Mass Combat: Militray Tactics Old and New!

[mmadsen]

If, OTOH, it's really about how armies would actually fight in a d&d gameworld, I think it's missing the point.

Part of the discussion isn't so much how armies would fight in a D&D gameworld, but how the D&D rules do or do not support various real-world tactics.

Playing out a mass combat by the existing skirmish-level rules doesn't lead to the expected outcome. The guy following Sun-Tzu religiously doesn't have much of an advantage, because attacking up a hill isn't an issue, keeping archers to your shield-side isn't an issue, making good use of standards and banners isn't an issue -- and even flanking isn't an issue.

A separate issue is that D&D's rules define how the world works, and part of that world is magic: Wizards, Clerics, flying monsters, etc. That also changes tactics quite a bit, depending on how prevalent all that magic is.

If I was running mass battle in my campaign, I would come up with a seperate (and and in some ways derivative) system.

Exactly. That's the rationale behind the In Place of Chainmail? thread. How do you keep the game basically D&D, but have it play out how you'd expect a mass combat to play out in your D&D world?

If I was simply designing a miltary force and contemplating their tactics, I would largely ignore the game rules and come up with a realistic mix. I would not take into account such things as: only 1 man per 5'; modifiers for fighting defensively; pike phalanx's lack of ability to balk cavalry etc.

On the other hand, can't we take a good look out how real-world tactics play out using D&D rules, then decide which rules could use tweaking to match our expectations?

In allocating feats, I would be looking for feats that fit the spirit of a unit's tactics, not altering tactics to fit a feat.

Right, but if we look at Feats that shouldn't fit in mass combat (e.g. Spring Attack) and find that they work all too well, what do we do? We can look for elegant solutions or rely on inelegant hand-waving, but we want to do something.

 

[DM with a vengence]

I think that this illustrates one of the major problems with the rules in that the only way to gain XP is to engage in combat. I think that there should be a "living" experience, because life teaches, just not as fast as battle.

How about this method:

At the end of a creature's natural lifespan, it will have earned 15000 xp, enough to put it at 6th level.
Take the creatures adulthood (Lifespan-Adulthood age on table 6-4, pg 93 PHB) and divide 15000 by that.

This number is amount of XP you gain each year of normal life activity, divide it further for the number of XP per month, week, day, etc..

Having a dangerous or otherwise demanding job (Watchman, Soldier, Miner, Arcane Researcher) doubles the amount of XP you recieve each day.

Actively training instead of doing a job also doubles the amount of XP you earn. This can be anything from just going to a seminar on accounting proceadures, to earning an economics degree, but the longer you spend the more you get.

Training for a dangerous job quadrupels the amount of XP you get.

So lets take Billy Human. He becomes an adult when he's 15 years old, and he'll die when he's 86, so he'll have an adult life of 71 years. He earns 211.26 XP per year of normal activity. He spends two years in his father's shop learning to be a blacksmith, and then joins the Army. The Army puts him through a year of training and he spends three more years as a soldier at home before being shipped off to fight a war against some orcs. When he actually arrives ready to fight, he has 2957 XP and is almost 3rd level, more than a match for the untrained orc grunts.

This represents a more or less standard non-wartime soldier, he's capable of taking hits and giving them, and he might just survive a fireball.

Most professional soldiers, even if they've never seen combat shoud be at least 2nd level, if not higher.

 

[Bhadrak]

But a single level 5 wizard would drop an entire regiment within seconds with one well-aimed fireball.

Do you have any idea how big a regiment is? A fireball only has a 20 foot radius.

Besides, we already established that if only one side has wizards then that side will have an advantage, but if both sides have wizards then the wizards are too busy fighting each other to deal with common grunts for the most part.

 

[Bhadrak]

So lets take Billy Human. He becomes an adult when he's 15 years old, and he'll die when he's 86, so he'll have an adult life of 71 years. He earns 211.26 XP per year of normal activity. He spends two years in his father's shop learning to be a blacksmith, and then joins the Army. The Army puts him through a year of training and he spends three more years as a soldier at home before being shipped off to fight a war against some orcs. When he actually arrives ready to fight, he has 2957 XP and is almost 3rd level, more than a match for the untrained orc grunts.

This represents a more or less standard non-wartime soldier, he's capable of taking hits and giving them, and he might just survive a fireball.

Most professional soldiers, even if they've never seen combat shoud be at least 2nd level, if not higher.

An interesting premise. You seem to be assuming though that regular npcs gain experience like pcs.

By your reasoning, though, the orcs themselves would also all be higher than first level. After all, they've been fighting for years as well...

 

[SableWyvern]

Part of the discussion isn't so much how armies would fight in a D&D gameworld, but how the D&D rules do or do not support various real-world tactics.

