CleverNickName
Limit Break Dancing (He/They)
The D&D Companion Rules and the D&D Rules Cyclopedia had game mechanics, rules, and tactics for mass combat: you know, one army against another army. These rules were quite rudimentary--they were not nearly as advanced as other mass combat systems like Warhammer or Chainmail, they didn't need minis or a battle mat, and they didn't account for a very wide variety of soldiers, creatures, or terrain--but they worked, and they were quite fun. Best of all, they were in the DM rulebook and they fit on less than 10 pages...everything I needed was right there, I didn't need to buy a new game or book.
I remember running the "CM-1: Test of the Warlords" module for nearly a year, with the players building a dominion and defending it against invading armies of orcs and frost giants. Twenty years later, my brother and I still talk about how his army of 300 elves routed a force of 200 frost giants.
But the mass combat rules were more useful to us in other situations of the game where large groups of monsters battled other large groups of monsters...not necessarily "armies," per se. Like when pirates boarded the party's ship, or when a platoon of goblins ambushed a crowded market, that sort of thing. Nobody wants to roll initiative 50 times a round. The BECM mass combat rules allowed me to quickly (and fairly) resolve these battles in just a few minutes, to the satisfaction of all involved.
I would like to see something like this in the 5E core set...even if it is just a basic set of rules printed on 10 pages. I don't necessarily need a whole separate game; there are already plenty of them out there to choose from if I decide to go into full-bore wargaming mode. But a rules-lite version of mass combat rules in the 5E core would be a major selling point for me.
I remember running the "CM-1: Test of the Warlords" module for nearly a year, with the players building a dominion and defending it against invading armies of orcs and frost giants. Twenty years later, my brother and I still talk about how his army of 300 elves routed a force of 200 frost giants.
But the mass combat rules were more useful to us in other situations of the game where large groups of monsters battled other large groups of monsters...not necessarily "armies," per se. Like when pirates boarded the party's ship, or when a platoon of goblins ambushed a crowded market, that sort of thing. Nobody wants to roll initiative 50 times a round. The BECM mass combat rules allowed me to quickly (and fairly) resolve these battles in just a few minutes, to the satisfaction of all involved.
I would like to see something like this in the 5E core set...even if it is just a basic set of rules printed on 10 pages. I don't necessarily need a whole separate game; there are already plenty of them out there to choose from if I decide to go into full-bore wargaming mode. But a rules-lite version of mass combat rules in the 5E core would be a major selling point for me.