Spartans RISE!

[Rasman]

So, I thought it might be amusing to build a Spartan of some kind, but I'm having at myself with what to do with him.

He can either be a single fighter that stands out on the battlefield, or he can take leadership out the ass and fight with his men for glory as one.

If you were going to build a level 20 based on a Spartan, what would be your build goal?

[Mikeavelli]

Create a warrior, specialize with spear and shield, don't wear armor, grab a bunch of tactical feats from the Complete Warrior, and call it a day.

I think a couple other splatbooks have tactical feats too, haven't looked them up in a while.

Leadership might also be helpful.

[Ormur]

Don't forget all the totalitarian warrior culture, baby killing and slave owning.

[vanyell]

Create a warrior, specialize with spear and shield, don't wear armor, grab a bunch of tactical feats from the Complete Warrior, and call it a day.

I think a couple other splatbooks have tactical feats too, haven't looked them up in a while.

Leadership might also be helpful.

except in 300, Spartans wore armor. The way I'd run an army of spartans (spartans were decent in one on one combat, but were amazing in groups) is a shield wall, using spears and just about every AoO trick you can find. make them come to you, and let them have it

I probably will be ninja'd on this.

[Egiam]

Cool idea, but I would suggest not confining yourself to "Spartan", and be more like... "classical mediterranean" .

-Breastplate (DMG has rules for bronze if you feel really realistic today...)
-Some sort of spear
-Short sword
-Light shield for Greek, tower for Roman.
-Javelins

[Snikies]

Maybe this will help. This is a 20 lvl Spartan build that my friend made. He posted it for review so its worth seeing if your DM will allow you to play it.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...hlight=spartan

[Gorgondantess]

Actually, spartans wore an armor called lamellar: it's essentially thin bronze mesh between padded armor below, and leather armor on the outside, all very tightly compacted. I'd just call it masterwork studded, when it comes to stats.
Then likely extreme shield and shortspear.
As for build, I'd likely take something like barbarian 1/marshal 2/fighter 2/some fitting PrC, for starters. Spartans seem to be a miz of the three base classes: commanders who fight together with their brethren to become more than the sum of their parts, hardened soldiers, but also brutal warriors.

[golentan]

Take a cyborg, give them super armor with a shield generator, and load them up with firearms.

Had to be said.

[Kaiyanwang]

Complete Warrior has feats and tactical feats for phalanx fighting. Use those, and add the teamwork benefit for shield walls.

Use weapon group: weapons of the Phalanx and make the weapon focus and similar feats good for spear, short sword and shield.

Make them level 3, officers level 6.

[Danin]

Phalanx fighting, Shield Wall, Close the Gap (Tactical feat, if someone drops in the shield wall you can move to their position as a swift (Immediate?) action) and a smattering of marshals in the mix and you're set.

[Rasman]

except in 300, Spartans wore armor. The way I'd run an army of spartans (spartans were decent in one on one combat, but were amazing in groups) is a shield wall, using spears and just about every AoO trick you can find. make them come to you, and let them have it

I probably will be ninja'd on this.

the only problem with "make them come to you" is that I MIGHT end up fighting a caster, but Mage-Killer as a feat would stop that, so I might consider it

Maybe this will help. This is a 20 lvl Spartan build that my friend made. He posted it for review so its worth seeing if your DM will allow you to play it.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...hlight=spartan

that's actually pretty awesome and I MIGHT use it because this will be for an Arena sort of thing I'm going with a buddy of mine

Actually, spartans wore an armor called lamellar: it's essentially thin bronze mesh between padded armor below, and leather armor on the outside, all very tightly compacted. I'd just call it masterwork studded, when it comes to stats.
Then likely extreme shield and shortspear.
As for build, I'd likely take something like barbarian 1/marshal 2/fighter 2/some fitting PrC, for starters. Spartans seem to be a miz of the three base classes: commanders who fight together with their brethren to become more than the sum of their parts, hardened soldiers, but also brutal warriors.

that's actually REALLY true, i was partly thinking of putting Knight in there somewhere, but I wasn't sure if it would RP well

actually, Warblade would be fitting too, since Spartans fight for glory and such, my real question is, how many levels of each class should I take?

