The art of cutscenening/Major battles? Help required...

[Red_Dog]

Hello all. I have a rather odd question.

I am well aware that D&D is generally not intended for play beyond "small"[under 50-ish] encounters. However, in a campaign that centers around a war, and events that involve thousands of NPCs[average level of which is 8], how would you guys/gals deal with playing out such "encounters".

I myself can't handle[as a DM] an encounter that has more than 400-500 participants. Even at this level I always "simplify the rules" such as, I do not roll most things besides things that directly effect players or things that players directly effect.

But even at these "simplifications", damage tracking become extremely difficult to handle even using Excel sheets.

So I ask everyone how do you guys/gals deal with this?

Maybe a piece of software someone written up? Or if you cut-scene, than how do you work out casualties, victors and etc.?

P.S. Here is a practical example.
A tribe of Human Barbarians [80 combat capable NPCs, 2 Major NPCs[one is a casting Bard] that is supported by 12 Swifthunters Kua-Toa & 2 squads of 12 Bearded Devils[6HD+2Fighter lvls] are going up against =>
5x20 squads of Hobgoblins, "Swarm" of 72 HD4 Bloodhawks, 45 HD4 Abyssal Skulkers that are herded by 10 Orc barbarians riding Howlers.
They are backed up by 3 Vrocks and now 8[players killed one and badly wounded another] Gargoyles with a Gargoyle Leader.

Hobgoblins are staying outback as the rest are initiating a raid and hoping to draw barbarians into the darkness.

So how would everyone handle these numbers? Please help?^^

[Grinner]

Determine the average attack bonus and AC of each side. Then, roll an attack roll using the average attack bonus versus average AC to determine each side's relative success in a given instance of conflict.

Reduce each side's number of members accordingly.

Feel free to wing it.

It's not exactly a precise method and doesn't account for spellcasters, but it should work well enough.

[Yorrin]

For large scale battles I make liberal use of the Mob template in DMG2. 48 medium creatures: 1 stat block. This assumes a certain degree of uniformity in the ranks, certainly, but it's a whole lot easier than tracking them each individually. And if you use the right descriptive language and/or occasionally roll extra d20s just for kicks your players wont know the difference.

[JoshuaZ]

One thing to do is to have the PCs have certain goals that they need to accomplish (e.g. assassinate the opposing general, help take a specific tactically important hill, etc.) Have the rest of the battle be narrated around them, and then adjust various instances based on some mix of randomness and whether the PCs made their goals. Since PCs will generally be higher level characters this can work well.

[Roguenewb]

Mob template is a great place to start, but, you can also look into Heroes of Battle. It has an entire mechanic for narrative combat, where you assign points to certain goals the PCs accomplish, and they have a certain amount of time to earn X points, which determines how the battle turns out. Not a bad mechanic.

[Red_Dog]

JoshuaZ=>

Current PC level range from 10 to 13 I think. So they are always higher level than an average NPC, and sometimes higher level than lieutenants.

I also did think about targets... But it gets tricky. Besides obvious "kill that guy" goals. What could they do?

Yorrin=>

I am familiar with mob template[I use cityscape version], but I use it for enemies who are not all that smart, or tend to make use of a raw mass, such as dretches for example. Perhaps I could stack skulkers in "mobs of 15 skulkers", as they already have swarm fighting feat. But their purpose was to distract the Barbarians so that the cavalry could inflict maximum casualties.

Scotchland=>

I was thinking of something along these lines I guess...

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My "set of rules[not applying to players, players roll for everything]" so far was going to be=>

>Everyone take 5 on initiative. So there bonus +5 determines when the "type" of NPC goes. [First go gargoyles, now skulker, now w./e and etc.]

>Everyone is doing exactly Half damage[on rolls, not half static like power attack and etc.].

>Everyone take 5[or 10, not sure yet] on saves.

