How Should War Work

[Mirviriam]

You see a L1 castle and think castle, I see dozens of redoubts, fortified inns and holds etc - and estimate whether to reflect it as a castle or fort, or simply abstract it as a law holding. The differing approach and style of game play leads to totally different perceptions.

Actually per rules in D20 - provinces have a network of defenses with central fort/castle this is primarily for video games I think as you can't easily have 4 seiges within one province (the rules state somewhere in original materials about automatically housing 3 archer units). Then all holdings are protected upto the level of the fortification level - if the regeant so chooses. The destruction of levels on the fortification might not reflect on the castle but rather other spots around the realm....one more reasons the circumstances prevent opposed siege craft rolls :)

So I look at the thousands of npc's in a domain and consider how they will react to player actions, and as a DM will then impute the necessary mechanic to reflect the facts - your 'pillage to L0, create a new province and then rule it up' would fail utterly as a tactic to win loyalty in my games - that sort of genocidal butchery would get every neighbour up in arms over the thousands of refugees, the church declaring the PC anathema, etc, the domain might well rise up if it was lawfully or good aligned, - that sort of thing is the difference between a board game and a role playing game for me...

Sorry - I'm answering this thread on some many different levels - combining some of my seperate addresses for different issues. I'm not looking to destroy the province level, just law - the province would be useless to me if I can't raise armies from it later on. You missed the point though - I'm just trying to deny RP/GP from my chosen enemy. If I'm short money I would consider dropping provinces I've invaded to level 4.

Don't get me wrong though - I will completely wipe someone off the map...the vengeance of a woefully wronged paladin, nor the rather of Cuiraécen knows no boundries! Or if I play an evil/neutral rogue only if I have a good reason too destroy(or a good reason I made up & orchestrated). Since ultimately every action I take will serve 2 - 4 purposes (move me towards the richer parts of map, deny resources, hurt your income when you do get it back, concentrate your forces in one area - preferable near castles of mine where I can resist successfully)

Though, none of my characters would invade anything until we have complete control of realm. If the priests weren't on board before hand - then I'd be busy killing and stuffing them in to barrels as meat by product to sell to other nations as discount rate (like in Mexico & their chili) ... then I might start invasions. I wouldn't mind picking a nation with a rogue leader and you DM a single realm conflict between church and theif w/law guild holdings. For our purpose no external nations ... that mass agiatate and contest action that priests have looks like a doozie - like I said I'd never allow anyone that much control inside my realm - state religion worshiping only the lawn gnomes would be my typical choice(until the lawn gnomes rebel and then I'd have to occupy my own realm).

EDIT: Apologies was drinking tonight.

[AndrewTall]

I didn't think about this point of yours much - but I read the campain setting some (skimmed interesting parts) - got to where the original materials stated, outside of the elves and evil domains there are only 6 truly practicing mages.

This made me think that their has to be more mages with equal or near equal power ratings who were sharpening skills on normal spells. These guys are hiding their talents so the 6 settled mages with domain spells don't off the competition. They might lack the finese & experience that comes with practicing at will, but probably steal off the magical oddities that dot the source holdings.

It seems to me, this assumption of more hidden to be discovered is the basis of campaign settings.

It depends how you want to play. BR played against common-magic campaigns like Greyhawk and Athas, so few mages was one differentiator. There is of course nothing to stop mages being more common, however mages being rare adds many interesting social issues, whilst having no impact on your ability to play a mage - any player who really wants a mage is likely to get one.

With magic common, it is hard for mages to be outcasts, looked down on, or for that matter held in superstition and awe - as a result to be effective they tend to need to be higher level (the old Gandalf-is-6th-level issue) which then ratchets up the power across the board. The setting had Rjurik and Vos despising wizards, Anuireans and Brecht seeing them distantly but as useful, and the Khinasi idolising them - quite a range, but one where many secret mages could travel to the Khinasi lands to learn, then return home to set up a power base far from those with the wisdom to espy them (a few like this are noted in the Rjurik Highlands and Vosgaard books).

