Mass combat? How should I handle this?

[SquirtleSquad]

My players managed to get them self essentially mind controlling about 200 Kuo toa. They are about to approach a pyramid that is protected by a large ward that alerts a population of insect people to protect it. How should I handle this? How many insect people do you think I should throw in? I also plan to give the players a higher level Kuo Toa with cleric abilities, and the insects a purple worm. The players are level 4 right now (hear me out) but I'm planning on leveling them significantly as they are escaping the underdark which they have been stuck in for many sessions now. What level should I make them? How should I handle the whole encounter? I have some ideas, but I'd love to hear how you would handle it.

Players:
Gnome rogue
Fire genesai cleric
Halfling rogue
Half elf bard
human fighter

[Dienekes]

There are mass combat rules in an Unearthed Arcana form a few years back you can look up here (https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/unearthed-arcana/unearthed-arcana-when-armies-clash) and here (https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/unearthed-arcana/mass-combat). And I think Matt Colville did some book about it I think it was called Strongholds and Followers or something? I have not used it, don't really know how it works.

But honestly, I'd DM fiat most of this. In my opinion 5e just works better when focusing in on the actions of a select few heroes.

I'd start the clash with the koa toa facing off against the insect people with the heroes probably in the wings. Roll very basic dice to determine how they're doing. Maybe a d20 and if they get a 12 or above they advance a bit on their assault, narrating what is going on.

Then I would create some Big IssueTM that the heroes have to go deal with to allow their army to continue on their advance or perhaps swing the assault more favorably to their army. So now they have to roll 5 or above to advance.

Something really abstracted as a set up to get the players in a position to do what the game is actually about.

I would only really diverge from this if the players really start getting into the tactics of mass battles, consistently. But if they're just trying to assault a single base this one time? Leave it abstract and return to focusing on the players.

[SquirtleSquad]

There are mass combat rules in an Unearthed Arcana form a few years back you can look up here (https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/unearthed-arcana/unearthed-arcana-when-armies-clash) and here (https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/unearthed-arcana/mass-combat). And I think Matt Colville did some book about it I think it was called Strongholds and Followers or something? I have not used it, don't really know how it works.

But honestly, I'd DM fiat most of this. In my opinion 5e just works better when focusing in on the actions of a select few heroes.

I'd start the clash with the koa toa facing off against the insect people with the heroes probably in the wings. Roll very basic dice to determine how they're doing. Maybe a d20 and if they get a 12 or above they advance a bit on their assault, narrating what is going on.

Then I would create some Big IssueTM that the heroes have to go deal with to allow their army to continue on their advance or perhaps swing the assault more favorably to their army. So now they have to roll 5 or above to advance.

Something really abstracted as a set up to get the players in a position to do what the game is actually about.

I would only really diverge from this if the players really start getting into the tactics of mass battles, consistently. But if they're just trying to assault a single base this one time? Leave it abstract and return to focusing on the players.

My players are bat**** insane. I do not have any faith in them to not try and cruisade a city in the future. I want an epic battle where they get deep into tactics and their effect on the battle, which I'm pretty certain my players will. What I want here is a difficult challenge where they have to strategize in order to win, with heavy Kuo Toa losses so it's not quite so hard to DM 200 of them later

[Demonslayer666]

Take the story in the direction you want by narrating the combat, don't leave it up to the dice. All that rolling would be tedious and not fun. Let the party help out by doing things like inspiring the troops, or killing a leader and turning the tide of battle, etc.

[SquirtleSquad]

Take the story in the direction you want by narrating the combat, don't leave it up to the dice. All that rolling would be tedious and not fun. Let the party help out by doing things like inspiring the troops, or killing a leader and turning the tide of battle, etc.

I don't intend on having tedious rolling, probably something similar to the UA rules. I also don't intend on leaving it to the dice, I believe in my party's ability to outplay a bunch of barely intelligent insects. I'm just looking to see if anyone has any creative ways to run this battle / how many / how strong to balance it

[MaxWilson]

My players are bat**** insane. I do not have any faith in them to not try and cruisade a city in the future. I want an epic battle where they get deep into tactics and their effect on the battle, which I'm pretty certain my players will. What I want here is a difficult challenge where they have to strategize in order to win, with heavy Kuo Toa losses so it's not quite so hard to DM 200 of them later

In that case I'd run the combat by regular 5E rules except that I'd simplify initiative, HP and attack rolls, e.g. roll 10 attacks instead of 200 and just scale up the damage by x20 (or however many soldiers are still alive in that block of 20). Just tell the players that it's too hard to micromanage 200 all they can only control them in blocks of 20. Otherwise let the players control them. You may want to consider running action declarations Diplomacy-style (everybody declares, then everybody resolves, rolling initiative/etc. as necessary) if you want your battles to have more realistic lulls in them (e.g. troops waiting for somebody else to break cover and attack before they join the attack) but only if that sounds like more fun to you than the normal way.

