DMing a War

[Deckmaster]

I've played in big battles in Dungeons and Dragons before, but I was wondering if anyone had ever gone about trying to DM something like that. An obvious tactic is "focus on the players," but how do you realistically portray a battle without rolling thousands of initiative scores and attack rolls?

[Baalzebub]

What I do, I roll Initiative for the whole army, as a single foe, with the exception of generals, commanders, captains or soldiers with PC classes. After all the attacks have been resolved, I narrate what happens in a dramatic and epic way, or something like that.

If the Players are in the 6-10 lvl they will (most likely) kill half the army by themselves, so it's all about narrative.

BTW this thread goes in the Gaming (d20 and General RPG) Forums.

[Tempus Thales]

1st & 2nd Ed AD&D had the Battlesystem rules to handle large scale battles.

Since I'm not currently playing 3.5 I haven't kept up on the books for the last couple years, Wizards may have released a new rule system to handle it.


Battlesystem used miniatures to represent either groups of standard troops or an individual commander or hero.


Hmm, I wonder if I have a copy of Battlesystem hiding with the rest of my 1st & 2nd edition D&D stuff....

[Allandaros]

Deckmaster, look up the Black Company Campaign Setting from Green Ronin. It's got a really nice and efficient mass combat system. It's one of the few d20 products I like. :D

Also, Tempus, how well did Battlesystem integrate itself into AD&D? I've been considering getting that for a good long whiles now.

[chibibar]

It depends on the units and PCs :) I usually figure out the following first.

How many units are there? how many HP does the whole group have? (or platoon depending how big of a scale you are looking at)

You can give basic modifier (made up or pick from many different battle system) you can decide on bonus to resist if have many warrior type, bonus to offense with some magic user units, healing units, and stuff.

Terrain does put a big play AND weather :)

You can pretty much reduce dice rolling this way and allow battle to move a little faster than usual :)

A single warrior (level 10) with bodyguards (6 of them) at level 3 each.

I would make the warrior 1 dice pool and all the bodyguard another dice pool.

fighting against 2 generals of kobolds (level 6 - this will be 1 dice pool per general) and 2 platoon (level 1s and 2s)(again two sets of dice pool for each platoon)

This is what I love about tabletop, you can make rules on the fly for the sake of a good story telling/gameplay.

[Elliot Kane]

I just concentrated on the area where the players were, and let them set the course for how much I had to involve anything else.

The thing is to give the impression of a massive battle without getting bogged down in trivia, such as anything that is happening outside of the PC's line of sight.

I had the battle pretty much scripted in terms of what would happen when, and just shifted things to allow for player actions.

[Talya]

Heroes of Battle is a wizards supplement for just such occasions.

[WoeToTheWorld]

This is really simple, but if I don't have a winner already decided for the battle, I usually just choose a number of die based on how large the two sides are, who is attacking, and what not. So if it was a small force of say five hundred defending against an army of a thousand, I'd roll 1d10 for the attackers, and whatever roll I had for them I'd subtract from the defenders, and for the defenders I'd roll 3d10 or something like that, depending on how well their position was defended.

It's not really very precise, but it works for me, and it's dead simple.

[BardicLasher]

For a war the PCs are in, I determine before the PCs get involved exactly how it will go. This almost always involves the bad guys winning. Then, I just deal with what the PCs do on a case by case basis, with the armies continuing to have their same effect either way.

One note is that, in large scale battles, Fighters suck even worse than normal, bards become dieties, and a blaster always has more than enough targets.

Rogues will get bored in wars. Find something else for them to do.

[Deckmaster]

BTW this thread goes in the Gaming (d20 and General RPG) Forums.

Sorry. I didn't make it clear enough in the beginning that my curiosity was related to the current storyline in the comic.

[Twilight Jack]

For a war the PCs are in, I determine before the PCs get involved exactly how it will go. This almost always involves the bad guys winning. Then, I just deal with what the PCs do on a case by case basis, with the armies continuing to have their same effect either way.

One note is that, in large scale battles, Fighters suck even worse than normal, bards become dieties, and a blaster always has more than enough targets.

Rogues will get bored in wars. Find something else for them to do.

This is an interesting assessment, given that I have had almost the exact opposite experience.

