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

[Dausuul]

First of all, I'm thrilled that these rules are going to be in the core. Does this mean we're going to have domain rulership systems as well?

Second, to the rules themselves: I like the sound of them. Nice, simple, solid, and hits all the bases I'd want it to hit, including morale and the ability of individuals (solos) to affect the outcome.

The one thing Mike didn't mention that I hope they address is how to scale Battlesystem up for really big combats, where you have 50,000 troops duking it out instead of a few hundred. On the surface, this ought to be a simple matter of increasing the number of troops in a stand: Just change "ten" to "a thousand." However, this might run into problems where solos are concerned. Can a stand of 1,000 troops all concentrate fire on a single solo? Can a solo have any effect on a stand of 1,000 troops? What happens when a wizard solo throws a fireball, how much damage does it do?

 

[Dausuul]

With regard to Sage Genesis's (reasonable) criticism, I think everyone is missing the point. Let's step back and think through what the system is really representing. A stand consists of 10 individuals, but it's got the stats of one individual. If an individual orc has 12 hit points in regular D&D combat, then a stand of orcs has 12 hit points in Battlesystem.

Now, suppose you're a PC who can attack for 1d12 damage. In Battlesystem, you are considered a solo and you still attack for 1d12 damage, meaning you can kill a stand of orcs in two hits. How is that possible? If you were in a regular fight, it would take you many rounds to kill ten orcs. That's 120 points of damage you have to dish out.

The answer lies in the fact that a Battlesystem round is ten "normal" rounds. You are not, in fact, making a single attack--you're making ten! Two Battlesystem hits is twenty normal hits, and 12 Battlesystem hit points is 120 normal hit points. It cancels out.

With this in mind, come back to the spellslinging wizard. Sage Genesis seems to be operating on the assumption that "one attack per Battlesystem round" means "one action of any kind per Battlesystem round," and I wouldn't take it for granted that's the case. How many spells can you cast in 1 Battlesystem round? Mike doesn't say, but the logical answer would be "ten." A wizard willing to go for broke can sweep the battlefield, which pretty well reflects what happens using the regular rules. Large groups of weak opponents just disintegrate when a wizard opens fire.

The real problem comes when you think about the number of attacks the stands are making. Strictly speaking, a stand should get ten attacks against other stands and a hundred against solos. You can handwave this to some extent by saying an army can't concentrate fire the way a few individuals can, but it's quite a stretch to suggest this would reduce the army's damage output by a factor of 10! The fact remains that it takes 20+ rounds of "real time" to resolve a battle between ten orcs and ten human soldiers. If you played out that battle using the regular combat rules, it would be over much faster.

 

[Nine Hands]

I'm not actually sure whether you're being sarcastic here? 16 has significant advantages over 10 simply in terms of the formations you can make, since it's a 4x4 square as well as several other regular shapes. Admittedly four ranks is deep for a medieval infantry or cavalry formation, but it's not unheard of. And if you include the ancient world, 16 ranks is the normal depth for a pike formation, and most regular armies operate in various multiples of four - four ranks was normal for a Roman legionary maniple, eight for Greek hoplites, legionary cohorts and Assyrian kisir sharuti, sixteen for Macedonian pikemen and Byzantine skutatoi. Multiples of 16 or 8 are far more common in Western military manuals than ones of ten.

Those work fine in a system where you are representing each combatant with their own figure but the whole idea of 'stands' is to combine them into a single figure. The system is supposed to be an abstraction not for historically accurate combat.

Also I like the 20x20 square size as it fits the iconic spells right off the bat (fireball and flame strike). Even lightning bolt is 100ft long (although 5 feet wide).

 

[fjw70]

Dausuul, you make some really good points. I hadn't even considered the solo doing his normal damage but through the change in scale it is effectively getting multiplied by 10. Good post

 

[Sage Genesis]

With regard to Sage Genesis's (reasonable) criticism, I think everyone is missing the point. Let's step back and think through what the system is really representing. A stand consists of 10 individuals, but it's got the stats of one individual. If an individual orc has 12 hit points in regular D&D combat, then a stand of orcs has 12 hit points in Battlesystem.

Now, suppose you're a PC who can attack for 1d12 damage. In Battlesystem, you are considered a solo and you still attack for 1d12 damage, meaning you can kill a stand of orcs in two hits. How is that possible? If you were in a regular fight, it would take you many rounds to kill ten orcs. That's 120 points of damage you have to dish out.

The answer lies in the fact that a Battlesystem round is ten "normal" rounds. You are not, in fact, making a single attack--you're making ten! Two Battlesystem hits is twenty normal hits, and 12 Battlesystem hit points is 120 normal hit points. It cancels out.

With this in mind, come back to the spellslinging wizard. Sage Genesis seems to be operating on the assumption that "one attack per Battlesystem round" means "one action of any kind per Battlesystem round," and I wouldn't take it for granted that's the case. How many spells can you cast in 1 Battlesystem round? Mike doesn't say, but the logical answer would be "ten." A wizard willing to go for broke can sweep the battlefield, which pretty well reflects what happens using the regular rules. Large groups of weak opponents just disintegrate when a wizard opens fire.

