Mass Combat Rules?

[Black Omega]

I know AEG's War has some masscombat rules. I think Quint Fighter does as well. I was told Green Ronin has a book with this, but I've not been ablew to find it so far.

Any suggestions on other books that might have something for this? I'm looking for something that would let me simulate the PC's in the mist of a large battle without rolling out every single encounter.

 

[DanMcS]

Cry Havoc, Malhavoc Press. The gist is to group 10 or 20 people into a unit, average the stats, and treat it as a single figure on a regular D&D 1-inch grid, where 1 inch = 50 feet by 50 feet instead of 5x5. Very similar to regular D&D tactical combat stuff, just abstracted out a bit more. It lets you kind of "zoom in" on what PCs are doing, or let them be treated as part of a unit. There's some prep time involved in figuring out the stats of the units, but it isn't hard, and if the unit is homogenous most of the stats are identical to the regular single-individual stats.

I like it, it has gotten some good reviews on the site, and it's handy dandy enough that we're planning on using it for the Birthright 3e campaign setting book, since it's OGL.

 

[Nightfall]

Might try Cry Havoc. Wyrd put a review on the d20 Reviews section.

 

[MarauderX]

Fields Of Blood is supposed to be coming out soon, and will cover mass combat as well as PCs playing as rulers of nations and how nations are constructed and operated in a nice organized manner. I can't wait.

 

[Wombat]

I guess it depends on what you want from mass combat.

Now if you want to run a major battle in a war with just a few die rolls, get Green Ronin's Testament. For a more blow-by-blow description, Malhavoc's Cry Havoc would be more your speed.

For a more serious take, find a set of miniatures rules and adapt them to your particular brand of fantasty. Hordes of Things is a great starter in this direction.

 

[blueshade]

Cry Havoc, Malhavoc Press. The gist is to group 10 or 20 people into a unit, average the stats, and treat it as a single figure on a regular D&D 1-inch grid, where 1 inch = 50 feet by 50 feet instead of 5x5. Very similar to regular D&D tactical combat stuff, just abstracted out a bit more. It lets you kind of "zoom in" on what PCs are doing, or let them be treated as part of a unit. There's some prep time involved in figuring out the stats of the units, but it isn't hard, and if the unit is homogenous most of the stats are identical to the regular single-individual stats.

I like it, it has gotten some good reviews on the site, and it's handy dandy enough that we're planning on using it for the Birthright 3e campaign setting book, since it's OGL.

Will we be seeing the campaign setting book anytime soon? Please?

 

[Farland]

Try the mass combat system and program in my sig. below. Lots of people swear by it.

 

[DanMcS]

Will we be seeing the campaign setting book anytime soon? Please?

Couldn't say, I'm not on that bit. They're doing a fairly detailed writeup of every realm, or at least every PC realm, rather than the way it was when first released. Some realms had everything detailed, treasury, standing army, location of castles, and some were like "here are the provinces, if you want to run this realm you have to make it up." So this should be better.

The boxed set is like 5 bucks as an ESD, that might tide you over since the realm descriptions shouldn't be really changing that much.

 

[Bagpuss]

Try the mass combat system and program in my sig. below. Lots of people swear by it.

I think you might have found someone else to swear by it.

 

[MarauderX]

I think you might have found someone else to swear by it.

Actually, it is pretty good. I like Malhavoc's as well, but find some things that I would change and find it difficult to do without changing the whole system. I will swear by it until I have a chance to get accustomed to Fields O' Blood.