D&D Mass Combat rules question...

[Storyteller01]

The quint. fighter Mass combat rules essentially turn your unit into a player character (damage is dummied down to the average each member can dole out, a units 'hp' are equivalent to the total HD in the unit, etc) with some rules nerfing for engagement, ranges, etc.. Player characters are treated separately for drama, but it's in their advantage tactically. However many critters the player kills (and lets face it, they'll be doing quite a bit) is that many less unit hp for an allied unit to deal with.

Different size units also gain bonuses or negatives based on their size (relative to the opposing unit). Them Cleaving fighters and fireballing spellcasters get real important REALLY fast...

 

[Pinotage]

Grim Tales: Mass Combat would be my recommendation. Other than that, perhaps Fields of Blood, Empire or Cry Havoc.

Pinotage

 

[Li Shenron]

Heroes of Battle does not rely on the Minitures Handbook at all. The system in the Heroes of Battle is not a mass combat system, however it does allow PCs to interact with the battlefield.

Can you explain more about how HoB does that? It's a few weeks the book has been out, but I haven't found out yet if it achieves what it says, if it introduces new rules for that or just flavor text of suggestions or something else...

 

[Nightfall]

Pintoge,

Grim Tales has Mass combat rules?! Wow.

 

[frankthedm]

The way character / monster power climbs drasticly upward makes any mass combat unweildy in D20. The side with the bigger guns tends to win.

The Mob Template changes that dynamic a good deal, but it feels kinda weird in the D20 ruleset.

 

[Wikid Klown]

Swarms. Both meelee and ranged swarms. Make each swarm a unit or platoon or something of the sort (or just two swarms, one meelee and one ranged, but they'd be stupidly huge). It's pretty easily manipulated as swarms, since larger ones can break down into smaller ones, meaning you can use planning to shape the swarms instead of an unorganised mass. I've only done mass combat on a large scale once, and this is how I handled it. It went surprisingly well since swarms can move outside of the regular square or rectangle.

 

[IronWolf]

Can you explain more about how HoB does that? It's a few weeks the book has been out, but I haven't found out yet if it achieves what it says, if it introduces new rules for that or just flavor text of suggestions or something else...

HoB focuses more on acheiving strategic goals while the battle as a whole rages on. If you acheive these goals you get victory points which can help turn the tide of the battle one way or the other. The strategic goals could be knocking a pair of hill giants from their perch, disrupting the supply line of the enemy, rescuing prisoners, making an attack on the enemy leaders camp and more. All of this occurs while the battle rages on all around you. Success or failure can help turn the tide of the battle.

My perspective is from one that likes what HoB is trying to accomplish.

 

[nothing to see here]

Are there any mass combat rules on could use w/ D&D? What I am interested in is playing individual PCs during a war with hundreds or thousands of soldiers running around. The problem is, I don't want to roll 1000 d20's to see if everyone hits. The other problem is, I don't want the PCs to die so quickly if an "army" of enemies decides to attack them. Perhaps this is covered in DMG2 (which I do not own)?

There are two different ways one could interpret your question:

Based on the title of the thread, it sounds like you are looking for a simple mechanical system to simulate the effects of mass combat around your PC's. As already mentioned in the responses there are a good half dozen different systems published (all of them 3rd party) that simulate mass combat to different levels of completeness and detail.

In the end, these systems are so different that determining their quality is even more a matter of taste than 'standard' d20 rules variations. For what it's worth -- I'm a big fan of Eden Studio's "Fields of Blood" as well as Bad Axe's Grim Tales system (found in their Slavelords of Cydonia adventure, or on their own at rpgnow.com). Two very different -- yet very good systems.

Based on the text of your post however -- you're more interested in mass combat as a backdrop for your PC's. WOTC's 'Heroes of Battle' ostensibly focusses on just that (I can't say first hand as Wizards books have diverged from my taste in gaming material as of late). Annother little gem is a subsystem found in Green Ronin's Advanced Gamemasters Guide, where you run a string of three seperate combat encounters (with the difficulty based on army strength) -- the outcomes of which affect the outcome of the battle. I'm quite partial to it.

 

[diaglo]

Chainmail by Gygax & Perren

 

[Pinotage]

Pintoge,

Grim Tales has Mass combat rules?! Wow.

Link below in handy pdf form:

Grim Tales: Mass Combat

Pinotage