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Singhilarity
2008-09-18, 02:42 PM
Ok, I admit it - I screwed up.
I'm a first time DM, and things had been going pretty smoothly (a few revisions here and there) thus far, but situation demanded that I invade the town with an army of Orcs. I'm in over my head, and bit off more than I can chew.

There's a lot going on here, and I'm not going to elaborate on it, at the moment, but the main deal is I don't have a clue how to efficiently run huge combat between forces! I'm just getting a handle on Adventurers Vs 6-8 Foes.

Here's the deal - I've already played two sessions in the battle, and it's gotten cleaner each session, but I'm still at a loss for the most effective way to run things.

It's a fairly small city, nestled against a coastal mountain, with a population nearing 800. Though it is quite isolated it is based on a mining economy. It's also divided into two sections by a sheer drop of about 160', though a stair case bridges the gap between the "Upper City" and the "Lower City". The battle is taking place in the (more slum-like) Lower City. (On the Northern side, with the Upper city to the South - the sea to the East, and a Savannah like plains to the West - Orcs coming from the North)


The Orcs have some extraordinarily powerful magics coursing through them, which causes them to ressurect as Zombies when they die. (Homebrew, please don't dissect the universe with your rulebook infatuation)

They number 100, and 198 Zombies.
There are also 5 (still living) Orc "generals" who ride Bears,
5 Wights (Orcs long since dead and dessicated)
They're big Orcs, not one of them under 6'4", STR 16-18.

And a Frost Giant Cleric (CR8) - the giant is dressed in chains and rags, appearing to be some kind of slave. He's focused mostly on hurling rocks at the walls of the city to cause an entrance.

There are 250 town guard, about 60% of which are civilian militia.
Perhaps eight first level druids, and that again of bards and wizards are amidst them.
There are a few other groups of civilians who haven't evacuated up the large staircase at the Southern end of the lower city that are trying (foolishly) to rally their own defenses.

There's one general who's a Paladin 4/Fighter 3, and one Wizard 8.
The Paladin/Fighter has been mostly concerned with the evacuation of civilians up to this point.

Characters are Ranger 5 and Druid 5 w. Blink Dog animal companion.

Essentially, the town guard are dwindling - 1/3rd of the foes they're facing need to be killed twice. It's not impossible for them, though - particularly if they make it up the staircase and bolster their defenses there.

A big deciding factor is if the Giant manages to use a rock to destroy the stairs.


But, see, all of this is kinda extraneous.
I'm having a hell of a time just figuring out how to manage the shifting tides of the front line - is there an effective way to manage attrition en masse?

Ideally I keep the action focused on the characters as much as possible - they know it's impossible, and they know that I'm in over my head and would rather just get this battle over with - but the outcome is going to be massively influential to the storyline!

As I see it they either
A) Win and begin town clean up
B I) Lose and escape up the stairs
B II) Lose and have the stairs destroyed, possibly having all but the civilians (who've already found sanctuary in the mountains beyond the upper city) slaughtered. - This can mean that the characters, who are capable of escaping, if need be, get to explore a zombie infested town... an idea I admit to finding quite compelling. Or it can mean exile - which accomplishes them getting out in the world and starting to adventure - I have frameworks for adventures *everywhere* they could possibly go.
C) Die (But let's face it, Rule 0 tends to rule against it - though they *are* injured and low on healing)

Are there systems to use to help progress things like this?
I have access to a computer during play time.

How do you professionals manage it?

How do I unscrew myself?

