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[Rolan7]

Sounds like a bit of roleplay fluff.  In my group's first 5e campaign, we had to travel up north of the Sword Coast into the icy wastes, so we actually bothered to buy a wagon and provisions and such.   We ended up rigging the wagon with a coal stove, and buying coal, because as best we could tell we would be taking unavoidable stacks of exhaustion from the cold temperatures and dying in a few days.  I still don't know what we were supposed to do (particularly at level, like, 3) so we thought up the stove system.

But instead of just buying "20 days rations" and leaving it at that, I decided my character (a dwarf) had a little rocknut garden in his hovel under the bar.  This quickly became a running joke where everybody treated the rocknuts as well... rocks, except this loopy dwarf fighter who probably got his nutrition from ale or something.

Until we got to dwarven mining town up in the frozen north, which was happy to fit us some adamantine armor...  and a very reasonable price on rocknuts.

When my character eventually died to a roper, my next character asked why his bag was full of rocks.  We left them in the dungeon.  Whether non-dwarves could even digest them was never addressed.

[Kadzar]

And even if you are outside, you can probably at least find some cover or something.

That's why the Sharpshooter feat is kinda silly... Not only does it let you utilize the full range of the weapon without disadvantage, it also lets you ignore half and 3/4 cover. So... Basically anything that isn't full cover, and full cover prevents the enemy from seeing or interacting with you as well.

Yeah, but in 5e you can just move out of full cover, shoot, and move back into cover. They probably won't be able to hit you back as well out to that range, and after the first time you'll likely wise up and hold your action to shoot them when they pop out, but it is an option. Or, depending on their objectives, they can just wait behind cover until you come to them or leave.

It certainly changes how the enemy is able to respond you, you can basically pin the enemy down with sniper fire, but it's not an unstoppable technique.

[Rolan7]

Hm, can't you still ready an action to fire when they leave cover?

I'm not sure how readying actions is supposed to work.  We usually roughly play it as delaying the character's turn until the trigger occurs, but for a situation like that we'd probably be allowed to interrupt the opponents turn with an attack (or attack sequence?).

[Grim Portent]

So the 5e game I'm currently working on PC ideas for starts at level 9 and we've been given a budget of 4500gp to spend on gear, magic items to be assessed by the GM, and I've had a list of magic items I was interested in before. But now I'm sitting here with a spreadsheet open calculating how much I can buy in terms of practical supplies, hirelings, vehicles and so on in order to make a mercenary platoon led by a PC because I'm on a logistics kick now.

Real trouble is looking to be practical transport of gear and supplies. Wagons are a must. Oxen can drag twice as much as draft horses, but draft horses seem more appropriate for the job since they can be used as mounts in an emergency. I'm hitting against the rocket fuel problem a tad, in that food/water weigh a lot, so I need more capacity to carry enough for any reasonable trip, which means more horses which means more food/water.

It turns out 4 horses will need a barrel of water a day between them. A full barrel weighs 395 out of their 1080 pound dragging capacity, so finding water regularly is a necessity because there's no way to carry more than a few days worth.

Not done working things out, but supplies for 30 soldiers including everything from tents to food, to spare clothes and soap, paper and ink for writing messages/drawing maps, cases to keep important ones dry, a chest for valuables, chains and manacles to take 10 captives and so forth all comes up to under 2k so far, which would leave 2500+ gp to spend on a little personal gear and daily wages. Skilled hirelings cost 2gp* a day, so that's only enough to pay them all for one and a half months, which isn't all that long to hit on paying work for a band of thirty soldiers in.

I am looking at four full wagons and eight draft horses just to carry cargo. Everyone not manning a wagon would be walking. I dread to think of how much extra baggage would be needed to feed enough riding horses for the 20 or so walking people.

*The basic cr1/8 Guard probably doesn't justify that price, but cr3 Veterans or Knights would be frankly cheap at that rate.

[Kadzar]

Hm, can't you still ready an action to fire when they leave cover?

I'm not sure how readying actions is supposed to work.  We usually roughly play it as delaying the character's turn until the trigger occurs, but for a situation like that we'd probably be allowed to interrupt the opponents turn with an attack (or attack sequence?).

