Morpheus Unbound |  House Rules |  D&D

Notes about "peasant militia" by Patric L. Rogers.

These notes are intended to add flavor to any campaign world and make overall adventure design easier and more consistent.

Of the major, non-warlike races, most will attempt to maintain a trained military force consisting of members of the Warrior NPC class.  However, sometimes the peasants also need basic training in case they need to be called up for war or other conflict, thus creating the "peasant militia."

"Peasant militia" is most common among the short-lived races such as humans and half-orcs. The longer lived races usually have time to acquire proper training as either Experts or Warriors, even among their commoners.

Human "peasant militia" are of the Commoner NPC class, with the Simple Weapon Proficiency and Shield Proficiency feats.  These feats are chosen to maximize the ability of these troops to cause at least some damage before they are inevitably destroyed or their morale is broken and they flee the battlefield.  Half-orc and other humanoid "peasant militia" will have Simple Weapon Proficiency, but no defensive proficiency.  Thus trained with weapons, they can be still be equipped with shields or armor and suffer less attack penalty than if they had no weapon training at all.  Shield proficiency is chosen over armor proficiency for the simple reason that shields are cheaper and easily taken by the living from the dead.