Magically Armed Military

[Fizban]

So, I was watching some stargate, and I had a mostly unrelated thought: it's obvious that magic=win, and therefore a nation's military should want as much magic as possible. Aside from getting casters in the military, equipping soldiers with magic arms and devices is one of the easiest and pretty much only way to do this. But, aside from artificers, there's no real source of xp for the amount of crafting needed to equip an army, so how to go about getting some? Solution:

Prisoners. First off, go with the variant idea that allows a character to willingly (as in not affected by spell or ability) give up xp to a caster for casting a spell or crafting a magic item. Then, set up a system where prisoners are given the option of donating their spare xp in return for a lighter sentence.

Obviously it is under some duress, but they don't have to do it, and it causes them no harm whatsoever, just some of this unknown energy that magicians use to create their trinkets. The best part is, it's not really a fate that people will fear, so it won't reduce crime very much, meaning a steady flow of prisoners with varying amounts of spare xp.

So, discuss, refine, refute, and what have you.

[Damionte]

Your crafters could just gain XP from crafting. That's how I run it in my world. I mean in the end it's an NPC mechanic so who cares how they get XP. NPC's don't need XP points anyway. They have as many as you want them too at any time period.

Mine don't even work off experience, they can do whatever I say they can.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

OMFG the expense!

Look at outfitting even a level 5 PC. Now multiply that by a thousand. That's what you're talking about paying to outfit your army.

It's much easier to sprinkle Bards in your army to give everyone bonuses. Flute, drum, and (hehe) bagpipe were all used in armies, after all. So was the Bugle.

Let the casters take the place of your howitzers. Launch Area Effect stuff like Stinking Cloud at massed formations and watch the fun begin.

[JellyPooga]

Yeah, considering the fact that for the price of a 'measly' +1 sword, you could buy a house, outfitting an entire army might cost a bob or two...maybe if you had a Kobold mine or 5 working exclusively for the purpose of raising enough cash for it...

[Joltz]

hmmm. Maybe that's why most soldiers don't have magical equipment at all. If you look at whatever sections of the core books that talk about combat between armies (or anything involving lots of NPCs for that matter) it'll tell you that the vast majority of NPCs are level 1. Just look at OOTS here. Some of Azure city's "best soldiers" are level 5.

Anyway, back to the subject of item crafters taking exp from other people. A while ago I toyed with the idea of a wondrous item that sapped a % of exp from people it was attached to as they gained it. I never completely statted it out though.

Another idea I just had is for a spell/incantation (whichever you prefer) that saps a target's life force (xp of course) and grants it to that caster in the form of temporary xp that can only be used for crafting. You can make it so it can only be used on helpless targets by giving it a long casting time (2 hours or so). It could work exactly like the artificer's reserve points if you like. I think I'd make the xp fade if the caster hasn't started crafting an item with it (maybe after 1 day/level or so). You could have it take a given amount of xp from the target, maybe it takes exactly enough exp to reduce them to the beginning of the previous level and if they're level 1 the caster gets 1000 xp for casting and the target loses 2 con (as though by death). You could just have it kill the target and give all their xp to the caster too.

The effects of the spell/incantation can also be used to characterize the nation using it too. Maybe a LE country is using a version that kills the target to execute anyone they judge to be a criminal and using the items made with the extra xp to dominate the world. Maybe a more good-ish nation only uses the spell to drain a level (or two) in the case of incorrigibly evil criminals as additional punishment/assurance.

I'm kinda liking this idea.

[Emperor Tippy]

Well. I've often wondered why nations keep these armies of level 1 grunts. They have to feed them.

Let's look at 2 armies.

Army Number 1

Spoiler

Show

This is your standard army of level 1 warriors.

Let's go with 50,000 men.
A silver piece per day is the standard salary. Food costs another 5 SP per day if you go by trail rations (a fair price and we will assume that delivery costs are included in the price).

