Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana Mass Combat

http://media.wizards.com/2017/dnd/downloads/2017_UAMassCombat_MCUA_v1.pdf

I wasn't expecting an article today...looks like a rehash of the old Mass Combat rules.

I was really hoping for the Mystic....

Pretty radically different from the previous attempt, much more abstract and fast paced; which is good, because it has been gestating for two years!
[MENTION=697]mearls[/MENTION] has been talking up various DM options in the works; looks like those will get the exposure for a little bit, now.

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[Kobold Avenger]

Any standard ideas for creatures to test this out?

I guess we should use Veterans, Orcs, and Ogres, before going with more mixed ones.

I know it might not the best thing to have everything and anything to add up to a unit of 400. If there's like 200 veterans and 100 archers, they probably should be at least 2 units.

Should commanders get abilities like merge unit, split unit and rally/create unit?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It might fall apart in dealing with situations like units vs 1 large powerful creature like a dragon.

I really think they miss the mark with dragons in pretty much every edition of dnd. Dragons should be, but aren't, something truly epic. At least there should be Great Dragons or something that are something that is more like fighting a group of power creatures than a single creature, or something. Legendary Actions help a bit, but not enough.

 

[The Old Crow]

I like the direction of these rules.

When it comes to PCs, I would like them to expand on the ways PCs can impact the mass battles besides be spellcasters and cast spells. Maybe a section on PCs as commanders. For example, Fighter commanders could give a bonus to their units initiative and morale because they know about combat. Maybe a Rogue led unit could be better at disengage.

 

[Shieldhaven]

Okay, if I am getting this wrong, please tell me, because I feel like they would have accounted for this. But don't 400 ogres form 4 units at BR 100 each, and thus always lose to 400 berserkers who form 1 unit of BR 400? I'm not seeing how the d20's range is large enough to factor into some fairly common use cases, and opposed rolls are no help.

 

[Colder]

I've only skimmed the document, but I like the direction they're going on with the higher level of abstraction and the morale checks. The only purpose of a specialized mass combat system is to resolve things more simply than the regular combat system is when you scale it up to thousands of units; when it comes to a huge battle, a DM will always have the choice between resolving it realistically in painstaking detail ("these dragons beat these slaads, and I think these orcs would run away instead of engaging the dragons, and these mind flayers would ambush the dragon as it's going through this narrow defile, and...") or making a few rolls, ideally rolls which can be influenced by players in ways that are meaningful to them ("we just beat those mind flayers, in a very public way, so all our guys get +5 to morale!").

So I like the direction. There's a part of me that thinks one-minue rounds are too short for this, and that ten-minute rounds would be better, but it depends a lot on the scale of the combat. I'll read it more thoroughly later, but I like the direction. Unlike the last Mass Combat rules, these rules actually have a reason for existing, and I could imagine using them in some scenarios where I don't care much about detail.

If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say they went with 1 minute in order to integrate with player-scale combat more effectively. If you have the PCs fighting in a Critical Scene in the middle of a giant battle, then every 10 rounds you can check up on how the whole battle is going and have the outcomes affect the players at their scale. Harder to do that every hundred rounds.

 

[Li Shenron]

I liked them.

The good things IMHO are the overall simplicity, similarities with standard combat rules, ad-hoc handling of PCs and NPCs, and fair level of abstraction.

The possible downside is that I have the feeling that there is a good chance for the battle to end too quickly, because of those 2 rules that can wipe out a unit immediately. Perhaps one way to avoid this, is for the DM to avoid using a single large unit per side even when all creatures are the same, and instead split them up into at keast 2-3 units per side. This way their BR is smaller so they will last shorter when "damaged" gradually, but maybe there'll be a lower chance overall for the whole side to rout.

One small issue... why does a commander's Cha bonus counts TWICE for a unit's initiative? Isn't it already included in the unit's morale score?

 

[Weird Dave]

I like the abstraction in these rules and the fact that you can use these with other rule systems - anything that abstracts out the "challenge" of a monster. That's pretty cool. I wish the combat results were a bit more varied - critical hit, critical fumble, scale with larger BR units, but that's all pretty easy to adjudicate. I think some guidelines around general rules for monster types would be handy as well - constructs and undead are immune to morale checks, goblinoids are always considered one rank lower for morale, beasts ignore non-combat morale checks. Again, these types of things should be easy to adjudicate on the fly but it's nice to have them written down in case I forget.

Time to put my players in the role of defending a town against skeletal invaders!

 

[lkj]

. . .

One small issue... why does a commander's Cha bonus counts TWICE for a unit's initiative? Isn't it already included in the unit's morale score?

I had the same thought. I'm thinking that it's because the Morale can decline or go up as the battle goes on due to circumstances. So they want to model that a charismatic leader always gives some advantage to a unit, even when that unit's morale has dropped. In other words, a good leader provides an initial boost to the unit's starting morale and then continues to provide advantages during the combat.

AD

 

[Wuzzard]

F the what? I don't want to take away anything from the rest of you, but why would I ever want mass combat rules for an RPG?

I guess it might be fun for a one off, for when a certain sort of player or table is a little burnt out on their standard game play and just need something new to revive their interest for a day. Like when you show up hoping to roll some dice, kill some baddies, save the day, talk with a funny accent and tell lots of jokes, but a certain few are just not feeling it, tired of the same old same old, and suggest the rest of the table join them in some combat board game with lots of cards, tokens, doodads, dials, spinners, timers and punched out card board chits, but to sweeten the deal claim it will have relevant story impact to the regular game.


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[Krachek]

Okay, if I am getting this wrong, please tell me, because I feel like they would have accounted for this. But don't 400 ogres form 4 units at BR 100 each, and thus always lose to 400 berserkers who form 1 unit of BR 400? I'm not seeing how the d20's range is large enough to factor into some fairly common use cases, and opposed rolls are no help.

I got same issue here.

400 veteran, CR 3, BR 400 x 2BR = 800
vs
100 hill giant, CR 5, BR 100 x 4BR = 400

Hill giants cannot even damage the veterans unit.
Nice if you want to make a remake of the "300" movie.

Work as intended?