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An Enemy Spy
2010-07-22, 12:02 PM
Sup, fellow armchair generals.
I'm a newbie DM and have no idea how to orchestrate a battle invloving hundreds or thousands of soldiers at the same time. Surely it isn't a matter of having every individual low level guy roll to attack.
How do you do it?

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-22, 12:08 PM
What game?

Some games have rules for simplifying large armies into a single statblock that can be then pitted against other armies or superheroes (Exalted 2nd Edition and Mutants & Masterminds 2nd Edition come to mind).

Since you used the term DM, I'm assuming you're talking about D&D. I think Heroes of Battle has some rules on it, but it mostly comes down to rule of plot. Try figuring out some rules to condense the army into one huge mob (the rules for mobs can, incidentally, be found in DMG II).

An Enemy Spy
2010-07-22, 12:10 PM
Sorry bout the lack of clarity. I play with D&D 3.5

Aroka
2010-07-22, 12:22 PM
If you don't have a quick and easy battle game available that you're comfortable with, you're best off abstracting it. Heroes of Battle has a lot of ideas for that.

Mongoose Publishing has an open d20 mass combat system that I like a lot. Download link: www.mongoosepublishing.com/pdf/conanmasscombat.pdf

Psyx
2010-07-22, 12:26 PM
HoB isn't too bad and is worth a look.


For a game without a battle system (like Pendragon), it's best to be narrative and use the 'Wing Commander' tactic: If the players do well, the battle goes well. If the players screw up, it's reflected in the course of battle.

Decide what you want to happen, what COULD happen, and then have some pivotal points in the battle for the players to help out with (or not, if they are elsewhere on the field).

Lord Vampyre
2010-07-22, 12:35 PM
If the players do well, the battle goes well. If the players screw up, it's reflected in the course of battle.

This is what I tend to do. The more damage I'm able to do to the players, the more men their side begins to lose. I don't do too much until the players reach the leader of the opposing army, and then allow this battle to decide the fate of everyone. The loss of the leading general, normally demoralizes the army. The lieutenants are prone to fighting amongst themselves to take his place.

Now, I have allowed the PCs to kill the general, just to wipeout the place they were trying to protect. The problem is this detracts from the PCs ability to affect the world around them. I will normally only use this tactic in the beginning of a campaign to increase tension.

It really does have a lot to do with your plot.

Caliphbubba
2010-07-22, 12:40 PM
I can tell you that at least from this players perspective, I HATE playing through a major battle as a normal game.

I'd much rather the DM just tell me what happened, then go through and roll dice for every dang thing.

In a case like this where you want the players to have an impact on the over all battle, I'd use them like a special assult team and do specific missions. Have two different outcomes planned out in your head depending on whether or not the PC's accomplished the mission or not. Or even different one for partial sucess.

Orannis
2010-07-22, 12:44 PM
One way to deal with it is to break it down into manageable chunks focused on the PCs. For instance:
An army of orcs and goblins charge the PC's army of knights and bowmen. You COULD roll everything or you could focus on the PC's fighting mooks, a BBEG, or whatever. Meanwhile YOU decide how the rest of the battle takes place. Maybe the PC's annihilate everything in their path but while they are busy doing that their army might be losing badly. Force of numbers will eventually wear down the PC's so even though they are beating enemies into the dirt they retreat with their army. On the other hand they could be vastly over-matched by the forces they are fighting and yet have their soldiers help them defeat their enemies. THe smaller your focus on a specific part of the battle the easier the prep and the faster paced the action. Perhaps have a plan of how the battle is going to progress (with a few alternate plans depending on the outcome of the battles and the actions of the PCs) and then build encounters for the PC's while the battle takes place around them.
Good luck with the DMing!

stenver
2010-07-22, 12:59 PM
Just let the PC play through the important parts and tell the rest of the battle as a story.

I tried to make great major battle rules as well, when i was noob DM. Now i know that it really doesnt matter. PC are just as happy to do the important stuff and let the rest of the battle be a story, depending on
*the tactics they gave their troops prior to the battle(you really will have a hard time ordering troops in the middle of battle)
*Generals on both sides
*PC actions
*Misc crap

Mnemnosyne
2010-07-22, 01:12 PM
This is what I tend to do. The more damage I'm able to do to the players, the more men their side begins to lose. I don't do too much until the players reach the leader of the opposing army, and then allow this battle to decide the fate of everyone. The loss of the leading general, normally demoralizes the army. The lieutenants are prone to fighting amongst themselves to take his place.

