Yes The Background
In my 1e campaign the Orcish City-States of the West spend a lot of time fighting each other, more than they do fighting Men or Dwarves. But every few generations the shamans prophecy that the time for an Overking has come and orc begin questing in the Stone Hills for the Regalia of the Orcish Overking. Any one item is said to be enough to make an orc the unrivaled leader of a city-state. All items? Every orc in the region will obey you. This has occurred 5 times in the past, and each time the lands of Men and their allies have trembled on the verge of destruction.
A little of Orc society in Seaward
The Orcs are in 5 great tribes, the Dripping Blade (with the devil-lord Ilneval as their 'patron'), the Broken Bone (under Baghtru), the Blood Moon (under Shargaas), the Pale Hand (under Yurtrus), and the Black Cave (under Luthic). The sixth 'tribe' is the Vile Rune, the shamans and witch-doctors, whose ultimate allegiance is to Gruumsh. The bearers of the vile rune travel freely among the Orcs.
Orcs brook no hereditary nepotism; the sons of a chief are just orcs. All are born level at the foot of Gruumsh's hellish throne and all positions must be won via effort. When an Overking dies his body is taken by shamans to the long-hidden temple of Gruumsh hidden deep in the Stone Hills and buried, his regalia scattered and hidden. Then those shamans are murdered to hide the locations.
But after the Fifth Overking the prophecy changed; all of the regalia was kept in Gruumsh's temple and the next Overking could find them at once.
Recently
The Baron of Wyvern Keep warned that orcs were crawling the Stone Hills during the Winter 7 years gone. Patrols and adventurers soon found that the vile tune had announced it was time for a new Overking. The players confirmed this...
...and promptly spent years assaulting Skull Mountain, dealing with the bandits of the borderlands, venturing to Banath, and wiping out foul demon cults!
But finally things were getting very bad, with organized orcish warbands cooperating between tribes to drive back patrols! The call went out the the Company of the Dark Moon sent a team.
Players and Characters
Nick played Owen (5th level magic-user human)
Sam played Konrad (4/5 fighter/cleric dwarf)
Jen played Ingrid (6th level fighter human)
Jack played Seamus (5th level druid human)
Alex played Starfalcon (6th level ranger half-elf)
Henchmen - ten total, including Octavius, the 5th level half-ogre fighter
Adventure Overview
With divination, help from a genie (long story), sage research, notes from a book found in Skull Mountain, ranger work, and some luck the party was able to get a rough location of the entrance to the temple complex. Getting there involved fighting two orcish warbands, one with a leveled half-orc commander, the other with a brace of tough ogres. A third warband, much larger than the first two, began pursuing them but they were able to find the illusion-cloaked entrance.
They were attacked by a grizzly bear (an enchanted bearskin akin to a Figurine of Wondrous Power they left behind because of its bulk). In the maze-like upper levels they found many zombies and skeletons. As they went deeper into the complex they fought a number of dretches and strange devil-dogs (based on wild hunt hounds from the old Deities and Demigods) in a series of skirmishes. At a great stair they had to answer the questions of a spectator. Realizing that they had to think like an orc, they passed the test.
Deeper still they fought two massive algoids and a ju-ju zombie who was obviously formerly a Broken Bone chief (the fate of those who fail to become Overking!) and finally were attacked by an invisible stalker guarding a door.
Exhausted, they rested and recovered spells.
The pause was also to prepare for the next cavern, a massive space larger than the Cavern of Herds - a cyst within the earth a mile across and half a mile high filled with a fungus forest. They descended a 1/4 mile ladder after learning the mobats were only interested in flying creatures. While odd tracks were visible in the fungus forest, the trail was clear. After a half-mile they came to a chasm; at the base was a roaring river riddled with obsidian rocks a quarter of a mile below. The 50 yard long rope bridges (with no guide ropes!) stretched from the edge to 2 rock spires and finally to the massive orcish temple on another rock spire. The rope bridges were such that only one person could safely dross at a time and a slow walk - otherwise the oscillations would pitch people into the river.
The Temple
Within the gigantic temple the party was immediately attacked by 5 ju-ju zombies. Moments later the former Overkings shambled from their tombs to stop the invaders - each as a mummy! Since the last rope bridge was now only mist the party went all-out, releasing Golden Lions, a Quartz Warhorse, and using spells and items with abandon. The weaker henchmen without magic weapons all lit torches and prepared oil flasks for a last stand.
The ju-ju zombies bought enough time for the mummies to close and the fighting was fierce, lasting a total of 10 rounds. With careful battlefield maneuvering, the use of oil on closing mummies, and some hard fighting the party prevailed with no deaths (although mummy rot was had by quite a few!).
The Aftermath
The statues of the various orcish devil patrons all collapsed because non-orcs had desecrated it. The party found the five tombs of the Overkings with their symbolic burial goods (4,000 electrum pieces and 5 amethysts each), and teh regalia of the Overking, which they took with them.
The orcish warband that had been following them was within the fungus cavern, but they had found a passage to an iron boat on the rver. They cut free the last bridge and left, eventually reaching a landing (the enchanted boat returned to the temple after they left it).
The trip back to Wyvern Keep was easier than anticipated - all shamans and witch-doctors had lost their spells and the inter-tribal truce was off. The party force-marched to Wyvern Keep and met with Bishop Alturin (visiting from the Four Counties) and the Royal Magister (dispatched from the capitol) and with their aid destroyed the regalia! The kept their loot and received rewards from the king.
Thus ended a 7 year adventure arc.
The Regalia
These items are meant for orcs; if used by anyone else they slowly warp that person's will until they seek out an orc shaman and volunteer to be a slave to the orcs.
The Ring of Yurtrus- Grants Leadership.
Bands of Baghtru- Grants strength and endurance.
Shargaas' Amulet- Grants great resistance to poison and disease.
Luthic's Armor- Grants incredible protection from physical harm.
The Dripping Blade- This scimitar rivals the greatest elven and dwarven weapons of power.
The Eyepatch of the Chosen of Gruumsh- Grants resistance to magic and light.
Showing posts with label orcs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label orcs. Show all posts
Sunday, March 25, 2018
Thursday, January 25, 2018
Tuesday, August 18, 2015
Law, Chaos, the UK, America, Teutonic Knights, Orcs, and Just What the Heck is Going On With 9th Level Fighters?!
This one is going to be weird, folks, so strap in.
The sons and I were talking about gaming (like we do every day) and about some of our other shared passions; history, the Church, and books. We were also talking about my main campaign and how I was always surprised that the handful of guys that made it to 9th level did not get 'all fortressy' but rather angled to take over existing positions within the game
And why, oh why, would people flock to follow you if, and only if, you did that hugely risky thing?! And not just guys with levels! 0-level men, their wives, their kids! Pilgrims might come and just - settle. I mean, what is going on?
For a while we speculated that the default D&D world is a lot like the America of the past - vast, largely unexplored, and daring people struck out to make their way.
[We had the discussion Sunday, I started writing this Monday, and I saw this in my google+ feed Tuesday. Small world!]
That might be part of it, sure, especially how followers appear and why random encounters sometimes stick around. But does the 'untouched wilderness' really apply to something so Dying Earth as D&D? As the great blog The Hill Cantons points out, based on the wilderness encounter charts the typical AD&D world is littered with ruins of past fortresses, cities, etc. all thrown down to ruin by war or time. And in a manner very similar to North America, D&D wilderness isn't 'untouched', it is full of intelligent being. Berzerkers, cavemen, orcs, hobgoblins, nomads, goblins, kobolds, etc., etc., etc. Heck, you leave patrolled demi-human areas and the 'wilds' are crawling with intelligent creatures. Sure, they're malevolent, but still!
Plus the AD&D world isn't modeled after 2015 North America or even 1975 Europe, is it? No, the 'place in time' of the real world that seems closest to the default assumptions of AD&D is somewhere between 770 AD and 820 AD; yes, yes, this is speculation, but I can talk about that in another post. Sure, there are anachronisms for that but that is my guess.
Now, modern Europe looks like this;
In 800 Europe looked like this;
Look at the differences! As I point out in my second most popular post ever, in the year 1000 AD the place that is now the Berlin Metropolitan Area, the 6th largest city in Europe, was uninhabited, howling wilderness. 780 AD is 400 years before the first Germans settled on the banks of the Spree!
In other words, at the time that seems most like AD&D's assumed setting in history Europe was cheek-by-jowl with howling wilderness and hostile forces.
This means that in the context of the setting and place well behind the curtain of AD&D (Charlemagne's Europe as described in the Matter of France) Europe looked a lot more like 1870's America than most people realize (Although Andy Bartlett did explicitly mention this in the article I linked above). In both places the average person who wanted a better life and who had the courage and resources (or just a lot of courage!) could, and did, set out into the wilderness and start a new life, Heck, that's where little towns like Leipzig and Berlin came from!
There is also the very mildly controversial topic of the Northern Crusades. In a very high level gloss not meant to dive into the complex, nuanced issues associated with the Northern Crusades, but only to illustrate how it relates to the point at hand over a century of mutual conflict between pagan peoples in North/Northeastern Europe with the Catholic nations to their West and Orthodox nations of their East, where peaceful missionary and diplomatic activity failed, led to a call for a Crusade and a subdual of the pagans by force in the belief that decisive victory would cause the interminable wars to end.
What followed was some pretty serious and organized expansion and battles from the West. Part of this was having some of the toughest fighters from the West build fortresses in the pagan areas, establish domains, and maintain the peace.
Sound familiar?
Heck, sometimes when there were no opportunities to set up in established areas tough, popular leaders would travel even beyond the pagan lands, set of a stronghold, 'subdue the wilderness', and attract people who wanted a better life who could count on the protection of this leader from bandits, etc.
That had better sound familiar!
So there is, interesting enough, at least one historical period where something vaguely like Name-level characters starting the 'domain game' did occur, which is pretty cool.
But I think there is a bit more meta going on, here. In Three Hearts and Three Lions (as well as other books, like Operation Chaos) the author speaks of Law and Chaos as being opposed to each other in a sort of ongoing struggle. But this concept of Anderson's (that seems to have also influenced Dickson in The Dragon and the George) is a lot more complex and nuanced than the shallow, never actually quantified, Law vs. Chaos of Moorcock. Anderson's Law and Chaos (as well as Dickson's Chance and History) are very much about Virtue/Civilization/Good (Law/History) against Amorality/Wilderness/Evil (Chaos/Chance).
This was explicitly stated in Three Hearts and Three Lions;
This sort of 'axis' is pretty clear in OD&D where you are Lawful (good) or Chaotic (bad) and it was very much a fantastical experience of fey vs. man.
But it is more complex and such in AD&D with both the Law/Chaos and Good/Evil axis and the Neutral section. But the core concept remains valid: when a party goes into the (wild, uncivilized) dungeon and destroys monsters the PCs are championing civilization against it's opposite, wildness; when a Lord goes into the wilderness, builds a stronghold, attracts followers, etc. he is championing civilization versus wildness, just on a different level.
And no, I am avoiding the term 'barbarism' for a reason; woad-painted warriors, nomadic tribesman, etc., can be forces for Law or Chaos, it depends upon if they build or destroy, if they are trustworthy or capricious as a people.
In my post on how I handle religion in my campaign I mention that the big divide between demi-humans and humanoids is if they are (in general) within the Church or outside of it. But the difference is also 'do those races build civilizations or destroy them?'. Sure, hobgoblins, orcs, etc. are organized, they have skills, etc. But they are wreckers, not creators. In my world they have no cities, they live in what they capture from demi-humans and humans; they have no trade, only plunder; they have slaves who often are worked to death; they have at best war chants but no music, enough writing to issue orders but no literature; etc. Where they go they push back civilization, scrubbing away cities and towns, fences and fields, and leaving behind only brambles, thickets, end desolate ruins.
So a fighter, wizard, or cleric going into the wilds, building a strong place, attracting followers, and all the rest is, in a very real way, pushing back darkness, ignorance, savagery, and evil. Where there were brambles and thickets he puts fields and orchards; where there was a bare hill he puts a cozy home; where there was darkness there are the lights of a village; where there was isolation and fear he puts friendship and hope.
No wonder those who want a better life follow.
So why do 9th level fighters spend all that money and take all that risk? Because they are fighting evil an a new, more important, way.
The sons and I were talking about gaming (like we do every day) and about some of our other shared passions; history, the Church, and books. We were also talking about my main campaign and how I was always surprised that the handful of guys that made it to 9th level did not get 'all fortressy' but rather angled to take over existing positions within the game
What I mean is the few characters to hit name level who could then establish a demense all finagled with NPC rulers to take over existing fiefdoms rather than build from scratch.Which is, naturally, fine. My oldest speculated that he, himself, might never build beyond the border because there were so many interesting places on the map already; Dwarf Hill, Wyvern Keep, Skull Mountain, the Vanishing Manor, the Tower of the Air, etc. But then we began speculating;
Why is the assumption that everyone from warriors to priests to mages will strike out into deep wilderness and hack out a corner for themselves?I mean, think about it; that is a tremendous amount of expense and risk. Why not do what people in my campaign did and just - get a promotion and retire rather than contend with plague, famine, and orc hordes?
