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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kagayaku" data-source="post: 7158462" data-attributes="member: 6876021">Well I really appreciate it, thank you! And if I get any excuse to have a defeated PC held at knife-point and their lineage demanded l'll use it for sure now. It could even help keep a PC alive. :'DThe rain of arrows scenario is the bit I think I'm still not sure on. For the most part I will do as you suggested with the battle zones, but sometimes the numbers will be small enough that it makes sense to play it out on the grid and let players flank and cover each other and so on with a clear cause and effect. The mob rules cover many attacks against 1 target but not many against many (or 1 against many). It seems fair that if you just want to hit anyone in the big first wave of charging, lightly armoured goblins it would be much easier than hitting a specific target. I'll probably just give the players Advantage for such rolls. Maybe for the many vs many thing I'll just treat it as many vs 1 with mob rules, but with -5 AC to emulate advantage on the attack. ... Or maybe I'm overthinking things now and should just see what pans out the day. x'DI see what you were saying with the dice now. I think I can get away with just implying they're bad and the players will probably take it from there in their own little spiral of doomsaying, but hastur_nz has convinced me I should at least drop solid hints about the incoming allies, so maybe I'll be a little more obvious on both. I'll be sure to make a show each time I turn the dice down though. Dread incidentally was my first GM experience, just before I got to play D&D. It was for just one person and it was super fun and intense. At some point I'll run a bigger one with more people too. xDHaha, thanks hastur_nz - it sure does feel like a lot to chew!You've made me re-think my strategy on the count down dice a little. I think I will still be a little vague on the dice, but before the start of the battle one of the scouts will return and a PC can overhear the good news that reinforcements are coming. I'll keep the princess's brother coming as a surprise though, I think the player will be pretty thrilled when they show up and it is their actions that made it happen.It sounds like you had a really fun game with that scenario, and the comparison between levels is very interesting.I'm still trying to think of good ideas to give the players slightly more control, as they don't hold any particularly grand influence in the town. I'll be looking for any opportunity to give them interesting and important decisions to make (and we managed to get them all on the war council in a more or less narratively sound manner), but they aren't commanders. Having said that, being generally more charismatic and tough looking than most of the terrified townsfolk they should be able to gain control of local scale groups fairly easily, or bolster morales etc., and influence the battle by achieving key objectives that way. Quickleaf has suggested I ensure there are enough ways the players will get intel, which I will incorporate, so the players know how the battle is going and can make larger decisions based on that as well.I am quite worried they'll all get killed, and the players know it so hopefully will be careful. Reflecting on what you've said a little though I think I have to be really careful in my description of surroundings and events. If a PC dies knowing the risks they've taken I think they'll consider it a fun and memorable death, but if they die because I wasn't clear about the nature of the threat then they'll probably be quite upset. I'll remind the players about the sheer enormity of the enemy at the start of the game and then via NPCs as well.If I can be cheeky enough to ask another question, if you were pre-planning this then how much detail would you put in? Like anyone, I only have limited time to put into this so I don't want to over plan but I want to make sure I have everything I need. Would you know the time, location and objective of every part of each time or just have a general feel for where it is going, or somewhere in between? Currently the timeline I'm using is as I posted, but with numbers of losses on each side and where roughly dotted along it.Thanks a lot for your input, its given me a lot to think about. xDWow, that game sounds great! Clearly there are some very interesting characters in your game. x'D I hadn't really considered too heavily the actions of non-combatants and their impact on the battle. I will now though. I think there is a possibility that one player will try and avoid the combat now that you've gotten me thinking about it. I'll have to make sure there's plenty of interesting things going on inside the town as well!You've given me some good inspiration there, thank you Draegn!Thanks Eltab!I do have a rough enemy plan already, I think I posted it up here in one of the earlier messages. Or do you think it needs significantly more detail? (I have a little more detail that I didn't type up here as it is too long). I like the idea of runners being potential key targets now that you've mentioned them, I hadn't really thought about them before but intercepting messages or just cutting off communications could have a pretty big impact. Of course, they'll be at the back. xDI've had a look at the minions rules but even individual foes are tough battles for the PCs at the moment so I'm not sure they really work for me. (Unless the PCs choose high XP activities for next session and reach level 3 before the battle, in which case goblins can be minions). Quickly estimating the numbers, I think in the vast majority of cases one PC will take a goblin down in either 1 or 2 hits, or an orc down in 2 to 5 hits, usually 3. The guard NPCs are about as good as the PCs but the townsfolk need 2 or 3 hits to kill a goblin and are themselves minions. I'm thinking of going half way and using loom band wound markers where appropriate. If there's not enough damage to kill (or at least nearly kill) a creature I'll give it 1 or 2 wound markers based on a quarter-of-a-second estimate of what percentage of its health was lost and how many wounds it can take, weak things like goblins die on wound 2, a hard as nails orc dies on 5 and will be extremely intimidating to the players and reinforce the idea that they're going to need to be clever to make a difference and... Oh man, this is way too high level for the PCs, what have I done?! >.< ...erm... sorry. I'm having doubts but I still think it'll work, it'll just feel like a terrifying struggle for survival, which is good. I don't think loom bands will slow things down as the numbers are so easy to work with and most of the time it wont be needed as the PCs will be leading groups to deal (hopefully xD) massive damage. It might even run faster than running regular battles if I can get it right. Do you think it can work? I don't want to trivialise the threat of a goblin so early when actually, they still pose significant risk to the PCs when not part of an army. Thanks for all your help everyone! I think I've done a slightly crazy thing in letting the PCs get into this situation so early, and I'll learn from that, but one way or the other this should be an extremely memorable session! All your guidance is really helping me out, I think we'll all have a much better game for it. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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