Lets give everyone a short spear, padded armor, and a light wooden shield. That comes to 9 GP. Lets round it to 10 to cover miscellaneous things.

So to equip your army costs you 500,000 GP up front and another 30,000 GP per day in upkeep.

Let's assume that the minimum time the army is kept around is a month (30 days). That is 900,000 GP for upkeep.

So your army costs you a grand total of 1,400,000 GP to equip and field. And that is just with basic level 1 grunts and no special units at all.

Army Number 2

Spoiler

Show

Let's make a hundred man force this time. Upkeep comes to 60 GP per day. Or 1,800 GP for the month. Leaving 1,398,200 GP left to spend on equipment.

Or 14,000 GP per person.

Let's equip each with a CL 5 Wand of Fireball for 11,250 GP each. Leaving 2,750 GP left for each solider.

Equip them with a horse (450 GP each, including saddle, bridal, and food). Spend the rest of the money on guard dogs. Say 50 per person.

The second army would win every engagement. Horses allow them to run, the dogs act as a shield/melee force, and the wands of fireball need only kill 10 guys per charge (on average) to destroy the first army.

[Seffbasilisk]

Well. I've often wondered why nations keep these armies of level 1 grunts. They have to feed them.

Let's look at 2 armies.

Army Number 1

Spoiler

Show

This is your standard army of level 1 warriors.

Let's go with 50,000 men.
A silver piece per day is the standard salary. Food costs another 5 SP per day if you go by trail rations (a fair price and we will assume that delivery costs are included in the price).

Lets give everyone a short spear, padded armor, and a light wooden shield. That comes to 9 GP. Lets round it to 10 to cover miscellaneous things.

So to equip your army costs you 500,000 GP up front and another 30,000 GP per day in upkeep.

Let's assume that the minimum time the army is kept around is a month (30 days). That is 900,000 GP for upkeep.

So your army costs you a grand total of 1,400,000 GP to equip and field. And that is just with basic level 1 grunts and no special units at all.

Army Number 2

Spoiler

Show

Let's make a hundred man force this time. Upkeep comes to 60 GP per day. Or 1,800 GP for the month. Leaving 1,398,200 GP left to spend on equipment.

Or 14,000 GP per person.

Let's equip each with a CL 5 Wand of Fireball for 11,250 GP each. Leaving 2,750 GP left for each solider.

Equip them with a horse (450 GP each, including saddle, bridal, and food). Spend the rest of the money on guard dogs. Say 50 per person.

The second army would win every engagement. Horses allow them to run, the dogs act as a shield/melee force, and the wands of fireball need only kill 10 guys per charge (on average) to destroy the first army.

You're neglecting the fact that level 1's activating wands of Fireball, and having to have ranks in Ride? What are they? Every class off the top of my head, that I know of that has UMD in-class doesn't get Ride.

Edit: Handle animal too? Feeding the dogs? Etc, etc.... First one's more common because it works better. Besides, where do you know where you can just thack down a sack of gold and pick up 100 wands of fireball? Maybe that would be the 'special forces' unit of a group, and have some 'scout' parties of rangers and such foraging off the land to provide rations for the soldiers. After all, most armies tended to strip the land as they progressed, so there's your food supply.

[Lapak]

Aside from the question of 'how would you' is the question of 'do you actually want to?' The expense is one thing, the availability another. Then there's the vulnerability question: if I equip ten men with crazy magic and one of them dies (or worse, is captured) my budget just took a heck of a hit.

And then there's the flat-out question of 'do you WANT too many people to have magic handy?'

- An evil government might want to concentrate power among the ruling elite only, and keep the army at peon-status lest they rise up and overthrow them.

- A good government might want to keep dangerous magic under lock and key so it's not used for murder and robbery.

- A lawful government might want to keep magic low to prevent any one individual from having too much power over the law - certainly they might not want an army or division of magically-armed soldiers.

- A purely chaotic government probably would be fine with it, but is almost a contradiction in terms to begin with, especially if you're talking about funding an army in an organized way.

