Low-Level Phalanxes

[Maat Mons]

Google tells me that phalanges is also an acceptable plural of phalanx, but I didn’t want this thread to wind up full of confused osteology enthusiasts.

Anyway, I’ve been reading some of the stuff for fighting in formation, and it seems kind of weird to me that anyone’s expecting the rank-and-file of an army to be composed of high-level characters. For example, the Phalanx Soldier archetype for Fighter has features that don’t kick in until 5th level or later. By the time you’re 5th level, you should have graduated beyond being just another hoplite in the phalanx. But this archetype want’s to make that define you for the next 15 levels? Honestly, I thought it was bad enough that the archetype waits until 3rd level to enable the classic longspear and shield fighting style. I mean, if this is how an army trains its troops, what do the 1st- and 2nd-level soldiers do in battle? Or do they just not graduate boot camp until 3rd level?

Anyway, now that I’ve got that rant out of my system, how would you build a group of 1st-level hoplite NPCs?

The Shield Brace feat seems the obvious choice, but they’d take their shield’s armor check penalty on attack rolls. A 1st-level NPC isn’t going to have a darkwood heavy shield (257 gp), or even a masterwork light shield (153 gp). With a budget of 260 gp, they barely have the enough for a decent suit of armor and basic necessities. So a 1st-level NPC with Shield Brace is going to lose as much in attack bonus as he gains in AC from his shield. I’d be disinclined to trade attack bonus for AC even if I didn’t have to spend a feat to do it. Do you just give the NPCs the feat and accept that it’s a net loss in effectiveness?

I guess you could use a shortspear. But is a weapon without reach really a spear? It would seem more like a bhuj to me. Wasn’t the entire point of spears to give the reach advantage? Weren’t the soldiers in the second row supposed to be able to stab the enemy? I thought that was the basis of the phalanx.

Maybe give all the NPCs Exotic Weapon Proficiency with the flickmace? It’s not a spear, but it does the things a spear should do.

The last time I statted out 1st-level NPCs who were supposed to be part of an army, I just said “screw it” and didn’t give them shields. Just splint mail, a lucerne hammer, a longsword, a sling, 10 sling bullets, a belt pouch, and a soldier’s uniform. It came out to 232 gp and 1 sp.

How do you stat out low-level hoplites? Or do you also say “screw it” and not give low-level NPCs that particular fighting style?

[DrMartin]

I personally wouldn't stat them as full NPCs, and use the Troop rules instead.

https://aonprd.com/MonsterSubtypes.aspx?ItemName=Troop

edit for link to a better explanation of the troop rules

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Maat Mons
The Shield Brace feat seems the obvious choice, but they’d take their shield’s armor check penalty on attack rolls.

If you’re jammed together in a phalanx formation, a penalty on attack rolls makes a lot of sense. You don’t have anywhere near full range of motion, only a fairly narrow wedge extending ahead of you.


Originally Posted by Maat Mons
A 1st-level NPC isn’t going to have a darkwood heavy shield (257 gp), or even a masterwork light shield (153 gp). With a budget of 260 gp, they barely have the enough for a decent suit of armor and basic necessities.

If you want a rules-legal way to increase their budget, the Rich Parents trait adds another 900 gp. If that feels like too much, you can always give that to every third hoplite and let them share the cost of equipping their buddies.

Also, as far as shield bonus (rather than specific shields per se) one benefit of the sarissa was that when several rows of them were held up at an angle, they collectively helped to deflect arrows coming in at a high angle. If you incorporate a Massed Spears shield bonus, that could relieve some of the cost pressure on individual shields.

[dantiesilva]

If 3.5 material is allowed Shield wall from Heroes of battle grants a shield bonus for fighting in a phalanx without penalizing you at all and also doesn't have any prereqs minus standing on the side of someone else with a shield. Then their is phalanx fighting which is honestly weird in the fact that you get a bonus when you use a heavy shield and a light weapon (if you look up any of the spears though none of them are light weapons), you could handwave that a spear counts as a light weapon if you want. But when I stat out armies I tend to give them both of these feats (if they are human) and call it a day. Goblin and kobold armies I give Swarmfighting as it can make the difference between a hit and a miss. Won't do anything against a wizard with a fireball besides make his day better (and his kill count) but its useful in the general "army" type of battle.

[Peat]

If you want them to use spear and shield then yeah, exotic weapon flickmace I guess. Or give them the phalanx fighter third level ability as a homebrew feat. Or just give it to them.

Somehow PF's complete antipathy to phalanxes had never occurred to me and I now feel dumbfounded at the rules.

edit: Beyond that, maybe Paired Opportunists or Shield Wall? Not only does it seem flavourful for phalanx soldiers to be mainly trained in teamwork rather than individual acts of glory, but as long as they're in the phalanx, they're probably more powerful than most feats you can give them.

[Maat Mons]

I hadn’t known about Troops. Are there any guidelines for creating your own? Or do you just have to wing it based on the published Troops?

Speaking of trying to fix this with traits, does anyone else think it’s weird that none of the traits that reduce armor check penalty work with shields?

Wow, 20-foot-long spears. Do you think maybe the Macedonians were compensating for something?

