Large Scale Battle

[BendakRayley]

So a more experienced D&D player/dm friend of mine got into a real heated argument about implementing large scale battles akin to brave heart or helms deep into a campaign. He made a lot of good points about the d20 system and D&D rules/play specifically do not lend themselves well to that kind of scenario. While it might very well be more trouble than it's worth, I still think there must be a way to create a large scale battle that is manageable as a dm and enjoyable as a pc. Has anyone experienced a battle of this type or have any ideas as to how it might be done? I would love any input ether way. Thanks :smallsmile:

[Yahzi]

any ideas as to how it might be done?
I'm actually working on that right now, but it is basically true that D&D does not lend itself to realistic or even believable mass combat. That's primarily because D&D doesn't lend itself to realistic or believable combat on any scale.

That said, my current idea is to treat army units as single creatures, similar to the swarm rules. I'm working out abstractions that will reduce the attack of entire unit to one or two rules, figuring out how to quickly adjucate the effects of magic, and then of course inventing an entire morale system since D&D simply ignores that whole aspect despite its being the single most important factor in almost every historical battle ever. The key is that the abstractions must faithfully mirror the results you would get if you rolled every single attack die yourself.

[Karoht]

I've done a few, and I would like to think they were successes, but looking back on them I know that they could have been much better.

Basically, I made character sheets for various units in the opposing armies. I then did a few test fights with the combinations. 1v1, 3v3 (combo'd) and 3v3 (non-combo'd).

To simulate how the battle line went, I extrapolated from those tests and approximated how long it would take before the line broke and which side would break first.

I then involved the PC's in the fight (one session long, not an entire war campaign really) and had them directly influence certain portions of and events in the battlefield.


It stops being really viable probably as early as 8th level, maybe earlier depending on what your party is like. But essentially, the minute you have wizards who can carpet bomb entire armies it stops being viable in a hurry.

However, it is extremely fun against low CR armies of stuff, with some specialized units and 'flavor heroes' thrown in.
Like the goblin army that had several of a crude 'tank' design which was really nothing more complicated than a wagon flipped over with a cannon on top, so the wood gave everyone inside 9/10ths cover and the whole thing just acted as a platform for the big gun on top and 4 crossbowmen inside, who had assistants constantly reloading for them.

It's great to give a party of heroes an opportunity to essentially take on an entire army (with some support of course) but it tends to boil down to a bunch of separate encounters anyway.

[nyjastul69]

The Miniatures Handbook by WotC and Cry Havoc by Malhavoc Press (3rd party) have rules for 3.5 mass combat.

[Jeff the Green]

The Miniatures Handbook by WotC and Cry Havoc by Malhavoc Press (3rd party) have rules for 3.5 mass combat.

Likewise in Heroes of Battle.

[lsfreak]

I think the best way is to ignore the mass battle - you end up playing like Aragorn in Helm's Deep (movie version). He commanded the archers, kept enemies at bay while a door was repaired, held a breech, etc. For 95% of the fight, he wasn't doing massed combat. Heroes do poorly in massed combat, because they'll trample over everyone else (and it's 15 minutes of dice rolling every round). It ends up boring.

If you want them involved in the mass combat itself, you let them give basic descriptions of what they're doing, and let them know what kind of impact it makes, and then get them back to the small-scale fighting. The sorcerer throws a pair of fireballs at the line just before the heavy cavalry hit and breaks the line - you roll no damage, just go freeform and describe. But that plays poorly with many classes since they have no meaningful way of doing such actions (fighter, barbarian, etc). That's why the small-scale works much better.

[Kelb_Panthera]

The Miniatures Handbook by WotC and Cry Havoc by Malhavoc Press (3rd party) have rules for 3.5 mass combat.


Likewise in Heroes of Battle.

I'm not familiar with Cry Havoc, but +1 to the other two suggestions. Both Heroes and Mini's give decent rules for both actually conducting (Mini's) and simply influencing (Heroes) large scale battles. Between the two, you shouldn't have many questions left.

[BendakRayley]

Thank you all very much. I think I have some reading to do now.

[Seerow]

I'm also going to recommend Heroes of Battle, while it may not be exactly what you're looking for, it focuses on what player characters are doing in the middle of a battle, like someone else suggested. Basically the PCs can go accomplish different objectives, gaining victory points for their side, the DM sets a threshold of victory points for the PCs to turn the tide for their side to win. (Or win more effectively or whatever).

It also has a few other random mechanics I liked in the form of the Commander Auras, and I forget what they were called but there was basically a group skill trick mechanic, where a group trains together for a while, and after doing so they all get some benefit.