Level Up (A5E) Mass Combat?

[CleverNickName]

It’s not something we plan to do. It’s too big a topic to squeeze into a core rulebook.

--sad trombone--

 

[glass]

Thinking about it, I don't know if Level Up is planned to be a one-&-done core book or if there are plans for a larger product line (I guess it depends on how the core book sells). So maybe something like this could be done in a future supplement? EDIT: Or at least, I assume that most future supplements will be made with both core 5e and Level Up in mind.

I am reminded of when I played War of the Burning Sky. There are various battle scenes - I think in the published adventure (4e version) they are handles as Skill Challenges but my friend who was GMing wrote up a simple hex-based battle system. It worked pretty well, although there was a bit of number fudging with the higher levels battles to make groups of soldiers actually threatening. Because of the much slower scaling of numbers in 5e, it would actually work better from that point of view.

_
glass.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I voted stretch goal as well. Other things are more important IMO, so this should be one of the last things tackled if others are polished and ready to roll.

 

[Horwath]

D&D is not about mass combat.

It can be nice addition, but focus must be on individuals.

I war PCs should be commandos that perform surgical strikes, not be drown in mass combat between thousands of people.

 

[CleverNickName]

D&D is not about mass combat.

But it can be about mass combat. Earlier editions of the game had mass combat rules baked in, and a lot of classic D&D adventures and modules used them. My favorites were CM1: Test of the Warlords, and X10: Red Arrow Black Shield. While these adventures largely focused on the actions of the player characters, there were some important battle scenes that were resolved using mass combat independent of the PCs. The party's success in their individual missions didn't guarantee success of the armies they represented.

It can be nice addition, but focus must be on individuals.

I agree that it can be a nice addition. But not every scene needs to to focus on individuals, as you say. The point and purpose of an evening's adventure could be to lead an army across the desert and command it from a promontory.

I war PCs should be commandos that perform surgical strikes, not be drown in mass combat between thousands of people.

Yeah, it's not going to be everyone's preference that's for sure. The trouble is that any D&D rules system without integrated mass combat rules will always feel incomplete to me. Not unplayable, just incomplete.

As @glass said, the discussion is purely academic at this point. In comment No. 9, @Morrus has confirmed that mass combat is not currently on the table. Which is a bummer, and will remain a bummer. However, it's not a deal-breaker for me.

 

[Asisreo]

But it can be about mass combat

I think it can include mass combat, but I don't think it can ever be about mass combat. D&D has always had an intimate relationship with the individual characters rather than legions even when followers were semi-common to have in your party.

If it's made to be about mass combat, there wouldn't be any room in the dungeons and the dragons would need organized legions of underlings as well.

 

[ThatGuySteve]

I like the way the Pendragon Grand Campaign handles battle. The outcome is predetermined due to drawing on the source material, but commanders told can affect what the players can do in the think of it, like getting enough space to wheel and charge or bring bogged down in close quaters.

Running Pathfinder Kingmaker, during battles the PCs just wanted to fly around casting fireball, not worth about what the soldiers were doing.

For d&d I like to keep the action tight on the PCs. Let them play out scenes within the battle (which could include giving commands) but just have a very high level roll or couple of rolls to determine outcome. Don't big players down in deciding which of 10 strategic maneuvers they are going to use this round, just say if they made their tactics check they get advantage on the battle roll.

 

[Li Shenron]

I think it might be useful in certain fringe campaigns, and probably many players would appreciate an occasional mass battle (especially if they are LotR movies fans) but the problem is that it is very difficult to design such system, WotC tried a couple of times in UA but scrapped both eventually.

The players would expect that their actions as individuals can determine the outcomes of the whole battle, but obviously they can't win the battle alone... so the system would need to represent combat differently (also for practical reasons, as the players will expect to be able to kill 100 orcs but without spending 100 rounds of combat to do so) but still allow the PCs to fight inside the mass. Having one-on-one duels against important NPCs is not a "mass" battle, it's a regular D&D combat encounter with two armies playing the role of background scenery.

In addition, trying to create a system where the PCs lead the armies (or specific units) changes the game too much towards a wargame, which is not what most players want. And if they really want it, it's easier to just pick a good existing wargame ruleset and play that instead, like the "war machine" from older D&D.

So to really be able to bring D&D characters into a mass battle is indeed a huge task. The final (assuming successful) result might as well be no more a couple of pages of rules, but to distill everything down to those 2 pages could take ages even for very good game designers.

 

[Zaukrie]

MCDM has this covered. No need to put it here, IMO.

 

[glass]

MCDM has this covered. No need to put it here, IMO.

MCDM?

_
glass.