AEG: War

[Phoenix8008]

Here is the link for the Eden book- "Fields of Blood: The Book of War"

This is the one I have been waiting for myself. I was dissapointed when it was delayed, but held out hope. Then I was in my local gaming store last week and saw "War" by AEG. I picked it up and skimmed through it and only saw prestige classes, feats, and skills. I thought I had missed the tables and stuff for the mass combat system. Now I hear that I'm not the only one who missed it. Sure am glad I didn't buy it that day. I'll wait to see how Fields of Blood looks when it finally hits the shelves, but so far it sound like cruncy mass combat goodness to me!

 

[Dareoon Dalandrove]

Why wait for a mass combat system. There are dozens of table top wargames out there. Just pick one to resolve your battles. If you think about the scale of an average battle, you will realise that an individuals actions won't ammount to much.
I resolve the main battle this (abstract) way and I zoom in to see what the characters are doing. This way you can play the actual battle and continue role-playing at the ususal tactical level. Especially heroic or dramatic episodes might result in a morale modifier.
the main contribution a high level character will have in a battle will be on gathering information and responding accordingly.
Did you say magic? I don't think the D&D spells are that powerfull to be used in a battle. I also don't believe that the average D&D wizard will likely go near a battle field with his d4 hit die and aroows flying, cavalry charging, giants rampaging,...
D&D is great for skirmish style combat, use it that way and leave the grand tactical for another system.

(It isn't that simple of course, but that's why there has to be a DM )

Couple of points here.
1. Why would I wnat to go and have to learn a whole NEW game just to play or run a peice of a campaign. If the entire campaign was my character coming up in the ranks from regular soldier guy to general I might do that. For use in a Dnd campaing I want rules for running mass combat that's it.

2. Hve you ever heard of area of effect spells? What are you talking about a magic user would have no effect in a huge battle? Not ever person on the battle feild is a 10th lvl character. As for arrows and charging horses...the magic user would probebly be either levitating/flying as it would give him a good view of the field and would be beind the charging horses. Arrows are easily taket care of with protections from arrows spell(normal missles?). You really need to look through the spells section. A small force of fighter types and a magic user can defeat a large force of all fighter types.

Personally I want a mass combat system because it will come in handy and the rules don't have one. I think that it was over looked. How many books and movies depict the epic battle scene?

 

[Eben]

Dareoon,

1. This is a fair point you raise. I play wargames (Hordes of the Things, Warhammer, Might of Arms, DBA,...)Most people I game with do. So we tend to take it as a matter of fact that you can run a wargame within a Role Playing game. If you have no interest in playing these games aside from your RPG sessions, I can understand why you wouldn't agree with mee on this point.
But beware: a mass combat game based on the d20 rules will have to take a step away from them. As I stated before: d20 combat is skirmish level, mass combat is a whole ifferent thing, imho.

2. Yes I have. No, I did not say that.
Consider the average Greek Phalanx unit: 8 men deep and about 40 or 50 wide. That's 3-400 men! And this would be about the smallest tactical unit on the battlefield. An average battle would field 10,000+ troops on a side. That's a lot of fireballs if you ask me.
Did you ever read Feist? He has an interesting vieuw on why mages don't join the fray of battle: apart from the obvious dangers there is also the fact that the adversarie would use magic as well and eventually both mages would be trying to eliminate each other while the rest were having there battle. So it makes much more sense for wizards not to join the battle, but to use his powers in another capacity: stealth, reconnaissance,communications,...
I agree that in a heroic setting a small force of fighters and a powerfull wizard would be able to defeat a small army. But I don't see why you would need a mass combat system to accomplish this. Sounds like an exciting module to me.

Consider another option: narrate the battle and focus on the role of your PC within it. This way you can use the battle as a dramatic element in your campaign and you stay in control as DM. I heard some friends of mine did this when playing in the first Age of Middle-earth and they found themselves in the battle of unnumbered tears. Of course everybody knew how the battle would end, but they had a great time.

 

[Teflon Billy]

I'd like to echo a sentiment I noticed above.

Publishers: Enough with the Goddam prestige classes!

Filling your supplements with pages and pages of PrC's is a lazy, cheap way fo doing things.

Thank you for your time.

 

[Kaptain_Kantrip]

I liked WAR. It was a fun read, with plenty of useful info on the intricacies of running wars and seiges. The PrCs were very cool for the most part. I think it is AEG's best d20 sourcebook yet. My only complaints are the generally terrible grammar mistakes common throughout all their books (spell-check, please, though they are getting better slowly) and the fact that the mass battle rules are completely confusing and vague (i.e.: useless for me).