Now, I have allowed the PCs to kill the general, just to wipeout the place they were trying to protect. The problem is this detracts from the PCs ability to affect the world around them. I will normally only use this tactic in the beginning of a campaign to increase tension.

It really does have a lot to do with your plot.
The key actions shouldn't always necessarily be 'kill the enemy general.' After all, a disciplined and regimented enemy force will not be routed due to the loss of their general - the tactics and strategy for the battle will have been laid out beforehand, and it's the myriad commanders and lieutenants that tend to handle the actual carrying out of the battle. If they're disciplined and don't fall into chaos because their leader dies, the general dying won't affect this battle (although it may affect future battles if the general was their brilliant strategist and tactician).

In such a case it would be up to the players to determine alternate goals, and the success or failure at those tasks would be what determines the outcome of the battle at large.

Ranos
2010-07-22, 01:16 PM
We had a session like that not too long ago. Defending an elven town from a swarm of invisible stalkers. We got ourselves a sound booster, our party went up to the highest tower in town, and we held off wave after wave of stalkers while my bard sang to the entire town, boosting the entire population up with inspire courage.

So yeah, that's one way to run it. The players do the one thing that will turn the tide of battle, and the outcome depends on how well they did. Or, you can go full wargame. There are systems out there that let you simulate that. The one that was linked earlier is a pretty simple one and doesn't account for a lot of things, but I guess it could work with some houseruling.

Stryke
2010-07-22, 01:39 PM
Another vote for Heroes of Battle, makes things a lot simpler and they have a system for judging how the players affect the battle that goes along the lines of " you need x amount of victory point for the armie to win, and action y will give z points etc" obviously you dont tell the characters but thats a reasonable way of calculating there infulence. If you want them to have a really complex and indepth influence on the battle allow pre-battle events and prep by the PC's to affect the battles outcome and use the aforementioned system, but appliy it to the centre and two flanks then have diffrent events affect diffrent areas in diffrent amounts then have the outcome of each section affect the outcome of the over all battle. For instance the PC's fighting of the pack of ghouls allowed the right flank to regroup and hold the hill, they then stick around to help with the setting up of catapults meaning the barrage started sooner meaning the centre was able to break through, however as they decided to sneak past the unit of archers instead of attack, the archers were able to continue shooting the left flank causing them to route. then have an after battle report mention all of that in passing and how the cavalry managed to stabalize the left flank and how the reinforcement managed to push through on the right but a lack of scouting ment the army didnt know about the pit traps that stalled the centres advance etc
the PC's dont need to know all this is happening when its happening but a little story about it at the end will be appreciated

Agmundr
2010-07-23, 03:42 AM
another option is the book "cry havoc" from malhavoc press. it is an interesting book with a good mass combat system that is open d20, green ronin uses cry havoc rules in their advanced players guide IIRC.

edit: although its only very useful if the players are commanders in the army controlling units along with their characters.

faceroll
2010-07-23, 04:02 AM
I like to treat the battlefield as an environment with random encounters like a hail of arrows, an artillery barrage, an enemy cavalry charge, etc. These shouldn't take more than 15 minutes of actual play time to resolve and really just be there for atmosphere and flavor, introducing the dangers of the battlefield, etc. Nothing to costly.

Around the battlefield you should place "chosen" encounters that will progress a certain way given what the PCs choose to do. After so many progressions, the battle should move forward to another stage.

Let's say the PCs are leading a Last Alliance against a Bad Guy in his mountain citadel. Vast arrays of allied artillery has been arranged and is defended by infantry to bombard the hardened Fortress. A special ops team is about to infiltrate the fort to open the front gate. An elite infantry unit has been assembled to defend against enemy shock troops. A brigade of gryphon riders are about to take wing for air superiority.

The PCs are free to choose what they want to do, or make something else up that should line up roughly into what you already have planned.

