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New Mass Combat

Hi, I'm feeling good today and I hope you are too. Wait, before you avert your eyes if you are interested in a mass combat system for d&d then please read on. Otherwise, yeah.

Mass Combat for d&d has been in my experience akin to an ugly girlfriend, you want to play with her but you're scared to let your friends know about it. It has always been either a burdensome system that crushes play under its convoluted weight or is simply RPG story driven.

I confide recently that our group has experienced a functional mass combat for Pathfinder from beginning to conclusion in one complete 7-hour session. This was an engagement between an elven brigade (approx 150 miniatures) and a drow brigade (approx 200 miniatures) with the party (about 6 miniatures). Somewhat like GW Fantasy (groan) we used movement rules that one inch represent 10' so base to base was 5' reach.

Every other rule we used the D&D Miniatures Handbook for inspiration. I say inspiration for everything was factored down to facilitate the mass combat. When a group was attacking it would use 1 dice and no matter the score it was always a hit. This one dice rule helped the flow of combat as there would always be a resultant dependent on the differential of their hit. Eg. If it was 10 or less than the average AC it would do 10% damage and if it was 10 or more it would do 150%.

So I'm just thinking now how to make the mass combat more effective. I am thinking of setting up table algorithms for state based effects (auto results). For example if a group moves within 10' of a shaken group after consulting the table the shaken group would flee. We would also improve the character feats to add a Mass Combat section to them, for example Cleave will add a movement bonus and modifier to the PC while in a mass battle.

The goal in this project is to create a functional mass battle system in that it will represent Pathfinder battles using groups on a battle field while maintaining accuracy, efficiency and playability.

If you are interested in this project please PM.

Cheers,
 
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