A few years ago, I ran a campaign that culminated in a massive battle sequence not unlike the current battle of Azure City. The aggressors consisted of an army comprised of almost a quarter of a million soldiers (think of the massive armies fielded by the empires of Persia or Alexander the Great). The battle itself was so massive that I ensured that no single character could have an overwhelming effect either way, so that the larger battle strategy became paramount. In this, a given PC could involve themselves in the battle at any number of tactical levels to increase the odds that any given aspect of the larger battle strategy might actually succeed. Things like a single cavalry charge or an attempt to outflank a certain division couldn't turn the tide of the entire battle, but the aggregate of the smaller victories at various points on the field added up to create the final conditions for triumph or defeat. I had eight players, all working for the side of the defenders (yes, I've run some truly huge games. I look back on it now and shudder that I managed).

The main population of both forces consisted of rank and file soldiers and conscripts (read low-level warriors and commoners). Veteran troops were warriors of somewhat higher level. Only the elite units were made up of any PC classes at all, and these tended towards lower level (some veteran units did have a low-level cleric or two, as chaplains). I used the guidelines for determining the class/level within a given population to give me ratios for these guys. At some point or another, most classes had some kind of representation. For the most part, I just figured out who was where, and what they were trying to accomplish, then set the players loose. The battle took three sessions to resolve.

On the whole, I found that Bards are indeed very cool in large battles. The biggest problem was in finding a way to sing over the din of battle so as to affect the greatest possible number of allies. Also, in a large battle, Inspire Courage is much more useful than Greatness or Heroics, since it affects as many allies as can hear the song instead of just one for every so many levels. Things started to hiccup when two Bards from opposite sides started affecting allies at the same place. Since Inspire Courage provides a bonus to attack and damage without a corresponding bonus to AC or hp, two bards working in opposition just tended to increase the overall bloodshed for both sides. Still, our party's Bard made ample use of himself by cruising the battlefield on horseback with a sword, joining skirmishes that looked desperate and inspiring the soldiers to fight on, while carving apart as many foes as he could reach. He had a considerable effect as the battle progressed, but he was hardly a sexy, shoeless God of War.

The Sorcerer of our party was a dyed in the wool blaster, and while he certainly never lacked for available targets, he found himself forced to hang back and choose his targets very carefully. For one thing, any battle that had already been joined involved a serious mix of friend and foe, and thus required him to either snipe with single-target spells, or risk killing the good guys. His best use was in breaking up an oncoming cavalry charge or preventing the enemy from bringing reinforcements to a needed area. His other problem was that, even as a sorcerer, he had more targets than he had spells. Quite often, he found himself using his vantage and high Charisma to order soldiers in the back ranks to move to the front to plug up problem areas. He ended up being one of the best field commanders there, because he had the spells and familiar to get an objective view of the battle and the presence to command soldiers without hesitation.

Our Wizard was an Abjuration specialist whose greatest utility came before the battle had even begun (Craft Potion and Craft Wondrous Item will do that for you). Once it was underway, he was able to bolster the survivability of forces in trouble, as well as throw out the odd Evocation to blow away a serious threat. From atop the castle wall, he mostly found himself watching the battle and conferring with various tacticians regarding the suitability of various gambits. As the player himself was more interested in strategy and macromanagement than the visceral thrill of a swinging sword or balling fire, this worked out just fine for him.

The rogue was far from bored. He tossed a dark purple cloak around his shoulders (the primary color of the enemy army's standard), donned a helmet in the style of the enemy soldiers, and slipped amongst their lines. Pretty soon, every unit of enemy soldiers in a certain portion of the battlefield found themselves without any commanding officers. When he tired of that, he went to work on sabotaging catapults and siege engines. At the climax of the battle, he had a rogue-war with the assassin who had been pursuing him throughout the majority of the campaign. They used the skirmishing soldiers as cover and stalked one another up one edge of the battle and down the other. The end of that fight saw them both lying prone in the mud, low on hit points and wrestling over a single dagger.

And the fighter types? Those are the guys who really shined. The same traits that put a Fighter behind the curve in a level-appropriate encounter turn them into engines of unholy death in circumstances where no single round of combat is going to turn the tide. A Fighter does what he does very well, and he can do it every single round, for a long, long time. Additionally, the ability to do your thing in the very thick of battle with no worries that your opponents' proximity is going to mess with your concentration means that you can direct and inspire allied soldiers in ways beyond even a Bard (you're not "inspiring" them in game rules terms, but they're following you about and mopping up whatever you don't kill quite handily. This keeps their morale high and they keep following you). The group's pure Fighter favored mounted combat feats and put them to quite terrifying use, leading a cavalry charge alongside a bunch of 1st-3rd level Fighters (cavalry always counts as an elite unit, as far as I'm concerned). He did so much damage in ten rounds of combat that he collapsed the flank of an entire enemy division (Spirited Charge + Trample + Ride-by Attack is ugly). Sure, about one out of every 20 opponents who managed an attack did damage to him, but his hp were in low triple digits and he had a few healing potions in case things got rough.

