Large Scale Battles

[Bagpuss]

You made 1200 individual rolls to hit? Or were several hundred killed by fireballs before you needed to roll their attacks?

 

[Pbartender]

You made 1200 individual rolls to hit? Or were several hundred killed by fireballs before you needed to roll their attacks?

No, you simplify it into 12 units of 100, each unit of 100 troops acting as a single "monster". Expand the scale of the battle field from 5' x 5' to 50' x 50' squares, and the unit of time from 1 round to 1 minute.

You might need to make a few adjustments to attacks, damage and hitpoints -- or at least figure out a way to equate hitpoints lost with # of troops lost.

Then, use combat rules as normal... It'd probably work well enough.

 

[FunkBGR]

Someone had a link to a file of OGL Mass Combat rules . . .

Kerrick!
- http://www.enworld.org/downloads/fileinfo.php?id=1762

Never used them, but maybe it'll give you an idea!

 

[Bagpuss]

No, you simplify it into 12 units of 100, each unit of 100 troops acting as a single "monster". Expand the scale of the battle field from 5' x 5' to 50' x 50' squares, and the unit of time from 1 round to 1 minute.

Erm you aren't using the standard combat rules at that point.

 

[Pbartender]

Erm you aren't using the standard combat rules at that point.

Sure you are, just at times ten... Attacking is still attacking, charging is still charging, total defense is still total defense, grappling is effectively still grappling...

It's standard combat in the same vein that D20 Future uses a slight variation on standard combat rules for their space combat.

 

[Darklone]

You made 1200 individual rolls to hit? Or were several hundred killed by fireballs before you needed to roll their attacks?

I moved the units around ... in this regard I had some 3rd party rules for morale bonuses to hit and/or AC depending on their officer.

All units rolled their to hit rolls. Yeah, several hundreds but not necessarily at once. And there were ca. 60 NPCs on the battlefield. That was complicated. The whole battle lasted 3 evenings with more than 30 hours gametime. And the PCs got away with all expendable magic items used and nearly everyone in the single digits.

I like big battles. And I love my BAG OF DICE.

Edit: For other battles, I usually handwave the big battle and only play the part around the PCs and the enemies they engage. In the abovementioned case though there were only the PCs and that army. Luckily for the PCs, the enemies didn't come upon them at once.