WAR is good! The Gamewyrd reviewer didn't even bother to read the book before writing his "review," which is full of inaccuracies, as WAR PrC contributor Mike Mearls pointed out in the d20 publishers forum thread on this book. Gamewyrd's biased, sloppily-researched and unprofessional review should not be used to form an opinion on this product by any means! Pick it up and look it over for yourself first!

 

[LcKedovan]

It's too bad, i had some high hopes for that book, i think maybe it's time to pull the ol' rules cyclopidia out and start converting.

Funny you mention that.... something I have been poring over the past little while.. my Old Companion book..

-Will

 

[Dareoon Dalandrove]

eben
The idea of focusing on the pc and running a mass battle with a predetermined result has been used in my campaign before. i don't like it. If your suppose to lose that's it your going to lose and nothing you can do will change that. I don't like that idea. If there are rules for running mass battle it gives the pc a chance. There may be times when that chance seems impossible but it's still there.

As for reading feist. I assume that you mean Raymond Feist. I have to disagree in a sense. I do agree that a magic users duty on a battle field would be to counter what the other magic users are throwing. However, they would still try to cause damage to your opponents ranks. magic on the battle field can be very dangerous. How are those Phalanx soldiers going to fair when they have been blocked off by a wall of fire and cut off from support? what about a prismatic spray? maybe dropping a wall of Iron on them? How are the going to attack you if they are slipping on ice or grease? magic can be a powerful weapon on the battle field.

 

[King_Stannis]

I'd like to echo a sentiment I noticed above.

Publishers: Enough with the Goddam prestige classes!

Filling your supplements with pages and pages of PrC's is a lazy, cheap way fo doing things.

Thank you for your time.

here here! i love how some of these D20 companies use it as a selling point, too. on the back of (pick your D20 company) sourcebook "X" - "in this book you will find over 13 different prestige classes......" yada yada yada.

enough with the feats, too. that's usually the next line under the one i stated above. "Also with over 20 new feats!"....Arrrrghhh!

3e is hard enought to keep from abusing as it is. why does every D20 company think they need to keep adding uber-feats to make my job as a DM harder! yes yes, "rule-0" it. but still, i like to keep a pretty lenient policy with my players when it comes to stuff like this. and so far, none of them have abused it. but you never know when one might choose a feat that at first seems okay and is then later discovered to be unbalancing.

 

[Henry]

I echo Dareoon's sentiments. It's sometimes fun to play out PC's involved in a skirmish, but if those PC's are instead leaders of the armies, then I want to see what effect THEIR actions have on the battle. It's not enough to "flip a coin and let the PC's fight"; they (and I) want to have a strategic way to determine the outcome of a battle by applying successful management and maneuvers to carry the day. They actually have a role in winning a battle, rather than making it a "war saving throw."

At the least, AEG's War allows there to be a marginof victory. But what I want to see is a resolution that evolves into "Stellar Victory," "Victory with small losses", "Pyrrhic Victory" "Retreat and Loss," "Rout", and finally "Absolute loss of army."

It needs to be modified by such things as caliber of troops, maneuvers performed by the commanders, and stupid luck rolls - those things that you can never predict about a battle, such as duststorms, inclement weather which drastically reduces both artillery and mounted cavalry.

 

[Eben]

OK, but what would you want from such a system? Would you want a set of table top wargame rules that are compatible with existing d20 mechanics and let you import your PC into the battle?
An important element would be to know how many men are in a certain unit and what formation they are in. That would be important to determine the effect of ranged and area spells.(Light troops would occupy a larger area per combattant than close order infantry, so area spells would be more disruptive for the latter.)
Time might also prove difficult: you can't stick to the six second (that's correct, isn't it?)rounds in a standard d20 combat. But if you increase the duration of a round (a battle can last several hours in real time), wizards would be able to hurl several spells in one battle round and an archer would be able to loose several volley's.
A typical wargame makes a certain abstration from absolute numbers and distances. That's not a problem: every game mechanic is an abstraction. The problem is: an RPG system is a fairly detailed abstraction, while a wargame tends to be more generalistic. e.g.: it's important that you know wich armour your PC is wearing, how many arrows he has left,... If your PC runs out af arrows, there are consequences in a RPG. If a few archers in a unit of a hundred run out of arrows, it won't have a big effect on the effectivenes of the unit.
It would be quite a challenge designing such a system and keeping it simple.
Also, a PC might take on quite a few different roles in such a situation: commanding, fighting, logistics, intelligence, ... These are all different levels of activity within the battle.
Phew...