And why, oh why, would people flock to follow you if, and only if, you did that hugely risky thing?! And not just guys with levels! 0-level men, their wives, their kids! Pilgrims might come and just - settle. I mean, what is going on?
For a while we speculated that the default D&D world is a lot like the America of the past - vast, largely unexplored, and daring people struck out to make their way.
[We had the discussion Sunday, I started writing this Monday, and I saw this in my google+ feed Tuesday. Small world!]
That might be part of it, sure, especially how followers appear and why random encounters sometimes stick around. But does the 'untouched wilderness' really apply to something so Dying Earth as D&D? As the great blog The Hill Cantons points out, based on the wilderness encounter charts the typical AD&D world is littered with ruins of past fortresses, cities, etc. all thrown down to ruin by war or time. And in a manner very similar to North America, D&D wilderness isn't 'untouched', it is full of intelligent being. Berzerkers, cavemen, orcs, hobgoblins, nomads, goblins, kobolds, etc., etc., etc. Heck, you leave patrolled demi-human areas and the 'wilds' are crawling with intelligent creatures. Sure, they're malevolent, but still!
Plus the AD&D world isn't modeled after 2015 North America or even 1975 Europe, is it? No, the 'place in time' of the real world that seems closest to the default assumptions of AD&D is somewhere between 770 AD and 820 AD; yes, yes, this is speculation, but I can talk about that in another post. Sure, there are anachronisms for that but that is my guess.
Now, modern Europe looks like this;
In 800 Europe looked like this;
Look at the differences! As I point out in my second most popular post ever, in the year 1000 AD the place that is now the Berlin Metropolitan Area, the 6th largest city in Europe, was uninhabited, howling wilderness. 780 AD is 400 years before the first Germans settled on the banks of the Spree!
In other words, at the time that seems most like AD&D's assumed setting in history Europe was cheek-by-jowl with howling wilderness and hostile forces.
This means that in the context of the setting and place well behind the curtain of AD&D (Charlemagne's Europe as described in the Matter of France) Europe looked a lot more like 1870's America than most people realize (Although Andy Bartlett did explicitly mention this in the article I linked above). In both places the average person who wanted a better life and who had the courage and resources (or just a lot of courage!) could, and did, set out into the wilderness and start a new life, Heck, that's where little towns like Leipzig and Berlin came from!
There is also the very mildly controversial topic of the Northern Crusades. In a very high level gloss not meant to dive into the complex, nuanced issues associated with the Northern Crusades, but only to illustrate how it relates to the point at hand over a century of mutual conflict between pagan peoples in North/Northeastern Europe with the Catholic nations to their West and Orthodox nations of their East, where peaceful missionary and diplomatic activity failed, led to a call for a Crusade and a subdual of the pagans by force in the belief that decisive victory would cause the interminable wars to end.
What followed was some pretty serious and organized expansion and battles from the West. Part of this was having some of the toughest fighters from the West build fortresses in the pagan areas, establish domains, and maintain the peace.
Sound familiar?
Heck, sometimes when there were no opportunities to set up in established areas tough, popular leaders would travel even beyond the pagan lands, set of a stronghold, 'subdue the wilderness', and attract people who wanted a better life who could count on the protection of this leader from bandits, etc.
That had better sound familiar!
So there is, interesting enough, at least one historical period where something vaguely like Name-level characters starting the 'domain game' did occur, which is pretty cool.
But I think there is a bit more meta going on, here. In Three Hearts and Three Lions (as well as other books, like Operation Chaos) the author speaks of Law and Chaos as being opposed to each other in a sort of ongoing struggle. But this concept of Anderson's (that seems to have also influenced Dickson in The Dragon and the George) is a lot more complex and nuanced than the shallow, never actually quantified, Law vs. Chaos of Moorcock. Anderson's Law and Chaos (as well as Dickson's Chance and History) are very much about Virtue/Civilization/Good (Law/History) against Amorality/Wilderness/Evil (Chaos/Chance).
This was explicitly stated in Three Hearts and Three Lions;
"Holger got the idea that a perpetual struggle went on between primeval forces of Law and Chaos. No, not forces exactly. Modes of existence? A terrestrial reflection of the spiritual conflict between heaven and hell? In any case, humans were the chief agents on earth of Law, though most of them were so only unconsciously and some, witches and warlocks and evildoers, had sold out to Chaos."It is also essentially stated that the Church is Law while Chaos is a tool of the Devil. The faerie and their uncaring capriciousness? Chaos, because they could not be trusted.
Despite the desire of contemporary people to think of the faerie/sidhe as fun-loving hippies in folklore they're are much, much more like the Weeping Angels - inhuman, utterly other creatures that if you were lucky will only cast you decades through time away from all you know and love.
This sort of 'axis' is pretty clear in OD&D where you are Lawful (good) or Chaotic (bad) and it was very much a fantastical experience of fey vs. man.
But it is more complex and such in AD&D with both the Law/Chaos and Good/Evil axis and the Neutral section. But the core concept remains valid: when a party goes into the (wild, uncivilized) dungeon and destroys monsters the PCs are championing civilization against it's opposite, wildness; when a Lord goes into the wilderness, builds a stronghold, attracts followers, etc. he is championing civilization versus wildness, just on a different level.
And no, I am avoiding the term 'barbarism' for a reason; woad-painted warriors, nomadic tribesman, etc., can be forces for Law or Chaos, it depends upon if they build or destroy, if they are trustworthy or capricious as a people.
In my post on how I handle religion in my campaign I mention that the big divide between demi-humans and humanoids is if they are (in general) within the Church or outside of it. But the difference is also 'do those races build civilizations or destroy them?'. Sure, hobgoblins, orcs, etc. are organized, they have skills, etc. But they are wreckers, not creators. In my world they have no cities, they live in what they capture from demi-humans and humans; they have no trade, only plunder; they have slaves who often are worked to death; they have at best war chants but no music, enough writing to issue orders but no literature; etc. Where they go they push back civilization, scrubbing away cities and towns, fences and fields, and leaving behind only brambles, thickets, end desolate ruins.
So a fighter, wizard, or cleric going into the wilds, building a strong place, attracting followers, and all the rest is, in a very real way, pushing back darkness, ignorance, savagery, and evil. Where there were brambles and thickets he puts fields and orchards; where there was a bare hill he puts a cozy home; where there was darkness there are the lights of a village; where there was isolation and fear he puts friendship and hope.
No wonder those who want a better life follow.
So why do 9th level fighters spend all that money and take all that risk? Because they are fighting evil an a new, more important, way.
Thursday, October 23, 2014
A Hot Meal and a Cup of Tea
When I DM and when I play I am often surprised by the simple little things: player treat horses like bicycles; they never ask about the weather, and they treat fire as nothing but a light source.
I already talked about the weather a bit and I plan to write about horses, so let's talk about fire.
We'll start by talking about encumbrance.
No matter where you fall on the matter of encumbrance (and I am a hard-ass stickler that will slow you down, give you penalties, and expects you to track every 1/10th of a pound) on a long journey it will be very hard to bring enough food and essentially impossible to bring enough water since the minimum a person needs is 10 lbs of water a day. So we must assume that adventurers are getting water from somewhere (streams, springs, and wells above ground. And you have water sources in your dungeons, right?) and that these sources aren't always (maybe never) pure water.
Have I mentioned my disease and parasite rules?
In Real Life over 3 million people die each year from water-borne diseases. Even crystal-clear water from an alpine creek can cause lethal diarrhea. Now, there are a few ways of avoiding this ranging from adding 1 part red wine to 3 parts water (which does an amazing job purifying drinking water, thus why the ancients did it) to drinking only beer to Purify Food and Drink to being a paladin.
But one of the most direct and best is - boiling the water, which also kills parasites.
There are other impacts, too. A series of studies in America and the UK show that office workers are more mentally alert and observant if they have a hot beverage (tea or coffee) in the morning. World military forces have been aware of the positive impacts on morale of plentiful hot beverages, as well, and I have very rarely seen a canteen, chow hall, etc. that didn't have hot tea or coffee available 24 hours a day.
Another thing to think about is, well, the temperature. In the modern world where we go from heated home to heated car to heated office it is easy to forget that it gets cold. Imagine being dressed in chain mail on horseback in a biting wind and cold drizzle for 8 hours on a late Autumn day. Or sleeping in the open on the ground in early Spring. The Wilderness Survival Guide had some great ideas about dealing with cold weather (or hot weather, for that matter) but I often just do something simple - at a certain point travelling in the cold without adequate shelter and heat is force marching. Eventually just being out in the elements is force marching, too, even if you aren't moving.
Dungeons are pretty chilly, I suspect. Remember, it tends to be cool underground and is often damp. According to my friends who are into caving and online caving guides one of the biggest dangers of caving, if not the biggest, is hypothermia. I assume that this is probably a problem in any deep underground place, even a worked dungeon. So PCs are going to need to warm up and/or dry off routinely.
Last is food. I have certainly lost track of the parties that blithely announce that they will supplement their rations by 'hunting along the way' when in the wilderness. If they are very far from civilization they will also state they are having a 'cold camp' without a fire. I then ask them how they are preparing the food they hunted....
I did mention my disease and parasite rules, right?
Rick's disease and parasite rules are included in his supplement Far Realms, available in print and as a PDF. Far Realms also includes new hirelings, such as the healer, new PC classes, like the barbarian, and more than 30 pages of new spells. Suitable for any old-school campaign, please consider buying Far Realms today!
Anyway, while cooking your food does greatly reduce your chances of dying horribly from disease or parasite hot meals are important to alertness and morale, too. British and American forces in combat reveal that eliminating a hot breakfast has twice the negative impact on soldier morale than doubling the amount of time they are in active combat zones. That's right, soldiers are twice as upset over no bacon and toast than they are about getting shot at more often! Just giving soldiers the ability to heat field rations has a notable positive effect on morale and performance.
So all this long rambling is to support my actual point.
Characters in fantasy RPGs should worry about being able to start and maintain a fire.
So why aren't coal and charcoal seen more often on equipment lists and in character inventories?
Yes, I am starting another 'stop thinking like a modern person and think like a medieval person' rant, why do you ask?
People have been making charcoal for thousands of years, so far back we aren't sure when it started. But since charcoal is critical to metalwork, I have always assumed it is readily available in virtually any fantasy campaign.
Now, actual charcoal looks very little like those briquettes for your grill. Lump charcoal looks like what it is - chunks of charred wood. from finger to fist size. Lump charcoal can range from low quality stuff that has a strong smell and a fair amount of smoke when it burns to expensive types that have virtually no odor and very little smoke when burning.
In any case, lighting charcoal is relatively simple - flint & steel with a good tinderbox should do it as log as the charcoal is dry. Lump charcoal gets to temperature quickly and burns hotter than briquettes and the more expensive types leave less ash behind. A handful of lump charcoal will burn long enough to bring a gallon of water to a boil and maintain a boil for a full minute; a double handful is enough for 2 gallons and a meal for four-5 people.
Coal can be more expensive or hard to find than charcoal and its quality varies from lignite to anthracite. Bituminous, which is the type usually used by smiths, is fairly easy to light (easier than charcoal), doesn't burn as hot as charcoal, and makes more smoke and ash than good charcoal. But it will light and burn when wet (although it smokes more) and the same volume of coal burns longer than charcoal. Anthracite burns with much less smoke and ash than bituminous and burns a long time but can be difficult to light. A lrge lump of bituminous coal can boil 2 gallons of water and a double handful can boil 4 plus cook a meal for 4-5 people.
I should also mention peat - a sort of 'pre-coal' from bogs and mires, when properly dried peat can burn for a long time and produce a nice amount of heat. It has a distinctive smell and a fair amount of smoke, though.
In each of these cases, charcoal, coal, and even peat, you get more heat for the same space/weight than wood. Also, since most wood needs to cure and dry for a while to make a good fire (and it might be wet, besides) these are great ideas outdoors as well as underground.
Field cooking equipment is very old. Romans had all sorts of things to make army cooking in the field better and by Medieval times field cooking gear was fairly well developed with small portable iron fireboxes (about the size of a helmet), fire stands, griddles, field cauldrons (again, about like a helmet), and such. Wooden and earthenware mugs we also pretty common back then.
