Mass combat rules

[BryonD]

Cry Havok is actually written by Skip Williams.

There is little to nothing in it that would vary whether you play 3E, 3.5 or AU.

I agree that it works really well. I think it transitions very smoothly from regular D&D to small skirmishes to larger skirmishes and up to battles and even wars. Meaning there is a middle ground where a fight that you may want to go ahead and use regular D&D but still might be large and unwieldy enough to prefer something else could be done either way with generally similar results.

It then scales up though larger battles, all the way up to determining the winner, degree of casualties and duration of a full war in just a few rolls. As recommended in the book, this option is best for a background conflict as part of the setting, asuming the DM still wants a no scripted outcome. Of course you can still use more detailed rules to play the war out over mumerous battles and other encounters to what ever level of detail you wish.

Anyway, I think it is a very flexible, adaptable and generally excellent supplement.

I'd put it just behind A Magical Medieval Society as best gaming purchase I have made in quite a while.

 

[Silveras]

Mythic Age feel

Hong, you may want to look at the mass combat rules in Testament. It presents a system for heroic characters to fight masses of opposing troops. The intention, however, is to simulate mythic/epic heroes, and so may not be quite the feel for which you are reaching. Still, you may find something useful in it.

 

[Arnwyn]

With the rules currently available, I would have to agree that Cry Havoc is your best bet - as noted by a poster above, it includes rules for individuals vs. many.

 

[Farland]

Try my system here:

www.farlandcampaign.homestead.com/battle.html

then if you like it, download the free program to run it. Check my sig. below. Many people swear by it.

 

[Dragonblade]

Is the following true: 128 CR1 critters equals 64 CR3 critters, 32 CR5 critters, 16 CR7 critters, 8 CR9, 4 CR11, 2 CR13, and so, 1 CR15 critters ? Or if it's not true, do you think it's a fair way to go about it ?

Thus, even though CR1 beast means no x.p. to a 15th level PC, 128 of them would still give him the same x.p. as a CR 15 bug...

It would depend. Are 128 CR1 monsters going to be that significantly tougher vs. a 15th level (or whatever) PC or is just more mooks to wade through?

In 2e the overbear rules were pretty nasty and it was easy for low hp grunts to swarm a high level character and slit his/her throat. Fight over.

But in 3e the grapple rules are based on your BAB, making it significantly more difficult for a horde of low BAB mooks to really do anything to a powerful high level character except die in droves. I would just calculate the average damage each PC can do in one round based on their percentage of hitting the mooks, number of attacks(factoring in things like Cleave and Fireball), and damage per hit. Then extrapolate the number of rounds it takes for them to utterly decimate the monsters. Playing it out is not only repetitive, its pointless and 1 CR1 monster or 100 CR1 monsters, if they can't really touch the PCs, its worth no experience points.

However, keep in mind that even the weakest monster will hit a PC 5% of the time. So if you assume that maybe 4 Medium CR1 monsters can attack a PC once in one round, then odds are after 5 rounds one of them is going to hit the PC with a natural 20. So factor that in when you calculate how many rounds it takes the PCs to win. If there are enough mooks, the PCs could easily be nickel and dimed to death from all those attacks that slip through their defenses and start adding up.

If the PCs find themselves in that situation I would then start to give them experience points due to the element of danger they face. Basically your XP reward should directly relate to the amount of danger the PCs face.

 

[johnsemlak]

Does Cry Havoc have rules for resolving individual battels in just a few die rolls, by calculating the relative strength of the armies?

 

[RedCliff]

AEG's book Good has a section on powerful heroes taking on hordes of underpowered opponents that streamlines combat. It only works if the massed enemy has a CR 8 lower than the party level, meaning individually they wouldn't pose much of a threat. It looked neat, but I never got a chance to try it out. Two of my players got jobs out of town and left the game one session before I got to put the rules into action.

 

[kenjib]

However, keep in mind that even the weakest monster will hit a PC 5% of the time. So if you assume that maybe 4 Medium CR1 monsters can attack a PC once in one round, then odds are after 5 rounds one of them is going to hit the PC with a natural 20. So factor that in when you calculate how many rounds it takes the PCs to win. If there are enough mooks, the PCs could easily be nickel and dimed to death from all those attacks that slip through their defenses and start adding up.

I think the mooks might need to be either undead or fantastically motivated though, to hold up morale and keep coming after a few people single-handedly managed to kill 100+ of their brethren without casualties.

 

[S'mon]

Is it based on Monte's rules, or is it generic to D&D 3.0 ?

Regarding that...

Is the following true: 128 CR1 critters equals 64 CR3 critters, 32 CR5 critters, 16 CR7 critters, 8 CR9, 4 CR11, 2 CR13, and so, 1 CR15 critters ? Or if it's not true, do you think it's a fair way to go about it ?

Thus, even though CR1 beast means no x.p. to a 15th level PC, 128 of them would still give him the same x.p. as a CR 15 bug...

No, 128 CR 1 are same EL as 64 EL 2, not 64 EL 3.

Whether 128 CR 1s should give XP to a 15th level PC requires ad hoc DM adjudication. Eg if the NPCs are mooks out in the open or on the city walls, a 15th level Sorcerer can attack and slaughter them without any risk at all. A 15th level Fighter without spellcaster support might face a serious threat and defeating them be worth XP.

 

[ddougan]

No, 128 CR 1 are same EL as 64 EL 2, not 64 EL 3.

This is not actually correct according to the 3.0 DMG (I think 3.5 is the same approach). The 64 @ EL3 is correct according to the "Doubling the Number of Foes adds 2 to the EL" rule of thumb.

Also, the DMG states "Encounters with more than a dozen creatures are difficult to judge. If you need thirteen or more creatures to provide enough XP for a standard encounter, then those individual monsters are probably so weak that they don't make for a good encounter".

So as you say - I certainly wouldnt consider them an EL 15 encounter.

When I have run this type of thing in the past (it kind of put me in mind of the Dynasty Warriors 3 game - with the Fighters great cleaving everyone around them as they cut through the enemy horde, with the Wizard blasting fireballs from above) I tended to rate the encounter based on x EP per average party level. With the value of x being dependent on how dangerous the base CR was to the average party level.

Its hard to put a figure on it - and sometimes the value was incorporated into a story award (for example, when they had to break out of a Helm's Deep type approach - a 30 foot wide platform high above ground level) - the reward for successfully defending the approach was significantly better than any EL encounter calculation would have given them (given the "more than 13 creatures" guideline). And was awarded regardless of the actual number of creatures they killed before the enemy morale dropped and they broke off.

The "Assigning Ad Hod XP Awards" in the DMG rewards chapter gives some advice along this line...

As to the original question, I've yet to find a set of mass combat rules I really like for DnD. I've tried the Quissential Fighter, AEGs War and Testament's system (the sole reason I bought the book was based on the good feedback of its MCS). But I am looking forward to the paper release of Cry Havoc