Using An Army

[Death_Lord12]

The BBEG in my campaign will be using an army, and I feel like it will be a lot of work to individually keep track of all the creatures in it. Does anyone have advice on ways to make it simpler to handle all of the creatures? Should I just make it similar to a swarm with a shared HP pool? Or is there a mention in some book about doing this kind of stuff?

Thanks in advance.

[Zsaber0]

I think there are rules for this sort of thing in Heroes of Battle.

[Eldariel]

Couple of options. Abstract things. Mob-template or larger swarm-variants can be used for entire units. Alternatively, don't make PCs fight vs. the army, just let them do the actually important things like kill the commanders and achieve key strategic objects that tips the scales in the favour of a friendly force (provided one exists).

[Elder_Basilisk]

Keep it off-screen.

Swarm/mob mechanics for multiple units are a terrible, terrible, no-good, very bad idea that needs to be killed, drawn and quartered, have each quarter sent to a different continent, be burned and then have the ashes embedded in glass and launched into the sun or dumped into a deep sea trench. They make multiple units too weak against casters (no ranged attacks, catch one corner of the swarm in a fireball to do an extra 50% damage to the whole thing, unable to spread out or maneuver) and too strong against martials (automatic damage, insane grapple checks) while making all of the martial abilities that the game has designed to be useful against multiple weak opponents (DR, combat Reflexes, Cleave, Great Cleave, Whirlwind attack, etc) useless. Don't go there.

Keeping it off-screen is a IMO the best solution. If your BBEG has an army, he is probably using it to do things that armies do--hold territory, destroy villages, fight other armies etc. Unless your PCs try to take on the whole army at once* or are involved in a large field battle**, there is not even any narrative reason to worry about how to represent them on the tabletop level. They're not there, so they fight/raid/pillage/burn offscreen and the PCs hear about it from NPCs or see the results. That doesn't mean the PCs never run into members of the army. PCs could, for example encounter a force of 12-24 skirmishers foraging or raiding a village or farmstead that they are in and have a fun battle using the standard D&D/Pathfinder rules. They could stumble into an ambush by a similar size group on a road. They could sneak into enemy territory and try to steal battle plans or sabotage supply lines. They could confront a lieutenant leading a search for an important artifact. All of those things play into picture of a large war but none of them require putting the whole army down as miniatures on the battlefield.

*If this happens, you have options: if the PCs are low level, you can just throw wave upon wave of enemies at them until they lose. After all, few commanders are going to say, "look at those six guys over there. Divisions 1-3, go get them." They'll detach a few squads or a platoon at most to deal with them and send a couple more squads to check for ambushes. If the PCs are high enough level to be able to take on the rank and file of the army without breaking a sweat, the bad guys will either pull a Uruk Hai vs. Boromir and just have a hundred soldiers fill the PCs with arrows from long range (which will knock most PCs down very quickly even if the bad guys need a 20 to hit) or will send in their own high level guys/monsters to deal with the problem. Either way, you can play it out without putting the whole army on the battlemap.

**If the PCs are involved in a large scale battle, you can probably represent only the PCs' portion of the battlefield (like the suggestions in Heroes of Battle or the Battle of Brindol in Red Hand of Doom). If the army of the Red Hand is attacking the wall, you only need to put the five giants (and the 50 hobgoblins supporting them) trying to break down the wall on the PCs' side of the city on the map. The other 3500 giants, hobgoblins, etc are in reserve or assaulting the gatehouse or the other side of the wall. If the Red Hand breaks through the other side of the wall while the PCs are defending their side, you don't need to put every hobgoblin who rushes into the city on the map--only the ones that come to assault the roadblock that the PCs are manning. And when the PCs retreat to Cathedral Square, you don't put every one of the 2500 remaining hobgoblins on the map--only General Kharn, his honor guard, and the ones who fight the PCs there.

In fictional terms, you don't give the PCs a top down, bird's eye view of the battlefield like a military history textbook or the standard view in a Total War game. Instead, you give them only what they see as individuals, like the zoomed in unit view in Total War or Red Badge of Courage.

[Eldariel]

Keep it off-screen.

Swarm/mob mechanics for multiple units are a terrible, terrible, no-good, very bad idea that needs to be killed, drawn and quartered, have each quarter sent to a different continent, be burned and then have the ashes embedded in glass and launched into the sun or dumped into a deep sea trench. They make multiple units too weak against casters (no ranged attacks, catch one corner of the swarm in a fireball to do an extra 50% damage to the whole thing, unable to spread out or maneuver) and too strong against martials (automatic damage, insane grapple checks) while making all of the martial abilities that the game has designed to be useful against multiple weak opponents (DR, combat Reflexes, Cleave, Great Cleave, Whirlwind attack, etc) useless. Don't go there.

You can actually put work into a Mob-template that fixes all these considerations. Just skip the rolls, assume the 20s hit and assume the whole unit has access to ranged weapons; treat the unit as small enough that counting individuals killed is still relevant (it's possible to track their HP by "units lost" and assume that every attack above a certain level kills a unit). If you are in a position where it makes sense to include thousands of units in combat though, some degree of abstraction should be involved; rolling them all one-by-one is silly. A higher level party is probably capable of taking on an army so running a Braveheartesque "when 4 men fought 10000"-kind of scenario can make sense and be rather awesome.

[Jormengand]

I also wrote a guide (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?475396-So-You-Want-to-be-a-Warlord-Making-Keeping-and-Fighting-Armies) on the kind of things that people might forget when playing with armies, and while it's designed for players, it can give you some inspiration on how to allow the players to "Fight" the army without attacking them head-on like a bunch of idiots.

[Calthropstu]

Armies are a bit tricky, but if you are pitting a pc army against it, the battle rules are the way to go.

However, if you're pitting the PCs directly against it by themselves, for instance the 9k orcs it's supposed to take to equal a cr 10 encounter, just keep about 30 minis or so, and add them back to the map as they die until kill count hits critical mass.

[Calthropstu]

I also wrote a guide (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?475396-So-You-Want-to-be-a-Warlord-Making-Keeping-and-Fighting-Armies) on the kind of things that people might forget when playing with armies, and while it's designed for players, it can give you some inspiration on how to allow the players to "Fight" the army without attacking them head-on like a bunch of idiots.

Great Cleave.

No seriously, the way it's worded for 3.5, a 10th level fighter would decimate an army.

PF not so much.

[Tvtyrant]

Depends on the party level.