The small iron fireboxes typically had a lid and such so that the airflow (and thus temperature) of the fire could be controlled. This lets them double as a heater for tents and small areas and for a small amount of fuel to last a long time. In my opinion, each party should have at least one iron fire box, a field cauldron, a small griddle, a fire stand, and some charcoal or coal.
Which brings us to another point; air. No matter how little smoke is made, fires consume oxygen. Even in AD&D you should make sure there is enough fresh air to safely make a fire.
No, this post is not a description of camping gear and a safety statement.
Well, not just those things, at least.
I concern myself with these details for a number of reasons.
First, I want verisimilitude in my campaign - I track water usage, encumbrance, weather, etc. because it makes the world I built more internally consistent, which makes the rest of my job easier.
Second, in my experience it allows the players a better chance to immerse themselves into their characters and the world and gives many opportunities for roleplaying - little bits like who is good at building a fire and who can't cook are fun and add a ton of depth, all on the cheap.
Third, it is another way to weigh down characters while vacuuming money out of their belt pouches.
Fourth, it has implications that can be plot hooks.
For example, where does the coal come from? In Real Life the easily accessible coal was gathered very early. Are there coal mines? Where? You need coal and charcoal to make things like, oh, iron, so - do the dwarves mine it/make it? If they don't they have to get it from somewhere!
Charcoal can have a huge impact on a region. Interesting fact - no forest in Finland is more than 300 years old. Why?
They cut down all the trees for charcoal over the course of about 250 years!
Mainly to get wood tar, but it was the charcoal process and it really, really changed Finland for a century+. In my Seaward campaign colliers slip into the forests between civilized lands and the orcish city-states to make charcoal to sell. Very, very risky, but very profitable. The gnomes of Gladdenstone make a lot of money mining anthracite and selling it to the dwarves. The barbarians of Eiru have to collect peat from the edges of the haunted Moorlands to heat their homes in the harsh winters of their island nation.
So think about it. Maybe have a henchman demand more pay or have a hireling quit suddenly because there is never a pot of tea at dawn, or have the party suffer a -1 to hit from fatigue after 3 days of near-hypothermia in a dungeon's depths. Gnomes increasing prices for coal might push the dwarves to the brink of war and orcish raids in Autumn could lead to suffering as the poor run out of charcoal to heat their homes in deep Winter.
Or just imagine going 3 days with no tea, coffee, or hot food yourself and build an adventure from that. Mine would have lots of murder and naps.
We'll start by talking about encumbrance.
No matter where you fall on the matter of encumbrance (and I am a hard-ass stickler that will slow you down, give you penalties, and expects you to track every 1/10th of a pound) on a long journey it will be very hard to bring enough food and essentially impossible to bring enough water since the minimum a person needs is 10 lbs of water a day. So we must assume that adventurers are getting water from somewhere (streams, springs, and wells above ground. And you have water sources in your dungeons, right?) and that these sources aren't always (maybe never) pure water.
Have I mentioned my disease and parasite rules?
In Real Life over 3 million people die each year from water-borne diseases. Even crystal-clear water from an alpine creek can cause lethal diarrhea. Now, there are a few ways of avoiding this ranging from adding 1 part red wine to 3 parts water (which does an amazing job purifying drinking water, thus why the ancients did it) to drinking only beer to Purify Food and Drink to being a paladin.
But one of the most direct and best is - boiling the water, which also kills parasites.
There are other impacts, too. A series of studies in America and the UK show that office workers are more mentally alert and observant if they have a hot beverage (tea or coffee) in the morning. World military forces have been aware of the positive impacts on morale of plentiful hot beverages, as well, and I have very rarely seen a canteen, chow hall, etc. that didn't have hot tea or coffee available 24 hours a day.
Another thing to think about is, well, the temperature. In the modern world where we go from heated home to heated car to heated office it is easy to forget that it gets cold. Imagine being dressed in chain mail on horseback in a biting wind and cold drizzle for 8 hours on a late Autumn day. Or sleeping in the open on the ground in early Spring. The Wilderness Survival Guide had some great ideas about dealing with cold weather (or hot weather, for that matter) but I often just do something simple - at a certain point travelling in the cold without adequate shelter and heat is force marching. Eventually just being out in the elements is force marching, too, even if you aren't moving.
Dungeons are pretty chilly, I suspect. Remember, it tends to be cool underground and is often damp. According to my friends who are into caving and online caving guides one of the biggest dangers of caving, if not the biggest, is hypothermia. I assume that this is probably a problem in any deep underground place, even a worked dungeon. So PCs are going to need to warm up and/or dry off routinely.
Last is food. I have certainly lost track of the parties that blithely announce that they will supplement their rations by 'hunting along the way' when in the wilderness. If they are very far from civilization they will also state they are having a 'cold camp' without a fire. I then ask them how they are preparing the food they hunted....
I did mention my disease and parasite rules, right?
Rick's disease and parasite rules are included in his supplement Far Realms, available in print and as a PDF. Far Realms also includes new hirelings, such as the healer, new PC classes, like the barbarian, and more than 30 pages of new spells. Suitable for any old-school campaign, please consider buying Far Realms today!
Anyway, while cooking your food does greatly reduce your chances of dying horribly from disease or parasite hot meals are important to alertness and morale, too. British and American forces in combat reveal that eliminating a hot breakfast has twice the negative impact on soldier morale than doubling the amount of time they are in active combat zones. That's right, soldiers are twice as upset over no bacon and toast than they are about getting shot at more often! Just giving soldiers the ability to heat field rations has a notable positive effect on morale and performance.
So all this long rambling is to support my actual point.
Characters in fantasy RPGs should worry about being able to start and maintain a fire.
So why aren't coal and charcoal seen more often on equipment lists and in character inventories?
Yes, I am starting another 'stop thinking like a modern person and think like a medieval person' rant, why do you ask?
People have been making charcoal for thousands of years, so far back we aren't sure when it started. But since charcoal is critical to metalwork, I have always assumed it is readily available in virtually any fantasy campaign.
Now, actual charcoal looks very little like those briquettes for your grill. Lump charcoal looks like what it is - chunks of charred wood. from finger to fist size. Lump charcoal can range from low quality stuff that has a strong smell and a fair amount of smoke when it burns to expensive types that have virtually no odor and very little smoke when burning.
In any case, lighting charcoal is relatively simple - flint & steel with a good tinderbox should do it as log as the charcoal is dry. Lump charcoal gets to temperature quickly and burns hotter than briquettes and the more expensive types leave less ash behind. A handful of lump charcoal will burn long enough to bring a gallon of water to a boil and maintain a boil for a full minute; a double handful is enough for 2 gallons and a meal for four-5 people.
Coal can be more expensive or hard to find than charcoal and its quality varies from lignite to anthracite. Bituminous, which is the type usually used by smiths, is fairly easy to light (easier than charcoal), doesn't burn as hot as charcoal, and makes more smoke and ash than good charcoal. But it will light and burn when wet (although it smokes more) and the same volume of coal burns longer than charcoal. Anthracite burns with much less smoke and ash than bituminous and burns a long time but can be difficult to light. A lrge lump of bituminous coal can boil 2 gallons of water and a double handful can boil 4 plus cook a meal for 4-5 people.
I should also mention peat - a sort of 'pre-coal' from bogs and mires, when properly dried peat can burn for a long time and produce a nice amount of heat. It has a distinctive smell and a fair amount of smoke, though.
In each of these cases, charcoal, coal, and even peat, you get more heat for the same space/weight than wood. Also, since most wood needs to cure and dry for a while to make a good fire (and it might be wet, besides) these are great ideas outdoors as well as underground.
Field cooking equipment is very old. Romans had all sorts of things to make army cooking in the field better and by Medieval times field cooking gear was fairly well developed with small portable iron fireboxes (about the size of a helmet), fire stands, griddles, field cauldrons (again, about like a helmet), and such. Wooden and earthenware mugs we also pretty common back then.
The small iron fireboxes typically had a lid and such so that the airflow (and thus temperature) of the fire could be controlled. This lets them double as a heater for tents and small areas and for a small amount of fuel to last a long time. In my opinion, each party should have at least one iron fire box, a field cauldron, a small griddle, a fire stand, and some charcoal or coal.
Which brings us to another point; air. No matter how little smoke is made, fires consume oxygen. Even in AD&D you should make sure there is enough fresh air to safely make a fire.
No, this post is not a description of camping gear and a safety statement.
Well, not just those things, at least.
I concern myself with these details for a number of reasons.
First, I want verisimilitude in my campaign - I track water usage, encumbrance, weather, etc. because it makes the world I built more internally consistent, which makes the rest of my job easier.
Second, in my experience it allows the players a better chance to immerse themselves into their characters and the world and gives many opportunities for roleplaying - little bits like who is good at building a fire and who can't cook are fun and add a ton of depth, all on the cheap.
Third, it is another way to weigh down characters while vacuuming money out of their belt pouches.
Fourth, it has implications that can be plot hooks.
For example, where does the coal come from? In Real Life the easily accessible coal was gathered very early. Are there coal mines? Where? You need coal and charcoal to make things like, oh, iron, so - do the dwarves mine it/make it? If they don't they have to get it from somewhere!
Charcoal can have a huge impact on a region. Interesting fact - no forest in Finland is more than 300 years old. Why?
They cut down all the trees for charcoal over the course of about 250 years!
Mainly to get wood tar, but it was the charcoal process and it really, really changed Finland for a century+. In my Seaward campaign colliers slip into the forests between civilized lands and the orcish city-states to make charcoal to sell. Very, very risky, but very profitable. The gnomes of Gladdenstone make a lot of money mining anthracite and selling it to the dwarves. The barbarians of Eiru have to collect peat from the edges of the haunted Moorlands to heat their homes in the harsh winters of their island nation.
So think about it. Maybe have a henchman demand more pay or have a hireling quit suddenly because there is never a pot of tea at dawn, or have the party suffer a -1 to hit from fatigue after 3 days of near-hypothermia in a dungeon's depths. Gnomes increasing prices for coal might push the dwarves to the brink of war and orcish raids in Autumn could lead to suffering as the poor run out of charcoal to heat their homes in deep Winter.
Or just imagine going 3 days with no tea, coffee, or hot food yourself and build an adventure from that. Mine would have lots of murder and naps.
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
Role Playing, Roll Playing, and Can We Just Get Back to Monsters, Please?
There is a debate going on about what is a 'real role playing game and what isn't; whether light mechanics is better ot if crunchy is better; if narrative and story trump spontaneity; and about how important the Gm is and how much power he has or if you even need a GM. Or dice. Or rules.
No, don't go look. This stuff was a hot topic in 1979, 1982, 1985, etc. and still will be next week, next month, and long after I am dead, may that day be far from me.
Want to know my position? I have two of them, really.
1) If you think it is role playing and enjoy it I won't say you're wrong, but I reserve the right to ignore you.
2) If you think what other people are doing isn't role playing you have the right to ignore them but if you say they're wrong you deserve the arguments you get.
There are tons of definitions of role playing game out there. I throw some of them around from time to time (my personal one is 'people play at being fake people and have fun') but the very idea of a role playing game is so broad....
Indeed, let's talk about that for a minute. I have played in groups where people showed up in costume and spoke in character before, during, and after the game. The entire "I am in character until I record the DVD commentary" approach. And I've played in groups where the table talk was 'Frank's fighter will smash in the door and my thief will look for ambushes'.
Both fun.
And that huge range in between is the D&D sweet spot! You know what I mean - you refer to characters in the third person by name, the DM is in character for some, but not all, NPCs, and you speak 'in character' only at key junctures. Most of the campaigns I see are like that and you know what? It is role playing.
Let me give you an example from my table.
My oldest son, J., is a, well, a firebrand. He is tall, broad-shouldered, and looks like an Aryan poster child (blond hair, blue eyes, strong jaw, etc.). He has a strong voice, a hearty laugh, and a quick smile. He is a natural leader, loves meeting people, and is very charming and outgoing.
My next oldest, A., is very similar in some ways, but not in others. He is younger so isn't as tall and broad, yet. He has black hair, hazel eyes, and a quiet demeanor with a sort of calm poise that makes even strangers very comfortable around him. He is the master of the quiet quip and perfectly timed humorous pause. Where J. is bold and a touch reckless A. is more likely to be prepared for anything. Where people come to J. for a laugh they come to A. for advice.
Now, in Blackstone I J. plays Mournglow, a magic-user, and A. plays Doomsman, a conan-esque barbarian swordmaster.
At my table they very rarely speak in character but let me show you how a single event proved they were taking on the role ('role playing') of their character.
A scouting party from an orcish army had established a hasty timber fortification on the near bank of a river ford in preparation for the arrival of the main body of troops. The party realized they had to either capture or destroy the small fort if they hoped to stop the army.
