Wargaming D&D

[pendell]

Are there any systems out there which allow large-scale battles in the D&D world? Such as assaulting Zhentil Keep in FR or gaming the battle of Azure City? If so, for what editions?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[stainboy]

Are you only interested in good rules? Because if not, I would be happy to help you calculate your Basic Force Rating.

[TroubleBrewing]

Heroes of Battle is as close as it gets, I'm afraid.

[Ravens_cry]

What about the Dungeons and Dragons miniatures game (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_%26_Dragons_Miniatures_Game)?

[pendell]

What about the Dungeons and Dragons miniatures game (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_%26_Dragons_Miniatures_Game)?

Is it related to Battle system (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlesystem) ?

ISTR some TSR books from the 1980s such as Horselords (http://www.amazon.com/Horselords-Forgotten-Realms-Empires-Trilogy/dp/0880389044), which described military campaigns in the Forgotten Realms. Knowing TSR, I assume they wouldn't have published six novels without some product to tie in to.

ETA: I've looked at the miniatures game, and I'm concerned that the scale is rather small; platoon-size skirmishes. I'm thinking epic battles like the assault on Minas Tirith or the aforementioned Battle of Azure City.


Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Matthew]

Several systems were developed for the older editions, not limited to:

Swords & Spells (D&D 1974)
War Machine (D&D 1981-2000)
Battle System First Edition (AD&D 1977-1989)
Battle System Second Edition (AD&D 1989-2000)

As it goes, I am also working on a supplement for OSRIC (AD&D, essentially), which you can find a development thread for here: War & Battle (http://www.knights-n-knaves.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=5832).



Is it related to Battle system (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlesystem)?

Nah, I think it is related to the Chain Mail (http://www.tsrinfo.net/archive/cm/cm-core.htm) rules for D20.

[Silva Stormrage]

One nice homebrew fix, I think looks balanced is this. http://www.rdinn.com/dmcorner/378/mass_and_grand_scale_combat.html
I haven't used it in an actual session though soooo I would suggest testing it before using it.

[awa]

the problem is that logically a high magic world like forgotten realms does not lend itself well to mass combat an army of 10,000 orc warriors is a liability to the orc characters leading it. A few shadows make the entire army useless. a barbed devil can basically ignore normal combatants killing as many as it can reach with no danger to itself. And that with even high level magic a control wind spell can annihilate huge chunks of an army with one casting. wars in dnd logically will quickly revolve around small groups of high levels characters (full casters depending on level and optimization) being the only relevant factor.

[pendell]

the problem is that logically a high magic world like forgotten realms does not lend itself well to mass combat an army of 10,000 orc warriors is a liability to the orc characters leading it. A few shadows make the entire army useless. a barbed devil can basically ignore normal combatants killing as many as it can reach with no danger to itself. And that with even high level magic a control wind spell can annihilate huge chunks of an army with one casting. wars in dnd logically will quickly revolve around small groups of high levels characters (full casters depending on level and optimization) being the only relevant factor.

I'm not convinced that's true.

I see bands of low level mooks (orcish spearmen, human peasants) like pawns on a chessboard. You use them to flush out the enemy's high level pieces for destruction.

I would expect an intelligent opponent, like Redcloak, would hide the location of his high-level sorcerers, fighters, etc. If he doesn't they are liable to destruction by adventurer strike teams. And if this is so, how do you neutralize them before they break the battlefield?

If you have only high-level pieces, you've got no bait with which to draw out the enemy's high-levels.

By contrast, low-level troops can do wonderful execution against other low-level troops. If they do well, the enemy must either commit a high-level PC-type to defeat them -- in which case I assume you have a trap in mind the moment they show themselves on the field. The aforementioned adventuring strike team. And if the enemy doesn't expose his high-level NPCs to stop the low levels, you can win anyway.

I suspect that, just as in chess, an army with pieces and pawns will defeat an army of pawns only (although this is not always strictly true (http://brainking.com/en/GameRules?tp=4)).

So the key is intelligent use of both high-level and low-level pieces to accomplish one's goal. The objective is to find, fix, and destroy the enemy's high-level pieces. The use of low-level fodder allow you to do the "find and fix" part of the operation without risking the enemy finding and fixing your own party at the same time.

That's my theory.

Which I'd like to test in a wargame, actual high-level sorcerers being rare in real life :).

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[jseah]

Not necessarily.

Lancaster's Square Law applies to high level adventurers while Lancaster's Linear Law applies to low level mooks (more or less).

If you could forgo your entire low level army, but get two more mid-high level adventuring strike teams or have teams with +1 guy in them?


It's down to cost of low level vs high level.

[Anxe]

The battle/war-gaming system I use was published by Green Ronin in the Trojan War supplement they released. It essentially treats platoons of troops a bit like huge monsters. Individuals such as commanders can do special things like command troops, assist troops, cast spells, or challenge other commanders to single combat. You can find out more on their website if you like.

[awa]

the biggest problem is stuff like a shadow which means your entire army is now a liability. the dark lord does not even have to come out of hiding just send a couple shadows into the fray and it forces the high level characters to come out to stop them. also the causality rate among level 1 warriors (or even worse level 1 commoners) would be insane enough so that good commanders would never use them.

[druid91]

Well. What about making groups of soldiers into swarms?

[pendell]

Not necessarily.

Lancaster's Square Law applies to high level adventurers while Lancaster's Linear Law applies to low level mooks (more or less).

If you could forgo your entire low level army, but get two more mid-high level adventuring strike teams or have teams with +1 guy in them?