The Ranger of the party had taken a few levels of Fighter for the bonus feats (not her original intention with the character, but her tendency to roll nothing but Criticals when in a serious one-on-one fight kind of demanded it, character-wise), and she proceeded to kill anything that even thought about coming near her. At one point, she glimpsed one of the enemy generals tearing through a section of the battlefield with his shock troops, and she proceeded to put an arrow through the eye (critical hit again) of an enemy cavalryman, rush and tackle him from his horse, charge through the battle towards the general, then leap and tackle him from his horse. The sword-fight that ensued was epic, in which a Ranger 10/Fighter 2 already wounded, proceeded to systematically dismantle a pure Fighter 15, through some truly stunning use of quirky feats (and a number of critical hits that had me wondering if her d20 was weighted. It wasn't. I checked). All this while dedicating a number attacks each round to killing the general's retinue, who kept jumping in to try to flank her (in all fairness, the general had to throw some attacks each round towards soldiers trying to flank him, as well, but those guys were 1st level warriors, not 5th level Fighters).

I suppose that in a core Dungeons and Dragons setting, in which watching your vaunted general ripped apart in a duel has no effect whatsoever on your willingness to continue fighting, a Fighter-type would remain unimpressive. On the other hand, in a real war, morale is more than a magical compulsion. The Fighters shone simply because they could do so much damage so consistently and so visibly that they routed entire units of the enemy nearly single-handedly, when they were of a high enough level (do you want to go near the guy who's building himself a pillow fort from the bodies of your dead friends? See above, re: Belkar). By contrast, a wizard can destroy a unit of equal size in a single round, but if he does it every round he's out of juice in a dozen, and that's only if he's got nothing but Area of Effect spells prepared. A sorcerer can keep it up a bit longer, but not enough to make much of a difference in a truly extended sequence. Only the warriors can toss down massive damage every turn, and still be ready to do it a hundred more times. In a truly target rich environment, they earn their keep sheerly by virtue of their dependability.

[Green Bean]

*jaw drops* :smalleek:


Now that is awesome.

[Twilight Jack]

*jaw drops* :smalleek:


Now that is awesome.

Thank you.

For my encore, I made five of those eight players cry at the end of the battle, when they found an NPC friend who had helped them organize the city's defenses dying of his wounds. He gave a very sensitive yet manly speech about it having been a good day.

Attempts to raise him proved futile, as he went where Chaotic Good folks go to smoke cigars in hot tubs with supermodels.

I made them cry! *I revel in my overwhelming quantity of pure win*

[Setra]

Thank you.

For my encore, I made five of those eight players cry at the end of the battle, when they found an NPC friend who had helped them organize the city's defenses dying of his wounds. He gave a very sensitive yet manly speech about it having been a good day.

Attempts to raise him proved futile, as he went where Chaotic Good folks go to smoke cigars in hot tubs with supermodels.

I made them cry! *I revel in my overwhelming quantity of pure win*
You, my friend, are made of high quality Awesome.

[Twilight Jack]

It did help that some of my players had been portraying those same characters since 1st level, in 2E AD&D, for over four years. They were emotionally invested. They weren't the only ones to cry, though. :smallamused:

[mport2004]

One word
wow

[Fuzzy_Juan]

Very nicely done...it must have been an awesome scene.

In Large battles, I have found that using some sort of miniature map system with small figures representing army units works wonders. Any meeting of NPC forces that does not involve player interfereance should simply be scripted or rolled in some way. As a fan of Risk, using a simple risk style setup tends to work wonders (roll d6, highest roll wins, tie to defenders...different size die to represent superior or inferior forces)

Example...200 human fighters/commoners all first level vs 100 4th level human warriors with magical support would be rolling d6 vs. d10's or d8+1 with the amount of dice rolled representing the amount of forces engagued at any one time and each 'loss' representing so many men.

The different classes can always be useful.

Fighters are born for mass combat with soft squishy targets...it is what they do. A single high level fighter can ensure that their unit will break any enemy unit as long as the enemy 'champion' is defeated. If they fiht wisely, they can have a huge impact on the overall flow of the battle. High level fighters are best used offensively unless it is a 'last stand' scenario.

Wizards and Sorcerers make awesome heavy weapon platforms and excellent support. Also, their ability to use wands means that they can be slinging spells for a long time in a battle, even a low level wizard handed a wand of fireballs or magic missle is a force to be reconed with...but the real power of a wizard in a large battle is with shaping the battle with magical walls, traps, etc...and with a Staff, a high level wizard is truely a master of destruction. A Staff of Fire in the hands of a 10th level wizard can burn an army. Summon monster can also be used to great effect to create expendable shock troops to break the enemy lines.

