Villagers fighting raiding Band - How to play

[thomaszwanzinge]

Dear fellow DMs,

In my Homebrew the Big Bad is planning to capture the citizens of a village in order to sacrifice them for some evil gain. I figure that eventually my PCs will figure it out and help the village in time.

It is quite possible that I have to manage a fight of a War Band mostly consisting of Goblins + 2 class NPCs versus a big Village/small Town, some class NPCs and my PCs.

I am not 100% sure yet how I will stake the enemy numbers against the village defenders. For the sake of discussion let's go with the following numbers:
On the village side: 20 Guards, 3 Elite-Guards, 200 villagers that can put up any fight (all inferior to a Goblin, I presume) + a 5th level mage and 4 PCs probably lvl. 4, definitely not higher
On the enemy side: 200 Goblins with some Wolfes as mounts, one 6th level caster + a 5th level Oathbreaker Paladin

Level 4 PCs are not so powerful so if I keep those numbers, I think the villagers might fare poorly unless the PCs take the fight seriously.

My question is: do you have experience in managing such fights? How can I turn this into an enjoyable experience, that fits into a max. 4 hours session?

My take on the situation so far was this:

I pre-plan the enemy assault based on the information the enemy has; the village has 2 main entrances and is otherwise lightly fortifight with a palisade; the enemy will blow through the main gate with 1-2 fireballs; they will have some mounted fighters that will block the second entrance so no-one gets away
The players will have some preperation time: the Goblins will first raid the farmers outside of the village; unless the manage to stop the battle from ever happening (it's possible but unlikely) they have to deal with this later;
The major of the village hands them the strategy to defend the village; the PCs will then position the guards, fighters, NPCs and themselves as they see fit;
Then I narrate the effects of those choices vs. the enemy plan "somehow"; I do not what to fight every combat obviously, given the number of combatents, and I do not want to invent/look up another fighting system; my PCs will not care, and I certainly do not
I will maybe come up with some tables for helping me with battle results; e.g. something like: if X Goblines fight against roughly also X Villagers, this happens; if a PC joins the villagers, do this etc.
I will try to feature morale heavily, this will make it a little more realistic and give high CHA PCs space to shine and hopefully make for some memorable moments


Anyhow, my players may do any number of things to make the situation more complicated: try to evacuate the village, find nearby allies to strengthen the villager numbers, convince the Goblin tribe not to help the Big Bad etc. However, I really want to have some "simple" way to resolve such battle situations without tons of dice rolls.

Please let me know how you deal with something like this, thanks.

[ImproperJustice]

We usually use a modified version of Savage World’s Mass Battle rules for this kinda thing.

Assign tokens representing the relative numbers of both sides.
Example: 400 Goblins vs. 300 Villagers you may want to go by groups of 20 or 50. Let’s say 50 for now, so the Goblins get 8 tokens and the villagers six.

Then you decide who the leaders are in the conflict. They will be making a Tactics/Leadership Check each round modified by combining their proficiency bonus with their highest mental stat.

Then assign modifiers of +1-2 based off factors such as:
Knowledge of the terrain
Greater Numbers
Fighting from a defensive position
Magic Support?
Air Support?
Fearless minions?
Etc...

Each round will represent a length of timefighting to be determined by you as the GM. Could be 20m, could be an hour. It’s just whenever there is a shift in the battle.

Then make a d20 roll vs. a DC of 12.
Sucess means you take a token away from your opponent, and they lose an additional token for every increment of five you roll over theirs. This reprsents the losses experienced by that side.
Then make a morale check by rolling a d10 equal to or under your remaining tokens. Failure means your side no longer wishes to fight and retreats / disbands, etc....

In between each round. PCs may undertake tasks which either add bonuses to the tactics roll for the next round, or may directly lower the tokens of the other side (Charge the front line and make a gap, target leaders or supplies, create a diversion, locate a dangerous enemy, etc).
These tasks are usually short, direct to the point and can be resolves in a few rounds.