It's down to cost of low level vs high level.

Interesting. May I ask you to substantiate this argument? Why do you believe that high-level adventurers follow the square law while low levels follow the linear law?

If I remember Lanchester algorithms correctly, they are used to compare correlations of forces at a point in the battlespace.

But having many swarms of low level soldiers gives you a lot more points in the battlespace to hit. If I have 100 low level swarms vs. 6 mid-level adventurers, I can hit 100 places at once. The one swarm that runs into the adventuring party will be toast, but that's irrelevant to events elsewhere in the battlefield.

Point buy of 1 level-13 character gives you one man. A very powerful man, yes, but still only one man. Even with teleport, he still can't be in as many places at once as multiple swarms of mooks.

And the more time and energy your adventuring party wastes on chasing down these mook-swarms, the less time an energy they're wasting on MY high-level characters.



the biggest problem is stuff like a shadow which means your entire army is now a liability.


That is true IF my entire army ONLY consists of mooks and high-levels. I would think that, like chess, the ideal army should have a range of intermediate-level pieces as well. A Shadow (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Shadow) is CR 3. It doesn't need level-13 characters to defeat it. A cleric of much lower level, depending on alignment, could turn or even command it. This preserves both my low-level army and my high-level characters.

Just as, on a chessboard, knights and bishops have their place. When a pawn isn't enough, and the queen is just too much.

'nother thought: Is there any way to introduce the fantasy equivalent of "gunpowder" into the campaign? To create a magic item that is A) easily mass-produced and B) useable by level 0 commoners with minimum training?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[valadil]

Well. What about making groups of soldiers into swarms?

That's the easiest implementation of mass combat I've encountered. The problem is that then it feels like a normal fight, but with slightly different flavor. Personally I want mass combat to have different mechanics than every other fight.

[manyslayer]

What about the Dungeons and Dragons miniatures game (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_%26_Dragons_Miniatures_Game)?

Our group has used D&D minis as a stand-in for battles up to city sized encounters. We just had each individual figure represent a squad. Kept away from high level casters/monsters (saved them for actual PC fight). Allowed the PCs to be involved in controlling the battle in a manageable and fairly familiar rules set. Might not work for those big, epic battles but it may be an option for you.


Well. What about making groups of soldiers into swarms?

I think there is a mob template in cityscape that might work for doing that.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Just as an observation, but if your general cares about occupying and controlling territory in the traditional sense (as opposed to say selective or rampant scorched-Earth policy, invading a territory with the intent to move on and not actually control it, plain intimidation, or any other reason one might have to go to way), they're going to need swarms of low-level mooks at some point.

It's the same reason modern nuclear-equipped, air-force-having nation-states still have huge numbers of infantry: if you want to exert any authority over a territory as opposed to just killing (or in D&D, mind control, disappear, disease, sacrifice, etc.) everyone living there, you need literal boots on the literal ground.

Now, a single level 10+ wizard is probably more important to strategy than a platoon of level 1 Warriors or a swarm of level 1 Commoner conscripts, in the same way that a single F/A-18 is more strategically important than an arbitrary (small) number of infantry, but they're both still vital parts of a military.

As for D&D rules, they really don't exist, at least for the latter editions, sorry. There was that one supplement that stainboy referenced, but it was severely meh.

[stainboy]

And anyway, it's a system for determining the outcome of battles in the background, not for round-by-round wargaming.

To be honest I don't even know what it's called or where it was originally published. I know it from the Cyclopedia when I was a kid.

[Matthew]

And anyway, it's a system for determining the outcome of battles in the background, not for round-by-round wargaming.

To be honest I don't even know what it's called or where it was originally published. I know it from the Cyclopedia when I was a kid.

War Machine.

[stainboy]

That's was it, War Machine and Siege Machine! Thanks.

[jseah]

Interesting. May I ask you to substantiate this argument? Why do you believe that high-level adventurers follow the square law while low levels follow the linear law?
Mooks have limited striking range, being lacking severely in mobility.

Adventurer parties have incredible mobility and the ability to suddenly strike.

Formation A of mooks can only really hit formation B of mooks right in front of them (or at arrow range)

Adventurer parties, being incredibly tiny compared to armies, can afford to shoot any other adventurer parties they can see.
By the time you can have army sized adventuring parties (where army size > range: long on the battlefield) the scenario got silly already.



You would still have low level mooks. Doing away with them completely means you can't hold ground.
But the bulk of your expenditure will be getting as many high level adventurers and giving them as much bling as they can hold.

It's a bit like comparing infantry and aircraft. The strategic scale is about right for ~10th level vs 1st level.
You still have your troops, but I'd spend alot more on getting alot of planes in the sky. (no analog for aircraft carriers but meh)

[The Big Dice]

War Machine.

A version of this system (which I think is very good) can be found in Dark Dungeons, a free to download retro-clone.

[awa]

another aspect of hordes of mooks vrs mid to high level is the fact that the mooks will die in huge numbers in every engagement where a high level character can retreat and be full power the next day all those mooks are still dead. It gets even worse when we start dealing with resurrection magic.
And their are a lot of monsters/ spells that make normal warriors completely irrelevant.

A good general (as in alignment) would never take an army of low level characters into battle because they would need to spend all their resources protecting them.

the soldier/ jet analogy is flawed because a modern soldiers highteck gear makes him more akin to a mid level adventure then a level 1 warrior and a plane is both less powerful and more importantly far less versatile then a high level caster.