Suikoden campaign questions

[DarkEternal]

So, I've been DM'ing a Suikoden campaign on and off for the last few months or so, and all in all it's been fairly good. I pretty much took the story from Suikoden 1(for those that don't know, Suikoden is a pretty damn good jrpg that fits for the dnd setting, what with warfare and the setting and the races and such).

The players never heard, let alone played the game so it's been going okay. It's also my first time DM-ing an "original" setting(I usually stuck with prewritten campaigns until now)

Anyway, for those that played the game, you know there are parts where armies actually clash against armies, as well as duels(which would be fairly hard to pull off since why would you fight one on one against someone when you can just steamroll over it with your party?)

I'm having some issues making this "army against army" system possible.

In the game it functioned on a rock-paper-scissors sort of system. Basically, the player chooses who attacks, and then the enemy chooses who attacks. It works like this: Archers are strong against mages(another hahaha moment for dnd), mages are strong against infantry, and infantry is strong against archers.

The generals(or player if you will) can also choose, once per encounter to use other things, to aid them. For instance, if they employ strategists, the army deals 50 percent more damage in that turn. Thieves have a chance of finding out what the enemies next move will be, ninjas have a hundred percent chance rate, merchants can buy off the enemy soldiers to join their side and so on.

So I don't know exactly how it would work in 3.5 setting. Should I just keep it like that, or add something, maybe even some actual encounters for the player characters on the field of battle?

[holywhippet]

Maybe this? http://www.scribd.com/doc/7851118/d20-Open-Mass-Combat-System-

Suikoden warfare is a bit different because rune magic can effect an entire division of troops rather than just a small area or individual.

Those rules are roughly how I'd handle things but you might want to customise things so that each PC leads troops that have similar abilites. Like rangers/thieves might be able to sneak around to make a surprise attack.

[DarkEternal]

Yeah...especially when you throw true runes in the mix. I'll read on it and see if it fits. The party is nearing their first tussle against an army and I'd like to make it fun and memorable.

[Captainspork]

How much are you set on sticking to the suikoden combat system? I tried something similar in a previous campaign and honestly just gave up on the idea and bought "Heroes of Battle". I'm sure it's possible, but if you read that book it does a good job helping break down one large battle into smaller skirmishes (which is really more realistic). I found it was a useful resource, and it sounds like you've already manipulated your rules to reflect the suikoden style of party combat, etc.

[DarkEternal]

Well, "manipulated" is really a stretch. I must confess I did a lot of things spontaneously, because you can't really deal with it the same in dnd as you can in a video game.

For instance, I'm still having my own issues im how to make teleportation spells work in this setting. They recently found Viki and she joined the castle(the mage that basically gives the party the ability to teleport in Suikoden verse). Since each character is more or less in posession of a true rune, I was thinking that we'll make it that only those in posession of said rune can be teleported around or something like that.

Each star of destiny that joins can give a passive bonus(non combat troops) or an active bonus(fighter troops). They can take one passive guys skill or one active guy to travel with them in the party. For instance - Mathiu is a passive skill guy - he gives +5 on all knowledge checks. Krin, a rogue is a fighter sort, he can give a +2 boost on initiative checks and so on. Attuning to a star takes a week, so they can't really change it on the fly.

As for the large battles, I guess I'll go and see how the first one turns out. I really don't know if this will be good or bad, but I guess I can learn through experience.

[holywhippet]

For instance, I'm still having my own issues im how to make teleportation spells work in this setting. They recently found Viki and she joined the castle(the mage that basically gives the party the ability to teleport in Suikoden verse). Since each character is more or less in posession of a true rune, I was thinking that we'll make it that only those in posession of said rune can be teleported around or something like that.


Weren't there two people involved with teleportation in the first game? Either way, Viki can send people out (make sure you roll for teleport errors) but you need the blinking mirror to come back again.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Yeah...I love the entire series and 1 will always hold a special place in my heart as the first one I played and first in the series, but... I wouldn't try too hard to emulate its mass combat system. It was simple and fun, but really not that great (I think V had the best system, although it is also the most complicated) and you can't really implement it into a D&D game without it it seeming even sillier than it already does in the game itself.