If the the PCs are subtle, they can sneak in, skirting a rampaging battletitan that is obliterating the ally's left flank, battle with bearded devils and some undead before opening the gate. This moves the battle to stage 2- storming the fort.

If they like the straight forward approach, they fight the battletitan, advance the left flank, and defend the sappers as they blow the fort's doors down. Go to stage 2.

Or they take to the air, battling enemy dragons which gives allied artillery the chance to breech the fort.

Etc, etc.

NPCs can be relegated to support roles like "the dwarven pike wall keeps the goblins off your backs long enough for you to engage the warboss." Throw in some flavor text, have a goblin get through,, give the PCs a chance to save a dwarfs life and earn him a place in the clans, whatever.

Basically run it like you would any other campaign with a battlefield as a tapestry instead of an enchanted forest.

Aasimar
2010-07-23, 04:38 AM
The Starwars Saga edition roleplaying game had, I feel, a good way to handle this.

Each of the factions involved gets a basic faction score, based on how large it is. (well, a book club might be "larger" than a small city, but the faction score is based on how large an area it can truly exert influence in)

The score ranges from 1 (a neighbourhood group) to 20 (the entire galaxy + satellite galaxies) Probably, in a fantasy setting, 20 would say something like The entire Prime Material Plane and all other planes. (And only overdeities like AO or deities of things that are felt everywhere like Mystra would qualify as 20)

When there is an engagement, each faction rolls a d20, adding it's faction score. (in a prolonged engagement, there might be more than one roll) If there are special circumstances, say one side is ambushing the others, or has acquired tactical information about the other's deployment or something, you add circumstance modifiers.

Also, the Players will deal with some piece of the battle, if they participate, and their actions might swing from adding (or subtracting) 1 from their side's roll, to ending the fight, if they get in a position of taking out the enemy general or something. (which a DM would probably not allow to happen if their side were getting completely clobbered, they would simply be too bogged down holding the line/covering a retreat, etc.)

Psyx
2010-07-23, 05:02 AM
When there is an engagement, each faction rolls a d20, adding it's faction score. (in a prolonged engagement, there might be more than one roll) If there are special circumstances, say one side is ambushing the others, or has acquired tactical information about the other's deployment or something, you add circumstance modifiers.

So the entire Galaxy (faction 20) stands a 1-in-400 chance in a fair fight of loosing to a small town (faction 2)?

Aasimar
2010-07-23, 05:09 AM
So the entire Galaxy (faction 20) stands a 1-in-400 chance in a fair fight of loosing to a small town (faction 2)?

If it were resolved in a single roll, then yes. (it most likely wouldn't be)

But that would be the galactic equivalent of a major scandal, it would mean that the general for the Galactic power showed up to the fight roaring drunk and ordered his men to do something incredibly stupid, while the small group stumbled across some brilliant hit-and-run strategy that would allow them to pull off an unbelievable victory in that particular instance.

(it's basically like, a small neigbourhood group being targetted by an Imperial Moff who orders a platoon of stormtroopers to take them out...but being embarassed by an unlikely failure, not everyone in the galaxy showing up to beat up 10 people and failing)

If it were a prolonged engagement, it would probably have more than 1 opposed roll.

Myth
2010-07-23, 05:18 AM
I can run Mystra versus all the lvl 1 commoners in all the towns on all the planes there are, and no d20 will make her die. Ever. Hell, put in all the unoptimized sub-Epic NPCs there as well. She still wins. This isn't a system applicible to 3.5.

grautry
2010-07-23, 05:20 AM
So the entire Galaxy (faction 20) stands a 1-in-400 chance in a fair fight of loosing to a small town (faction 2)?

It's Star Wars.

The Empire lost to Ewoks.

So yep, I think it perfectly fits the themes of the game as well as the universe.

Aasimar
2010-07-23, 05:23 AM
I'm just describing a system...obviously, no sane GM would actually roll for Mystra vs. every commoner. Or for the entire galaxy in a concentrated war against a single neighborhood.

If the conclusion is obviously a foregone one, then the GM should go with the obvious solution...perhaps making the rolls to see 'just how badly' the obvious loser loses.