The real problem comes when you think about the number of attacks the stands are making. Strictly speaking, a stand should get ten attacks against other stands and a hundred against solos. You can handwave this to some extent by saying an army can't concentrate fire the way a few individuals can, but it's quite a stretch to suggest this would reduce the army's damage output by a factor of 10! The fact remains that it takes 20+ rounds of "real time" to resolve a battle between ten orcs and ten human soldiers. If you played out that battle using the regular combat rules, it would be over much faster.

Whoa there buddy, don't go putting words in my mouth! I'm not under any such assumption. I've never made any complaint about a solo killing a stand in a "single blow."

(Although I can easily make a complaint about it if you like: if you win initiative against a stand and kill it in one single hit during a Battlesystem round, then that represents you making 10 attacks... but you haven't received 100 attacks in turn. Because winning initiative against a mob of 10 orcs doesn't normally allow you to kill all 10 orcs with a melee weapon without at least some of them hitting you back first.)

So there. Now I've made a complaint about that, but only to accommodate you, because it might be silly but it's also a level of abstraction I can accept. I don't really have a big problem with this in truth.

My real concerns were about dueling solos who can catch stands as collateral damage with AoE effects. Which is something entirely different.

 

[Derren]

Now, suppose you're a PC who can attack for 1d12 damage. In Battlesystem, you are considered a solo and you still attack for 1d12 damage, meaning you can kill a stand of orcs in two hits. How is that possible? If you were in a regular fight, it would take you many rounds to kill ten orcs. That's 120 points of damage you have to dish out.

The answer lies in the fact that a Battlesystem round is ten "normal" rounds. You are not, in fact, making a single attack--you're making ten! Two Battlesystem hits is twenty normal hits, and 12 Battlesystem hit points is 120 normal hit points. It cancels out.

And what happens when this stand of orcs attack the PC in return?
According to this logic he would suffer 10x10 = 100 attacks. Or does he only suffer 10 attacks because the stack is 10 orcs? In that case the potential damage output of the orcs has been reduced by 90%, meaning you are actually getting weaker when forming armies, at least against solo targets.

 

[Mark CMG]

I really think that they actually started from numbers of units, and then figured out a reasonably occupied space.

Because when setting up a battle, you obviously start from the question "how many pikemen make up this group?", and 10 is a common unit of measurement (who would design an army by multiples of 16?). You don't start from how much space is occupied, that is an afterthought.

My guess is that the designers followed this train of thoughts:

- the best unit number is 10, so almost everything is a nice multiple of 10
- should we use squares or hexes? let's go with squares*
- how much square space do 10 medium creatures occupy? the closer values are 15x15 if you squeeze them a bit, and 20x20 if you loose them a bit, so let's go with the second on the rationale that mass battles are more open-quarters than typical D&D combat**

*I actually think it's likely there is also an option for hexes, but IMO they chose squares because it might be easier to adjudicate front/back/flanking

**that's of course debatable, but typical D&D combat happens more often in closed spaces such as a dungeon, a forest, a tavern or a marketplace; mass battles occur mostly on open fields I guess... IMHO those armies might start off as densely packed, but they as soon as actual fighting erupts, they are destined to spread around

Sadly, that's the wrong way around for setting up a game that is going to be an abstraction, IMO. It ties your hands before you can even consider scaling. I think WotC is going to have the same problems many RPGs have had when setting up mass combat rules, they're doing it backwards from D&D's original success. The reason we can answer the chicken/egg question is because eggs first came from other creatures and chickens came later, and eggs were around for a long time. So, too, mass combat rules.

And RPGs came out of wargaming when folks thought it would be neat to scale things down to a one-for-one portrayal, then add much more detail of course. Remember, we're not really talking about skirmish rules here, which can actually be fine as scaled up from one-for-one if things are simply streamlines a bit. This is why you don't start with the mindset of needing 10 (or 16) figures to represent 10 (or 16) individuals then figure out the size of the base to accommodate the figures you have chosen. It sounds tempting but it just isn't tenable, IMO, in practice even if the idea is that you can scale that up to 100 or 1000 individuals by merely claiming each figure is multiplied.

 

[fjw70]

Well it would be a lot less than 100 attacks. Assuming the orcs are able to keep him surrounded as long as they have the numbers for it then it is a max of 8 attacks per round. Then assuming the fighter is taking out 1-3 per round with multiple attacks my very quick calcs comes up with somewhere bewteen 20-30 per round (maybe a little more is the fighter is less than 5th level).

So the 10 is a lot closer than 100. Running some quick scenarios with various assumptions I get down to around 9 attacks at the lower end. But it will be interesting to see what the full rules say.

 

[GX.Sigma]

And what happens when this stand of orcs attack the PC in return?
According to this logic he would suffer 10x10 = 100 attacks.

Which makes perfect sense, because 10 orcs attacking the PC for 1 minute (10 six-second rounds) is 100 attacks.

 

[Derren]

Which makes perfect sense, because 10 orcs attacking the PC for 1 minute (10 six-second rounds) is 100 attacks.

But a stack can only attack once during a Battlesystem turn and the special stack vs solo rules do not also multiply the number of attacks by 10. It would make sense, but so far it doesn't look like that will be the actual implementation.