mass combat

[bolen]

This is kind of surprising to me. I guess the lack of extreme positive response is indicative of why Wizards is not so gung ho about a 3rd ed battlesystem.

 

[EricNoah]

Nah, it's indicative of nothing. If the poll were reworded to something like "how interested are you in a WotC produced mass combat system" with some choices like very, somewhat, not, that's a lot different than asking if we would buy a book like that sight unseen.

 

[SableWyvern]

The old Star Wars from West End Games contained some good guidelines for cinematic PC involvement in mass battles. The basic gist is that PCs do typical heroic PC stuff, like take on a lone walker or hold an important position, and how they fare affects the overall battle, including the next scene in which they are involved.

 

[Chimera]

I basically do the same as WSmith, throwing in some NPC rolls for good effect. Large battles can be done in not too much more time than regular combat (which can be slow anyways).

The largest I've run was an army of 500 Orcs against a town of 500, with @80 Guards/Soldiers/Rangers/local NPCs, 16 NPCs (two other parties) and 6 PCs. Took a good 2-3 hours, but the players had a huge impact on the battle. Fun when the group Cleric went down fighting the Orc General one-on-one, and several others had to spring to her rescue. One Heal spell while she's being protected, then she jumps back into combat and kills the bugger. Meanwhile the Ranger led a charge that wiped out a breakthrough on the other side of town. What more could you ask?

 

[Mistwell]

Quinessential Fighter Handbook

I thought the Q Fighter book had a great d20 mass combat system in it already. Why turn to Wizards for their version when the Q Fighter does a good job of it already?

 

[Tsyr]

Because, like I said, wizards gives it an air of officiality. I know multiple DMs who won't use non-WotC stuff.

 

[bardolph]

I think that the Open Mass Combat System (OMCS) in The Quintessential Fighter is pretty nice, but it certainly needs fleshing out before it can really be considered a mature system. It also has some really strange rulings ("HOW many people did my magic missile kill?!?"), and is completely missing any rules governing movement troop movement.

However, it should serve well for "quick and dirty" mass combat resolution in the context of a PC-driven campaign.