Weren't there two people involved with teleportation in the first game? Either way, Viki can send people out (make sure you roll for teleport errors) but you need the blinking mirror to come back again.

Well, the other person just gives you the blinking mirror and that's the extent of her involvement in your teleporting. Later games just had Viki give it to you herself, or you got it as part of the plot at a relevant point.

Handling the teleportation is pretty simple. Limit it to 6 - 8 people max* (which is what D&D lets you teleport in one go at max roughly, anyway), and only to places you've been and are currently on friendly terms / allied with you. The blinking mirror is basically just Word of Recall at will.

*"Why can't she just send multiple groups in waves, then?"
I dunno... Maybe in order for a group to be teleported, either Viki must go with them or one of them must possess the Blinking Mirror?

[Waker]

While the Rock/Scissors/Paper strategy worked for the game, it might be a bit silly for D&D. I'd go with the smaller fights influencing the bigger fights. When the party squares off against the general/champion, their fight determines the outcome of the armies battles. When the party has the upper hand, so does their army and vice versa.

[holywhippet]

Honestly I felt the battlefield system of Suikoden 3 to be the best in the series more or less. The first game felt erratic IIRC (haven't played in quite some time) and I think the second one might have as well. It was paper rock scissors in theory but in practice the results could be erratic or your could have a lot of skirmishes with no real damage being done.

Suikoden 3 had your 108 stars entering to fight in groups. Levelling them up and giving them better equipment made an actual difference.

[Phaederkiel]

Yeah...I love the entire series and 1 will always hold a special place in my heart as the first one I played and first in the series, but... I wouldn't try too hard to emulate its mass combat system. It was simple and fun, but really not that great (I think V had the best system, although it is also the most complicated) and you can't really implement it into a D&D game without it it seeming even sillier than it already does in the game itself.

Really? you liked the combat aspect of V the most? I am still angry at the terrible execution of this one. The need to scroll to the units you want to use, while any fight breaking out somewhere else will move you over there, making all your scrolling for naught, is something out of a manual of how not to do it...

That aside, suikoden 5 was a very pleasant surprise after the (relative!) suckfest that was 4. (still a good game, but so far from the glory days...).


and before i derail the thread entirely: i like the system of 2, and the system of 3 best. For DnD, I would go for 3:

Let the players make teams and make them fight simultaneous battles. Count rounds, both of the fight and how long the teams take to move.
This will be an incentive to get as many chars as possible, while giving the need to balance the teams.

I used this for a battle, it worked.


(Sui 1 and 2 FOREVAH!!!)

[StreamOfTheSky]

Honestly I felt the battlefield system of Suikoden 3 to be the best in the series more or less. The first game felt erratic IIRC (haven't played in quite some time) and I think the second one might have as well. It was paper rock scissors in theory but in practice the results could be erratic or your could have a lot of skirmishes with no real damage being done.

Suikoden 3 had your 108 stars entering to fight in groups. Levelling them up and giving them better equipment made an actual difference.

III is my next favorite after V. I actually enjoyed III's the most, due to the last thing you said (I love optimizing). But it was kind of like "cheating"... it was just the same regular skirmish battle, but with less options and control than usual. Didn't actually feel like a "mass combat" system at all.

Suikoden I's wasn't "erratic." What you might be recalling is that while Bow gets flawless victory over magic and magic over charge, Charging when the enemy used Bow lead to a big melee brawl and you'd still take a fair amount of casualties (but the foe would take like 2x as many, and charge attacks did the most damage out of the 3 options; also bow was the least damaging option of the 3 to make up for its "safest guess" status).

Suikoden II didn't use rock-paper-scissors in any capacity I'm aware of; it's actually the only game out of the series that doesn't use it at all for mass combat AFAIK. It just had outright brutally low success rates. You could have an attack of 12 vs. a foe's defense of like 6 and still only have ~ 70% chance of damaging the unit, or whatever. So the battles somewhat dragged on, and when a sudden surge of luck (good or bad, though bad seemed to happen more often :smallsmile: ) did occur, it could RADICALLY swing the danger/ease of the battle.


