D&D 5E Legends & Lore 28.04: Battlesystem! (mass battles rules)

[Ruzak]

This sounds just like what I want. I am not interested in major wargaming, but I am interested in the occasional involvement of the PCs with a battle. If it pans out this let's us do this without learning a whole new minigame separate from the regular combat rules.

 

[1of3]

Let's say there's an evil general (a solo) who stands in between his two hill giant bodyguards (a stand). If the wizard (a solo unconnected to a stand) casts an area of effect spell, he can do one per Battle-round and catch all three within the area. Yes? That's probably how it works?

But then if the evil general is standing 20 feet behind the two hill giants, the Wizard can suddenly, in the same amount of time, cast ten such spells within the same time span and almost certainly still catch all three within the area.

From what the article says, I gues "in a duel" is a special condition. Once the "in a duel" condition occurs you do ten rounds of combat. And if you are in a duel the outside world matters not (cf. "as their armies clash around them".) You cannot hit the giants during that time.

Such a rule makes most sense, if you cannot invoke a duel unilaterally.

 

[Derren]

From what the article says, I gues "in a duel" is a special condition. Once the "in a duel" condition occurs you do ten rounds of combat. And if you are in a duel the outside world matters not (cf. "as their armies clash around them".) You cannot hit the giants during that time.

Such a rule makes most sense, if you cannot invoke a duel unilaterally.

So the safest place in a battle is locked in a combat with a highly dangerous enemy as then no one else can touch you even when standing right in the middle of them? And your AoE attacks bounce off harmlessly from everyone not involved in the duel?

It gets especially comical when some of the PCs join stands and the others go solo.

 

[AmerginLiath]

This really excited me to read as a player and member of a group who traditionally plays within DRAGONLANCE, given the level of mass battle that comes into play there. The fact that the system is specifically designed to scale up directly from the standard battle rules means that it should be easy to adjust other options as needed on the same scaling or scale the entire thing up another system up another factor (say, ten times the troops per unit with ten minute rounds?) for major setpiece battles.

This description, like most LEGENDS & LORE columns, won't be the full extent of the ruleset for BATTLESYSTEM. I imagine that there are more tweaks or options to the "ten attacks vs one," for example or ways of playing armies together against particularly large enemies (especially combined with swarm rules?). In any case, I look forward to seeing how this combines with aerial combat to get the full picture of knightly forces en masse against dragon-backed troops...

 

[Li Shenron]

No, you misunderstood the question.

It's not about whether the wizard is inside a stand, it's whether the target is inside a stand.

Let's say there's an evil general (a solo) who stands in between his two hill giant bodyguards (a stand). If the wizard (a solo unconnected to a stand) casts an area of effect spell, he can do one per Battle-round and catch all three within the area. Yes? That's probably how it works?

But then if the evil general is standing 20 feet behind the two hill giants, the Wizard can suddenly, in the same amount of time, cast ten such spells within the same time span and almost certainly still catch all three within the area.

Again, the caster in this example is not inside a stand. Which is not the issue. It's about the target. The caster can't possibly be distracted by having to lead his followers, he can just suddenly increase his damage on the enemy tenfold just because the general walked back a couple of steps.

Ok! Now I see I was thinking of almost the opposite situation.

I think [MENTION=1210]the Jester[/MENTION] and [MENTION=48555]1of3[/MENTION] however got it right: this system is not for the players to exploit by freely choosing when to act by 6-seconds round or by 1-minute turn. You go back to normal combat rules only when a "duel" situation occurs, probably by joint decision between players and DM, in which case you ignore everybody else in the battle and "zoom in" to play the duel with normal combat rules (anyway, it's going to be over within a minute i.e. one battle turn of everybody else not in the duel).

 

[GSHamster]

also, the choice of a Wisdom/Will save leaves me a little uncomfortable. It seems more like thcharisma of the 'leader' should drive the morale of the group, or at least somehow work into controlling the army (perhaps a command radius or troop limit, like the old # of henchmen value for charisma from 1E)?

My reading was the morale check was Wisdom. But they also mentioned the unit could be rallied, and I think that would be a Charisma check.

Unit fails a Wisdom check and retreats.
Commander makes a Charisma check and rallies them back.

That seems reasonable to me.

 

[pogre]

I am fairly stoked about this. I hope it sets the stage for more detailed rules, etc. At minimum, I have a system to build upon.

I will use miniatures and rulers, not grids and counters, but these are super simple conversions for me.

 

[Mistwell]

So the safest place in a battle is locked in a combat with a highly dangerous enemy as then no one else can touch you even when standing right in the middle of them? And your AoE attacks bounce off harmlessly from everyone not involved in the duel?

It gets especially comical when some of the PCs join stands and the others go solo.

Derren how have you satisfactorily handled mass combat scenarios in your past D&D games?

 

[Derren]

Derren how have you satisfactorily handled mass combat scenarios in your past D&D games?

Interesting that you ask that considering it has absolutely nothing to do with the thread.
Fishing for something to discredit me as you can't find anything good to say about the combat system and the questions and concerns about it that came up?

 

[Mistwell]

Interesting that you ask that considering it has absolutely nothing to do with the thread.
Fishing for something to discredit me as you can't find anything good to say about the combat system and the questions and concerns about it that came up?

What?

How would it discredit you to ask you how you have satisfactorily resolved this problem in your past games, since you think this is not a satisfactory solution? How does it have nothing to do with the thread? I don't even understand your objection to my question, it seems like a pretty bizarrely defensive response to a non-offensive question.

I will ask again: how have you successfully resolved mass combat issues in your past D&D games, given you don't think this is a satisfactory solution to mass combat?