It's all very well for PCs to want more magic and more focused power, but governments have to keep some semblance of structure, and widespread magic - especially weaponized magic - isn't necessarily conducive to that.

[Fizban]

This idea assumes that the nation has nigh infinite monetary resources, which it would in comparison to a single PC.

And I'm not talking about giving everyone NPC or PC appropriate gear, that's ridiculous. That amount of gear is meant for adventurers that have to be ready for any wacky situation that occurs. It wouldn't make sense for an army to send out boots of levitation and whatnot, that's reserved for the special forces, which are likely former adventurers themselves.

If magic is replacing technology in a world, that means there will be tons of magic items all over the place, and even artificers have a limited xp pool for crafting. The military will want stuff like tanks, and wands, and these will cost xp to craft. Thus, the idea of getting prisoners to give up their spare "energy" to lighten their sentence, since xp in a high magic world is just like a natural resource, but there is currently no way for a government to get it.

Such as Tippy's example. The wands are much more effective, but who's crafting them? There's only so many people with the skills to make those, and eventually they will run out of spare xp. After that, the only way to get them would be to send people to other planes to buy them, assuming the planes are infinite then you could always find more, but then you're relying on outside arms dealers, and have a weakness.

Anyway, I'm just trying to present a plausible way for a high magic world to actually have armies that make extensive use of magic items.

Edit: and people posted while I was typing, consider it a general statement.

[bugsysservant]

I find the talk of giving away XP strangely reminiscent of the section in the BoVD where it discusses how you can get XP/gold to use for crafting by making elaborate human sacrifices. Only evil governments would ever allow this to occur. And where would you get so many prisoners? As death penalties go up, crime goes down, laws get more severe, citizens revolt. The government that instituted such a policy would undermine itself.

I prefer to think of d&d armies as if they subscribed to an unwritten quasi-geneva convention. You don't give magic to your soldiers, we won't give it to ours. While you can still equip the oddball army with really good weapons, as a rule of thumb it tends to work out.

[Emperor Tippy]

You're neglecting the fact that level 1's activating wands of Fireball, and having to have ranks in Ride? What are they? Every class off the top of my head, that I know of that has UMD in-class doesn't get Ride.

Page 109 of the DMG. The Expert. It gets any 10 skills of its choice as class skills.

The best build is 100 sorcerer 1/ expert 1 guys. You don't need UMD because of sorcerer and expert covers the skills.

Edit: Handle animal too? Feeding the dogs? Etc, etc.... First one's more common because it works better. Besides, where do you know where you can just thack down a sack of gold and pick up 100 wands of fireball?

Sigil.

Maybe that would be the 'special forces' unit of a group, and have some 'scout' parties of rangers and such foraging off the land to provide rations for the soldiers. After all, most armies tended to strip the land as they progressed, so there's your food supply.

Do you have any idea how hard it is by the D&D rules to feed an army of 50,000 living off the land? And it slows you down.

The most effective army though is arming everyone with a heavy repeating crossbow.

[HidaTsuzua]

The only use for the horde of 1st level grunts would be situations where you need lots of warm bodies (policing or patroling a long boarder). And honestly, I bet there's a magic way that's cheaper or better than this approach such as overland flight casting.

As for where you get XP, you can use traps (traps are CR encounters but aren't lethal), adventuring (go kill goblins!), or conversation (roleplaying XP). The effectiveness might vary from world to world (or rather GM to GM). This also doesn't touch the insanity of a wish based economy....

[SpiderBrigade]

...This also doesn't touch the insanity of a wish based economy....

Hoo hoo hoo, boy howdy. But forget about Wish, all you need is a certain amount of seed money to hire a high-level caster and set off one of those infinite Gate loops I keep hearing about. Go from 0 army to arbitrarily large Outsider army in a matter of hours.

And you'll probably still save money compared to the aforementioned 50,000 man grunt army.

[Kizara]

The most effective army is a dragon.

