Large-scale Battles

[Mikeavelli]

Hello!

My Players are in the position where they'll be in charge of a large scale battle.

Large groups of NPC's have fought in the past in my campaign, and I've normally just handwaved it as all the mooks are fighting in the background, evenly matched, and the battle is going to be decided by how well the players do against the leaders of the opposing army.

I'm in a situation where that just isn't going to cut it, so I'm looking for other options.

Specific Situation:

One of the Players is in possession of an Artifact that signifies he's the chosen king of his people, Barbarian-style (his class is Barbarian, and his people are warlike barbarians).

The party is in foreign lands right now, but there's a significant number of his countrymen living in the city. He's just rolled with it, started gathering up his countrymen, and formed an army.

Because of unrelated adventures on the elemental Planes, they're friendly with the Djinni and welcome in a Planar Metropolis called the City of Air (analogue to the more-famous City of Brass), and have hired a group of Janni mercenaries to help them out.

This has snowballed, as all the recurring antagonists they've pissed off over the course of the campaign now know exactly where they are. This includes an Adult Red Dragon whose horde they stole, an Efreeti Lord, his personal army, a wizard affectionately referred to as "The Wizard who did it" Because in this world, he's the one who created all the weird cross-monsters in the monstrous manual, like owlbears, whaleaphants, and flying sharks.

The Dragon and Efreeti are allied, and the Wizard and City forces are allied, but the two groups distrust each other and won't necessarily work together.

Lastly, the Players have had numerous dealings with both the Seelie and Unseelie Fey Courts, both of which are showing up en masse as something of a wild card.

Each force has hundreds of mooks, dozens of mid-level-equivalent forces, and a few high-level forces.

[nedz]

I've tried to do this sort of thing in the past.

You can run it using the D&D rules, but it will take forever.

You can run it using some wargame rules (HOTTs for instance) but unless your players are any good as generals then they will fluff it and the result will be dissapointing. Are your players Wargamers ?

At lower levels you can have the PCs involved in some small part of the battle.

In general though you are probably best finding some other solution.
Perhaps the PCs miss the battle because they were somewhere else ?
Perhaps the battle doesn't happen due to, I don't know, ... , Diplomacy perhaps?

[cssmythe3]

http://www.montecook.com/mpress_Havoc.html


This book examines all aspects of war in a d20 fantasy setting: From its political causes to grand strategy... From battlefield maneuvering to raising armies... From prolonged sieges to lightning commando raids. And of course, Cry Havoc includes a sampling of new spells, feats, and prestige classes as well.

Last but certainly not least, this book offers the definitive d20 System rules for mass combat—straight from the pen of The Sage!

[Ormagoden]

http://www.montecook.com/mpress_Havoc.html

You link it, but is it any good? What are your comments on the book?

[klemdakherzbag]

Anytime my group does large scale battles we take into account how many mooks are on each side. For every 500 or so add 1d6 to the armies damage roll. Every point of damage rolled is equal to that many dead enemy soldiers. All that is needed is a piece of scratch paper and two columns with descending totals. Do a morale check at approximately half strength and again at quarter to determine if they retreat or surrender.

[HunterOfJello]

you should take a good long look at Heroes of Battle. it has lots of good advice on how to run a small group through a large scale battle and how you don't have to make the scale of enemies gigantic to make an epic battle.

it has lots of good advice on specific objectives your group can have that will help the overall battle and/or war and how you can move through different scenarios quickly and make things fun instead of 5 uber players vs. 500 weak PCs

[ErrantX]

Has anyone used the mass combat rules from Heroes of Battle at all?

-X

[Totally Guy]

I've tried something like this recently but in a different system.

My solution probably won't work but we can see if it can inspire you anyhow...

First I'd establish what the sides are:

Good guys: 100 guys
Bad guys: 150 guys

And I'd stat out the leader of the bad guys.

Then I'd establish some combat manoeuvres with a main skill or ability for each. Attack (Perform Oratory), Defend (Spot), Position (Gather information), Feint (Bluff). Feel free to change these... I'm rushing.

Then I'd see how the manoeuvres interact:

Attack vs Attack: Both PC and Bad Guy leader roll their skill and both kill off dudes equal to the roll result.
Attack vs Defend: Both roll, subtract defend result from attack result. Kill off that many guys. Award additional troops if the defender wins, call it a temp fortification bonus
Attack vs Position: Both roll their skills, if attacker wins then men get killed, if positioner wins Attacker gets -10 to his next roll instead.
Attack vs Feint: Attacker rolls and kills people. Feinter does nothing.

Defend vs Defend: Both roll and both can gain a temp fortification bonus to men equal to the result.
Defend vs Position: Both roll their skill, if defender wins then award temp fortification men, if positioner wins Defender gets -10 to his next roll
Defend vs Feint: Feinter rolls and kills people equal to the result. Defender does nothing.

Position vs Position: Both sides get -10 to their next roll.
Position vs Feint: Feinter rolls and kills men but also gets -10 to his next roll.

Feint vs Feint: Both roll. Subtract the lower value from the higher and the winner kills off that many men.

