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Message: <blockquote data-quote="QuaziquestGM" data-source="post: 4117851" data-attributes="member: 22559">I've run major battles on several occasions for a "all comers welcome" 3.x game run for my university Sci-Fi club.My methods vary depending on room set up (subject to what is available at the university) In all cases, for mass combat I use a D100 initiative roll:  (initiative mod x 5)+ 1d100...This provides 200 or so initiative slots so not everybody is bunched at 17 and 5, and if somehow 2 pcs or groups get the same score you can bump them a bit without people getting too whiny.If I have a good table, then I use either a battle mat and/or hero scape tiles. I just count the heroscape tiles as 5 ft hexes.  when using stacking 3d terrain I count verticals as if they were horizontal movement.  Intersections between squares and grids I just sorta fake.  Sometimes I'll use shoe boxes to build castles and such, but that really depends on how good the set up for the module is. Monkey God Games' Blood Plateau series i can recommend that comes with good battle setups.   When using table top minis, like most people, i don't have 40 orcs, much less 40 hill giants.  I use a mix of mageknight, heroclicks, dnd minis, zombies, and toys from various places. I use this to my advantage by dividing the unit initiative counts by the type of critter used to represent the orks.  so i have zombi orcs, little green army men orcs, ork orks, stormtrooper orks.....and at the point of setting up the minis the module gets "spiced up a bit" as somehow i have to use mounted minies...so i make up new badguys to fit the larger figures. Often my wolf and dog minis are used as "battle hounds" and replace some of the orks.  Of course sometimes you have too many of one module type to use as convenient sized units, so i'll have one unit of kobold orks near the front, and one near the back. If in the chaos they get mixed up, then they go with what ever group of kobolds they are with, or if the units end up combined i just use the higher initiative and abandon the lower one.  For all units, the guy "nearest the door" goes first, though sometimes, the most wounded guy goes first. Sometimes as units get decimated, I will replace the standing figures with ones similar to nearby comrades and thus consolidate units.If I don't have a good table, but have a chalk board, then I will sometimes use "Sector" initiatives.  I use this often when there are guards around a building, or if the battle goes around a lake or something.  I divide the "ring" around the building/lake/battlement into convenient areas, and all of the badguys of the same type have an initiative count within that sector. What ever sector they are in at the beginning of the round, is the sector they move with.  Badguy initiative goes around the circle starting at the point on the loop that first noticed the pcs, descending in units of 5-20 counts depending on the number of sectors.  pcs and unique npc follow standard initiative rules, and the base initiative for the first sector is determined by roll vrs pcs at the start of combat.If I have a magnetic white board, then the ABC magnets come out. I use larger magnets for larger bad guys, have a 24 inch metal ruler, and abandon the grid in favor of movement and reach determined by the ruler.  this results in circles instead of squares, actual cones, as many mooks in reach as can actually fit, and much more of a "hectic raging melee, furball knifefight with swords, bazookas, grenades and flamethrowers" feeling when I start asking the mages "where do you want to center that fireball, choose in 5,4,3,2,...and then draw out the blast radius with the ruler....I get 2 sets of what ever magnets I'm using. One set represents location, the other is placed on the initiative line with the critters name and current damage written next to it so I'll know what magnet is which hill giant going when. smaller magnets form magnetic travel games are used for generic mooks.  I ran G1:Hill Giants this way with 11 pcs.In one instance, I ran what was supposed to be an infiltration and room by room elimination in a multi story fortress on a ravine.  I knew better.  I had 14 pcs ranging in playing experience from 3 months to 1st ed veterans, ranging in age from 15 to 40, 4 of whom had flying pcs, and an SNA spam happy druid. 4 battle mats for the main floors, and 3 sections of the approach, towers, and roof tops on the blackboard.  something like 100 gnolls, (UK:2 The Gauntlet).  We were in initiative for nearly 2 hours of in game time, and played for 8 hours. Buff spells wore off and summoned creatures timed out.  I had pcs on all 7 blueprint areas, at once; a group on the lower floor fighting while a group in a mid level was sneaking, while a group in a tower was looting, gnolls shooting down out of windows at the guys in the courtyard and in the air, while another group was in a spiral stair case....and of course large sections of fighting that amounted to 20 gnolls in 1 room, 8 pcs in another, all bottlenecked in a doorway.As for your upcoming game....Save yourself a headache and have the dyad follow the standard druid/fey playbook and cast entangle on round one at extreme range.  The more powerful/interesting badguys will save or power though it and engage the pcs.   As they start to falter have the weaker bad guys "hack their way out" and charge in in dramatically appropriate numbers and moments.  It will still feel like a big fight, but you will have more control over badguy flow.</blockquote>

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