At low level they might fight a unit of normal opponents, or a small unit of elite equivalents.

At mid levels they fight elite units like the emperors ninjas, paladins, or the bodyguards of a noble. Normal troops tun when confronted, elites push in.

At high levels the big bad binds high level demons, hires mercs or comes after you thenselves. The whole army avoids you on the field, going so far as to avoid battles altogether as long as you live.

[Jormengand]

Great Cleave.

No seriously, the way it's worded for 3.5, a 10th level fighter would decimate an army.

PF not so much.

Assuming you were in range to make melee attacks against all of them without taking any five-foot steps, yes, but otherwise no.

Also, assuming a tenth of the army is archers, they only hit you on a natural twenty, and you have 18 constitution, and they have no way to boost their ranged damage, the army needs to be at least four thousand, four hundred and twenty-two strong to drop you into negatives in the first round at long range, so assuming you run at them, there need to be five hundred fifty two of them - or rather, five hundred sixty to round up to the next whole archer - to kill you before you reach them. If they don't have that kind of numbers, something is already wrong.

[Elder_Basilisk]

Assuming you were in range to make melee attacks against all of them without taking any five-foot steps, yes, but otherwise no.

Also, assuming a tenth of the army is archers, they only hit you on a natural twenty, and you have 18 constitution, and they have no way to boost their ranged damage, the army needs to be at least four thousand, four hundred and twenty-two strong to drop you into negatives in the first round at long range, so assuming you run at them, there need to be five hundred fifty two of them - or rather, five hundred sixty to round up to the next whole archer - to kill you before you reach them. If they don't have that kind of numbers, something is already wrong.

10% archers is on the low end for an army composition. I'm not sure what historical medieval army compositions were but in a quick survey of famous battles, William the conquerer had 25% archers at Hastings (Harold did not have significant numbers of archers) according to http://military.wikia.com/wiki/Battle_of_Hastings; the French may have had 33% archers and crossbowmen at Agincourt and the English had 82% archers. Those relative compositions appear to have been similar at the battle of Crecy. I did not find breakdowns for the battle of Stirling Bridge or Falkirk, but the English appear to have significant archer contingents in both battles while the Scottish forces fielded at least some archers at Falkirk. At Bannockburn, the Scottish forces may have been 10% archers though figures on both sides appear to be rather spotty. The English forces at the siege of Orleans also appear to have been as much as 80% archers. Based on these figures, French forces appear to have typically been somewhere between 25% and 35% archers, and English forces 75-80% archers in the era of the longbow. Scottish forces appear to have been around 10% archers in the key battles of Scottish independence. http://military.wikia.com/wiki/Medieval_warfare gives a 30-50% figure for archers in Scandianavian armies of the high middle ages. The same wikia gives a 12.5-25% figure for handgunners in Landsknechte units.

And if you boost their damage with a low level bard (inspirational boost and wardrums for the win) and/or cleric (prayer for damage or recitation+bless for attack bonus), you don't need nearly that many. Give them Rapid Shot and they can cut that number in half. 164 archers with a bard and Rapid Shot to drop the 10th level fighter in the first round at max range. Of course, being able to drop him in one round at long range is overkill. 55 archers with those boosts can drop the 10th level fighter in 3 rounds which will be before he can inflict too many casualties. (If we assume five kills per round with great cleave, he might get ten kills before the archers killed him). Running with the 33% archers figure, that means that an "army" of 165 low level warriors with a 2nd level bard to support them would likely defeat the 10th level fighter while suffering fewer than 10% casualties. If we run an English style army of 80% longbowmen, it only takes a contingent of about 80 total soldiers.

In Pathfinder, the army adds another trick to its arsenal by having low level cavalier sergeants to grant volley fire to the archers so that they hit on more than just 20s. (Order of the Lion lets him duplicate the low level bard's attack bonus boost too).

In either 3.5 or Pathfinder, you'll want to have some DR before your high level fighter decides to take on even a small army by himself. Otherwise, the most likely result is that the fighter ends up like Boromir. Wizards and clerics might be able to do better, but they will need to be clever to avoid the same pincushion fate. (The flying, improved invisible fireballing wizard of message board doom might get 8 or so archers per fireball (arrayed in a double-skirmish line with five feet between them) but 95 archers will still take him down in three rounds even if they have to ready an action and shoot him when he reveals his position by loosing a fireball or cone of cold (sucking up the 50% miss chance and only hitting on a natural 20). If the bard happens to have a scroll of glitterdust (and the wizard doesn't take him down first), it will be over even more quickly. Not that any general is going to want to send a contingent of 120-300 soldiers in order to take down a level 10 wizard--it's just that the 10th level wizard probably won't be terribly eager to take on a contingent of soldiers that includes 100 archers by himself either).

[Jormengand]

Yes, of course, I was being deliberately conservative with my estimates. The way you really defeat armies isn't by attacking them head on unless you can cast apocalypse from the sky; it's by messing with their everything with walls of X, assassinating their commanders, or summoning swarms which are immune to weapon damage.

[Calthropstu]

Assuming you were in range to make melee attacks against all of them without taking any five-foot steps, yes, but otherwise no.

Also, assuming a tenth of the army is archers, they only hit you on a natural twenty, and you have 18 constitution, and they have no way to boost their ranged damage, the army needs to be at least four thousand, four hundred and twenty-two strong to drop you into negatives in the first round at long range, so assuming you run at them, there need to be five hundred fifty two of them - or rather, five hundred sixty to round up to the next whole archer - to kill you before you reach them. If they don't have that kind of numbers, something is already wrong.

Unless you add DR to the mix.
An invisible flying wizard keeping protection from arrows up on the warrior with adamantine plate ought to do the trick.

And I may be wrong, but remember some sort of ability that allowed you to take 5 foot steps between attacks.

[Jormengand]

Unless you add DR to the mix.
An invisible flying wizard keeping protection from arrows up on the warrior with adamantine plate ought to do the trick.

Adamantine plate just triples the damage you need to deal, and that's a far cry from just "Great cleave" which you originally mentioned. Further, Protection From Arrows only defends against 100 points of damage, less than doubling the amount of damage needed. You've changed the army size needed from 4422 to 26,532 to take you out, in one round, with no special enchantments, assuming you have a high enough AC that they only hit on a 20.

