Fantasy Wargaming

Running the Thief Domain: So, you have some followers, what are going do with them? The domain I am currently running has 15 thieves ranging in level from 1 to 7.  They are mostly Human, but few are different races. They have to earn, how do you put them to work? RANDOM ENCOUNTERS IN TOWN Any Master Thief's stronghold must be located in or very near a Town or City, so his followers will spend a lot of downtime in these urban settings. Sure, there is the chance they'll randomly encounter a good target for pickpocket or mugging while moving around town.  Though the DMG 191 random City encounter entry indicates a gang with a leader,  minimum 8th level, one could create a gang with the same total levels... So, say you have a 7th level Thief follower and pair him with two 2nd levels...that's more than an average total number of levels for a Random Thief encounter from the City description.  Or a 5th with two 3's. RANDOM ENCOUNTERS IN THE WILDERNESS...

 Mercenaries in Modules T2 - The Temple of Elemental Evil - Nulb and the Ruins  Where do you find them?   Location 1.  The Waterside Hostel So, an average of 24 people will be in the tavern room at night, 25% are bandits or mercenaries, so around 6.

Appendix N - Inspirational and Educational Reading includes stories showing the various Classes in AD&D.  What are the best examples of the Thief class? Some answers are obvious:  - Jack Vance's Cugle is probably the closest thing to the Thief described by GG   - Fritz Lieber's Grey Mouser  - Tolkien''s Bilbo & Frodo Not thought of often, but clearly Conan was a multi-class Fighter / Thief, e.g. "The Tower of the Elephant."  Taurus of Nemedia from that story is also a good example.  Another example of Conan as a Thief is "The God in the Bowl". A lesser known example is Satampra Zeiros from Clark Ashton Smith's "The Tale of Satampra Zeiros".  He had a partner in crime, who didn't make it through the adventure...the life of a thief. Gygax later wrote a series of novels about a Thief named Gord. I've been told, Zelazny, Roger's Jack of Shadows is a good example of the AD&D Thief, ...

The Brigand in Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (AD&D) is a subset of the Bandit entry found on Monster Manuel (MM) page 67. So, the comply otherwise with all other details of Bandits.  The stat block is: When using this Monster in a Wilderness setting, the rank and file troops will have the following likelihood of type: So, wielding Pole Arms and wearing Chain Mail would lead anyone to concludeif  these guys were slotted into a class, then it must be Fighter.  Strange considering a Brigand is basically a Highway man or Thief who uses force to hijack Merchants and accost travelers. Maybe my modern understanding of the term doesn't quite match up with the older meaning.  I wonder about this sometimes, so I like to consult the 1828 version of Websters Dictionary which is available online: Brigand 1828   Not much difference, really more generic than my view.

 Starting Characters & Men-at-Arms A question that arises when starting a new group of PCs in any campaign is:  Can we supplement our party with Men-at-Arms? DMG 29 states clearly that the costs listed for Mercenaries does not include arms and armor, they must be furnished by the PCs over and above the employment costs.  But how does this work out for new players when starting gold is scarce.  Many times the new character has to make some choices just to equip their own PC with proper equipment, how to have enough left over to also hire a Man-at-Arms? Let's look at some examples of how GG handles this in one of the modules he wrote: B2 - The Keep on the Borderlands - The Tavern (Yes, I realize this module is marketed as for Basic D&D, but let's take a look anyway.) This particular Man-at-Arms would be classified as a Light Footman, monthly cost 1 GP, though DMG 34 informs us that Soldiers recognize hazardous duty and the cost per day is the same as per month....

 Calculating the odds of encountering each type of Mercenary Soldier: per the chart on DMG 30: Grouping them by type:

Men-at-Arms, also known as Mercenaries, are a main stay of any in Advanced Dungeons and Dragons campaign. (DMG 29)  The various types are listed in the following table in the Dungeon Masters Guide (DMG) page 30: Note the hit point range for these soldiers, which lines up with them being zero level fighters. This is confirmed in the Players Handbook (PHB) on page 105: DMG 237 Non-Player Character tables give us more details about a Mercenary's Attributes: The Monster Manual (MM) page 66 confirms normal men have hit points in the 1-6 range, informing us Mercenaries are a more hardy stock. In case you were wondering, if Men-at-arms have more hit points than normal people, DMG 88 fills in that data on page 88: So it's probably fair to deduce some of the different in hit points is  from their training. So, how do they actually fair in combat? Not great considering their ability to attack is the same as any other typical human...I gues...