I like this because reining in the mage has long been a DnD problem - particularly at high level. While social drawbacks never properly counter mechanical strengths, they can go some way to doing so and I prefer a Barbara Hambley approach to mages as a result. Also, of course, it creates some great role-playing opportunities, and some interesting matter-of-justice type scenario's.

The question of domains is a bit harder, mage domains produce little if any income in most variants, in part to force the mages to be team players. This has the effect of making them horribly difficult to build - other domains have a much stronger arithmetic power effect, source domains grow, but have only 20% of the power increase for each holding level gained which slows them down significantly making it harder for other mages to pounce in.

If you assume that the domain is more than just inanimate objects and natural life, then the mage has to be something of a 'people person' to run it which while not a huge problem, will cut out some of the freakier specimens. So I'd generally assume that there are only a few mages with the personal power, skills, and cash to realistically seek to replace a domain mage.

[Mirviriam]

This has the effect of making them horribly difficult to build - other domains have a much stronger arithmetic power effect, source domains grow, but have only 20% of the power increase for each holding level gained which slows them down significantly making it harder for other mages to pounce in.

If you assume that the domain is more than just inanimate objects and natural life, then the mage has to be something of a 'people person' to run it which while not a huge problem, will cut out some of the freakier specimens. So I'd generally assume that there are only a few mages with the personal power, skills, and cash to realistically seek to replace a domain mage.

Where do I find out more about this source domain power - I've read over D20 (3rd or 3.5 edition after I printed it) & the original handbook this past 2 days & there's nothing there about.

I definitely understand what you say about the being hard to play a domain as source only...I assume that's why Caine is located next to spiderfell & holds all of Taline's source ... so he's got extra regency to turn into gold for his schemes.

Somewhere in the D20 it basically outlines that people are not apart of the source domains. Not directly, but it says that nature & wild things atune themselves to the wizard. Then all materials agree that people are the one thing that permenantly lowers the maximum level of source(the level of max source is inversely proportional to level of province(which people agree is how many ppl in province) they have a common resource # of 10 + the natural landscapes bonus to source holdings)...maybe druids/rangers are part of domain if they choose? So far as I could tell the natural area around a source was only thing that was part of a wizard's source domain (if he becomes the ruler of a province we're talking a completely different story).

[AndrewTall]

You won't find details on what's really in a source holding anywhere - it's how differing people try to interpret the mechanics and odd stray line of canon fluff.

Basically to try and reduce the 'I have no money!' problem of mages people made various fixes, the Book of Magecraft allowed high level sources to act as virtual guilds and found trade routes - but was that a handful of rare valuable items/herbs/etc, or a small network of people dedicated to the mage who was so closely tied to the land? Or did the wizard themselves wander around picking herbs and growing diamonds?

D20 variants included income as a guild 4 levels lower, 1/3 Gb per level, etc, etc. Again all imply that there is something that a) generates b) harvest and c) distributes wealth in the domain - i.e. it contains people of some sort...


Source domains being 'different' to other holding types goes right back to the start of the game, although some of it could be sloppy wording as regards contest actions, law holding influence, pillage actions, etc.

source levels were inverted, imo, because the designers wanted wizards to both need everyone else (money!) and oppose them (argh, no, don't rule up the province, I neeed that L9 source!) to create dynamic tension between regents.

So really its up to you, what do you want sources to be?

For example I make ruling provinces very difficult - so the source opposing the rule action dynamic is unnecessary. But I still want to allow undeveloped realms a chance against the big boys, so I'd want to invert the province level and source level anyway (i.e. you can have big magic, or a big army - but probably not both).

I like mebhaighl to be generated by plant life, but some people make the valid point that high population can easily indicate high amounts of plant life (those fields have extremely rapid growth, or is corn somehow the only plant that doesn't generate mebhaighl?) so the source level should go up with high population which I don't want...

