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HMS Invincible
2009-05-14, 02:45 PM
How should an army vs PCs scenario work out?
Eg, my party is evading, attacking and running from a goblin horde of about 100 guys. How should the encounters go? I broke it up into manageable encounters initially. They hit a lightly guarded supply base, ran into a patrol, fought a large group but had mostly minions. But now they really pissed the goblins off and the goblins are marching in full formation towards a human city/PCs.

I tried doing a skill challenge to outrace the army which worked for now, but at some point, the PC's are gonna want to fight the army. (I have them scared of it for now, but it won't last long.

Should I skip to after the battle of human army vs goblin army and send the PCs to do clean up afterwords?

Oracle_Hunter
2009-05-14, 02:55 PM
In general, armies do not successfully focus fire on a single squad of 5 guys - they have to break into units to do that. So far, you should have them get engaged by scouting squads, fast cavalry, and possibly special forces.

Once they get to a city, you only have to pay attention to the PCs' part of the battle. If the PCs decide to pull a "300" then they will, in fact, get the main body of the attacking force right on their heads - it should crush them.

Otherwise, they might be holding off a particular chokepoint and have to deal with waves of shock troops.

Basically, keep using squad-v-squad encounters, and be sure to draw up a scenario for when the PCs decide to face the army from a fortified position. If they decide to rush the army by themselves, they should die.

Stupidity is the only universal capital crime.

Wizard_Tom
2009-05-14, 02:56 PM
I've actually done some thought on how to run a party vs an army without resulting it just being a ton of minions. Basically, I would consider home-brewing a goblin horde as a single monster (swarm) and have a few of them, along with an obvious leader, a spattering of minions and maybe a few "elite" soldiers that are just normal monsters. One thing i would consider is making the swarms huge or maybe gargantuan, but not forcing it to only take 3x3 (or 4x4) square. Instead just make sure they only take up 9 (or 16) connected squares. If you're feeling brave you could even arrange it for the size of the swarm to decrease as it's HP goes down.

Decoy Lockbox
2009-05-14, 07:04 PM
In the last game I ran, basic soldiers were all minions (sorta like how normal soldiers have 1 wound in warhammer/warhammer 40k), with elite soldiers possibly possessing 10-20 hps. I find that this is a good simulation of the epic fantasy action that D&D seeks to simulate -- most high fantasy war scenes feature a major character going at it with many enemies at once, and the only way to do this in D&D is to either use a lot of low-level monsters, or to use minions. Though the minion mechanics aren't by any means perfect, they are a heck of a lot better than forcing a player to slog through impotent low level foes.

Though using this system can have some unintended hilarity: there is a high-level ranger encounter power that shoots a single arrow at all foes within range. For a greatbow, this is 50 squares! Our level 28 characters were facing down a massive encounter that featured, among other things, 30 or so minions. The ranger basically machine-gunned them all in the first round, which I feel is a sufficient degree of epic-ness.

Charity
2009-05-15, 03:13 AM
I've actually done some thought on how to run a party vs an army without resulting it just being a ton of minions. Basically, I would consider home-brewing a goblin horde as a single monster (swarm) and have a few of them, along with an obvious leader, a spattering of minions and maybe a few "elite" soldiers that are just normal monsters. One thing i would consider is making the swarms huge or maybe gargantuan, but not forcing it to only take 3x3 (or 4x4) square. Instead just make sure they only take up 9 (or 16) connected squares. If you're feeling brave you could even arrange it for the size of the swarm to decrease as it's HP goes down.

I'm sure I've seen rules for something like this in a Dragon magazine article... I will try and have a looksy when I get home from work, it definately rings a bell.

Wizard_Tom
2009-05-15, 09:18 AM
I got the original idea to do large scale combats from the gladiator article that had Angry Mob listed as a garagantuan swarm. Don't remember the issue number though :(

Charity
2009-05-15, 09:34 AM
Cant remember which number

There is a similar thread on RPGnet (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=452303), where someone has kindly looked it up.


