how to do mass/army battle quick?

[rossik]

im running a dragonlance campaing, set in the war of the lance( 2nd e). just have one player (my girl), and she is a cleric with an army of followers (like about 200 soldiers and some others..)

as she is batling, how can i decide how many soldiers have beeing sucessfull and how many got enjury/dead?


any ideas?

a mass die roll?

 

[JiffyPopTart]

I ran super-simple mass combat as such...

150 armed peasants (+0 to hit) vs. 75 goblin warriors (+2 to hit)

PCs take actions normally. At end of round roll for the mass combat.

D20+0 for peasants (say you get a 13 on your roll, for a total of 13)
D20_2 for the goblins (say you get a 13 on your roll, for a total of 15)
15-13=2 dead peasants.
Repeat each round until the battle is over (Usually due to actions of the PCs)

DS

 

[rossik]

oh...very good...but why the +2 for the goblins?

 

[T. Foster]

Sabathius42's system looks pretty good. Another option is to follow the example of Swords & Spells (the OD&D large-scale minis rules from 1976) -- combine your 200 0-levels into 20 "units" of 10 each (or 10 "units" of 20 each) and note their AC, total hp, total damage (averaged), and percentage chance to hit each AC. So, for instance, if you've got a unit of 20 0-levels with 4 hp apiece in ring-mail + shield carrying spears, the stats for that unit are:
AC 6, hp 80, dmg 70/90 (vs SM/L), THAC 10 = .5, 9 = .45, 8 = .4, 7 = .35, 6 = .3, 5 = .25, 4 = .2, 3 = .15, 2 = .1, 1 = .05, 0 = .05
Do the same for what they'll be fighting (orcs, goblins, other men, etc.) and each round compare each unit's AC to the other's attack chance, multiply their damage by the resulting percentage, and subtract that many hp. So, if our unit above was fighting a unit of man-sized opponents with AC 4 they would inflict 14 points of damage per round.

There are assorted complications (see S&S for the full system), but if you want something simple the above is probably enough and everything else can be handled freeform.

 

[shilsen]

oh...very good...but why the +2 for the goblins?

Because they're better fighters. He's using their attack bonuses, and they have a +2, while the peasants have +0.

 

[Storyteller01]

An opposed knowlegde (tactics) or similar roll between leaders. Give bonuses to the group with the largest amount of combatants, say +1 for every 25 over the other. The lowest roll loses the action. Multiply how badly they lost the roll by 5. That gives you an amount in percentage that was lost (in the above example, the losing general just lost 10% of his current force).

Reassess numbers, decide if you want to continue or retreat, and roll again as needed.


EDIT: (after reading the whole thread) and add bonuses to those with better forces (fighters over commoners, steel over bronze, etc).

 

[jollyninja]

Well, I design a few events that will come up in the battle, make the players come up with some way of dealing with them on the fly and then decide how well that worked out. How picky I am about the tactical quality of the actions depends on the players, with your daughter I'd say doing anything would probably work out well, even, "I send some guys there to deal with it" or the like. if her character goes personally, get descriptive and make her make some attack rolls, or whatever.

as far as a one roll combat system, I just thought of one. give her army a modifier, like say her charisma modifier +2 (for the 200 soldiers i guess), set a dc for a d20 roll, like defeating these 75 goblins is a dc 10 for that army, roll the dice. I could fill a book with the ways of determining what the dc is but it's unnessisary, just make it up based on the quality of the two forces. the modifier is really just to help her out with quick math.

the degree of success or failure is determined by the roll, succeeding by ten or more means you wiped the other side with few casualties. 5-9 or more means 75% dead or wounded for the enemy, 10% for your side. 0-4 50% for their side, 25 for yours. failing by 1-4 means 25% of theirs, 50% of yours. 5-9 10% of theirs, 75% of yours. 10 or more, there goes your army honey, but the character escapes and can recriut more followers.

 

[rossik]

very cool ideas!!
just dont get the "THAC 10 = .5, 9 = .45, 8 = .4, 7 = .35, 6 = .3, 5 = .25, 4 = .2, 3 = .15, 2 = .1, 1 = .05, 0 = .05
" part

 

[T. Foster]

very cool ideas!!
just dont get the "THAC 10 = .5, 9 = .45, 8 = .4, 7 = .35, 6 = .3, 5 = .25, 4 = .2, 3 = .15, 2 = .1, 1 = .05, 0 = .05
" part

Multiply your unit's damage value (average damage of the weapon x number of figures in the unit) by their percentage chance of hitting the opposing unit's AC to get the total amount of damage inflicted each round.

So if the opposing unit is AC 10 a unit of 0-level attackers has a 50% chance of hitting AC 10 (11+ on d20) and thus does [(dmg) x 0.5] hp per round. If the opposing unit is AC 9 this unit does [(dmg) x 0.45] hp per round (because they need 12+ on d20 to hit AC 9 = 45% chance of a hit = 0.45), etc.

So a unit of 20 0-level men-at-arms with long swords (dmg 1d8 (avg. 4.5) x 20 = 90) attacks an enemy unit with AC 6. 0-level characters need 15+ to hit AC 6 (=30% chance), so they multiply their damage (90) by 0.3 to see how much damage they inflict on the enemy unit each round (27 points).

I'm pretty sure this is sounding more complicated than it actually is...

 

[Stalker0]

The mob template from the dmg II can also be a quick way to do armies.