Alternatively, the wizard could cast Summon Swarm, which would create spiders which would crawl over up to 164 soldiers each round, dealing 1d6 damage to each, enough to finish them in two runs and thus killing 82 a round, while also being immune to weapon damage. That would be better than bothering with the fighter.

[nomotag]

I think there are rules for this sort of thing in Heroes of Battle.

Not very in depth ones.

I say try out the swarm idea. I would make some changes to it though. Rather then auto damage, have them make attacks (half dam on miss?). Give them extra abilities based on battlefield tactics. Archers get a volly to pelt an arera in arrows., pike-men get a pike wall to make the terrain around them difficult. (Try to make monsters that feel like a military unit. Don't try and make the rules follow what the base combat rules would be like in mass. Like it's not a bad idea to have your army shaped monsters able to be charmed even though normally the spell wouldn't work on a group of people.)

[Calthropstu]

Adamantine plate just triples the damage you need to deal, and that's a far cry from just "Great cleave" which you originally mentioned. Further, Protection From Arrows only defends against 100 points of damage, less than doubling the amount of damage needed. You've changed the army size needed from 4422 to 26,532 to take you out, in one round, with no special enchantments, assuming you have a high enough AC that they only hit on a 20.

Alternatively, the wizard could cast Summon Swarm, which would create spiders which would crawl over up to 164 soldiers each round, dealing 1d6 damage to each, enough to finish them in two runs and thus killing 82 a round, while also being immune to weapon damage. That would be better than bothering with the fighter.

If we can up the amount of DR to 8, the fighter becomes completely invulnerable to longbows.

I recall there being a couple ways to get decent dr, but I haven't played 3.5 in years. I suppose we could do some polymorph shenanigans.

I am on a mission now. I am making this fighter immune to an army.

[Calthropstu]

A druid can take the earth shape ability, getting dr/10
A fighter can get DR/6 at best overcome with bludgeoning... immune to short bows, but not long bows... which I think increases his survival rate considerably. I didn't go through every single book though, so there might be some way to increase that. If we go into epic level, that damage reduction can be increased considerably, but I think sticking with 10th level presumptions is best here. I believe there may be an armor somewhere granting dr/10, but I couldn't find it quickly.
If there exists something better that is stackable, that would be perfect.
With polymorph shenanigans it becomes much better. The martials can be polymorphed into something with DR, reach and numerous attacks. Turn him into a dragon, cast enlarge... add great cleave...

and, since if you can make him gargantuan he can share his space with enemies, he can pop right into the center of the army... with great cleave. And about 9 attacks per round. Making a 5 foot step after each one I believe (correct me if I am wrong, I know there is a way to get multiple 5 foot steps I just can't find it. Not during the great cleave of course, but between each attack)

Assuming my assessment is correct, and the proper feats are taken, the death rate now becomes about 200/round minus lost attacks due to nat 1s... which depending where in an attack sequence it comes, could alter the numbers greatly. For the expense of a couple 4th level spells.

[Eldariel]

A druid can take the earth shape ability, getting dr/10
A fighter can get DR/6 at best overcome with bludgeoning... immune to short bows, but not long bows... which I think increases his survival rate considerably. I didn't go through every single book though, so there might be some way to increase that. If we go into epic level, that damage reduction can be increased considerably, but I think sticking with 10th level presumptions is best here. I believe there may be an armor somewhere granting dr/10, but I couldn't find it quickly.
If there exists something better that is stackable, that would be perfect.
With polymorph shenanigans it becomes much better. The martials can be polymorphed into something with DR, reach and numerous attacks. Turn him into a dragon, cast enlarge... add great cleave...

and, since if you can make him gargantuan he can share his space with enemies, he can pop right into the center of the army... with great cleave. And about 9 attacks per round. Making a 5 foot step after each one I believe (correct me if I am wrong, I know there is a way to get multiple 5 foot steps I just can't find it. Not during the great cleave of course, but between each attack)

Assuming my assessment is correct, and the proper feats are taken, the death rate now becomes about 200/round minus lost attacks due to nat 1s... which depending where in an attack sequence it comes, could alter the numbers greatly. For the expense of a couple 4th level spells.

Don't forget the 1/400 crit even if your AC is high enough to only get hit on 20's. Bow crits are 3x so that is a rather significant amount of damage penetrating DR. Also if there are enemy melee units, that of course offers cover from the archers which depending on the rules and the army might cause the enemy melee units to take some stray shots as well.

[BWR]

There are several mass combat rules systems around. The simplest ones basically treat units in much the same way the rules treat individual monsters. One free example (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/ultimateCampaign/kingdomsAndWar/massCombat.html) is Pathfinder's.
Most of them don't work too well when going from individual to unit.

What I do with large numbers of opponents is use a variant of the Aid Another system.
1. remove the roll. AA is always successful.
2. it works with ranged as well as melee
3. the bonuses stack

That way you can have groups of opponents in whatever combination you want granting bonuses to attacks or AC, quickly granting some large numbers and making swarms of individually almost powerless mooks into at least an obstacle and not mere irrelevancies. Much easier than rolling (even with dice rolling programs) dozens or even hundreds of rolls and just counting 20s.
Or even you just determine how much attack bonus is needed to hit the PCs on anything but a one, count how many groups of opponents this makes and just give average damage each round from what is basically an environmental effect at this point.
E.g. You have a group of 110 archers. Group them into units of 11, ten of them aiding the 11th. That's ten attack rolls gaining a +20 bonus on top of their normal bonus.
E.g.2 The PCs are facing 100 longbowmen who are raining arrows down on them as they make their way forward. The highest AC in the party is 20, so you need a group of 10 to hit on everything but a 1. That means 10d8 damage from each volley, which results in 45 hp damage (DR will obviously be applied to each arrow).
This obviously starts breaking down when you want to keep track of HP for lots of people at once, so swarm or mob rules might be more useful for much of this or just count units as defeated once they are hit with any area effect that deals half or more of their average HP in damage.

[Calthropstu]

Don't forget the 1/400 crit even if your AC is high enough to only get hit on 20's. Bow crits are 3x so that is a rather significant amount of damage penetrating DR. Also if there are enemy melee units, that of course offers cover from the archers which depending on the rules and the army might cause the enemy melee units to take some stray shots as well.

There are quite a few ways to be immune to criticals.

[Elder_Basilisk]

There are quite a few ways to be immune to criticals.

Indeed, but between critical immunity and DR, that's a lot of wealth (heavy fortification armor of invulnerability would do it), so we're probably talking about significantly higher than 10th level for the fighter to be able to single-handedly take on the army at that point. (Really, for the fighter or the wizard).

