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newbDM
2008-10-02, 07:49 AM
I have been trying to figure this out for months now.

The DMG does not mention this at all in it's settlement generating section. It only explains how to randomly roll up the number of warriors in there. Although I guess this is useful for town guards, it makes way too few in my opinion.

I even got a hold of two 3rd party books completely dedicated to stating out cities to see if they had any guidelines for this, but nothing there either. What a waste of many. :smallannoyed:


I need to know, because the infant kingdom my PCs helped found (which two retired PCs now rule over), and the current PCs now help guard is going to have some invading forces soon. That is, if I can ever find rules for stating this stuff out.



As always, any help would be greatly appreciated!

RebelRogue
2008-10-02, 08:02 AM
Just settle on something yourself! :smallwink:

kamikasei
2008-10-02, 08:09 AM
If you're willing to buy new books you might consider Heroes of Battle which is probably the most appropriate resource for this. It includes discussons of how armies and battles would be organized in a magical setting.

Alternatively you might describe the setting of your game and the kind of resources available to your side and their potential enemies, and the forum could help you out. What you need to guard the kingdom depends on what might realistically attack it.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-10-02, 08:24 AM
2 to 5% professional soldiers for a realm, a slightly lower proportion of professional guards for a city.

In a village of a hundred, there's probably a sheriff and a couple of dedicated deputies.

In a town of 10,000, there's probably up to 500 professional guards, watchmen, and soldiers.

Maintaining larger standing armies is prohibitively expensive, and usually politically unpopular.

These numbers go up significantly in times of war, obviously, because militias are raised, people are drafted, and so on. Defensive armies are larger than offensive armies, partly because they are easier and cheaper to support, and partly because more people want to fight. (Offensive wars used to see a lot more defections than defensive ones.)

The size of militias varies hugely. In desperate times, everyone from those big enough to fight to those not yet too old to fight will take up weapons. Depending on the culture, this may just be the men, or may be the men and the women. The proportion will be something like 25% of the entire population for male-only conscription/draft/militia, and closer to 50% (or even above) for male-and-female. That's a generous estimate, but seems appropriate enough for fantasy settings.


If someone with deeper knowledge and numbers for historical armies wants to trash this, please correct my misapprehensions. This is pretty much cobbled together from RPG supplements.
:smallredface:

Dr Bwaa
2008-10-02, 05:22 PM
Cityscape also has some good information on the subject. Between that and HoB, you should do alright.

newbDM
2008-10-02, 09:18 PM
If you're willing to buy new books you might consider Heroes of Battle which is probably the most appropriate resource for this. It includes discussons of how armies and battles would be organized in a magical setting.


Cityscape also has some good information on the subject. Between that and HoB, you should do alright.

I actually have Heroes of Battles. It really doesn't cover what I am after. Like Stormwrack with navel battles, it merely breaks the "wars" down to a very small section which only concerns the PCs. What I want in both cases is basically the PCs as general/admirals, and information on how to deal with the full large scale battles. In this case, specific rules for figuring out the militaries of a nation/kingdom.

I just rechecked the HoB, and it did briefly describe how a few types of nation would break down it's military into units (Squads, Platoons, etc), but amazingly it completely lacks any information on how many of each an empire would have. :smallannoyed:

As for Stormwrack, I actually found the short section on naval battles in the Arms & Equipment Guide more useful. I also found the 1st edition Into the Maelstorm (who's title I believe was actually payed homage to in Stormwrack) extremely helpful. Much more helpful for the type of battles I want.


Cityscape has some very helpful information for the different sections of cities and such, but it only has less than a page of information on war (p.155-p.156). And all that information is simply of what PCs might decide to do while an armies invades the city they are currently in (Running, helping, crowd control, etc).

I get the feeling that going from the older editions to 3.5 WotC already started showing the "over simplification" shown in 4.0. Into the Maelstream to the Arms & Equipment Guide to Stormwrack is a great example of this.


edit:
Now that I think about it, are there any good revious edition books which might cover this?

newbDM
2008-10-02, 09:23 PM
Just settle on something yourself! :smallwink:

I do not want to do that.

I really want a more specific and laid out system to assign militiaries to my Hombrewed settings' population. I am actually over half way done detailing the populations and such for each settlement, and I am making a huge detailed Fractal Mapper 8 map for the continent, and eventually the whole planet and moons. For the basic roleplaying session I love "winging it", but for the overall world I am trying to make it so my PCs actions will set the stage for my homebrewed setting for as long as I use it. This is my first D&D group, so I am trying to lay the foundation for "my" setting, which I hope to use for years and groups to come.