Really? you liked the combat aspect of V the most? I am still angry at the terrible execution of this one. The need to scroll to the units you want to use, while any fight breaking out somewhere else will move you over there, making all your scrolling for naught, is something out of a manual of how not to do it...

I admit, I abused the hell out of pausing to continuously scan the map and ready my cursor over the next unit I wanted to give a command to; without pausing it would've been horrifically overwhelming to handle.

And I intentionally tried to space out when my units would engage an enemy unit in order to minimize the (I agree) very annoying occurrence of it shifting into one skirmish after another after another with no chance to pause and reassess the situation / give commands.

I liked V's the best because it felt the most like an actual war battle.
The real time element did a lot for that regard, and helped mitigate the silliness of rock-paper-scissors, because suddenly everything's all going on simultaneously and messy, and units are fleeing skirmishes in random directions, and OMG I didn't want *that* unit to engage the enemy's cavalry, NOOOOO! ....and so forth. The rune effects weren't just some little cutscene animation on the chosen unit like in II, it was implemented right into the map as everything's going on, with actual radiuses and such.

V also frequently had a mission goal, rather than outright slaughter of all foes (in fact, you got no points at all for the # of foes you killed; makes sense since it's a civil war and all so you're just killing fellow countrymen), which was refreshing. Do you kill off all the forces to cake walk your way to the goal, or try to lure them away from the town you need to enter to win the battle faster and with minimal casualties? Tactical decision options are always nice.

I'm not saying V had the most fun mass combat system, I agree III did. I'm saying I think it was the best one, and that the two accolades are not necessarily interchangeable.

[DarkEternal]

I'm also thinking that the Blinking mirror should have either a recharge rate or perhaps that one needs to use it for an hour or something to escape shenanigans such as "oh, we're losing this fight. Let's use this mirror that returns us all back to our castle, rest up and then go once again."

Again, it works in video games. In dnd it seems like it would only be a burden.

As for battles, I have more or less taken out all the stars they could recruit and gave them stats. The idea popped up that each player could control one group in those battles, with the other players taking control(for that battle) of one of the other characters and aiding the main one. So each of the players gets a turn. That could get old really fast, but it might also be fun I guess.

Or just go with the Mongoose one. I remember playing the first Drow War book, and it had those rules. Seemed fairly okay.

[holywhippet]

That aside, suikoden 5 was a very pleasant surprise after the (relative!) suckfest that was 4. (still a good game, but so far from the glory days...).


Well 4 did have one redeeming part: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5t6iLcWf54

Actually one review I saw for 4 suffered from a severe didn't read the manual flaw. They complained about the slow movement speed when sailing and moving around on land. But if you check the manual there is a button you can hold on the controller to move a lot faster.

[Phaederkiel]

Well 4 did have one redeeming part: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5t6iLcWf54

Actually one review I saw for 4 suffered from a severe didn't read the manual flaw. They complained about the slow movement speed when sailing and moving around on land. But if you check the manual there is a button you can hold on the controller to move a lot faster.



well, so it forces you to sail for 20 minutes on a neverchanging see while you have TO PRESS A BUTTON all the time (else its an hour...), the dullness of the waves crashing on your hull only pierced by the dullness of lowlvl enemies crashing against your sword...




I liked V's the best because it felt the most like an actual war battle.
The real time element did a lot for that regard, and helped mitigate the silliness of rock-paper-scissors, because suddenly everything's all going on simultaneously and messy, and units are fleeing skirmishes in random directions, and OMG I didn't want *that* unit to engage the enemy's cavalry, NOOOOO! ....and so forth. The rune effects weren't just some little cutscene animation on the chosen unit like in II, it was implemented right into the map as everything's going on, with actual radiuses and such.