[awa]

despite how much attention the Spartans get compared to latter military forces even in the ancient world they were nothing special they were basically just a heavily armored (for the period) professional army when most armies were basically a militia. When other nations started subsidizing their forces and using tactics more complicated then march in a line and stab each other the spartan military force became obsolete (although it took a while for them a while to completely collapse). Spartian armies had huge baggage trains were massively slow had no cavalry or ranged units and really had only one tactical response to any situation get in a shield wall and charge they were not some perfect military force.

Theirs a feat somewhere that lets you use a long spear and shield at the same time i ts in crystal keep but that's all i recall about it. Take that and formation fighting feats. While you might want to take a bronze breast plate its not historically accurate (those are pieces of art real armor rarely survives to end up in a museum) My research of Greek armor described them wearing glued linen armor (this was very thick so i wouldn't use padded armor to represent it although i don't know what would be a good representation)

Edit excuse the rant on the historical accuracy of spartan military dominance their certainly no reason you couldn't build your concept on the 300 model if you choose regardless of its accuracy. its just a game any way

[Soranar]

Let's see

a night-unkillable (except on a crit) warrior using a shield (not tower, those are roman legions) and a spear

how about this

Race:Human
Alignment: Lawful Good (actually Lawful Crazy imo)

STATS (32 pts buy)
STR 14
DEX 16
CON 14
INT 8
WIS 16
CHA 8

1 Ranger Shield specialization: lightshield, Shield and Pike Style
2 Ranger Armor of the senses
3 Paladin Serenity Aura of Good
4 Paladin Divine Grace,Lay on Hands
5 Paladin Aura of Courage,Divine Health
6 Kensai short haft chosen weapon: Greatspear, chosen weapon +1
7 Kensai Combat Reflexes
8 Kensai
9 Kensai Power Attack, Leap attack
10 Kensai chosen weapon +2
11 Kensai Improved sunder
12 Kensai Combat Brute,
13 Kensai weapon focus: Greatspear
14 Kensai
15 Kensai Weapon specialization: Greatspear, greater weapon focus:Greatspearchosen weapon +3
16 Kensai
17 Kensai Greater weapon specialization: Greatspear
18 Kensai Melee Weapon Mastery – Piercing,Driving Attack
19 Kensai
20 Kensai Improved Critical Greatspear chosen weapon +4


moonwarded ranger variant, 2nd level substitution gives you armor of the senses (you get your Wisdom bonus to AC even while wearing light armor and using a shield)

logic: Spartans were really hard to hit despite not wearing a full-plate and they were trained to survive in the wild at a young age

Shield and Pike Style (use a light shield while using a 2 handed polearm with reach)

Shield specialization/shield ward : get the most out of your shield and even get high touch attack AC (Dex, Wis+ shield is starting to be hard to hit)

logic: should be obvious

immunity to fear and bonuses to saves both help against spellcasters and using senerity greatly reduces your Mad , now you can just pump your Wisdom without wasting it

logic: well Spartans were really stubborn and difficult to deal with, much like a paladin

Kensai is a fighter variant, grants you 1 exotic weapon proficiency for free with which you get scaled bonuses (+X to hit and damage), otherwise it's very similar to fighter and it has flaws that don't affect this build

Honestly at the end I just had too many feats to choose from so this is not optimized but it does respect the flavor. In a real build I'd pick every mageslayer feat and probably use Horizon Walker.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

So you either want D&D's model of a historical spartan, the same for a 300-style Spartan, or you want a Spartan-style character.