I meant to say "ready your action to shoot", but for some reason my brain got messed up into using previous version verbiage. I think I also sometimes also use "minor action" when I mean to say "bonus action".

And readying actions is actually pretty simple. You expend your action on your turn to ready an action, and when the trigger you specified comes up, you use your reaction to do that action. Also, your action takes place right after the trigger occurs.

[Grim Portent]

So I'm still poking away at mercenary bands and similar armed groups and the expenses involved, which has ultimately brought me to the races like goblins and ogres for whom money isn't of any real value, but consistent good food, warm fires and well made bedrolls are.

So I was looking at the costs of alcohol and spices and things to pay for military service with basic comforts. Couldn't find drugs on any kind.

Ale is pretty cheap, a 40 gallon barrel is 2.8 gold, and 2 gold of that is the barrel. Common wine works out about the same.

Then I looked at saffron, it's 15 gold for a pound. Doesn't tell me much, so I need to know how much saffron you actually need when cooking. A 'pinch' does about 4-6 servings of stew or soup, ok, better, but how much is a pinch? Turns out it's twenty threads. How much does a thread weigh? Anyway long story short, that pound of saffron is enough to season 68000 servings of food. Throw in ginger, cinnamon, pepper, cloves and salt as things you can buy and keeping tasty food on the table seems easy if you can access a half decent field cook.

A chicken is just 2cp and should give about 3 pounds of meat, a goat is 1gp for about 40 pounds, a cow is 10gp for about 430 pounds, so meat isn't too expensive. Flour is cheap at 2cp a pound.

If you find soldiers that will work for bed, board and luxuries it seems quite practical to keep them happy for months or even years with pretty low expenses. I'm sure more than a few ogres and hill giants would be willing to work for all the delicious meat stew and spiced bread they can eat, all the ale they can drink and a soft warm place to sleep. The inevitable brawls would be an issue, but plenty of races in D&D get them to work for them without much issue and they just pay them in raw meat, beatings and the occasional captive to torment.

Finding enough work for them to earn their keep is probably the hardest part of maintaining a band of soldiers, but hey, most D&D settings are rife with problems that can be solved by violence.

[MrRoboto75]

Well, you also got to bother with the local lords or whatever knowing there's some random asshole wandering around with an army of goblins and other assorted nasties.  Probably up to no good with that.

Better send a party of adventurers to go deal with that.

[Grim Portent]

Well, you also got to bother with the local lords or whatever knowing there's some random asshole wandering around with an army of goblins and other assorted nasties.  Probably up to no good with that.

Better send a party of adventurers to go deal with that.

Another problem that can be solved with violence. 



More seriously, I don't think it saves much money to go with goods based pay over money. There's no official ideas on how much ogres and so on eat, but I'm pretty sure it'll be in the 40-60 pounds of food a day range for ogres, if not more. Now that's still cheaper than 2gp a day if you can get the infrastructure set up, but transporting food and having camp cooks all adds up to more initial expenditure in terms of draft animals and wagons, sacks and barrels. Not to mention the practicalities of how many chicken cages can you fit in a non-specific wagon? What breed of chicken is it? How much do they weigh? How often can you resupply? Setting up an army is rather expensive and impractical, which is why it tends to be done by countries not bands of semi-nomadic weirdos.

Still fun to do.

[Cthulhu]

So I'm still poking away at mercenary bands and similar armed groups and the expenses involved, which has ultimately brought me to the races like goblins and ogres for whom money isn't of any real value, but consistent good food, warm fires and well made bedrolls are.

So I was looking at the costs of alcohol and spices and things to pay for military service with basic comforts. Couldn't find drugs on any kind.

Ale is pretty cheap, a 40 gallon barrel is 2.8 gold, and 2 gold of that is the barrel. Common wine works out about the same.

Then I looked at saffron, it's 15 gold for a pound. Doesn't tell me much, so I need to know how much saffron you actually need when cooking. A 'pinch' does about 4-6 servings of stew or soup, ok, better, but how much is a pinch? Turns out it's twenty threads. How much does a thread weigh? Anyway long story short, that pound of saffron is enough to season 68000 servings of food. Throw in ginger, cinnamon, pepper, cloves and salt as things you can buy and keeping tasty food on the table seems easy if you can access a half decent field cook.

