever the PC’s side with! No one plays a war campaign and makes the characters actions useless!