big teej's big battle thread

[big teej]

greetings playgrounders,

spoilered below are my (work in progress) notes for my next session.

the session revolves around the party taking place in their first "big battle" and I want a lil feed back/soundboarding/whatever on what I've got so far and how much people think I should tweek it.

I would like to make a few things known before you read what I've got.

1) the dwarf forces are deliberately underwhelming (plot/story reasons which have no bearing on this discussion)

2) the way I run big combat (don't make a suggestion to use heroes of battle or anything, i don'[t have it) is to use the "mob" rules from cityscape, a mob is treated as a single entity for movement, and inflicts damage like a swarm (move into opponents square) so what you'll se below is the unit name, followed by the mobs AC, damage output, etc. and every 10-15 hit points or so, the unit takes a casualty.

3) the skaven and the kythons are NOT allies, this is a three way battle.

4) as we all know, skaven rely on numberless chittering hordes due to the weakness of each individual. given the strength of the party, the dwarves, their warforged, and kythons as a whole, I have deliberately "overnumbered" the ratmen forces. however, if I've overdone this, please state so, and why.

5) any other questions I'll field as they come up.


tl;dr
the party is having their first "army battle" and I'm trolling for feedback on the current forces, its the dwarf/warforged vs. kythons vs. skaven.


After the battle with jaeger, the leaders decided to turn in for the night, as it’s late, and to give the party room to grieve the loss of the bard.

Reconviening the next day after a hearty breakfast. The party begins to plan their expedition to marik’s tomb.

Available information about the path to marik’s tomb and the status thereof.

The tunnels to marik’s tomb are mostly clear, there are numerous spell turrets and slaughterskitters and warforged guarding the tunnel. And the cramped conditions work in their favor. They also have 3 wizards on hand who cast “field of explosive runes” on a regular basis.

The cavern that the tomb is within is currently heavily contested by the kythons and the ratment. Every so often the dwarves make a foray into the cavern to attempt to push them back, but the last push was made 2 years ago, with heavy losses in both dwarves and warforged. The dwarves are prepared to devote significant resources to this expedition. If nothing else, they feel that breaking open marik’s tomb will be a hefty morale boost, and the artifacts contained therein will also aid in a far more concrete matter.

Available to the party are 6 squads of warforged (minimum)
The warforged are all adamantine plated and carry longspears

Warforged spear unit
8x2 unit
BAB + 4
AC 18
Damage 1d8 + 2
Reach
DR 2/-

In addition to the warforged, there are several dwarven units the group can take along if they wish.

Dwarven pike squad x3
8x2 unit
BAB + 2
AC – 16
Damage – 1d10+1
Reach

Dwarven hammerers x 3
4x4 unit
BAB + 4
AC 20
Damage -1d8 + 3

Dwarven axe bearers x 3
4x4 unit
BAB + 3
AC 18
Damage – 1d8 + 2

Dwarven quarrlers x 1
8x2 unit
Bab + 1
AC 14
Damage – 1d8
Crossbows

Healing corp
5 clerics

Experimental warforged squad
4 man unit of warforged with cannons


Thugs for less mob x 2
5x5 unit
Bab + 3
AC 20
Damage – d12


Combat rules:
All squads are treated as mobs with hit die equal to the number of soldiers in the unit.
Whenever a unit takes 10-15 damage (depends on unit) a casualty is inflicted.

Poison – roll damage a round later, remove casualties as appropriate.

Ranged fire – d20 + modifiers = casualties… simplistic, but hey.

Characters in units – they are allowed to make an extra attack, but extra attacks are also made against them. Same rules for damage to units apply. However, their units benefit from their presence with a + 1 morale bonus to damage and what nots. And if they have auras or anything they contribute those to the entire unit.


Enemy forces
Kython broodling horde x 4
8x8 mob
BAB – as book
AC – as book
Damage – 1d6
Poison – 2d6

Kython juvie horde x 2
6x6 mob
BAB – as book
AC – as book
Damage – as book
Poison – as book

Kython adult brood x 2
4x4 mob
BAB – as book
AC – as book
Damage – 1d10 (boneswords)
Poison – as book

Kython impalers
4 man unit (skirmishers, travel alone)
As the book.

Skaven forces

Rat swarms – 6 (as book)

Giant rat packs – 4 (as book)

Skaven-slave mobs – 5
10x3 mob
As kobolds

Stormvermin
As were-rat, but medium sized, and in full plate
BAB + 3
AC 18 or 20
Damage – 1d6
Filth fever per hit.

Rat ogres x3
As ogre, but refluffed to ratness.

Grey seer x1
5th level sorcerer







also, just a heads up, these are my notes and I haven't made them look pretty for this, so there are more than a few segments which are my unfiltered thought processes, so if that needs clarification I'll give it as well.


thanks a bunch guys.

