Argh! Not the dread Black Shorts legion of Duke Yanafal! <runs screaming from room> Unit Organisation -- Satrap of Sidcup (satellite town of Alkoth) shouts at the troops, very loudly, until they do what he wants.
> Alex briefly asks where my evidence is for Roman Centurions being
> NCOs.
I did? Perhaps only by implication, in confessing the lack of research I did on the subject. Thanks anyhow. The formal distinction is something of a modern thing, anyway. In the Yanafali legionary case, I'll happily stipulate that most Centurions came up through the ranks, _but_ I think it's not hideously difficult (though perhaps not common) for them to be promoted higher without being shipped off to West Point for several years. (Notice that Loskalm has (or had) everything _but_a Westpoint? Or maybe it sunk.)
> At the time of the DRAGON PASS battles, I do not think that
> the Redlands have been seriously invaded yet, nor has the Ban lifted
> off Fronela.
I don't know about the Redlands, but Fronela is "currently" accessible from the Empire, via Rathorela, and the Janube. Though since Charg is still bottled up, there may not be anything much happening there for a while. Talking of Loskalm, it has two whole other guys to squish if it wants to mess with the Empire.
> >But is this really all the phalanges that the empire can muster?
> >I'd have though there would be about a couple of dozen of this type
> >of unit, though of doubtless highly variable quality.
> The empire has swarms of phalanxes. It's just that most of
> them are local defense units (let's say it together: "like the Native
> Furthest Corps").
I'd don't think the NFC are exactly phalanxes. In fact, I don't think they are remotely, but any stretch of the imagination, phalanxes. I'm saying 20 or so phalanxes of Heartland recruited, reasonably equipped, pointy-pike equipped, phalanx-like phalanxes. My evidence for this may be questionable, but I'm _not_ talking about those eejits in the NFC or the like.
> The empire can't afford to have a centralized mass
> army that is of "highly variable quality".
I don't think the army is all that "centralised", as such. But equally, I don't think every unit that just happens to be raised in the Heartlands is necessarily wonderful. Obviously, you're going to send to half-decent guys on campaign if this is at all feasible, if at all practical.
Someone (sorry, message lost) suggests that the "much larger" Roman empire could only field anout 4 or 5 legions. I don't know what period is being spoken of here. Caesar had four legions with him on his Gallic campaign, I think, but there were more back home. Late imperial _civil wars_ had up to a dozen legions per faction; when Rome fought wars of imperial survival, such as against the Goths in the 4th century, many more were involved. Now, I confess I don't have the population figures on the tip of my tongue at the moment, though in any case, most Roman mobilisation was from a relatively small geographical part of the empire, if I rightly recall.
Admittedly, that the Red Emperor and the like show up at all in the DP battalia at all would seem to suggest this is pretty big-scale stuff, as far as the Lunars are concerned. Though this could be just Gamely Licence.
I force Sandy into a small tactical withdrawal:
> But I believe that the acceptance of a Daka Fal-like entity
> as an afterlife entity is quite common in Glorantha, and very often,
> this entity is believed to be the first person to die. The Orlanthi
> and Praxians obviously call this guy Daka Fal.
I don't disagree with this, though it implies a range of similarities not stated in the Sandian original.
Dara Happa, for example, probably doesn't have this namby-pamby advocacy by your own god. You'll be judged by Yelm, representing yourself, and like it.
In other beliefs, there may be no formal judging process at all. Particularly in the East, where you'll get reborn as the correct entity by the princples of Cosmic Harmony.
Only to be clobbered by a counterattack on the intricacies of percentile
dice rolls:
> I propose a (roll your CON x 10 or less to survive childbirth)
> concept as a general rule to not be followed in any case that the PCs
> life will actually be affected by a random roll instead of a GM
> musing.
I was thinking more of NPC's myself, so the Think of the Roleplaying Oppurtunities arguments are rather less applicable.
On the simple, elegant, of almost Pendragon-like restraint in its
cleaving to CON as a determining factor (20-CON)% chance of death rule,
Sandy froths, in a not-invented-here fashion:
> No way, Alex. Doctors in the good old days would often peg
> certain woman as very likely to die in childbirth -- _they_ didn't
> think such women had a (20-CON%) chance of death. They thought (and I
> agree) that some women were in dire danger, and others were not.
I think that in the absence of some specific condition, which would not necessarily be reflected by CON, an up to 70% chance of death is _greatly_ exaggerated. This is hard to demonstrate, as not only are medical statistics from the Middle Ages and the like a tad thin, they also foolishly forget to record CON. But suggesting that a fairly identifiable half of the female population is responsible for all (or almost all) the deaths in childbirth is getting a tad credulity-straining.
> "Thou Shalt Not Institute Any Piddly Differences". As a professional
> Game Designer this offends my nobler senses.
Which Amateur Game Designer do we have to blame for the Stop Bleeding/Act Heroic CON% rule, and ditto for recovering from stunning, POW% for DI, etc? Come to that the Test of Holiness is obviously woefully under-sensitive in this respect. Need I go on?
> A woman with CON 18 has
> only a 15% higher chance than a woman with a CON 3. Snooze.
Now here's a common error of statistical reporting, known to we in the trade as Talking Complete Rubbish. A more sensible way of viewing this would be a Five Times Greater <gasp, shock, horror> risk. Now personally, I think a 17% risk is Grave enough to be going on with. If I had a 70% chance of copping it, I'd want to know what was up with my nether bits. Eh, well, aside from them being male. You know what I mean.
> If you
> use my superior system, then a woman with a CON 3 will take
> game-significant actions -- seek special magic to aid her pregnancy [...]
And in the 10xCON% rule case, it becomes Boringly Obvious who needs such aid. "I see, Elphin Eleanora needs another seven points of Generic Preggers Magic, Thelma Thunderthighs needs not a jot. Again." Ho-hum.
> We don't get the interesting roleplaying opportunities. Nor do we get
> strapping peasant women with wide hips who can drop kids continually
> without fear of even temporary incapacitation, much less death.
If you want to broaden the issue into one of recovering from the strains of pregnacy, I'll grant this should be fairly strongly related to CON, as well as to previously "easy" childbirth (if you'll forgive the post hoc ergo proper hoc logic).
Sandy also did not qualify whether he meant there was always a 5% risk of death, or if it can drop to 0%. But in either case, there is too little differentiation between those of normal and above-normal CON, by Sandy's own logic, since it gives little credit for being a genuine examplar of the Strapping Peasant Woman class.
In the spirit of Cosmic Compromise, having slain Sandy's case, I'll now try to fix the rule.
<pause>
Can't think of much, off the top of my head. Anyone suggesting the D&D system shock survival table will be first shot, and then sued by TSR. Alex.
End of Glorantha Digest V1 #187
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