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  1. - Top - End - #1
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    NecromancerGuy

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    Jun 2016
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    Default Creating armies for my cities

    So I have cities, and guardsmen for each already generated. I am looking for a program that would let me randomly generate crests for each city and another that would let me put the armies/guards in a tree so you can see who's in charge of who.
    Fighter: *Rolls a 1*
    DM: "Roll damage"
    Fighter: "If I kill our cleric, can I cleave"

  2. - Top - End - #2
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    PaladinGuy

    Join Date
    Aug 2015

    Default Re: Creating armies for my cities

    While I don't have a program for you, I'd give you some historical context to help you design it yourself; army units aren't standardized in the medieval period.

    "Units" are often the levy of a particular town. Five men here, ten there, maybe a hundred if they're from a city. They each report to the man above them in the fuedal system. So you're better off having random rolls for the number of men below a particular guy than setting a hard ratio.

    This is one of the significant advantages the English had in the hundred year war. The French army was each knight to their lord, each count to their duke, etc all the way up the chain. This meant there were units of wildly varying size and conflicts at each level of command. The English put ALL of their archers under the command of a single man, allowing them to act more efficiently.

  3. - Top - End - #3
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    NecromancerGuy

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    Default Re: Creating armies for my cities

    Quote Originally Posted by mrguymiah View Post
    While I don't have a program for you, I'd give you some historical context to help you design it yourself; army units aren't standardized in the medieval period.

    "Units" are often the levy of a particular town. Five men here, ten there, maybe a hundred if they're from a city. They each report to the man above them in the fuedal system. So you're better off having random rolls for the number of men below a particular guy than setting a hard ratio.

    This is one of the significant advantages the English had in the hundred year war. The French army was each knight to their lord, each count to their duke, etc all the way up the chain. This meant there were units of wildly varying size and conflicts at each level of command. The English put ALL of their archers under the command of a single man, allowing them to act more efficiently.
    Thank you, that is actually helpful. I found a site that has a whole lot of shields already in .png format. Now I just need to find a way to make a visual representation of the guards/ army.

    Do you know of a site that will generate a NPC for 3.5 based off particular stats (such as I want a lvl 4 human paladin, etc.)?
    Fighter: *Rolls a 1*
    DM: "Roll damage"
    Fighter: "If I kill our cleric, can I cleave"

  4. - Top - End - #4
    Ogre in the Playground
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    Oct 2006
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    Default Re: Creating armies for my cities

    Quote Originally Posted by Meierme176 View Post
    Do you know of a site that will generate a NPC for 3.5 based off particular stats (such as I want a lvl 4 human paladin, etc.)?
    Those are hard to find; and usually, they don't work too well, because they make characters that are too random.

    All Paladins are going to be pretty much the same. They have to have the same high stats, they share all the same spells, and their gear has to be pretty standard. Otherwise they're just gonna get rolled by the competition. No Paladin makes it level 5 with a CON of 8. They don't buy rings of goat-herding or whatever; they get a magic sword first and then as much magic armor as they can afford. They usually take the same feats, depending on whether they fight with swords or bows or whatever.

    This, of course, was by design. The entire point of AD&D was that you could sum up an NPC in a single sentence: "Fighter, 3rd lvl, ugly, likes toads." Boom! All you needed to know. Maybe add "Magic +1 sword, 165 gold coins" if he's somebody special.

    Then they invented feats and skills and blah blah blah. Now you need half a page to list all the fiddly bits... and in the end, it comes to the same thing, because there's only a handful of ways to build an effective character, and non-effective characters should never have made it past 1st level.

    I'm building a list of characters from 1st to 9th level that are reasonably effective. Then I'll just slap a personality on top, or add a skill or two if the occasion seems to call for it. They'll all be in Heroes of Prime once I get it done.

  5. - Top - End - #5
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    NecromancerGuy

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    Default Re: Creating armies for my cities

    Quote Originally Posted by Yahzi View Post
    I'm building a list of characters from 1st to 9th level that are reasonably effective. Then I'll just slap a personality on top, or add a skill or two if the occasion seems to call for it. They'll all be in Heroes of Prime once I get it done.
    oh sweet! will it be for 3.5?
    Fighter: *Rolls a 1*
    DM: "Roll damage"
    Fighter: "If I kill our cleric, can I cleave"

  6. - Top - End - #6
    Banned
     
    GreenSorcererElf

    Join Date
    Jul 2016

    Default Re: Creating armies for my cities

    The standard for militarized personnel is between 3 and 5%. For example, the US has about 6 million active duty/reserve (vast majority reserve) that they can call on. Add to that about 1% of the population are police force, and you get just over 3% of the population. You get similar numbers from most other countries.
    So the guard would equate to about 1% of the population, with a moderate sized standing army with a large reserve of people who can be called on in a crisis, such as war or massive bandit attack.
    As far as standards, generally a company consists of an officer, a few sargeants and roughly 80-250 men. Each company will have its own standard, with 3 - 6 platoons, possibly each with their own standard as well as the one for the company.
    There may be a regiment, division or corps standard as well depending on army size.

  7. - Top - End - #7
    Ogre in the Playground
    Join Date
    Oct 2006
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    Default Re: Creating armies for my cities

    Quote Originally Posted by Meierme176 View Post
    oh sweet! will it be for 3.5?
    Er... mostly. It's for my house-ruled version of 3.5. Meaning Fighters get all good saves, 4 skill points per level, and 29 point attribute buys, while Wizards get 21 point attribute buys.

    But yes, you can just drop them into a 3.5 game without any changes. It's not like players will wonder why some NPCs have good stats and others have less good stats.

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