Large Scale Battles

[Dormammu]

So fun right?

I'm thinking of having one in my campaign (Most of my PC's are 9-10th level). I'm also thinking of having them be in charge of castle defense and and commanding the outmatched and beleaguered forces of good. Then having them run around fighting CR appropriate "generals." Anyone have a good way to run the large scale battle that will be taking place in the background? Is there some other thread with good suggestions?

Even though the battle will be taking place in the background I don't want to just determine how it goes based on DM fiat; the PC's decisions should have an impact.

[Ellowryn]

Heroes of Battle has most of the info your looking for on how to run a large scale battle, and even has pre-generated army npc's. From there it's just a matter of determining how much of a battle you want going on in the background.

[Zweisteine]

From a similar recent thread, I remember some people saying that the best way to deal with it if you don't want to go through the hassle of learning the Heroes of Battle rules, or even if you do. Rolling dice for that many troops is a ton of effort and bookkeeping, which is not fun for the players.

Run it like it makes sense, using that book for guidelines.

[Ellowryn]

Not expecting him(?) to run a full scale war in the background, but the info on numbers, the pregenerated np's and easy clear rules for siege equipment makes for a better battle. Stuff like random arrow/bolder attacks make for a good battlefield feel, while random enemy scouts and vanguards lend to making it to the npc commanders that they have to kill more realistic. Plus things like moral become importand, along with actual defense of the keep.

Can it become complicated, heck yes! But it just takes some cherrypicking of the right elements to give it that real battle feel.

[Dormammu]

Thanks guys! I'll see if I can borrow a copy of heroes of Battle.

[VoxRationis]

From a similar recent thread, I remember some people saying that the best way to deal with it if you don't want to go through the hassle of learning the Heroes of Battle rules, or even if you do.

Wait, what? You're missing a clause there. "The best way... is..."

[ace rooster]

Some thoughts.

Level 1 warmages using partially (5) charged wands of fireball (if they are allowed, scrolls if not) as close support prevents tight formations engaging at close range, for less than the cost of a suit of full plate. A level 10 evoker with arcane thesis fireball can cast widened enlarged fireballs to cause chaos over a radius of 1600 feet, from outside the range of non enhanced crossbows, and all but similar casters. He/She is effectively a heavy artillary piece. Blasts are important in combat because of the tactics they prevent, even if they are seldom actually used. Mobbing a single target is now not a good option, if the response to taking it down is all attackers getting fireballed.

Another important factor is that low level characters are vulnerable to crossbow fire (D8 damage is often enough to drop one, say 50%). Closing a distance of 300ft in light armour will give a crossbowman 3 shots, one at -1, one at +1, and one at +3 against an ac of 15, between them having a 45% knockout rate. By the time the enemy reach the crossbowmen they are outnumbered almost 2-1 (assuming the crossbows don't fall back). Difficult terrain (cannot be run across) or a medium load will make things much worse, and there is no reason to assume that the crossbowmen would not open up at longer range, especially if there are some heavy crossbows mixed in.

Thirdly something like an ogre with scale mail and a tower shield behaves a bit like a battle tank. An AC of 21 and good health means that it is very tough (will take about 50 attacks by mooks to drop). A greatclub does more damage, but a large battle axe and +10 strength will munch through mooks just as well. If even one gets among a mook formation it can do a huge amount of damage if they don't get help. If he is backed up by warmage with a wand to nuke any attempt to swarm him (never mind his cleave), swarm melee is not a good option for dealing with it. Crossbowmen can focus fire to deal with it, and by staying away from it it is limited to killing one per round, and if they keep out of a single move they force it to charge, with a -2 penalty to ac (doubling the hit rate).

Finally, coms are not well developed. There are high magic ways of sending information, but they are not common. At a tactical level information can be very hard to come by, mostly transmited by runners. A formation can be cut off without knowing it, and all but killed without an attack rolled. Battles are won by hitting the enemy where they are weak, and not letting him do it back, and as such all about intel and maneuvers.

[VoxRationis]

Some thoughts.

Level 1 warmages using partially (5) charged wands of fireball (if they are allowed, scrolls if not) as close support prevents tight formations engaging at close range, for less than the cost of a suit of full plate.

Another important factor is that low level characters are vulnerable to crossbow fire (D8 damage is often enough to drop one, say 50%). Closing a distance of 300ft in light armour will give a crossbowman 3 shots, one at -1, one at +1, and one at +3 against an ac of 15, between them having a 45% knockout rate. By the time the enemy reach the crossbowmen they are outnumbered almost 2-1 (assuming the crossbows don't fall back). Difficult terrain (cannot be run across) or a medium load will make things much worse, and there is no reason to assume that the crossbowmen would not open up at longer range, especially if there are some heavy crossbows mixed in.


Finally, coms are not well developed. There are high magic ways of sending information, but they are not common.