Basically, they're a gargantuan swarm. They make a melee basic attack against every enemy in their "mob attack aura" (aura 1); the attack knocks prone, and the mob does an extra 2d6 damage to a prone character on their next attack. There are also skill challenges to "work the crowd" (making it more or less of a hazard to the PCs), but that has more to do with actual gladiator/arena combat.

Asbestos
2009-05-16, 12:07 AM
Dragon 368.

Angry Mob Level 5 Brute
Gargantuan natural humanoid (swarm) XP 200
Initiative +3 Senses Perception +1
Swarm Attack aura 1, the angry mob makes a basic attack as a free action against each enemy that begins its turn in the aura.
HP 74; Bloodied 37
AC 17; Fortitude 19, Reflex 17, Will 16
Resist half damage from melee and ranged attacks; Vulnerable 10 against close and area attacks
Speed 5
m Savage Mob (standard; at-will)
+8 vs. AC; 2d6 + 4 damage, and the target is knocked prone.
Crushing Press
The angry mob deals an extra 2d6 damage to prone creatures.
Alignment Unaligned Languages —
Str 18 (+6) Dex 15 (+3) Wis 8 (+1)
Con 14 (+4) Int 8 (+1) Cha 12 (+3)

Sstoopidtallkid
2009-05-16, 12:33 AM
They should never face the army. If they do, they die or they run. It's an army, they're facing thousands of soldiers, and after killing 20 or so, the best in the army will be dispatched to take care of them. The PCs run, or they die.Missed that it was a hundred goblins. That's not an army, it's a challenge. They still die if they go at it head-on, but now they can win through attrition without the need for reinforcements. I'd say organize the army in squads of ~6 minions, one ranged striker, one leader, one controller, balanced to be easy for the PCs but not a pushover.
That said, they're not useless. Basically, PCs are tough, mobile units with a variety of ecletic abilities that don't take orders well. They're special forces, give them missions as such. The army aproaching has to cross a ravine. The PCs need to get to the only bridge across the ravine, fighting through the army's advanced scouts, and destroy the bridge while under fire from the archers on the other side.
A traitor is headed to the army with info on a gap in our defenses. Track him down, kill him, and make sure the info he has isn't spread.
A spy from our side is going undercover with the enemy. He's bringing info about a 'weakness' we need the enemy to try to exploit. Track him down, attack him, but do not kill him. We need him to come into their base under fire but generally alive. Try not to die yourselves, too.
The enemy general is a tactical genius. Take him out. (stealth challenge to penetrate the camp, take out the guards silently and swiftly, the General doesn't die easily, and he has guards showing up every turn after the PCs attack).
Wall battle. The PCs are on the walls with human soldiers, the gobbos are attacking. Handwave everything not immediate. Ranged abilities to take out X ladder carriers. However many get through spit out one gobbo a round. A melee standard action removes the ladder for one round, 3 destroys it. Occasionally have archers target the PCs, occasionally have human soldiers take out a gobbo.
They've broken in! Somehow a small gate off to one side fell. The PCs need to get there through the enemy forces in the city, hold off the enemy forces(fast, weak units) till the engineers can show up and fix it. When the engees are doing their thing, the Troll(or Oger, or similar large tough melee thing that broke the gate) gets angry and attacks. Kill it while defending the engineers. You get the idea. How well the party does at one task determines the difficulty of future tasks. They get to do cool stuff, and you don't have to see 4 people killing thousands(the simulationist in me would weep).

Thajocoth
2009-05-16, 02:16 PM
Custom Goblin monsters.

Unit 1 - Minion Swarm. Similar to Angry Mob, it's a gargantuan swarm, except you set it up as a minion. These are the basic soldiers. Be sure to give them all the goblin racial traits from the racial traits section of the Monster Manual. Being a swarm, they can occupy the same space as the other enemies & PCs. 1 per squad leader.