1. Historical spartan.

I tentatively agree with Awa on the broad strokes, although I still think Spartans made some professional soldiers look like militia. Plato, an Athenian who wasn't a big fan of Sparta, pretty much goes out of his way in Laches to imply that the Spartans know courage in a way other Greeks simply couldn't. And while Plato's probably full of himself and/or male cow waste products, other, slightly more reputable historical accounts also point to Spartans being a superior group of professional soldiers, if not the most tactically-minded.

- Herodotus' account of the events of Thermopylae point to a level of skill and bravery beyond mere soldiery.
- There are a variety of famous quotes, but this one is my favorite (ripped from wiki): "[Phillip II of Macedon] proclaims claims "You are advised to submit without further delay, for if I bring my army into your land, I will destroy your farms, slay your people, and raze your city." The Spartan ephors sent back a one word reply: "If."[17] Subsequently, both Philip and Alexander would avoid Sparta entirely."
- In 272 BC, far after Sparta's zenith, Pyrrhus attempted to take Sparta while its regular army was campaigning elsewhere. A fraction of Sparta's army along with Spartan civilians, including women, outnumbered, fought off an experienced mercenary army led by one of the best tacticians of the Hellenistic age.

All that said, they're probably a bunch of Warrior 3s with improved stat lines, phalanx-related feats, and a regional bonus to morale-based conditions. They're human, and they're very vulnerable to D&D magic (good ol' Fireball has its uses, 'yknow). Not the unstoppable killing machines Frank Miller may have led you to believe. Speaking of which...

2. 300-style Spartans

Level 7+ warblade, relatively unarmored, maybe with some swordsage, crusader, knight, or marshal thrown in. Very cheesy in all senses of the word. If the enemies' arrows will blot out the sun, you'll Iron Heart Surge the sun away first so you can fight in the shade forever.

3. Spartan-themed D&D warrior

Warblade is also appropriate for Spartans whose main power isn't making your fellow players roll their eyes (will negates). If you really just want to be a relatively immobile bulwark of defense, you could go Crusader or Knight or Fighter or Barbarian or some combination; note that getting reach on that spear of yours and grabbing the various crowd control feats is close to a necessity in this case, and in any event makes sense in the context of the D&D world.

Here's the thing. You could build this out in so many ways it makes my mind boggle. All you really have to do to fit the Spartan mold is as follows:

- Be not only brave, but eager to face fights against enormous odds. Sounds pretty standard for a D&D adventurer. The Spartan standby "with this shield or on it," or in other words refusing to flee a battle, is non-standard... aaand you might want to bend this one. Greeks did tend to make use out of false-retreat tactics, and refusing to be routed was in the context of a large-scale battle, defending or conquering for your home.
- Own/carry on you only what you can use to kill someone or to facilitate killing someone. Again, sounds pretty standard for a D&D adventurer. Of course, a Spartan probably isn't in the adventuring game for treasure, which is the standard #1 reason to do it. He's probably in it for reason #2, killing things.
- Sharpen that laconic wit. This is the most important part of playing a Spartan. You could be a bookish batman wizard and still play a Spartan if you make those short, sweet responses at the right times. Wait, there's one thing that's more important in being a true Spartan...
- Calisthenics before battle. That's right, if you're expecting a fight, do those jumping jacks. Doing them OOC as well heightens the realism.

Good luck in your fight against those decadent Athenians and hubristic Persians.

[Hallavast]

Looks like a lvl 20 Warblade w/sword n board feats and a slew of white raven maneuvers would do the trick. Pump his dex and put him in some light armor. Maybe even go TWF with a shield and pick up some tiger claw stuff. Simple yet effective.

If you ask me how to simulate a RL spartan soldier in D&D...

I'd say about a lvl 3-5 Fighter (not warrior)with light armor and swordnboard. Definitely get phalanx fighting feat. He should have dexterity and constitution over strength as far as attributes go, probably.

[Soranar]

Well if you really want to go the full historical Spartan.

All spartan warriors were gay/bisexual, the logic was that fighting with your lover would force you to act bravely.