Rei_Jin
2008-10-02, 11:02 PM
Well, I'd actually refer to fantasy novels in terms of what is expected for armies and numbers of defenders. Part of it will depend on how you treat food and crops in your world, and how wealthy the town is, how often they need to defend themselves, the method of government, etc.

If you just want to be lazy about it (I would) I'd use a rule of thumb and say that 10% of the town is employed by the town in some manner of protection, whether they be jailors, sherrifs, guardsmen, etc. On top of that, another 10-25% of the town is able to take up arms and defend the town should it be needed. The number varies because it will depend on the age spread of your town, the availability of weapons and armor, whether the government is benevolent or evil, etc.

The other 65% - 80% of the town is made up of non-combatants: Nursing mothers, children, invalids, etc.

Matthew
2008-10-02, 11:15 PM
I have been trying to figure this out for months now.

The DMG does not mention this at all in it's settlement generating section. It only explains how to randomly roll up the number of warriors in there.
Are you using the tables correctly? 5% of any given settlement's population will be made up of first level warriors, which equate to professional soldiers. During periods of war, their ranks may be filled out with conscripts, which equate to first level commoners. That is entirely reasonable and appropriate.

A further 5-10% of the population will generally consist of adventurer classed characters (depending on the settlement sizes).

Take a city of around 10,000... using low averages:

{table=head]Type | Level 14 | Level 13 | Level 12 | Level 11 | Level 10 | Level 9 | Level 8 | Level 7 | Level 6 | Level 5 | Level 4 | Level 3 | Level 2 | Level 1 | Total
Aristocrat | − | − | − | − | − | − | 2 | − | − | − | 4 | − | 8 | 50 | 64
Adept | − | − | − | − | − | − | − | 2 | − | − | 4 | − | 8 | 50 | 64
Warrior | − | − | − | − | 2 | − | − | − | − | 4 | − | 8 | 16 | 500 | 530
Fighter | − | − | − | − | 2 | − | − | − | − | 4 | − | 8 | 16 | 32 | 62
Paladin | − | − | − | − | − | − | − | 2 | − | − | 4 | − | 8 | 16 | 30
Ranger | − | − | − | − | − | − | − | 2 | − | − | 4 | − | 8 | 16 | 30
Barbarian | − | − | − | − | − | − | 2 | − | − | − | 4 | − | 8 | 16 | 30
Wizard | − | − | − | − | − | − | 2 | − | − | − | 4 | − | 8 | 16 | 30
Sorcerer | − | − | − | − | − | − | 2 | − | − | − | 4 | − | 8 | 16 | 30
Rogue | − | − | − | − | 2 | − | − | − | − | 4 | − | 8 | 16 | 32 | 62
Cleric | − | − | − | − | − | 2 | − | − | − | 4 | − | 8 | 16 | 32 | 62
Expert | − | − | 2 | − | − | − | − | − | 4 | − | − | 8 | 16 | 300 | 330
Bard | − | − | − | − | − | 2 | − | − | − | 4 | − | 8 | 16 | 32 | 62
Monk | − | − | − | − | − | − | 2 | − | − | − | 4 | − | 8 | 16 | 30
Druid | − | − | − | − | − | 2 | − | − | − | 4 | − | 8 | 16 | 32 | 62
Commoner | 2 | − | − | − | − | − | − | 4 | − | − | 8 | − | 16 | 9,100 | 9,130
Total | 2 | − | − | 2 | 6 | 6 | 10 | 10 | 4 | 24 | 40 | 56 | 312 | 10,256 | 10,728
[/table]

..seems like quite a lot of combatants to me.

Fiendish_Dire_Moose
2008-10-03, 12:00 AM
Just settle on something yourself! :smallwink:

That.

In a homebrewed world it's always best to fill out your own town guard/militia. Going by set rules always takes away the home cooked feel, and doesn't always get you the results desired.
Only you know their numbers, a random number table can't tell you what they are.

Yahzi
2008-10-03, 12:44 AM
Take a look at this thread for some ideas on turning gold (i.e. economic resources) into armies: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=37056

2-5% professional soldiers is actually realistic. In a medieval technology, at least 75% of your people have to be farmers. With magic (Plant Growth) that goes down to 50%. In primitive areas (like Vikings) it was as high as 95%.