Ruler 1: I spend 2 million gp on large army.

Ruler 2: I spend 1 million gp to hire an adult dragon to completely waste your army.

Works on any lower examples. Make any reasonably large army of 'people', and I use my "I hire a dragon for half that amount" policy. :)

And I seriously doubt any evil dragon is going to turn down 1 million gp to torch some people and loot anything they find.

Also, this works for adventures. Adventurers can counter dragons, and dragons adventurers.

So, in conclusion, wars in D&D are some combination of Dragon vs Adventurers.

[horseboy]

Okay,
Easy way. Flying ship. On each ship there's three "cannons" Each cannon holds a bound fire elemental on this plane for a set time. It flies over army 1 dropping the three elementals.

Heck, even just a scroll of summon creature 3ish and have it call up a whale. Drop said whale 100' up onto army 1. Army 1 is crushed under whale. Note this could even be done with a "simple" griffin or other flying mount.

Summoning: The easy solution.

[Capt'n Ironbrow]

In WFRP, magic and magic items are rare, you're unlikely to find them in the common shops and the specialists are really expensive (consider a mundane sword to be too expensive for a simple labourer). The county of Edo (one the PC-controlled armies in my group) has access to only half a dozen magical weapons, most of them found in earlier adventures and in posession of Count Boris Agramidt (dwarf templar PC), Sheriff Gerrar jean-pierre de La lune (NPC duellist), Captain Durin Ironbrow (PC-me) and Recon Sergeant Sven (NPC soldier).

I prefer magic to be rare and special and WFRP supports such preferences, though there are quite a lot of nasty creatures invulnerable to normal armaments... a great danger for all the faceless NPC privates and NCO's who'd only be helpless cannon fodder when Edo is faced by such creatures (major demons, ethereal undead etc.). Lack of magic items outside the PC-party is a good way to inspire heroics of the PC's, if neutral, lawfull or good aligned characters to safe all the poor basters who'd be obliterated by wraiths and demonic champions.
magically armed armies can be possible in the right circumstances, say, an old order of templars would have a great armoury of artefacts and magical/divine weapons to be distributed amongst the higher ranked templars for special missions or when the enemy is too powerfull to beat with natural steel, but the squires will just have to use natural steel, not considered to be ready for such great responsibilities that come with the posession of such items.

but any new order would have to build such an arsenal from scratch either requiring massive funds or a long campaign of multiple quests and incursions into forgotten territories

[Dervag]

Yeah, considering the fact that for the price of a 'measly' +1 sword, you could buy a house, outfitting an entire army might cost a bob or two...maybe if you had a Kobold mine or 5 working exclusively for the purpose of raising enough cash for it...

The problem is that for the cost of equipping an army with even low-power magical gear, you could probably equip two or three armies with non-magical gear and stomp all over the magical army by weight of numbers. One soldier with +1 armor and sword is no match for three soldiers with mundane armor and swords.

Magical military gear makes the most sense in one of two contexts.

In a feudal or pseudofeudal setting, the nobility will tend to have magical items. First of all, they can afford to commission such items and make up the cost by taxing their peasants. Second of all, there are probably some adventurers or successful military commanders in their family tree, and such people would have picked up lots of magic items that they could pass on to their heirs.

The other case is that a king may be able to outfit a 'special unit', say of regimental size, that makes much more extensive use of magical gear than the rest of the army. This unit gets called on for special tasks that would require way more normal soldiers to deal with (such as killing a rampaging giant).

Well. I've often wondered why nations keep these armies of level 1 grunts. They have to feed them.

Let's look at 2 armies.

Army Number 1

Spoiler

Show

This is your standard army of level 1 warriors.

Let's go with 50,000 men.
A silver piece per day is the standard salary. Food costs another 5 SP per day if you go by trail rations (a fair price and we will assume that delivery costs are included in the price).

Lets give everyone a short spear, padded armor, and a light wooden shield. That comes to 9 GP. Lets round it to 10 to cover miscellaneous things.