As an example in one of our campaigns our tasks were:
1. Move to a flanking position and wipe out a guard post within 12 rounds. Grants +1 to the next roll.
2. Enter a tunnel beneath an enemy fort and quietly overcome the security within another time limit. Remove 1 tokens worth of enemy troops as we deplete their reserves.
3. Assault the gates of the enemy fort from within, and open the gate, denying them the defensive position bonus for the remainder of the fight.

It’s a simple system that gives an exciting backdrop without a lot of book keeping by the GM.

[Accy_Sevin]

Break the big problem down into smaller problems. Instead of managing one big fight make it several small ones pitting the PCs against the more elite raiders in different ways.

Then you can narratively have the village fare as well as the PCs did. PCs barely won a fight? villagers barely won theirs etc.

[Cap'm Bubbles]

Since both goblins and commoners are pretty much glass, you could try the hectopeasant route. Instead of actually rolling, multiply the number of attacks of the group by its chance to hit the target, and treat both groups as acting simultaneously. No dice needed, and it's easier for players to form strategies when RNG isn't deciding the survival of 20+ lives on a single d20 roll. Here's the breakdown:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Commoner AC = 10, HP = 4, +2 to hit, average simple weapon damage.
Goblin AC = 15, HP = 7, +4 to hit, average 5 damage.
Suppose commoners are using the simplest to learn weapons with decent damage, then give the pitchforks (substitute as trident, 1d8), or light crossbows (1d8), each averaging 4 damage.

Peasants need two hits to kill a goblin. They hit on a 13-19 (35%), kill on crit (5%).

Goblins need only hit once. They hit on 6-20 (75%). If peasants have a decent defensive position, give them a net 5 to AC; goblins would then hit on 11-20 (50%).


Guards (if using the default statblock):
16 AC, 11 HP, 4 damage on hit, +3 to hit.
Guards, like villagers, need two hits to kill a goblin, but hit 40% of normal attacks and crit on another 5%.

Goblins, however, only hit guards on 12-19 (40%), crit for 5%, and require an effective 3 hits to slay a guard. Normal hit chance drops to around 15%+5% crit if guards are prepared and in cover; a crit is only two hits, and 3 hits are required to kill a guard. A guard is worth either 1.5 or 6 goblins, depending on defensive preparations.

Because there are far fewer guards than villagers or goblins, you can either pre-roll the guard's attacks for the first few rounds (and do the same for the number of goblins attacking them) or roll on-site if players are present.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

With that distribution, treat any combat round between goblins and commoners as simultaneous, and use these figures for hits and damage instead of rolling.

Example 1: 20 goblins come across 20 villages in the town square, no cover.
Round 1 (20 vs 20)
Goblins make 20 attacks, of which 15 (75%) hit, which would kill 15 villagers.
Commoners, at the same time, make 20 attacks, of which 7 hit (half that total will be kills, so 3 dead goblins) plus one crit (+1, so 4 dead goblins and one bloodied).
Round 2 (16 vs 5); If surrender is possible, villagers would at this point. Else:
16 goblins attack the 5 surviving villagers; 12 hits is overkill.
The commoners last stand is 5 attacks, 2 of which hit. Being generous, one is a normal hit on the injured goblin, and the other is a crit on a different goblin, scoring 2 kills.
END: 14/20 goblins survive, 0/20 villagers survive.

Example 2: 40 villagers are in barricaded positions (cover) and are prepared for a smaller goblin attack of 20.
Round 1 (40c vs 20)
Goblins make 20 attacks, of which 10 (50%) hit, which would kill 10 villagers.
Villagers make 40 attacks, of which 14 are normal hits (7 kills) and 2 are crits (2 kills), slaying 9 goblins.
Round 2 (30c vs 11)
Goblins make 11 attacks, 5 of which hit (rounding down) and kill.
Villagers make 30 attacks, of which 10 hit (5 kills) and 1 crits, slaying 6 goblins.
Round 3 (25c vs 5)
Goblins probably use nimble escape and retreat when outnumbered 5-1.
If zealots and continue fighting, they'll get 2-3 villagers before being overwhelmed.
END: 25/40 villagers survive, 5/20 goblin survivors retreat.

As for the stronger NPCs....

