Advice on creating 5E footsoldiers and mass combat

[NRSASD]

Hello Playground! I've got two questions for you this time.

I'm planning to let my PCs control small squads of NPC soldiers, and I was wondering how to generate stats for them. The primary antagonists are gnolls, and so most of the NPCs listed in the Monster Manual and Volo's Guide are not the right CR for this. Currently, I'm going to model the NPC troopers off of 1st lvl fighters, but I need to know how many attribute points I should give them. Additionally, are there any rules I might have overlooked governing formations like shieldwalls, pike blocks, etc?

This campaign is going to involve several battles with hundreds of combatants. I'm planning on resolving the highlights of these fights with the traditional 5E combat system, pitting the PCs and their bodyguard against enemy commanders' and their respective retinues, but I was curious if there are any rule sets in 5E that can model the hundreds of common soldiers battling in the background? If 5E doesn't have any sets, any suggestions where I should start looking?

As always, thanks for any and all help!

[Squiddish]

This should probably help: http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/unearthed-arcana/mass-combat

[Mongobear]

Don't.

Unless you need to know how much HP a random officer or general has, there is no need to individually stat out every single member of a thousand strong army of generic dudes.

Script the battle out, make it so that instead of directly taking part in the battle, the activities the party does beforehand alters the course of the battle for better or worse. If the PCs still want to fight in the main battle, allow them off-screen, but a single adventurer isn't going to mean much when stacked against hundreds or thousands of enemy soldiers. If they are adamant about participating still, maybe design something like an infiltration team of enemies trying to sabotage the gates, or otherwise cause mayhem behind the front lines. It is just a useless time-sink instead of getting on to the actual important stuff taking place afterwards.

[NRSASD]

@Squiddish: Thanks for that link! That's exactly what I was looking for.

@Mongobear: I'm not intending to roll hundreds of dice to simulate each individual swing, save, etc. in combat, and so I agree that I don't need to know the stats of each unique soldier. But I do need to know the baseline stats of each soldier to determine the CR rating (to determine the BR using the Unearthed Arcana), and so I have stats if the PCs get caught in a smaller engagement. I don't care that the company of 113 lancers has 1846 hp exactly, but I need to know what stats the 3 lancers escorting the PCs have.

[Mongobear]

@Mongobear: I'm not intending to roll hundreds of dice to simulate each individual swing, save, etc. in combat, and so I agree that I don't need to know the stats of each unique soldier. But I do need to know the baseline stats of each soldier to determine the CR rating (to determine the BR using the Unearthed Arcana), and so I have stats if the PCs get caught in a smaller engagement. I don't care that the company of 113 lancers has 1846 hp exactly, but I need to know what stats the 3 lancers escorting the PCs have.

I think you might have missed my point. Don't use the BR system from the UA article the other week. Just make Army vs Army a scripted event with Very Good, Good, Neutral, Bad, and Very Bad outcomes depending on what the party does in the days/weeks leading up to the actual battle in their adventuring/shennanigans that indirectly have an effect on said battle in various ways.

An Adventuring Party has no business leading a group of professional soldiers in a large scale war, they're hired goons to go crawl around ancient ruins and long forgotten cave systems looking for long lost trinkets and valuables. The PC's job should an actual full blown war break out in-world, should be a strike force for special high priority targets, taking out enemy leaders, sabotaging supply lines, sneaking into a camp and gathering battle plans, sabotaging siege equipment, etc.

[NRSASD]

@Mongobear: I think we're talking at cross purposes. I completely agree that the most fun an adventuring party in a war can have is sabotaging enemy operations, disrupting supplies, spying on the enemy, assassinating leaders, etc. In that case, the actual battle, Army vs Army, is scripted. I'm already running a campaign where I'm doing exactly that, and it's working splendidly.

That being said, this is a different campaign where the PCs aren't adventurers, but commanders of a small but professional mercenary company. This company will be growing in size, and while the battle can be influenced by off screen actions, I want it to play out organically, sans scripting. They'll have classes of troops to hire, and be able to promote their troopers to higher tiers based on how the soldiers have been doing. I've done this exact style of campaign in 2E, but I'm new to 5E. Hence why I'd like suggestions for low level soldier attributes (str, int, wis, etc.) and why I'm using the UA Mass Combat rules. I could cludge something together, but I'd like some guidance from the community.