It will be a long battle but probably a fun one, as long as you close the scene when it loses dramatic tension, by having the enemy (or the kuo toa) surrender or run away etc. when the outcome is obvious but some troops are still alive, instead of dragging things out to the last die roll. Of course that is true of every combat.

Have fun!

[SquirtleSquad]

In that case I'd run the combat by regular 5E rules except that I'd simplify initiative, HP and attack rolls, e.g. roll 10 attacks instead of 200 and just scale up the damage by x20 (or however many soldiers are still alive in that block of 20). Just tell the players that it's too hard to micromanage 200 all they can only control them in blocks of 20. Otherwise let the players control them. You may want to consider running action declarations Diplomacy-style (everybody declares, then everybody resolves, rolling initiative/etc. as necessary) if you want your battles to have more realistic lulls in them (e.g. troops waiting for somebody else to break cover and attack before they join the attack) but only if that sounds like more fun to you than the normal way.

It will be a long battle but probably a fun one, as long as you close the scene when it loses dramatic tension, by having the enemy (or the kuo toa) surrender or run away etc. when the outcome is obvious but some troops are still alive, instead of dragging things out to the last die roll. Of course that is true of every combat.

Have fun!

This sounds nice, I think I'll actually use this. Thanks!

Now all I need is balancing an amount of bug people vs fish people + players.

[MaxWilson]

I'm going to go ahead and suggest that you use 100-150 bug people against the 200 kuo toa, because it will seem like a fairly even and epic fight but in reality the kuo toa + players will have a distinct edge, especially if they leverage PC spells like Web and abilities like Sharpshooter, and especially if "reduced to 0 HP" != "dead".

[Vegan Squirrel]

I ran some mass-ish combats recently, and after looking through the UA rules and the mass combat tables in the DMG, I came up with this simple solution. It worked for me, at least.

You can divide the forces into however many units you'd like, or separate them as needed if the PCs are engaging them or directing them. I had separate units of goblins, bugbears, hobgoblins, and flesh golems on one side, vs. distinct dwarven units (commanded by the PCs) on the other side. Plus some individual monsters.

Basically I just gave each unit the following stats: Attack: the attack modifier of the component monster (or the weighted average of a mixed group).
Melee Damage: the component monster's average melee DPR (or the weighted average of a mixed group).
Ranged Damage the component monster's average ranged DPR (or the weighted average of a mixed group); if this is pretty close to the melee damage, you can just combine them for simplicity's sake.
AC: the AC of the component monster (or the weighted average of a mixed group).
Size: the number of monsters in the unit.
Health: the max HP of the component monster (or the weighted average of a mixed group).
Wounds: current overflow damage taken by the unit.
In combat, I'd determine what each unit did on its turn, rolling one attack roll for each target (sometimes I'd break off a few to attack a PC while the others attacked an enemy unit) or attack type (the melee contingent and the ranged contingent). On a hit by less than 5, half the attackers hit, dealing the unit damage times the number of attackers that hit. On a hit by 5–9, three-quarters hit; on a hit by 10+ (or a natural 20), they all hit. On a miss by less than 5, a quarter of the unit hit; on a miss by more than 5 (or a natural 1), they all miss.

For taking damage, any time you reach the unit's Health in damage, reduce its Size by one. Overflow damage is tracked by Wounds. And if it's an area effect that hits the whole group, I'd just reduce the unit's Health instead of taking damage normally. For making saves, I'd do the same type of roll as attacks (success by less than 5 means half of them succeed, etc.), and you can either include save bonuses in the unit's stats or decide if it's a strong save (use the Attack stat) or a weak save (+0) if you want to keep things super simple at the table.

These aren't perfect rules, but they're reasonably quick to resolve while giving you some dice to roll. A bit swingy, perhaps, but it fits the feel of 5e and averages out pretty well. Plus I liked that the monsters vs. monsters part of the battle was randomized rather than predetermined. And you can always pull a monster out of its unit (subtract it from Size) if you want to track it separately for any reason.

[Selion]

My players managed to get them self essentially mind controlling about 200 Kuo toa. They are about to approach a pyramid that is protected by a large ward that alerts a population of insect people to protect it. How should I handle this? How many insect people do you think I should throw in? I also plan to give the players a higher level Kuo Toa with cleric abilities, and the insects a purple worm. The players are level 4 right now (hear me out) but I'm planning on leveling them significantly as they are escaping the underdark which they have been stuck in for many sessions now. What level should I make them? How should I handle the whole encounter? I have some ideas, but I'd love to hear how you would handle it.

