The 2017 UA for mass combat had you assigning a battle rating to units based on CR and number of creatures. Then during a battle, both units would roll 1d20 plus their BR, and the winner accrued casualties on the loser. Great for in your head calculations and broad narrative, but then it falls apart.
For a broad guideline of relatively comparable troops the idea seemed okay. But if a unit with a battle rating of 40 (spearman say) fought a unit with a battle rating of say, 100 (heavy infantry), then the spearman would always lose and the infantry would never take any casualties. Ex, best roll for spearman is a 20, plus their BR of 40, equals 60. This would never beat the lowest roll of the infantry. (d20 =1, plus 100 for 101.)
Since 5e has an ethos of bounded accuracy, I would think the lesser unit would do some damage, and eventually enough of those units would attrit the infantry.
So I toss that idea out. But I want a system that I can look at a stat block and use a number from it and come up with a broad narrative idea of who wins, but could be surprised by a turn in the battle of lucky rolls.
Primeval Thule has a similar system that adds up the the CR of the creatures involved, then rolls dice, but even if the winner wins the oppossed roll, they take some damage, leading to eventual attrition.
I like simple systems like this that I can do in my head, and statistically predict probable outcomes. Then let the players actions swing things around. So I'm not looking for replacement systems, or systems with unit cards or token, or minis etc.
Just an idea if there are any flaws with Thule's system like there are in WotC system that I may have missed, or ways to improve the fidelity of either system.
For a broad guideline of relatively comparable troops the idea seemed okay. But if a unit with a battle rating of 40 (spearman say) fought a unit with a battle rating of say, 100 (heavy infantry), then the spearman would always lose and the infantry would never take any casualties. Ex, best roll for spearman is a 20, plus their BR of 40, equals 60. This would never beat the lowest roll of the infantry. (d20 =1, plus 100 for 101.)
Since 5e has an ethos of bounded accuracy, I would think the lesser unit would do some damage, and eventually enough of those units would attrit the infantry.
So I toss that idea out. But I want a system that I can look at a stat block and use a number from it and come up with a broad narrative idea of who wins, but could be surprised by a turn in the battle of lucky rolls.
Primeval Thule has a similar system that adds up the the CR of the creatures involved, then rolls dice, but even if the winner wins the oppossed roll, they take some damage, leading to eventual attrition.
To determine the combat power of a side add up the total Challenge Rating of the combatants. Count anything less than ½ as ½ and round fractions down. Do not include the PCs. Challenge Rating is a good measure of an individual creature’s ability to both absorb damage and dish it out, so the total CR of a formation is a reasonable estimate of its strength. For example, if a PC is leading a raid of 75 tribal warriors (CR 1/8) with a tame tyrannosaurus, the war party has a combat power of 37 for the warriors and 8 for the tyrannosaurus, for a total of 45. The base damage inflicted by a warband each round is equal to 20 percent of its current combat power, rounding down to the nearest whole number (minimum 1). In the example above, the base damage for a war party of 75 tribal warriors and their T Rex is 9 (45 times 20 percent).
At the end of each round of combat, after you have resolved the actions of the PCs and any monsters or villains they’re handling in person, resolve one round of follower combat. The attacking and defending forces make an opposed battle roll (d20); the side with the higher result “wins” that round, and deals their base damage to the combat power of the losing side. The losing side deals ½ of its base damage to the winning side. If the result is a tie, neither side takes any damage—the fighting was inconclusive.
At the end of each round of combat, after you have resolved the actions of the PCs and any monsters or villains they’re handling in person, resolve one round of follower combat. The attacking and defending forces make an opposed battle roll (d20); the side with the higher result “wins” that round, and deals their base damage to the combat power of the losing side. The losing side deals ½ of its base damage to the winning side. If the result is a tie, neither side takes any damage—the fighting was inconclusive.
I like simple systems like this that I can do in my head, and statistically predict probable outcomes. Then let the players actions swing things around. So I'm not looking for replacement systems, or systems with unit cards or token, or minis etc.
Just an idea if there are any flaws with Thule's system like there are in WotC system that I may have missed, or ways to improve the fidelity of either system.