Clerics (and druids to some degree)...their support and healing magics are invaluable. Bless, prayer, and all maner of healing spells...against undead, clerics are a must as well. While not as awe inspireing as wizards or warriors, a cleric will ensure that units are healthy again in short order and that heroes will not die.

Bards...what can be said that already hasn't...a bard with a loud battle horn can inspire your troops, hell, your entire army to a frenzy of battle. Inspired troops will lay waste to the enemy...it is truely a sight to behold.

Rouges - rouges, and any other 'sneaky' unit need not be 'useless'. Headhunting is a time honored tactic, as is stealing enemy supplies, burning headquarters, poisoning water supplies, killing clerics, taking out scouts...A more combat oriented rouge is also an invaluable aid to a warrior who is hunting enemy 'heroes'. A flanker who can and will deal massive damage to a single unit is a great friend...a ranger and a rouge are best friends in this regard as they can work in tandem and set traps/murder with abandon and then melt away.

Monks - this is the one area where being a monk kinda blows...you are kinda a warrior, but unless you have reached levels of cheesiness you will not be quite as useful as a warrior...however, a monk's role is not useless...they make perfect spies with their stealth abilities and their ability to go unarmed and unarmored into enemy territory. In areas where the enemy is looking for armed, armored individuals with magic...a dirty monk in a shoddy robe is just another peasant and not worth attention.

[Flying Elephant]

For me in general I just use large groups of infantry as walls. Attacking them is not recommended. The PCs go around attacking the occasional small group of elite troops and killing off important people.

[Twilight Jack]

For me in general I just use large groups of infantry as walls. Attacking them is not recommended. The PCs go around attacking the occasional small group of elite troops and killing off important people.

My only concern with using a similar tactic is that a battle could feel a bit static, more like a maze than a real living, breathing organism. The feeling I always try to go for is a roughly organic tumult, the soldiers splashed with mud (it should almost always be raining, don't you know) and the grass beneath their feet slowly becoming slicked with glistening black blood, the cloudy patches of red spreading through the puddles that form in the imprints left by horses hooves and most importantly noise, awful deafening sounds of clashing metal and men fighting and dieing and screaming goodbyes to lovers and children too far away to ever hear them. Even if characters are just trying to get from one part of the field to another, even if they are too high of a level to be in any danger from the hordes of NPC-classed nobodies fighting around them, you want them to be aware of the noise and the smell and the bug-eyed, gasping young man that just dropped into the mud at their feet, his lungs pierced by a barbed arrow, his fingers weakly seeking out the dimensions of his wound and the narrow shaft of wood that is stealing his life, his feet still vainly searching for purchase on the slick and muddy ground.

Otherwise, why run a war?

[NeonRonin]

Twilight Jack- I have to say, I'm having some serious flashbacks to 300 after reading what happened in your sessions. You, sir, sound like a damn good GM. Wish I could come up with dynamic stuff like that on the fly- but then again, the groups I'm in usually don't sit still long enough for dramatic descriptive texts. I am hoping to fix that when I start GMing again tonight after a long hiatus.

[Moik]

Thank you for writing that out for us to share Twilight Jack! :smallsmile:
The rogue did epic. Best use of one I can think of.

[Twilight Jack]

Yeah, that sequence with the rogue is some of the most fun I've ever had running a game. Although one of its competitors from the same session involved the party's half-orc barbarian (who was oddly contemplative and in a subsequent campaign wound up multiclassing as a cleric to the sun god) running up the backs of his own allies' pikemen to leap over their pikes and head-on into an enemy cavalry charge. 300 has been mentioned and the swing of his axe as he demonstrated his Great Cleavage, taking three knights out of their saddles, definitely qualified for that slo-mo effect of which the movie makes such excellent use.

What's funny is that the players in that game still make gentle fun of me for how passionately I ran it. It was not unknown for me to leap up onto my own chair, holding an imaginary axe aloft, when a player character I was describing did the same (the scene I just described with the barbarian is the specific example of that particular bit of over-exuberance). My best friend still gives me crap about my tendency to start pantomiming fight scenes unconsciously when I get really into them. That said, she never passes up the opportunity to be in a D&D game I run.