Now questions I HAVE left are, =>

>Attacks, and CRITS. Now for attack, I can say, they take 5, and 10 with "tactical advantage[element of surprise, boxing in, momentum of charge, readied attack, what have you]"
But what do I do about CRITS? For example, for MOST NPCs, its a no Issue, they crit on 20, so w/e. I can make 1 in 20 crit and does double/tripple dmg.
But what about the orcs who are sporting Keen Pitspwaned Falchions they crit on 15-20 and get +2 to confirm. Do I flat out do, 5/20 crit and confirm?

>The blasted damage tracking. This is important in terms of, how do I physically do it fast? ay I use excel, and I took time copy-pasting entries of each type. How do I distribute damage to all separate individuals, even with all the "no rolling". I truly hope for some algorithm...

And it gets worse when we look at the Bloodhawks. There main shtick is that they are HARD[35hp+9from Uber Diehard feature] to kill. and they open wounds, that stack. so they can quickly make ton of hits[flyby attacks] and ton of these DoTs, and than drain the only healer[the bard] from his spells. But again tracking that...

>And In relation to damage tracking, the positioning & Attacks of Op. Besides the devils, Gargoyles and Hobgoblins, no NPC in this battle moves in formation. How do I track the mind-numbing movement and how do I allocate damage without "pool of over all health"[which is an ability of grand total of ONE creature in D&D[legion devils] which make them awesome]
So, if a barbarian #21 takes 48 dmg from a lucky Falchion to the face. How can I track that its him and no other guy is half way to meet the reaper?

And than, there are AoOs. Orc mounts have combat reflex and hold the line so people won't run up to them unharmed. And devils, have the same, s they can ready actions and hope to knock out a bloodhawk after a bloodhawk.


*leans back in the chair and sighs...*... So yeah... wut do?O_o ... = ]

P.S> I love this campaign, it does really show nice gritty feeling of even lvl8-12 braket when the whole world is in that bracket[campaign has a lot LESS casters per capita so to speak, just so the balance remains somewhat in tact]... But it is difficult /end rant = ]

[Red_Dog]

Mob template is a great place to start, but, you can also look into Heroes of Battle. It has an entire mechanic for narrative combat, where you assign points to certain goals the PCs accomplish, and they have a certain amount of time to earn X points, which determines how the battle turns out. Not a bad mechanic.

I have read Heroes of Battle... Its not geared for lvl8 average NPC... It really isn't. I am probably going to re-read it again, just to make sure that I didn't skip parts... but yeah.. It didn't help much. It does have cool classes, feats, and siege ammunition one can drop as bombs from the sky... ^^

P.S. This campaign isn't ALL about the battle. so far[prior to this], players had 2 major skirmishes [up to 100-200 participants], several [5+]diplomatic missions and one successful Armed Rubbery and Murder. So encounters vary greatly. But I expect besides what happen already from 7 to 12 more major battles[similar to what happened with current battle], and maybe 1-3 true all-out-battles where I will HAVE to cutscene the hell out of everything.

[AslanCross]

I prefer Red Hand of Doom's take on Victory Points, since the numbers suggested in Heroes of Battle were (unnecessarily) skewed a few place values higher. I do like the idea of the PC's actions mattering more than anyone else's. While the battle rages all around the PCs, the PCs can take out the siege engines, slay the marauding dragon, hold the most important chokepoint, and fight the enemy boss.


The climactic battle in Red Hand of Doom (in my campaign the PCs were around Lv 10 during this time) is a siege of a large city, and therefore involves combatants in the thousands, but at most only a dozen are in combat with the PCs at any given time. The overall course of the battle is determined by the victory points the PCs gain (the PCs don't know they're gaining victory points); a low threshold means the side the PCs are on is driven away and must fall back to another city; a median threshold means the enemy horde is driven back but regroups; the high threshold means the enemy horde splinters once its general is killed. The death of the general is still a requirement for the PCs' actions to have any value, though.