If you follow the 'mebhaighl is generated deep in the planet' approach and want to invert levels you need to say that somehow the increasing organised population disrupts it - but given the value of a good source listening to the court mage when he says 'build not along the line between the mountain and the swamp, a river of magic runs through pure and strong, and its strength will guard the nation - or tear it asunder if thwarted', frankly any smart scion would invest in bridges that don't block mebhaighl any more than natural fords do, lay out streets that curved to follow the necessary line, etc - and have both high pop and high source.

[Thelandrin]

Feng Shui realm ruling? I might consider allowing that, but the ruler would either need to be a wizard or have a vassal wizard to help him out and the province would two or three times as much GB and RP to raise, in return for the source level not dropping by one if the realm rule succeeds.

[kgauck]

If Anuire is more like France, with the humans generally sharing a fairly common nationality and history, such re-unions are more possible. They are less possible the more disparate are the cultures. Less possible, but not impossible.

I think that presumes an awareness of a nation, which I would reject. Germany remained provincial and disunited until the mid-19th century a generation after a real and profound national consciousness emerged. I think most people think of themselves as being from their town or village and have an awareness of being from their province, but I don't think there is an Avanese consciousness less alone Anuirean. Nobles tend to be cosmopolitan.

Regarding a great Empire, I think its possible, but the conditions are tough enough that we don't find a succession of empires as we do after Alexander. The middle east has a history of one empire after another. Asyrians to Babylonians, to Medians, to Persians, to Alexander, to Seleucids, to Parthians, and so on.

I think that in the aftermath of Deismaar, scions had a group consciousness from their participation in the great battle. They acknowledged Roele as the successor to Haelyn as chief commander, and when the old powers fell to the new scions, they accepted, perhaps if resisted at home, they welcomed Roele and his support. The Empire is not an example of Alexandrian conquest, but rather of a class of people, the scions overthrowing powers at home and acknowledging that Roele was their leader. Its more like a revolutionary moment.

Over time, the forces of disintegration overwhelmed the forces of integration and the Empire fell. Those forces of localism and regionalism are still powerful and tend to prevent a repeat.

Could one of the great factions gain ascendency, defeat a major awnie, remove any meaningful opposition at home and move on to bigger goals? Sure. But I would expect that such a project would have a great deal to overcome to avoid being a Carolingian moment, where there is temporary unification followed by a division, just as Alexander was succeeded by several generals.

[kgauck]

I didn't think about this point of yours much - but I read the campain setting some (skimmed interesting parts) - got to where the original materials stated, outside of the elves and evil domains there are only 6 truly practicing mages.

There is no category of wizards, but there is a category of wizard's marks, and there are 17 of those, and I know I have really only scratched the surface. I'd estimate the total number of wizard domains as closer to 50, and they will have successors in grooming, plus the odd wizard who isn't attached to a domain, I'd estimate close to 120 as a minimum, with dilettante wizards being a much larger number still.

I love battles, that's one of best parts of game - all I'm saying is how is your being good using castles able to stop rocks the size of wagons from hitting the wall

Short answer: By knowing how an attacker would besieger your castle, you know how to sight ballistas on towers to shoot at the likely spots for siege equipment. You know how to create overlapping fields of fire and set up obstacles in the very layout of the earth (how wide is the moat, the construction of hills and slopes on the approach to a castle, so that even if a breach is formed, its hard to exploit because you have to cross a prepared field without natural cover, up a slope, under a hail of archers who have practiced putting arrows on this slope from walls and towers that give them every opportunity to kill you as you run for the breach. They have materials prepared for repairing breaches so that if they attacker moves slowly because they want to use constructed protection to approach the breech, when they arrive they have to exit and re-open that breech under the hail of arrows.

There is a reason sieges take so long. Its not just a matter of tossing a couple of rocks and killing the defenders.

But even moreso, most sieges don't involve siege equipment. Its expensive, vulnerable, and not terribly effective. Under ideal conditions it can be pretty potent, but a lot of times you can't get those and its not so impressive. Most sieges were of the starve them out variety.

You need to get more granular with the siege checks - there's things you just can't do with siege checks.