[TreesOfDeath]

Twilight Jack, helluva awesome post.. Although Mr Wizard would like to introduce you to something called a Wand Of Fireball.
50 rounds of AE pwnage should be enough :).
Also if the rangers antic's are dubious you may wish to ask him to use different dice, its possible to learn how to roll a die so that your drastically more likely to get good numbers (friends of mine did this when were playing a board game, some buffy board game, but it was a really good one, were playing a 5 hour game (dont ask), and they were pratcing dice rolls when I was having a team talk with my partner)

[Twilight Jack]

Twilight Jack, helluva awesome post.. Although Mr Wizard would like to introduce you to something called a Wand Of Fireball.
50 rounds of AE pwnage should be enough :).
Also if the rangers antic's are dubious you may wish to ask him to use different dice, its possible to learn how to roll a die so that your drastically more likely to get good numbers (friends of mine did this when were playing a board game, some buffy board game, but it was a really good one, were playing a 5 hour game (dont ask), and they were pratcing dice rolls when I was having a team talk with my partner)

A wand of fireballs is phenomenal, for those who can make them. I have a tendency not to give out wands like candy, if I can help it. In this particular case, the group's wizard did have a wand of lightning bolt. It was so terrifically useful to him that he'd used up all its charges about five sessions before the war started (it had fewer than 50 when he got it). Making the things is all well and good, but they're expensive and cost some serious XP. The market price for one clocks in at 11,000+gp. Not exactly a simple matter to make one.

And the ranger? It didn't matter what dice she rolled. It didn't matter what I did. When the chips were down, it became 17s, 18s, 19s, and 20s, all day, every day (Improved Critical and a longsword). When the same player played different characters, it never happened. It was just that one frickin' ranger.

[Snake-Aes]

That still doesn't removes the problem, just extends it for another half hour. And the caster still has to choose really carefully...


Best use for a wizard I've ever seen in the heat of a war battle is shapping battles.
Cast Prismatic wall in a wall breach. Cast it in the bridge they should pass. Forcecage the siege engine(Mastery of Shaping makes it so useful: Forcecage around the catapult's top :D). Summon that Elemental in the clearing in the enemy's force. Paint a Symbol of Pain in the defender's wall...

And doomed is the tactician that never thought of land mines in D&D.

[Twilight Jack]

Okay, I just looked over this thread and realized that I've kind of hijacked it. Does anyone else have a tale to tell or would anyone like me to just shut the hell up?

Because I can talk about that particular campaign forever if y'all don't stop me. It's one of my favorites of all the games I've ever run, just one of those times when everything comes together perfectly.

Anyone else is free to jump in and take this thread in a non-Twilight Jack reminiscing direction at any time. :smallwink:

[Human Paragon 3]

Okay, I just looked over this thread and realized that I've kind of hijacked it. Does anyone else have a tale to tell or would anyone like me to just shut the hell up?

Because I can talk about that particular campaign forever if y'all don't stop me. It's one of my favorites of all the games I've ever run, just one of those times when everything comes together perfectly.

Anyone else is free to jump in and take this thread in a non-Twilight Jack reminiscing direction at any time. :smallwink:

No, go on... that is freaking awesome.


My friend Kyle developed a pretty good system that scales each individual battle division by a number of qualifiers (technology, tactics, leadership, morale, and training) and assigns a modifier from -5 to +5 for each. Then when two divisions meet eachother in battle they oppose roll with a d20 adding all modifiers and subtracting the differance from the losers ranks. Size of the opposing divisions also factors in.

In one battle, a friend was using a home-brewed class (this was back in 2e) that could affect bonuses onto his allies through concentration, but had only done it on a small scale, like individual fights. When the general asked him to use this ability on his archers to increase their accuracy, he didn't really know whether it would work on that large a group (the character and the player had never tried it before and it was home brewed after all), but said he'd give it a try. He stood on the battlements with the archers and used his enhancement abillity which I believe was called Empower, then the archers loosed their volley and the characater collapsed from his life force being drained by the legion of archers. Despite suffering great pain and damage from this, he continued to stand on the battlements empowering the archers for round after round until the General told him to stop because he thought he would die.

[Twilight Jack]

No, go on... that is freaking awesome.


My friend Kyle developed a pretty good system that scales each individual battle division by a number of qualifiers (technology, tactics, leadership, morale, and training) and assigns a modifier from -5 to +5 for each. Then when two divisions meet eachother in battle they oppose roll with a d20 adding all modifiers and subtracting the differance from the losers ranks. Size of the opposing divisions also factors in.

