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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mustrum_Ridcully" data-source="post: 4928551" data-attributes="member: 710">Well, 4E might not intended to be used as very simulationistic, but it isn't impossible to use so. More importantly, you can still model any type of combat, the question is how to do it. And how you model something might depend on relative levels and similar aspects.The most important change to previous edition is that the power levels are closer to each other. A large number of low level monsters actually have a fair chance of beating a considerably high level PC or monster. It wouldn't necessarily be a fun or interesting fight if you'd played it through, but that's not relevant to determine if "army combat" is possible. The rules do not explicitely require or suggest that you should do so, but a common idea is that "normal monsters" might be better described as Minions against PCs of Level levels notably higher than that of the original monster. And if you go even further, you could try using the Swarm rules.Under this approach, there is actually a fair chance for a large group of peasants to bring down an epic level hero - even if lots (most) of them end up dead or incapicitated. They start as level 1 Minion. If you put 20 of them together, you might have a Level 5 "Swarm" or "Mob". If you put 5 of those together, you might get a level 10 Swarm. And so on, until you have effective 12,000 or so peasants modeled as a single Level 25 Gargantuan Swarm, probably a suitable challenge for a single 21st level epic hero.Of course, that's pretty much the "worst" case, basically 12,000 Kobold peasants. Human Rabble starts at level 4, IIRC, and we'd end with a Level 29 Mob or "only" 2,400 peasants at level 24.I based my guidelines on the vague idea that "XP" value is kinda the "absolute" combat value of a monster. If my memories are correct, XP values increase by a factor of 5 every 5 levels or so. Another aspect is "combat magic". It is pretty much all blown out in 5 minutes. If you can't decimate an army in that time, your magic is essentially spent. You can cause serious damage, but after that, you are down to at-will powers. These powers will be certainly useful, as they contain area effects - but remember, the ranges of these powers are very low - 50 feet for scorching burst. At this range, the enemy soldiers can charge and even circle the enemy spellcaster. Archers actually have a higher range (100 to 200 ft), and can harrass the spellcaster. Additional troop support guarding the spellcaster is probably strongly advisable, especially since, after 5 minutes, he can't hope to just fly away or teleport to a safe place. He's stuck on the battlefield until he can find a few minutes to perform a ritual or a short rest.A Wizard or any other character mounted on a flying mount sure will fare a little better, but even he is not safe from enemy archery, since his spells range is limited. And of course, the mounted archer is not safe from archers, either. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />Of course, spellcasters or anyone with access to area effects are still a powerful force on a battlefield of low level, low hit point creatures. But "this time", these creatures get a fair chance to fight back.</blockquote>

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