Playing out a mass combat by the existing skirmish-level rules doesn't lead to the expected outcome. The guy following Sun-Tzu religiously doesn't have much of an advantage, because attacking up a hill isn't an issue, keeping archers to your shield-side isn't an issue, making good use of standards and banners isn't an issue -- and even flanking isn't an issue.

Which is pretty much my first point - if this is just a discussion for the sake of it, all is fine and good.

A separate issue is that D&D's rules define how the world works, and part of that world is magic: Wizards, Clerics, flying monsters, etc. That also changes tactics quite a bit, depending on how prevalent all that magic is.

Absolute agreement. With magic, especially, I acknowledge the need for the mechanics to influence tactics, because the rules are our only means of identifying what the actual effects of spells are.

On the other hand, can't we take a good look out how real-world tactics play out using D&D rules, then decide which rules could use tweaking to match our expectations?

Yes, I will allow that.

Right, but if we look at Feats that shouldn't fit in mass combat (e.g. Spring Attack) and find that they work all too well, what do we do? We can look for elegant solutions or rely on inelegant hand-waving, but we want to do something.

You've lost me a bit here. First, I think Spring Attack is fine conceptually, in a melee with wider spacings (eg, knights, Scottsmen with their broadswords, etc...).

As for the potential abuse of the feat, are you now talking about atually formulating mass-combat rules, or saying that there is a necessity to somehow explain away why a formation of soldiers who, on paper have Spr Att, don't utilise it its full munchkin potential?

If the former, all well and good, although personally I think the attempts to form d20 mass combat rules are trying too hard to keep too much of the basic rules (although, based on the mass combat thread, I hold a minority view there ).

If the latter, I honestly can't see the necessity to explain anything. It is a feat designed to be utilised in a skirmish level game, catering to roleplayers. What more explanation could you want?

Either way, I certainly don't mean to try and invalidate the discussion in any way. As I believe I began my earlier post, just a few thoughts...

 

[SableWyvern]

Do you have any idea how big a regiment is? A fireball only has a 20 foot radius.

In Commonwealth forces, an artillery or armoured regiment is equivalent to a US battallion, while an infantry regiment is two or more battallions and is not an operational formation.

In the US, I believe it is typically 2 to 4 battallions.

In times past, a regiment has been typically anywhere from 50 to 500 horse, or highly variable numbers of infantry.

IIRC, in WHFB, a regiment is pretty much any unit, and could be as small as a few bases or 50+.

Besides, we already established that if only one side has wizards then that side will have an advantage, but if both sides have wizards then the wizards are too busy fighting each other to deal with common grunts for the most part.

That's a cop out. If all the armies fielded are equal value point buy, from the same army list, that might be almost a reasonable assumption. However, I do believe that the assumption is that the raising of armies is determined instead by such things as availability of troops, the political structure and climate, a nation's military tradition, economic factors etc... etc...

 

[mmadsen]

But a single level 5 wizard would drop an entire regiment within seconds with one well-aimed fireball.

A 5th-level Wizard can cast one Fireball per day, up to 600 ft. away, with a radius of 20 ft. (40 ft. across). Even if that instantly kills 50 soldiers, those aren't heavy casualties. It may blow a hole in the line and turn the tide -- especially when you consider the morale hit of seeing your comrades go up in smoke -- but it's not actually all that effective.

Then, when you consider that a Wizard within 600 ft. of his target may very well be within 1000 ft. (10 increments of 100 ft.) of archers, well, you might not see too many Wizards volunteering as short-range artillery.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Historically, formations were bunched together because those that weren't swept away by cavalry were annihilated by tight formations of infantry.

Men that spread out were impossible to command and ran away when faced by denser formations. Would you want to fight 3 footsoldiers or 2 cavalrymen effectively alone?

The practical way to enforce this is to apply a morale check (saving throw?) every time a unit attacked by a 'superior' formation with modifiers for what you are up against. If the unit fails its check it falls back and makes no attack for its action.

 

[Reno]

The thing I would do in this situation is not get the PCs involved directly, but rather have them go on seperate missions involved with the war. But if your are looking for tactics, what you do is, something totally different than what your opponent is expecting.

For Example: During the Revolutionary War the Americans used tactics the British normally didn't see, a la trenches a guerilla warfare. We won in this case. If your country or kingdom has a long standing tradition of fighting in tight formations, all soldiers equipped exactly the same, etc. What you do is attack in seemingly random patterns, vary equipment, employ magic, and just basically other stuff your opponent doesn't expect you should have better chances.

But of course a great opponent will expect this.

 

[Bhadrak]

For Example: During the Revolutionary War the Americans used tactics the British normally didn't see, a la trenches a guerilla warfare. We won in this case.

I'm not a student of the American Revolution, but I'm pretty sure the war wasn't won because the Americans used guerilla warfare.