Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Resolving large-scale NPC conflicts in D&D
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Yair" data-source="post: 2754100" data-attributes="member: 10913"><p>There are lots and lots of books on this, with many options.</p><p>Personally, I saw two approaches I liked. One is basing it on EL (not HD!), the other is just winging it according to the needs of the story, using the battle as background instead of resolving it mecahnically.</p><p></p><p>For a fairly quick and easy EL-based combat resolution system, I admire Bad Axe Game's <a href="http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=4037&" target="_blank">GT Mass Combat</a> system. You'll also want to purchase their <a href="http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=4036&" target="_blank">Gamemastering</a> pdf for the EL calculations. (Total cost: 3.8 $) The latter alone can provide you with an estimate of casualties.</p><p></p><p>For a story-based resolution system, I hear good things of Heroes of Battle.</p><p></p><p>I'm not sure why you are interested in the encounters you listed given a 1500-5000 men army. If these are encounters between only NPCs, I'd arbitrarily make a ruling based on EL and tactics, perhaps using the GT Mass Combat system above. </p><p>If the encounters you listed are those where PCs are involved, they are not too lagre to handle with usual D&D rules without any real loss of speed. Have some 20 d20's on hand; that's an amount you can scoop up with both hands and throw. Divide the beasties into units of, say, 40 or less, and have all members of a unit use the same action in a round; make sure to have a small number of units. Make sure to do all the math before-hand, so you'll know all the DCs you need to reach with those d20's. Then it's just a matter of counting how many d20's reached the target number.</p><p>You can use average damage rolls to speed things up, or roll them when you feel like it (when, say, there is no DR so you just sum all things up); rolling a few and multiplying also works.</p><p>The thing that takes time is really determining DCs and actions and resolving spells, not throwing the dice. As long as you limit yourself to only a few units, you should be fine.</p><p></p><p>If you are asking for a generator for combat situation encounters, I think Heroes of Battle covers that. I don't know of another product that does.</p><p></p><p>Example of arbitrary ruling using just BAG's Gamemastering pdf:</p><p></p><p>The fighters have a Power of 159, the monsters 75 (just a quick CR-based calculation). The fighters should easily prevail, but lose half their resources. All things being equal, I'd cut this to a quarter and say the monsters suffer 25% casualties and the rest flee, while the fighters suffer 10% casualties (say, 4 level 1 and 1 level 3) and many wounded. </p><p>If the monsters had some truly brilliant tactics that effectively sprang a trap on the fighters, I would double their power so the conflict becomes 159 against 150. Their power is balanced. In this case I'd rule a fierce and balanced battle with 25% (or even 50% for a pyrrhic battle) casualties on both sides, and have both sides retreating. If a mutual retreat did not make sense, I'd be inclined to have the humans retreating after being so surprised, but could go with the monster's retreat if such a retreat was more easy tactically (as the humans still do have a slight advantage in power).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Yair, post: 2754100, member: 10913"] There are lots and lots of books on this, with many options. Personally, I saw two approaches I liked. One is basing it on EL (not HD!), the other is just winging it according to the needs of the story, using the battle as background instead of resolving it mecahnically. For a fairly quick and easy EL-based combat resolution system, I admire Bad Axe Game's [url=http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=4037&]GT Mass Combat[/url] system. You'll also want to purchase their [url=http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=4036&]Gamemastering[/url] pdf for the EL calculations. (Total cost: 3.8 $) The latter alone can provide you with an estimate of casualties. For a story-based resolution system, I hear good things of Heroes of Battle. I'm not sure why you are interested in the encounters you listed given a 1500-5000 men army. If these are encounters between only NPCs, I'd arbitrarily make a ruling based on EL and tactics, perhaps using the GT Mass Combat system above. If the encounters you listed are those where PCs are involved, they are not too lagre to handle with usual D&D rules without any real loss of speed. Have some 20 d20's on hand; that's an amount you can scoop up with both hands and throw. Divide the beasties into units of, say, 40 or less, and have all members of a unit use the same action in a round; make sure to have a small number of units. Make sure to do all the math before-hand, so you'll know all the DCs you need to reach with those d20's. Then it's just a matter of counting how many d20's reached the target number. You can use average damage rolls to speed things up, or roll them when you feel like it (when, say, there is no DR so you just sum all things up); rolling a few and multiplying also works. The thing that takes time is really determining DCs and actions and resolving spells, not throwing the dice. As long as you limit yourself to only a few units, you should be fine. If you are asking for a generator for combat situation encounters, I think Heroes of Battle covers that. I don't know of another product that does. Example of arbitrary ruling using just BAG's Gamemastering pdf: The fighters have a Power of 159, the monsters 75 (just a quick CR-based calculation). The fighters should easily prevail, but lose half their resources. All things being equal, I'd cut this to a quarter and say the monsters suffer 25% casualties and the rest flee, while the fighters suffer 10% casualties (say, 4 level 1 and 1 level 3) and many wounded. If the monsters had some truly brilliant tactics that effectively sprang a trap on the fighters, I would double their power so the conflict becomes 159 against 150. Their power is balanced. In this case I'd rule a fierce and balanced battle with 25% (or even 50% for a pyrrhic battle) casualties on both sides, and have both sides retreating. If a mutual retreat did not make sense, I'd be inclined to have the humans retreating after being so surprised, but could go with the monster's retreat if such a retreat was more easy tactically (as the humans still do have a slight advantage in power). [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Resolving large-scale NPC conflicts in D&D
Top