That level 6 caster with fireball would instantly kill anything in the blast radius (8d6, save for half, even with the absolute lowest damage roll and every villager making the save, is still 4 damage -- the same as villager health. Average damage is still 28, save for 14, which kills anything short of a PC, named NPC, or elite guard).

Oathbreaker paladin is floating around 40-50 HP, AC is probably 18 or 19, +6 or +7 to hit, and does enough damage to kill anything with on of its two hits (smite when needed). Unless villagers have been told that cutting off the head of the snake will break the horde (whether true or not; hey, deception/charisma rolls), most will attack the paladin's minions instead, unless the defenders are outnumbered. Do what you will with that.

Elite guards are built however you see fit. Major difference is that they could survive a fireball with a save, possibly without, and would hit goblins more often than not with consistent 1-hit-kill damage; maybe multiattack. If no PCs are present, perhaps roll a d6 or d8 on their round to determine how many goblins they managed to keep off of villagers (reduce total goblin hits), or maybe a bonus to villagers to-hit when led by an inspiring ally like one of these (increase villager hits), depending on if players want those particular defenders to hold fast and survive or focus on ambushing and counterattacks. This gives some RNG to the scenario, and lets better guards be more potent than extra-competent meatbags. Perhaps do the same for any PCs that are present, say a d(2xCHA bonus), so 18 CHA paladin has +4, so rolls a d8.


Since the exact encounters would be on the fly, you would have to take a few minutes to calculate the arranged combat rounds; hopefully your players would be patient enough to let you use a calculator and some writings to show the results of their work. You could also increase the total duration of one of these "rounds" when PCs aren't present, so that they can move from site to site and find a given location during it's round 2 or 3 after they took time to travel there. This also lets you only calculate 1 round of combat at a time, allowing player agency in between these "rounds" while they complete the encounter they are currently fighting.

[guachi]

I'd run such a fight (if the PCs were interested in mass combat) using the 1e Battlesystem rules. They work well enough for engagements of the size you have planned and allow PCs to be heroic as well.

But that's because I own a copy of the rules.

The 1e rules don't appear to be for sale on DMsGuild but the 2e rules are only $5 for the pdf.

[Tanarii]

DMG p250 has mob rules.

But I'd go with the basic version of what Cap'm Bubbles suggested (determine number of hits as %), ignoring Crits, and a d4 weapon for the commoners. Dagger, club or sling. That makes it three hits to kill a goblin vs one hit for a goblin to kill a commoner.

It's when you do math like that it's suddenly understandable why goblins are such a threat to the world. :smallamused:

[WilliamHuggins]

This is not relevant to what you asked but, it always bothered me that DnD always considers peasants/townsfolk useless fodder, if your setting is a medieval one most of the male population of the village that is over 25-30 years old would have been levied to the army in certain point in their lives and would have seen some action, they would also have their own equipment of at least some light armor and some basic weapons and they would be skilled at using them, and if they are aware that an attack is imminent they would have a chance to fortify the center of the village with carts and stuff, they would also have the moral advantage over the goblins as the goblins have mounts so escape is not an option and they are fighting for the lives of their families while the goblins have option to escape so it would be too easy to break the goblins, so I would recommend increasing the number of goblins to around 800-1000.

Sorry for the off topic recommendation.

[Jgosse]

Check out the 3.5 dmg 2. It had some good mass combat rules if I recall.

[Aaron Underhand]

Watch the Seven Samurai, and then the original version of the Magnificent Seven.

The evil band versus the hero's can be just the key combats with a few "scenes off"... Including infultrating the bandit camp to gain intelligence...

[Tanarii]

if your setting is a medieval one most of the male population of the village that is over 25-30 years old would have been levied to the army in certain point in their lives and would have seen some action, they would also have their own equipment of at least some light armor and some basic weapons and they would be skilled at using them, That sounds like a recipe for revolution to me. :smallamused:

But I certainly assume that for "dangerous frontier" areas in my campaigns. Places where PCs adventure and goblin bands are likely to attack a village. Commoners are what I think of as stock folks on civilized areas. So fair.