[Kane0]

What my group did in a similar situation (owning and manning a border fort)

All trained soldiers by default are level 1 fighters with an array like 14, 13, 12, 10, 10, 8. These are the grunts, and have only one ability to keep track of: second wind.
More experienced and capable soldiers are level 2 fighters. These are your higher quality troops and lower ranking officers. These guys have second wind, action surge and a fighting style (everyone chooses defense for ease of play)
Level 3 is where soldiers multiclass or take a subclass to show their specialty. You can have commandos (rogues), cavalry (cavaliers), warlords (battlemasters), heralds (bards), warmages (wizards/sorcerers), medics (clerics), knights (paladins) and more by following this pattern.

Doing this makes all soldiers effective and easy to use while also stopping them from overshadowing the PCs as long as they don't outlevel them. Soldiers beyond level 4-5 should be rare using this sort of method.

When actually throwing them into battle against the enemy just make a decision behind the screen and narrate it. Far better than the whole system of rules you'll need to accurately roll out the battle. Make sure the PCs have some agency of course, that is why you have players at your table after all.

[Specter]

To speed things up, you can treat them like a swarm. They can enter an enemy's space, and make X attacks per turn. Those attacks diminish as the swarm takes damage.

[Kane0]

To speed things up, you can treat them like a swarm. They can enter an enemy's space, and make X attacks per turn. Those attacks diminish as the swarm takes damage.

See, now i'm thinking about what you call groups of particular classes.

A horde of barbarians, a band of bards, herd of druids, murder of rogues...

[Specter]

See, now i'm thinking about what you call groups of particular classes.

A horde of barbarians, a band of bards, herd of druids, murder of rogues...

This is gold.

A mass of clerics, perhaps?

[CantigThimble]

See, now i'm thinking about what you call groups of particular classes.

A horde of barbarians, a band of bards, herd of druids, murder of rogues...

A coven of warlocks, a swathe of sorcerers, an undergraduate class of wizards, a Deus Vult! of paladins...

[Mith]

murder of rogues...

My character takes offense to that! He is perfectly capable of a murder without company! :smalltongue:

I think you just do general plans of what the forces are doing. If the defenders have a good position, then hey will hold. The PCs can act as they will, and that allows them to alter the flow of battle. If it seems like the armies have an equal edge on each other, I would say eyeball the results.

[NNescio]

(Oops, doublepost. Sorry, guys)

[NNescio]

Hello Playground! I've got two questions for you this time.

I'm planning to let my PCs control small squads of NPC soldiers, and I was wondering how to generate stats for them. The primary antagonists are gnolls, and so most of the NPCs listed in the Monster Manual and Volo's Guide are not the right CR for this. Currently, I'm going to model the NPC troopers off of 1st lvl fighters, but I need to know how many attribute points I should give them. Additionally, are there any rules I might have overlooked governing formations like shieldwalls, pike blocks, etc?

This campaign is going to involve several battles with hundreds of combatants. I'm planning on resolving the highlights of these fights with the traditional 5E combat system, pitting the PCs and their bodyguard against enemy commanders' and their respective retinues, but I was curious if there are any rule sets in 5E that can model the hundreds of common soldiers battling in the background? If 5E doesn't have any sets, any suggestions where I should start looking?

As always, thanks for any and all help!

Your standard soldier mook like the Gnoll or Hobgoblin is going to be CR 1/2.

Take the statblock of a Hobgoblin, Orc or Thug and refluff it. You can replace martial advantage or pack tactics with other traits and/or abilities (Parry, for example), or come up with your own ones to emulate formation tactics, like so:

Shieldwall: The soldier has +2 to AC and Dexterity saving throws if it is within 5 ft of at least two allies who are wearing shields and are not incapacitated.

or

Pike square: While the soldier is wielding a pike, other creatures provoke an opportunity attack from him when they enter his reach.

--

Archers can use the Scout statblock.

Stronger soldiers use the Berserker, Veteran and Gladiator statblocks, changing traits as necessary.

Specialists use the Spy statblock, adjusting upwards towards Assassin as necessary.

Low-level casters can use the Acolyte, Druid, Priest, Mage statblocks, bumping them up and down spell levels (and HP and proficiency bonuses) as necessary, with a +2 to -2 change to their spellcasting stat to reflect the change.

Commanders use the Bandit Captain, Knight, and Hobgoblin Captain statblock (refluff Hobbo Captain). Paste Leadership on Gladiator (or some melee 'monster' statblock) for a higher CR equivalent.

[JackPhoenix]

PC classes are for PCs. If you're looking for soldiers, Monster Manual got your back: commoners for hastily conscripted peasants, guard for regular soldiers, scout for... well... scouts, veteran for elites, knight for knights, noble for commanders....