Need help to masterize a big battle!

[Saintsqc]

Hi everyone!

First post on this board! Just a quick note, english is not my native langage, so forgive my bad writting skills.

I'm the DM and we are playing in a homebrew world. The average level of the group is 5 and the campaign is about to finish. The final scene will be an underground battle opposing hundred of people (50vs50). Some players will lead their own men to the battle (soldiers), and some will just fight. On the player's side, the troups will be made of human/dwarf fighters. There might have 2 or 3 low level wizard. On the opposing side, there will be formians trying to protect their new colony (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/formian.htm).

This is what I want to do.

How can I make the fight fluid with the d20 system? I'm not going to throw 100s dices each round for each creature...Is there an easy way I can make the fight realist and fluid so the player's decision/actions really have an impact?

How can I deal with the players having men to their orders ?


I hope my post is clear :smalleek:

Thx for your time!

[Yuki Akuma]

Your English is better than some native speakers, dude. Don't worry about it.

As for how to handle mass combat, I'd suggest not trying to game most of it out. Use stats for anything the players themselves attack and get attacked by, but otherwise just describe the rest of the battle narratively.

To determine the outcome of the NPC fighting, you could perhaps roll a die for each army, applying a bonus for the leaders' average Charisma, how good the orders the PCs give are, or something along those lines.

Although I feel I must point out that soldiers are 'troops', not 'troups'.

[FleshrakerAbuse]

With 50 vs 50 battle, (optional) I suggest you check out the Miniatures Handbook, which brings in rules of battle for larger groups, and Complete Warrior.

If you don't have access, I suggest you use a special modified roll for the majority of the armies, except the squads the PCs are in. Maybe roll for each side, adding the average BAB or any tactical factors, and then the higher roll gets more damage in.

[Saintsqc]

Thanks guys!

I think I will subdivise each side in 2-3 squads and consider these squads as 1 creature (with more HP though). Damage to squad will result in kills. It will give a factor of "chance" to the fight and I will be able to give feedbacks to the players about how the fight is evolving.

The battles the players will fight will be played as usual.

However, this bring another question to my mind. How can players positively/negatively influence the fight? I have a hard time to think about tactital factors.

@Yuki : haha thx for pointing that out!

[Saintsqc]

bumpitybump!

[Keld Denar]

If you don't mind a bit of homebrew, Oslecamo rewrote the rules for mobs that were first published in either Cityscape or DMGII. If you google him with the words "mob" and "unit", you'll find it pretty quick. The unit rules he wrote do a pretty good job of assessing the threat that a large group of otherwise low level NPCs can present. Then you could have the units fight each other and the PCs would be able to interact with the whole unit instead of each individual combatant.

I'd link em, but posting from my phone is hard enough...

[Zweisteine]

Heroes of Battle exists for the explicit purpose of doing wars and large-scale battles in D&D. The rules might be a bit clunky, and hard to get used to, but I think they work (I've never actually used them myself...). You might have a hard time reading through the whole book, though, and getting the players familiar with it as well.

I might recommend just paying attention to the PCs' immediate area, and doing whatever seems right/realistic for the battle.