J. announced that Mournglow had a plan - the party would slip forward through the chest-high grass until they were within 60 yards of the closest orcish guards then use coordinated spells and missiles to kill as many orcs as possible as quickly as possible, hoping the shock would cause them to flee. Doomsman would protect the casters and archer (a thief) by staying close.
Pretty soon the party is on hands and knees, creeping through the grass. after about 5 rounds of this A. says,
"Nah. Doomsman stands up, unsheathes his great sword, and runs towards the orcs."
The orcs see him almost immediately and start firing bows at him. The rest of the party keeps hurrying along on hands and knees.But the orcs underestimate one man and Doomsman gets to the entrance to the fort and keeps the orcs from shutting the gate long enough for the party to arrive and wipe out the terrified survivors.
But the take away is - my brash son came up with a cautious plan because his character, Mournglow, is cautious. My cautious son acted in a brash manner because his character, Doomsman, is brash.
Did they speak with a faux accent?
No.
Did they speak in character?
No.
Did they spend 20 minutes discussing backstory, fake emotions, or 'off-screen' NPCs?
No.
Were their words and actions important to overarching plots, the narrative, etc?
No.
Were they role playing?
Yes.
Were they having fun?
Hell, yeah.
So, if you want to know my position on role playing, there it is.
No, don't go look. This stuff was a hot topic in 1979, 1982, 1985, etc. and still will be next week, next month, and long after I am dead, may that day be far from me.
Want to know my position? I have two of them, really.
1) If you think it is role playing and enjoy it I won't say you're wrong, but I reserve the right to ignore you.
2) If you think what other people are doing isn't role playing you have the right to ignore them but if you say they're wrong you deserve the arguments you get.
There are tons of definitions of role playing game out there. I throw some of them around from time to time (my personal one is 'people play at being fake people and have fun') but the very idea of a role playing game is so broad....
Indeed, let's talk about that for a minute. I have played in groups where people showed up in costume and spoke in character before, during, and after the game. The entire "I am in character until I record the DVD commentary" approach. And I've played in groups where the table talk was 'Frank's fighter will smash in the door and my thief will look for ambushes'.
Both fun.
And that huge range in between is the D&D sweet spot! You know what I mean - you refer to characters in the third person by name, the DM is in character for some, but not all, NPCs, and you speak 'in character' only at key junctures. Most of the campaigns I see are like that and you know what? It is role playing.
Let me give you an example from my table.
My oldest son, J., is a, well, a firebrand. He is tall, broad-shouldered, and looks like an Aryan poster child (blond hair, blue eyes, strong jaw, etc.). He has a strong voice, a hearty laugh, and a quick smile. He is a natural leader, loves meeting people, and is very charming and outgoing.
My next oldest, A., is very similar in some ways, but not in others. He is younger so isn't as tall and broad, yet. He has black hair, hazel eyes, and a quiet demeanor with a sort of calm poise that makes even strangers very comfortable around him. He is the master of the quiet quip and perfectly timed humorous pause. Where J. is bold and a touch reckless A. is more likely to be prepared for anything. Where people come to J. for a laugh they come to A. for advice.
Now, in Blackstone I J. plays Mournglow, a magic-user, and A. plays Doomsman, a conan-esque barbarian swordmaster.
At my table they very rarely speak in character but let me show you how a single event proved they were taking on the role ('role playing') of their character.
A scouting party from an orcish army had established a hasty timber fortification on the near bank of a river ford in preparation for the arrival of the main body of troops. The party realized they had to either capture or destroy the small fort if they hoped to stop the army.
J. announced that Mournglow had a plan - the party would slip forward through the chest-high grass until they were within 60 yards of the closest orcish guards then use coordinated spells and missiles to kill as many orcs as possible as quickly as possible, hoping the shock would cause them to flee. Doomsman would protect the casters and archer (a thief) by staying close.
Pretty soon the party is on hands and knees, creeping through the grass. after about 5 rounds of this A. says,
"Nah. Doomsman stands up, unsheathes his great sword, and runs towards the orcs."
The orcs see him almost immediately and start firing bows at him. The rest of the party keeps hurrying along on hands and knees.But the orcs underestimate one man and Doomsman gets to the entrance to the fort and keeps the orcs from shutting the gate long enough for the party to arrive and wipe out the terrified survivors.
But the take away is - my brash son came up with a cautious plan because his character, Mournglow, is cautious. My cautious son acted in a brash manner because his character, Doomsman, is brash.
Did they speak with a faux accent?
No.
Did they speak in character?
No.
Did they spend 20 minutes discussing backstory, fake emotions, or 'off-screen' NPCs?
No.
Were their words and actions important to overarching plots, the narrative, etc?
No.
Were they role playing?
Yes.
Were they having fun?
Hell, yeah.
So, if you want to know my position on role playing, there it is.
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
Misunderstood and Improperly Played - The Thief
Not too long ago I ran into a discussion online about how lame and nerfed the thief is.
'A terrible fighter with no real chance of doing anything at all. If you play him by the book he's dead. I am not sure why anyone would ever play a thief.'
As you can guess from the title in this most recent entry in my series of rants, I disagree.
I always like to start with my own admissions of not being a real purist. The thief is no different. I emulated all-around gaming legend and my mentor, Lew Pulsipher, in giving thieves a danger sense - a percentile chance (that is based on levels) to sense when things are going south that sometimes gets them an opportunity to avoid otherwise certain death. Part of that is to emulate the literature where many a rogue from the Gray Mouser to Nift the Lean picked up the tiny clues that others miss, part of it is because they are often in highly dangerous positions alone. So I obviously tinker with thieves myself.
Let's look at the thief and start with a 'vanilla' thief - human, single class, 11 Dex. His thief skills are:
Pick Pockets 30%
Open Locks: 25%
Find/Remove Traps: 20%
Move Silently: 15%
Hide in Shadows: 10%
Hear Noise: 10%
Climb Walls: 85%
So he isn't too bad and pinching small objects but is fairly weak at the rest.
Let's look at the rest;
Average hit points (I always round sup): 4
Average A.C.: 8
Roll needed to hit A.C. 6 (i.e, an orc): 15 (or 30%)
Average damage: 4 (assuming short sword)
Not so good. Or is it? Let's look at a 1st level fighter;
Average H.P.: 6
Average A.C: 4
Roll needed to hit an orc: 14 (or 35%)
Average Damage: 5 (assuming longsword rounded up or broadsword)
And a cleric;
Average H.P.: 5
Average A.C.: 4
Roll needed to hit an orc: 14
Average Damage: 5 (assuming footman's mace rounded up)
That is very similar to the fighter.
And a magic-user;
Average H.P.: 3
Average A.C.: 10
Roll needed to hit an orc: 15
Average damage: 3 (assuming dagger rounded up)
So the thief is right in there between cleric and magic-user in combat ability.
But hold it! A few things are on my mind but one that leaps out is - if we are focusing on combat, why would anyone play a fighter?! No, really - the cleric has the same shot at hitting, the same average damage, the same armor class, and only 1 less hit point on average. But for that one hit point difference the cleric gets spells! I mean, if we look at just 'combat effectiveness at 1st level' everyone should play a cleric, right?
[This is something I should have mentioned in my article about the cleric!]
I know, I know - you are all saying the same thing; 'but fighters soon outpace clerics in combat as they advance in levels'.
Yeah, I know. We'll to that with thieves in a minute.
First, let's look at the combat numbers again while counting backstab;
Roll needed to hit an orc: 11 (50%)
Average damage: 7
This is a huge improvement, of course! When the thief can get the drop on a foe the odds of the thief prevailing go way up. This doesn't happen too often, but it does and this means we can argue that a first level thief can, once or twice per adventure, be the most effective combatant in the party.
The first way we are going to tweak this a little is to 'de-vanilla' the thief a touch. We could make him a dwarven fighter/thief, or a gnome illusionist thief, but let's go for that old standby, the halfling straight thief. We will assume that this thief still has only an 11 Dex and a 10 Con, but! this changes a few other things! His thieving abilities are;
Pick Pockets 35%
Open Locks: 30%
Find/Remove Traps: 25%
Move Silently: 25%
Hide in Shadows: 25%
Hear Noise: 15%
Climb Walls: 70%
OK, that is a noticeable change, isn't it? But there are a few other things going on, too; this thief has a +2 on his saves versus poison and magic. He is also twice as likely to surprise foes when off on his own, meaning his opportunities to backstab go up, making him more combat effective.
Now that we've looked at the thief at first level and seen he isn't quite the wimp some might think he is, let's look at both the vanilla and non-vanilla thieves at higher level.
The first thing we must discuss is a core element of 1e: level advancement speeds. When the thieves (either) are juuuuust 5th level (10,001 x.p. in the 1e books) the fighter, cleric, and mage are all 4th level. Bluntly, the thief gets better at what he does faster than the rest.
Let's look at the vanilla thief's skills at 5th level;
Pick Pockets 50%
Open Locks: 42%
Find/Remove Traps: 40%
Move Silently: 40%
Hide in Shadows: 31%
Hear Noise: 20%
Climb Walls: 90%
Read Languages: 25%
And the halfling thief''s skills;
Pick Pockets 55%
Open Locks: 47%
Find/Remove Traps: 45%
Move Silently: 50%
Hide in Shadows: 46%
Hear Noise: 25%
Climb Walls: 75%
Read Languages: 20%
'But Rick,' I hear you say, 'those aren't great shakes!'.
Well, let's talk about these numbers again from a different perspective. Instead of thinking 'the thief will fail to find the trap 55%+ of the time' think 'the party will be aware of and have a chance to avoid the trap 40%+ of the time'.
No, seriously - this is a subtle difference. Don't think of find/remove as 'half the time the thief gets it' but rather as 'half the time the thief saves the whole party from damage, death, or worse'. And let's look at those combat numbers again, shall we?
Mages (4th);
Average H.P.: 10
Average A.C.: 8 (assuming +2 worth of items)
Roll needed to hit an orc: 15
Average Damage: 3
That is - pretty horrible. If the mage is lucky he is doing somewhere between, oh, 4 h.p. damage (Burning Hands), 7 h.p. damage (average for Magic Missile), and 9 h.p. damage (average for Shocking Grasp - which requires a roll to hit!) once or twice a day. A Web or a Stinking Cloud might prevent others from attacking or make them vulnerable, but the direct combat ability of a mage has dropped well below that of the rest of the party even with spells.
Clerics (4th)
Average H.P.: 18
Average A.C.: 1 (assuming plate & shield with a +1 somewhere in there)
Roll needed to hit an orc: 12 (45%)
Average Damage: 6 (assuming a +1 footman's mace, averaged out)
Better than the mage, the cleric is doing pretty well. No real damaging spells, though, while Hold Person does allow capture, avoidance, etc.
Fighter (4th);
Average H.P.: 22
Average A.C.: 0 (plate and shield with +2 in there somewhere)
Roll needed to hit an orc: 12 (45%) or 11 (50%) if you do level-by-level for fighters
Average Damage: 7 (+2 from weapons, etc.)
While the vanilla fighter is certainly the toughest in terms of hit points and armor class he still just isn't that far from the vanilla cleric in any area, is he?
Thief (5th);
Average H.P.: 18
Average A.C.: 6 (+2 from somewhere)
Roll needed to hit an orc: 13 (40%)
Average Damage: 5 (assuming a +1 short sword)
Notice how the thief has the same hit points as a cleric with the same number of experience points right now? While the fighter and cleric are marginally better at hitting and have a superior armor class the thief is very close in combat and is far better than the mage.
Let's look at backstab numbers for a 5th level thief;
Roll needed to hit an orc: 9 (60%)
Average Damage: 12 (assuming +1 short sword)
That is pretty good and still substantially better than the vanilla fighter of the same experience points. With increased thieving skills this combines to mean that thieves will be getting more backstabs for more damage, making them more combat effective.
To be blunt we should all already know that fighters don't really pull away in combat until 7th level+ when the get multiple attacks or if you use specialization rules at about 3rd-4th level. Until that happens the cleric has near-parity and the thief is close behind both of them with backstabs probably making him as effective as either in the big scheme of things.
Notice that I did add magical bonuses to armor class and average damage but I didn't add them for 'to hit' rolls? That was on purpose because we need to talk about magic items. During play thieves tend to be the ones getting Rings of Invisibility, Boots of Elvenkind, etc., to make them even more likely to do everything from find the trap to get that backstab.
'But Rick!,' I hear, 'that is part of the point of thief haters! You don't need thieves because you can get magic items like Chimes of Opening that do the very same things!'
My reply?
A cleric with a +4 mace can easily replace a fighter of the same level; a fighter with a pouch of Potions of Extra-Healing and Elixirs of Health can replace a cleric; a party with a Helm of Brilliance and similar magic items doesn't need a magic-user.
