A "few vs many" encounter

[NOhara24]

First,

Dax & Shruti, please stop reading. I revealed my account on here for the purpose of tracking down helpful threads during last session when we were double-checking characters and making sure everyone was ready to go before the upcoming fight. I'd hate to have to make a new account - I ask that you be mature and don't spoil anything for yourselves. Now, onto our regularly scheduled program...

My next coming session is a climax of sorts - my players will (hopefully) be securing a VIP who is also serving as their major adversary in this chapter. My question is as follows:

I know that there are rules for running a "many to many" fight that involves making one d20 roll that represents a unit of footsoldiers. However, my players failed to secure an army when they were given a chance, so this means that it will likely be them, and a couple powerful NPCs staring down a whole mess of less-leveled-than-them foot soldiers. As we all know, 3.5 can slow to a CRAWL when you factor in large numbers of enemies. The players are familiar with the mob template, and no one likes fighting enemies not susceptible to crits. Does anyone have any idea how I can have both a populated battlefield and also keep combat from slowing down to a snail's pace?

[Cenric]

Without knowing their level or builds but assuming they could reasonablly take on a mob of lv1-3s:

Have the opposing army be massive but have ally wizards flying about fireballing the flanks, this will give a better sense of a large scale battle (maybe they actually get caught in a fireball by accident while cleaving throughthe lower ranks)

Give them a clear goal beyond killing all the mooks, maybe a handful (4?) commanders (Cr -5 of the party)on horseback that causes the army to rout. The goal should give them a direction to go, but provide some resistance in the wall of mooks.

A large piece of making this faster would be an automated die roller and having a consistent to hit bonus (all swords and pikes are +2 to hit) and being able to expedte the mook turns

It is worth noting that a fighter without great cleave or some form of "break a phalanx" ability will cry in this.

[NOhara24]

Without knowing their level or builds but assuming they could reasonablly take on a mob of lv1-3s:

Have the opposing army be massive but have ally wizards flying about fireballing the flanks, this will give a better sense of a large scale battle (maybe they actually get caught in a fireball by accident while cleaving throughthe lower ranks)

Give them a clear goal beyond killing all the mooks, maybe a handful (4?) commanders (Cr -5 of the party)on horseback that causes the army to rout. The goal should give them a direction to go, but provide some resistance in the wall of mooks.

A large piece of making this faster would be an automated die roller and having a consistent to hit bonus (all swords and pikes are +2 to hit) and being able to expedte the mook turns

It is worth noting that a fighter without great cleave or some form of "break a phalanx" ability will cry in this.

They're all level 13. There's a lock/crackdown Crusader, a tripping/throwing oriented monk, a Singer of Concordance Cleric buffer/healer and a Druid that primarily summons.

The automated dice roller is a good thought.

[Fizban]

How about a combination: they have a Cleric and Druid who both have access to AoE spells, which are the game's intended solution to piles of mooks. You don't even have to bother rolling when you know that even a successful save will drop a foe.

Combine that with some morale mechanics: Heroes of Battle calls for a DC 20 will save whenever an individual drops below half hp and whenever half of that individual's group drops- DC20 basically being an auto-fail for 1st level solidiers. Two failures is enough to make them run away, and failing by 10 or more (so 50% chance) means they run away immediately.

With that you can hit a pile of guys with an AoE and even if there's so many you can only hit half of them you'll still mess up the rest: half the remainder will run away, and the remaining 1/4 will be shaken so any additional fear effect (intimidate, fear auras, whatever) will stack and leave them running too. If the PCs absolutely refuse to do it, have one of the NPCs pack the heat instead. The party is of the level where army destroying spells are available.


Aside from spells, it's also unlikely any of these mooks have the AC (or hp) to resist basic attacks from characters of this level. A 13th level Crusader has BAB +13, that's three attacks per round with a bow even without class features. Humanoid mooks generally cap out at AC 20 (unless the DM is covering them in magic items or buffs), while the Crusader probably has some str bonus and can afford a masterwork bow with a str bonus. So about 2 kills per round until they run out of arrows that you don't really need to roll for. With melee attacks their bonus is probably closer to +20 so it's just three kills every round, and of course the Crusader has that nifty aura that says "I don't care if on in twenty attacks hit me because I'll heal it off in a single round." Unless you're running the hypothetical "200 archers all have a straight shot and target you in unison" method of combat, but if you were you wouldn't be asking.

Really the only thing limiting their ability to mow down mooks is some sort of time pressure, but you haven't mentioned what that might be. No time pressure means they should be able to wade in and cut their way through almost any number of mooks- no risk, no reward (by the xp chart or common sense), no need for rolling. Time pressure means you deal with them properly via AoE spells.

[NOhara24]

How about a combination: they have a Cleric and Druid who both have access to AoE spells, which are the game's intended solution to piles of mooks. You don't even have to bother rolling when you know that even a successful save will drop a foe.

Combine that with some morale mechanics: Heroes of Battle calls for a DC 20 will save whenever an individual drops below half hp and whenever half of that individual's group drops- DC20 basically being an auto-fail for 1st level solidiers. Two failures is enough to make them run away, and failing by 10 or more (so 50% chance) means they run away immediately.

With that you can hit a pile of guys with an AoE and even if there's so many you can only hit half of them you'll still mess up the rest: half the remainder will run away, and the remaining 1/4 will be shaken so any additional fear effect (intimidate, fear auras, whatever) will stack and leave them running too. If the PCs absolutely refuse to do it, have one of the NPCs pack the heat instead. The party is of the level where army destroying spells are available.