Women were used by their husbands to procreate only (they also shaved their heads and wore fake beards, in the dark, so their husbands could perform).

Otherwise their lives (men and women) were kept apart.

One joke was that a Spartan man could live his whole life without seeing the face of his wife...

All Spartans, men or women, were discarded at birth if judged impure (deformed, malformed, weak, etc) and literally thrown off a cliff. That part the movie got right. Might want to consider a +2 to all physical stats and make spartan humans La +1 or something.

Spartan women were just as crazy as the men. The only difference is that they were encouraged to enjoy sports (typically reserved to men) to make them stronger mothers. And instead of being raised to be killing machines they were raised to make killing machines...

And the sentence "come back with your shield or on it" was made by a woman to her son.

Not exactly a surprise that the typical Spartan woman could take on crappy militia from normal people. Although they did have help from the artisans (non-slave non-warrior males).

[Rasman]

Let's see

a night-unkillable (except on a crit) warrior using a shield (not tower, those are roman legions) and a spear

how about this

Race:Human
Alignment: Lawful Good (actually Lawful Crazy imo)

STATS (32 pts buy)
STR 14
DEX 16
CON 14
INT 8
WIS 16
CHA 8

1 Ranger Shield specialization: lightshield, Shield and Pike Style
2 Ranger Armor of the senses
3 Paladin Serenity Aura of Good
4 Paladin Divine Grace,Lay on Hands
5 Paladin Aura of Courage,Divine Health
6 Kensai short haft chosen weapon: Greatspear, chosen weapon +1
7 Kensai Combat Reflexes
8 Kensai
9 Kensai Power Attack, Leap attack
10 Kensai chosen weapon +2
11 Kensai Improved sunder
12 Kensai Combat Brute,
13 Kensai weapon focus: Greatspear
14 Kensai
15 Kensai Weapon specialization: Greatspear, greater weapon focus:Greatspearchosen weapon +3
16 Kensai
17 Kensai Greater weapon specialization: Greatspear
18 Kensai Melee Weapon Mastery – Piercing,Driving Attack
19 Kensai
20 Kensai Improved Critical Greatspear chosen weapon +4


moonwarded ranger variant, 2nd level substitution gives you armor of the senses (you get your Wisdom bonus to AC even while wearing light armor and using a shield)

logic: Spartans were really hard to hit despite not wearing a full-plate and they were trained to survive in the wild at a young age

Shield and Pike Style (use a light shield while using a 2 handed polearm with reach)

Shield specialization/shield ward : get the most out of your shield and even get high touch attack AC (Dex, Wis+ shield is starting to be hard to hit)

logic: should be obvious

immunity to fear and bonuses to saves both help against spellcasters and using senerity greatly reduces your Mad , now you can just pump your Wisdom without wasting it

logic: well Spartans were really stubborn and difficult to deal with, much like a paladin

Kensai is a fighter variant, grants you 1 exotic weapon proficiency for free with which you get scaled bonuses (+X to hit and damage), otherwise it's very similar to fighter and it has flaws that don't affect this build

Honestly at the end I just had too many feats to choose from so this is not optimized but it does respect the flavor. In a real build I'd pick every mageslayer feat and probably use Horizon Walker.

wow...that's pretty damn awesome actually, although the Mage-Slayer feats would be awesome in there, I'm a huge fan of those to begin with, because causing casters to have massive headaches is always fun

the only two feats I'm not sure about are Short Haft (The feat where you can attack with the blunt end of a weapon for bludgening damage?) and Combat Brute (know I've seen it, just don't remember it and don't have access to my books atm)

I'd hate to ask for anymore, but...how exactly would you gear him? Obviously with a greatspear and Light Shield, but what other items would you let him have?

So you either want D&D's model of a historical spartan, the same for a 300-style Spartan, or you want a Spartan-style character.

