Controlling a battle

[Ivor_The_Mad]

I was wondering if anyone had any advice about how to control a battle or invasion. I find that its hard to know what to have going on away from the characters. For example if a village is being attacked by 20 goblins then and a group of 5 are in the same area as the characters. Assuming that there are guards fighting goblins and goblins are attacking the villagers, the characters arn't going to kill all 20 because the guards and other NPC will kill some too so how do I control it all.
(sorry if I didn't explain it clearly I confused my self)

[Requilac]

WotC published some rules for mass combat in UA. Here is a link to it, Perhaps those could be of use to you.

https://media.wizards.com/2017/dnd/downloads/2017_UAMassCombat_MCUA_v1.pdf

My preferred method is to simply make the battle map on a very large scale and treat a horde of a specific division of soldiers as one creature that follows the swarm rules in the MM. if you are following my way though then the PCs don’t really get actions every turn, they just command the soldiers and offer a slight bonus to them. For example, a paladin leading a cavalry division gives them a +2 bonus to armor class and a wizard leading an archery division grants a +2 bonus to the attack roll. This is running under the assumption that the PCs are doing an identical action to the division they are leading every time though. Probably not the most detailed of all systems really, but it is simple and streamlined.

[Kintar]

I tend to keep all the action and the focus on the players and their battles. The fate of the larger battle/invasion is adjusted based on how the players are doing. If the party is struggling or barely living through their mini battle, than the NPCs are over run or close to it. If the party mops the floor with their encounter then the guards aren’t doing too bad and the party can rush over and assist as needed.

I personally ally would never try to theory play out a battle between NPCs and monsters that had no pc involvement. Too time consuming and the players don’t want to hear about the exploits of Gerry the guard against 2 goblins.

[Requilac]

If it is helpful here are some stats for divisions if that is useful

Swarm of swordsman
Huge swarm of medium humanoids
ability scores: strength, dexterity and constitution all 14 (+2), intelligence, wisdom and charisma all 10 (+0)
challenge: CR 1
Armor class: 13
hit point maximum: 75
attack, swords: +3 to hit, one target, on a hit deals 14 (4d6) slashing damage or 7 (2d6) slashing damage if the swarm has half of its hit points left or fewer.
condition immunities: grappled, paralyzed, petrified, prone, restrained, stunned

Swarm of goblins
Huge swarm of small humanoids
ability scores: strength, intelligence and charisma all 6 (-2), dexterity 12 (+1), constitution and wisdom 10 (+0)
challenge: CR 1/2
Armor class: 13
hit point maximum: 50
attack, swords: +3 to hit, one target, on a hit deals 7 (2d6) slashing damage or 4 (1d6) slashing damage if the swarm has half of its hit points left or fewer.
condition immunities: grappled, paralyzed, petrified, prone, restrained, stunned

[Ivor_The_Mad]

All good advice. I like the idea of the parties success affecting the outcome of the raid.

[Tanarii]

Hand wave the NPC vs monster portion of the battle. Seriously, it's the easiest way. You don't need special rules to determine how it goes unless you're trying to run your world as a simulation in the background.

[djreynolds]

Have the PCs responsible for only a portion. The cool stuff.

They fight the elite guard or bugbear champion, as guards handle the mooks.

Or they hold off the mooks while the NPC hero valiantly dies as he slays the evil giant.

Look at movies, the players are the lead actors, guards are the extras.

[HandofBlades]

Easiest way I have found to run mass combat. Add the total of medium sized creatures of each size. Half that number for small. Double that number for large and so forth for each category bigger. One d20 roll for each with the number of combatants as the modifier. Loser loses half their modifier. Do this each round of a fight and describe on the 20 count of initiative.

If players are helping lead a group add their level to the modifier and go nuts with the description of what they are doing. The wizard summons up a mighty wind to knock away arrows. The fighter slays the champion of the other side in one on one combat yada yada. Quick easy and lets the fight move quickly. P