D&D 5E Legends & Lore 28.04: Battlesystem! (mass battles rules)

[Rhenny]

How does that one work?

In past editions I'd just narrate battle and then throw in some isolated encounters for the PCs.

Then, when 4e came along, I turned mass battles into Skill Challenges where players decided what they would do to help their side.

After reading the L&L article and The Legend of 5 Rings system, I just today refined my narrative system.

I have not playtested what I revised today though.

 

[Ruzak]

I only read the first page of comments, so this may have come up later. Why only 10 units per 20x20' square? Shouldn't there be 16? And that's for a very loose formation, not a shield wall or pike phalanx.

Not that it matters to me, as I have no interest in mass combat rules.

That was my thought too, at first. I guess they want to leave room for maneuverability within stands. On a larger scale it makes sense. It comes out to 1440 people on an American football field. That seems fairly dense to me.

 

[Mark CMG]

I only read the first page of comments, so this may have come up later. Why only 10 units per 20x20' square? Shouldn't there be 16? And that's for a very loose formation, not a shield wall or pike phalanx.

A lot of miniatures wargaming rules treat stands in the abstract but do account for loose formations by how the figures are based. They also tend to place a number of figures on the stand based on armor type or training and how closely they might be able to form up. A stand of heavy troops might be four 25 mm platemail figures while some light infantry might be armored in leather and only a couple figures on a stand. One might also find that undisciplined troops are on a deeper stand (generally the width would be the same regardless of troop type) with the figures staggered to show their formation is always loose.

Hordes of the Things is a good example of fantasy rules based off DBA Medieval wargaming rules -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hordes_of_the_Things_(wargame)

(Scroll down for the link to a free download of the HotTs rules at the Wargames Research Group website)

And ehre's a decent pic showing some stand type differences -

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DhMdWEa07ng/UVadaP7sSZI/AAAAAAAAGQs/Woo_rXD7xeM/s1600/IMG_7515.JPG

 

[Hussar]

I love the fact that they are including these rules. If nothing else, it gives a nice place to start.

My only beef, and it's a fairly minor one, is scale. This is great for very large battles involving hundreds of combatants. But, IME, there really needs ... Skirmish level rules as well - say 30 opponents on a side or a battle with a total of 100 combatants.

These rules are a bit too big for that. 10:1 scale means that a pirate ship fighting another ship would only have two or three stands on a side - not fine grained enough for my taste, but trying to do that with individuals is far too fine grained.

I hope we see an intermediate scale soon.

 

[Obryn]

I wrote up a pretty simple mass combat system for 4e that worked quite well for all kinds of scales and allowed the PCs to act individually. I used it in play a few times, and although it needed tweaks, it never disappointed.

Basically...
(1) Units are the common participants in a battle. They are fairly simple stat blocks - modified swarms - with a few special rules. The simplest just have a Basic Attack and an Aura 1 which allows them to attack any enemy that starts their turn within the Aura.
(a) All normal Melee and Ranged attacks (except those made by another Unit) deal half damage to a Unit.
(b) Area and Close attacks deal extra damage (5 per tier) ... but only if they include at least 1 interior square beyond the outermost edge of the Unit. Otherwise, they deal half damage just like other attacks.
(c) Generally, they are only affected by Conditions and Forced Movement delivered by an Area or Close ability including an interior square in their effect. The exception is that anything a Warlord does, affects them just fine because Warlords are cool like that.

(2) When a Unit is Bloodied and under certain circumstances specific to the Unit, the Unit's commander needs to make a Diplomacy or Intimidate check dependent on the training of the Unit (Irregular/Militia = Hard, Regulars = Moderate, Elite = Easy). There were exceptions - I had a Gladiator unit that needed to check for Morale as soon as it was within Charging range of an enemy, or else it split up into minions; that was a fun one.

(3) To command a unit, a Commander needed to be within (Level+Cha Mod) squares. Warlords doubled this range. A Commander could be in charge of up to their Cha Mod in units, with a minimum of 1, and gained a +2 bonus for physically being within the unit itself.

...and that was mostly it. It could use some polishing, but it worked great.

 

[Li Shenron]

I only read the first page of comments, so this may have come up later. Why only 10 units per 20x20' square? Shouldn't there be 16? And that's for a very loose formation, not a shield wall or pike phalanx.

I really think that they actually started from numbers of units, and then figured out a reasonably occupied space.