A chicken is just 2cp and should give about 3 pounds of meat, a goat is 1gp for about 40 pounds, a cow is 10gp for about 430 pounds, so meat isn't too expensive. Flour is cheap at 2cp a pound.

If you find soldiers that will work for bed, board and luxuries it seems quite practical to keep them happy for months or even years with pretty low expenses. I'm sure more than a few ogres and hill giants would be willing to work for all the delicious meat stew and spiced bread they can eat, all the ale they can drink and a soft warm place to sleep. The inevitable brawls would be an issue, but plenty of races in D&D get them to work for them without much issue and they just pay them in raw meat, beatings and the occasional captive to torment.

Finding enough work for them to earn their keep is probably the hardest part of maintaining a band of soldiers, but hey, most D&D settings are rife with problems that can be solved by violence.

You're starting on the True OSR path now, not the lethality meme path, that's good.  Remember, adventuring is not a career path, it's a way to finance your illegitimate borderlands demesne and a mercenary army to fight other illegitimate borderlands demesnes.

[MrRoboto75]

Keep on the Illegitimate Borderlands, a classic D&D module.

[Grim Portent]

To be honest, I'd be pretty down for going full dark lord given half a chance. Social encounters based on placating vassals, military logistics, sieges and open warfare, interacting with party members during the formation of a new kingdom, foreign diplomacy, defending evil ritual sites from waves of enemies in order to summon armies of fiends or undead.

All that fun stuff.

[delphonso]

I'm building an Oath of Conquest Dragonborn right now. This might end up being his long term goals.

[Grim Portent]

I actually started looking at Conquest paladins last night as well. 

I had forgotten their aura deals psychic damage to frightened enemies that start their turn within range as well as dropping their movement to 0, which means a paladin with the Menacing feat from UA could stare at someone until they die or pass out. 3 rounds of intimidate checks would be enough for a level 7 paladin to kill a goblin with angry looks alone.

[delphonso]

That's so dumb - it must happen. The fear stuff is very cool, but hard to exploit.

Unfortunately, the AoE fear from their Oath gets a save every turn, and from Dragon Fear gives a save if damaged, so...every turn if in the aura. Still, it's a wasted turn for several enemies.

[Iduno]

So the 5e game I'm currently working on PC ideas for starts at level 9 and we've been given a budget of 4500gp to spend on gear, magic items to be assessed by the GM, and I've had a list of magic items I was interested in before. But now I'm sitting here with a spreadsheet open calculating how much I can buy in terms of practical supplies, hirelings, vehicles and so on in order to make a mercenary platoon led by a PC because I'm on a logistics kick now.

Real trouble is looking to be practical transport of gear and supplies. Wagons are a must. Oxen can drag twice as much as draft horses, but draft horses seem more appropriate for the job since they can be used as mounts in an emergency. I'm hitting against the rocket fuel problem a tad, in that food/water weigh a lot, so I need more capacity to carry enough for any reasonable trip, which means more horses which means more food/water.

It turns out 4 horses will need a barrel of water a day between them. A full barrel weighs 395 out of their 1080 pound dragging capacity, so finding water regularly is a necessity because there's no way to carry more than a few days worth.

Not done working things out, but supplies for 30 soldiers including everything from tents to food, to spare clothes and soap, paper and ink for writing messages/drawing maps, cases to keep important ones dry, a chest for valuables, chains and manacles to take 10 captives and so forth all comes up to under 2k so far, which would leave 2500+ gp to spend on a little personal gear and daily wages. Skilled hirelings cost 2gp* a day, so that's only enough to pay them all for one and a half months, which isn't all that long to hit on paying work for a band of thirty soldiers in.

I am looking at four full wagons and eight draft horses just to carry cargo. Everyone not manning a wagon would be walking. I dread to think of how much extra baggage would be needed to feed enough riding horses for the 20 or so walking people.

*The basic cr1/8 Guard probably doesn't justify that price, but cr3 Veterans or Knights would be frankly cheap at that rate.

Remember, Logistics and Dragons is best when everyone (DM possibly as well, YMMV) is on-board before the game. Also, if you're playing a math-based wizard, or huckster bard, or illusionist who makes things appear much more valuable than they appear.