What is the largest battle you've played through in 3.5?

[Scorponok]

And by that, I mean sheer amount of units, without using grouping rules?

In one of my encounters as DM, I threw my party two squads of soldiers. That was twelve level-4 sword and board fighters, eight level-4 archer fighters, two level-6 sword and board fighter leftenants, two level-4 evocation sorceresses, two level-4 "save or suck" sorceresses, two level-4 clerics, and led by two level-8 evocation sorceresses. That's a total of 30 units.

PCs were around 6 or 8 all level 10, One level-8 sorceress got put in a spell that surrounded them with a wall (name of spell escapes me) and the Dirgesinger who was using Dragon Magazine feats when he was not suppose to was able to bring the stats of a lot of soldiers down. (Dirgesinger died by a couple of no-save Ice Storms almost immediately.) The party eventually surrendered like they were suppose to.

The fight didn't take as long as people thought it would. I did all archer, and all melee fighter attacks by rolling bunches of d20s and immediately taking out the attack rolls that were obvious misses, and the magic ladies I controlled like more "individual" units. Total time was less than two hours, mostly with the PCs taking a lot of time to think through strategies.

Some players think it's a bit *******-ish of the DM to roll all archers targeting one unit. It was the session when I figured out even if the party doesn't say it, they kinda want the DM to go easy on them.

What was your largest battle you've gone through without resorting to variant rules for large encounters?

[HammeredWharf]

I DMed a battle with over 600 participants using a lot of averages. I tried to squirm out at first, but it went surprisingly smoothly.

[Aegis013]

I was in a group of three players with 2 people who showed up on occasion. During this particular event we had only the main three. And we had just gotten to level 3 or 4. Me playing a psion, a guy playing a warrior cleric, and a guy playing a sorcerer. The DM was new and decided to throw a group of 40 kobolds and 3 dire weasels against us as we tried to sleep camped on a riverbank.

He did each of the kobold's turns as individuals. We won the fight reasonably well even though we were pretty low-op. (Other psicrystal affinity all of my feats were the extra power points feat. The name eludes me.)

The fight took forever and the DM apologised later and said he'd never use so many units again because it felt like he was playing the game alone. He could tell we were pretty bored as he resolved so many kobold attacks between our turns, one by one.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

The first PbP epic game I ever played that lasted more than a year had some big battles. We played it over at Dicefreaks many years ago and we were all playing CR 24ish demons in the Blood War.


The first battle in the campaign was against over 200 Pit Fiends and several thousand lesser devils. We won.

[Gettles]

About a hundred or so enemies, ranging from generic skeletons and zombies to elephants and NPCs with class levels, built using a map from a Dynasty Warriors game.

[Karl Aegis]

I remember fighting Azazel got pretty ridiculous as he kept using summon monster C every time someone hit him and had pretty high regeneration.

[Vhaidara]

Army vs Army. We were a unit holding a hill with a healing circle on it. Party of 5 (Sorc, Hexblade, Bard, Swift Hunter, Fighter, all level 7) with an NPC Fighter (a sergeant) backing us up. We fought about 30 enemies in that encounter alone.

Then we got sent to flank the enemy. Our fighter wasn't able to make the session, so he stayed back to defend the hill. The sorc enlarged the Hexblade and the NPC fighter, and handed off some of our secret weapons to the Swift Hunter: Sculpted Explosive Runes Arrows (we had a reading where if the rune was destroyed it exploded. Write it on an arrow, arrow breaks on hit, rune go boom). So the Swift Hunter wins initiative, on top of a surprise round, and drops 4 of the arrows into a massive crowd of mooks. Dropped almost a hundred enemies before they got a turn. I started my Bard song (Song of the Heart+Badge of Valor+Inspirational Boost+Against All Odds [modified Words of Creation that requires GM approval to use]) for +10 to hit and damage. Then the sergeant charges up and proceeds to Great Cleave through ten men (The GM rolled 6 crits in front of us, on my dice). The Hexblade runs up and applies both his Dark Companion and Dreadful Wrath frightful presence.
The sorcerer didn't even bother acting, he just leaned back and grinned (in and out of character)

Now the enemies gets their first turn. Immediate and complete rout. We turned the battle in a single turn.

