D&D 5E good rules for PCs vs army units?

Frankie1969 said:

The party is 15th level, and it's time to put them up against a couple hundred soldiers in platoons. What's a good way to make this tactically interesting and take about an hour?

We had a previous battle using standard 5E combat with dozens of individual tokens and it was a tedious slog. I've read that the UA Mass Combat system works best for army vs army with PC support, but not for lopsided PCs vs army.

Click to expand...

MNblockhead said:

An hour‽

My best advice is to look into Matt Coleville's Warfare rules. These are heavily abstracted rules for large-scale battles. It is included in the Strongholds & Followers book but he made this section open content and you can get the open content Warfare rules here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/l300e96pe8s9pvz/warfare.pdf?dl=0

One issue with these rules for you may be that "individuals don't matter."

If you truly want to have your player's handful of powerful PCs against an army, I would just use the "Handling Mobs" rules in the Dungeon Master's Guide (DMG 250).

Basically, you determine the d20 roll each group needs to hit each PC and there is a simple table that tells you how many hit each round.

The example in the books is eight orcs surround a fighter. The orc's attack bonus is +5 and the fighters AC is 19. The orcs need a 14 or higher to hit the fighter. So if 3 orcs mob the player their is one auto hit.

For PCs they attack as normal. Casters with AOE spells are going to really be important, unless you are giving the other characters access to anti-siege weapons.

For ranged attacks I have no problem saying, well, there are 100 archers with long bows. They have a +6 attack bonus. The fighter as an AC of 21, the cleric has an AC of 19, the Wizard with Mage Armor has an AC of 15, the rogue has an AC of 16. So the to-hit the archers need for each is 15, 13, 9, and 10. According to the chart at DMG 250 that means for every four attackers that hit the fighter, one will hit. 3 attackers for 1 to hit the cleric. 2 for 1 hit on the wizard or the rogue. I would have all the arches go on the same initiative.

I might have them focus fire on the wizard and cleric first to take them out before their AOE spells decimate them.

For melee, however, my players are going to cry foul. I would just go by the rule that (assuming the PCs are medium creatures), 8 creatures can fit in a 5-foot radius around another one.

This will mean that very weak fighters will not be able to scratch a highly armored character. E.g. a commoner would need a 19 to hit, meaning you need 10 commoners to make one hit. What I might rule, however, is that if you have a huge mob of pitchfork wielding commoners, you still get the auto hits as long as 10 or more are surrounding you. Think of it like getting a flanking advantage or morale boost. This allows for a swarm of weak enemies to overtake even the strongest PC if he just wades into the sea of attackers for a melee fight. If the player cries foul, ask them if they'd rather you roll 8 times and apply any crits. Most would accept the trade off of auto hits and a faster combat.

Click to expand...

77IM said:

Welllll... you could do something similar to the swarm rules, but for non-tiny creatures. I think I've seen these called "mob" rules in other games (maybe in 4E?). In a military context, I'd call this creature a "unit." Here's how I'd turn a creature into a unit in 5E:

Unit Template
A unit is a group of 16 medium or small creatures with identical statistics, which moves and fights together as a coordinated force.
Size: Increase the creature's size to Gargantuan.
Hit Points: Multiply the creature's hit dice and hit points by 8. For example, if the creature normally has 11 (2d8 + 2) hit points, a unit of them would have 88 (16d8 + 16) hit points.
Damage Vulnerability: Area effects.
Condition Immunity: Any effect that only targets or affects a single creature.
Unit Movement: The unit can move through any opening large enough for a medium-sized creature.
Unit Health: A unit that has less than half its hit points remaining can't regain lost hit points. When the unit is reduced to 0 hit points, it routs; its members scatter and flee. (If it's important, about half the members of the unit are alive and fleeing, and the rest are unconscious or dead.)
Attacks: Double the creature's normal number of attacks; when the unit has less than half its hit points remaining, don't double its attacks.
Damage: Quadruple the damage of the creature's attacks. For example, if the creature can normally attack with a longsword for 6 (1d8 + 2) damage, then a unit of such creatures would attack for 26 (4d8 + 8) damage.
Challenge: Increase by 4.​

Hmmm, that may be too complex, since I just pulled it out of my ass. But I think you get the idea. You could create stat blocks for such units ahead of the game, and then the party is only fighting about a dozen creatures instead of hundreds. A dozen creatures is still a lot, but should be few enough for you to manage, while still FEELING like a lot.

Click to expand...

Frankie1969 said:

The party is 15th level, and it's time to put them up against a couple hundred soldiers in platoons. What's a good way to make this tactically interesting and take about an hour?

Click to expand...

We had a previous battle using standard 5E combat with dozens of individual tokens and it was a tedious slog. I've read that the UA Mass Combat system works best for army vs army with PC support, but not for lopsided PCs vs army.

Click to expand...

1. I was well-organized with all the stats/notes/abbreviated tactics I'd need on just 2-3 printed pages.
2. I also took specific notes on potential random actions for the gargoyles. See below.
3. I framed the scene vividly. Aarakocra summoning an air elemental while their leader performed a ritual. At night, one of the PCs noticed the moonlight coming through clouds glinting off stony form of many gargoyles on the wing. A brief volley of longbows and other long-range attacks, and then the battle as rain and winds pelted the cliffside aarakocra settlement the PCs were defending. Many choices of the PCs came from how I framed this scene.
4. I created a table of developments/twists that I rolled on every even round. I've pasted this below. Doing this kept the fight fresh & helped up the tension.
5. Lastly, I incorporated Dungeon World GM moves as a table of "complications" – I rolled when players failed key checks, when players dawdled, when players tried to “brute force” a challenge (rather than engaging with the narrative & playing smart), or when play presented a golden opportunity. This also helped keep the fight fresh and make failure interesting.

1. Attack & terrorize the weak.
2. (aarakocra young, Na, unconscious characters, pets/familiars).
3. Desecrate the Cleansing Chamber.
4. Disrupt the air elemental summoning of the monks.
5. Grapple a dangerous foe in pairs, then drop that foe off the cliffs.
6. Hunt down Mwaxanaré to abduct her.
7. Raid Asharra’s library or the scavenger’s market, stealing valuables.

1. Na is missing! Is he trapped? Hiding? Taken by gargoyles? Trying to help?
2. Mwaxanaré – not heeding Asharra’s warnings – goes to use a golden egg.
3. Plummeting dead gargoyle breaks a 15-foot stretch of walkway.
4. The air elemental is destroyed! Any gargoyles it was facing enter Kir Sabal.
5. Wounded aarakocra is falling to death unless PC uses reaction to intervene.
6. Building crumbles from magic missiles, 4d6 bludgeoning, dust, and cover.
7. A RANDOM NPC/PC (d12) is overwhelmed and needs help!
8. An aarakocra youngling brings arrows or a healing potion in the nick of time, but needs a window to escape to safety.