A large part of what magic-items do is enhance or replace the functions of any and all of the classes. Yes, this includes the thief. But just because a cleric can wear a Ring of Invisibility doesn't mean the thief is useless anymore than a magic-user with a +5 dagger and a Terrible Transformation spell means the fighter obsolete.
That's why the fighter gets the +4 longsword, the magic-user gets the Wand of Fireballs, and the thief gets the Cloak and Boots - to make them even better at their specific role within the party.
Yeah, I am going to talk about that again.
Since we now know that thieves are, yes, fairly good in combat overall let's talk about their role.
I've talked about roles before; fighters are physical offense; magic-users are magical offense; clerics are physical and magical defense; the role of the thief is scouting and intelligence.
Scouting is about finding strategic locations, dangers, traps, tricks, choke points, and such features of terrain as well as locating the enemy. Intelligence is about gathering information about the types, number, strengths, and weaknesses of any potential foes or allies. Just like military reconnaissance and intelligence, the job of the thief is to make the party proactive rather than reactive; when done well the thief role makes it more likely that the party decides when, where, and who it fights. This is the primary goal of the thief.
The secondary goal is to identify and, if possible, eliminate obstacles to the party such as traps, locked doors, and even lone guards (thus, backstab).
Look again at the descriptions of scouting and intelligence; they don't include 'attacking' or 'destroying' the enemy. Yes, thieves can fight but it isn't their primary or secondary goal. Thieves typically only enter combat in support of their primary or secondary roles: eliminating a lone sentry; killing a straggler to search him and to spread confusion; eliminating opposing scouts.
Let's look at that last item again; eliminating opposing scouts. The other side of the scouting and intelligence coin is denying those same things to your foes. The converse of eliminating obstacles for your party is creating obstacles of the party's enemies. The primary target for thieves is almost always other thieves!
Think about it; the party thief is far enough in advance of the party to get the heightened surprise chance; the enemy thief is doing the same. Pretty soon you have two professionals, both highly skilled in stealth and ambush, stalking each other in a no man's land between parties. That can make for some thrilling adventuring!
I also mentioned 'spreading confusion'; thieves also can demoralize foes by appearing where no one could be, eliminating isolated targets, etc. This confusion and fear could very well impact monster morale checks and make life much easier for the entire party.
To sum up, the thief isn't a commando, he is a scout. His job is to get the party over that pit, through that gate, and past that ambush without taking much, if any, damage. So don't have the thief right behind the Cleric, have him out beyond the torchlight, roaming about. He should be finding potential dangers long before the fighter sees it over the rim of his shield.
'A terrible fighter with no real chance of doing anything at all. If you play him by the book he's dead. I am not sure why anyone would ever play a thief.'
As you can guess from the title in this most recent entry in my series of rants, I disagree.
I always like to start with my own admissions of not being a real purist. The thief is no different. I emulated all-around gaming legend and my mentor, Lew Pulsipher, in giving thieves a danger sense - a percentile chance (that is based on levels) to sense when things are going south that sometimes gets them an opportunity to avoid otherwise certain death. Part of that is to emulate the literature where many a rogue from the Gray Mouser to Nift the Lean picked up the tiny clues that others miss, part of it is because they are often in highly dangerous positions alone. So I obviously tinker with thieves myself.
Let's look at the thief and start with a 'vanilla' thief - human, single class, 11 Dex. His thief skills are:
Pick Pockets 30%
Open Locks: 25%
Find/Remove Traps: 20%
Move Silently: 15%
Hide in Shadows: 10%
Hear Noise: 10%
Climb Walls: 85%
So he isn't too bad and pinching small objects but is fairly weak at the rest.
Let's look at the rest;
Average hit points (I always round sup): 4
Average A.C.: 8
Roll needed to hit A.C. 6 (i.e, an orc): 15 (or 30%)
Average damage: 4 (assuming short sword)
Not so good. Or is it? Let's look at a 1st level fighter;
Average H.P.: 6
Average A.C: 4
Roll needed to hit an orc: 14 (or 35%)
Average Damage: 5 (assuming longsword rounded up or broadsword)
And a cleric;
Average H.P.: 5
Average A.C.: 4
Roll needed to hit an orc: 14
Average Damage: 5 (assuming footman's mace rounded up)
That is very similar to the fighter.
And a magic-user;
Average H.P.: 3
Average A.C.: 10
Roll needed to hit an orc: 15
Average damage: 3 (assuming dagger rounded up)
So the thief is right in there between cleric and magic-user in combat ability.
But hold it! A few things are on my mind but one that leaps out is - if we are focusing on combat, why would anyone play a fighter?! No, really - the cleric has the same shot at hitting, the same average damage, the same armor class, and only 1 less hit point on average. But for that one hit point difference the cleric gets spells! I mean, if we look at just 'combat effectiveness at 1st level' everyone should play a cleric, right?
[This is something I should have mentioned in my article about the cleric!]
I know, I know - you are all saying the same thing; 'but fighters soon outpace clerics in combat as they advance in levels'.
Yeah, I know. We'll to that with thieves in a minute.
First, let's look at the combat numbers again while counting backstab;
Roll needed to hit an orc: 11 (50%)
Average damage: 7
This is a huge improvement, of course! When the thief can get the drop on a foe the odds of the thief prevailing go way up. This doesn't happen too often, but it does and this means we can argue that a first level thief can, once or twice per adventure, be the most effective combatant in the party.
The first way we are going to tweak this a little is to 'de-vanilla' the thief a touch. We could make him a dwarven fighter/thief, or a gnome illusionist thief, but let's go for that old standby, the halfling straight thief. We will assume that this thief still has only an 11 Dex and a 10 Con, but! this changes a few other things! His thieving abilities are;
Pick Pockets 35%
Open Locks: 30%
Find/Remove Traps: 25%
Move Silently: 25%
Hide in Shadows: 25%
Hear Noise: 15%
Climb Walls: 70%
OK, that is a noticeable change, isn't it? But there are a few other things going on, too; this thief has a +2 on his saves versus poison and magic. He is also twice as likely to surprise foes when off on his own, meaning his opportunities to backstab go up, making him more combat effective.
Now that we've looked at the thief at first level and seen he isn't quite the wimp some might think he is, let's look at both the vanilla and non-vanilla thieves at higher level.
The first thing we must discuss is a core element of 1e: level advancement speeds. When the thieves (either) are juuuuust 5th level (10,001 x.p. in the 1e books) the fighter, cleric, and mage are all 4th level. Bluntly, the thief gets better at what he does faster than the rest.
Let's look at the vanilla thief's skills at 5th level;
Pick Pockets 50%
Open Locks: 42%
Find/Remove Traps: 40%
Move Silently: 40%
Hide in Shadows: 31%
Hear Noise: 20%
Climb Walls: 90%
Read Languages: 25%
And the halfling thief''s skills;
Pick Pockets 55%
Open Locks: 47%
Find/Remove Traps: 45%
Move Silently: 50%
Hide in Shadows: 46%
Hear Noise: 25%
Climb Walls: 75%
Read Languages: 20%
'But Rick,' I hear you say, 'those aren't great shakes!'.
Well, let's talk about these numbers again from a different perspective. Instead of thinking 'the thief will fail to find the trap 55%+ of the time' think 'the party will be aware of and have a chance to avoid the trap 40%+ of the time'.
No, seriously - this is a subtle difference. Don't think of find/remove as 'half the time the thief gets it' but rather as 'half the time the thief saves the whole party from damage, death, or worse'. And let's look at those combat numbers again, shall we?
Mages (4th);
Average H.P.: 10
Average A.C.: 8 (assuming +2 worth of items)
Roll needed to hit an orc: 15
Average Damage: 3
That is - pretty horrible. If the mage is lucky he is doing somewhere between, oh, 4 h.p. damage (Burning Hands), 7 h.p. damage (average for Magic Missile), and 9 h.p. damage (average for Shocking Grasp - which requires a roll to hit!) once or twice a day. A Web or a Stinking Cloud might prevent others from attacking or make them vulnerable, but the direct combat ability of a mage has dropped well below that of the rest of the party even with spells.
Clerics (4th)
Average H.P.: 18
Average A.C.: 1 (assuming plate & shield with a +1 somewhere in there)
Roll needed to hit an orc: 12 (45%)
Average Damage: 6 (assuming a +1 footman's mace, averaged out)
Better than the mage, the cleric is doing pretty well. No real damaging spells, though, while Hold Person does allow capture, avoidance, etc.
Fighter (4th);
Average H.P.: 22
Average A.C.: 0 (plate and shield with +2 in there somewhere)
Roll needed to hit an orc: 12 (45%) or 11 (50%) if you do level-by-level for fighters
Average Damage: 7 (+2 from weapons, etc.)
While the vanilla fighter is certainly the toughest in terms of hit points and armor class he still just isn't that far from the vanilla cleric in any area, is he?
Thief (5th);
Average H.P.: 18
Average A.C.: 6 (+2 from somewhere)
Roll needed to hit an orc: 13 (40%)
Average Damage: 5 (assuming a +1 short sword)
Notice how the thief has the same hit points as a cleric with the same number of experience points right now? While the fighter and cleric are marginally better at hitting and have a superior armor class the thief is very close in combat and is far better than the mage.
Let's look at backstab numbers for a 5th level thief;
Roll needed to hit an orc: 9 (60%)
Average Damage: 12 (assuming +1 short sword)
That is pretty good and still substantially better than the vanilla fighter of the same experience points. With increased thieving skills this combines to mean that thieves will be getting more backstabs for more damage, making them more combat effective.
To be blunt we should all already know that fighters don't really pull away in combat until 7th level+ when the get multiple attacks or if you use specialization rules at about 3rd-4th level. Until that happens the cleric has near-parity and the thief is close behind both of them with backstabs probably making him as effective as either in the big scheme of things.
Notice that I did add magical bonuses to armor class and average damage but I didn't add them for 'to hit' rolls? That was on purpose because we need to talk about magic items. During play thieves tend to be the ones getting Rings of Invisibility, Boots of Elvenkind, etc., to make them even more likely to do everything from find the trap to get that backstab.
'But Rick!,' I hear, 'that is part of the point of thief haters! You don't need thieves because you can get magic items like Chimes of Opening that do the very same things!'
My reply?
A cleric with a +4 mace can easily replace a fighter of the same level; a fighter with a pouch of Potions of Extra-Healing and Elixirs of Health can replace a cleric; a party with a Helm of Brilliance and similar magic items doesn't need a magic-user.
A large part of what magic-items do is enhance or replace the functions of any and all of the classes. Yes, this includes the thief. But just because a cleric can wear a Ring of Invisibility doesn't mean the thief is useless anymore than a magic-user with a +5 dagger and a Terrible Transformation spell means the fighter obsolete.
That's why the fighter gets the +4 longsword, the magic-user gets the Wand of Fireballs, and the thief gets the Cloak and Boots - to make them even better at their specific role within the party.
Yeah, I am going to talk about that again.
Since we now know that thieves are, yes, fairly good in combat overall let's talk about their role.
I've talked about roles before; fighters are physical offense; magic-users are magical offense; clerics are physical and magical defense; the role of the thief is scouting and intelligence.
Scouting is about finding strategic locations, dangers, traps, tricks, choke points, and such features of terrain as well as locating the enemy. Intelligence is about gathering information about the types, number, strengths, and weaknesses of any potential foes or allies. Just like military reconnaissance and intelligence, the job of the thief is to make the party proactive rather than reactive; when done well the thief role makes it more likely that the party decides when, where, and who it fights. This is the primary goal of the thief.
The secondary goal is to identify and, if possible, eliminate obstacles to the party such as traps, locked doors, and even lone guards (thus, backstab).
Look again at the descriptions of scouting and intelligence; they don't include 'attacking' or 'destroying' the enemy. Yes, thieves can fight but it isn't their primary or secondary goal. Thieves typically only enter combat in support of their primary or secondary roles: eliminating a lone sentry; killing a straggler to search him and to spread confusion; eliminating opposing scouts.
Let's look at that last item again; eliminating opposing scouts. The other side of the scouting and intelligence coin is denying those same things to your foes. The converse of eliminating obstacles for your party is creating obstacles of the party's enemies. The primary target for thieves is almost always other thieves!
Think about it; the party thief is far enough in advance of the party to get the heightened surprise chance; the enemy thief is doing the same. Pretty soon you have two professionals, both highly skilled in stealth and ambush, stalking each other in a no man's land between parties. That can make for some thrilling adventuring!
I also mentioned 'spreading confusion'; thieves also can demoralize foes by appearing where no one could be, eliminating isolated targets, etc. This confusion and fear could very well impact monster morale checks and make life much easier for the entire party.
