D&D 5E Question on Mass Combat Comparison

[Ancalagon]

Seems to be a false positive when a site's php is set up oddly. I googled Norton, warning, and known dangerous site.

I spoke to some friends and they said the odds were of a false report - if it was site-wide (blogger), google would have done something, and the odds of someone doing something to my site specifically are low, given the very low traffic I have. But again, thank you for letting me know. (if you don't mind - is it just that page specifically or the entire blog? Of Slugs and Silver )

 

[SkidAce]

I spoke to some friends and they said the odds were of a false report - if it was site-wide (blogger), google would have done something, and the odds of someone doing something to my site specifically are low, given the very low traffic I have. But again, thank you for letting me know. (if you don't mind - is it just that page specifically or the entire blog? Of Slugs and Silver )

Just tested, its entire site.

 

[wrathgon]

Has any of you look at the old D&D companion set war machine system? I updated to include some things like sc fi for my game and power armor and vehicles but it has been working well running an undead army vs an allies army of humans elves and dwarves.

 

[SkidAce]

@wrathgon I keep looking at it, but it seems to give me final results, instead of ongoing battle changes.

Unless I'm missing a part.

 

[dave2008]

Has any of you look at the old D&D companion set war machine system? I updated to include some things like sc fi for my game and power armor and vehicles but it has been working well running an undead army vs an allies army of humans elves and dwarves.

Yes, Mike Mearls even did a soft reboot of it for 5e. It was in UA (not for the 2024 core books) a long time ago IIRC.

 

[SkidAce]

That UA "When Armies Clash" seems to be more like a unit/figures battlesystem than War Machine. @dave2008

 

[wrathgon]

@wrathgon I keep looking at it, but it seems to give me final results, instead of ongoing battle changes.

Unless I'm missing a part.

So are you looking to resolve two armies meeting and which one wins or something that you expect the PCs be running around in battle turning the tide.

What i am doing is setting up goals for the PCs things like take out leader or reduce officers ratios. These sort of things take off bonuses from army final BR. I also added ways to remove bonuses given when tactics that bypass defenses (like in my game the army was plane hopped in the middle of the defending army so they lose their strong and mountain bonuses when rolling)

The system covers alot and the rest the DM decides, its how the old systems worked, gave a framework for a DM to work with but did not decide every single thing allow DM to do what he needed to do to make it work.

I did see the reboot but really you cant use CR as the CR system is broken. I like how this rewards bonuses based on actual stuff the army can do, be it a army of flying vampires or a army of flying machines manned by humans.

 

[SkidAce]

I'm investigating different systems, end goal?

A system where I total stuff for armies, roll to see how the fight is going, describe it to the PCs. Maybe they charge in to assist and fireball a mass of troops. Recalulate, roll the Mass Battle again, describe to PCs.

It actually sounds similar to what you are doing, now that I type it out.

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On CR; its a least usually relative between creatures, and its in the stat block already, so some type of calculations based off that could be done in my head round to round.

I think War Machine is not far off, but the numbers and variables get a little high and include lots of prep.

I'm trying to slim the same concept into a smaller package.

 

[wrathgon]

So i do waves, even though it is meant to be end of battle, i have rolled 3 or 4 times and gave updates to PC, who then try to reduce their bonus for better results. ATM the two armies fighting are BRs of over 500 100 golems vs 1300 undead. Took undead 3 waves to push the golems back.
I posted the rules for the PCs so they can say "Hey they need 40 to 1 officers lets go hunting officers so they lose that, or if we get 20% mounted troops we get a boost lets go find some mounts for troops. By showing them where the points are coming from let THEM tell you how they help the army. Then create missions based on what they want to do.
The current battle they got a +50 when they walled off 1% of the army with walls of forces then used barrier rever spell to open calls to fire through at golems. It gave them effect immunity of attack granting +50. Stuff like that works very well.

 

[overgeeked]

Have a look at this blog post from Jon Peterson. It includes a scan of Table T from Strategos and Strategos N, both wargames foundational to the hobby. You can easily use this to get results for whatever scale battle you want to run.

Or you could run it as a simple Engle Matrix Game. Talk through what is likely to happen, everyone makes arguments for what should happen, and only roll dice if the players disagree.