So to equip your army costs you 500,000 GP up front and another 30,000 GP per day in upkeep.

Let's assume that the minimum time the army is kept around is a month (30 days). That is 900,000 GP for upkeep.

So your army costs you a grand total of 1,400,000 GP to equip and field. And that is just with basic level 1 grunts and no special units at all.

Army Number 2

Spoiler

Show

Let's make a hundred man force this time. Upkeep comes to 60 GP per day. Or 1,800 GP for the month. Leaving 1,398,200 GP left to spend on equipment.

Or 14,000 GP per person.

Let's equip each with a CL 5 Wand of Fireball for 11,250 GP each. Leaving 2,750 GP left for each solider.

Equip them with a horse (450 GP each, including saddle, bridal, and food). Spend the rest of the money on guard dogs. Say 50 per person.

The second army would win every engagement. Horses allow them to run, the dogs act as a shield/melee force, and the wands of fireball need only kill 10 guys per charge (on average) to destroy the first army.

Except that a general would have to be totally idiotic to make an army of nothing but first level mooks with melee weapons. Even in the historical Middle Ages, with no fireballs, nobody did that; there were guys with bows and crossbows on both sides. The guys with bows and crossbows are a much greater threat to the fireball-slinging horsemen than a bunch of guys with swords are. Moreover, that army won't stay bunched up as a target for fireballs for long. They will either scatter and rout if their officers are incompetent (in which case you'll have to rally and rearm them anyway), or they will scatter and start sniping at your fireball-slinging horsemen.

A case as artificial as "50,000 first level mooks with the lousiest possible armor and melee weapon" versus "100 high level fireball-slinging horsemen" is going to look very clear-cut until you realize that it's such an artificial case. In a world where generals know that fireballs exist, they won't send large groups of low-level soldiers to march at the enemy in blocks any more than they do in the real world today. They will make sure they have a mix of ranged and melee weapons and enough higher-level officers and noncoms to deal with the fireball-slingers if necessary.

The most effective army is a dragon.

Ruler 1: I spend 2 million gp on large army.

Ruler 2: I spend 1 million gp to hire an adult dragon to completely waste your army.

Works on any lower examples. Make any reasonably large army of 'people', and I use my "I hire a dragon for half that amount" policy. :)

And I seriously doubt any evil dragon is going to turn down 1 million gp to torch some people and loot anything they find.

Also, this works for adventures. Adventurers can counter dragons, and dragons adventurers.

So, in conclusion, wars in D&D are some combination of Dragon vs Adventurers.

But if my army is a combined arms force in D&D terms, I will have counters for your dragon. If I'm spending so much money on an army, I'm going to spend some of it on counter-dragon weaponry. I will have mages on hand with spells that work well on dragons, such as Shivering Touch. I will have some high-level archers with arrows of dragon slaying on hand. I will have ways to fight a dragon, because I know dragons exist. I will not ignore the possibility that my army will be attacked by a dragon any more than a modern real-world commander would ignore the possibility that his army will be attacked by helicopter gunships.

[Dan_Hemmens]

The moral of this story is: D&D is designed to model fantasy *adventures*, not fantasy *worlds*.

[Funkyodor]

Go by percentages instead of numbers, tweak to customize.
50% of an army composed of lvl 1 soldiers
25% command structure
20% support structure (chow, medics, artillery)
5% special forces and exceptional elites (I.E. high lvl bodyguards and green beret types)

So in a 50,000 man army you might have
25,000 lvl 1 mooks armed with a variety of weapons.
12,500 higher lvl sqaud leaders through lieutenants and generals
10,000 cooks, clerics, teamsters, bards, cannoneers, etc...
2,500 mid to high level and high statted green beret types including mages, rangers, etc...

