Help with Campaign warfare

[Draethen Vontrair]

I plan on creating a campaign where the pcs are rank and file troops, and slowly advance in lvls and rank. Bt i have a problem, i dont know how to dm which side wins the battle. The players can win individual fights, but how to determine who wins the feild?

What im asking is how do you dm a battle feild?

 

[Whisper72]

Check out the Tome of Battle. It has all manner of rules on this and many other issues that will come up when you play a military campaign...

Edit: I meant Heroes of Battle.... sorry 'bout that....

 

[Ilium]

There's also Heroes of Battle which has good stuff as well. But my advice to you is: the DM always decides who wins the battles. You can let the PCs influence the degree of defeat or victory (Heroes of Battle has a system for this) but the entire battle should hinge on their actions only rarely, and only once they get to a level where that's reasonable.

If you want to leave it to chance, I would suggest you either roll randomly, with a table of reasonable results based on what you know of the two sides, or pick a mass combat system of your choice and have a miniatures night with your regular players taking the roles of various units. I've always wanted to do that but none of my players are really into miniatures wargames.

 

[Draethen Vontrair]

But my advice to you is: the DM always decides who wins the battles. You can let the PCs influence the degree of defeat or victory (Heroes of Battle has a system for this) but the entire battle should hinge on their actions only rarely, and only once they get to a level where that's reasonable.

I was thinking that i would have an amount of men on each side, predetermined, and sort of use the terrain and othe advantages on each side to find out how many of each side dies each turn, and where they die; the base amount can be rolled randomly, the rest is just bonuses or subtracions. then i have to think whether or not the leaders would have the intelligence or wisdom to flee, or to push forward. then theres always the random arrows, coming in volleys or just totally random, i cant use the firing into crowd thing because there wwould be possible hundreds of arrows each round.
WTF should i do?

I want it to be somewhat random, but the tactical advantages still have to come into effect.
Terrain, amount of men of different types, intelligence of leaders, howto determine what to do?

 

[The Shaman]

Way back in the day TSR released my favorite fantasy board game, Divine Right. The DR combat system was simplicity itself: The attacker and defender each rolled one d6 and added the number of units in his or her stack to the total on the die - high roll won the battle and the difference between the two die rolls reflected how many units the loser of the battle lost. If the result was a tie, each combatant lost an equal number of encounters (often resulting in a Pyhrric victory).

I used this as my Dungeons and Dragons large-scale combat system for ages. I estimated the number of companies of warriors, soldiers-at-arms, monsters, and so forth on each side, then rolled a die and subtracted units from one or both sides. Heroes and spellcasters provided die-roll modifiers.

It is a coarse-grained approach, but it is lightning-quick and provides interesting results.

 

[Ilium]

Again, you basically have two choices:

1) Simply decide ahead of time who will win and what level of casualties each side will take. Modify the casualties based on the PCs' actions if appropriate

2) Let the dice decide. This breaks down into two options:
a) Make up a chart with all possible outcomes and numbers associated with them
b) Break out a bunch of miniatures or counters and go to it with your players.

Personally, I would most likely choose option 2a: Make up a chart that looks something like this:

% roll      Result
01-10      Total Defeat for PC side (50% casualties, remaining forces broken and scattered, enemy takes 5% casualties)
11-25      Major Defeat (25% casualties, forces in full retreat, enemy takes 10% casualties)
26-40      Minor Defeat (10% casualties, orderly retreat to fallback position, enemy takes 5% casualties)
41-60      Draw (10% casualties on both sides, lines don't move)
61-75      Minor Victory (reverse of minor defeat)
76-90      Major Victory (reverse of major defeat)
91-100    Total Victory (reverse of Total defeat)

Then just change the numbers to reflect one side's advantages, and the PCs' actions.