In one battle, a friend was using a home-brewed class (this was back in 2e) that could affect bonuses onto his allies through concentration, but had only done it on a small scale, like individual fights. When the general asked him to use this ability on his archers to increase their accuracy, he didn't really know whether it would work on that large a group (the character and the player had never tried it before and it was home brewed after all), but said he'd give it a try. He stood on the battlements with the archers and used his enhancement abillity which I believe was called Empower, then the archers loosed their volley and the characater collapsed from his life force being drained by the legion of archers. Despite suffering great pain and damage from this, he continued to stand on the battlements empowering the archers for round after round until the General told him to stop because he thought he would die.

That's cool. I still remember 2e fondly, despite what now seems a near unplayability if you used the rules precisely as written.

As far as the tactics modifiers go, I used a similar system (not that detailed or well thought out, unfortunately), for some of the smaller battles in that war, leading up to the ultimate battle. The entire campaign involved the war on some level or another, so there were dozens of smaller battles in which the characters took part prior to the final stand. For that big battle, though, trying to develop statistics for each division would have been a bit too crunchy for the feel I was trying to achieve. It worked in the smaller battles because the characters had far more control over the overall strategy and could impact the battle decisively with a single good round of tactics. In the big final fiesta, trying to adjucate such things would have just bogged things down.

Still, I love it anytime someone does something big and exciting with D&D. So many games just get lost in the "kill the monsters, take their stuff" ethic and never get beyond it. Considering that D&D takes its cue from Tolkein and other classic fantasy, I must say I recall very little killing of monsters with the sole motivation of taking their stuff in the source material.

EDIT: Actually, the entire point of The Hobbit was to kill a monster (Smaug) and take its stuff. And although Bilbo didn't kill Gollum, he did indeed take his stuff.

[Poppatomus]

Only one I ever participated in was interesting. The party had gotten itself mixed up in a war between two large and religiously opposed forces. The party itself was tasked, eventually, with killing the manifestation of that God on earth (something which happened much later) but at this point was going after one of his chief clerics.

The DM arranged it so that the party met the BBG at the same time as the two armies met on the battlefield. Each of the battles were epic, chapter ending, multi-session encounters, and he switched between them session by session. to facilitate this, the first time we fought the war he layed out 8 characters (there were 6 of us) that we could choose to play in the battle, each a brief bio/personality for a 14-18th level char, some of whom we had met before in other parts of the campaign (I got to play a mid level-fighter general, our wizard got to play a higher level sorceror that gave us one of our first missions, etc...). The narrative effect was great, switching from an encounter of truly epic scale to one of epic detail week by week for almost two months.

In the end, we ended up beating the BBG at the cost of my character's life (this was pre-planned to some extent, as I was leaving for a few months and the DM and I had decided to bring him back as the new BBG) but we only managed to fight the battle to a stalemate. Personality conflicts divided our strategy and allowed much of the enemy force to escape, after getting two of our "characters" killed.

I can't describe it as well as TJ did his (to tell you the truth it was so long ago I can't even remember much but the broad strokes) but it was amazing.

In terms of mechanics running both the big battle and the little battle was a great way to do it, and is something that can easily be ported even to a battle in which the PC's are involved. I strongly advise it.

[Twilight Jack]

Very cool story, Poppatomus. I love the use of shifting perspective in games. It's a shame it was too long ago to remember all the specifics, because it sounds like it must be a great story.

[Regoria Rubydagger]

The "Red Hand of Doom" campaign has a war in it. Very good book i must add.

[Kreistor]

Battlefields are too big to be DM'ed. They need to be handwaved, if the players are to be in the bloody parts. Storyline the elements around them, and let them deal with the major elements they are present for.

Players should be directing their efforts at important side elements, not the front and bloody line. They should be attempting to sneak behind the lines and get at the enemy siege equipment, wrecking bridges to cut off support, and so on.

Wars should be pre-determined, for the most part. They are just too large scale for a few people, no matter how powerful, to affect in a major way.

[Poppatomus]

Very cool story, Poppatomus. I love the use of shifting perspective in games. It's a shame it was too long ago to remember all the specifics, because it sounds like it must be a great story.

I'll pass that along to the DM, I'm sure he'll appreciate the compliment.

[the_tick_rules]

the usual idea is to have pc's be a strike force and not rank and file. complete warrior, and a few other books, have advice on military campaigns.

[hamishspence]

it really depends on level. At low (1-4) your party are at best a light strike team, or squad leaders. At mid (5-9) your party can be a heavy strike team, or platoon command. at high (10-16) the party can be generals/legion command, and at very high (17+) the war situation should be rare, not entirely appropiate unless you are playing King type games.

As a rule, the bigger it is, the more abstract you have to do it. For example, using average results instead of rolling dice. If your troops would hit enemy 20% of time and have 50% chance of doing casualties, enemy takes 10% casualties per round, instead of rolling dice.

