Mass battles in a campaign -- best way?

[Prism]

I ran a battle as part of an ongoing D&D campaign using the mass combat rules from miniatures handbook and it seemed to go well. We converted everything from D&D stat blocks to miniatures stat blocks. The players controlled a couple of units each and played their own character too. As the DM I ran the opponents

The battle size was roughly 150 + PC's against 250 + NPC's and I would say that was about the maximum size I'd like to play on a 1 figure to 1 creature ratio. I had to have the monsters attack in two waves just to have enough figures. Having played warhammer for several years it wasm't anywhere near as tactical though it was about the same scale as a 3000pt battle. I ran it under miniatures rules rather than warhammer rules to make the conversion easier and also because the players didn't know the warhammer rules and I didn't want them bogged down with a new ruleset. One thing I suspect is that if the PCs are too high level and don't care about the wellfare of the soldiers they are fighting with its entirely possible they will turn the fight into more of a hero v anti hero encounter.

Other options for bigger battles include cry havoc which uses 1 figure to represent many creatures and if you want the players to have more direct heroic involvement then go the Heroes of Battle route like the others have suggested

I think a combination of all these would make an interesting war campaign or section of a campaign - standard miniatures for skirmishes, miniatures mass combat up to about 200 per side (max), cry havoc or similar for a sort of final battle and then some last ditch heroic stuff using heroes of battle

 

[Azgulor]

Fields of Blood by Eden Studios. Buy it. Live it. Crush your enemies!

Azgulor

 

[JimAde]

For me, it's really a question of the PCs' role in the battle. If they are actually commanding troops in the field, I would use a detailed system (like Cry Havoc) and actually play out the battle. That's part of what their characters are doing. In the Helm's Deep example, Aragorn was actually commanding troops at one point, so you might want to let the player roll for that unit's actions, and decide what they do.

If they are instead doing "special forces" type actions within the larger battle (or lose their unit) then the Heroes of Battle system sounds like the way to go. By the way, if you don't have that book, Complete Warrior describes what sounds like a very similar idea, but not as formalized.

 

[ForceUser]

When I ran a mass battle, I created the sense of a larger action going on around the PCs by turning the session into a series of vignettes that showed what was going on in different places on the battlefield as the fighting progressed. Although the PCs gained full XP for all the combat actions we played through, the actual player characters were only present for one of the vignettes. For the other scenes, I handed the players NPC soldiers to run and told them what their orders were--hold this position, concentrate fire on those opponents, and so on. For the final, climactic vignette, I put the players in charge of the commanders of the defending army and had them fight an engagement against a hezrou demon that was allied with the attacking army.

All in all, the session was pretty successful, and the players all said that they gained a larger perspective on the battle from the cinematic nature of the progressive vignettes as they built an ever-widening picture of the struggle.

 

[JimAde]

That sounds immensely cool. Lots of work, but very very cool.

 

[Garnfellow]

Garnfellow's Handy Dandy Choose Your Own Mass Combat System (Version 1.0)

Just follow this decision tree to identify the mass combat system that best meets your needs!

1. What place do war and large-scale battles have in your campaign?

a. A central, ongoing focus: go to 2.
b. A frequent, important piece: go to 3.
c. An infrequent, tangential event: go to 4.​

2. Check out Fields of Blood!

3. What scale of conflict will your game feature?

a. Unit-level skirmishes: go to 5.
b. Large-army battles: go to 6.​

4. At what scale are you interested in resolving battles?

a. On a unit level: go to 7.
b. On an individual character level: go to 8.​

5. What relationship do you want the mass-combat system to have to the core rules?

a. Completely stand-alone: go to 9.
b. Fully integrated into the rest of the game (requiring mass-combat specific skills, feats, classes, spells, etc.): go to 10.​

6. How complex do you want your mass-combat rules to be?

a. Very simple: go to 7.
b. Moderately complex: go to 11.​

7. Check out Grim Tales' Mass Combat System!

8. What is relationship of the PCs to the battle around them?

a. A central, deciding role: go to 12.
b. As small but influential players on a larger stage: go to 13.​

9. Check out Mongoose's Open Mass Combat System!

10. Check out Cry Havoc's Unit Battle System!

11. Check out Cry Havoc's Army Resolution System!

12. Check out Green Ronin's Representative Battle rules (from the Advanced Gamemaster's Guide)!

13. Check out Heroes of Battle!

 

[Bagpuss]

I hardly think Heroes of Battle is intended for a campaign where war is "An infrequent, tangential event" where the PC's are "As small but influential players on a larger stage". If you think that you've not read the book.

It would hardly spend the whole first chapter detailing how to run a War Campaign. Or there be rules for PC's gaining ranks right up to General, or Commander effects, teamwork benefits and the like.

 

[Arnwyn]

My preference for mass combat is:

- Mongoose's OMCS II rules (from Strongholds & Dynasties or Book of the Sea) for large skirmishes (50 - 200 troops).

- Eden's Fields of Blood for armies 200+ troops.

I use both rules systems IMC for mass combat, depending on the scale involved. It works great for us.

 

[godawful]

i just ran a big one the other day. i bought a bag of colored stones (like pet rocks) from wal mart, and assigned a hit point and attack total to each color. like 40 hp's worth of kobold's is represented by this red rock. 30 hp's worth of orcs by this blue one. then i laid out like 100 40 hp kobold stones, added the total. then as the party and good guys deal damage, i subtract the amount of damage from the total hp's, then divide that result by the hp total of the individual rock, that gives you how many stones are removed. yes. it's a LOT of dice rolling, but works great for area of effect spells and such... and besides i never ran a big battle before and just felt like it. the whole battle took like 12 hours. 100 kobolds, 75 orcs, 30 ogre hunters, 5 ogre mages vs. 6 characters 8 to 10th level, then attacked from behind by evil necromancer with 100 skellies, 2 cloud giant skellies and a red wyrm skellie. oh yeah, the paty had some assistance from about 50 level 1 fighters and 15 level 5 fighters. it was o.k. i don't think i'll be running one again quite that large for a while though...

 

[Kristivas]

(I didn't read through a lot of the replies, so if I repeat what someone else said.. or somesuch.. well, you know..)


When mass battles happen in my game, I use a few factors to figure out the outcome.

First off, there's the "God of War". Whoever he/she favors that day, is most often the winner. For example, in FR.. if you're standing with some purple dragon knights and conscripts across the field from legions of Tempus warriors and battle priests, you can pretty much consider yourself screwed (but not always, as Tempus is willing to screw over his own guys in the heat of battle - but not very often).

Then, there's PC involvement.

For example, if they killed the evil General who was going to sell out to the bad guys the night before the battle.....
Or perhaps they convinced the wizards of Hogwart's School of Sorcery and Witchcraft to send some students armed with wands of magic missle and fireball....
Or even still, maybe the PCs found a 'secret weapon' to use against the enemy.

I'd rather solve the battles like that, rather than try to roll it all out and bore everyone while I'm doing the rolls and math.

The last large-scale battle I had involved those 3 things. The PCs had to get rid of a traitor, recruit some wizards to help, and disable the secret weapon of the 'bad guy army' before it could be used. When those three things were taken care of, the PCs got to watch as their Baron's army crushed the baddies.. (except the barbarian, who ran down into the fray just to kill anyway. imagine - level 12 barbarian running screaming into a battalion of level 1 warriors and commoners.. no exp, but he got to brag about how he great cleaved lines and lines of the enemy army hehe...)