Running Mass Combat

[S'mon]

Unit size - if I'm doing a minis battle, I use "whatever keeps the number of miniatures in double figures" - so battle of 500 I'd use 10-1 Squad scale, 5,000 I'd use 100-1 Company scale, 50,000 1000-1 Battalion scale, 500,000 10000-1 Division scale. In marginal cases (like battle of 10,000) I'd use whichever, depending on how important the battle was & how high level the PCs.

 

[iwatt]

Might make sense for ranged attacks, though, or as a bonus in melee against a unit defending the high ground against a unit making an attack (or, especially, a charge) onto high ground, for the first round only.

Yeah I know what you mean: I'll probably use it as a penalty for charging up rather than a bonus for charging down. I'm goint to say my Mantras now:

Don't fiddle too much with BR, +2 menas double the force....

And of course, I'm attracted to anything that makes the battle more tactically interesting.

Yeah, that is the whole point of my fiddling. Just trying to be careful of not unbalancing the game. I just want to stay true to a lot of those cacthy phrases military history buffs use, like "control the higher ground", "flank your enemies", etc...

No, it's not stupid; in fact it stumped me for a second.

A cavalry unit of 20 would be 20 riders and 20 mounts; the unit size is 20, but for purposes of the BR you want to add the CR of all 20 riders and all 20 mounts. (The rider and his mount move, act, give and receive Command checks and morale as a single unit; hence the unit size is 20, not 40.)

Makes sense (cavalry always was the hammer), but didn't want them to be too unwieldly. Ok, check. I'm done......


well not quite : as a house rule I'm giving lawful units (dwarf phalanx) a +1 to command checks for formation checks, and chaotic units (orc ravagers) a -1 to the same checks. That plus crappy leadership skills will help break up the hordes quicker.

 

[iwatt]

Unit size - if I'm doing a minis battle, I use "whatever keeps the number of miniatures in double figures" - so battle of 500 I'd use 10-1 Squad scale, 5,000 I'd use 100-1 Company scale, 50,000 1000-1 Battalion scale, 500,000 10000-1 Division scale. In marginal cases (like battle of 10,000) I'd use whichever, depending on how important the battle was & how high level the PCs.

OK, that's good advice. You want enough counters to have some flexibility, but not too many that it get's bogged down too much. Thanx.

I always liked the concept of the mass combat rules in the Rules Cyclopedia. Never got to use them. And I want to keep it as d20 fridnly as possible for my players. But I'll look at them for ideas on morale, forced marches, etc... on BR. ....Wulf I promise to be careful

 

[TerraDave]

Unit size - if I'm doing a minis battle, I use "whatever keeps the number of miniatures in double figures" - so battle of 500 I'd use 10-1 Squad scale, 5,000 I'd use 100-1 Company scale, 50,000 1000-1 Battalion scale, 500,000 10000-1 Division scale. In marginal cases (like battle of 10,000) I'd use whichever, depending on how important the battle was & how high level the PCs.

How does magic scale? Just assume that figure has the 100 casters, something else?

 

[S'mon]

How does magic scale? Just assume that figure has the 100 casters, something else?

Well, my current minis rules I'm working on (since the previous diceless version turned to be a NFD - No Fun Disaster) - I treat each unit as an individual with Squad Hit Points (SHP) = individual hit points x10... Division Hit Points = individual hit points x10,000, but listed as SHP or DHP to keep the 0s down.

So at 100-1 Company scale a unit of 100 spellcasters would act exactly the same as a single individual at 1:1 scale, whereas a single caster would do 1/100 the effect - usually nothing, unless he's casting wide-area spells.

At 100-1 Company scale map area & rounds/battle turn would be x10; at 10,000-1 both would be x100. My playtesting so far indicates this should work - for missile weapons they have no penalty to 5 range incs and -5 to 10 increments; assume each attack is "several volleys"; so at Company scale 1 square = 50', longbows can fire 500'/10 squares no penalty, 1000'/10 squares at -5. I half movement rates for unit movement (then x10 etc for the scale) so at Company scale a unit of archers spd 30'/6 squares, in 1 turn can move 6 squares without firing or 3 squares/150' and fire; if they have Rapid Shot & don't move they can fire twice.

