D&D Wargaming-- Good vs Evil [Waiting List Recruitment]

[Tyreus]

While trying to create my army, I realized that the smaller I go the better. (aka fewer high lvls are better then lots of low lvls) So after I kept adjusting them to be smaller and smaller, I realized that I was defeating the whole purpose of the game. I think that the max should be lowered even more, (to maybe 4, with one or two able to be 6) or the cap should be highered. Another idea would be to divide us up into 2 groups of 4, with each of us making a "mini army." then four teamates combine to make a larger army. they then individually direct their forces against the opposition, who is likewise set up. my suggestions are only if we want this to be a large scale battle, I am still in if we stay how we have things.

 

[Fieari]

What if each unit you have must command a number of units equal to it's point value? So a CR10 unit must have 100 units beneath it. If you have a CR5 unit under there, that CR5 unit must command 25 units beneath it, but those 25 units also count towards the CR10 unit's total.

That would nessisitate larger armies while still allowing a small number of powerful units... exactly the sort of thing we're looking for.

This could be combined with the 1/4 rule to keep things reasonable. Otherwise you could have a level 22 druid ring off the bat, and fill up the rest of the army with 500 level 1 fighters... or have a higher level druid and even more kobolds. What would happen then is the little guys would be ignored, and the high level commander would be the only thing used, and if we wanted that, I'd just be running an epic level standard game, not a war. A CR15 unit supported by 225 other units sounds pretty fair to me.

 

[Tyreus]

Sounds good to me. Here's what I'll use:

1 CR 10
100 CR 3

I'll use Humans with levels.

EDIT: fixed some mistakes.

 

[Jemal]

I've planned on either

Barbarian hordes filled with lvl 3 barbarians and a couple higher lvl commanders (druids or high lvl barbarian/sorcerors)
OR
Magic Nation filled with about 20-25 lvl 6 sorcerors, filling the rest with either a higher lvl leader or some lower lvl meat shie.. er, Fighters.

I'll stat them both up and post them, then decide which one.

 

[Pyrex]

What if each unit you have must command a number of units equal to it's point value?

That doesn't work well if someone wants to build a smaller army where thier foot soldiers are >1CR (like, say demons).

And how do you define 'command'? My undead horde doesn't have a classic 'chain of command' because all the intelligent undead are high-cr. (the bulk of my army are mindless skeletons & zombies)

I vote to set a CR cap of 1/4 (15.8CR^2) and just leave it at that. (I like nameless' greek idea and think it's worth letting him persue for now)

If you're dead set on large armies of low CR creatures, just say x% of your CR has to go to low CR creatures.

 

[Tyreus]

Here's my army then:

Torgar, Human Barbarian 5/Frenzied Berserker 10

Seylena, Human Swashbuckler 3/Fighter 2/Dervish 10

TaRue, Human Wizard 5/Incantatrix 10

Regis, Human Rogue 5/Assasin 9/Shadow Dancer 1

Tyreus, Human Cleric 10

EDIT: Frenzied Berserker, Swashbuckler, and Dervish are from Complete Warrior.

 

[Pyrex]

Hmm, the classic adventuring party. That ought to be interesting...

Tyreus, did you know that the 'Improved Metamagic' ability of the Incantatrix was errattaed to apply once-per-spell instead of once-per-feat-per-spell?

 

[Fieari]

That doesn't work well if someone wants to build a smaller army where thier foot soldiers are >1CR (like, say demons).

And how do you define 'command'? My undead horde doesn't have a classic 'chain of command' because all the intelligent undead are high-cr. (the bulk of my army are mindless skeletons & zombies)

I vote to set a CR cap of 1/4 (15.8CR^2) and just leave it at that. (I like nameless' greek idea and think it's worth letting him persue for now)

If you're dead set on large armies of low CR creatures, just say x% of your CR has to go to low CR creatures.

Command needn't be taken literally... I just mean that you need a certain number of supporting units for every "high powered" unit.

I do see the problem that this creates though... and I think a good solution might be to allow a baseline CR that doesn't need other supporting units. And if this baseline is based on the total points you have, this can scale nicely as well, which is one of my design goals.

So, let's say that for 1000 points, base line units are CR5 and lower. CR5 units and below do not need supporting units. So in this case, the baseline unit is 2.5% of your total points or lower. To easily determine how many points you need to have a certain CR as a baseline, multiply the point value of your unit by 40.

So, in order to have CR6 units be the baseline, you'll need 1440 points. In order to have CR7 units be the baseline, you'll need 1960 points. For CR8 units, 2560. Etc, etc, etc.

Again, I'm not implementing this rule without player input. What say you?

 

[Pyrex]

All the 'support unit' concept does is effectively increase the CR cost of high CR units a little. It just degenerates to people taking huge clusters of CR 1/7 ravens and calling them 'support units'.

I think we can simplify the math and achieve the feel you're going for by setting a CR cap of 1/4, a baseline of 1/40, and stipulate that half your CR has to fall under the baseline.

 

[Fieari]

Okay. Let's try to break that, theoretically, for just a moment. A theory states that the smaller your army, the more powerful. Assuming that's completely accurate (it's not, entirely...), the optimal army by anything we describe would be half the army made up of CR5, followed by two CR15s, which is the smallest it can be made. That's a mere 22 unit army... more of a squad, really.

Under the system I described above, which granted, is considerably more complicated to work with...

A CR15 creature requires 225 support units and 225 points for itself. 225 CR1 = 225 points, meaning that you could then have another CR15 creature with another 225 CR1s. If you wanted the support units to be CR2, well... you couldn't. You'd have to mix it up, since 225*4=900, and you've already spent 225 points.

I think the optimal system as such would be to have larger numbers of slightly higher CR units... to average out your amry level a little more... which isn't to say that single powerful units wouldn't be useful, but it all depends on how you use it. Don't forget all that gold either... assasination gear could probably be contrived that makes single units VERY risky indeed. Insta-kill spells exist, remember... and Ressurection is not available.

On the other hand, having some players have armies with higher powered units, and then combining forces with teammates in coordinated strikes... well, that's strategy and tactics, the sort of thing the game is going to be about anyway.


But again... thoughts?