Abstract Mass Combat in D&D/D20

[Garnfellow]

The most abstract system, and a very brief one, that I know of is Grim Tale's Mass Combat, cheap and makes a lot of sense but fairly course grained and you need to wrap your head around it.

I have had very, very good luck with the Grim Tales system. If big battles are an uncommon but important events in your campaign, and if you and/or your players do not want to commit to a whole new subsystem of rules, then GT is probably the way to go. To me, GT certainly comes the closest to emulating the feel of the old War Machine rules. And the price of the pdf is hard to beat, also.

The other mass combat systems out there -- OMCS, Cry Havoc, Fields of Blood -- are much closer to a Battlesystem sort of resolution.

 

[diaglo]

Chainmail by Gygax & Perrin 1971

 

[Yair]

To me, GT certainly comes the closest to emulating the feel of the old War Machine rules. And the price of the pdf is hard to beat, also.

The other mass combat systems out there -- OMCS, Cry Havoc, Fields of Blood -- are much closer to a Battlesystem sort of resolution.

Yes, yes, precisely.

 

[Melkor]

Do you need the full Grim Tales book to use the PDF Mass Combat System ?

 

[Garnfellow]

Do you need the full Grim Tales book to use the PDF Mass Combat System ?

Not at all -- it's completely stand-alone.

 

[AIM-54]

My group had a mass combat some time ago where we used the Cry Havoc system, which at one level is very abstract (ie you can determine outcomes with one die roll), but can be used to more definitively determine the outcome of a battle. However, it really kinda breaks down above the company-level. Our major issue was that with sufficiently large forces, that are not evenly matched, the d20 roll becomes irrelevant, except for automatic successes/failures. We improvised enough to resolve the battle, but I don't think any of us were satisfied.

I think it functions much more elegantly with opposing forces of 100-200 each, but I haven't had the opportunity to play it.

I've been intrigued by Fields of Blood, but have yet to be entirely sold on it, so I haven't purchased it.

 

[Cam Banks]

I am very glad to know that DL took this approach to handling the question of mass combat.

Thanks! I faced a fairly daunting challenge when I wrote that chapter because war is such a huge element of that campaign (it's the War of the Lance, after all) and I knew that even among the designers and gamers I spoke to, tastes in mass combat differed greatly.

My favorite mass combat system actually belongs to another game - King Arthur Pendragon, originally by Chaosium and soon to be re-released by Sword & Sorcery. It has a trickle down effect - the two army commanders roll off, and then the unit leaders do, with the success of the commander influencing their roll; and then the heroes themselves, locked in combat with namless hordes, do the same. This allows for your side to be doing very badly but you, personally, to do well, and vice versa. It's still very player-centric, but handles the larger picture of the battle raging around the heroes very well.

When I wrote Spectre of Sorrows, the second of the 3-part Age of Mortals campaign, I had at least two large battles written into the storyline as well. In each case I gave a quick and dirty set of abstract rules, but suggested that once again the DM and players settle on a means of making it work for the game using mass combat rules of their choice. And at the end of the day, even in that case it was really all about the PCs, not the armies they were in.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[Gundark]

Not at all -- it's completely stand-alone.

This isn't true. I bought the GT mass combat system PDF and it refered me to the GT book (calculating EL for example). I was rather irritated.

 

[Garnfellow]

This isn't true. I bought the GT mass combat system PDF and it refered me to the GT book (calculating EL for example). I was rather irritated.

Um, rules for calculating EL are in DMG.

 

[Gundark]

Um, rules for calculating EL are in DMG.

From the GT mass combat document : "A units Battle Rating is equal to it's EL. (as determined in Grim Tales, Chapter 14) " You would think that if they were talking about the same EL that's in the DMG they would reference the DMG rather than GT.