So ... call it AC 13 for Leather and Shield instead of AC 10, but still 1d8 (round up to 5 hps) or 1 hit to die, and only 1d6 / 2 hits to kill with a spear or mace. Basically, reduce casualties by 15% per round due to armor, and increase lethality by 50%.

[thomaszwanzinge]

Thanks for all the feedback so far. Some replies:


Break the big problem down into smaller problems. Instead of managing one big fight make it several small ones pitting the PCs against the more elite raiders in different ways.

Then you can narratively have the village fare as well as the PCs did. PCs barely won a fight? villagers barely won theirs etc.

For taking the narrative approach I envisioned something like this as the "easiest", this sounds like a good advice. If this works smoothly or not will highly depend on my ability to predict or improvise the right fighting situations for the given scenario.

The question is how engaging the fights will be: there are mostly Goblins out there, so all fights will look the same. I would have to come up with some interesting terrain choises or complications (save some villagers from being dragged away, ...). Without knowing how the fight will actually go, I would need to come up with some prepared scenarios I can pick and choose as needed. And there is always the climatic battle against the Oathbreaker Paladin.

[thomaszwanzinge]

Since both goblins and commoners are pretty much glass, you could try the hectopeasant route. Instead of actually rolling, multiply the number of attacks of the group by its chance to hit the target, and treat both groups as acting simultaneously. No dice needed, and it's easier for players to form strategies when RNG isn't deciding the survival of 20+ lives on a single d20 roll. Here's the breakdown:

<snip so quote is not too long>

Since the exact encounters would be on the fly, you would have to take a few minutes to calculate the arranged combat rounds; hopefully your players would be patient enough to let you use a calculator and some writings to show the results of their work. You could also increase the total duration of one of these "rounds" when PCs aren't present, so that they can move from site to site and find a given location during it's round 2 or 3 after they took time to travel there. This also lets you only calculate 1 round of combat at a time, allowing player agency in between these "rounds" while they complete the encounter they are currently fighting.

First of all thanks for the massive example. This is the way how I would do it if I decide on battle calculations. At the very least, it gives a good indication how the villagers would actually fare. I think without your example I would have overestimated the prowess of men with pitchfork :-)

Since I have so few different combatants, I could also easily make an excel sheet that gives me e.g. Goblins on one side, Villagers on the other, and I can use this to look up all results. It wont be exact but it would save a lot of time. I could even e.g. increase the number of villagers by, say, 2-3 for every Guard in the fight, and otherwise keep the same ratio. Not exact, but simple and quick.

For the NPCs and PCs I think in this situation I would set the calculations aside and decide on how the battle fares. Anyhow, the abilities of the Oathbreaker and the Mage will force the players to engage them in combat quickly, and this will be a standard battle situation I can play out with some minions on the enemy side.

[thomaszwanzinge]

That sounds like a recipe for revolution to me. :smallamused:

But I certainly assume that for "dangerous frontier" areas in my campaigns. Places where PCs adventure and goblin bands are likely to attack a village. Commoners are what I think of as stock folks on civilized areas. So fair.

So ... call it AC 13 for Leather and Shield instead of AC 10, but still 1d8 (round up to 5 hps) or 1 hit to die, and only 1d6 / 2 hits to kill with a spear or mace. Basically, reduce casualties by 15% per round due to armor, and increase lethality by 50%.

In my situation the villagers have not seen a lot of battle lately, so I think I cannot assume that they have e.g. some Armor available. I guess the local smith has some weapons to share, though.

The good thing is that e.g. the number of attackers and the number of defenders are up to me. It should be somewhat plausible, but the ratio will ultimately depend on what I want: An unwinnable battle, a massive, balanced struggle or the players killing the snakes head (the NPCs) and the Goblins flee the scene.

[Tanarii]

In my situation the villagers have not seen a lot of battle lately, so I think I cannot assume that they have e.g. some Armor available. I guess the local smith has some weapons to share, though.Well, unless you change the stats a bit, you're looking at goblins hitting and killing humans in 1 hit 75% of the time, and commoners hitting 35% of the time, with weapon determining how many hits. Giant 2 handed weapons 1 hit, dagger/clubs/slings 3 hits, everything else 2 hits. So most likely 2 hits, if some weapons are available.