Miniatures Handbook has good squad rules, Heroes of Battle has good rules for battlefiend environment, but some on-the-fly abstraction Will be needed unless you like rolling 10000 dice :)

[Felius]

Kreistor, one of the problems, is that a sufficient highly leveled character, CAN affect the entire battlefield, even more if they are casters. And the moment a wizard hit level 21 he can research an emanation-type elemental spell that can pretty much level down entire armies. Or if they get a couple wand of fireballs they can go on for long enough to hit a BIG part of the army. A fighter can kill himself a huge portion of the army, without breaking a sweat. And so goes on.

[Professor Tanhauser]

Well, my first rpg, star frontiers, had a war campaign in it. The setup was that the PCs were on the good guys side, and the good guys were going to lose unless the PCs carried out some missions successfully.

Every mission the PCs succeeded out raised the GGs chance of winning the war by a percentage. At the end of the campaigh, if the PCs had carried out all the missions successfully, the GGs had a 90% vchance of winning the war when the GM rolled for the outcome.

[the_tick_rules]

but if you want them to be in large battles i say focus on them and have the rest of the battle be scripted. or like one 1 roll for an entire flank. like roll 2 die and have each die represent an entire unit and the other the opposing unit.

[Leohat]

1st & 2nd Ed AD&D had the Battlesystem rules to handle large scale battles.

Since I'm not currently playing 3.5 I haven't kept up on the books for the last couple years, Wizards may have released a new rule system to handle it.


Battlesystem used miniatures to represent either groups of standard troops or an individual commander or hero.


Hmm, I wonder if I have a copy of Battlesystem hiding with the rest of my 1st & 2nd edition D&D stuff....


2nd edition also had the Birthright campaign setting that had a card based system for mass combat. Basically each card was an army of a certain size.
I've seen several (including one in Birthright) that uses the value of the hit dices for large groups.

[Professor Tanhauser]

but if you want them to be in large battles i say focus on them and have the rest of the battle be scripted. or like one 1 roll for an entire flank. like roll 2 die and have each die represent an entire unit and the other the opposing unit. Have TWO scripts. Oe for if the PCs do well, one for the unfortuante alternative.

[PlasticSoldier]

Well the Pc's have to many options for you to have one script.

P.s. when and why did you change your signature?

[Professor Tanhauser]

Well the Pc's have to many options for you to have one script.

P.s. when and why did you change your signature?

Maybe to make fun of the employment situation in america...

[BobTheDog]

Maybe to make fun of the employment situation in america...

I thought you had joined with Xykon and the gang...

[Kreistor]

Kreistor, one of the problems, is that a sufficient highly leveled character, CAN affect the entire battlefield, even more if they are casters. And the moment a wizard hit level 21 he can research an emanation-type elemental spell that can pretty much level down entire armies. Or if they get a couple wand of fireballs they can go on for long enough to hit a BIG part of the army. A fighter can kill himself a huge portion of the army, without breaking a sweat. And so goes on.

If you trat your armies like they come from Earth, yes, maybe they would have that problem. But armies that face these kind of difficulties adapt or die. All armies should be aware of the problems inherent in facing magic.

1) Dispersal formation. Roman armies had a problem. Hannibal used elephants in the attack on the Italian peninsula, and they did a number on the Romans. So, the Romans just sat back and took it, right? No, they thought about it, adapted, and whalloped Carthage on their home turf. The Romans opened up those legions and provided paths for the elephants to run straight through their lines. You see, elephants can be forced to go in a direction, but they can't be forced to step on someone when an open path is available. So, the elephants touched no one and ran straight past the Roman front lines, which closed up after they passed. Even 2000 years ago, soldiers could be trained to change formation. So, change formation in response to a magical threat. Disperse against fireballs, Aid against high AC targets, Trip (the great leveller), Disarm, etc. Use the tricks... soldiers are murderous bu... boys that will use any trick to survive.

2) Arm. Give them something that can hurt magic wielding threats. Remember, you have the budget of a country to play with. Countries wind up inheriting things from traitors and those with no families, and that includes some nice hardware that might prove effective against threats to their power base. What country worth a darn would let people run around with artefacts if they didn't have a few of their own.

3) Magic of their own. Did I mention that budget. Think there's enough to hire some magical mercenaries? Arcane casters aren't interested in making cash, you say? Well, how exactly do they pay for all that research? It's fairly expensive after all. Oh, did I mention the draft? There are many novels where magical endowed individuals have no choice but to serve their country, so there's no lack of precedent for including magic on both sides.

And I could go on.