Behind every 10th level Fighter is ten thousand nameless peasants...

Tsotha-lanti
2008-10-03, 02:23 AM
..seems like quite a lot of combatants to me (Bards, Druids, Experts and Monks not currently included).

That kicks ass - the DMG numbers come out to my proposed 5%.

Obviously, a lot of the fighters and warriors may not be employed in the army or guard or watch, but may instead be thugs or hitmen or other semi-professional combatants, but the 5% estimate works out nicely. (Besides, I'd actually stat actual watchmen - the coppers, who probably make up a majority of the "soldiers" in a city - as experts and expert/warriors; higher-level watchmen would be rogue/fighters. This is mirrored in, say, the Waterdeep sourcebook.)

Edit:

It's important to note, in this sort of calculation, that the populations of cities in D&D are (apparently) usually gives as the population actually within the walls, or in the immediate vicinity. But a city of 10,000 will have thousands of people living in villages within a few days' to a week's journey, farming and hunting and generally producing food. None of those people in the city are producing food for themselves, and someone has to pick up the slack. The percentage of soldiers etc. in these villages will probably be much lower - around that 2%, or less. They also need fewer such people. Militia training is probably much more prevalent (I'm not sure if most cities actually did train militias?), but there's less crime in rural areas than in urban areas (because both wealth and poverty are concentrated in urban areas), and less need for guards and watchmen.

Emperor Tippy
2008-10-03, 04:03 AM
It really depends on the city and political situation. At one extreme you can have something like Sparta (every Spartan was a solider and nothing but a solider) with the necessities (farming, servants, etc.) being taken care of by slaves. At the other extreme you can have a nation that only hirers mercenaries. What a more reasonable number is depends on a lot of variables.

If the city is consistently facing a large number of threats (other cities, demon portals, whatever) then they could easily have a large, professional, standing army that does nothing except train in peace time. In a city of 100,000 you could see a fielded army of 10,000 and that doesn't touch on the guards or peace keepers. Just the army. And that army could be made up of 5,000 Barbarian 1/ Rogue 1/ Ranger 1/ Fighter 6/ X 1 horse riding soldiers with the other 5,000 being scouts and magical support.

And if you have a nation like 1500's China you are looking at million man armies with upwards of 100,000 professional solders.


---
The real factor's in how large an army an entity has are how big an army it can support without undue drain on it's economy (about 10% of GDP max, 5% is much more reasonable) and what threats it faces (a stable city that has no enemies and hasn't had to fight for a century will likely have a much smaller army than the same city that is surrounded by a dozen equal sized enemies who regularly attack one another and it's self).


/For people complaining about the level of my professional soldiers, if you want them to be credible then that is reasonable and it is even a pretty good approximation of their skill when comparing well trained professional soldiers to conscript armies.

bosssmiley
2008-10-03, 04:39 AM
Peaceful society: 1% of total population under arms
Militarised/warlike society: 2-3% of total population under arms
Society at war: 10%+ of total population under arms

The other 90%+ of the population? They work to keep the army fed and supplied with kit, as well as doing all the other stuff a flourishing culture requires.

Pre-state societies will likely have most adults owning weapons to protect the farmstead/tribe, but generally lack the organisation to draft these into a force more coherent than a defensive local militia or warbands of raiders.

Matthew
2008-10-03, 12:31 PM
Obviously, a lot of the fighters and warriors may not be employed in the army or guard or watch, but may instead be thugs or hitmen or other semi-professional combatants, but the 5% estimate works out nicely. (Besides, I'd actually stat actual watchmen - the coppers, who probably make up a majority of the "soldiers" in a city - as experts and expert/warriors; higher-level watchmen would be rogue/fighters. This is mirrored in, say, the Waterdeep sourcebook.)

That's one possibility for the higher level types, but I would use the guidelines in the D20/3e PHB for customising characters to take care of the first level warriors in that regard .



It's important to note, in this sort of calculation, that the populations of cities in D&D are (apparently) usually gives as the population actually within the walls, or in the immediate vicinity. But a city of 10,000 will have thousands of people living in villages within a few days' to a week's journey, farming and hunting and generally producing food. None of those people in the city are producing food for themselves, and someone has to pick up the slack. The percentage of soldiers etc. in these villages will probably be much lower - around that 2%, or less. They also [I]need fewer such people. Militia training is probably much more prevalent (I'm not sure if most cities actually did train militias?), but there's less crime in rural areas than in urban areas (because both wealth and poverty are concentrated in urban areas), and less need for guards and watchmen.

