Army Combat (3.x)

[Skullruss]

I am soon to DM a campaign where armies are likely to play a big part, how do you guys do armies of hundreds or even thousands? Should I roll in groups of 10 or 5, I feel like that could skew damage pretty heavily, but it might be my only option. I want to know how others have done it in the past, and does this work well, or is it usually something best kept as a concept?I also feel like there's a splatbook somewhere on the subject, please reply if you know it.

[tiercel]

In terms of books, while Complete Warrior has some to say on war, Heroes of Battle is really what you’re probably thinking of.

The short version to get you started: don’t try to play out the whole battle! Set first what the battle would look like if the PCs weren’t there, then start “dungeon building,” where each encounter is with an enemy squad, elite unit, officer, or unique allied monster. Determine what effect PCs’ efforts have (e.g. if they win spectacularly/quickly, if they win barely/slowly, if they lose barely/slowly, if they lose spectacularly/quickly.)

(Famously, the preprinted Red Hand of Doom campaign has a climactic city battle, which could give you some examples of what these kinds of battlefield encounters can look like.)

[Efrate]

Preroll or decide how it plays out sans pcs first. Then see how much an impact they have. I highly recommend reading heroes of battle, and using battle points. 0 is less bp and their side is defeated spectacularly, a low amount of bp and they lose but it's not quite a total rout. A bit more bp and it's a hard fought fighting retreat, a bit more and they snatch victory from a bad situation. More still and it's a solid victory, even more and they have a distinguished victory, and even more and they dominate and totally rout the enemy.

Just remember their actions should allow their side to win, and be pivotal, they are the heroes after all. But remember it's not pc vs. The entire army, except in very different high power games. Also most soldiers are low level warriors and not good, so don t be too scared to throw squads of mooks at them. 20 mooks with a higher level sergeant is a decent squad to work from I've found.

Also volley rules, from heroes of battle, makes the peons more of a threat.

[Elkad]

Large number of identical enemies attacking the players?
Divide them into groups of 20. Each group is assumed to roll every number from 1-20 for their attack. (confirm the critical threats manually though, unless you are in the realm of 400 enemies per player).

You can fudge it with groups of 10 as well. Have target roll a die. If it's odd, every roll of the 10 attackers is odd (1,3,5....19). If it's even, every roll is even (2,4,6...20)

[Ruethgar]

There’s also the Mob template. It doesn’t exactly scream trained soldiers, but for dealing with massive numbers it is an ok way to manage it.