To sum up, the thief isn't a commando, he is a scout. His job is to get the party over that pit, through that gate, and past that ambush without taking much, if any, damage. So don't have the thief right behind the Cleric, have him out beyond the torchlight, roaming about. He should be finding potential dangers long before the fighter sees it over the rim of his shield.
Monday, July 1, 2013
DM's Log: Blackstone Campaign, Group 1 - BONUS: Why your players should use Chant
I have mentioned the background on the Blackstone Campaign a few places but this is my first post-adventure update.
Which needs more background.
This group, which we call Blackstone 1, has been playing for about 4 years, or about 120 individual sessions. The group is relatively high level for a number of meta-reasons. It consists of:
Doomsman, a 10th level Fighter. A fairly realistic take on the barbarian, he is less like a raving berzerker and much more like an actual barbarian. Using the advanced weapon mastery and style mastery skills of Player's Option: Combat and Tactics he is a Master of the two-handed sword with 2 combat styles from the campaign - combined with a girdle of giant strength, a good armor class, and a magic two-hander he is a fierce hand-to-hand foe.
Darkwalk, an 8th/8th Cleric/Magic-user. Since I use spell points (from PO: Spells and Magic) he casts about 100 spells a day. OK, that is an exaggeration, but Darkwalk is fine example of a cleric/magic-user and their flexibility.
Stardust, a 13th level Thief. Stardust is the character of the oldest and most experienced player in the group and is very good at the role of scout. She has worked to maximize her skills and items but is, frankly, about to the upper limit of what a thief can do (more about what I think is 'high level' in another post)
Mournglow, a 10th level Magic-user. The player has focused Mournglow on the 'generalist with a lot of academic skills' mold and it is working. Very fond of using Polymorph Other to change foes into innocuous creatures, especially beavers and cows.
Ember, a 10th level Fire Elementalist. Used the Skills and Powers rules so that he can fight with a short sword. The only spell the character likes more than Fireball is another Fireball. Ended the adventure Steading of the Hill Giant Chief about 8 rounds into the game when he caught the log fortress on fire with his 3rd or 4th Fireball.
The party is very familiar with each other and is, frankly, fun to DM for.
The Setup: About a game year ago the Grey Elven Kingdom to the East collapsed under the weight of a certain revelation and a Drow attack, greatly weakening the Eastern Elven Alliance. About 4 game months ago the party rescued a High Elven princess from the (rather modified) Hall of the Fire Giant King and sent her to her home with an escort of NPCs. About 2 game weeks ago the party received an urgent letter from the Princess informing them that 1) Her father and brothers were either missing or dead, leaving her in charge, 2) the Evil Eye Orcs were marching on her eastern border and 3) the remaining forces of the EEA had no hope of stopping the Orcs.
The Previous Session: The party raced East on their hippogriffs and barely arrived in time. The session was a struggle to revent the Orcs from crossing the river border of the Elflands and, essentially, only delaying it. They were successful in wiping out a lot of the (leveled) leadership of the Orcs including the head Orc scout (a leveled thief), the Orc's chief Shaman (with levels in Cleric) and a number of other orcs.
There was also a setup where Doomsman faced the champion of the Orcs, a half-orc with fighter levels, weapon mastery, and a sword of Human slaying. Although the toughest fight of his career, Doomsman prevailed and, as per the rules of the duel, the Ogre and Orog allies of the Orcs departed and the actual battle was set up for the next morning near the river banks.
This Session: In between sessions the players had been a bit nervous because the Elves were outnumbered by 50% and the Orcs had used the time of the duel to set themselves up on a hill with the river at the back and left flank and a wood on their right while the elves would be forced to advance over an open field. During session setup Stardust discovered that the Orcs had also secretly hidden reserves in that same wood - the Elves were actually outnumbered over 2:1! Ember and Doomsman got the Elves into formation and began their advance while Stardust and Mournglow approached the enemy while invisible and flying. The general idea was that Stardust and Mournglow would target enemy spell casters and leaders while Ember provided battlefield spells, Darkwalk supported the troops and Doomsman fought in the front line.
With his divinations Mournglow quickly realized the main Orcish leaders were within a Globe of Invulnerability and that the missing Elven king and prince were shacked to the Orcish banner right next to them, so he shifted his focus to the reserves. His engagement with the reserves resulted in his own Minor Globe being dispelled (!) but he was able to summon 3 Brown Puddings to engage the reserve forces and then fly away. Stardust left to see what she could do against the leaders and Mournglow looked for more targets.
Ember began sending Fireballs against Orcish heavy crossbowmen while Darkwalk cast Bless, Prayer, Recitation, etc. over the Elven troops. Even with their help the Elven front line of swordsmen quickly went down as they hit the Orcish pikes. As the second line Elven Heavy Spearmen engaged the Pikes the Light Spearmen on the flanks prepared to be encircled by Orcish Spearmen. It was looking pretty grim when Doomsman, Darkwalk, and Ember all decided to do what they do best.
Doomsman simply hacked his way through the Orcish Pikes to their rear as Ember put up a Wall of Fire on the Elven right flank and Darkwalk called down a Flame Strike on the Orcs menacing the left flank.
About this time the invisible silent Stardust landed behind the Orc leaders and began to surreptitiously free the Elven prisoners while the Orcs were busy watching and directing the battle. During this process she realized that the Orcish banner seemed to incorporate some sort of holy relic.
Ember slpped another Wall of Fire on the other Elven flank as Darkwalk kept using spells to assist the Elves. About this time Mournglow decide to Polymorph the Orc who had dispelled his Minor Globe into a - Ki-rin.
This was interesting since the new Ki-rin 'lost his mind' and became a Ki-rin. I soon decided the Ki-rin would help, but not by crassly impaling orcs - the party watched as the Ki-rin flew up and away into the clouds.
About this time Doomsman blew his Horn of Valhalla and 3 Einherjar joined him as he charged up the hill toward the Orc King.
In the battle of armies the Elves superior skill and armor was beginning to tell and Darkwalk's spells were starting to really swing the fight, although the match was still against the Elves.
The reserves soon finished off the puddings and started to form back up to join the fight, prompting Mournglow to head back towards them.
Whew! We took a break at this point and gathered ourselves.
Once back at it Doomsman and 2 of the Einherjar cut their way through the Orcish infantry behind the Pikes and continued up the hill. Ember started Fireballing Orcish shortbowmen, Mournglow began to start dropping spells into the reserves, and the Elves brought down the Pikes and resumed their advance, this time against the Orcish infantry.
Meanwhile Stardust freed the Elven prince and began to free the Elven king.
The Elves engaged the infantry but now had the reserves threatening their left flank. Mournglow was doing his best to slow the reserves but was struggling a bit. Doomsman was down to 1 Einherjar but was almost through the last troops before the Orc King's bodyguards. Stardust was rushing to free the Elf king before she was spotted by those same bodyguards. Ember was doing well but was actually running low on Fireballs, which is weird.
About this time the party as a whole noticed that a storm was brewing very suddenly and Stardust realized the Orc king was occasionally casting spells, seemingly on his own troops!
Mournglow attempted an attack on the leaders (he was still flying) and was hit twice by the Orc king's spear for his efforts. The Orc king's spear returned when thrown and Mournglow quickly learned it was a Wounding weapon, prompting him to return to slow the reserves.
Doomsman and the last Einherjar engaged the main group of bodyguards in a fight that soon turned into a cuisinart. While he was taking damage a bit he was dropping a bodyguard per blow and was hitting 3 times a round! The Einherjar was keeping the bodyguards off his back but was fading fast.
Ember shifted his focus to the reserves using the last of his Fireballs on them as Mournglow also returned to hitting them. The elves were starting to overwhelm the infantry but still had the reserves approaching their flank and had taken pretty severe losses.
Doomsman finally cut his way through the first group of bodyguards, although he had taken two hits from the Orc king's spear of wounding (which had been thrown from the hilltop). The Einherjar finally went down as Doomsman charged the second group of boyguards around the King. The Ki-rin finally had enough clouds and did a Call Lightning on the reserves as Mournglow and Ember also continued hitting them. Stardust got the elf king free and began cutting down the Orc banner, hoping this would drop the Globe of Invulnerability and allow Mournglow to assault the leaders with magic.
Although greatly slowed and weakened the Orcish reserves had still drawn to within moments of engaging the Elven flank and rear. Ember was almost out of spells and was contemplating drawing his own sword and joining the line. Darkwalk was out of attack spells and was tending the wounded and also preparing for the worst. Mournglow had a spell or two in reserve in case the Globe went down but was also largely out. Stardust was hopeful she could bring down the Globe but was very isolated.
The Orc king shouted an order and his bodyguards allowed Doomsman direct access for the king and Doomsman to duel. Doomsman was not just hurt but the Wounding effect meant he was losing more h.p. each round while the Orc king was fresh and had Prayer, etc. active on himself.
The duel was a lot of fun to DM simply because the party felt that the battle was riding on it. The previous day's duel had been the closest Doomsman had ever come to losing such a fight, and he had been fresh then. Being wounded and Wounded there was a bit more tension during combat!
It was still over in just two rounds! Doomsman's player rolled well and hit hard and was able to parry each of the two blows that would have otherwise hit. As the Orc king died he uttered a curse on Doomsman.
With the death of the Orc king his spells ended (he had the War sphere, granting him access to spells like Courage and Rally) - this, combined with the shock of the last of their high leaders dying, broke the Orcish units that could see the duel which led to a cascade and, within 3 rounds, the Orcs were in a panicked retreat.
Soon the Elves were gathered up and being cared for by their own healers and Darkwalk, their king and prince were returned, and the Ki-rin harried the retreating Orcs with his Call Lightning. Darkwalk had memorized Remove Curse for just such an emergency, so Doomsman received that before all his wounds were bound.
Of the Elven force of almost 900 less than 430 survived the battle and many of the survivors were wounded. They lost no leaders and no spell casters.
Of the Orcish force of about 2,100 less than 900 survived the battle and retreat. They lost all top leaders, most of their spell casters, the majority of their tough bodyguards, and even a large number of 'sergeants'.
The party received the following treasure as a reward;
-Each received a cloak pin that grants them a +2 on reaction rolls with Good elves from the continent and a +2 on saves vs. Cold.
-2,000 g.p. in various gem stones.
-Doomsman was granted the boon of being allowed to court the Elf king's daughter.
General Notes from this Adventure: These are both my own insights and what the players shared after the two sessions.
1) Unless prepared for it, even a high level party can really struggle against an army of more than small size. As Mournglow put it 'they can't really hurt us unless we are really foolish, but every encounter that slows us down means other units get through.' Even against really tightly-packed formations a Fireball can affect no more than about 60 targets. Since even the Pike walls weren't 40' deep Ember's Fireballs were affecting between 36 (pikes) and 12 (heavy crossbowmen) Orcs at a time.
The orcish army was in three columns, each heading for a different river crossing. Even with hippogriffs it was difficult to even find the Orcs since they typically travelled at night and used trees for cover as much as they could during the day.
2) Siege weapons are very vulnerable to PCs. A Flaming Sphere can wreck a catapult very fast. Fireballs tend to do it faster.
3) Some combat spells work great on the battlefield; but most combat spells don't. Fireball and Wall of Fire had an impact on the battlefield as a whole. Almost no other combat spell (in this battle) had that level of impact.
4) Clerics can be more important on the battlefield than mages. The War sphere spells of the Orc king had a huge effect, preventing three of his units from breaking and allowing another to fight more effectively. Without those spells the Elves might have suffered far fewer casualties and, perhaps, even won without the support of the PCs.
On the other hand, Darkwalk's use of Bless, Prayer, Recitation and similar spells had a major impact on the battlefield, especially along the front line. Let me show you why with raw numbers;
Orc = 1 HD and A.C. 6
Elf - 1+1 HD and A.C. 5
Right away we see that the average Elf will hit the average Orc 55% of the time and only be hit 45% of the time. Combined with an average of 6 h.p. vs. an average of 5 h.p. the Elves have a quality edge to begin with.
Now, let's get the front line of Elves under a Bless spell;
Orc = still has a 45% chance to hit
Elf = now has a 60% chance to hit and makes Morale checks at +1
Ok, that is a nice boost, especially since mass combat is a game of numbers. Now, let's look at the same situation if the Elves were under Prayer
Orc = 40% chance to hit, -1 damage
Elf = 60% chance to hit, +1 damage
Even better, right? Now let's look at just Recitation;
Orc = 35% chance to hit, -2 damage
Elf = 65% chance to hit, +2 damage
Wow, this is a major change! Here's the thing, though - these three spells stack their bonuses! The Elven front line were longswordsmen (who get a +1 to hit from being Elves) and were under all three spells at the same time, meaning that at the initial shock of impact the forces looked like this;
Orc = 25% chance to hit, -3 damage
Elf = 80% chance to hit, +3 damage
The spells alone provide a 40% change in the battle odds! Add in the Elven long sword bonus and the damage shift and this is why a force of 100 Elven swordsmen were able to devastate 400 Orcish pikemen before they went down. Even with the fact the pikemen were making 3 attacks before the elves were able to respond with one the huge difference in ability to hit and the damage shifts made all the difference in the world. In the battle above if Darkwalk and not prepared the front line with the spells he did (which was a major impact on his spell ability) the Elven front line would almost certainly have simply been cut down in the initial shock while doing effectively no damage to the pikes. Instead while the swordsmen did fall to the pikes it took 3 times as long and they wiped out half of the pikes doing so.