Interestingly, the percentage of combatants tends to be higher the smaller the settlement in D20/3e D&D. A reasonable argument can be made for this as authentic if these are on the model of medieval manors.

A hamlet of about 200 would have...

{table=head]Type | Level 6 | Level 5 | Level 4 | Level 3 | Level 2 | Level 1 | Total
Commoner | 1 | − | − | 2 | 4 | 182 | 189
Aristocrat | − | − | − | − | − | 1 | 1
Adept | − | − | − | − | − | 1 | 1
Warrior | − | − | − | − | 1 | 10 | 11
Fighter | − | − | − | − | 1 | 2 | 3
Paladin | − | − | − | − | − | − | −
Ranger | − | − | − | − | − | − | −
Barbarian | − | − | − | − | − | − | −
Wizard | − | − | − | − | − | − | −
Sorcerer | − | − | − | − | − | − | −
Rogue | − | − | − | − | 1 | 2 | 3
Cleric | − | − | − | − | − | 1 | 1
Expert | − | − | 1 | − | 2 | 4 | 7
Bard | − | − | − | − | − | 1 | 1
Monk | − | − | − | − | − | − | −
Druid | − | − | − | − | − | 1 | 1
Total | 1 | − | 1 | 2 | 9 | 205 | 218
[/table]

A small town of about 1,000 would have...

{table=head]Type | Level 8 | Level 7| Level 6 | Level 5 | Level 4 | Level 3 | Level 2 | Level 1 | Total
Commoner | 1 | − | − | − | 2 | − | 4 | 910 | 917
Aristocrat | − | − | − | − | − | − | 1 | 5 | 6
Adept | − | − | − | − | − | 1 | 2 | 5 | 8
Warrior | − | − | − | − | 1 | − | 2 | 50 | 53
Fighter | − | − | − | − | 1 | − | 2 | 4 | 7
Paladin | − | − | − | − | − | − | 1 | 2 | 3
Ranger | − | − | − | − | − | − | 1 | 2 | 3
Barbarian | − | − | − | − | − | − | 1 | 2 | 3
Wizard | − | − | − | − | − | − | 1 | 2 | 3
Sorcerer | − | − | − | − | − | − | 1 | 2 | 3
Rogue | − | − | − | − | 1 | − | 2 | 4 | 7
Cleric | − | − | − | − | − | 1 | 2 | 4 | 7
Expert | − | − | 1 | − | − | 2 | 4 | 30 | 37
Bard | − | − | − | − | − | 1 | 2 | 4 | 7
Monk | − | − | − | − | − | − | 1 | 2 | 3
Druid | − | − | − | − | − | 1 | 2 | 4 | 7
Total | 1 | − | 1 | − | 5 | 6 | 29 | 1,032 | 1,074
[/table]

Triaxx
2008-10-03, 01:29 PM
No system will have the answer you need. Not in that way.

Does your city feature Nobles? Merchants? Assume each one has the ability to call a regiment of 100-150 troops on a few days notice, and that they are around level 1-2. That's the best estimate you'll be able to come up with I think.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-10-04, 04:39 AM
Interestingly, the percentage of combatants tends to be higher the smaller the settlement in D20/3e D&D. A reasonable argument can be made for this as authentic if these are on the model of medieval manors.

That's not huge variation - up to 7% for the hamlet of 200 - but if you assumed it to apply across the board, it'd certainly add up.

I guess we could assume that in rural areas, a higher proportion of warriors are just tough farmers or hunters or maybe occasional bandits wouldw ork.

Starshade
2008-10-04, 05:11 AM
Take a look at this thread for some ideas on turning gold (i.e. economic resources) into armies: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=37056

2-5% professional soldiers is actually realistic. In a medieval technology, at least 75% of your people have to be farmers. With magic (Plant Growth) that goes down to 50%. In primitive areas (like Vikings) it was as high as 95%.

Behind every 10th level Fighter is ten thousand nameless peasants...

The numbers seem quite ok, i think. But viking city/kingdom armies was not that horrible as modern people might belive.

Truth is, vikings was at base, a pesant culture. Cabbage, angelica, onion was popular crops, corn for bread, and sheep and other animals for meat.

So, what was the 95% of the male population? sheep farmers, fishermen, wood chopping pesants. Vikings depended on the grown adult male populations ability to use wood shopping axes for defense.

