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GybeMark
2013-12-03, 11:05 AM
I'm looking for an "enabler" to help me through my very bad idea.

I have a shiny new dragon mini. I want to break the mini out, because you know, dragon. The party I GM for is fairly low level though. So here's my very bad idea:

Local-lord-of-the-day would donate mooks to rid his domain of the dragon threat
Each PC would "lead" his/her band of mooks in the battle with the dragon (i.e. each group fights as a block, player takes the rolls for group, etc)
Presumably, the archer in the party would lead a group of archers, the fighter would lead a group of fighters, the wizard would lead a (small) group of low-level spellcasters (mostly for buffing), etc


I think the "mechanics" of the encounter are possible, but might be difficult (I don't want to re-write wargaming rulebooks, and want to the players to take their feats/skills/bonuses into account).

Mechanics aside, has anyone tried this kind of thing in your game? How did it work out? Any suggestions of pitfalls to avoid? Any recommendations for pre-built/tested/vetted mechanics for this kind of encounter?

Keep in mind, the end goal is "to show of my sexy new dragon" :smallsmile:

supermonkeyjoe
2013-12-03, 11:57 AM
I did this a while ago, a total of 4 PCs, and a bunch of NPCs (around 15 or so I think) against a souped-up death giant. I ran it like this:

Each PC can issue orders to 2 NPC units, an NPC unit is either a powerful NPC of a group of weaker NPCs

The PCs can only give general orders to the NPC unit (attack that, move over there, withdraw etc.), whether they obey or not or how they carry out the task depends on various factors like how disciplined they are, how much they like the PC, what they're being asked to do etc.

The NPCs only have basic stats, i.e, 3 hits from the giants axe before they are killed, deal 15 damage per turn, can heal 20HP or 1 hit per battle etc.

The NPC unit acts on the commanding PCs turn after the PC has acted.

I found that this didn't slow things down too much by working out average values for the NPCs and keeping it all behind the screen, otherwise players would be rolling dozens of dice every turn.

However this might not work if the PCs are too low levelled, the way it worked out for my group was that if they had gone solo, a full round attack from the giant would have probably killed any one PC, however they could take a couple of hits and still be fine, the amount of characters harrying the giant meant that it couldn't focus on any one character at a time and so wouldn't instantly decimate the PCs. Exactly what type/age dragon are you thinking of and what level PCs?

GybeMark
2013-12-03, 05:03 PM
Thanks for the words of advice! It's nice to know that play doesn't slow down too much. I like the idea of averaging out the NPCs and treating them as a block.


Exactly what type/age dragon are you thinking of and what level PCs?

The mini is for a large green dragon, so that puts it in the "young" or "juvenile" age range (CR 8 or 9) vs a party of four 3rd level PCs (hence the "PCs need backup, so how do I go about it" post) :smalltongue:.

I should also mention that my players are friends who indulge my geeky hobby, rather than hardcore RPGers. In other words, they're not min/maxed characters by any stretch of the imagination, and their combat tactics tend towards "I hit for 12 damage, is it dead yet?" rather than "my rogue is going to gather information in town, so we know how to better prepare for the battle with the fabled monster-of-the-cave"...

Slipperychicken
2013-12-03, 06:25 PM
You could check out ACKS (adventurer conquerer king system). The whole system is built for this kind of thing, with PCs each commanding small bands of henchmen, and eventually founding their own domains to become lords themselves.

Of particular interest would be morale and loyalty checks. It basically amounts to "roll 2d6 +\- modifiers, consult table". That presents more interesting results, like soldiers routing when they see enough allies roasted by dragonfire, or feeling particularly inspired and fighting to the death, or PCs rallying a routing unit to turn the tide of battle. This also makes social skills and roleplaying matter in fights.


Also, if you're playing 3.5, the book Heroes of Battle has this kind of rules, with morale checks as will saves, and other items of interest for mass combat and military campaigns.

Rhynn
2013-12-03, 07:58 PM
Running a big fight in D&D 3.X would be a freaking pain. It'd be very easy to run in a simple RPG, like older D&D editions or retroclones (ACKS pretty much assumes party sizes up to 5 times the number of players, although you'll have to start using group initiative for the player side).

I also dream of using BattleLust to run HârnMaster skirmishes with ~20 men to a side (the two systems have full and smooth integration)...

FWIW, 3.5's Heroes of Battle doesn't really make it any easier to run a big fight in detail, it just gives tools for abstracting it away when the PCs aren't participating in it (and not a lot of those, either; mostly the PCs' ability to achieve goals determines the battle results).

GybeMark
2013-12-06, 08:07 AM
Many thanks Slipperychicken, Rhynn, I'm checking out ACKS now.