Aside from spells, it's also unlikely any of these mooks have the AC (or hp) to resist basic attacks from characters of this level. A 13th level Crusader has BAB +13, that's three attacks per round with a bow even without class features. Humanoid mooks generally cap out at AC 20 (unless the DM is covering them in magic items or buffs), while the Crusader probably has some str bonus and can afford a masterwork bow with a str bonus. So about 2 kills per round until they run out of arrows that you don't really need to roll for. With melee attacks their bonus is probably closer to +20 so it's just three kills every round, and of course the Crusader has that nifty aura that says "I don't care if on in twenty attacks hit me because I'll heal it off in a single round." Unless you're running the hypothetical "200 archers all have a straight shot and target you in unison" method of combat, but if you were you wouldn't be asking.

Really the only thing limiting their ability to mow down mooks is some sort of time pressure, but you haven't mentioned what that might be. No time pressure means they should be able to wade in and cut their way through almost any number of mooks- no risk, no reward (by the xp chart or common sense), no need for rolling. Time pressure means you deal with them properly via AoE spells.

Thanks for calling out the Heroes of Battle rules, I wasn't aware of this. And I'm sure that the Druid/Cleric have a way to rid themselves of a pesky army - I'm just not sure what methods they'll choose. I also have the same quandry that I did before, that being that there's no way to have my cake and eat it too - adding people to combat slows it down exponentially.

[Fizban]

I suppose I didn't address rolling things for the mooks did I? Well obviously for starters you just have them move all on the same turn, which a lot of people do already. Then consider their attack bonus: just like their AC isn't enough to stop the PCs, this group of PCs can all wear medium armor so after magic it's likely that the +0 to +2 of a 1st level non-elite mook can't hit them without a 20 either.

Heroes of Battle has ranged guys covered again with volley of arrows rules, turning blocks of 10 guys into a single save for the PCs to make vs a bit of damage. Normally you're supposed to make an attack roll for the volley leader to see if it lands on target or deviates like a splash weapon- chuck that, this damage is just for flavor anyway (or make it take 20 guys to land one volley's worth of damage to account for say, 50% accuracy on the targeting roll). That'll be 1d8, DC15 ref negates, area is 10 squares just like the archers. For concentrated, 2d8, DC 15 ref for half against a single square. If you don't want to roll saves you can again just ignore them/ crank up the number required to get that 1d8 damage.

Melee guys don't have a "volley" mechanic, but you can basically turn them into one. Normally Aid Another requires a roll for each guy making the aid check- chuck the roll and just make it +2 for each extra guy (or +1 if you want to account for their 50% accuracy on the aid another roll), and another +2 if the group has a flank (because one of the flankers makes the attack). A medium PC approaching a flat line will only be threatened by 3 guys, for base+4. Once they're surrounded you need to do a little counting, but the max is base+18 for a full 9 man surround (8*2 for aid, +2 for flank). That's enough to hit, but still just for the 1d8 "flavor" damage.

*This could get complicated if you use a bunch of reach weapons, so just don't do that- you need a bunch of feats to use a reach weapon through even an allied square without penalty, so only count the front line of guys. A front line of reach weapons has 5 threats instead of 3, so base+8 for the one attack. A perfect surround of one line of reach weapons (a box 5 squares on a side with an empty middle and one medium PC in the center) is 16 guys- that's probably worth two attacks at +18. Just ignore AoOs altogether- they could theoretically ready their Aids to boost AoOs but that would require dividing up the bonuses and the point is to simplify. If one of the PCs charges a line of longspears just retroactively assume they braced for the charge: rolling double damage preserves the flavor but is still only 2d8, easy to roll but not huge enough to distract from the main event.


So for you, zero or one roll per 10 ranged guys and one roll against each PC that's in melee, with a bonus based on the number of guys threatening them, which you can tell at a glance. For the PCs, zero or one save per 10 guys making a volley attack and they just no-roll kill 1-3 guys depending on what they're doing (and once half are dead the rest are shaken and an inch from fleeing), or they kill/+rout 3/4 of a force with a single AoE spell. I think that's about as condensed as you can make it without completely leaving behind the underlying mechanics.

If you don't already, throw the damage die along with the d20 for attack rolls, that shaves off a bit more time as well. Note how all the standard mook weapons are d8s: longsword/battleaxe, longspear, longbow, light crossbow, even lance. Same die means less time switching dice. For lighter/skirmisher troops, it's all d6s: shortspears, shortswords, shortbows, clubs, etc. Heavier troops can all be d10's: halberds, dwarven waraxe/bastard sword, heavy crossbows. Anti-PC "suicide" troops would use greataxes to fish for 12's or scythes to fish for x4 crits. Note that the PCs don't really care about the other differences: they're so strong the difference in armor between conscripts and and heavies doesn't much matter, and chopping through "heavy" soldiers as easily as peasants is supposed to be one of the perks of leveling up. Their main limit is how many attacks they can make (and that's where Great Cleave and Whirlwind Attack used to fit in before people stopped using piles of actual mooks).

[Grod_The_Giant]

I've had success with these rules (http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2hjp8?Military-Unit-by-template), somewhere between the Mob template and a normal character.

I also frequently do groups of minions by lumping them together into groups of 5 or 10, represented by a single die on the board. Each group makes a single attack, with a bonus to attack and damage based on the number of guys in the group. So, like, a five-man squad might have +5 attack and damage, but if the Barbarian attacks and cleaves down three of them, it would go down to +2.