The "viking" raiders, is what a D&D rpg'er would equal to a nefarious adventure party. The kings, his men, sons, nobles and rich men gathering their most loyal and best men to raid, for fun and glory. Id guess the amount of raiders vs plain non adventuring pesants and craftsmen could be compared to any kingdom, id use the common table shown in this thread for Viking "proffesional" armies, and use lvl1 commoners proficient with axes as pesant armies.

An alternative is spear+shield, a popular viking choice. They hunted wild boars for meat, so they knew how to use trown javelins, 1 handed trown javelins and short spears+ shield is a good combo for replica vikings as well.

BardicDuelist
2008-10-04, 11:35 AM
The stuff Matthew points out is as close as you're going to get. After that, it's up to you. That's part of DMing and using a homebrewed setting. Hell, even most established settings don't go into that much detail. Remember that D&D isn't really a wargame. War can be done,but not easily. The focus is on the players, and you'll find that anything other than rough numbers is actually rather useless in an actual game. Have you tried to run a large battle using d20 rules? It's a nightmare. Having the PCs being special forces, etc. fits the system much better.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-10-04, 01:10 PM
Actually, Mongoose has a downright elegant mass combat system for d20 games. It's used in the Conan and Slaine RPGs, at least.

Here. (www.mongoosepublishing.com/pdf/conanmasscombat.pdf) That's the Conan version; check it out. Shouldn't be any problem retooling it for D&D, figuring out how to apply damage from AoE spells (halved for skirmishers, naturally!), etc.

Kemper Boyd
2008-10-05, 04:53 AM
2 to 5% professional soldiers for a realm, a slightly lower proportion of professional guards for a city.

In a village of a hundred, there's probably a sheriff and a couple of dedicated deputies.

In a town of 10,000, there's probably up to 500 professional guards, watchmen, and soldiers.

These numbers are way too big. The village of 100 people wouldn't have a sheriff, much less any deputies.

In a town of 10000 people, you might have something like 20 watchmen. The numbers were small because the system was vastly different from today's patrol officers. They didn't solve crimes, for one.

newbDM
2008-10-06, 11:33 PM
Thanks for the advice so far guys, but since I am getting so many different opinion and interpretations I am getting more confused.




Actually, Mongoose has a downright elegant mass combat system for d20 games. It's used in the Conan and Slaine RPGs, at least.

Here. (www.mongoosepublishing.com/pdf/conanmasscombat.pdf) That's the Conan version; check it out. Shouldn't be any problem retooling it for D&D, figuring out how to apply damage from AoE spells (halved for skirmishers, naturally!), etc.

Although I am still not sure how to calculate and build local armies, this seems like a great system for fighting with them. Thanks for posting it!


Just a few questions please.


What do I need to convert this from the Conan system/RPG to D&D 3.5? From what I can see it seems very similar, but the main issue I see (so far at least) is the AC system. I am sure there are more, though.

What would you suggest using for counters? I think I need to be able distinguish types of units at sight, and then I think I need to be able to number them as well.

Where can I learn more about this system?

Tsotha-lanti
2008-10-07, 12:05 AM
What do I need to convert this from the Conan system/RPG to D&D 3.5? From what I can see it seems very similar, but the main issue I see (so far at least) is the AC system. I am sure there are more, though.

What would you suggest using for counters? I think I need to be able distinguish types of units at sight, and then I think I need to be able to number them as well.

Where can I learn more about this system?


Pretty sure that's the whole thing. The sourcebook Free Companies has more Conan army rules, but they're general and don't actually use that system; Pirate Isles has some shipboard combat rules utilizing the mass combat system (no help building local armies; you're just going to have to pick some way - as long as it's internally consistent, it doesn't make a difference).

The main difference is switching AC for Defense. Turn some NPCs into units and see what inconsistencies you end up, then fix those.

I don't use anything to visually represent the counters (I generally find tactical mapping and miniatures and the like to hinder enjoyment of Conan d20).

Bassikpoet
2008-10-07, 12:36 AM
Although it is not D&D what so ever, I recommend this generator.

http://www.rpglibrary.org/utils/meddemog/

It is based on medieval statistics and seems to be fairly consistent. It is not for a high magic setting in the least but it is pretty customizable and not only applies to a single city but to statistics for entire countries.

EDIT: the information on guards is near the bottom of the page. It also gives you statistics based on the strength and strictness of the guarding force.