[Mass Battles] Battlemage is teh SuXX0r...

[Simplicity]

If you shoot a fireball at a group of 25 clustered orcs, you can expect them
to be seriously hurting. Probably all 25 will die because they all take
fire damage. If, however, those orcs are in unit (per the Mass Battle Rules), only a few of them will die because the fireball only does damage to the
unit. So, fireball does 40 damage to the unit. Orcs have 10 hp. 5 orcs are dead.

So much for my concept of a battle mage... Fireball becomes weaker when
the guys get in formation? Huh? Who thought this was a good idea? Why aren't radius spell damages multiplied by the number of creatures in a unit?

 

[Olive]

Are you talking about the minis handbook rules?

 

[Simplicity]

Are you talking about the minis handbook rules?

Yes, as far as I can tell in the Miniatures Handbook Mass Battle Rules, when
a group of people form a unit, their hitpoints get pooled together. Thus, the fireball damage goes into the pool rather than to all of the members of the unit.
This makes fireballs and their like *much less* effective in mass battle combat.

 

[Greatwyrm]

Are they all assumed to be in a 5 x 5 orc brick of 25' per side? Usually mass battle rules assume there's some room between the figures. Also, does each orc represent just one orc or several orcs each (e.g. 25 figures is really 250 orcs)?

 

[Simplicity]

Are they all assumed to be in a 5 x 5 orc brick of 25' per side? Usually mass battle rules assume there's some room between the figures. Also, does each orc represent just one orc or several orcs each (e.g. 25 figures is really 250 orcs)?

They're assumed to be a brick of orc goodness, and the representation is one for one. One miniature equals one creature.

Here's the system: 25 medium-sized miniatures can fit into a formed unit (which is essentially just a bunch of people standing in a box-like shape). Each miniature represents a single creature. There isn't supposed to be any space
between the people, just as if there were two creatures standing in adjacent
squares on a battlegrid.

The hitpoints of the creatures in the unit are rounded to the nearest multiple of 5. The unit has a number of hitpoints equal to the number of creatures in the unit times the number of hitpoints that creature has. Whenever a unit looses a creature's amount of hitpoints, one creature in the unit falls. So, you essentially go through each creatures hitpoints one-by-one.

Now, if you launch a fireball at the unit, the damage from the fireball is only applied to the unit ONCE. So, only a few creatures die.

 

[^Graff]

Isn't each square 5 feet? So a fireball with a 20-foot radius could kill 4*4 orcs. In normal combat, a 5d6 fireball...wait, I think that you're right. It should do more than just 30 damage max, killing only 3 orcs. However, it couldn't kill 25 of them. They wouldn't be close enough together. By any rules, it could kill only 16.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Isn't each square 5 feet? So a fireball with a 20-foot radius could kill 4*4 orcs.

Wrong I'm afraid.

Check out the spell templates at the back of the DMG. Count up the number of squares that can be affected by the 20ft radius fireball. 44 of the little beauties. In a huge, close formation a fireball could be expected to toast at least 40 standard orcs.

Cheers

 

[Simplicity]

Isn't each square 5 feet? So a fireball with a 20-foot radius could kill 4*4 orcs. In normal combat, a 5d6 fireball...wait, I think that you're right. It should do more than just 30 damage max, killing only 3 orcs. However, it couldn't kill 25 of them. They wouldn't be close enough together. By any rules, it could kill only 16.

I think you're confusing radius and diameter. A 20' radius fireball has a template
as follows:

XXXFFXXX
XFFFFFFX
XFFFFFFX
FFFFFFFF
FFFFFFFF
XFFFFFFX
XFFFFFFX
XXXFFXXX

That's a max of 44 orcs...

 

[Warbringer]

Interesting that this is exactly the way roleplay "doesn't" work! The rules specifically clarify that each orc takes the damage of the fireball.

Seems a shame that there is such a huge rules separation to stop the obvious power that magic has on the battlefield

 

[Silveras]

They're assumed to be a brick of orc goodness, and the representation is one for one. One miniature equals one creature.

Here's the system: 25 medium-sized miniatures can fit into a formed unit (which is essentially just a bunch of people standing in a box-like shape). Each miniature represents a single creature. There isn't supposed to be any space
between the people, just as if there were two creatures standing in adjacent
squares on a battlegrid.

The hitpoints of the creatures in the unit are rounded to the nearest multiple of 5. The unit has a number of hitpoints equal to the number of creatures in the unit times the number of hitpoints that creature has. Whenever a unit looses a creature's amount of hitpoints, one creature in the unit falls. So, you essentially go through each creatures hitpoints one-by-one.

Now, if you launch a fireball at the unit, the damage from the fireball is only applied to the unit ONCE. So, only a few creatures die.

Not true.

I quickly skimmed the Mass Battle rules before writing this, but the mass battle rules do not address magic much at all. The rules on applying damage are in the middle of a section about "When a unit makes a Melee or Ranged Attack...".

I had to look in the "Mass Battles Glossary" to find a specific mention about spell damage (p. 155). It mentions "Spells and special abilities that deal damage to all creatures in a unit (such as a spell with a radius 4 effect) actually reduce the unit's overall hit points - each creature in the unit takes damage."

What that means is, IF the individual creatures had enough HP to survive the fireball (say they were all 8th level Fighters with 40HP ea, and your fireball did 35 HP), the unit would still be there afterward, but each would have 5 HP left, and the unit's HP would have dropped from 40 to 5. Every 5 HP done from now on would kill 1 figure in the unit.

Of course, it would be nice if that was mentioned in the rules.

In 3.5 and related materials, though, the Glossary is your new best buddy.