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-09-18, 02:56 PM
Best way of doing it is to handwave most of the fight. Have the commander of the town dispatch the PCs on a mission to kill the giant one night. They have to sneak through back alleys, kill a few Zombies(who can't raise the alert), and then kill 3 low-level Orc guards in under 4 rounds, or they sound the alarm, in order to reach the giant's tent, which is guarded by 2 more Orcs that must be killed before getting an action or they wake the giant, eliminating the player's opportunity for a surprise round against him. They then have to kill the giant himself(alarm raised at round 4). If the alarm is raised, either by the giant or by the Orcs, 2 Orcs show up 1 round later, 4 Zombies one round after that, then enemies swarm in. The party is forced to retreat after killing the giant or 3 rounds after the alarm is raised. If they kill the giant, make the mood seem hopeful, like the Paladin is convinced they might actually be able to win this thing now. If they fail, they reach their home base in time to witness the destruction of one of the important defensive positions at the hands of the pissed-off giant and his allies, preferably a location the players care about, the militia seems beat, and even the Paladin says "Only prayer can save us now". That's one session. build from there.

metalbear
2008-09-18, 03:13 PM
Quite simply, the best way to run the battle is for you to decide what will happen. Or I should say, decide what will happen if the PCs achieve/fail at certain tasks and events. The best way to do this is to start with one event that you know will happen.

For example: The one of the Orc generals leads an attack at point A with 30 orcs. The PCs along with the NPCs in the area will try to defeat this assualt. You then write down the possible outcomes of this (lets just say there are three for the sake of simplicity).
Outcome number A: The PCs defeat the general and stop the attack. Outcome number 2: The PCs fail to defeat the general and have to fall back to another position.
Outcome number 3: The PCs fight back the attackers, but the General manages to escape.

After you have decided the possible outcomes of the encounter, you then repeat the process of mapping out what will happen after A,B, and C. This way the PCs will have an effect of what happens on the battlefield, usually being the ones that decide how the battle will go.

Also, another way to use this mechanic is to give the PCs options on what to do. For example, the PCs may need to decide between fighting one of the Orc Generals or saving the 8th level wizard as he begins to run out of spells. You can use the same flowchart concept that I explained earlier (Attacking the general is option A, helping the wizard is option B). I hope this helps.

Although I doubt it would be much help to you right now, the book Heroes of Battle is full of great tools on how to run a battle just like this.

Storm Bringer
2008-09-18, 03:14 PM
as said, you don't try and fight the battle, just use it as a backdrop for the players to have a fights around. One day, they are making a surgical strike at a orc general, the next, they are ambushing a orc force on it's way to overwhelm a strongpoint already under attack, the next, they are dealing with orcs trying to sneak though the sewers......

and so on. have the players see the larger battles in the distance, and have their actions influence the fighting on the main field. take the ambush idea, for example. if they kill a segnificant number of orcs/zombies, then the stronghold is able to hold out-just. if they kill all the orcs, teh stronghold repels the attack and is able to launch a limited counter attack, retaking a block or so. If they fail, then the next fight is them dealing with the loss of the strongpoint, maybe trying to retake it, or just holding the orcs back while the line falls back.......

one of the key things about urban combat is it breaks mass combats down to a series of smaller fights. Most of the fighting is done between squads of troops operating semi-independantly form each other. It's perfect PC party territory. Think of a series of houses the players have to take as rooms in a dungeon and you've got a classic dungeon crawl. Urban combat is the sort of fighting where a small force of highly trained people can make a serious difference, but also one where a few ill-trained conscripts can hold a building agianst elite troops until Kingdom come. It heavily favours the defenders. If anything, I'd say that you'd more orcs for tha attack to have a serious chance of overruning the town. the zombies are too dump to make much use of the oppintuties offered by the terrian for defensive ambushes. hell, that could be a plot point, with the orcs needed to bring in reinforcements which the players must stop somehow.....

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-09-18, 03:21 PM
Also, I don't know how much your group uses maps and the like, but if you have the city mostly mapped out, you can e-mail them a copy after each session, with the enemy territory in red and theirs in blue. Let the PCs see how much they're helping/hurting their own cause.

Prometheus
2008-09-18, 03:50 PM
Yeah a lot of how to manage large war depends on the DM style (there is no one way to do it) but the most official and the easiest to learn way is to do as has been suggested and break the conflict up into a series of missions that are small fights and objectives.