[Kol Korran]

some general thoughts:
- big battles are a pain to work out in terms of book keeping and mechanically. decide BEFORE hand what will the battle look like without the PCs or their forces interacting, to get the layout of the game. divide it into stages, strategic stages for each force, and then decide what points the PCs side might interject in, and what would be the possible outcomes of success and failure.
- you've told about forces, but what about terrain? positions? strategic points? these are all very important in a big battle. make a map of this (available to the players as well) for strategic deployment, then have markers for different sized untis and so on.
- as mentioned in heroes of battle (i'm not sending you there) keep the focus on the PCs and their actions, give them (or "hint" to them, maybe by an ally who knows the field?) 3-4 fast "situations" the party needs to deal with: take out an enemy caster, break up a siege engine/ machine, hold out against massive swarms of enemies while the dwarf artificer works out some machine, take out a strategic key point and so on. on the battle grid itself you deal only with the PCs and their actual threats.
- note: the party will have very little time to "fix up" between "encounters", relience on lesser vigor isn't good enough, better healing is advised.
- i suggest to have 2-3 types of "types" within a unit, makes them more believable, and more interesting for the PCs to deal with
- don't forget to keep up surprises! some big Kython (an assasin?) or some beastie or machine the skaven have.

i hope this helps. good luck! big battles are hard to handle, but usually worth it! :smallsmile:

[big teej]

some general thoughts:
- big battles are a pain to work out in terms of book keeping and mechanically. decide BEFORE hand what will the battle look like without the PCs or their forces interacting, to get the layout of the game. divide it into stages, strategic stages for each force, and then decide what points the PCs side might interject in, and what would be the possible outcomes of success and failure.

Actually, given how I run “units” I’m not expecting it to be a huge deal, I’m treating each “block” of troops as a single entity, every 10 or so hit points and a soldier dies. Much easier on book keeping and mechanics.

If I understand what your “before hand” comment is about, I have, the ideas is that the party and their army come upon a battle that is just starting between the kythons and the skaven (2 rounds of initiative will pass before the party actually enters the fray)

There are only two real outcomes.

If they succeed, they gain access to many “ancient dwarf weapons” (read, really nice magic weapons and the hammer of thunderbolts) + a massive morale boost to the dwarf hold.

If they fail, well then they’ve likely incurred huge losses, and morale penalties AND they failed to retrieve the uber awesome weapons meant to help kill off the enemies.





some general thoughts:
- you've told about forces, but what about terrain? positions? strategic points? these are all very important in a big battle. make a map of this (available to the players as well) for strategic deployment, then have markers for different sized untis and so on.


A fair point which I completely forgot to mention. The entire battle is going to take place in a (relatively) large underground cavern.

The kython and skaven forces will be along one long edge of the grid, the party and their army will enter from the other. The cavern is fairly open ground with the exception of a large vault, and the tunnels the armies entered from. The primary objective is to secure the fault. Secondary objectives would be to take the entire cavern and establish defenses at the tunnels to prevent further incursion.
I’ve already got markers, we just have to cut them out to fit the grid (which I don’t have handy)



some general thoughts:
.
- as mentioned in heroes of battle (i'm not sending you there) keep the focus on the PCs and their actions, give them (or "hint" to them, maybe by an ally who knows the field?) 3-4 fast "situations" the party needs to deal with: take out an enemy caster, break up a siege engine/ machine, hold out against massive swarms of enemies while the dwarf artificer works out some machine, take out a strategic key point and so on. on the battle grid itself you deal only with the PCs and their actual threats.


The focus will be entirely on the PCs, I actually kinda expect most of them to commandeer a squad, so on the whole, it’ll be no different than normal combat.

There are also 2-3 encounters I expect the party to hussle to deal with personaly (either guiding their units their or attacking as a party)

The first is the rat ogres, those should be able to at least hold up any unit they run into not accompanied by a hero.

The second is the kython impalers. Those things are nasty and are fully capable of bowling through an entire unit on a charge.

The third is the grey seer. A sorcerer that is going to be a huge nuisance if they don’t off it quickly.





some general thoughts:
- note: the party will have very little time to "fix up" between "encounters", relience on lesser vigor isn't good enough, better healing is advised.


Well, the battle itself is slated to run as one big encounter. .. which reminds me of something I should go ahead and say.

The party used to routinely fight BIIIIIIG battles, I mean 6 party members versus like 30 goblins. So this should actually move fairly quickly.

Also, we have a very competent cleric, I’m not too worried about the PCs themselves.


some general thoughts:
- i suggest to have 2-3 types of "types" within a unit, makes them more believable, and more interesting for the PCs to deal with


Not quite sure what you mean about “types within a unit” do you mean have spearmen, crossbowmen, and hammer bearers all in one unit?

If so, I’m afraid this is a point I’m going to have to ignore completely, as that would undo all the streamlining I’ve applied to this battle.



- don't forget to keep up surprises! some big Kython (an assasin?) or some beastie or machine the skaven have.


At the risk of sounding snarky, which I really don’t intend, I’m going to assume that you are not overly familiar with kythons.

Kython impalers ARE kython assassins. They are bred to be stealthy, sneaky, and pack a NASTY punch. I maintain that until around level 8 – 10, a single kython impaler can reliably TPK if it were to sneak up on them during the night and use hit and run tactics.

I have 4 of them running around the battlefield.

Also, I do intend to throw some skaven machinery into later battles, this is a bit of a trial run to get everyone used to the process. as the current plot arc demands a few of these.





i hope this helps. good luck! big battles are hard to handle, but usually worth it! :smallsmile:

that’s the idea, I’ll let you know how this goes and how it went with the party.




I would like to interject new information at this point.

one new unit is bein added to the party's side. a 5x5 mob of human barbarians to represent the human tribes working in concert with the dwarves (and to give our barbarian player somewhere to get stuck in)



naturally I've been heavily ninja'd by now.