Then I'd share these rules with the players. I'd have 1 player choose his move and choose one secretly myself for the Bad Guy leader. Another player might volunteer to participate in the scene that this manoeuvre resolves into. So play out a bit where the volunteer is fighting a baddie or moving fortifications into position etc. Then you can have a conflict on both the macro and micro levels at once. Plus there's risk to an individual.

This suggestion needs serious polishing but hopefully will provide inspiration for something.

[Johel]

The warlords
For small-scale battles.
In this type of play, the players organize their army in large troops of at least 10 men each. Each of such units must be as homogeneous as possible. It will get the same stat as a single of the creatures that compose the unit. Divide the number of men by 10, then multiply the creature's HP by the number you got. Whenever a unit lose 25% of his HP, make a Will save. If successful, the unit keeps fighting. If not, it retreats.
Units can have leaders. Powerful individual (level 5 to 8) do not fight alone. Instead, they give a permanent +1 bonus on all rolls of the unit they join. Monstrously powerful individual (level 9 to 12) can either fight as a unit of their own OR they can join a unit and give it a permanent +2 bonus on all rolls. Insanely powerful creature (more than 12 HD) always count as a single unit.

The key goals
For medium-scale, complex battles.
In this type of play, the players are not acting much as generals during the battle itself. Instead, being true heroes, they take care personnally of critical phases of the battle. If a specific enemy commander has to be killed, they'll do it. If a breach has to be made, they'll do it. If a point of the line must be held at all cost, they'll do it. Each of these "key goals" will give minor tactical advantages to their sides.

Once the players have completed/failed all key goals, roll 1d20+success. The result is how well the ally army fared. Then roll another 1d20+failure. This is how the enemy army did. Depending of the difference, you can have an idea of how big a victory/defeat it was.

Dice Ex Machina
For large-scale battle.
In this type of play, the amount and diversity of forces are so large that the actions of the players won't matter much. Only careful planning, tactical genius and courage can win the day.
Each side get 1d4 for each character above 10 level or 10 HD.
Each side get 1d6 for each group of 100 elite mooks.
Each side get 1d8 for each group of 200 mooks.
Roll the dice a first time.
Each "1" means the unit is lost due to some epic failure. It doesn't always mean it dies : it can desert, flee, be too injured to fight, be blocked somewhere... Fluff as needed.
For the rest, simply add the numbers.
The side with the highest number win.
Roll again with the surviving units.
Then again until a side get 2 more victory than the other or until one side is completely annihilated.
At this point, you should have a clear idea of how bloody it was.

[Oslecamo]

My sig has the rules for the mob and unit templates, wich allow you to group up to hundreds of creatures into a single entity that acts as one.

Includes rules to put special leaders into those mobs/units and interaction with individuals.

linky (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=129179)

[AslanCross]

Has anyone used the mass combat rules from Heroes of Battle at all?

-X

I own the book; doesn't it say "Don't run a battle with every single mook. Have the players do special missions that affect the outcome of the battle instead."?

[the humanity]

have them watch the battle for a few rounds.

have them kill a seemingly infinite supply of mooks for a while.

have them team up on a group of other warlords. maybe at different ends of the field.

[Amphetryon]

have them watch the battle for a few rounds.

have them kill a seemingly infinite supply of mooks for a while.

have them team up on a group of other warlords. maybe at different ends of the field.

YMMV here. My old group's players would have asked 'What am I doing here, again?' after about round 2 of a combat that they were merely observing, and groaned in frustration after wave 3 of the Endless Mook Brigade showed up.

[the humanity]

then roleplay!

after watching your troops collide into each other like 2 waves from warring seas, you run into the battle, slashing through an infinite wall of NPC's. after a few minutes of ripping flesh, <PC> soon has a pile of bodies around him/her as he/she stands, challenging all who come at him/her. with a thunderous roar, a dark warrior calmly walks forward. he says in a bone chilling whine as he draws a deadly blade, "you should roll your initiative." behind him stand a group of your most powerful foes, and the real battle begins...

[Amphetryon]

More YMMV there. I'd have dice thrown at me if I had an NPC use game terms like 'you should roll initiative,' and the 'what am I doing here' would come from seeing both sides with hundreds of combatants.

Incidentally, "then roleplay!" could easily be read to indicate a belief that groups that do it differently than you are Doing It Wrong (TM). We do and did, in fact, roleplay. :smallsmile:

[Mikeavelli]

My sig has the rules for the mob and unit templates, wich allow you to group up to hundreds of creatures into a single entity that acts as one.

Includes rules to put special leaders into those mobs/units and interaction with individuals.

linky (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=129179)

Since the numbers involved are fairly small by open warfare standards, but still fairly large by D&D Standards, I think I'm going to go with these rules.

We'll be using a fairly large battlemap and I'll be handwaving anything the players aren't directly involved in. If they want to directly challenge any of the individual armies of mooks (which they mostly likely will want to do) - they'll be able to.

All of the other solutions for focusing solely on the Players have worked in the past, but they've involved a certain amount of railroading, which grates on both me and my players.

Thanks everyone!

[Anxe]

If you're willing to pay for something Green Ronin's Trojan War supplement has some good rules for massive war combat. If you don't like the little details (Such as when a soldier joins a unit his HP is effectively divided by six. And magic is severely nerfed) it's easy to modify.

Here's a link to the PDF. It costs $14.