Siege checks aren't meant to be the all-purpose siege mechanic. They are especially good for NPC conducted sieges because the PC is elsewhere, or as one of many rolls for things during a siege.

Also if you exit castle, then I can enter castle should I catch up with you

Not really. First off, you are outside of archery range when people leave the castle. That's quite a distance to haul, under archery fire, under adverse conditions, like a slope, a trench, and so on, while the defenders have measures like weighted gates to make closing up quick and easy. Most castles have considerable defenses at their openings, so that getting into the gatehouse but failing to get past the gate puts you in a lethal cross-fire under murder-holes, and susceptible to other kinds of nastiness. Finally any structure with a main gate will have a two gate system so that only one is opened at a time.

Entering a castle isn't like bum-rushing a street vendor.

Thanks for fixing my quote other day too!

no problem.

[kgauck]

Actually per rules in D20 - provinces have a network of defenses with central fort/castle this is primarily for video games I think as you can't easily have 4 seiges within one province (the rules state somewhere in original materials about automatically housing 3 archer units). Then all holdings are protected upto the level of the fortification level - if the regeant so chooses. The destruction of levels on the fortification might not reflect on the castle but rather other spots around the realm....one more reasons the circumstances prevent opposed siege craft rolls

I don't know what you are referring to as a set of rules. I don't why you couldn't have four sieges in one province. If you defeated your enemy in a major battle and could be sure he wouldn't be raising any of your sieges, you could do it. Otherwise it would not be advisable to divide your army so.

Also I don't understand why he fact you can attack in one place means I could not use a siege test for a siege at another place or time? Can you explain why this is a problem? If its based on some notion of everything in a province being managed as a single event, please understand the purpose of this thread is to provide an alternative to the cartoonishly simple rules I have seen elsewhere.

I'm not looking to destroy the province level, just law - the province would be useless to me if I can't raise armies from it later on. You missed the point though - I'm just trying to deny RP/GP from my chosen enemy. If I'm short money I would consider dropping provinces I've invaded to level 4.

Law is generally based in the strongest places. If any holding were inside the regent's fortresses, it would be law. Often the fortresses are the law. Attacking some third person's law is one thing. It may be exposed to military operations, then again it may not.

Don't get me wrong though - I will completely wipe someone off the map...

I don't know what you mean by "wipe someone off the map," it seems you are taking about pillage, and pillage can't do that. Pillage can reduce the offensive combat power of a province to zero quite easily, but it leaves the defensive power of a province nearly untouched. The English pillaged France throughout the Hundred Years War and it didn't bring them any closer to occupying a single estate.

Though, none of my characters would invade anything until we have complete control of realm. If the priests weren't on board before hand - then I'd be busy killing and stuffing them in to barrels as meat by product to sell to other nations as discount rate ... then I might start invasions.

I can't think of anything you could do that would throw your realm into civil war faster. Attacking the priests would mean a generation of civil unrest, occasional civil war, and a longer period of simmering discontent. You'd be remembered fondly like Bloody Mary Tudor. You can try and be a Henry VIII, and change the religion by force, but you'll spend the rest of that character's life trying to that genie back in the bottle. Put thoughts of conquest out of your mind for two generations minimum.

that mass agiatate and contest action that priests have looks like a doozie - like I said I'd never allow anyone that much control inside my realm.

I don't see you every having the kind of control you're looking for, outside of small Vos realms. There are always internal disagreements; factions in courts, temples, and guilds; rivalries, and more. Ruling a realm is like herding cats. You have a core of people and income that you control pretty directly and the rest you hope doesn't distract you too much from the policies you would like to pursue. It will, but you can hope.