In short, most people treat the armies of fantasy worlds as if they are led by generals from our world, and that is a fundamental mistake. No army in a DnD setting should be surprised by a Fireball or some aggressive natural animals coming out of the woods to join the fight. Generals should be aware of the dangers and prepare accordingly. The men should know how to deal with someone beyond their individual skill. There are ways in the system for numbers to matter, if the DM wants them to.

[Fuzzy_Juan]

it also depends on the level of magic and extra classes in the world. If magic is commonplace, then it would reason that everyone skilled in military affairs knows and has drilled their men in what to do in fighting against wizards, clerical magic, illusions, summoned creatures, monsters used as siege engines... they will undoubtably have their own tricks in the form of magical support and elite units.

However, there are game settings where magic and monsters all but don't exist...they are very rare, and when encountered strike fear into the hearts of everyone. There are settings where PC classes are the exception and you rarely even find a second level person. In such worlds...orcs and goblins might be 'normal'... but if a gaint showed up there would be panic...undead would terrify...and a mage migh as well be a demon from hell, while a high level warrior a God of War..even a sexy shoeless one...

all depends on the setting.

In the oots setting, magic is pretty common, so it is pretty safe to say that noone is suprised by high level magic and the random monster as they are annoyed that the other guys have them.

[Felius]

Well, the problem is when you start getting spells with HUGE areas (like the dire winter epic spell). It doesn't cause a big damage, but it can affect so much space that they won't be able to disperse.

[Kreistor]

My question there would be "Why are you placing Epic characters in that situation?" As a DM I see no challenge to such an encounter, so why are you writing that story?

Felius, what it comes down to is this: an Evil NPC with that same spell doesn't need an army. He'd just unleash that spell on the city and ignore the army. The defense against it is dispersion... of your own homeland's people. Make them a harder target. Armies are irrelevant, if there is no defense. You're talking about the equivalent of weapons of mass destruction, and both sides need them.

The point is that you don't place PC's in that situation at that level. Epic levels require Epic enemies. If the PC's are blowing their castings on wrecking massive numbers of weak enemies, make them pay for that choice. The NPC's Epic enemies should lay into the weak resource PC's and demonstrate who the real targets of their spells should have been.

Heck, as a DM, you're not limited to the forces you begin the battle with on paper. Designing an army is a massive effort. Why waste time on the parts that the PC's never face. Here's the DM's secret: he doesn't design everything you hear about. He outlines what he's got and specificies only what the PC's will encounter. Nothing stops a DM from adding or changing what you're facing, in order to ensure there is a challenge. That is, in the end, what it comes down to: providing a challenge at the table. If what you have is not providing that challenge, you change it. The players will never know you had to modify things at the time of the encounter, so the players can't complain. A good fight is a good fight, regardless of what was on paper before the fight.

If there is something a DM doesn't want the PC's to do, like fight the army when they should be fighting the elite forces of the army, then the DM needs to set that style before encountering the army. Positive and negative reinforcement does wonders.

Positively reinforce behavior you want from them by providing rewards. Negatively reinforce behavior you don't want them to perform by punishing them for incorrect forces.

For me, I want the players to always be careful with their resources. I don't want to see limited resource characters (casters, usually) to just blow every spell he can cast in a fight instead of casting only the ones that need to be cast. Ensure the win with efficient use of spells. The wizard learned that lesson: the Psion didn't.

The Psion would always blast out with his biggest powers fully charged. With no sense of resource management, he was often completely tapped for the last fight. Problem was, often the first fights were easier and the last harder. By tapping out on the easy fights, they had easy victories on fights they would have beaten anyway, but they were taking major damage on fights they did need his help on. The player decided to change characters, and then the PC died anyway (player made a big mistake and had lots of warning to avoid the situation), but the player never did learn resource management. He's a tank now, and is much better off for it.

The Wizard burned out early, until I made certain that he saw four fights per day. I held a quick conversation about fights/day with him and he realized his mistake. He always wanted to do something (he wanted a lot more spells per day in order to not tap out), and had to learn to hold back. It got better as he gained more spells with levels, and he learned to keep wands around to fill the gaps between big castings. The wizard has gone from level 2 to 12 now. And he always has something left at the end of the day, just in case of night attacks.

My PC's, seeing a major army, will evaluate whether the good guys have forces to intercept it, and if so, will look to deal with exceptional difficulties on the part of the bad guys, not lay waste to massive numbers of weak soldiers. That's the most effective way of dealing with that kind of theoretical problem: make sure the PC's know that their job is elsewhere and that mismanagement of their resources could result in big losses on their own side.