Skills and skill levels for building an army, intelligence service, bureaucracy

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

Not much of a reason, but performing a "character evaluation" does seem tricky to me, especially when hiring for critical or semi-critical job positions.

True, but note that Psychology (Applied) is a Hard skill that is apparently fairly rare. And success just means that you'll have a basic idea of the psychological suitability of the candidate, with increasing margin of success giving you more details. Of course, any attempt by the recruit to delibarately deceive* you will mean a Quick Contest instead of an unmodified roll.

Personally, I'd allow an Administration roll to evalulate their fit for the corporate culture in your organisation and Leadership (without Charisma bonuses) to evaluate their capabilities as part of a team of individuals. And IQ-based skill roll against their skills within their fields or specialities would always be good for estimating their expertise.

But I don't exactly know which if these skills ought to be most important in selecting a good team of subordinates. And I don't know how much time a character needs to make an unmodified skill roll. That's crucial for estimating how quickly an organisation can be put together.

For example, Just Hand Tiglath, Lady of Thunderous Vengeance, High Priestess of the Three Thunders, Atoner of the Highest, has recently dedicated herself to making the lot of the common people more tolerable. To that end, she has accepted a position where she uses her local contacts, formiddable personality and awesome (if not fearsome) reputation to hire workers for the public work projects of the PCs.

She has been the leader of a secret religious society for two decades and led a full-scale rebellion against Gilgeam, the former God-King of Unther. While she was born elsehwere in Unther, she has spent the past two years as one of the most respected people in the patch-work of factions that serves as the government of Free Unther in Messemprar.

Now she has abandoned her goddess and taken up the service of a new (slightly less terrifying) god, but is quite irregular in that she views her service as consisting of atoning for the ways the Assuran, and all other gods, have abused the trust of their followers and caused the common people to suffer. As such, she will use the powers granted to her to punish those who oppress or victimise people in the name of religion.

She will also use her strong will, authoritative personality and long experience of command to try to stop the famine and plagues of the refugee camps by repairing and rebuilding the sewers of Messemprar and the qanaths and irritation systems outside of it, not to mention improving the hygiene in other ways.

She is actually not a terribly inspiring and charismatic leader, given that people are more likely to fear her than follow her, but she is nevertheless frightfully competent and sensible. In game terms, she has high IQ, some Talents related to being strong-willed and forceful and lots of skill points in her fields, but neither Charisma, Voice nor Appearance (in fact, she's Ugly).

She has Administration -20, Diplomacy -12, Intimidation -25, Leadership -20, Politics -14, Psychology (Applied) -20 and Public Speaking -12. She doesn't have Engineering (Civil) or any advanced mathematical or technological skills, but she has Engineering (Combat) -13, Savoir-Faire (Military) -15, Operations -15, Soldier -15, Strategy -14 and Tactics -18.

What I'm wondering is how long would it take her, assuming that she was provided with good cash flow, but little assistance beyond a few crowd-control bodyguards** from the Artisans' militia and the Purple Reign marines, to organise effective public work projects from the huge (tens of thousands) refugee camps?

She'd have to find local engineers, local overseers, local accountants, local suppliers, etc.

And assuming that she was asked to keep an eye out for people who were not already serving one faction or another but would obviously make better soldiers than labourers, how rapidly could she spot people who'd make good recruits for a military force?

How long would it take her to have a training cadre set up that could handle providing good intensive training, assuming*** she was allowed to use all three hundred of the Artisan's militia and some ten marines?

And, assuming that the PCs were allowed to pick some five hundred already serving soldiers from their allies as a cadre, how long would it take her, the 300 militia and those ten marines to make a selection that would be mostly free of destructive factional allegiances and also result in some of the best and most mentally flexible soldiers?

She'd have the freedom to contact the Kehlynn Darkwater, the herald spymaster, and make use of his rumour mill for the duration. For the military aspects, she'd be working closely with Kyros Nikandros, the military chief-of-staff. On the other hand, in both cases, they'd be busy enough so that they could only give her projects maybe an hour or two per day.

She'd have an easy time arranging joint training with a couple of thousand friendly mercenaries, though, as well as battlewizards of the Northern Wizards and their mystic knights and militiamen. As long as she could arrange this herself or with no more assistance from Kyros and Kehlynn than represented by an hour or two per day, because they each had dozens of other projects going on, many of them vital for the success of her public work projects in the future.

Assuming that the other PCs, their naval organisation and their other mercenaries, were mostly busy during this time, what ought her projects look like after two months?

How many people has she selected as trusted lieutenants? How many labourers does she employ after two months of recruiting, selection, organisation and preparations (her finances would support 10,000 people at maximum)?

How many people has she recruited as soldiers?

*Beyond the largely unconscious deception that goes on in all social situation, as people try to minimise their flaws and appear in the most favourable light possible.
**Or overseers or trainers, depending on how she wanted to use them.
***And further assuming that she spent no more than 20% of her time on such military work (instead of more useful work) and that only because she knew that without victory in the war, none of this would matter.