Control of a realm is mostly an illusion. You say jump and what you get in return looks like:
I don't jump on Tuesdays and Saturdays for religious reasons.
I won't jump unless you pay me more.
I served my 40 days this year, no jumping for me.
Why are we jumping when we should be swimming?
I would like to jump, but I injured myself in your service quite recently.
There is no jumping in my feudal contract.
My town charter specifically exempts me from jumping, or paying for others to jump.
If you make me jump, I'll make common cause with your enemies.
If you try and make me jump, I'll sue you in court.
I'll jump if you grant me a monopoly on the river traffic from Barn's Ford to Hamton Vale.
That's it! I',m running away!
I'll jump if you can make him jump.
I'll jump if the oracles look favorable.
I'll jump if I am granted a two day work exemption for every day jumping.
Remove these onerous taxes and I'll jump.
We should be jumping with them against him, not with him against them.

I think you get the picture. The only people jumping are your direct and indirect dependents.

[AndrewTall]

From a mechanic point of view, the ruler has both pro's and con's to see in a small number of strong domains in their realm, as opposed to either a large number of weak domains, or directly controlling the guilds, temples, etc themselves.

1. Know your enemies - if your domain is 'pure' it is inherently more unified as everyone has the same goals. External threats will exist, but youll know what direction the swords will be coming from, and be secure with your domain behind you when there is conflict.

2. Divide and conquer. The competition for guilds, temples etc is mostly other guilds, temples, etc. If you try to dominate, then you become the enemy of everyone with ambition, 'ture' faith, etc - if you allow separate domains then they will mostly battle each other.

3. You can't control mice. A few domains can be the subject of diplomacy, threats etc, - but threatening a hundred regents is both time consuming and impractical. Your threats are also limited - if 3 guilds compete in your realm, you can threaten one with losing a single concession, holding, etc - if you have dozens of tiny guilds then you either leave them be or crush them - the option of 'reasonable force' disappears as they are so weak.

4. You can't do everything. Every regent needs allies, people to act on their behalf, support their plans, etc - in mechanical terms even if you only get 1 action from a domain a season on something you want, that's one more action than your domain had. Add in maxed-out regency collections vs the same collection and regency from vassalage and reduced control actually boosts efficiency.

5. Tyranny begets rebellion. If your regent controls absolutely, then by default no one else has any control. Since many people have ambition, reducing their scope inevitably breeds resentment and makes your regent their enemy. That create fertile ground for intrigue, corruption, etc both initiated within your domain and provoked by your enemies.

6. Familiarity breeds contempt. Any domain consists of a number of smaller organisations, the more issues that a domain covers, the more the aims of these small organisations diverge. The sheriffs want tighter border controls, the merchants want easier trading, the result is more and more internal inefficiencies as the domain sprawls.

7. The road to ruin. To get from a position of multiple overlapping domains, to a god-king absolute control situation requires the crushing of numerous smaller domains - which will resist as best as they are able, bribe your enemies for succor, etc. If your neighbour accepts taxes and fealty they will grow while the domineering ruler bleeds themselves dry - not a wise tactical move.

8. Isolation is blindness
As a foreign ruler, I would dislike a domain beholden to another ruler in my realm. a neutral domain is fine, but one which will spy upon my realm and use my largesse to feed my rival? Never! As such is a ruler demands domination of their domains, the domains will find themselves shunned outside the ruler's domain, and as such will be far less able to advise the ruler of foreign affairs when required.


What no ruler wants, is a monolithic foreign domain within their realm, if ruler A and two faiths B and C, then B and C are constrained into loyalty, as whichever one opposes the ruler more strenuously will see the ruler choose the support the other - making both compete for favour.

So tactically the ideal is allied domains in your realm which pay their taxes, maybe a little regency in vassalage, and accept that in exchange for reasonable taxes and the odd titbit of information/support they will otherwise be left in peace.

If you move away from a mainly mechanical view of the game towards a storyteller / simulationist view then the above becomes vastly more important, as the increased dominance of npc's comes into play and rewards trying to 'win the game' with punitive roleplaying penalties.

[Mirviriam]

Nobles tend to be cosmopolitan.

One thing about the nobles in feudal systems was that influencing the right one could change a country or at least his area of control.

I think that would be a great plot or developement combined with lots of research (and a failure or two) before players of smaller realms realized their dream!