[Eisfalken]

If you're looking for more strategic and less tactical view of war, you may get some ideas from the Clone Wars Campaign Guide pg. 92, for Star Wars SE. It's not precisely 3.5, but it ups the scale of conflict for army-sized groups, which may be exactly what you're looking for.

Only problem is, it doesn't account for the advantages and disadvantages for ranged vs. melee in an archaic war setting. It shouldn't be that hard to do, though. Convert ranges and speeds to squares, so you and easily determine the range increments. I'd make a little range chart to move a dice or whatever, showing how melee is closing in the distance, so you can figure out the range penalty easier.

Other than giving ranged attacks a chance to light up melee before they close the distance, the rest is pretty straightforward. Half-mile movement should permit a pretty detailed battlefield map if you want to have units hide in woods or take hills to get high-ground attack bonuses.

[Jormengand]

I do love how this started with "Just use great cleave, duh!" and when more and more problems were pointed out it became "Just get DR 8, critical immunity, and nonlethal damage immunity [not mentioned, but you will need it], and then panic when the enemies have some way to deal more than 8 damage to you, duh!"

[Death_Lord12]

Suppose I should've given more information about the forces at work here so here you go:
So, the BBEG is a level 20 Dread Necromancer, and with various feats/magic items/ability scores he can control up to 564 HD worth of Undead using spells such as Animate Dead. Because normal townsfolk are so easy to kill and get a hold of, I am planning on having 564 skeletons each at 1 HD. Now because I know people will say the army will get slaughtered with such low HP I am going to put this here:
Assuming normal people all have 10 for each ability score for simplicity's sake here's the net changes made to those skeletons (this does not include the changes that the skeleton template already adds):

+4 HP (not including if created within desecrated area)
+8 initiative
AC +4
touch AC +4
+10 ft base land speed
climb speed = base land speed
+1 size category for claw damage only
+2d6 cold damage with natural attacks
Rend (Ex): if skeleton hits with at least 2 claw attacks, it latches onto the opponent's body and tears the flesh. This attack automatically deals extra damage equal to twice the normal damage of a claw attack plus 1-1/2 times the skeleton's Strength bonus
Cooperation (Ex): gain a +1 circumstance bonus to its attack rolls and AC for each other skeleton adjacent to it. If flanking an opponent, gain an additional +1 circumstance bonus on attacks against that opponent
Destruction Retribution: Upon the skeleton's destruction, a negative energy burst is released within 10 feet that deals 1d6 damage (Reflex DC 15 half)
+4 Strength
+8 Dexterity
+4 turn resistance
Combat Reflexes bonus feat
Improved Critical (claw) bonus feat


Also, the BBEG has the Mother Cyst feat, so he can go crazy with that as well. He can also cast astral projection, banishment, elemental swarm, gate, greater planar ally, greater planar binding, plane shift, and soul bind all at will, though in this situation probably only elemental swarm and more likely gate will be useful for bigger and badder minions (specifically shadow elementals and nightshades). One of his advanced learning spells is also Animate Dread Warrior for if/when a PC or strong NPC dies. Currently that is the BBEG's army, he doesn't really have commanders or anything, the closest thing would be the nightshades or anything raised as a dread warrior but really he controls everything almost directly. The PCs don't have an army really, they have themselves (about 10-12 of them) as well as another NPC party (about the same amount of people) making that force roughly 20-24 people of levels 18-20.


Couple of options. Abstract things. Mob-template or larger swarm-variants can be used for entire units. Alternatively, don't make PCs fight vs. the army, just let them do the actually important things like kill the commanders and achieve key strategic objects that tips the scales in the favour of a friendly force (provided one exists).
I'm kind of iffy on the mob-template because, well...

Swarm/mob mechanics for multiple units are a terrible, terrible, no-good, very bad idea that needs to be killed, drawn and quartered, have each quarter sent to a different continent, be burned and then have the ashes embedded in glass and launched into the sun or dumped into a deep sea trench. They make multiple units too weak against casters (no ranged attacks, catch one corner of the swarm in a fireball to do an extra 50% damage to the whole thing, unable to spread out or maneuver) and too strong against martials (automatic damage, insane grapple checks) while making all of the martial abilities that the game has designed to be useful against multiple weak opponents (DR, combat Reflexes, Cleave, Great Cleave, Whirlwind attack, etc) useless. Don't go there.
As for the rest, the PCs kind of have to fight the army, either directly or indirectly, and there aren't really any commanders to kill other than the BBEG himself.



Unless your PCs try to take on the whole army at once* or are involved in a large field battle**,

*If this happens, you have options: If the PCs are high enough level to be able to take on the rank and file of the army without breaking a sweat, the bad guys will either pull a Uruk Hai vs. Boromir and just have a hundred soldiers fill the PCs with arrows from long range (which will knock most PCs down very quickly even if the bad guys need a 20 to hit) or will send in their own high level guys/monsters to deal with the problem. Either way, you can play it out without putting the whole army on the battlemap.

**If the PCs are involved in a large scale battle, you can probably represent only the PCs' portion of the battlefield (like the suggestions in Heroes of Battle or the Battle of Brindol in Red Hand of Doom). If the army of the Red Hand is attacking the wall, you only need to put the five giants (and the 50 hobgoblins supporting them) trying to break down the wall on the PCs' side of the city on the map. The other 3500 giants, hobgoblins, etc are in reserve or assaulting the gatehouse or the other side of the wall. If the Red Hand breaks through the other side of the wall while the PCs are defending their side, you don't need to put every hobgoblin who rushes into the city on the map--only the ones that come to assault the roadblock that the PCs are manning. And when the PCs retreat to Cathedral Square, you don't put every one of the 2500 remaining hobgoblins on the map--only General Kharn, his honor guard, and the ones who fight the PCs there.

In fictional terms, you don't give the PCs a top down, bird's eye view of the battlefield like a military history textbook or the standard view in a Total War game. Instead, you give them only what they see as individuals, like the zoomed in unit view in Total War or Red Badge of Courage.
See the thing is, because the army is all undead controlled directly by the BBEG he doesn't split the army up at all. He doesn't trust anyone at all so that's why he doesn't use commanders and it's a lot easier for him to control his army when he is right there.