 

[S'mon]

Obviously at Divisional scale archers will only be able to fire at adjacent units (without provoking AoOs!) - this kind of 'Panzer General' scale is probably best resolved via War Machine, though. I think most D&D mass battles are best suited to the 1-100 Company scale, with 1-10,000 combatants, also the size of most medieval battles.

 

[azmodean]

The random mass combat method of the minute that I thought of is similar to the Battlefield series of computer games, if anyone here is familiar with the concept. Making modifications to adapt it to D&D, the battleground can have several pivotal points that either belong to a particular faction or lie contested between the sides in the conflict. Both sides have many troops, but only some of them are actually present in the battle (how many should be adjusted per different battles). New troops will constantly be entering the battle to replace that fallen, entering at friendly control points.

Control points that have friendly and enemy units are contested, and no one can enter the battle there until the fight for that point is resolved. In a head-on battle, if one side controls a majority of the control points, the other side will take casualties, depleting their reserve of troops (again, how many should be based on the size of the armies, among other factors, at the DM's discretion). Optionally, both sides can have a base, a control point that cannot be captured by the other side. Assaults and sieges should start with all control points controlled by the defender, causing the defender to take casualties at a slow rate. If the attacker takes every control point, the defender takes casualties at a rapid rate.

You are my hero! This is how I will be running mass combat from now on. Here's my point of view: Initially I wanted a mass combat system that modelled the entire battlefield, with abstraction appropriate to the size of battle. Then I ran into a little snag: The players aren't interested in a war simulation. So now I have to figure out how to present things from the party point of view.
Goals:
Have fun!
Use DnD combat as resolution
have the party influence the outcome of the overal combat
give the party feedback on what they are doing during the combat on both a large and small scale.

What this concept does is allow the party to participate in a combat in a meaningfull way. If they valiantly take the hill and give the foot troops time to set up, you can narrate the effects of their efforts by describing the now entrenched friendly foot troops holding firm against their enemies. On the other hand, if they are forced to retreat (or don't get something done in time) then you get to describe how their allies get pushed back or overrun by their enemies.
Another thing this allows is it allows the group to leverage their greatest assets, communication and mobility. If you have a party wade into the infantry and kill everyone that comes within reach, sure they'll kill a lot of enemies, but that's something that a large group of infantry could have accomplished as well. This idea of taking control points plays to their true ability, which is bringing force to bear in a very focused way.

I also see similarities to the Warhammer 40K RTS Dawn of War, which is reinforcement based instead of attrition based; as well as Suikoden III, where it represented the entire conflict as a set of battles on the party level, with strategic goals set at the beginning of the conflict. I think the attrition-based bodel of Battlefield is the best match for DnD however.

I also like the idea of random encounters on the battlefield.

 

[iwatt]

Wulf,

I'm getting ready to run a siege combat this weekend. I was checking the rules in your pdf and I found that the defnder will have a benefit to command checks due to been in a fortified and controlled ground.

But what are the effects on the tactical level of fortifications. I have the effects of terrain on movement in hand, but how would you reprsent the scaling of the battlements and the benefits of fighting from a wall?

Thanx

 

[Mark Hope]

I used the Cry Havoc rules last night for a mass battle in my Dark Sun game (the one at the end of Road to Urik). It's not a huge battle (200-300 on each side) but I found that the rules were intuitive and worked pretty smoothly. We used a Chessex battlemat and a whole bunch of Fiery Dragon counters and made the battle the focus of the entire session (3-4 hours). Although I stripped many of the finer tweaks out of the system for speed of play, I found that the battle system worked at about the same speed as a regular D&D combat. This was the vital issue to me. I like to run a fast-paced game, so it was important that the battle flow at a decent rate. I'd definitely use this system again.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Wulf,

I'm getting ready to run a siege combat this weekend. I was checking the rules in your pdf and I found that the defnder will have a benefit to command checks due to been in a fortified and controlled ground.

But what are the effects on the tactical level of fortifications. I have the effects of terrain on movement in hand, but how would you reprsent the scaling of the battlements and the benefits of fighting from a wall?

Thanx

I wouldn't change anything that I wrote in the Mass Combat rules.

If you have the effects on movement well in hand, you're more than halfway there.

The effect of the fortifications is included in the bonus to Command checks, Morale checks, and most especially the casualty rate. The defender in a Seige realizes only 25% of his casualties as actual losses.