Good magic for army warfare that anyone can use to spread around.
Healing potion
Dust of Appearance
Dust of Disappearance
Potion of Heroism (who wants an army that routes)
Keohntoms (sp) Ointment
Pearls of Fireballs (anyone can use)
Bags of Holding (great for packing a wagon full of supplies for the army on the go)

[Armads]

I will have mages on hand with spells that work well on dragons, such as Shivering Touch.

That's not anti-dragon tactics, that's cheese.

However, in Army 1 vs Army 2, Army 1's going to win. All they need to do is arm each of themselves with slings, and use the very limits of their range increments to attack, pulling through by sheer nat 20s alone.

Heck, even just a scroll of summon creature 3ish and have it call up a whale. Drop said whale 100' up onto army 1. Army 1 is crushed under whale. Note this could even be done with a "simple" griffin or other flying mount.

You must summon them in an enviroment capable of supporting them, so no summoning a whale. And it cannot crush the whole of Army 1.

If you can get one good 15th level war chanter, the whole army becomes vastly more powerful. All the warriors will get virtual Shock Trooper, a BAB of +15, among other goodies.

[elliott20]

the one thing people have to remember about D&D magic is that it doesn't benefit from economies of scale. As such, mass production of magical items to outfit a mass army of level 1 mooks is just not cost effective. It's not like with modern day technology where a factory can quickly pump out 10,000 pistols to outfit their soldiers.

[Telonius]

Well. I've often wondered why nations keep these armies of level 1 grunts. They have to feed them.

Let's look at 2 armies.

Army Number 1

Spoiler

Show

This is your standard army of level 1 warriors.

Let's go with 50,000 men.
A silver piece per day is the standard salary. Food costs another 5 SP per day if you go by trail rations (a fair price and we will assume that delivery costs are included in the price).

Lets give everyone a short spear, padded armor, and a light wooden shield. That comes to 9 GP. Lets round it to 10 to cover miscellaneous things.

So to equip your army costs you 500,000 GP up front and another 30,000 GP per day in upkeep.

Let's assume that the minimum time the army is kept around is a month (30 days). That is 900,000 GP for upkeep.

So your army costs you a grand total of 1,400,000 GP to equip and field. And that is just with basic level 1 grunts and no special units at all.

Army Number 2

Spoiler

Show

Let's make a hundred man force this time. Upkeep comes to 60 GP per day. Or 1,800 GP for the month. Leaving 1,398,200 GP left to spend on equipment.

Or 14,000 GP per person.

Let's equip each with a CL 5 Wand of Fireball for 11,250 GP each. Leaving 2,750 GP left for each solider.

Equip them with a horse (450 GP each, including saddle, bridal, and food). Spend the rest of the money on guard dogs. Say 50 per person.

The second army would win every engagement. Horses allow them to run, the dogs act as a shield/melee force, and the wands of fireball need only kill 10 guys per charge (on average) to destroy the first army.

You're forgetting an important thing there - weapons manufacturers. If they ever saw Army #2 forming, they'd temporarily cut their prices in half to Army #1. If everybody sees that kind of army can rout the first type, all the armorers will be out of a job. So Army 1 beats Army 2, word gets out that magic isn't all that terrific, and they're free to raise their prices again.

[Emperor Tippy]

You're forgetting an important thing there - weapons manufacturers. If they ever saw Army #2 forming, they'd temporarily cut their prices in half to Army #1. If everybody sees that kind of army can rout the first type, all the armorers will be out of a job. So Army 1 beats Army 2, word gets out that magic isn't all that terrific, and they're free to raise their prices again.

If you want to really apply magic every solider on the field would be in masterwork full plate with masterwork weapons.

1 item of at will Wall of Iron and 1 item of at will Fabricate. Give them to a smith and you are turning out 1 suit of MW full plate per round, at no real cost.

[elliott20]

yeah, my understanding is that the most cost effective way to bring magic to an army is not actually to give every soldier artillery equipment, but to replace traditional functions and maintenaces through magic.

i.e. ET was talking about upkeep through food and what not. But then, if squads were to splurge for a wand of create food and water, that cost could be mitigated in the long term.