If the small guy rolls a 20 and the big guy rolls a 1, then maybe some of the small guys leadership manages to escape, or the big guy unexpectedly loses a valued general in the fight.

As with everything in RP games, you have to use your brain before applying the system.

For two sides, say within 0-10 levels of one another, it works fine for determining how the larger scale confrontation is going around the PCs.

potatocubed
2010-07-23, 06:23 AM
The best system I ever found was the one in L5R and 7th Sea: the characters choose how engaged they want to be in the battle, then roll on a table - they take some arbitrary amount of damage to represent random, casual injuries, and are often presented with a 'heroic opportunity', which is a chance to do something cool like shank the enemy general or rally a routing unit. It focusses on the PC's actions, gives them (several) chances of affecting the outcome of the battle, and strikes a neat balance between narrative and rolled battles.

If someone would like to write up a version of that for 3.x, it would be great. Maybe I will, once I'm done with my other projects.

Ingus
2010-07-23, 08:55 AM
It much depends of the role and importance of PC's in the battle.

Leaders/Champions
They propably are the best around, maybe except only the king.
They win, army wins, they lose, army loses. If your PCs are around 13th and above, they probably fall in this category. You can either arrange a PCs vs BBEGs or elite henchmen or a PCs vs Army ecounter. So, given the dramatic impact the party has to the battle, you can foresee three outcomes: win, lose, draw. You can go more in depth with close and large win/lose. Then give the consequences on this basis: draw=what would have happened if PCs weren't there; lose= worst than draw; win = better than draw.
Adjustement: if you think that draw is = PCs side wins anyway, then with a win, they win really easily and with a lose they barely overcome enemy; if draw = PCs side lose, then a win is a stalemate and a lose is a total defeit.

Elite fighters
They're not the best, they can handle the enemy general, but they're better than regular troops.
Give them a mission. I.E.: impact the enemy shook troopers, defeat the big monster, steal the enemy plans, assinate the enemy leader... and so on.
Since the impact on the battle is more limited, the very outcome of the battle is not in stake. There the Wing Commander mode applyes.
If the PCs do well, they save the chivalry units left beyond the enemy lines, or remove a major opponent from the battlefield, or gain a title and a promotion.
If they do bad, another group seizes the day, a general has to sacrifice his life, their side loses a powerful weapon and so on

Troops
The first level lancer is their friend.
Give them a close-up on their position. If they're defending a gate, just describe what happens to the gate. Give them fellows NPC near, but either let them engage in combat with different, enemy NPC, or let them be slain by enemy. So this will result in a usual challenge.

Some hint.
Let the PCs shine. The lower they are, the more this is difficult, but resist the temptation to make NPC shine. If there is someone stronger than PCs around, make it terribly busy with another opponent.
Avoid "not their fault" loss
The less they're important in the battle, the more they will feel unjust the loss. If you don't intend to give them the lesson "sometimes the good guys lost", if they're not a factor, let their side always win. Or, at least, insert a NPC who ensure they don't die heroically and, instead, retreat.
Move things around
An all-out battle is a wanderful occasion to throw in sky battles, burrowing tunnels, gate assalut, intelligence, scouting etc. It would be a good idea to put up more than "a thing" to do. Battles are stressful, so stress them :smallwink:
...and look the Azure City siege for inspiration :smallbiggrin:

monkey3
2010-07-23, 10:19 AM
AD&D had a book out called Battlesystem. It was very good and was designed for army battles. Very little would have to be changed, and most of the rules deal with spacing, area effect, and unit sizes.

Petrankov
2010-07-23, 10:28 AM
I used the book "Fields of Blood" to run mass combat. It gave the players control over troops where appropriate. It also gives rules to run kingdomw which I thought were pretty interesting. I forget who the publisher is though.

AslanCross
2010-07-23, 10:29 AM
I agree with most of the above posters: Heroes of Battle's victory points system (with some work) is quite helpful for abstracting the course of large battles.
Have the PCs' actions turn the tide.

In my recently-concluded campaign, the PCs defended a city from a siege. They had embarked on multiple missions before the siege itself to undermine the enemy's position and strengthen theirs by taking out key logistical locations and gaining allies.

