06-17-2019, 01:22 PM | #11 |
Join Date: Sep 2018
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Re: Why adventuring parties?
Price is the big consideration. Half of our Dungeon fantasy adventures have probably paid us less per day than serving in the army. It's those rare one-off missions where we salvage rare material or exotic weapons that made a difference but an Army would need to be paid up front.
The other consideration is time. Approaching the four adventurers in the tavern to deal with the rat monsters underneath means this gets dealt with tonight before there's a big to-do and the tavern loses customers. Hiring a dozen halberdeers and crossbowman probably means sending word to a mercenary company in the neighboring city, waiting for them to be recalled from wherever they're camped, marching them to your city and camping until they're ready to take on the rat men. Potentially months where this infestation is wreaking havoc on your business and threatening the lives of people in the town. |
06-17-2019, 01:43 PM | #12 | |
Doctor of GURPS Ballistics
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Lakeville, MN
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Re: Why adventuring parties?
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06-17-2019, 02:54 PM | #13 | |||||||
Join Date: May 2010
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Re: Why adventuring parties?
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Except in original The Magnificent Seven (and Seven Samurai, on which it is based), much of what the titular protagonists were doing was organizing the villagers and training them to fight! |
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06-17-2019, 02:57 PM | #14 | |
Doctor of GURPS Ballistics
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Lakeville, MN
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Re: Why adventuring parties?
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One reason, though, that a small number of adventurers might work where an army won't is because the Army of Ultimate Evil will kick The Poor Good Guy Mob's butt.
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06-17-2019, 03:04 PM | #15 | |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Why adventuring parties?
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06-17-2019, 03:20 PM | #16 | |
Join Date: Jan 2006
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Re: Why adventuring parties?
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Sure, if you throw endless waves in, eventually you'll overwhelm most things, but the cost will be prohibitive, and as others have pointed out there is some stuff that will actually get stronger. That said, it might be interesting set a delve in a dungeon that an army has recently failed to assault. Reeking carrion everywhere, many monsters and soldiers slaughtered, and the things that feed on death running amok, greatly increased in numbers and power. |
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06-17-2019, 04:11 PM | #17 | |
Join Date: May 2010
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Re: Why adventuring parties?
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06-17-2019, 04:34 PM | #18 |
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Minneapolis, MN, USA
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Re: Why adventuring parties?
They don't? Very high-level characters have more followers than they can fit into the dungeon, making this impractical, but taking some into the dungeon is part of why you have them.
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06-17-2019, 04:45 PM | #19 | |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Why adventuring parties?
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06-17-2019, 04:52 PM | #20 |
Join Date: May 2010
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Re: Why adventuring parties?
Different gaming groups have different experiences with this sort of thing, but IME the big draw of the Leadership feat in 3.X was the cohort two levels lower than yourself, whereas the horde of 1st level warriors was cool but not as practical. I'm less confident about other editions, which may have worked to make the low-level followers more useful.
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