Eden's Fields of Blood

[mattcolville]

No, I wasn't suggesting that the end user should just use the charts in the DMG, I was saying, 'Hey, I can just steal those!'

well, I wouldn't steal 'em, I'd just use them as a starting place. Hell, GG himself reads these boards, maybe I'll ask him if he wants to write a newer version of that section.

 

[faete]

the military titles & other minutea would be a good bet for a web supplement, provided that someone was willing to do it.

 

[mattcolville]

We're talking less than a page of data here. Maybe a page. It'll be in the book.

 

[TBoarder]

[BThe rules are in the PHB and DMG. If, however, a local regent gifts you with a County and suddenly you're thrust into the geopolitics of your GM's world, ours in the book for you. You can tax and spend, raise armies, make allies, trade, defend, conquer. Right down to pulling out a warboard decorating it with trees and hills, and using your Warmaster minis to tactically fight the battle using rules that should seem *exrtremely* familiar to any d20 player.[/B]

Here's something that came up in the campaign I'm playing that War did absolutely nothing to help us out with.

A large, walled city, with magically reinforced walls, fell under attack by a combined force from 2 different countries. The war began in a vassal town as a large army (about 1,000 men) had to do a fighting retreat from a squad of Fire Giants (All of them with some class levels added) and 2 red dragons.

The city itself prepared for both an all-out attack and a seige. The attackers had a MUCH larger force this time, many of the leaders and a decent number of soldiers were well beyond being 1st level cannon fodder. The city sent out the Fire Giants from the first battle, and had archmages create illusions of the rest of their armies going out to prepare for war. A huge flight of gargoyles and 3 dragons defended the city from any air attacks, and a small squad of wraiths, led by a death knight was sent out to bolster itself by having the wraiths create spawn from the dying attackers.

The war started off... badly. A Storm Giant on the attackers side used his Control Weather ability which he lost control of (A quirk of the world we're on). What was supposed to be a storm with lots of cover fog became a full-force hurricane. The giants attempt at calming the hurricane made things worse, sending more than a half dozen tornadoes tearing through the battlefield. Using the rules for hurricanes and tornadoes from the DMG, all of the attacking armies were pretty much decimated (The Fire Giants were hurt badly, but only a very small number of them died).

So, my question is... would the system in Fields of Blood be able to adjucate a war like this without a mountain of paperwork? Okay, the hurricane and tornadoes I can see being a bit too... situational for a book like this, but if the war had proceeded normally, would Fields of Blood have been able to handle it?

 

[mattcolville]

Here's something that came up in the campaign I'm playing that War did absolutely nothing to help us out with.

A large, walled city, with magically reinforced walls, fell under attack by a combined force from 2 different countries. The war began in a vassal town as a large army (about 1,000 men) had to do a fighting retreat from a squad of Fire Giants (All of them with some class levels added) and 2 red dragons.

The city itself prepared for both an all-out attack and a seige. The attackers had a MUCH larger force this time, many of the leaders and a decent number of soldiers were well beyond being 1st level cannon fodder. The city sent out the Fire Giants from the first battle, and had archmages create illusions of the rest of their armies going out to prepare for war. A huge flight of gargoyles and 3 dragons defended the city from any air attacks, and a small squad of wraiths, led by a death knight was sent out to bolster itself by having the wraiths create spawn from the dying attackers.

The war started off... badly. A Storm Giant on the attackers side used his Control Weather ability which he lost control of (A quirk of the world we're on). What was supposed to be a storm with lots of cover fog became a full-force hurricane. The giants attempt at calming the hurricane made things worse, sending more than a half dozen tornadoes tearing through the battlefield. Using the rules for hurricanes and tornadoes from the DMG, all of the attacking armies were pretty much decimated (The Fire Giants were hurt badly, but only a very small number of them died).

So, my question is... would the system in Fields of Blood be able to adjucate a war like this without a mountain of paperwork? Okay, the hurricane and tornadoes I can see being a bit too... situational for a book like this, but if the war had proceeded normally, would Fields of Blood have been able to handle it?

Absolutely. 1,000 men is 10 units. A unit of fire giants is going to be. . .tough, but the bonuses you'll get for being within a keep should make a difference. You could play it out on a warboard, moving units around like a real wargame, or just roll some dice and see the results.

 

[Heretic Apostate]

Hey, Matt, will Fields of Blood include both Quick Resolution and a Multi-Turn Opposed Roll system?

For instance, with the QR, put in all the variables, and poof! The roll of the dice determines the winner, as well as how bad the casualties are.

With the MTOR system, you set up your formations, then one turn of combat passes. Then, given the amount of command ability, you can change your formations, to add or subtract from future rolls. And so on. Or something like that....

Anyway, that's just an idea.

 

[mattcolville]

There'll be two levels of resolution; abstract and tactical.

Both break battles down into Morning and Afternoon. Therefore one day can have two battles.

In the abstract rules-set, you take all your troops and your leaders and work in a bunch of variables based on terrain and circumstance and get a number and a chart. You and your opponent roll on the chart. The result tells you how many casualties you both suffer and other things like moral breaks and leader capture/fatality. Then you both decide to fight the Day's second battle, (or if that *was* the day's second battle, fight on the next day.) Some of your broken units reform, some don't, and you recalculate and roll again.

It works this way because I don't think people want to see their entire army routed because of one die roll. The method above takes maybe 20 minutes. Or rather it should.

The tactical verson starts with a Strategic Phase in which you take the hex/province in which two armies are fighting and blow it up. Zoom in, as it were. Now you can see where there are forests, hills, rivers, etc... You and your opponent both take. . .probably three to five turns moving and feinting, trying to orchestrate the battle so that it takes place in a strategically advantage place. Elves would like the battle to take place in a forest, or with their backs to a forest. No-one wants to fight with their back to a river.

Once you've resolved that, you break out the warboard and start pushing minis around the board.

There's yet another version for NPC realms that's just one die roll.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Sounds like a lot of the information is ready to be pumped into the book. Is thee a list of prestige classes? Will there be magical siege weapons? Another bone of contention I had with War...

 

[Cergorach]

Absolutely. 1,000 men is 10 units. A unit of fire giants is going to be. . .tough, but the bonuses you'll get for being within a keep should make a difference. You could play it out on a warboard, moving units around like a real wargame, or just roll some dice and see the results.

Everything sounds cool sofar, something that i've been looking for, for a long time (for use with D&D)...

What i'm curious about, how will your systm handle small groups of powerfull creatures (such as the fire giants)? How about individual monsters (such as dragons)? Will abilities such as 10/+1 be incorporated (Lvl. 1 fighters will probably do no damage to such creatures, but maybe some with a critical)? In short, how true will it stay to the familiar D20 rules we know?

 

[Ranger REG]

The tactical verson starts with a Strategic Phase in which you take the hex/province in which two armies are fighting and blow it up. Zoom in, as it were. Now you can see where there are forests, hills, rivers, etc... You and your opponent both take. . .probably three to five turns moving and feinting, trying to orchestrate the battle so that it takes place in a strategically advantage place. Elves would like the battle to take place in a forest, or with their backs to a forest. No-one wants to fight with their back to a river.

Once you've resolved that, you break out the warboard and start pushing minis around the board.

There's yet another version for NPC realms that's just one die roll.

Will the tactical version use square grids? Or will the book include rules for using (and moving minis/counter in) square and hex grid battlemaps?