During the siege itself, they did the following: (Spoilers for Red Hand of Doom)

1. Stopped a battery of artillery-equipped warforged titans and boulder-throwing ogres from taking down the wall
2. Took out a red dragon who was burning down the city
3. Engaged in a pitched street-to-street battle against numerous mooks.
4. Neutralized a sniper who had pinned down the friendly troops in the city square.
5. Engaged the enemy general and his entourage in an epic battle in front of the city's cathedral with numerous friendlies raining suppressing fire on the bad guys.

The amount of victory points the PCs get until that point determines whether killing the general scatters the horde completely and sends them fleeing or causes them to briefly retreat only to regroup and attack once more the next day. The worst case scenario is that the general's death isn't enough to save the city and it falls anyway. (The PCs have to kill the general no matter what the situation is, because he doesn't run away.)

The PCs had accumulated enough victory points to get the best result, so things went quite well.

In this battle, I had:
-5 PCs
-4 elite NPC soldiers
-1 elite NPC commander
-1 NPC cleric (high priestess of the city)
-1 NPC wizard (strongest wizard in the city)
-1 elite NPC ranger plus his cadre of archers (about 6) plus his sister (a low-level bard)

VS

-the enemy general
-the enemy general's rage drake mount
-the enemy general's lieutenant, a bard of about the same level as the PCs
-2 whitespawn berserkers
-2 redspawn firebelchers

I ran all the villains; my players controlled all of the NPCs. It bored them less than me running everything, and it was quite a bit easier.

Amusingly enough, the 2nd-level elf rangers were actually great fire support. The wounded the general and his troops significantly until the PCs were able to deal the death blow.

Also, I narrated that the horde had gathered for a final, flanking attack and while the PCs were fighting the most important battle, the other remaining soldiers fought hard against the horde mooks.

mcl01
2010-07-23, 11:01 AM
I was going to DM a game with large scale battles, but I ended up having to bring that game to a close due to time constraints. Something I've though of though: Assign a number to the difficulty class of the battle, assuming the PCs are not involved. This is a DC of some sort. In the end, the entire side will make a single d20 roll against the battle's DC.

Take in account things such as tactical position, army size, siege equipment, fortifications, morale, general's strategic capabilities, number of spellcasters, resources, etc. Anything that could influence the battle.

Say the PCs' side has overwhelming odds against them due to impenetrable fortifications and inferior forces? Make it DC50. If odds are fairly good in their favor due to army size, DC5. If it's 50-50, DC10.

This is the initial DC. Now, throughout the course of the battle, let them do their thing. Based on each sides' actions, give them Ad Hoc modifiers to their d20 roll.

The party bard increases morale for the entire army before battle? Perhaps give them a + modifier equal to their base IC bonus (before crazy shennanigans). They slaughter hundreds of enemy troops? Perhaps a +1 per 10 troops. Their own troops devastated? -1 per 10 troops. One of the PCs die? -5. Kill an enemy general or commander? +5. Sneak into their fortress unnoticed and assassinate the ruler? +10. Break through their fortifications? +5. Sink enemy troops into despair through certain actions? -3. Lengthen the battle into a siege and cutoff support? +1/day.

Of course, these Ad Hoc modifiers will need to be modified based on the situation. If the enemy's walls are the only thing keeping them alive, breaking through the walls would give a higher bonus.

In the end, roll d20+modifiers. Based on how much they beat (or fail) the DC by, call it a draw, or minor/major/overwhelming victory/defeat. Victory/defeat doesn't have to mean a route either. Spice it up - perhaps they win the battle, but it's a tactical loss. Perhaps they lose the battle, but kill of major commanding officers/rulers. Maybe they've crushed the opponent's will to fight.

It makes things interesting. Based on how creative/effective your PCs are, they can influence the battle quite a bit or only a little.

Nihb
2010-07-23, 11:01 AM
If you want to use PCs as soldiers and pit them against an army, Heroes of Battle suggests that you use a limited number of enemy units, and run the battle as a normal encounter, with adjacent platoons being used as "walls" for the encounter. Think local.

For a large battle, Victory Points are useful, and the book has quite a few examples of what would give VP, and how many.