Imagine if the Orcs had simply put 3 low-level clerics along the back rank of the Pikes, all casting the spell Chant spell before and during the battle - AND Darkwalk wasn't there - this would have made the Orcs equal to the Elves!
Suddenly the Chant spell makes a lot more sense, doesn't it? Low-level clerics man the walls of besieged castles chanting for hours at a time; the monks in the cathedral aren't just singing in the choir - it is a continuous Chant to help protect the sacred space; etc.
Now the players are back to the West and where their Dwarven hirelings are still working on their combined stronghold!
Which needs more background.
This group, which we call Blackstone 1, has been playing for about 4 years, or about 120 individual sessions. The group is relatively high level for a number of meta-reasons. It consists of:
Doomsman, a 10th level Fighter. A fairly realistic take on the barbarian, he is less like a raving berzerker and much more like an actual barbarian. Using the advanced weapon mastery and style mastery skills of Player's Option: Combat and Tactics he is a Master of the two-handed sword with 2 combat styles from the campaign - combined with a girdle of giant strength, a good armor class, and a magic two-hander he is a fierce hand-to-hand foe.
Darkwalk, an 8th/8th Cleric/Magic-user. Since I use spell points (from PO: Spells and Magic) he casts about 100 spells a day. OK, that is an exaggeration, but Darkwalk is fine example of a cleric/magic-user and their flexibility.
Stardust, a 13th level Thief. Stardust is the character of the oldest and most experienced player in the group and is very good at the role of scout. She has worked to maximize her skills and items but is, frankly, about to the upper limit of what a thief can do (more about what I think is 'high level' in another post)
Mournglow, a 10th level Magic-user. The player has focused Mournglow on the 'generalist with a lot of academic skills' mold and it is working. Very fond of using Polymorph Other to change foes into innocuous creatures, especially beavers and cows.
Ember, a 10th level Fire Elementalist. Used the Skills and Powers rules so that he can fight with a short sword. The only spell the character likes more than Fireball is another Fireball. Ended the adventure Steading of the Hill Giant Chief about 8 rounds into the game when he caught the log fortress on fire with his 3rd or 4th Fireball.
The party is very familiar with each other and is, frankly, fun to DM for.
The Setup: About a game year ago the Grey Elven Kingdom to the East collapsed under the weight of a certain revelation and a Drow attack, greatly weakening the Eastern Elven Alliance. About 4 game months ago the party rescued a High Elven princess from the (rather modified) Hall of the Fire Giant King and sent her to her home with an escort of NPCs. About 2 game weeks ago the party received an urgent letter from the Princess informing them that 1) Her father and brothers were either missing or dead, leaving her in charge, 2) the Evil Eye Orcs were marching on her eastern border and 3) the remaining forces of the EEA had no hope of stopping the Orcs.
The Previous Session: The party raced East on their hippogriffs and barely arrived in time. The session was a struggle to revent the Orcs from crossing the river border of the Elflands and, essentially, only delaying it. They were successful in wiping out a lot of the (leveled) leadership of the Orcs including the head Orc scout (a leveled thief), the Orc's chief Shaman (with levels in Cleric) and a number of other orcs.
There was also a setup where Doomsman faced the champion of the Orcs, a half-orc with fighter levels, weapon mastery, and a sword of Human slaying. Although the toughest fight of his career, Doomsman prevailed and, as per the rules of the duel, the Ogre and Orog allies of the Orcs departed and the actual battle was set up for the next morning near the river banks.
This Session: In between sessions the players had been a bit nervous because the Elves were outnumbered by 50% and the Orcs had used the time of the duel to set themselves up on a hill with the river at the back and left flank and a wood on their right while the elves would be forced to advance over an open field. During session setup Stardust discovered that the Orcs had also secretly hidden reserves in that same wood - the Elves were actually outnumbered over 2:1! Ember and Doomsman got the Elves into formation and began their advance while Stardust and Mournglow approached the enemy while invisible and flying. The general idea was that Stardust and Mournglow would target enemy spell casters and leaders while Ember provided battlefield spells, Darkwalk supported the troops and Doomsman fought in the front line.
With his divinations Mournglow quickly realized the main Orcish leaders were within a Globe of Invulnerability and that the missing Elven king and prince were shacked to the Orcish banner right next to them, so he shifted his focus to the reserves. His engagement with the reserves resulted in his own Minor Globe being dispelled (!) but he was able to summon 3 Brown Puddings to engage the reserve forces and then fly away. Stardust left to see what she could do against the leaders and Mournglow looked for more targets.
Ember began sending Fireballs against Orcish heavy crossbowmen while Darkwalk cast Bless, Prayer, Recitation, etc. over the Elven troops. Even with their help the Elven front line of swordsmen quickly went down as they hit the Orcish pikes. As the second line Elven Heavy Spearmen engaged the Pikes the Light Spearmen on the flanks prepared to be encircled by Orcish Spearmen. It was looking pretty grim when Doomsman, Darkwalk, and Ember all decided to do what they do best.
Doomsman simply hacked his way through the Orcish Pikes to their rear as Ember put up a Wall of Fire on the Elven right flank and Darkwalk called down a Flame Strike on the Orcs menacing the left flank.
About this time the invisible silent Stardust landed behind the Orc leaders and began to surreptitiously free the Elven prisoners while the Orcs were busy watching and directing the battle. During this process she realized that the Orcish banner seemed to incorporate some sort of holy relic.
Ember slpped another Wall of Fire on the other Elven flank as Darkwalk kept using spells to assist the Elves. About this time Mournglow decide to Polymorph the Orc who had dispelled his Minor Globe into a - Ki-rin.
This was interesting since the new Ki-rin 'lost his mind' and became a Ki-rin. I soon decided the Ki-rin would help, but not by crassly impaling orcs - the party watched as the Ki-rin flew up and away into the clouds.
About this time Doomsman blew his Horn of Valhalla and 3 Einherjar joined him as he charged up the hill toward the Orc King.
In the battle of armies the Elves superior skill and armor was beginning to tell and Darkwalk's spells were starting to really swing the fight, although the match was still against the Elves.
The reserves soon finished off the puddings and started to form back up to join the fight, prompting Mournglow to head back towards them.
Whew! We took a break at this point and gathered ourselves.
Once back at it Doomsman and 2 of the Einherjar cut their way through the Orcish infantry behind the Pikes and continued up the hill. Ember started Fireballing Orcish shortbowmen, Mournglow began to start dropping spells into the reserves, and the Elves brought down the Pikes and resumed their advance, this time against the Orcish infantry.
Meanwhile Stardust freed the Elven prince and began to free the Elven king.
The Elves engaged the infantry but now had the reserves threatening their left flank. Mournglow was doing his best to slow the reserves but was struggling a bit. Doomsman was down to 1 Einherjar but was almost through the last troops before the Orc King's bodyguards. Stardust was rushing to free the Elf king before she was spotted by those same bodyguards. Ember was doing well but was actually running low on Fireballs, which is weird.
About this time the party as a whole noticed that a storm was brewing very suddenly and Stardust realized the Orc king was occasionally casting spells, seemingly on his own troops!
Mournglow attempted an attack on the leaders (he was still flying) and was hit twice by the Orc king's spear for his efforts. The Orc king's spear returned when thrown and Mournglow quickly learned it was a Wounding weapon, prompting him to return to slow the reserves.
Doomsman and the last Einherjar engaged the main group of bodyguards in a fight that soon turned into a cuisinart. While he was taking damage a bit he was dropping a bodyguard per blow and was hitting 3 times a round! The Einherjar was keeping the bodyguards off his back but was fading fast.
Ember shifted his focus to the reserves using the last of his Fireballs on them as Mournglow also returned to hitting them. The elves were starting to overwhelm the infantry but still had the reserves approaching their flank and had taken pretty severe losses.
Doomsman finally cut his way through the first group of bodyguards, although he had taken two hits from the Orc king's spear of wounding (which had been thrown from the hilltop). The Einherjar finally went down as Doomsman charged the second group of boyguards around the King. The Ki-rin finally had enough clouds and did a Call Lightning on the reserves as Mournglow and Ember also continued hitting them. Stardust got the elf king free and began cutting down the Orc banner, hoping this would drop the Globe of Invulnerability and allow Mournglow to assault the leaders with magic.
Although greatly slowed and weakened the Orcish reserves had still drawn to within moments of engaging the Elven flank and rear. Ember was almost out of spells and was contemplating drawing his own sword and joining the line. Darkwalk was out of attack spells and was tending the wounded and also preparing for the worst. Mournglow had a spell or two in reserve in case the Globe went down but was also largely out. Stardust was hopeful she could bring down the Globe but was very isolated.
The Orc king shouted an order and his bodyguards allowed Doomsman direct access for the king and Doomsman to duel. Doomsman was not just hurt but the Wounding effect meant he was losing more h.p. each round while the Orc king was fresh and had Prayer, etc. active on himself.
The duel was a lot of fun to DM simply because the party felt that the battle was riding on it. The previous day's duel had been the closest Doomsman had ever come to losing such a fight, and he had been fresh then. Being wounded and Wounded there was a bit more tension during combat!
It was still over in just two rounds! Doomsman's player rolled well and hit hard and was able to parry each of the two blows that would have otherwise hit. As the Orc king died he uttered a curse on Doomsman.
With the death of the Orc king his spells ended (he had the War sphere, granting him access to spells like Courage and Rally) - this, combined with the shock of the last of their high leaders dying, broke the Orcish units that could see the duel which led to a cascade and, within 3 rounds, the Orcs were in a panicked retreat.
Soon the Elves were gathered up and being cared for by their own healers and Darkwalk, their king and prince were returned, and the Ki-rin harried the retreating Orcs with his Call Lightning. Darkwalk had memorized Remove Curse for just such an emergency, so Doomsman received that before all his wounds were bound.
Of the Elven force of almost 900 less than 430 survived the battle and many of the survivors were wounded. They lost no leaders and no spell casters.
Of the Orcish force of about 2,100 less than 900 survived the battle and retreat. They lost all top leaders, most of their spell casters, the majority of their tough bodyguards, and even a large number of 'sergeants'.
The party received the following treasure as a reward;
-Each received a cloak pin that grants them a +2 on reaction rolls with Good elves from the continent and a +2 on saves vs. Cold.
-2,000 g.p. in various gem stones.
-Doomsman was granted the boon of being allowed to court the Elf king's daughter.
General Notes from this Adventure: These are both my own insights and what the players shared after the two sessions.
1) Unless prepared for it, even a high level party can really struggle against an army of more than small size. As Mournglow put it 'they can't really hurt us unless we are really foolish, but every encounter that slows us down means other units get through.' Even against really tightly-packed formations a Fireball can affect no more than about 60 targets. Since even the Pike walls weren't 40' deep Ember's Fireballs were affecting between 36 (pikes) and 12 (heavy crossbowmen) Orcs at a time.
The orcish army was in three columns, each heading for a different river crossing. Even with hippogriffs it was difficult to even find the Orcs since they typically travelled at night and used trees for cover as much as they could during the day.
2) Siege weapons are very vulnerable to PCs. A Flaming Sphere can wreck a catapult very fast. Fireballs tend to do it faster.
3) Some combat spells work great on the battlefield; but most combat spells don't. Fireball and Wall of Fire had an impact on the battlefield as a whole. Almost no other combat spell (in this battle) had that level of impact.
4) Clerics can be more important on the battlefield than mages. The War sphere spells of the Orc king had a huge effect, preventing three of his units from breaking and allowing another to fight more effectively. Without those spells the Elves might have suffered far fewer casualties and, perhaps, even won without the support of the PCs.
On the other hand, Darkwalk's use of Bless, Prayer, Recitation and similar spells had a major impact on the battlefield, especially along the front line. Let me show you why with raw numbers;
Orc = 1 HD and A.C. 6
Elf - 1+1 HD and A.C. 5
Right away we see that the average Elf will hit the average Orc 55% of the time and only be hit 45% of the time. Combined with an average of 6 h.p. vs. an average of 5 h.p. the Elves have a quality edge to begin with.