I also wrote a guide (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?475396-So-You-Want-to-be-a-Warlord-Making-Keeping-and-Fighting-Armies) on the kind of things that people might forget when playing with armies, and while it's designed for players, it can give you some inspiration on how to allow the players to "Fight" the army without attacking them head-on like a bunch of idiots.
I'll keep it in mind when the players are being idiots and NPCs have to drop the hint, thanks.


There are several mass combat rules systems around. The simplest ones basically treat units in much the same way the rules treat individual monsters. One free example (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/ultimateCampaign/kingdomsAndWar/massCombat.html) is Pathfinder's.

I took a look at Pathfinder's and it seems it would work better if both sides were mostly NPCs, whereas in this case half of the PCs side is the PCs themselves and the other half is important NPC figures, neither of which I want to not keep track of their specific HP.


You can actually put work into a Mob-template that fixes all these considerations. Just skip the rolls, assume the 20s hit and assume the whole unit has access to ranged weapons; treat the unit as small enough that counting individuals killed is still relevant (it's possible to track their HP by "units lost" and assume that every attack above a certain level kills a unit). If you are in a position where it makes sense to include thousands of units in combat though, some degree of abstraction should be involved; rolling them all one-by-one is silly. A higher level party is probably capable of taking on an army so running a Braveheartesque "when 4 men fought 10000"-kind of scenario can make sense and be rather awesome.
What if I use something similar to the Legion's Strength that the Legion Devils have (Fiendish Codex II pg 122)? All of the skeletons have the same 10 HP, so if there's 564 skeletons then the collective group has 5640 HP, the difference between the Legion's Strength being, for every 10 damage dealt to the group HP, whatever skeleton that took the damage gets killed and any damage over 10 gets negated if only 1 skeleton was targeted. So say 1 skeleton gets targeted by a spell that does over 10 damage, that skeleton would die and the collective health would only take 10 damage. Meanwhile if a skeleton gets hit by a weapon and takes 8 damage, then another skeleton gets hit and takes 6 damage, the second skeleton dies because it was hit by the attack that made the overall damage go above 10, and first skeleton is fine for now, and the excess 4 damage is still there, but then that would most likely be healed at least partially by the Destruction Retribution, but only the 4 damage because the first skeleton is already destroyed so it's portion of the collective HP is gone forever now. As for attacking, considering only 8 skeletons can be in reach of a target at 1 time, I'm thinking of rolling for those 8, and they each get a +10 bonus on their attack roll (+2 for flanking bonus, +7 cooperation bonus, +1 for cooperation bonus while flanking).

What do you people think of that idea? Good, bad, plain stupid?

[Elder_Basilisk]

As for the rest, the PCs kind of have to fight the army, either directly or indirectly, and there aren't really any commanders to kill other than the BBEG himself.


See the thing is, because the army is all undead controlled directly by the BBEG he doesn't split the army up at all. He doesn't trust anyone at all so that's why he doesn't use commanders and it's a lot easier for him to control his army when he is right there.

I'd rethink this.

First, from a dramatic angle, the prospect of not being able to punch anyone responsible for the plots in the face until you can take on a level 20 dread necromancer seems like it's lacking something. Secondly, assuming the necromancer is rolling across the countryside with his 564 skeletons all in one big bunch seems like it is asking for trouble. There are no scouting forces, no outriders on the flanks, no detachments to secure strategic objectives--and I assume there are strategic objectives, not just roll across the countryside in a little ball of death--that need to be held but either don't merit his whole force or need to be held down while the rest of the force does something. That really limits his strategic options and from a story perspective also really limits the interesting things he can do.

Even if he doesn't trust anyone at all, he could use similacrums (or a necromantic equivalent) of himself as lieutenants. Doing so would enable him to control more undead but would provide some dramatic sub-boss fights before the final throw-down and would enable him to send detachments to deal with various plot points.

Secondly, while 564 skeletons is a significant force in a lot of settings, it pales in comparison to a 20th level necromancer. Any force that can handle the dread necromancer will probably not have any issue with the 564 skeletons (remember what I wrote earlier about "significantly higher than 10th level?"--anyone who can take on a 20th level dread necromancer is significantly higher than 10th level and true army destroying spells like sunburst and storm of vengeance will have come on line by that point, even if the party fighter is not a build who can take on 564 skeletons by himself). So, by the time the final showdown rolls around, the skeletons are going to be window dressing. (Especially with destructive retribution--that's asking for a chain reaction if the skeletons are standing near each other). In order to have the army be significant in terms of the plot and encounters, it needs to have an impact earlier in the story when it is still a significant threat to PCs and impact what they are doing while they level up to be ready to take on the big bad.

[Demidos]

Your answer is clearly an Evil Stony (Mineral Warrior template) Necropolitan Elan Fighter. Using LA buyoff and given the nature of necropolitan, he should be pretty much caught up by level 10 on XP, so no XP penalty.

Ideally he has some source of negative energy damage/healing, just in case. A belt of healing should cover it (it specifies healing, not positive energy). He has the feats whirlwind attack, willing deformity (Tall), abberant reach, and extended reach, and wields a spiked chain. Ideally he has some item or spell that boosts his movespeed.

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You have DR 8/Adamentine, burrow to ambush the army mid-march, a reach of 40 feet, and a (more) reliable way of killing everyone near you (than great cleave). Assuming they're marching in tight formation, you can take out 200 soldiers on the first round (40 ft radius = 5000 square feet. 5000 divided by 25 square feet per 5 ft square = 200 soldiers). If need be, you can escape via burrowing.


...See? Easy! :smallbiggrin:

Jokes aside, I agree with the posters above. Split up the army, detachments go to various places -- even if the dread necromancer doesn't have proper lieuteinants, he still likely at least has several forms of undead, some more powerful than others. The necromancer can't see-through-the-eyes-of AND coordinate each of the undead. Unless he's just sorta sending them all together as a clump, it makes some sense to have more intelligent undead given at least some leeway over controlling their less intelligent allies.

If you are completely committed to him having just one large army of directly controlled undead, you could always have a good-guy army of clerics show up to defend, for example, a city -- the PCs are tasked to protect one segment of wall, and you send X waves of undead at them, preferably of various types to keep it interesting. You could also make the combat more interesting by having a nearby section of wall starting to buckle, and then the PCs have to divide up to protect both fronts.

[Calthropstu]

I do love how this started with "Just use great cleave, duh!" and when more and more problems were pointed out it became "Just get DR 8, critical immunity, and nonlethal damage immunity [not mentioned, but you will need it], and then panic when the enemies have some way to deal more than 8 damage to you, duh!"

