Odhanan
Adventurer
Shortman McLeod said:Realistically, though, how can minis NOT be required, given the logistics of a huge combat scenario?
Consider this: a party of five adventurers (one of them--ugh--a "Warlord") encounters 20 goblins. Some of the goblins have cover behind trees, some are hiding up IN the trees, and some are using ranged weapons, while others are using area of effect spells.
The party of adventurers spreads out; the wizard plans to use ranged spells, the ranger plans to shoot a few arrows, etc.
How on earth do you NOT use minis to represent this combat? Unless you want to just completely ignore all the distance, terrain, cover, and environmental details that make it interesting and just say something like this:
DM: "Okay, ranger, you can attack. Go ahead."
Ranger: "I attack, uh, goblin #4."
DM: "Roll."
Ranger: "Wait, how far away is the goblin?"
DM: "Doesn't matter. We aren't using minis. This is a role-playing game, dammit! Just attack."
Ranger: "(Sigh). I roll."
Instead of saying "it doesn't matter", the DM could just say "a few step ahead", or "20 feet. You can reach it and make a single attack," or anything more precise. The same way, one doesn't require miniatures for huge battles. All you really need is a blank sheet of paper, a pencil and eraser (or a white board and dry erase pens), draw a couple squares or blobs for rooms and hills, crosses/numbers for goblins and circled initials for PCs, and move stuff around as the combat ensues.
I mean... how complicated is this? I did it for 15 years before using miniatures at my game table. I don't use them because I would "need" them. I use them because I like them in my D&D.