THIS IS WHAT THE PCS ARE SUPPOSED TO DO IN AN ARMY SETTING.

[Platymus Pus]

A battle with about 500+ orcs or so?

[Lightlawbliss]

about 5000 v 1000 all v PCs

yes, the PCs still won.

edit: online dice rolling saved my hands and lots of time in that fight.

[Malimar]

30+ dretches and a handful of other demons. It took hours, because the PCs had no source of AoE damage nor means to bypass the dretches' DR.

EDIT: The characters were in the 8-10 range, so this should not have been as much of a challenge for them as it was.

[Spore]

Two NPC paladins, four PCs, (one retired PC), all around 10th level, vs. a 11th level necromancer, about 20 cultist guards, a 11th level summoner plus eidolon, a 12+ monk and later on, a Balor. Fighting near a rift to the demon realm of undeath, timing down 10 rounds until the portal spits out additional undead.

[Elricaltovilla]

Got two for ya: the first was a battle against an army of goblins/hobgoblins/bugbears with an unknown number of class levels, represented on the map by over $10 worth of assorted coins, with larger denominations representing more powerful enemies. We were 20th level at the time, and I was playing a Magus//Ninja in a game that barely even resembled Pathfinder due to the ridiculous number of house rules. Our DM dumped half a red solo cup full of coins on the map (we thought he was joking, he'd done it before as a joke). The weakest enemies had about 85 HP, the strongest were upwards of 350. Our druid firebombed most of the mooks while I blitzed around the field as an invisible pouncing weretiger, taking out high level enemies. The fighter buzzsawed his way through a lot of the mid level enemies and the gunsliger//summoner used his shotguns to do in 30 ft. cones of enemies. The druid got the most points at the end. I was sad.

My other one takes place after revamping our characters and dropping down to 6th level/Mythic Rank 1 to have a more manageable game: about 40 enemies, probably CR 8 or so, with two CR 10 "leaders." I was (and still am) playing a Zweihander Sentinel Warder, so I set up shop with my defensive focus and infinite AoOs inside a zone that covered at least a quarter of the map, while our druid covered the entire map with her Entangle then turned into a fire elemental and lit up the whole map, and the Dervish Defender (formerly fighter) dueled both of the champions at once and won. Somehow we still manage to be OP even when we're scaled back

[Vhaidara]

Elric, did you get to keep the money from the enemies you took down?

That could actually be a fun way to handle larger battles.

[Elricaltovilla]

Elric, did you get to keep the money from the enemies you took down?

That could actually be a fun way to handle larger battles.

We're much too poor to play keep what you kill. The winner did get a prize though (cupcake). We have plans to play keep what you kill some time in the future though. It'll probably be a one shot experience.

[danzibr]

Huh. Never anything really big, but the BBEG of an old campaign (we had... ~7 players) was a dragon in its lair with a ton of Kobold underlings. And by a ton I mean maybe 10. So less than 20 total, good guys and bad guys.

Man, makes me feel like a small fry.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by danzibr
Man, makes me feel like a small fry.

Yeah, me too.

The largest combat I've run in recent times was a group of Norse raiders boarding a ship in a seafaring campaign--there were about two dozen of them swarming up from a smaller vessel drawn up alongside. I was running the full complement of the attackers as well as some NPC archers who were helping the PCs defend the ship. I eventually let one of the players run the NPC archers as a unit, but even so it took much too long for me to resolve the enemies' turns.

And the thing is, this was a practice run for a much larger naval encounter I'd planned, in which there would have been a larger enemy ship packed with a whole roving clan of sea-reavers, probably fifty or sixty combatants at least. The campaign ended before we reached that point, and I'm not sure how I would've managed that in practice.

[Elricaltovilla]

Yeah, me too.

The largest combat I've run in recent times was a group of Norse raiders boarding a ship in a seafaring campaign--there were about two dozen of them swarming up from a smaller vessel drawn up alongside. I was running the full complement of the attackers as well as some NPC archers who were helping the PCs defend the ship. I eventually let one of the players run the NPC archers as a unit, but even so it took much too long for me to resolve the enemies' turns.

And the thing is, this was a practice run for a much larger naval encounter I'd planned, in which there would have been a larger enemy ship packed with a whole roving clan of sea-reavers, probably fifty or sixty combatants at least. The campaign ended before we reached that point, and I'm not sure how I would've managed that in practice.