Because when setting up a battle, you obviously start from the question "how many pikemen make up this group?", and 10 is a common unit of measurement (who would design an army by multiples of 16?). You don't start from how much space is occupied, that is an afterthought.

My guess is that the designers followed this train of thoughts:

- the best unit number is 10, so almost everything is a nice multiple of 10
- should we use squares or hexes? let's go with squares*
- how much square space do 10 medium creatures occupy? the closer values are 15x15 if you squeeze them a bit, and 20x20 if you loose them a bit, so let's go with the second on the rationale that mass battles are more open-quarters than typical D&D combat**

*I actually think it's likely there is also an option for hexes, but IMO they chose squares because it might be easier to adjudicate front/back/flanking

**that's of course debatable, but typical D&D combat happens more often in closed spaces such as a dungeon, a forest, a tavern or a marketplace; mass battles occur mostly on open fields I guess... IMHO those armies might start off as densely packed, but they as soon as actual fighting erupts, they are destined to spread around

 

[MarkB]

My only beef, and it's a fairly minor one, is scale. This is great for very large battles involving hundreds of combatants. But, IME, there really needs ... Skirmish level rules as well - say 30 opponents on a side or a battle with a total of 100 combatants.

I've seen a few systems (notably Star Wars Saga Edition) handle that reasonably well by handling small formations of 5-10 troops using modified Swarm rules.

EDIT: You could probably also use the Battlesystem, but adjust the numbers. Halve the number of units per Stand, and have each mass-combat round take 5 normal rounds instead of 10. We'll have to see how well the system handles such tweaking.

 

[Unwise]

My approach is almost exactly identical to [MENTION=11821]Obryn[/MENTION]. I find that is works very well. I kind of minionize the swarms attacks. They don't get anything fancy that is not core to their being.

One addition that I use is the addition of heroes to units. Guys that are not as tough as the PCs, but are significant in their own right. I basically have a hero add an encounter or recharge ability to the unit he joins. So if the cleric joins a unit, the unit now has regen 5 and can cast Healing Word on one hero within 5 squares on recharge 5.

I dislike PCs being able to engage in mass combat without taking regular attrition damage. So to quicken the process, I often swap the "aura 1 can do an MBA on anybody that ends their turn there" to "aura 1, take 5/10/15 untyped damage if you end your turn there".

I'm quiet pleased with the information so far, I'll be keen to see how it plays out in future. It will lead to some odd situations of course, but if we see that, then we can pre-plan the adventure to avoid them a bit. Like don't have huge creatures that are not that threatening. Have allies in multiples of 10 etc.

 

[Bluenose]

I really think that they actually started from numbers of units, and then figured out a reasonably occupied space.

Because when setting up a battle, you obviously start from the question "how many pikemen make up this group?", and 10 is a common unit of measurement (who would design an army by multiples of 16?). You don't start from how much space is occupied, that is an afterthought.

I'm not actually sure whether you're being sarcastic here? 16 has significant advantages over 10 simply in terms of the formations you can make, since it's a 4x4 square as well as several other regular shapes. Admittedly four ranks is deep for a medieval infantry or cavalry formation, but it's not unheard of. And if you include the ancient world, 16 ranks is the normal depth for a pike formation, and most regular armies operate in various multiples of four - four ranks was normal for a Roman legionary maniple, eight for Greek hoplites, legionary cohorts and Assyrian kisir sharuti, sixteen for Macedonian pikemen and Byzantine skutatoi. Multiples of 16 or 8 are far more common in Western military manuals than ones of ten.

 

[Li Shenron]

I'm not actually sure whether you're being sarcastic here? 16 has significant advantages over 10 simply in terms of the formations you can make, since it's a 4x4 square as well as several other regular shapes. Admittedly four ranks is deep for a medieval infantry or cavalry formation, but it's not unheard of. And if you include the ancient world, 16 ranks is the normal depth for a pike formation, and most regular armies operate in various multiples of four - four ranks was normal for a Roman legionary maniple, eight for Greek hoplites, legionary cohorts and Assyrian kisir sharuti, sixteen for Macedonian pikemen and Byzantine skutatoi. Multiples of 16 or 8 are far more common in Western military manuals than ones of ten.

I am not sarcastic at all.

I am thinking from the point of view of a DM who is setting up a battle scene in a game of D&D, and who has obviously a much easier time to count by 10 instead of counting by 16.

You are thinking from the point of view of a physically or historically realistic model (i.e someone setting up an army for a REAL battle). I don't think the Battlesystem is designed for that purpose.