1. Historical spartan.

I tentatively agree with Awa on the broad strokes, although I still think Spartans made some professional soldiers look like militia. Plato, an Athenian who wasn't a big fan of Sparta, pretty much goes out of his way in Laches to imply that the Spartans know courage in a way other Greeks simply couldn't. And while Plato's probably full of himself and/or male cow waste products, other, slightly more reputable historical accounts also point to Spartans being a superior group of professional soldiers, if not the most tactically-minded.

- Herodotus' account of the events of Thermopylae point to a level of skill and bravery beyond mere soldiery.
- There are a variety of famous quotes, but this one is my favorite (ripped from wiki): "[Phillip II of Macedon] proclaims claims "You are advised to submit without further delay, for if I bring my army into your land, I will destroy your farms, slay your people, and raze your city." The Spartan ephors sent back a one word reply: "If."[17] Subsequently, both Philip and Alexander would avoid Sparta entirely."
- In 272 BC, far after Sparta's zenith, Pyrrhus attempted to take Sparta while its regular army was campaigning elsewhere. A fraction of Sparta's army along with Spartan civilians, including women, outnumbered, fought off an experienced mercenary army led by one of the best tacticians of the Hellenistic age.

All that said, they're probably a bunch of Warrior 3s with improved stat lines, phalanx-related feats, and a regional bonus to morale-based conditions. They're human, and they're very vulnerable to D&D magic (good ol' Fireball has its uses, 'yknow). Not the unstoppable killing machines Frank Miller may have led you to believe. Speaking of which...

2. 300-style Spartans

Level 7+ warblade, relatively unarmored, maybe with some swordsage, crusader, knight, or marshal thrown in. Very cheesy in all senses of the word. If the enemies' arrows will blot out the sun, you'll Iron Heart Surge the sun away first so you can fight in the shade forever.

3. Spartan-themed D&D warrior

Warblade is also appropriate for Spartans whose main power isn't making your fellow players roll their eyes (will negates). If you really just want to be a relatively immobile bulwark of defense, you could go Crusader or Knight or Fighter or Barbarian or some combination; note that getting reach on that spear of yours and grabbing the various crowd control feats is close to a necessity in this case, and in any event makes sense in the context of the D&D world.

Here's the thing. You could build this out in so many ways it makes my mind boggle. All you really have to do to fit the Spartan mold is as follows:

- Be not only brave, but eager to face fights against enormous odds. Sounds pretty standard for a D&D adventurer. The Spartan standby "with this shield or on it," or in other words refusing to flee a battle, is non-standard... aaand you might want to bend this one. Greeks did tend to make use out of false-retreat tactics, and refusing to be routed was in the context of a large-scale battle, defending or conquering for your home.
- Own/carry on you only what you can use to kill someone or to facilitate killing someone. Again, sounds pretty standard for a D&D adventurer. Of course, a Spartan probably isn't in the adventuring game for treasure, which is the standard #1 reason to do it. He's probably in it for reason #2, killing things.
- Sharpen that laconic wit. This is the most important part of playing a Spartan. You could be a bookish batman wizard and still play a Spartan if you make those short, sweet responses at the right times. Wait, there's one thing that's more important in being a true Spartan...
- Calisthenics before battle. That's right, if you're expecting a fight, do those jumping jacks. Doing them OOC as well heightens the realism.

Good luck in your fight against those decadent Athenians and hubristic Persians.

I guess Spartan is really more of a mentality than a build, because there really are a LOT of ways to do it, make for some really good use of flaws and traits though, those apply in most of the games I play in, so extra feats abound sometimes.

[Soranar]

Short haft makes you able to hit opponents adjacent to you with a -2 penalty so it turns your weapon into a reach 10 and normal range (like a spiked chain).

Combat brute has 3 options , but 1 is this: make a charge with power attack , if you hit than next turn your power attack does 1.5 damage 1 handed or 3x times damage 2 handed (which you are)

Another option is that if you sunder the guy's shield (and destroy it) you get a free attack on him.