Unit 2 - Squad Leaders. Pair each minion swam with a sqaud leader. Make them warlordish and give them a way of redirecting a couple hits from their squad to themselves. Perhaps something like "At-Will: Immediate Reaction: If an adjacent swarm of goblin soldiers takes damage, Goblin Sqad leader takes that damage instead." The Sqaud leader should try to stay with their squad. 2-3 per commander.

Unit 3 - Commander - Elite. Have them lead a charge of squad leaders with their swarms to the party. Fighterish. What's that... Soldier or brute? Basically, have them mark the party and stuff. They try to keep the focus on themselves, and they're the most heavily armored. There should be 2-3 of these.

Unit 4 - The Admiral - Elite Controller (I'd be too tempted to make them a solo, but I know better for this scenario.) There's only one of these, and the other units will all make it difficult to reach the admiral. Once the admiral is defeated though, roll an attack vs all remaining goblins vs will. If it hits, that unit runs away. If it misses, the unit gets very angry, especially vs the PC that struck the killing blow.

So the 6-9 swarms represent the bulk of the army, marching in close proximity formations. Give them some sort of tactical formation bonus, but ultimately, not too many attacks as they ARE minions. Perhaps even have 2 versions... A soldier swarm & an archer swarm. The soldier swarm would get a free attack at the start of each adjacent enemy's turn, like Angry Mob does, while the archer group would get a ranged burst attack representing a rain of arrows.

Adjust levels and quantities so you don't exceed the amount of xp for 2 levels higher than what the PCs should face at their current level. Make this their only battle for the day so they can go nuts with dailies.

-----

That's how I'd do it, at least. Heh, now I really feel like doing it. The Goblins are friendly in my campaign... But I could do this when they finally storm the Portalmancer's tower perhaps... Thanks for the idea!

Mercenary Pen
2009-05-16, 02:43 PM
For any subscribers to Dungeon magazine, Mike Mearls wrote an article on using skill challenges for precisely this sort of scenario in this month's Dungeon magazine...

The gist of his ideas was that you divide the whole thing up into a combination of level appropriate encounters and multiple low complexity (but heavily interlinked) skill challenges, each skill challenge being tailored to the skills of one of your players.

Among the challenges proposed were (with their associated key skills):
* Raids and Espionage (Acrobatics, Bluff, Stealth, Thievery): Sneak behind enemy lines to assassinate a key enemy commander, steal the enemy plans, sabotage enemy siege engines.
* Leadership (Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate): Rally fleeing troops, convince an enemy commander to turn traitor, keep disgruntled mercenaries and allies in the fight, convince a skittish commander to attack.
* Strategy and Tactics (Dungeoneering, History, Nature, Streetwise): Determine the enemy's plan of attack, create a cunning strategy, , determine the best terrain for the fight, uncover an overlooked advantage or weakness in defenses.
* Magic Warfare: (Arcana, Nature, Religion): Conduct rituals to hinder and harass the enemy, break their control over magical creatures, summon angels and other allies, or spy on enemy movements.
* Sentinel Duty (Insight, Perception): Ferret out a traitor in the ranks, watch for the enemy's surprise attack, spot enemy movements and deduce their plans.
* Warfighting (Athletics, Endurance, Heal): Lead a charge against the enemy lines, take and hold a key bridge, defend the walls against attackers.

Hope these help.

Thajocoth
2009-05-17, 12:51 AM
I've been working on the math for my suggestion for a level 5 party to face... And unless all the enemies are too low level to hit the players, my initial suggestion has problems. Best I've figured out:

With everyone being the same level as the players:
No admiral.
2 of those commanders, except they're not elites.
4 of those squad leaders.
6 squads.

That comes out about 2 levels above the party XP-wise. Decreasing level a bit, a little more can be added. However... Assuming that each 4x4 square squad is a formation of 16 people... That's 102 people, so it works. I'm gonna tweak it a bunch more before I use the idea myself... Thanks again for the awesome idea!