As an active larper, i can tell you that the true terror of battle is more of an:
"are these guys my guys? lets ask them...Has anyone seen the enemies? Are the guys you are fighting not our allies? oh, they were, until we attacked them accidentally..."
I can tell you, a big fight without uniforms is a very funny thing.
I will forever remember 4 as the game that forced me to travel in realtime.
brr.

[Vanitas]

I'd run duels as they run it in the game - one character challenges another for a duel, one on one, that's it. If your players don't want to duel, you shouldn't be running them in the first place. ^^

[Captainspork]

Yea I would check that book out. I'm pretty sure there is a section in there dealing with magic in battle as well. It at least gives you a starting point, you can change things as you see fit from there. Plus I think I bought it for like $20 or less.

[DarkEternal]

Grand. Have some good suggestions here. I even contemplated writing a journal of said campaign since it always surprises me just how many fans of the games there are in the DnD crowd.

[danzibr]

Not that I'm being useful at all... but could you post the details for your campaign rules here? Or somewhere? I'm quite interested in this.

[DarkEternal]

Not that I'm being useful at all... but could you post the details for your campaign rules here? Or somewhere? I'm quite interested in this.

Well, they are not that much of rules, as they are guidelines since player characters can always surprise you.

Basically, all characters started off at level 2 in Gregminster as pupils of Theo Mcdohl, a famed Empire general. No son, but the other things about it are the same. They have to go to the same places as they did in the game, doing stuff until crap hits the fan and everything becomes about a rebel alliance.

Since ressurection works wonky in the Suikoden verse, I didn't just go with the Soul Eater, but gave each of the PC's a true rune(a guy somewhere made how they would work in dnd, basically every 5 levels you get an ability that is pretty fancy, but mechanical wise it's really more of a sugar on top and mimics some spell ability). The rule is that only characters in posession of a true rune can be ressed.

I'm still having trouble(as put up there) with mass combats and teleportation since it works in a specific way in Suikoden, but I'll pull something out of my arse one way or the other.

Also, the stars of destiny I mentioned. There are plenty of them(I didn't put all of them because some are pretty dumb for a dnd game), and each of them can benefit the team with their passive or active ability. Some are stronger than the others. For instance, Viktor the barbarian that they can take with you, so he's an active member, can give +5 to the party on all grapple checks. Nothing special, but he's a damn fine fighter and considering they lack a meat tank, he helps out in that regard as well.

Then there are the passive ones. Chandler the merchant can offer discount prices that are practically market ones if they take his "ability" with him. It takes a week to have a character attuned to a star of destiny so they can't really exploit it as much.

Ummm, I don't know. That's pretty much it. Oh, demihuman races are okay here and not shot on sight, like kobolds, lizard men and the like. In fact, most of the players play such races.

[DarkEternal]

So, as far as mass combat go...I've been reading the Mongoose link and I wasn't too fond of it, though it has some nice touches to it. The Heroes of Battle however do seem nice.

For the first battle against Kwanda Rossmans army, I was thinking of making each five foot square on the map a 50 foot square in terms of battle field. The main characters move as they want and its implied they are in formation with the army(the Liberation army has some odd 7 000 thousand people during that battle when compared to Kwandas 10 000).

The characters would move along the map square by square(or fifty feet by fifty feet), and the terrain would vary of course. Every few squares there would be a secret roll of what happens. It could be an encounter, or it could be some other effect - war machines attacking, bow attacks, magic attacks that are centered on the party and so on. There's also a chance nothing would happen. Basically the goal is to rout the enemy or to reach the other side of the map.

I was thinking that characters get a chance to use their special abilities three times per day(Thieves, merchants, strategisty, ninjas and so on). They could choose what they want to use. For instance, if they use strategists, all damage in that round is raised by 50 percent during an encounter. Thieves could find ahead of time what would happen, meaning the next encounter composition in terms of battle (as if they rolled a really good knowledge roll ahead of time). Strengths. weakenesses and so on. It has a chance of failing and the party could get bad information. Merchants have a chance of lessening the CR of the encounters. It is said they are "bribing" an enemy. In terms of DnD mechanics, it means they could lessen the encounter from let's say CR 8 to CR 7 or something like that.

Thoughts?