 

[Rothe]

I was thinking that i would have an amount of men on each side, predetermined, and sort of use the terrain and othe advantages on each side to find out how many of each side dies each turn, and where they die; the base amount can be rolled randomly, the rest is just bonuses or subtracions. then i have to think whether or not the leaders would have the intelligence or wisdom to flee, or to push forward. then theres always the random arrows, coming in volleys or just totally random, i cant use the firing into crowd thing because there wwould be possible hundreds of arrows each round.
WTF should i do?

I want it to be somewhat random, but the tactical advantages still have to come into effect.
Terrain, amount of men of different types, intelligence of leaders, howto determine what to do?

As mentioned, there are several systems one could use or modify. the biggest problem may be in integrating magic that is not straight forward damage type (e.g., fireball).

Basic D&D in the Rules Compendium has a strategic combat setion IIRC. Another approach is to modify (use the tables) of a squad level system like Squad Leader. To get some idea of how various things change the odds of winning a battle, one could look at Clausewitz or better yet Depuy in Understanding War. Some general ideas:

Units can be represented by Combat Power. Combat power is more than just numbers but also training and equipment amoung other things. Historical data shows that increases in training, weapon lethality etc. act as multipliers to combat power. For example combat power=numbers x weapon lethality x training.

A classic military maxim shows an application of this: Typical wisdom is an attacker needs at elast a 3 to 1 advantage to overcome a prepared defender. The defensive position thus providing a multiplier of 3 in the combat power equation.

To much? Then treat large units as individuals. Each group of 10, 50, 100 troops etc. is given stats as an individual based on the average or weakest individual in te unit. Choose the scale so each side has say between 5-20 "individuals" then run combat as you would for individuals. Add in moral in the sense that once a unit suffers x-hits it may break, run, lose cohesion, or fight on at a penalty. The casualties to the unit are a % of the hit points loss by the "individual." You can decided how many outright dead vs. wounded. But I'd usggest many more wounded and maybe each out-right dead soldier counting as double for % purposes. To decide if a character is hurt, take a straight % and modify. If 100 men in the unit it's 1% modify up if character takes risks, unlucky (in the flank and enemy makes flank attack) and lower if the character is better than the average man in the unit. Alternative, the character takes a number of HP or % equal to that taken by the "individual" representing the unit. Finally, you may want to let the PC influence the action slightly, say if they can succesfully attack/defend a portion the overall loses of the unit are smaller and/or the enemy higher. There may be a chance for PC to take a chance an emerge a hero of the battle even if their side loses.

Magic is trickier, but unless you have a lot of casters casting at the same time the same thing, the effects on large units is going to be reduced. Say the unit is 100 men, stated as a single man with 10 HP (the numbers are purley for example purposes). A 100 man vs. a 100 man unit fight is conducted as 2 "men" with 10 HP each fighting. If one inflicts 4 points of damage that is a 40% casualty rate on the other side. Add in mage that can cast a 100 damage fireball, against a 100 man unit (which really has 10x100=1000 HP) the mage might do 1 point of damage to the 100 man unit treated as an individual.

I'd strongly suggest including morale effects and units breaking, and also include a decrease in damage done with casuallties. To reflect defenses, better terrain, better formations, etc. I'd add HP, to reflect better leadership, flank atttacks, support (e.g., better magic) I'd add to the damage the unit inflicts, to reflect bad leaders I'd lower the damage the unit inflicts.

 

[Ilium]

And if you...

1) Really want to play out the combat
2) Don't want to pay for a real mass combat system and
3) Are a glutton for punishment...

You can try my very own mass combat rules (un-playtested and still rough around the edges):

http://home.comcast.net/~jim.ade/ilium/MassCombat.doc

If you decide to use these I'd love to hear about it.

 

[Turanil]

What im asking is how do you dm a battle feild?

I don't use rules, but let the players believe that I actually do. For example, there is a battle in which they take a part: if they perform well, I will describe events as if they had a good impact on it, and turn the tide of battle so their side win. If they act stupidly however, I will have their side loose. And maybe they will be captured. I really don't need rules, but the players must believe I resolved things using precise rules...