For armies, I'd use a simpler ruleset as attack, range, defense and morale. A band of archer will be able to attack the defenses of a distant band with ease, but will be overwhelmed if the enemy can get to them. Use greater distances for your grid : 50x50ft should be enough to fit two units.

Now, there are two ways to deal with this : either your PCs are soldiers, or they are supporting leaders. If they are just fighting what you throw at them, you have no use for a more in-depth strategic system. If they do control the units around the battlefield, then the simplified stats should do the trick.

It may be hard at first, but it should run fine after a couple of battles.

Psyx
2010-07-23, 11:14 AM
As a side-note, you can bet the players want to immediately sack the quarterback and take down the enemy commander.

I'd make this a BAD choice to take (and it to be moderately obviously so to sensible players), with it being either a trap, or takes so much time that the rest of the battle is lost in the meantime.

valadil
2010-07-23, 11:29 AM
Here's how I do it. Tell the players straight up that it's a fair fight. Their actions will tip the balance just enough that their side wins. Then run their private section of the battlefield. Maybe they go on recon missions. Maybe they fight in the front lines (but only a normal sized fight, with the rest of the war battle being off in the background). Maybe you show them a number of scenes of them doing heroic stuff. Whatever they do, if done right tips the balance and wins the war.

braxsus
2010-07-23, 11:34 AM
I wrote up this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=161368)..

HoB and other aids are fine and dandy, but not needed when all you want is to have the Players feel and actually influence the outcome a battle using normal game play..with under 20 roles in an evening

Snake-Aes
2010-07-23, 11:38 AM
How much do you want there to be details? The simplest I can think of that satisfy a long battle and player interference is a series of opposed checks.

Each army has a modifier, and the player's actions shift either. A check per day to see who advanced, readjusting the modifiers for the next day. Battle is over as soon as the day's winner wins against the enemy's last stand(i.e.: Conquered the desired territory. Held the fortress until the aggressor is pushed away). I don't advise being strict here, it's really more of a feeling of what objective is conclusive to the involved parties.

Example: Two armies, one has 20% more soldiers, but the other has better cavalry. That puts them at equal footing on the plains, but the bigger one has the advantage on barricaded ground. For the first battle, they'd be both at +10. For the second battle, the bigger army would have a +12 and the smaller one a +6.

Then you lay out the information your players can obtain. See what they decide to do.
Examples:
If it's a siege they can try and mess the defenders' food. Or if they are defending they can ask for reinforcements and adjust the battlefield outside, or create diversions.
They can also try and negotiate. Or they can sneak outside and sabotage siege devices.
They can block the enemies' scrying. They can hold bottlenecks to buy time. They can block supply routes. They can flee with whatever McGuffin led the attackers to rally.

I advise against going "killed the general, army is gone". It doesn't really work like that on the short term. the Military works on a "high recovery speed, easy replaceability" philosophy, and that also applies to personnel. An army that is backed by an organization instead of a single person or McGuffin won't disband as soon as the leader dies.

Grommen
2010-07-23, 03:54 PM
AD&D had a book out called Battlesystem. It was very good and was designed for army battles. Very little would have to be changed, and most of the rules deal with spacing, area effect, and unit sizes.

I did this when my players did the old Bloodstone Lands modules. So I ended up converting everything to 3.5 edition, then I had to reverse the players and put them back into a kinda 2nd edition look, then convert them to Battlesystem.

And ya it was about that much fun too. The fights were great though. One of our players, our eventual king, rushed a force of Centaurs (being used as medium cavalry) at a horde of Ogres. So if you ever wonder what that statue of a Centaur is doing in Bloodstone Valley, any why their are no Centaurs in the valley. Well now you know that hundreds of his kin died right on that spot. :frown:

Problem with converting anything to a large battle game. Your players have to like War Gaming. If your into it and RPG's it is worth the hassle some times. If they are role players and don't have much of a logistical or tactical sense, its better if you just brake down some smaller encounters and use the players as and elite shock force. This way they feel like they did something to affect the out come of the fight, and they don't normally die. A lot of role players I know don't like it when their bad ass character dies to peasants with pitchforks and torches.

Now me personally... I do. But that is why I DM most of the time.