It is hideously expensive to outfit an army. And hideously time consuming.

With most (all?)of his army being undead directly under his control, I would honestly be more worried about the bbeg stepping in when he saw someone wrecking his army than the army itself. A strategy can be worked out to take out thousands of undead with a set of tenth level characters. My polymorph dragon one looks pretty promising. Add some dr/10 druid support, some summons, some other spell casting shenanigans, and the death dealing rate can easily hit 500-1000 kills per round with a party of 6.

But the BBEG, if he is controlling it all himself, will have to be there.

And at 10th level, they probably can't take him. One greater dispel at any point in time wrecks the whole thing. Or a disintegrate. Or any number of high level spells.

I guess the gm could rule it is taking his entire daily allotment of spells to control the army... in which case, once the pcs deal with the army the BBEG comes back for revenge later. With a full spell roster.

[Calthropstu]

Your answer is clearly an Evil Stony (Mineral Warrior template) Necropolitan Elan Fighter. Using LA buyoff and given the nature of necropolitan, he should be pretty much caught up by level 10 on XP, so no XP penalty.

Ideally he has some source of negative energy damage/healing, just in case. A belt of healing should cover it (it specifies healing, not positive energy). He has the feats whirlwind attack, willing deformity (Tall), abberant reach, and extended reach, and wields a spiked chain. Ideally he has some item or spell that boosts his movespeed.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You have DR 8/Adamentine, burrow to ambush the army mid-march, a reach of 40 feet, and a (more) reliable way of killing everyone near you (than great cleave). Assuming they're marching in tight formation, you can take out 200 soldiers on the first round (40 ft radius = 5000 square feet. 5000 divided by 25 square feet per 5 ft square = 200 soldiers). If need be, you can escape via burrowing.


...See? Easy! :smallbiggrin:

Jokes aside, I agree with the posters above. Split up the army, detachments go to various places -- even if the dread necromancer doesn't have proper lieuteinants, he still likely at least has several forms of undead, some more powerful than others. The necromancer can't see-through-the-eyes-of AND coordinate each of the undead. Unless he's just sorta sending them all together as a clump, it makes some sense to have more intelligent undead given at least some leeway over controlling their less intelligent allies.

If you are completely committed to him having just one large army of directly controlled undead, you could always have a good-guy army of clerics show up to defend, for example, a city -- the PCs are tasked to protect one segment of wall, and you send X waves of undead at them, preferably of various types to keep it interesting. You could also make the combat more interesting by having a nearby section of wall starting to buckle, and then the PCs have to divide up to protect both fronts.


This is how I personally would do it. But, depending on how powerful the party is, the number of undead and, more specifically the type, would vastly change based on the party.

Hell, if you really wanted to, you could turn the battle itself into a solid adventure. Make it a long term siege, the party goes against more and more powerful mobs of undead as they increase in level. The actions of the PCs greatly begin to turn the tide of the year long siege over time...

Actually, this sounds pretty awesome. I might run this.

[Tvtyrant]

Because of the way that Undead work, it would be more efficient for him to have rebuked leaders who chain their own families together.

So he rebukes a Vampire Lord, who has 4 mid level vampires, who each have a pile of vampire spawn and are necromancers in their own right. Now you have five boss fights and are all magically compelled by the Dread Necromancer. This is the cavalry of the army, or even the espionage unit. They go in first and open the gates.

Having a few rebuked Wights, each with an army of Wights under their control because of the spawn rules makes for lower level forces that your party can fight. These are the elites, good for breaking enemy lines and dealing with mid level heroes.

The other undead that has permanent control of things made by them is Wraiths, and a chained force of Wraiths is amazingly powerful. These are the Dread Necromancers kill team, sent to deal with high level adventurers and powerful monsters.

Now instead of a monotonous game of "I kill an Orc (http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=1098)" you have at least seven encounters before the Dread Necromancer himself, and the Vampire Lord and Wraiths are extremely vicious.


Edit: Actually the number of Wights a Wight can have as spawn is infinite, so the Dread Necromancer could have a much larger army by having a few Wight commanders and feeding them villages then simply making zombies or skeletons ever could. They would also be stronger, and leave room for vampires and wraiths. Friends don't let friends make skeletons.

[Jormengand]

564 skeletons are pretty much nothing. Skeletons with corpsecrafter and mother cyst nonsense are a little tougher than most soldiers, but I'd agree that there's very little that 564 skeletons can actually do compared to an angry dread necromancer. A wizard using Summon Swarm will probably take your army out in a few minutes at most, and the swarm's just immune to all their stuff, no questions asked. 564 skeletons, to recap, is pretty pathetic.

Because the Battle of Hastings seems to be the archetypal medieval battle, I would point out that there were about ten thousand troops on each side, and these were just the supporters of particular would-be-regents. During the first crusade, the crusaders had about thirty-five thousand men, about a sixth of which were good enough to have PC levels or at least multiple levels in warrior. A few hundred is just nothing. A city could fight back by throwing commoners with crossbows at you (in the year 1000, London's population was 25,000, so if even a tenth of them grabbed up some kind of weapon they would pose a serious threat to the skeleton hordes).

If you wanted a proper army with that many hit dice, you would have to look for creatures with a high ratio of competence per hit die even after all the loss of stuff that skeleton template gives you. Alternatively, you could give the BBEG an artefact that allows him to raise an actually-respectable army.

[Tvtyrant]

564 skeletons are pretty much nothing. Skeletons with corpsecrafter and mother cyst nonsense are a little tougher than most soldiers, but I'd agree that there's very little that 564 skeletons can actually do compared to an angry dread necromancer. A wizard using Summon Swarm will probably take your army out in a few minutes at most, and the swarm's just immune to all their stuff, no questions asked. 564 skeletons, to recap, is pretty pathetic.

Because the Battle of Hastings seems to be the archetypal medieval battle, I would point out that there were about ten thousand troops on each side, and these were just the supporters of particular would-be-regents. During the first crusade, the crusaders had about thirty-five thousand men, about a sixth of which were good enough to have PC levels or at least multiple levels in warrior. A few hundred is just nothing. A city could fight back by throwing commoners with crossbows at you (in the year 1000, London's population was 25,000, so if even a tenth of them grabbed up some kind of weapon they would pose a serious threat to the skeleton hordes).

