Some thoughts on D&D warfare

[Stalker0]

Another way you could treat it is high level casters are like nuclear weapons...they are too destructive for civilized warfare....and nations have treaties barring their use (of course, both sides keep their stockpiles of casters as a deterrent

 

[gizmo33]

(War and alignment threads are my guilty pleasure)

Vietnam-era combat would require walkie-talkie's or some equivalent to issue orders IMO. I think that a mass of War1 characters would need to all have line-of-sight to the commander or they'd either go home or turn into bandits.

I agree with S'mon as far as fantasy goes - armies should probably have fairly high proportions of higher level characters - probably following the 3E DMG demographics if you play that version. Though I think there are plenty of sources of War1 in the time period he lists - freemen were required to keep arms and armor in many cases: town and city levy, mounted seargents, squires, other followers of a knight (his "lance" of troops). IMO Swiss pike don't have to be War3, they're scary IIRC because they take no prisoners (contrary to normal feudal practice), high morale, and a tactic well suited to defeating mounted troops of the period. Training for a formation (the crucial part of pike use) is not the same thing as the personal combat capability that I associate with War3, although it's all very subjective. So if you want lots of War1, I think you can justify it, although it might not be the best thing for a high-magic campaign world.

 

[TerraDave]

Another way you could treat it is high level casters are like nuclear weapons...they are too destructive for civilized warfare....and nations have treaties barring their use (of course, both sides keep their stockpiles of casters as a deterrent

Social or religious conventions, or even divine intervention! could keep the high levels out.

As could lack of interest, I mean, who is going to make them fight if they don't want to?

 

[gizmo33]

Personally, I've felt for some time now that the best way to handle mass combat in D&D is to not handle it as an abstract at all.

Depends how "realistic" you want things to be. The problem with making mass combat an essentially large scale DnD melee is that a DnD melee has some aspects to it that are appropriate IMO for a few exceptional heroes, but unrealistic for larger groups.

In the typical DnD melee:
1. everyone gets a long time to think about what they want to do
2. everyone knows what everyone else is doing
3. everyone is commited to fighting and never gets scared (unless is magically induced)
4. there is no fatigue
5. there are no supply issues, PCs have plenty of horseshoes, food, and warm clothes
6. no one trips over, bumps into, or gets stabbed by their allies accidentally
7. everyone does something effective and significant every round, there is no confusion (unless magically induced)z
8. your view of the battlefield is from above and has grids

One advantage of taking a realistic approach to combat is that it creates the opportunity for "great commanders" to emerge that are more than just high-level fighters. A great commander would be skilled in the areas of morale, supply, deployment, etc. A great commander's group of 100 War1 is a well-fed, organized machine that fights as a single creature (achieving most of the conditions of the "ideal" DnD melee above), while a poor commander's troop is scared, tired, and confused.

 

[TerraDave]

Excelent points. It is also hard to play a battle with 1000s of combatants without abstraction...

actually, a tangental comment, abstract rules at the smaller scale, e.g. for the party to fight 60 raging orc barbarians, could also be handy. Hmm, I know there are rules coming out for something called "mobs" (I think DMG II), maybe those would work

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Excelent points. It is also hard to play a battle with 1000s of combatants without abstraction...

True.

actually, a tangental comment, abstract rules at the smaller scale, e.g. for the party to fight 60 raging orc barbarians, could also be handy. Hmm, I know there are rules coming out for something called "mobs" (I think DMG II), maybe those would work

Try using the swarm template. This is an unplaytested notion of mine. I'm just tossing the idea out for giggles.

 

[Yair]

Personally, I've felt for some time now that the best way to handle mass combat in D&D is to not handle it as an abstract at all. Get a large patch of floor with 1" counters marked "orc", "human", or whatever. Then roll initiative. This has the disadvantage of taking a very long time but you won't have to worry about abstractions causing problems.

ICK! NO! I don't even have enough FLOOR for that... or lifetime...
Besides, as gizmo said, you just run into all sorts of other problems (resolve and morale, coordination and command, and so on).

I agree that the dreadnaught is the key player on the battlefield with the exception of high level (13+) casters. A DR of 5 lets you plow through enemy formations with a good chance of being OK.

I think a DR of 10 is needed. Othrewise, you last a little longer but you still get whittled down by just about anyone, so if there are lots of little ones...

The key would be to get rid of High Value Units (HVU) as soon as possible. Mopping up the troopers can be done any old time. But you need to get rid of the teleporters and the dudes who can only be hit by adamantium or whatever.

I think there is a rock-scisors-paper here. Dreadnoughts kill bulk, HVU kills dreadnaoughts, bulk kills (slowly, but it does) HVU. Of course, there are HVU that are also dreadnoughts, and some HVUs can only hit some dreadnoughts, and so on and so on, but that's the picture I have in mind.

In high magic battles, Knowledge (Planes) would be a vital skill as spellcasters would retreat to dimensions where 1 Prime Material hour would equate with 8 alternate-dimension hours.

I would never allow time-stretching like that in my campaign. Creates waaay more problems then the coolness added. I don't know, maybe it's my physics upbringing - I just don't stand it.

I don't think there's any getting around the fact that a moderate-to-high magic war would be exceptionally deadly.

Well, there is one: cheat
I think I'll largely confine critters to CR 10 or so on the battlefield, with only a very few higher-CR (if any) per battle. That way, at least it's more controllable.

 

[Yair]

Excelent points. It is also hard to play a battle with 1000s of combatants without abstraction...

Perhaps with a computer program? Can something like DMGenie (or whatever) handle combat with so many combatants and land?

actually, a tangental comment, abstract rules at the smaller scale, e.g. for the party to fight 60 raging orc barbarians, could also be handy. Hmm, I know there are rules coming out for something called "mobs" (I think DMG II), maybe those would work

I can certainly find use for such rules.
My own inclination is to divide the foes to groups of 20 or less. I've got 20 d20's, so I just roll all at once and it isn't that slow or difficult. But it COULD go quicker.

 

[gizmo33]

Actually, I did try to BiggusGeekus method for mass-combat resolution one time. We used 1/4 inch = 5 ft scale, and used a ruler and drew large squares with many little squares representing a unit. When a warrior died, it got a line put through it. I wrote a dice-rolling computer program that tracked arrays of numbers for hitpoints, and rolled mass sets of d20s against a particular armor class. A "warcraft" skill in my campaign was used to resolve initiative, and perform certain mass formation movements (changing facing, moving forward, etc.) There were about 600 fighters or so on each side, plus a few high-level NPCs and PCs.

It was tedious, took some fudging when the record-keeping got a little crazy. My players were somewhat bored, I was probably more entertained. In the future I'll probably try one of the d20 mass-combat rule systems. I really like the EL-based idea, my preferred system would be to start with EL and modify it for training and morale.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

BiggusGeekus had a bad idea.

OK, I'll back off from the counters. My opponents/players were grongards so maybe that had a lot to do with it.

Hmmmm.

Maybe some kind of system that penalized mixed units by lowering morale. So if you wanted to have a griffon, 5 trolls, 2 mind flayers, and 70 orcs in the same unit, you'll get squabbling. Then come up with some kind of "critical hit" system where you had a chance to wound or kill the nasty general/dreadnaught within the group of troops.

I find myself remembering the Battletech game. I'm not talking about mech design of course, but constructing an army out of parts. You're more likely to hit the chest (aka orcs) but that area can take a lot of damage. If you hit the head (aka dreadnaught) it can take several hits but when it goes down the whole mech (aka batallion) suffers.

.... just musing ...