Battlefield Scenarios

[mmadsen]

A staple of fantasy literature is the big battle that our heroes get swept up in. Obviously, playing out the whole battle as a D&D combat isn't always practical, but you can play out important bits. What are some good scenarios for a handful of PCs in the midst of a greater conflict?

Some ideas:

• Our champions (the PCs) get called out by their champions. Perfect for Greek Myth (e.g. Iliad), Samurai Japan, or Arthurian England. Winning means taking out a powerful enemy unit and boosting your side's morale.
• Scout out the enemy position. In D&D, you may need a reason why pure scrying doesn't work, and you need to send men.
• Set an ambush.
• Lead the charge.
• Storm the walls.
• Deliver a vital message.

Any other suggestions? Any thoughts on how these mini-scenarios should affect the greater conflict?

 

[Umbran]

[*]Scout out the enemy position. In D&D, you may need a reason why pure scrying doesn't work, and you need to send men.

I can give you two possibilities why straight scrying might not work:

1)You don't actually know the subject, and lack a connection to them. Darned hard to scry without that information.

2)The intended target has a high Intelligence, possibly has the Scry skill, and you don't want the target to know he's being viewed.

 

[Leopold]

how bout just bloody conflict, the pc's are down 1/4 of their HP's if they are leading the charge and see the general hacking and slashing through the ranks and just charge up to duke it out with them. Have randomly rolled dice that say "Oh one of his guys attacks you, one of your guys attacks him, etc."

the feel of a braveheart style battle...

 

[Maerdwyn]

1) Destroy the siege weapons
2) Take out a bridge to cut off the arrival of reinforcements
3) Neutralize the spel casters
4) Kill, or better yet, charm/dominate the enemy leader(s)
5) Protect the civilians/keep an important personage alive at all costs
6) for mid level characters: have them lead one small unit and award xp based on what percentage of the unit survives the battle.

 

[mmadsen]

An enemy elephant/giant/golem unit is rampaging through your ranks. Blunt its attack, and rally the troops!

 

[mmadsen]

How would you integrate these small skirmishes into the larger battle? For instance, if you have the PCs lead the charge, there may only be a few dozen troops in their immediate vicinity, but beyond them, and to either side, there should be thousands more.

As they mop up troops, cavalry or nearby elite infantry should try to plug the gap. Or as they're losing, the enemy should pour more troops into the weak point, hoping to break through and force a rout.

Any suggestions on implementing that?

 

[TiQuinn]

There's a lot going on on the battlefield besides just the troops fighting.

Suppose the enemy's army has a small group of crack archers and fighter/rogues trying to flank the other army and assassinate one of the generals.

Maybe you need to scout out an area, and find out that your army is going to march into a trap. Now you need to make it back to your camp with that information.

Play out the battle scene in one particular location of a larger battle, along with a big opponent to liven it up. For example: The party, along with 5 or 8 other warriors against a group of orcs who have a troll tagging alongside of them.

 

[TiQuinn]

How would you integrate these small skirmishes into the larger battle? For instance, if you have the PCs lead the charge, there may only be a few dozen troops in their immediate vicinity, but beyond them, and to either side, there should be thousands more.

As they mop up troops, cavalry or nearby elite infantry should try to plug the gap. Or as their losing, the enemy should pour more troops into the weak point, hoping to break through and force a rout.

Any suggestions on implementing that?

This is all just a spur of the moment idea, and I've never tried ANY of this, but now that I think about it, it sounds kind of cool.

Lay out the battle field on paper, and put a grid over it, numbering the squares.

Have an encounter for each grid. The players start in one grid, and as that encounter is finished, you can describe what's going on around them. That'll give them the opportunity to react or decide where to move on the field.

Likewise, you can roughly determine how certain encounters are going to go. Perhaps the enemy is going to overwhelm the party's allies in the next grid, and now are going to turn towards the party, or the generals see that one encounter is doing poorly and will pour more troops to that area of the field.

You easily make the encounters that don't involve the PCs as simple as a single die roll to determine who's winning. As the PC's and their army win certain squares, it represents the ground they are gaining on the field.

Thoughts?

 

[DrSkull]

Set up the game table with several important targets (commanders, battle-standards, wizards, priests etc) and their guards.

Spread around clumps of average-joe bad guys too

Assign each target a point value, and each average Joe a point value.

Give a likely hood percentage that any one group of bad guys will decided to attack the PC's if they get within a certain range.

Set a time limit in number of rounds

If the players wrack up enough points in that time limit, they've managed to sway the battle so that their side holds the field and gains a victory.

 

[Tonguez]

In the three 'Battlefield' setings I've done I the Scenarios were

1. Get the civilians to safety - PCs need to locate the refugees (from the attack on the village) hiding in the jungle and get them to the Fortress before the Enemy and their monsters (velociraptors imc) find them (and eat them)

2. Steal the Enemy god (Major Artifact giving +5 Morale Bonus to their attacks) - PCs need to sneak into the enmy camp and steal/destroy the artifact

3. Release the Prisoners - Enemy has capture a VIP, the PCs go in and rescue him (imc the VIP was an old man and now crippled. He asked the PCs to kill him instead - very tragic)

4. Defend the Pass - PCs and a band of 100 warriors sent to fortify and defend the Mountain Pass

5. Call out the Champions (as described above)

6. Peace Negotiations - (Non-combat) PCs are members of the delegation meeting with the enemy forces to make call a truce


Battlefield Mechanic

For the background battle I use a daily or weekly opposed check on D20 with modifiers for the level of the Leader (eg a 7th level Officer gives a +7 bonus to the military check) Adding Strategic modifiers based on the success of PC missions eg for 'Stealing the god' the Enemy force suffered a - 5 penalty and the PC side got a +5 for the next 'turn'

Highest roll wins. Damage = difference between the two rolls x10 HP = Unit size x unit Level

eg a Unit of 1000 lv 2 warriors (hp2000) with a level 7 leader meets an Unit of 2000 lv 1 warriors (hp2000) with a level 5 leader

Force 1 has +7 to Attack and Force 2 has +5

For PCs as Officers the rules are slightly different and I have them each lead a seperate unit (Force)