If you wanted a proper army with that many hit dice, you would have to look for creatures with a high ratio of competence per hit die even after all the loss of stuff that skeleton template gives you. Alternatively, you could give the BBEG an artefact that allows him to raise an actually-respectable army.

Yeah, this.

Use Wight commanders and gain exponential numbers by turning the population on their owners, it will go better and be a bigger threat. Ancient Athens is estimated to have had a population of 250,000 without the city itself (which had about 60,000). You could have an army of 100,000 CR 3 monsters in a few weeks by just having them run around tagging people and then have your commanders call the army back together.

[Calthropstu]

Yeah, this.

Use Wight commanders and gain exponential numbers by turning the population on their owners, it will go better and be a bigger threat. Ancient Athens is estimated to have had a population of 250,000 without the city itself (which had about 60,000). You could have an army of 100,000 CR 3 monsters in a few weeks by just having them run around tagging people and then have your commanders call the army back together.

...

why am I getting a picture in my head of thousands of undead raising their fists in the air chanting "wight power!"...?

[Death_Lord12]

Suppose I should clarify some more about what is going on here:

Ok so first off the BBEG is insane, just not as the insanity spell. Take a look a pathfinders nightshade (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/undead/nightshade) description, the first paragraph specifically. This is more or less what I am basing the BBEG's state of mind off of. Long story short its the he messed with things he shouldn't have for power cliche and it drove him insane, so when you say

and I assume there are strategic objectives, not just roll across the countryside in a little ball of death
that is exactly what he wants, the ball of death part that is, he wants to destroy all life, all everything really, which is why the only being he somewhat "trusts" is nightshades and not vampire or other intelligent Undead, because most vampires don't seek world destruction from my experience. The campaign takes place on 2 islands that together have 1 capitol city, a bunch of scattered random villages, couple of other smaller cities, and any underground settlements and stuff. Normally the only threat would the capitol city, but the BBEG corrupted the leader years ago and now the leader has crazy high taxes leaving lots of poverty and no one there would've ever thought they'd have to face an Undead Army. The greatest force in the city are the rebels trying to overthrow the city leader (they're the NPC party I mentioned in an earlier post). The army is not meant to be a threat to the PCs, but all those townsfolk that have next to no defense? Yeah, that's what the army will be going after. The PCs are the only ones able to stop it and they, at the same time have to put up with the BBEG, because he is right there with his army: he is controlling them, buffing them, protecting them, and when his forces die he makes more from the fallen citizens. If I really wanted the players dead the BBEG could easily do it, but that doesn't seem like much fun. Basically the PCs will protect the citizens as they run away screaming. Then the BBEG will go off to his base, wanting to gain more powerful stuff and whatnot, meanwhile the PCs will follow him and that is where the final battle will happen. The army battle is a sort of prelude, not supposed to be the main battle. Also the army battle is just that: a prelude to the final battle. It isn't the main plot line, and it isn't there for very long, the BBEG just goes kills a village or something and casts Plague of Undead a couple times, then begins the march to the capitol. So the PCs won't even need to kill commanders because its just a 1 battle thing, and the BBEG doesn't need much strategy because (ignoring the fact the PCs and rebels are there) it will be a slaughter fest. He doesn't need scouts or smaller groups to do one objective, the army just swarms in and kills, it's not like they need to raid caravans for food or anything (though they'll probably raid them to kill them).



Even if he doesn't trust anyone at all, he could use similacrums (or a necromantic equivalent) of himself as lieutenants.

Secondly, while 564 skeletons is a significant force in a lot of settings, it pales in comparison to a 20th level necromancer. Any force that can handle the dread necromancer will probably not have any issue with the 564 skeletons (remember what I wrote earlier about "significantly higher than 10th level?"--anyone who can take on a 20th level dread necromancer is significantly higher than 10th level and true army destroying spells like sunburst and storm of vengeance will have come on line by that point, even if the party fighter is not a build who can take on 564 skeletons by himself). So, by the time the final showdown rolls around, the skeletons are going to be window dressing. (Especially with destructive retribution--that's asking for a chain reaction if the skeletons are standing near each other). In order to have the army be significant in terms of the plot and encounters, it needs to have an impact earlier in the story when it is still a significant threat to PCs and impact what they are doing while they level up to be ready to take on the big bad.
I hadn't actually thought of Simulacrums (probably because they aren't on his spell list), though I am not entirely sure he needs them. The other bosses throughout the campaign are mostly actually "minions" of the BBEG. One is some big Undead nasty he made, another is the corrupted leader of the capitol city. Not sure if I mentioned it, but the BBEG is also Undead so he has plenty of time to put his plans into action. And yes, I know 564 skeletons isn't much compared to the BBEG himself (again, the army comes from a few castings of Plague of Undead), but the army is supposed to be more of an extension of the BBEG, not a major opposing force to the PCs. I mean, I figured it'd be more interesting than casting Greater Consumptive Field every 20 rounds and running around the city. Also I'm not entirely sure why you think Destruction Retribution would set off a chain reaction, the damage from destruction retribution is negative energy, so it'll heal the other skeletons not destroy them.



With most (all?)of his army being undead directly under his control, I would honestly be more worried about the bbeg stepping in when he saw someone wrecking his army than the army itself. A strategy can be worked out to take out thousands of undead with a set of tenth level characters. My polymorph dragon one looks pretty promising. Add some dr/10 druid support, some summons, some other spell casting shenanigans, and the death dealing rate can easily hit 500-1000 kills per round with a party of 6.

But the BBEG, if he is controlling it all himself, will have to be there.

And at 10th level, they probably can't take him. One greater dispel at any point in time wrecks the whole thing. Or a disintegrate. Or any number of high level spells.

Yes, a few well placed fireballs could easily decimate the army, but again not a huge concern: 1. there's always more corpses, 2. do you really want to throw a fireball at some 1 HD skeletons when there's 3 nightshades attacking you? The army is not just the skeletons, the skeletons are for the townsfolk (again, slaughter fest), the opposing force for the PCs is the shadow elementals, nightshades, and the BBEG himself. But I am sure at least 1 PC/NPC will try to tackle a portion of the army so that is why I am trying to figure out how to deal with HP and attack and stuff of such a large group.


Because of the way that Undead work, it would be more efficient for him to have rebuked leaders who chain their own families together.

