Your choice of mass combat rules

Hi, I would like to learn your choice mass combat rules, both for grand scale and on smaller scale like 100s on each side. Thanks.

I usually just determine the outcome I want, as a DM. No rules needed. PCs are not part of the masses, so the rules they use are just the usual. Of course their actions may influence the outcome. But I determine that beforehand.

(not what you are looking for I guess )

Actually I was hoping something on the playability of "Fields of Blood: The Book of War" by Eden studios, as a part of an D&D 3,5 campaign. Also comparison of that book with "Cry Havoc" from Mavaloc would be appreciated. Or should I just stick to "GRIM TALES: Mass Combat" and skip detail ?

your mass battle would deal a lot with what each side had for an offense. like is one side technologically or magically superior? is one side a bunch of bloodthirsty damage machines that can suck up punishment? does one side have a terrain advantage?

i would make it a sort of skill check, with each advantageous situation adding a modifier to one side and subtracting a modifier to the other, and vice versa. then make an opposed skill check (war skill modifier +d20 for small scale battles, +d100 for large battles). for each point that one sides result is lower than the other, say that many people/units/etc die on that side. example:

side A is laying siege to side B's castle

side A:
war skill trained to 30 ranks
+5 huge siege weapons
-3 low ground
+1 charismatic leadership
total war skill modifier 33

side B
war skill trained to 20 ranks
+3 high ground
+5 defensive wall
+5 magically superior
+3 preparation
total war skill modifier 36

side A 33+1d100 versus side B 36+1d100

each minute of combat, the roll is made. side A rolls 47 and side B rolls 74. the totals are side A 33+47=80 versus side B's 36+74=110. side B's modifier is higher by 30, so 30 people (or 300 or 30,000; depending on the size of the battle and how fast you want it to be over with) die (or whatever the condition of losing is, perhaps they are turned to stone or something, it could be conditional to what kills them, especially if there are mages present).

in the next minute the roll is made again (if the PCs are involved in the combat, if they arent i would make the roll once an hour). apply new modifiers according to the events following the last roll.

side A:
war skill trained to 30 ranks
+4 huge siege weapons (down from 5, several were destroyed by side B)
-6 low ground (several mages on side B cast "soften earth and stone" to make the assault more difficult)
+1 charismatic leadership
total war skill modifier 29

side B
war skill trained to 20 ranks
+3 high ground
+4 defensive wall (section damaged by side A's seige engines)
+5 magically superior
+3 summoned help (side B mages summoned monsters to raze the enemy forces)
+2 preparation (preparation influences battle less and less as time passes)
total war skill modifier 37

repeat the same opposed roll as last time, and from that decide what the results are.

i hope this makes things interesting for you.

The BRCS (Birthright 3.5) on birthright.net has a relatively simple system for units of roughly 200 members. (It is also free).

Cry Havoc is real good, but a more detailed than the others) for smaller unit sizes (like around 20 or so).

Fields of Blood is good for roughly 100 member units and is fairly simple.

Heroes of Battle pretty much focuses on what a PC can do on the battlefield and not mass combat.

I'll second Grim Tales: Mass Combat. It's simple and easy. The last thing you want it to get bogged down in the detail. It worked well some time ago when I ran a city defense with 400 defenders and the PCs against 1500 orcs who had to scale the walls to get into the city.

Pinotage

Pinotage said:

I'll second Grim Tales: Mass Combat. It's simple and easy. The last thing you want it to get bogged down in the detail. It worked well some time ago when I ran a city defense with 400 defenders and the PCs against 1500 orcs who had to scale the walls to get into the city.

Pinotage

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But how well does they system mesh with high end combatants joining the fray? A lot of higher end foes really blow hordes of schlubs out of the water, notably those with high end DR, does it accuratly model the devastation of that occurence?

Probably the most interesting one that I've seen is the Black Company system. One of their design diaries says

The three conflicts led us to develop three levels of combat. To mirror the first combat, we made some changes to the basic combat system to allow the possibility of low-level characters defeating powerful ones (if they can get the jump on their foes). For the second, we developed a rules-light mass combat system allowing you to form platoons and companies and move them about the battlefield much like you would characters in a normal combat. Finally, we developed a simplified system for easy resolution of larger battles between armies. In short, The Black Company Campaign Setting features three scales of combat to give you the tools to manage battle at any level. This week, we'll take a look at how the game changes at the Character Scale.

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frankthedm said:

But how well does they system mesh with high end combatants joining the fray? A lot of higher end foes really blow hordes of schlubs out of the water, notably those with high end DR, does it accuratly model the devastation of that occurence?

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I would also like to know more about the Grim Tales mass combat system...

I'm surprised it hasn't mentioned yet, but this is what I've used: Farland Mass Combat Program

I've only needed it a few times, but I found it really helpful in the day to day description of a large scale battle. Even if a battle is somewhat far away from the party, it's fun to run the battle as the party nears it. It also helped me figure out where the party fit into a skirmish once.