Storm Bringer has it absolutely right. If you look at the OotS comic on the goblins invading Azure city, they break it down into PCs and the background. The only thing that I might add is that if there is ever a situation in which the PCs would be exposed to more enemies than they can see, (such as they decide to meet the army in an open field), you can simulate archer volley by periodically having every PC that does not have cover be attacked by an arrow of a constant attack bonus (+5? +10?). You have it happen, and than roll 1d4 (for example) for when the next volley will be. You can do the same with catapults (except that you have it deal more damage, and have a higher attack bonus) as well as magic artillery (i.e. fireball, darkness, fog spells, etc) if you also pick a random location for each "volley".

Taking out leaders, killing as many troops as possible, locating assassins, defending innocents, retrieving items, and sabotaging supplies are all great missions. It's nice if the PCs want to bless or help crowds of the soldiers, but you are not by any means obligated to simulate the effects.

BRC
2008-09-18, 05:10 PM
Remember, you are the DM, the world dances at your word. Rocks fall at your command, and logic itself cowers before you.

Now, savor that thought for awhile, not too long though, just until you finish reading this sentence, okay ready now? Good, let's get to work.

Now, a good way to handle a large mass battle is to have an indeterminate number of enemies. Simply decide ahead of time how many of these enemies the PC's are going to take down, redshirt soliders handle the rest of them without any dice rolls.
Just throw one or two mooks per PC at the PC's (The rest are fighting redshirts), once the PC's kill enough of them you say "Between you and the soliders, the orcs have been driven from the town square, congradulations".


Then, after you do some of that, the PC's get assigned to take down a seige weapon or an enemy leader, or to defend a certain point. Somthing like that.


Remember, just because the PC's have hundreds of troops on their side, you don't need to care about them. They won't mind being regulated to scenery.

bosssmiley
2008-09-19, 04:25 AM
Pathfinder #4 started with basically this set-up.

The easiest way to handle it is to think of 4-6 cool scenes (rescuing the proles, holding the breach, fighting a rearguard action, reinforcing the embattled redoubt, enemy general hit squad, etc.) for the PCs to attend to. Have the outcome of the siege determined by how many of these scenes they succeed at -vs- how many they fail (or ignore outright). Keep the PCs running from scene to scene with barely a chance to catch their breath or buff/heal up.

Anything that the PCs don't attend to is covered purely by narrative. Don't even dice for it, just choose what makes the better story (clue: whatever makes the players go "Aw Hell! Here we go again" :smallbiggrin: ).

Expect the Orcs to eventually come boiling over the walls slaughtering all in their path despite the best efforts of the defender. Plan to have half the city sacked and burned, the severed heads of their loved ones fired at the defenders, and for the scarred and battered heroes to be driven back to the last ditch. Adversity builds character. :smallwink:

Oh, and be sure to have lots of little character moments in between the WHAM! BANG! action scenes. It's the quietness of the preceding lull that makes the storm sound louder.

Watch "Zulu" and "The Two Towers", read David Gemmell's "Legend" (Druss = a walking crowning moment of awesome) and "Waylander" (Karnak = :smallcool: ), then read up on The Great Siege of Malta and the Siege of Constantinople.

♪♫ Men of Harlech stop your dreaming... ♫♪

AslanCross
2008-09-19, 09:53 AM
Heroes of Battle suggests a victory point framework, where the PCs perform a series of small-scale yet extremely vital missions that will determine the outcome of the battle at large. Each mission could be anything from defending a certain strategic point to taking out an enemy commander and his elite guard. Depending on how many victory points the characters gain at the end of the adventure, the battle's outcome could be anything from a crushing loss to an overwhelming victory.

Whatever the mission, it's important that fighting that many creatures is boring. Perhaps you could allow the PCs to take out a squad of low-level orcs or zombies once in a while, but really, after taking down the 5th 1st level Orc Warrior, it gets tiring.

Another consideration is that the PCs' actions have to be able to affect the battle at large either way, lest they feel useless. Even if the plot calls for the eventual loss of the PCs' side in the battle, the PCs should be able to, say, allow the king to escape or cause a pyrrhic victory for the bad guys.