So he rebukes a Vampire Lord, who has 4 mid level vampires, who each have a pile of vampire spawn and are necromancers in their own right. Now you have five boss fights and are all magically compelled by the Dread Necromancer. This is the cavalry of the army, or even the espionage unit. They go in first and open the gates.

Having a few rebuked Wights, each with an army of Wights under their control because of the spawn rules makes for lower level forces that your party can fight. These are the elites, good for breaking enemy lines and dealing with mid level heroes.

The other undead that has permanent control of things made by them is Wraiths, and a chained force of Wraiths is amazingly powerful. These are the Dread Necromancers kill team, sent to deal with high level adventurers and powerful monsters.

Now instead of a monotonous game of "I kill an Orc (http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=1098)" you have at least seven encounters before the Dread Necromancer himself, and the Vampire Lord and Wraiths are extremely vicious.


Edit: Actually the number of Wights a Wight can have as spawn is infinite, so the Dread Necromancer could have a much larger army by having a few Wight commanders and feeding them villages then simply making zombies or skeletons ever could. They would also be stronger, and leave room for vampires and wraiths. Friends don't let friends make skeletons.
The reason I am going with the mass of low HP skeletons is because 1. swarm tactics vs townsfolk and 2. when the destruction retribution kicks in, it not only heals nearby Undead but will probably kill any living townsfolk standing next to it. Also say he did get a chain of vampires or something going. As stated above I don't know very many vampires that seek complete world annihalation, so when the vampires under the BBEG's control die, that sets who knows how many vampires free, and probably now up against the BBEG, and when he kills them he can't even raise them as more Undead because they were vampires.


Alternatively, you could give the BBEG an artefact that allows him to raise an actually-respectable army.
I actually did. Remember when I said above that he can cast all those high level spells at will, and will be using elemental swarm for shadow elementals and gate for nightshades? He is using the Codex of the Infinite Planes (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/magicItems/artifacts.htm#majorArtifacts) to do that, along with a trick I found to avoid the dangers of the artifact. As for the Undead HD limit, 564 comes from this: [[4 + 10(from charisma bonus)]*20(class level)]*2 (from rod of undead mastery) + 4 (from stitched flesh familiar), so while not an artifact the rod of undead mastery helps with the HD limit, and I can't think of any artifacts that raise Undead HD limit.


Yeah, this.

Use Wight commanders and gain exponential numbers by turning the population on their owners, it will go better and be a bigger threat. Ancient Athens is estimated to have had a population of 250,000 without the city itself (which had about 60,000). You could have an army of 100,000 CR 3 monsters in a few weeks by just having them run around tagging people and then have your commanders call the army back together.
Again, this is a 1 time battle, now if the PCs all died and failed and the BBEG won then he'd go to a bigger continent place and probably do something like this, but for a place with not too many people (especially outside the capitol, which again is the target of the attack) this is 1. not necessary and 2 be a pain to get 100,000 troops with such a small kingdom.




So now that I've done my clarifying, could we please get back on topic? The point of the thread isn't to point out how many Undead I need to be a threat to the PCs, my question is how to deal with the vast numbers stat block. So can someone answer my earlier question:

What if I use something similar to the Legion's Strength that the Legion Devils have (Fiendish Codex II pg 122)? All of the skeletons have the same 10 HP, so if there's 564 skeletons then the collective group has 5640 HP, the difference between the Legion's Strength being, for every 10 damage dealt to the group HP, whatever skeleton that took the damage gets killed and any damage over 10 gets negated if only 1 skeleton was targeted. So say 1 skeleton gets targeted by a spell that does over 10 damage, that skeleton would die and the collective health would only take 10 damage. Meanwhile if a skeleton gets hit by a weapon and takes 8 damage, then another skeleton gets hit and takes 6 damage, the second skeleton dies because it was hit by the attack that made the overall damage go above 10, and first skeleton is fine for now, and the excess 4 damage is still there, but then that would most likely be healed at least partially by the Destruction Retribution, but only the 4 damage because the first skeleton is already destroyed so it's portion of the collective HP is gone forever now. As for attacking, considering only 8 skeletons can be in reach of a target at 1 time, I'm thinking of rolling for those 8, and they each get a +10 bonus on their attack roll (+2 for flanking bonus, +7 cooperation bonus, +1 for cooperation bonus while flanking).

What do you people think of that idea? Good, bad, plain stupid?

[Elder_Basilisk]

To answer the question, I don't think the legion devil example is terribly helpful. You don't need to make the skeletons a threat to the PCs and tracking hit points--even in tens--is bookkeeping you don't need. The easiest way to deal with the large numbers of undead would be to treat them like 4e minions: one hit kills. They only have two possible states: animated or destroyed. And with PCs powerful enough to be doing what you seem to think they'll be doing, that should be expected anyway. So, let the PC move to position and then either just say, "you great cleave through four skeletons" without rolling or have him roll and if he doesn't roll a 1, "you great cleave through four skeletons" or however many he would be able to hit. For fireball or channeling, you could calculate how many would be in the area. "You cast fireball. 36 skeletons vanish in a flash of flame" or "you channel energy and 24 skeletons are incinerated by holy energy." Don't bother with damage or saves. It almost certainly doesn't matter whether or not the skeletons save--they're probably dead based on half damage. And they're almost certainly dead on 95% of the possible damage rolls, so don't bother with that either.

When the skeletons attack, just figure out what they would need to hit and assume that, if they need a 19, every tenth attack hits, or something like that. No need to actually roll. When you have 564, the law of large numbers will assert itself anyway.

That's how I'd handle it if I absolutely had to have them on the battlefield with the PCs.

That said, since you are intending for the skeletons to be a threat to the townsfolk rather than the PCs, you might leave them off the battlefield and include them as vignettes where the PCs can take an action to step out of the main battle and rescue townsfolk. For example, in front of the PCs is a nightshade. The PCs win initiative. Off to the side, they can see a small family menaced by a knot of skeletons. If any PC takes an action that will destroy the skeletons, the family gets away. If no PC takes an action to rescue them (fireballs the skeletons, runs at x4 to get there and stand in between the skeletons and the family, full attacks the skeletons with a bow, etc) they die at the end of the round. If one PC does take an action to rescue them, the PC succeeds but that was an action he could have used against the nightshade. The next round, there's another menace. Same deal. One PC should be able to deal with it in one round. Etc. In gamist terms, the PCs' base victory condition is to defeat the nightshade, but they have optional additional objectives every round that cost one PCs' action to accomplish.