For the PCs to get a feel for the variations of the units in the army, when they were holding the chokepoint, they had to fight several waves: air cavalry, berserkers, heavy cavalry+artillery, and finally, a warforged titan with casters riding on it. That still doesn't mean they fight everyone at the same time; it doesn't make much military sense for the enemy to send everything to attack a few targets (the PCs) when they can gain a much larger strategic edge in capturing other key points and potentially drawing the PCs into a trap.

[nedz]

Are your players wargamers ?
If so give them command and have a side game.

Most likely this isn't the case so, well you have a number of options, which may include things like:

Have them do some scouting before the engagement.
Throw them into the front line, ideally in a skirmish unit. Throw wave after wave of mooks at them.
Have them deliver messages for the generals - which will involve some action.
Use them as a hit squad to take out some enemy unit/general (works best at high level)


Remember that 90% of time troops in a battle are just hanging around, 9% of the time they are moving as fast as possible and just 1% of the time is actualy harzardous.

My own rule: If they don't earn enough XP to level in one day - you haven't run a battle.

[Red_Dog]

AslanCross=>

I noticed your campaign blog... I think I will give it a read ^^. I will hopefully get something I can apply. Thanks! ^^

nedz=>

Trouble with wargame approach is, players are not in absolute control of NPCs. Barbarians will most likely listen to them, but some will just try to charge.

Well thing is, in this battle, most ppl, will actually fight.

Blood hawks will attack every turn as they have good maneuverability and they can reverse their direction[do an areal flip of sorts] and attack again. So every turn.

Vrocks use one turn to get to battle, one turn to drop bombs, and than
>Turn to arm missiles [Move action to draw a stack of arrows as they fly and satdart action to telekineticly "arm" them(using sustained force]
>Turn to lunch them with burst of force[they are masters of unseen hand 2]

Orcs will do ride-by attacks every turn when they can.

And that's the enemy side. = \

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Main issue is the movement. Odds are, later it will be easier as these armies have VERY loose formations, but empire has fairly rigid formations[they can afford it as wizards on there side make sure to give them tactical advatage with mass teleoprts[dimension shuffles], walls of X, terrain alerations, protection buffs and so on.

But for now, and for future, How would I track the movement is the chief issue. I can't "spread" damage around, and focusing on ONE guy, is a bad practice too.

So far I am thinking of random number generator & story telling approach of world of darkness hybrid...

Otherwise, again, perhaps there is a tabletop emulating software I can quickly load and use a projector/big TV to broad cast it on?

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Currently me and my friend has somewhat settled on attack rolls/saves.
Basically using this formula[his suggestion]=>
[Attk+20-AC]/20 = chance of hitting. Chance X number of attacks = number of hits. Similar deal with crits & saves[target DC instead of attack, save instead of AC].

However again, issue with movement and damage allocation we are yet to solve.

===============================>

Moving everyone even on the same turn... is an issue with an excel sheet. Hmm... back to the drawing board = \

[nedz]

I think you might be being too ambitious. I've tried to do this a number of times, and this was a mistake I made the first few times.

If you go for a full simulation it will just bog down: you will feel burned out and everyone else will be bored. D&D is a skirmish system.

Its probably best to make the rest of the battle just scenery and only run the stuff around the PCs.

If you want to go with a game based approach to the big battle, rather than a story based approach then you should use something like Hoards of the Things. Its a very simple, and cheap, system which is just made for this.



Blood hawks will attack every turn as they have good maneuverability and they can reverse their direction[do an areal flip of sorts] and attack again. So every turn.

Vrocks use one turn to get to battle, one turn to drop bombs, and than
>Turn to arm missiles [Move action to draw a stack of arrows as they fly and satdart action to telekineticly "arm" them(using sustained force]
>Turn to lunch them with burst of force[they are masters of unseen hand 2]

Orcs will do ride-by attacks every turn when they can.


Well here's three encounters you can hit the party with, just rinse and repeat, with variations of course.