I find it odd that you assume you can find lots of warmages and plentiful scrolls/wands of fireball, but not plentiful sending or message.
Your analysis of crossbow fire is interesting, and makes them much more effective than in real life, where they were powerful but hardly dominated the battlefield to the degree your analysis would imply. You should take into consideration, however, that a) most people won't be able to target effectively, since their friends and allies will be obscuring their view, and so you should look into volley rules from Complete Warrior; and b) most crossbowmen are poorly trained (that's historically the value of the weapon) and so aren't going to have a +3 attack bonus; they will most likely be commoners (maybe warriors) with average Dex and Skill Focus (Profession [farmer]) rather than Point Blank Shot or Weapon Focus (light crossbow).

[ace rooster]

I find it odd that you assume you can find lots of warmages and plentiful scrolls/wands of fireball, but not plentiful sending or message.
Your analysis of crossbow fire is interesting, and makes them much more effective than in real life, where they were powerful but hardly dominated the battlefield to the degree your analysis would imply. You should take into consideration, however, that a) most people won't be able to target effectively, since their friends and allies will be obscuring their view, and so you should look into volley rules from Complete Warrior; and b) most crossbowmen are poorly trained (that's historically the value of the weapon) and so aren't going to have a +3 attack bonus; they will most likely be commoners (maybe warriors) with average Dex and Skill Focus (Profession [farmer]) rather than Point Blank Shot or Weapon Focus (light crossbow).

The point about fireballs is that they do not have to be used often to affect viable tactics. The whole cold war was dominated by nuclear weapons, but none were ever fired. Sending is useful for getting (short) orders out to large formations, or scouts transmitting critical information back, but is higher level (read more expensive) and actually needs to be used often to make a difference. At a tactical level it will often be too expensive, and cannot transmit much information. A formation also needs a designated sending target, which could be a vulnerability (and a possible objective for PCs).
Message is useful for hidden tactical scouts, but achieves little more than yelling.

The blanket statement that most people won't be able to target well is disputable, and the whole reason battles are won or lost. From the side of a hill, they will. If they cannot get a good shot then the melee guys have an advantage. This is what maneuvers are about, and why coms are so important.

Point blank shot seems very bad. If you are within 30ft you are missing the point of a ranged weapon.

Thanks for your thoughts, I'll look again at CW.

[VoxRationis]

Being able to clearly fire upon the enemy is different from being able to target the enemy directly. Unless the battle was at point-blank range, or maybe the defenders were fighting from castle walls (I'm not sure about the latter scenario), ranged troops were not trying to target individual soldiers; actively aiming at a target in the same way one would when fighting a single foe or hunting an animal is impractical against an enormous mass of soldiers.
And while nuclear weapons were never used in the Cold War era, numerous other expensive, high-tech military technologies were put into place, ESPECIALLY when they could be of logistical aid, such as communications or intelligence. Face it, if you have enough wizards running around that the possibility of fireball is worth considering in a given field battle, you have enough wizards running around to coordinate troop tactics, especially among one another or by using sending spells to contact unit commanders.

[Umbranar]

Im running the War of the Burning Sky campaign that has some large scale battles. Basicly what they do there is have number of things that needs to be done by the PCs to changed the result of a battle. For example: the enemy outnumbers the allied army and will win unless they disrupt the chain of command, disrupt supply lines or sabotage the siege weapons.

Basically they recommend to think big but play small.

[ace rooster]

Being able to clearly fire upon the enemy is different from being able to target the enemy directly. Unless the battle was at point-blank range, or maybe the defenders were fighting from castle walls (I'm not sure about the latter scenario), ranged troops were not trying to target individual soldiers; actively aiming at a target in the same way one would when fighting a single foe or hunting an animal is impractical against an enormous mass of soldiers.
And while nuclear weapons were never used in the Cold War era, numerous other expensive, high-tech military technologies were put into place, ESPECIALLY when they could be of logistical aid, such as communications or intelligence. Face it, if you have enough wizards running around that the possibility of fireball is worth considering in a given field battle, you have enough wizards running around to coordinate troop tactics, especially among one another or by using sending spells to contact unit commanders.

Targeting an area as opposed to individuals is going to favor skirmish tactics, with dense formations taking much more damage. If 95% of a formation is air then attackers are forced to aim at individual targets. The difference between RL coms tech and sending is that it does not cost much to use a radio once you have it. If it cost twice as much as an RPG to send 20 words on the radio, it would not get used nearly as often. On the other hand level 1 warmages stationed 300ft behind the front with fireball wands would cover about 1000ft of front each, and you would need just over 3 per kilometer of front (assuming they don't move). The battlefield hardly needs to be crawling with them.

I lost my first attempt at that post, and on the second forgot to include that how a battlefield looks is very dependant on how common magic is. Removing magic totally makes things look very medival, with dense formations being unanswerable. A single level 5 wizard can craft fireball wands, and suggests that there are 6 level 1-2 wizards capable of using them. They can do huge amounts of damage over 2km of front, and are a game changer. More magic will obviously distort things further, and sending may become viable for everyday use, but it is difficult to be sure what effect magic would have without fully gaming it.