Now, let's get the front line of Elves under a Bless spell;
Orc = still has a 45% chance to hit
Elf = now has a 60% chance to hit and makes Morale checks at +1
Ok, that is a nice boost, especially since mass combat is a game of numbers. Now, let's look at the same situation if the Elves were under Prayer
Orc = 40% chance to hit, -1 damage
Elf = 60% chance to hit, +1 damage
Even better, right? Now let's look at just Recitation;
Orc = 35% chance to hit, -2 damage
Elf = 65% chance to hit, +2 damage
Wow, this is a major change! Here's the thing, though - these three spells stack their bonuses! The Elven front line were longswordsmen (who get a +1 to hit from being Elves) and were under all three spells at the same time, meaning that at the initial shock of impact the forces looked like this;
Orc = 25% chance to hit, -3 damage
Elf = 80% chance to hit, +3 damage
The spells alone provide a 40% change in the battle odds! Add in the Elven long sword bonus and the damage shift and this is why a force of 100 Elven swordsmen were able to devastate 400 Orcish pikemen before they went down. Even with the fact the pikemen were making 3 attacks before the elves were able to respond with one the huge difference in ability to hit and the damage shifts made all the difference in the world. In the battle above if Darkwalk and not prepared the front line with the spells he did (which was a major impact on his spell ability) the Elven front line would almost certainly have simply been cut down in the initial shock while doing effectively no damage to the pikes. Instead while the swordsmen did fall to the pikes it took 3 times as long and they wiped out half of the pikes doing so.
Imagine if the Orcs had simply put 3 low-level clerics along the back rank of the Pikes, all casting the spell Chant spell before and during the battle - AND Darkwalk wasn't there - this would have made the Orcs equal to the Elves!
Suddenly the Chant spell makes a lot more sense, doesn't it? Low-level clerics man the walls of besieged castles chanting for hours at a time; the monks in the cathedral aren't just singing in the choir - it is a continuous Chant to help protect the sacred space; etc.
Now the players are back to the West and where their Dwarven hirelings are still working on their combined stronghold!
Saturday, June 1, 2013
Fantasy Demographics, or: Why Elves and Orcs Fight Different Wars
Note: This post deals with Real World ideas, concepts, or choices that are very personal. It is not meant to offend but is just a discussion of how these factors impact fantasy role playing game campaigns. Thanks.
Waaaaay back when, my Dad took me to see Soylent Green. Now, I was very young, but in my father's defense we both love science fiction movies, so we went anyway. This began my rather odd hobby of studying demographics (which led me to reject the threat of overpopulation by 5th grade, but that is another story). Thus there was something in both the Complete Book of Elves and the Complete Book of Dwarves which just intrigued me. In the complete CBoE they state that the average Elven female has 2 children. In the CBoD they state that the average Dwarf female has 3 kids, but 2/3 of all births are males.
Why does this matter?
Math.
Not to get too wonky (although I can talk about demographics for literally hours. And I am not using 'literally' for emphasis, I mean it literally) (see what I did there?), but a key metric in demographics is Total Fertility Rate (TFR for short) which is, simply, 'how many children does each woman in a population have, on average?'. TFR means a lot - it allows you to calculate the growth or shrinkage of future generation, determine the demographic momentum of a society, all sorts of really... boring... to... anyone... else... stuff....
Yeah.
Anyway, when the books say 'the average Elf female has two kids' this means 'the TFR is 2'. This is important because in the Real World replacement TFR (the TFR where the population neither grows nor shrinks over generations) is between 2.1 and 2.4 - each woman has just over 2 kids each on average. Since a certain number of people never have kids for a variety of reasons, it must be above a flat 2.0. In a modern industrialized nation like, oh, France, 2.1 is equilibrium. In a modern nation with a higher rate of mortality for youth it is more like 2.4.
Here's the point, though - in pre-modern societies replacement TFR was more like 3.5-4.5. Why? Poorer health care and a higher mortality rate. Remember, the reason the average lifespan before the mid-20th Century was 35-40 for most of the world was because so many children died - if you lived to be 14-16 you were almost certainly going to live to be 75-80! Well, barring other factors. Like war.
Chronic war really increases the replacement TFR number, for obvious reasons. Plague can do the same.
Well, the CBoE said 2, but maybe they reaslly meant, oh, 2.3. With magical healing, a natural resistance to disease, etc., this probably means that Elves have a stable population, barring war.
Let's talk about Dwarves for a moment.
In the Real World we assume a gender ratio of about 50/50, so the 66/34 male/female of the Dwarves is really important.This means if you start with 300 Dwarves you will only have 100 couples (it takes two to make little dwarves and, more importantly, TFR is tied to the number of females). If they have a TFR of 3 that means the next generation will be = 300 Dwarves. Also perfect equilibrium since that generation will also have 100 females
"OK," I hear you say, "so the generations are stable, so what?"
One, it means that if you accept these numbers Dwarves and Elves can't really expand - if there is already a city that houses 2,000 Dwarves why build a new one? After all, there is no population growth. Sending people off is a drain of the most important resource of a society - the people. There are probably a number of social pressures to avoid this.
Two, it will have a huge impact on how Dwarves and especially Elves go to war. Here are some of my thoughts on this:
While Dwarves have an 'excess' male population (the 33% of each generation that will have no wife) allowing them to go to war relatively easily, women and children are virtually irreplaceable. So while male Dwarves roaming the mountains prospecting and killing Orcs for fun might be common, they will almost certainly guard their women and children fiercely. This is a simple explanation for why you traditionally never see Dwarven women - they are quite directly the most precious thing in Dwarf society.
For Elves it is even more extreme - any loss of life might not be replaced for two or more generations. That is pretty serious.
This means the Elves must really strive to limit battle deaths and while Dwarves can sustain some heavy losses of life on the battlefield women are too precious to risk.
Which leads me to a fantasy element - lifespan of non-humans.
It takes a human about 16 years to be considered an adult and human generations are counted as about 25 years. If we follow the age guidelines in the DMG (and why wouldn't we?) it takes a Dwarf about 60 years to mature and an elf about 120. With a bit of extrapolation we can guess that a Dwarven generation is about, oh, 60 years and an Elven generation is about 250.
Wow. That's big.
Why? because it takes at least a generation to recover from a major loss of life. World War I caused the death of a huge number of young men. One of the reasons World War Ii was a generation later is, arguably, the hostiles needed to wait until the next generation finished growing up to continue the fighting. The Black Death caused so much loss of life that it really took five generations for Europe to recover.
This means that it would take the Dwarves 75 years to recover from a war that killed their 'excess' males and about 30% of the rest of the males. This means an Elven society struck with something like the Black Death wouldn't recover for more than a millenium. That is high stakes stuff.
Let's change tacks just a little bit and think about Orcs. We can extrapolate that they mature around 12 and that an Orcish generation is, oh, 20 years. We know they are 'fecund' because we are told they are. What does this mean in comparison with Elves? Well, in the Real World there are societies that reached TFRs of 9+ in the 20th Century, so 'fecund' could be quite a large number! But let's just assume that between disease, violence, and generally being Lawful Evil Orcish societies grow about 25% per generation.
What does this mean? More directly, what does this mean for a campaign (since this is about a game, after all)?
Here is a scenario;
The Orcish tribes and the Elven kingdom have been on edge for a decade, but now war is really begun. The Elves are smarter, better trained, have better gear, and have more spell casters. The Orcs are more disciplined and there are many more combatants. When they begin the war there are 3,000 Elven soldiers (out of a kingdom of 20,000) and 7,500 Orcish warriors (out of 20,000 Orcs).
After 5 years of brutal fighting the Elves prevail; they slaughter over 5,000 Orcs while losing only 1,000 Elves. The Elves return to their homes, triumphant, and the good feelings and other factors cause a spike in births, meaning the next generation of Elves will be about 10% larger.
Humiliated, the Orcs retreat to their homes. There is no surge for them. At this point, the Year of the Great Battle the two sides are roughly as follows;
Orcs: 3,500 surviving warriors. 7,500 potential warriors not yet mature from the 2nd generation. And 6,000 females with mates available to birth the 3rd generation.
Elves: 2,000 surviving soldiers. 3,000 potential soldiers not yet mature from the second generation. And 9,000 females with mates to birth the 3rd generation.
In Year after the Great Battle (YGB) 20 the second generation of Orcish warriors are mature and ready to fight - all 7,500 of them! They face off against - the first generation Elvish warriors again. After all, the young Elves still have over two centuries to mature! The Orcs are young and the cream of their army dies in the Great Battle. The Elves are battle-hardened and fierce, so this time the Elves kill another 4,000 Orcs but only lose 500 Elves. So in the second generation we have;
Orcs: 3,500 surviving warriors. 7,500 potential warriors from the 3rd generation (25% growth, remember?). 6,000 females with mates to birth the 4th generation.
Elves: 1,500 surviving soldiers. 3,000 potential soldiers from the 2nd generation. 9,000 females that will eventually birth 2,700 soldiers in the 3rd generation.
Reeling from two defeats in two generations, the Orcs wait, biding their time and skirmishing with Humand and Dwarven forces in raids, raids which whittle down their comabt numbers but mean their warriors are experienced.. Finally in YGB 60 the 4th generation of Orc warriors, whittled down to 7,500 (remember that 25% growth?) but battle-hardened face off against - the 1,500 surviving 1st generation Elven warriors! As evenly matched individually as the first battle, but incredibly outnumbered, the Elves fight as defensively as possible. They barely manage to drive off the Orcs losing another 1,000 elves to 4,000 Orcs.
Barely able to send 500 soldiers to the field, the Elves retreat into the mountains.
As you can see, the humanoid races, with their higher fertility and shorter generations, have a massive advantage in warfare over multiple generations!
In other words, if Elves and Dwarves do have such low fertility, they are going to be wiped out. As a matter of fact, as DM you need to explain why they haven't been wiped out already.
Please allow me to digress from fantasy to reality for just a moment. I am going to assume that most readers of this blog like most roleplayers are from nations with low birthrates. This is, historically, an anomaly. While real world demographics do show periods of stability and periods of decline, these were caused by bad weather and plague - birthrates remained high relative to modern birthrates. While the majority of the current world is below replacement TFR this is very unusual.
Back to FRPGs. As you can see from the example I give above, have only replacement TFR is a big problem because it means that societies can't replace major losses in anything approaching a reasonable amount of time! For this reason in my campaigns I tend to have birthrates higher. Add in the fact that FRPG worlds tend to be shockingly lethal, I tend to make them much higher than you see in the modern world, much more akin to Europe of the High Middle Ages. I essentially assume that per generation population growth for Humans is about 30%, for Halflings it is 25%, for Elves, Gnomes, and Dwarves it is 15% and for the major humanoid races it is 40%-60% (not counting war or disease for any of these). I also have the sex ratio be about 50/50 for everyone but Dwarves where it is 55/45 male/female.
Even with more reasonable TFRs, though, the issue of the length of generations remains - Orcs can go through almost 4 generations before Dwarves get to 2. For Elves it is closer to 12 generations to 2. This will have a profound effect upon how the various races wage war.
First, the various bonuses Dwarves and Elves have (bonuses vs. certain races or with certain weapons) make sense because of their longer lives. The same applies to the greater numbers of powerful individuals in their forces. In any given battle Dwarves or Elves will prevail over Orcs of the same number. It will be more lopsided in their favor against Goblins and much more even against Hobgoblins. But Dwarves and Elves must do their utmost to avoid a long-term war of attrition because they simply can't win such a war.
Suddenly, there is a reason Dwarves built such strong mountain fortresses and Elves live in thick forests with many sylvan allies; these positions are defensive, giving them the advantage, and can give them better warning of potential attacks. Both races will be as selective as possible about engaging forces they cannot overwhelm and must limit their losses as best they can.
In a similar vein, Gnomes and Halflings make a lot more 'sense', too. The Halflings have great stealth and skills with missile weapons because they rely upon avoidance and ambush. Gnomes, with their illusions, are natural commandos. Like Dwarves and Elves they have these skills because they need them to survive as a society.
Humanoids, on the other hand, are much more like hammers than rapiers. Their goal in war is to close with and engage the enemy with as much force as possible. With their numbers than can afford to be profligate on the battlefield because they recover from the loss of soldiers faster than their foes. Wave attacks by Goblins to 'soften up' the front lines for the hammer blow of a Hobgoblin charge may seem like a terrific loss of life but every Dwarf they kill is one less Dwarf their grandchildren will have to fight!
This can also explain why Humans so often seem dominant in FRPGs; with a birthrate and generation length much closer to the Humanoids they are both much more capable for fighting humanoids on their own terms and invaluable allies to the other demi-human races.
Please think about it and I hope this can add to your campaigns.
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