Block initiative helps (use differently colored pieces to help keep track), as does average damage (that alone can cut your rolls in half), Markers help track status effects and hp (instead of writing it all down), and your players can help by firing off huge AOE spells that take out bunches of guys at once, meaning you have a lot less to worry about.

[Tindragon]

At a Con a few years back, right after 3.5 came out, I was signed up for a game last session of a Saturday, showed up, there were 13 other players there (me and my buddy signed up together) to find out that the DM/Constafff had some confusion on registration. It was supposed to be 1 long all day event, however in the reg book it showed up as the same, repeating 3 times. The DM decided to allow those who signed up to just keep staying from the earlier sessions, and the later, to jump in, and, he simply Tport'd us in for simplicity sake as 'reinforcements', and he had pregens, but ran out of course, so whoila, I get 40 minutes to roll up a level 18 human wizard, fully geared. Talk about turbo....

SO, to the point, 15 PCs and it was all about some undead, so to scale it he just added more lesser vampires, wraiths, giant zombies/skels etc....

15 PCs, vs about 100 or so various mid to high level undead all in a large open cavern. The battle was just starting at beginning of session. It took less than 20 minutes. And most of the time was me explaining why they were all destroyed.

The DM had only 1 pregen caster, a sorc. No one else who had to make a character, made an arcane. So knowing what we were going into, I planned for it, used item creation feats, etc... made lots of items to max, empower, enlarge, widen, twin and repeat spells. Time Stopped on my 1st initiative, set it all up. Whoila. Needless to say the DM wasn't pleased, but he wasn't that bright either, obviously had never dealt with a player of arcane magic at high levels.

The only thing he flat out refused me, was to Gate in anything. Which there was no reason why, other than "cuz I said so..." So Time Stop and battle field shaping, buffing, and 1 round, and the DM had the BBEG Tport away, just cuz he didn't like it. The BBEG was a level 20 Vamp (human) wizard. But he figured out right quick, a couple max'd fireballs weren't all that cool against 15 buffed PCs

[Toilet Cobra]

Did a battle recently with 6 PCs, 70ish halfings, 250 humans and a bunch of monsters. Saved time using online dice rollers, average damage, and by grouping up individual units into groups of five.

I have used larger battles as backdrops but they were just story battles, not much rolling happened.

[Twilightwyrm]

The largest combat I've ever been involved in had around 500-600 creatures on our side, and 600-700 creatures both sides. The party consisted of an elf rogue, and a drow rogue/assassin, leading a very rag-tag force of goblins and bugbears against a army of orcs lead by orc psychic warrior commanders (being dominated by Puppeteers). We fortunately had the defensive positions, a funneling choke point, with some makeshift fortifications (read: spikes in the ground and alchemist fire traps), a small, but friendly tribe of forest goblin barbarians (included in the above numbers), a crap ton of ranged weapons, and our two high level rogues who moved here and there between the opposing army taking down commanders. We took something like 30% casualties, but we routed the opposing army and over a hundred prisoners.

[Crake]

the biggest battle i can think of is one i'm actually running right now. We've had to pause it midway, but so far the players have taken out 5 CR17 giants, 2 CR 11 homebrewed "mini tarrasques" and 3 CR 14 slightly bigger mini tarrasques. More are on their way, they've had to gate in a solar, who's had to blow a mass heal, but reinforcements are about to arrive in the form of a legion of marut inevitables. 2 ECL 17 players, and an ECL 17 NPC who was acting as the spellcaster's dragon mount for the duration of the fight, letting her and her familiars fling spells from range. The giants were throwing rocks at them though, so thats when they had to land and summon the solar to heal.

Tell you what though, giants riding tarrasques is a sight that will make even ECL 17 players tremble haha.

[Glorius Nippon]

The party eventually surrendered like they were suppose to.

Anyway, largest I've been in was between a human/dwarf army of 2500 vs about 2000 drow, needless to say cannons and gunfire won the day (those dirty elf wannabees had apparently never heard of volley fire before in our world). Although the actual army part of the battle was glossed over because of our lack of knowledge about army combat mechanics, I did get to fight a drow commander on my own (only one other player that session, who promptly decided to sit back and heal the wounded).