The good thing is that e.g. the number of attackers and the number of defenders are up to me. It should be somewhat plausible, but the ratio will ultimately depend on what I want: An unwinnable battle, a massive, balanced struggle or the players killing the snakes head (the NPCs) and the Goblins flee the scene.Assuming a kill rate of 75% to 20%, you're looking at ...

... actually, I'm not sure how to calculate the ratios in advance. Because it's multiple rounds, I'm fairly sure it's not a simple multiplicative ratio like "1 to 3" that scales out in a straight line.

Edit:
took a stab at it because I was curious, but hit a brick wall. Obviously in an actual game, it'd be better to just iterate the rounds, with townsfolk losing 25% of current gobbos and gobbos losing 20% of current townsfolk.

G0 = starting number of goblins
G1 = number of goblins after 1 round
Gn = number of goblins after n rounds
T0 = starting number of townsfolk
T1 = number of townsfolk after 1 round
Tn = number of townsfolk after n rounds
n = number of rounds

After round 1
G1 = G0-ROUND[(T0)*1/5]
T1 = T0-ROUND[(G0)*3/4]

Or more generally for n rounds (starting at round 0)
Gn+1 = Gn-ROUND[(Tn)*1/5]
Tn+1 = Tn-ROUND[(Gn)*3/4]

That's where I get stuck, since we have two equations we should be able to state them ultimately in terms of
G0 and T0, from 0 to n. Anyone else with more recent math experience want to pick it up?

[Cap'm Bubbles]

It's been too long since I've done formulas and iterations; but, I still know how to do this the hard way.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1si5LQ2NQs0_CEWgXqc9DTSEzTBDZBBFnoL5r2VuK4Ro/edit?usp=sharing

Here's what I've got so far. There's a table on the top-right that holds master values for AC, HP, to-hit, and so on.
In that table, it is safe to edit AC, AC with cover, and To-hit bonus.
All the %chance to hit values draw from this table already, don't change them directly. Same for kill rate.

There's a table below the initial wall of text and manual iteration that will calculate pure villagers vs goblins, with or without cover, and including whatever values you give for AC, AC with cover, and to-hit bonuses.

And you would be amazed at the difference a single extra villager or goblin makes. Your players don't have time to mess with it and figure out the sweet spots, but forum-goers do.

I'll see what I can do if guards are thrown into the mix; still a WIP, so please limit any editing and experimentation to the above described cells.

[thomaszwanzinge]

Thanks for the Excel, nice math work :-)

Gave me a much better understanding and something to play around for what I consider now "my" solution:

I have a table with Villagers and Goblins. Assumption is that only 10 Villagers and Goblins can fight at once against each other due to natural chokepoints.
Usually that means 7 villagers die in a round vs. 2 Goblins. I can play that until there are less then 10 villagers left, whereas they flee the scene or are outright killed.

Then I include morale that can be increased or decreased by PC or NPC actions, magic, reinforcements etc. Those act as virtual fighters, so a fight with Morale +1 (for villagers) means the fight is 13 Villagers against 10 Goblins, for casuality calculation (-4 vs. -2). (thinking about this again, morale got really strong... well, I can always just tweak the numbers). If PCs fight, they gain 3 damage per round, increase morale by 1 and decrease villager deaths by 1. 1 PC is enough to make the fight nearly even - as long as the PC can sustain the damage, that is.

Guards count as 2 villagers, elite guards as 4.

And so on. In the end I got a small table where I can round by round decrease the fighters. After a few rounds I will ask the PCs if they want to change tactics or do something. I would post the table, but I really do not know how, it is too cumbersome in the forum (I am not posting in forums a lot).

I hope this is dynamic enough. I will play a simple scenario by myself to see what it is worth.

It is not 100% accurate, but I like the non-IT solution (no tablet etc. required) and the iterative nature. Maybe it is too slow, but if morale etc. does not change, it is simple to always decrease the same numbers from the fighters totals.