[Emperor Tippy]

Yeah. Although the wand, even in the long term, won't pay for its self.

At the minimum CL a wand of Create Food and Water costs 11,250 GP and feeds 5 people per charge. It has 50 charges.

Split the cost by 5 people and it comes to 2,250 GP. Now split that 50 ways for the cost per person per meal and it comes to 45 GP.

The cost to feed them rations is 5 SP per day. So the wand costs 22.5 times as much per meal.

EDIT: Magic items get cost effective for armies when they are unlimited use.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

If you want to really apply magic every solider on the field would be in masterwork full plate with masterwork weapons.

1 item of at will Wall of Iron and 1 item of at will Fabricate. Give them to a smith and you are turning out 1 suit of MW full plate per round, at no real cost.

Neither of which exist, and are rather like one use True Strike items in that they completely break the 'custom magic item' rules.

I'll take on your army of 100 guys with fireball wands with my horde of 50,000 mooks... only instead of swords, I'll equip them with Repeating Crossbows. One volley and your army is toast. With that many bolts firing, there's no frellin' way any of your guys are going to survive, there's be more of the 1-in-20 auto-hits and 1-in-400 auto-crits alone to ensure your destruction. I loose 100 * 4 (number of squares a fireball takes up) = 400 troops. Congratulations. You made me may out a 4:1 ratio. Considering I had a 500:1 numerical advantage, you still loose.

[elliott20]

yeah, that's what I meant. When you have a wand with unlimited usage, you can replace certain functions such as rations quite easily. Now granted, you'll need more than just one wand if you're army gets to large enough size. but if you're talking about maintaining a long standing army, between a number of create food and water rods, a number fabricate rods, and wall of iron rods, you can pretty much eliminate all normal maintenance costs for the army itself.

[Narmoth]

I think all drow in an drow army has magic equipment and at least a +1 sword
I'm running a now high level campagin where a temple in the main city has an elite guard force of level 1-10 paladins (with magic and unlimited healing potions). So there's nothing realy keeping you from this. Just think of how such an army would change your gaming world.
The paladin army never leaves the city (which is under attack by drow from the underdark) and will never go below level 1 in the dungeon that leads to the underdark. Consequently, they will not take the place in the spotlight away from the group. An army that will win a war in stead of the chatacters on the other hand...

Well, I think it's the main reason for not letting armies be of high level and have much magical items.

[Emperor Tippy]

Neither of which exist, and are rather like one use True Strike items in that they completely break the 'custom magic item' rules.

Yeah, and the rules don't work with armies and magic mixing at all.

I'll take on your army of 100 guys with fireball wands with my horde of 50,000 mooks... only instead of swords, I'll equip them with Repeating Crossbows. One volley and your army is toast. With that many bolts firing, there's no frellin' way any of your guys are going to survive, there's be more of the 1-in-20 auto-hits and 1-in-400 auto-crits alone to ensure your destruction. I loose 100 * 4 (number of squares a fireball takes up) = 400 troops. Congratulations. You made me may out a 4:1 ratio. Considering I had a 500:1 numerical advantage, you still loose.

Feel free to arm them with repeating crossbows. Let's assume Light repeating Crossbows because they are cheaper. And 2 things of ammo each. So those bows cost you 252 GP per solider. We will assume that the arrows cancel out with the swords and shields.

So 250 GP per solider.

That adds 12,500,000 GP to the cost to create your army.

I can drastically improve my army with that kind of money. It's an extra 125,000 GP per solider.

[Arakune]

in some settings the XP can be traded to gold or raw special intens (such as dragons teeth, unicorn horn, demon horn, etc). SO instead for him to need XP in form of experience, he can only need XP in form of raw materials to make his weapons. It's a much more easy way to make that magical military.
Also, there are too much people in the army for an pseudomedieval campaign. Only large scale empires could hire that much people, and I don't think there more than 2~3 countrys with that much money to spare.