A ring of improved evasion is a must (especially with your saves)

Maybe a way to teleport and fly to catch up to a wizard.

your AC should be really high shield bonus+Wis+light armor + Dex

[Matthew]

Actually, Spartans wore an armour called lamellar: it's essentially thin bronze mesh between padded armour below, and leather armour on the outside, all very tightly compacted. I'd just call it master-work studded, when it comes to statistics.

I have never heard of this; where did you hear about it? Sounds very made up to me; lamellar armour is nothing like what you are describing. [edit] I have figured out what you mean, I think. You are talking about linothorax, which is an armour chiefly made up of layers of linen, but sometimes had bronze scales stitched onto it, or else leather.

[Riffington]

Read _Gates of Fire_ (Steven Pressfield). It's a spectacular book, and be great inspiration for your character/campaign. It'll give you the temptation to do Ranger/Warblade - but regardless of class, it's going to help you make your personality/character way more nuanced and interesting.

All spartan warriors were gay/bisexual, the logic was that fighting with your lover would force you to act bravely.

You are thinking of a band of 150 warriors from Thebes, not Sparta. The Spartans were pretty homophobic.

[Hallavast]

Read _Gates of Fire_ (Steven Pressfield). It's a spectacular book, and be great inspiration for your character/campaign. It'll give you the temptation to do Ranger/Warblade - but regardless of class, it's going to help you make your personality/character way more nuanced and interesting.




You are thinking of a band of 150 warriors from Thebes, not Sparta. The Spartans were pretty homophobic.

I'd heard differently. While I'm not supporting the claim of "All spartan warriors were homo/bi sexual", I do remember reading (in highschool mythology) that homosexual relationships were not uncommon in Sparta. I specifically remember young boys having such relationships with their teachers. Such relationships were permitted as long as the teacher gave gifts to the boy, and it was understood that it would end when the student achieved manhood.

[ForzaFiori]

You are thinking of a band of 150 warriors from Thebes, not Sparta. The Spartans were pretty homophobic.

Actually, nearly all greeks during that time period were bisexual. Most young boys had that relation with their teacher, and when the grew up, got a wife (and typically a new boyfriend)

@Soranar: The build is nice, but the historical aspect is a little off. Spartans didn't use the huge, two handed, 16' spears. they used the short spear, and a short sword, along with a large shield. The problem with creating a shortspear and large shield using warrior is that they're both one handed weapons, so if you wanna shield bash, you wind up with -4 penalties.

[Matthew]

I'd heard differently. While I'm not supporting the claim of "All spartan warriors were homo/bi sexual", I do remember reading (in highschool mythology) that homosexual relationships were not uncommon in Sparta. I specifically remember young boys having such relationships with their teachers. Such relationships were permitted as long as the teacher gave gifts to the boy, and it was understood that it would end when the student achieved manhood.

Remember when we are talking about Sparta we are talking about hundreds of years of history. The official stance of Sparta (from what I recall) was like Rome, in that homosexuality was deemed immoral, but that is not to say it did not go on, or that in different periods of time it was less or more acceptable. A lot of folks get obsessed with this idea as though it was Greek only, but in fact the Celts, and apparently the Japanese, had exactly the same feature in their societies. Lurid songs were sung about Caesar by his own men alluding to his relationship with certain older men. Achilles and Patroclus have no sexual relationship in Homer, but it was added later. The bottom line is that homosexuality existed in ancient and medieval times, but was tolerated (or encouraged) to different degrees.

[Riffington]

I'd heard differently. While I'm not supporting the claim of "All spartan warriors were homo/bi sexual", I do remember reading (in highschool mythology) that homosexual relationships were not uncommon in Sparta. I specifically remember young boys having such relationships with their teachers. Such relationships were permitted as long as the teacher gave gifts to the boy, and it was understood that it would end when the student achieved manhood.

