D&D 5E DnD 5e War Rules Help

[NightmareCuddler]

Yo everyone. I'm running a ongoing dnd 5e campaign. Basic premise is a war against a bunch of odd, unique dragons. My plan is for the party to eventually have control of their own, independent army made up form allies and factions they meet along the way. That way, they will eventually be in control of a vast, customization army. My two primary ideas are 1) Have the party be able to spec points into the army as a whole an alter it over time. Or 2) Have customization be at the faction level. Though I worry that might lead to a bit of bloat in mechanics and the campgain. I am wondering if anyone out there has thoughts, or can direct me to some resources (homebrew, official, or 3rd party idc) to help with this aspect of the game.

 

[bedir than]

have you checked out Strongholds & Followers yet?

 

[NightmareCuddler]

have you checked out Strongholds & Followers yet?

I have not. What does it entail?

 

[LordEntrails]

There have been various battle rules for D&D over the years. Some work better than others. I would suggest you look into those. No point in re-creating the wheel.

 

[NightmareCuddler]

There have been various battle rules for D&D over the years. Some work better than others. I would suggest you look into those. No point in re-creating the wheel.

Do any rules or sources thereof that you might recommend.

 

[Coroc]

Yo everyone. I'm running a ongoing dnd 5e campaign. Basic premise is a war against a bunch of odd, unique dragons. My plan is for the party to eventually have control of their own, independent army made up form allies and factions they meet along the way. That way, they will eventually be in control of a vast, customization army. My two primary ideas are 1) Have the party be able to spec points into the army as a whole an alter it over time. Or 2) Have customization be at the faction level. Though I worry that might lead to a bit of bloat in mechanics and the campgain. I am wondering if anyone out there has thoughts, or can direct me to some resources (homebrew, official, or 3rd party idc) to help with this aspect of the game.

Well, I don't know how much you want to go into detail, 5e skirmishes can be handled easier when you use group initiative and evtly. average damage (For those occasions where your players are part of the fray together with their and their enemy units).

One problem I see here is that your opponents are dragons, which have their own special attacks and movements. So you should come up with a plan under which circumstances your army is useful to the players and when it is not.

You should eventually use a few dice rolls to resolve e.g. players support troops vs. dragons support troops while it is players vs. dragon(s). But it is sufficient if you assign some hitpoints for the whole battalion and some damage, initiative AC and save.

Be sure to narrate some details, as soon as the outcome of your mass combat is clear.

 

[NightmareCuddler]

Well, I don't know how much you want to go into detail, 5e skirmishes can be handled easier when you use group initiative and evtly. average damage (For those occasions where your players are part of the fray together with their and their enemy units).

One problem I see here is that your opponents are dragons, which have their own special attacks and movements. So you should come up with a plan under which circumstances your army is useful to the players and when it is not.

You should eventually use a few dice rolls to resolve e.g. players support troops vs. dragons support troops while it is players vs. dragon(s). But it is sufficient if you assign some hitpoints for the whole battalion and some damage, initiative AC and save.

Be sure to narrate some details, as soon as the outcome of your mass combat is clear.

Yeah, I primarily intended for the dragons themslves to be traditional boss battles between them and the party. As large set pieces during the battles more than likely.

 

[Olrox17]

I really like the domain and army rules from ACKS (adventurer conqueror king system). They are not specifically made for 5e, but I didn’t have much trouble adapting them.

They potentially go into extreme detail, but you don’t have to use everything, you can just pick what you need and disregard what you don’t.

One of the coolest things is how they handle heroes in mass battles, with the heroic foray system.

 

[Shiroiken]

If you can find either (probably as a PDF), I'd check out the War Machine system from BECMI. It was originally in the Champion set, and I believe reprinted in the Rules Cyclopedia. It's not a perfect system, but it's by far the fastest. Most of the other systems I've seen are basically miniature wargames, which take hours.

 

[commandercrud]

BECMI War Machine is best for abstracting large battles quickly, essentially a single die roll for up to thousands of troops per side. AD&D BattleSystem is best if you want to play out a miniatures battle, a couple hours with up to a few hundred troops per side. 5e Unearthed Arcana has two articles on war, basically not-so-great conversions of both of these two systems.