Players:
Gnome rogue
Fire genesai cleric
Halfling rogue
Half elf bard
human fighter

I read of a 4th edition rule which could help in this situation. Add the minion template to every footsoldier on both side:
The creature hp is equal to 1
They always do average damage
They have the improved evasion feat (they never suffer fo partial damage on a successful save)

This way you can keep track of the battle evolution without a lot of dice rolling

[MaxWilson]

I read of a 4th edition rule which could help in this situation. Add the minion template to every footsoldier on both side:
The creature hp is equal to 1
They always do average damage
They have the improved evasion feat (they never suffer fo partial damage on a successful save)

This way you can keep track of the battle evolution without a lot of dice rolling

Unnecessary IMO. If you want to not track HP damage, only number of enemies still alive, just roll your attack (20 kuo toa hit with their spears!), compute the damage and divide by average enemy HP (about 20d8+20/8, call it 11 of the 10 HP bugs die), and update numbers accordingly (now that block is only 9 bugs instead of 20, and now they attack back).

There's no need to actually change the rules to designate them as having only 1 HP or give them Improved Evasion (there's no reason Fireball shouldn't kill all 20 bugs).


I ran some mass-ish combats recently, and after looking through the UA rules and the mass combat tables in the DMG, I came up with this simple solution. It worked for me, at least.

You can divide the forces into however many units you'd like, or separate them as needed if the PCs are engaging them or directing them. I had separate units of goblins, bugbears, hobgoblins, and flesh golems on one side, vs. distinct dwarven units (commanded by the PCs) on the other side. Plus some individual monsters.

Basically I just gave each unit the following stats: Attack: the attack modifier of the component monster (or the weighted average of a mixed group).
Melee Damage: the component monster's average melee DPR (or the weighted average of a mixed group).
Ranged Damage the component monster's average ranged DPR (or the weighted average of a mixed group); if this is pretty close to the melee damage, you can just combine them for simplicity's sake.
AC: the AC of the component monster (or the weighted average of a mixed group).
Size: the number of monsters in the unit.
Health: the max HP of the component monster (or the weighted average of a mixed group).
Wounds: current overflow damage taken by the unit.
In combat, I'd determine what each unit did on its turn, rolling one attack roll for each target (sometimes I'd break off a few to attack a PC while the others attacked an enemy unit) or attack type (the melee contingent and the ranged contingent). On a hit by less than 5, half the attackers hit, dealing the unit damage times the number of attackers that hit. On a hit by 5–9, three-quarters hit; on a hit by 10+ (or a natural 20), they all hit. On a miss by less than 5, a quarter of the unit hit; on a miss by more than 5 (or a natural 1), they all miss.

For taking damage, any time you reach the unit's Health in damage, reduce its Size by one. Overflow damage is tracked by Wounds. And if it's an area effect that hits the whole group, I'd just reduce the unit's Health instead of taking damage normally. For making saves, I'd do the same type of roll as attacks (success by less than 5 means half of them succeed, etc.), and you can either include save bonuses in the unit's stats or decide if it's a strong save (use the Attack stat) or a weak save (+0) if you want to keep things super simple at the table.

These aren't perfect rules, but they're reasonably quick to resolve while giving you some dice to roll. A bit swingy, perhaps, but it fits the feel of 5e and averages out pretty well. Plus I liked that the monsters vs. monsters part of the battle was randomized rather than predetermined. And you can always pull a monster out of its unit (subtract it from Size) if you want to track it separately for any reason.

Nice! I like how it still feels like a good approximation of 5E, and I like the way you deal with AoE. I like that it's easy to break units apart or combine them in the fly. Elegant! I'll have to play around with this.

[Vegan Squirrel]

Nice! I like how it still feels like a good approximation of 5E, and I like the way you deal with AoE. I like that it's easy to break units apart or combine them in the fly. Elegant! I'll have to play around with this.

Awesome, I'm glad you like them! Easy, approachable, intuitive, reasonably robust, elegant—I think that's what 5E aspires toward at its best. And it's what I needed to turn a daunting campaign arc into something I felt comfortable running. :smallbiggrin:

[OrbanSirgen]

For mass combat, I would highly recommend the 3.5 supplement Heroes of Battle... There is a bit that is specific to 3.5 but there is a lot that can be used with any edition... The biggest thing that comes to mind right now is to make a flowchart of the battle when planning it... First determine how the flow of battle will progress if the PCs aren't involved, and then have branches depending upon how well they might succeed or fail at certain objectives in the course of the battle... As always, be sure to include consequences for them going off and doing something else instead... For example, if they have orders to defend a hill but decide to go wander off looking for a fight instead, the enemy might take the hill, forcing the allied army back... But if they fortify the defenses, they could hold the line longer than normal, and maybe lead the charge when support arrives...