That's Athens. The Spartans made fun of the Athenians for that behavior (and also, didn't have private tutors of that kind anyway - the military training was a different setup).
Now, it's true that >1 century is a long time, and surely there were some points at which the Spartans tolerated homosexuality more or less. But here's the actual evidence:

*Criticism by Philip II of the Spartans for their view that the Sacred Band of Thebes was "disgraceful".
*presence of homosexual acts on many Greek vases, but not on any Spartan vases. (admittedly we have many more Athenian vases than Spartan)
*Xenophon stated that the Spartans were disgusted by the Athenian acceptance of homosexual sex.
*Aristotle claimed that Spartan women had too much political power because the men were so often off at war, and there was no homosexuality to help compensate for that fact (by preserving male political power).

[Hallavast]

Remember when we are talking about Sparta we are talking about hundreds of years of history. The official stance of Sparta (from what I recall) was like Rome, in that homosexuality was deemed immoral, but that is not to say it did not go on, or that in different periods of time it was less or more acceptable. A lot of folks get obsessed with this idea as though it was Greek only, but in fact the Celts, and apparently the Japanese, had exactly the same feature in their societies. Lurid songs were sung about Caesar by his own men alluding to his relationship with certain older men. Achilles and Patroclus have no sexual relationship in Homer, but it was added later. The bottom line is that homosexuality existed in ancient and medieval times, but was tolerated (or encouraged) to different degrees.

So the question becomes "around the time of Thermopolyae, to what degree was this existence 'tolerated'?"

But at any rate, it is inconsequential to the thread at hand (because it can be assumed that the OP already has the "fluff" in mind for his vision of Spartans. And this obliquely related discussion on ancient sexuality certainly has nothing to do with the "crunchy" part.

I agree to put it to rest.

Spoiler

Show

Tee hee "fluff".

Edit:

That's Athens. . . .

You sound very sure of this, but I consider my source fairly credible, and I'm sure I'm not confusing the two city states personally. Further, cursory research through google seems to exactly support my source's claims. Perhaps such a discussion would be better suited in another thread, though?

[Riffington]

Edit: You sound very sure of this, but I consider my source fairly credible,

I'm absolutely certain it's Athens: Plato talks about it a lot. Can't promise it never *also* happened in Sparta - what's your source for that? (a credible source would be an ancient Greek, of course. It was too easy for the medievals to get the various Greek city-states confused) but I'd be very interested if you have the data to see it.

[Matthew]

So the question becomes "around the time of Thermopolyae, to what degree was this existence 'tolerated'?"

But at any rate, it is inconsequential to the thread at hand (because it can be assumed that the OP already has the "fluff" in mind for his vision of Spartans. And this obliquely related discussion on ancient sexuality certainly has nothing to do with the "crunchy" part.

I agree to put it to rest.

Spoiler

Show

Tee hee "fluff".

Edit: You sound very sure of this, but I consider my source fairly credible, and I'm sure I'm not confusing the two city states personally. Further, cursory research through google seems to exactly support my source's claims. Perhaps such a discussion would be better suited in another thread, though?

I'm absolutely certain it's Athens: Plato talks about it a lot. Can't promise it never *also* happened in Sparta - what's your source for that? (a credible source would be an ancient Greek, of course. It was too easy for the medievals to get the various Greek city-states confused) but I'd be very interested if you have the data to see it.

Just to finish this line of inquiry off in this thread, here is a link to a Wikipedia article dealing with the subject: Spartan Pederasty. Basically, some ancient sources say that the relationship was sexual, and others say that it was not. My guess would be that some were and some were not, depending on the preferences of the older man...

On Topic: A Spartan hoplite in D20/3e should have a special feat enabling him to use the long spear in one hand, in my opinion. Herodotus tells us that the spears of the Greeks were longer than those of the Persians and this gave them an advantage at Thermopylae, which is something I would like to see simulated somehow. I guess there is a good argument for all Spartans being Fighters as compared to other Greeks as Warriors, but maybe it could be Warrior versus Commoner (or some combination of expert and warrior or something). All depends on how you represent a "typical" warrior, I suppose.