Shot him in the face a few times (gunslinger), he got too close for comfort, and so I promptly attached bayonets and charged yelling "Bayoneto Canno!!!!!" (what M&B Napoleonic wars has taught me is french for bayonet charge), which promptly became a new saying for our group.

Oh, and we ordered our human musketmen to charge into the melee. Needless to say a lot of them died.

[Kid Jake]

In my current Pathfinder game I had 2 PCs and a handful of NPCs being sieged by around 60 or so ghouls and 20-30 ghasts, each unit was treated individually but I'd just roll dice in sets of 10 to save some time. It was about as messy and time consuming as you'd imagine.

[Spore]

In my current Pathfinder game I had 2 PCs and a handful of NPCs being sieged by around 60 or so ghouls and 20-30 ghasts, each unit was treated individually but I'd just roll dice in sets of 10 to save some time. It was about as messy and time consuming as you'd imagine.

Were these ones fun for you?

These kinds of battles (without spellcasters or considerable melees) get narrated more often than not. We had some slooooooow zombie wave-ish fights, but everyone hated them. (We had blocked all entrances besides a 6 spaces wide entrance which we guarded via spellcasting. Our fighter didn't even get to do anything (which we though was best as the zombies carried a homebrew "zombie rot" with a custom DC).

[Kid Jake]

Were these ones fun for you?

These kinds of battles (without spellcasters or considerable melees) get narrated more often than not. We had some slooooooow zombie wave-ish fights, but everyone hated them. (We had blocked all entrances besides a 6 spaces wide entrance which we guarded via spellcasting. Our fighter didn't even get to do anything (which we though was best as the zombies carried a homebrew "zombie rot" with a custom DC).

It actually turned out pretty fun, all things considered. The town that was being sieged had a scant handful of buildings where previously wounded survivors and noncombatants huddled for safety and a 4ft (hastily assembled) spiked wall around it; so everyone had to run around like they were spinning plates to keep from being just straight overran. One of the players was running an evil cleric that would seize control of a squad of ghouls at a time and basically just have them get in the way to slow the advance on one side while his constant stream of summons would hold another and the other guy was a fairly serviceable beatstick that would absolutely shred anything that got too close to him.

In the end the ghouls battered their way in and it briefly turned into a horror movie until they unleashed a friendly (childlike) flesh golem and his mad scientist 'father' as their ace in the hole and used the distraction created by an 8ft monster and a man who shoots lightning from each hand to route the last of the horde away from their citizens. It took more than half of one session and almost half of a second one to resolve, but I managed to drop a LOT of plot hooks even during the hubbub, so it didn't feel like too much of a drag.

[Mystral]

Siege of a small town full of talos cultists. They lined up on the city walls like it was helms deep. Fried them with lightning after invisibly flying next to the wall.

Kind of sad, really.

[Coidzor]

Some players think it's a bit *******-ish of the DM to roll all archers targeting one unit. It was the session when I figured out even if the party doesn't say it, they kinda want the DM to go easy on them.

Thinking it's in poor taste to focus fire 16+units, about half of the enemy force of 30, on one character isn't exactly wanting the DM to go easy. Nor is it wanting the DM to go easy to dislike encounters which are set up to guarantee failure on the part of the players.

Of course, if you just meant having the actual archers, which were... 4/30 of the entire enemy force all attacking the same character, that's... honestly it's kind of bizarre that they'd pick up on that with how the other enemies would be divided up against the rest of the party anyway.

What was your largest battle you've gone through without resorting to variant rules for large encounters?

Probably about 20-25 units when multiple waves of opponents in the Battle of Brindol from the Red Hand of Doom adventure stacked up with one another to try to break through us after we got cocky and advertised our position. Our party of 7 had a few NPC allies, though we'd sent most of them a ways back to ambush any regular hobgoblins that slipped by us while we were fighting the actual threats.

[Max Caysey]

Did a warhammer-ish battle once with around 75 units in all.

[MrMercury]

Young Dragon attacked a town with a small army of kobolds (30ish)

Me (wizard) and my brother ( a cleric) defended with the local militia (10-20 or so, cant remember).

Basically turned out me casting a few single target spells on the drag, buffing my brother, and then casting my AOE's into the kobolds before standing back to let the militia clean up

Was an awesome fight