Are military armies valid in 4e?

[Amphimir Míriel]

A battle in 4e is probably best treated as a mix of combat and roleplaying and/or skill challlenges. Normal combat for those times when the PCs are in the thick of the fight, face-to-face with enemies. Roleplaying or skill challenges for things like strategic insights, tactical advantage, rallying your own side's forces and demoralising the enemy.

As Korgoth says, you wouldn't want it to be one long combat lasting dozens of rounds, that doesn't work. Instead there should be multiple combats of typical length with short rests in between. I understand that this is actually quite realistic for fighting in plate armour. The wearer would get overheated after a few minutes and have to retire.

Another thought -- during the combat encounters, treat parts of the battlefield as a hazard, with arrows or magical blasts randomly coming in from afar (akin to artillery in a WWII movie -- have the "shells" falling between the PCs and some kind of objective).

Patches of trampled mud-and-blood can form patches of difficult terrain, and you can have wrecked defensive works (hedgehogs, berms, ditches, & the like) as complications, too. Maybe toss in an abandoned or half-wrecked siege engine that creative players (or villains!) can exploit.

(Of course, that's more "how to run a mass battle with 4e" then "are armies valid".)

Completely agree with you guys. Maybe tomorrow I'll post a revised version of the "skill challenge / combat encounter mix" in post # 19... right now, I'm really tired and need to hit bed...

In the meantime, do you guys want to give it a try and post something similar? Maybe we can get a good consensus of how to run an epic-scope battle using 4E rules...

 

[Dausuul]

IME it's around 11th-12th in 3e, which is the start of 'high' level. In 1e it was around 8th. They don't wipe out large (20,000+) armies in a single battle, but they can easily destroy the more common smaller forces of 2-3,000. For instance a fireball is 40' diameter, it'll take out at least 20 close-order infantry. Range is 400'+40'/level in 3e. A wand holds 50, 50 x 20 = 1000. The army will rout well before that, of course.

And the troops would be in close order... why, exactly? If armies face this sort of threat on a regular basis, they'd be trained to spread out. At that point you'll be killing maybe 4 or 5 per fireball.

Archery doesn't work because the Wizard can fly high over the battlefield; at higher levels (7th+) he'll have Improved Invis, and he'll certainly have Prot fr Arrows.

There are problems with these tactics, but the real kicker is this. All it takes is a single enemy wizard you didn't know was there, with see invisibility active and dispel magic prepared... and suddenly your protective spells are stripped away and you're plummeting right into the middle of a hostile army, through a storm of arrows from 500 archers with readied actions. 20d6 falling damage plus 25d8 arrow damage (assuming they hit on a 20) averages 182 points of damage before you have a chance to re-cast any of your buffs. Very few wizards can survive that kind of punishment.

How many high-level wizards are willing to take that risk? How many armies are willing to risk their high-level wizards that way? Especially when you consider there are far better ways to use them.

 

[billd91]

And the troops would be in close order... why, exactly? If armies face this sort of threat on a regular basis, they'd be trained to spread out. At that point you'll be killing maybe 4 or 5 per fireball.

There will be cause for it. Packed up with pikes is the best way to really handle a cavalry charge, for instance. It's also the best way to keep up morale. Packed in with your comrades, the soldier will feel less individually vulnerable... until shown otherwise.

Just because there are occasional blasters on the field, that doesn't mean that you can ignore all of the more conventional aspects of battle. Exactly how plentiful (and how cheap) the fantastic resources should have a big impact on the development of military tactics and technology. If they're rare, conventional military is still strongly in place. If they're ubiquitous, all bets are off.

 

[Umbran]

And the troops would be in close order... why, exactly? If armies face this sort of threat on a regular basis, they'd be trained to spread out. At that point you'll be killing maybe 4 or 5 per fireball.

At which point they will be totally decimated by basic cavalry.

You see, that's the thing - if you adopt a formation that protects you from one mode of attack, it probably leaves you open to others.

 

[Henry]

The 4E ruleset is not very well suited to do hard, simulationist battles of large armies.

However, it is well suited to do a narrativist, movie-like scene of war. I would run a battle this way:
(SNIP)

I just wanted to note that this is a beautiful suggestion and "how-to." Awesome idea, and should I run another "mass battle" scene as I did for my Eberron game a few years back, I'll definitely keep these suggestions in mind.

 

[Dausuul]

There will be cause for it. Packed up with pikes is the best way to really handle a cavalry charge, for instance.

At which point they will be totally decimated by basic cavalry.

Whoa, where did the cavalry come from? We were talking about a high-level wizard singlehandedly annihilating an army. If he's got an army of his own, then of course he'll win.

No one is disputing that a wizard using intelligent tactics can be a devastating force on the battlefield, but a wizard all on his lonesome is not going to burn down thousands of soldiers in a single day.

 

[Umbran]

Whoa, where did the cavalry come from?

From this question: Would any commander worthy of the name ever assume the wizard was on his own? The commander would allow his forces to be spread so thinly that he cannot communicate with them and allow them to be cut apart by cavalry?

Probably not.

The defense suggested is only useful in a very specific circumstance - there is only one wizard, and the army knows there's only one wizard. That in no way settles the question in general.

 

[S'mon]

And the troops would be in close order... why, exactly? If armies face this sort of threat on a regular basis, they'd be trained to spread out. At that point you'll be killing maybe 4 or 5 per fireball.

Well, if they're travelling anywhere they'll be on a road _ *boom*. Or they're drawn up facing an army allied with the wizard *boom*. It only takes a small army in close order to beat a large army that's had to disperse. Likewise besieging a town, castle, or most other military tasks (guerilla tactics are still efffective though)

It is however true that if all you are trying to do is survive, the Wiz will have trouble killing you. The issue is more that 200 troops + Wizard beats 2,000 troops with no Wizard. In fact I've run an awful lot of battles just like that - PCs plus a small regular force outnumbered 10:1 by the Orc Horde; PCs fly over the orcs and zap them, regulars mop up.

 

[S'mon]

There are problems with these tactics, but the real kicker is this. All it takes is a single enemy wizard you didn't know was there, with see invisibility active and dispel magic prepared... and suddenly your protective spells are stripped away and you're plummeting right into the middle of a hostile army, through a storm of arrows from 500 archers with readied actions.

In 3e that only works if the enemy Wizard has at least similar levels, so he has a similar range to his spells and similar chance of success. In which case it's just Wiz vs Wiz.

Note that I'm talking about 3e and to a lesser extent 1e-2e, esp 1e with Unearthed Arcana and 2e (Stoneskin). B/X M-Us were more limited and a 10th level M-U could be threatened by an M-U 5.

 

[S'mon]

No one is disputing that a wizard using intelligent tactics can be a devastating force on the battlefield, but a wizard all on his lonesome is not going to burn down thousands of soldiers in a single day.

Well, he could if they were trying to hold a position, or move anywhere in the open. If all they're doing is trying to evade him, he won't get many. But then they're no threat anyway.