Shield Wall could work. But if I’m giving them Shield Brace so they can have the shield + polearm combo in the first place, and Power Attack, because of course, that doesn’t leave any spare feats on a 1st-level human Fighter.

The shield + light weapon combo sounds more like late-era Romans. Which would mean they’d be in a maniple, not a phalanx. Pedantry is fun.

Paired Opportunists would help out on the AoO you’d get from the enemy closing in, but I think those are the only attacks of opportunity the soldiers are likely to get. I briefly considered the Gang Up feat, but the prerequisites are awful.

Would it be worthwhile to give them Phalanx Formation? It would negate the -2 penalty the people in the 2nd row would normally suffer for attacking past an ally.

I guess the Shield Wall feat allows the people in the front row to grant total cover to the people behind them using a tower shield. This prevents the people in front from attacking, but I guess the people behind them can still attack with reach weapons. Two opposing armies both using this tactics could yield silly results though.

[DrMartin]

you create a troop as you would any other monster of the desired challenge rating:

First by setting its base values. A good place to start is this table with target values by CR:
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/rules-for-monsters/monster-creation/

Then apply the troop subtype (which shares a lot of characteristics with swarms):
https://aonprd.com/MonsterSubtypes.aspx?ItemName=Troop

And finally you tune it, with extra abilities and such.
There are suggestions for troop specific modifiers like Elite, Rubble, or Phalanx here:
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/humanoids/troop/

Phalanx is one such modifier which gives the troop extra hit points reach, resistance against some combat maneuvers and extra damage against mounted opponents, for +2 CR.

How much you "do the math" is really up to you. Personally if I need a quick foe I just take the totals from the first table in the monster creation page, and consult the second table to know how many Hit Dice the creature has. If you are building an ecology for your campaign you might stat them out in detail and see for instance where BAB + STR modifier lands in the "high attack" / "low attack" range for the CR.

A CR 5 Phalanx would start as a monster humanoid with CR3 and the phalanx modifier, so it has 4 hit dice, 38 hp, ac 15, deals 1d6+strength (let's say 1d6+1) vs regular foes and 3d6+1 vs mounted opponents, and 10 feet reach. This is the starting point, now you can fine tune its numbers - for instance i'd bump up it's AC to 17 and give them a combat reflexes-alike effect to allow them more than 1 attack of opportunity/round, and call it a day.

[Vizzerdrix]

I wouldn't think of wbl per troop, but by who owns that army and what they are willing to spend.

[Thane of Fife]

Anyway, I’ve been reading some of the stuff for fighting in formation, and it seems kind of weird to me that anyone’s expecting the rank-and-file of an army to be composed of high-level characters. For example, the Phalanx Soldier archetype for Fighter has features that don’t kick in until 5th level or later. By the time you’re 5th level, you should have graduated beyond being just another hoplite in the phalanx. But this archetype want’s to make that define you for the next 15 levels? Honestly, I thought it was bad enough that the archetype waits until 3rd level to enable the classic longspear and shield fighting style. I mean, if this is how an army trains its troops, what do the 1st- and 2nd-level soldiers do in battle? Or do they just not graduate boot camp until 3rd level?

I don't think the Ancient Greeks did it, but I believe that in a lot of armies, younger men might serve as skirmishers or squires or such and gain some experience that way before they graduated to serving in the main battle line.


How do you stat out low-level hoplites? Or do you also say “screw it” and not give low-level NPCs that particular fighting style?

D&D has always been kind of loosely built around 14th-15th century type stuff (hence the pre-eminence of greatswords, polearms, longbows, plate armor, and so forth) and people didn't really fight in hoplite style at that time. If you want to represent hoplites strongly in a game, you might want to change up the equipment list to better reflect a different period. Now, the Swiss did fight in phalanx-type formations around that time, but they did it with halberds and pikes (I don't think they used any shields). So I would go with that - just a lot of guys with polearms, and don't bother with the shields.


I wouldn't think of wbl per troop, but by who owns that army and what they are willing to spend.

In the pre-modern era, I believe most soldiers would have been expected to provide their own equipment.

[Maat Mons]

Okay, so creating a PF Troop isn’t like creating a 3.5 Mob, where you just apply a template to a base creature. It’s essentially creating a new monster.

Isn’t there a rule somewhere about just giving NPCs extra gear in exchange for a CR bump? The only thing I can find is about giving them PC wealth. But PC wealth for a 1st-level Fighter 5d6 x 10 gp (average 175 gp) and an outfit worth 10 gp or less. Barring a very lucky roll, that’s worse than the 260 gp non-heroic 1st-level NPCs get.

Yeah, in the future, I think I’ll just follow where D&D is trying to lead me: big, two-handed weapons and no shields.

[TotallyNotEvil]

I mean, I don't think graduating out of boot camp at lv 3 is unreasonable. I always figured anything bellow that is apprentice-tier.

But that's just me.

I do agree that the class features for something like that should come earlier though.

[rel]

Simplest option is to lose the shields and just give all your level 1 warriors long spears or other reach polearms.
With judicious use of the ready and aid another actions along with attacks of opportunity, and special moves like disarm or trip from the polearms, a few ranks of mooks can really ruin a heroes day.