[Rasman]

So the question becomes "around the time of Thermopolyae, to what degree was this existence 'tolerated'?"

But at any rate, it is inconsequential to the thread at hand (because it can be assumed that the OP already has the "fluff" in mind for his vision of Spartans. And this obliquely related discussion on ancient sexuality certainly has nothing to do with the "crunchy" part.

I agree to put it to rest.

Spoiler

Show

Tee hee "fluff".

Edit: You sound very sure of this, but I consider my source fairly credible, and I'm sure I'm not confusing the two city states personally. Further, cursory research through google seems to exactly support my source's claims. Perhaps such a discussion would be better suited in another thread, though?

lol...I am no less entertained by it, I'm a history major actually, so listening to some of this is GREATLY amusing, because, to my understanding, some of it is spot on, like the Japanese thing (Although I would bet you only know that from watching Samurai Champloo, but I won't hold it against you XD), but there are other parts that I'm just wondering where it's being pulled from, particularly the Athens thing, but that's only because this time period isn't my focus, nor is the region, so the couple of classes I've had on this time period, which specifically dealt with the fall of Rome and the truely weird emperors (like the one that fought Ostriches in the arena) aren't really enough to let me pull that kind of info on it

NOT to say that I wouldn't like to see someone elses interpretation of a build, like the awesomeness Soranar put together (of which I actually really like the Great Spear, even if it isn't historically accurate, because Reach is godly and a life saver, not to mention, based on the 300 trope, they used Reach to stab enemies from behind a crouched ally with a shield in front of them, so I don't see why it wouldn't be accurate)

[Roderick_BR]

despite how much attention the Spartans get compared to latter military forces even in the ancient world they were nothing special they were basically just a heavily armored (for the period) professional army when most armies were basically a militia. When other nations started subsidizing their forces and using tactics more complicated then march in a line and stab each other the spartan military force became obsolete (although it took a while for them a while to completely collapse). Spartian armies had huge baggage trains were massively slow had no cavalry or ranged units and really had only one tactical response to any situation get in a shield wall and charge they were not some perfect military force.

Theirs a feat somewhere that lets you use a long spear and shield at the same time i ts in crystal keep but that's all i recall about it. Take that and formation fighting feats. While you might want to take a bronze breast plate its not historically accurate (those are pieces of art real armor rarely survives to end up in a museum) My research of Greek armor described them wearing glued linen armor (this was very thick so i wouldn't use padded armor to represent it although i don't know what would be a good representation)

Edit excuse the rant on the historical accuracy of spartan military dominance their certainly no reason you couldn't build your concept on the 300 model if you choose regardless of its accuracy. its just a game any way

Historical accuracy? In my D&D?

[Riffington]

On Topic: A Spartan hoplite in D20/3e should have a special feat enabling him to use the long spear in one hand, in my opinion. Herodotus tells us that the spears of the Greeks were longer than those of the Persians and this gave them an advantage at Thermopylae, which is something I would like to see simulated somehow. I guess there is a good argument for all Spartans being Fighters as compared to other Greeks as Warriors, but maybe it could be Warrior versus Commoner (or some combination of expert and warrior or something). All depends on how you represent a "typical" warrior, I suppose.

I think they should get to be Rangers, and get that fighting technique instead of the alternate ranger style. (Whereas other Greeks were lucky to have a high percentage of Warriors in their armies)

They were true warriors, but were pretty maneuverable and sneaky. A Spartan child was taught at an early age not only how to fight, but how to forage, survive, and be stealthy. The child would be encouraged to steal sweets - but beaten severely if caught... (the advisability of this parenting technique is subject to some debate).

As to why a PC class for an entire group of people? When you have a bunch of slaves, you have a lot of free time (which most slaveowners use for luxury and idleness. When you actually spend that time to truly train hard and become great... I think that justifies a PC class.