Mass Combat

Well - I'm gonna rave about a little gem I found as a link from the ENWorld Main Page - Farland Mass Combat System. I dunno if it is realistic, but it sure as heck makes mass combat a breeze. Kudos to the guys that wrote the program!

Maybe a link?

I found Farland Mass Combat using my Search-Fu!

Thanks for the kind words! Glad you like it. I think you will find lots of other valuable things on my site as well if you have time to read it a bit more thoroughly.

i found Farland over on the WotC boards years ago.

I used it for a big battle in my own game, running the combat a thousand times to see who was more likely to win. Very useful, very fun. Thanks, Farland!

i found Farland over on the WotC boards years ago.

Click to expand...

Still over there, periodically, too.

And you're certainly welcome, Cat. Download the update to the program-- it's better.

I just tried it for a couple of battles this weekend. The program is quite good, but I was quite surprised by the results I tried to run battles with one of the sides being much larger than the other but also much weaker, and then I noticed that the bonus from being a larger army is very small.

Just wondering how the bonuses were evaluated... using masterwork weapons gives +2 to the check, the same bonus is given by being twice the side of the other army, or having +4 to +7 BAB. I was expecting a larger bonus from army size... If those bonuses are extrapolated from D&D rules, how come that MW is worth +2 both in small and large scale combat, while BAB gives on large scale combat about half the bonus compared to small scale combat?

Anyway, it's still a very nice program

The reason is that the bonus from BAB is also added to with a separate bonus for being higher level, so it really isn't half the bonus, it is the full bonus, when the level bonus is taken into account.

As for your comments about numbers, they will make a HUGE difference, all other things being equal. But this being D&D, you and I both know that 1 party of 4 15 level characters could kill more than 100 orcs. Numbers don't matter so much in the face of raw level or magical power in D&D, and the program reflects that.

But thanks for your comments, and thanks for taking the time to check out the system.