Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Loincloth of Armour" data-source="post: 3980315" data-attributes="member: 28201">Having played through H1-H3.5 (didn't quite get all the way through H4, although my wizard did become king), what we did was simply set out a simple set of fights for the party to deal with.The party was treated as a 'special forces unit' in the army.  We fought other 'special forces units' (ie: high level fighters, wizards, vampires, summoned demons, etc), and how we did against these determined how well the battle went.  If we walked all over the opposition and crushed them completely, our side absolutely mopped up the enemy army.  If we had trouble or someone needed a Raise Dead after battle, then our army was more bloodied and battered.  If we lost a battle (we never did, although it got close sometimes) our army was forced from the field.It works quite well for a heroic setting.  "O king, show us your valiant spirit!  Let your victories hearten our men and cower our enemies!  Let your strong arm be our swords, your mighty magics our shields, your determination our war cries!"Another method (that we didn't use but I just thought up), is to use n-th level fighters to represent military units.  Rather than side A throwing 100 1st level fighters and 20 archers into battle, instead run it as Side A throwing 5, 4th level fighters and 1, 4th level ranger.  Let one 'hero' unit represent a sizable portion of your army.  That way you can fight with only 5-10 units on each side using standard DnD rules, but each 'figure' reduced to 0 hp is a squad/platoon/company/regiment driven from the field.Another option is to hand-wave away the warfare, but have defeated barons retreat to their fortified castles and force the players to dig them out in person.  The barons (being the Lich-King's puppets) have Vassan 'advisors' who are high level enough to supply them with summoned monsters, enscrolled demons, charmed fighters, assassins waiting in the shadows, and legions of wizards eager to prove themselves to the Lich-King.  These 'advisors' are the real power behind thrones and set up mystic wards on the barons' castles to make Scry-Buff-Teleport-Fry tactics impossible.  Using these, you can leave clues in these castles that the advisors are getting funneled in through the Grandfather's Citadel.</blockquote>

Verification