Advice on conducting large scale combats /war?

[fr00kie]

Any advice or experience from anyone that has conducted or looked into creating large scale / war scenario types of battles would be appreciated.

I have a huge war scenario that I do not intend my players to complete alone, but I would like the battle to be a large playable part of the campaign.

Any recommendations on a simple yet effective system I can use to keep the focus on the PCs within the massive chaos of war?


this is all in reference to DND 3.5 rules.

thanks in advance

 

[Crothian]

What role do you expect the player to play? Are they the advance scouts, or the generals? Are they going to be part of the whole war or just specific parts of it?

 

[fr00kie]

The players will be involved in parts of the war.

similar to a guerilla / special strike force.

I have a group of 7 players so their size is significant enough to have an impact on key points

ex: take out the giant trying to siege the castle from the left.
ex: a small band (4 or 5) of arcane casters riding strange mounts could cause damage to a major fortified area. Therefore, the players take them out.

they are near the entire battleground of war though (think falkirk size in Braveheart).

just ideas on how I can have some sort of random system if the players fall back. Do they possibly run into allied clerics with the heal spell? every other round do I roll a random chance that a misc. hobgoblin enters their threatened area?

things like that.
thanks again

 

[Darrin Drader]

Right now your choice for a rules system is Cry Havoc form Malhavoc. I believe this one still hasn't gone to print, so you'll have to buy the PDF if you need it right away.

In addition to that, I designed a very rules light and simple mass combat system that will appear in Oathbound Arena, which is released next month.

I think there are a couple more books coming down the pike from various publishers, but they're a little ways off still.