Stronghold - A mass combat system

[Kevin O'Reilly]

re tables

d20 is full of tables, so any mass combat based on it will need some.

BTW Zar i game in Seattle

 

[CCamfield]

Big grain of salt: I am not the sort of person who would likely use this, certainly not with 100 figures per side, regardless of scale.

Well, for anything up to 10 individuals per figure I would probably lean in favour of the AEG Mercenaries skirmish system because it maintains the same round structure. This system changes the way melee combat works (simultaneous retaliatory strikes), ranged combat, and spellcasting, so that the strength of a PC is going to change. I find that disquieting.

For that matter, I don't know that I buy the difficulty of a 5-man squad shifting facing. If you were talking about entire regiments (and I use the term loosely here), maybe. If I wanted to run a big battle, I'd want to reduce the number of units way beyond 100.

And the explanation of combat resolution leaves too many questions unanswered and seems at first glance to be slow.

Finally... just because D&D uses tables doesn't mean you have to. And trying to display tables in this sort of forum system doesn't work very well - tabs get tossed out and you're left with an unreadable mess, at least in my browser.

 

[Kevin O'Reilly]

Camfield

First this is literally an introduction and I'm sure that the questions you have are legitimate and easily answered if asked.

The point is that mass combat, even skirmish, is different. Units do have facing, flanks and rears, and the issue is not that a small unit has a problem changing face, but the fact that it actually has one and has to appropriately protect its flank. Besides, most small units are actually skirmish units and do not have to worry about facing.

The retalitory attack comes from a doubling of actions to speed up the game. It is also an attempt to avoid rolling inititiative for each individual unit, which is the alternative to the completely unrealistic my whole army moves and attacks, your turn. Rules provide for first strike where models with reach, or great initiative or attack the rear of the unit can strike without retaliation.

The combat resolution is fast, exceedingly fast. In game we see upwards of 15 turns a side in 2 hours, after a short time reviewing the rules. Ask any table top gamer and they'll tell you that is fast. Hell, we've had 3e party combats take longer than that. However, I can see that there would be concern over the modifiers, but can only stress these are light, structured into intuitive clusters and easy to apply.

Re tables - I still hold that if the rolepaly simulation has tables, and mass combat system based on it also will necessarily have tables. Besides, the intent is not to post the whole system (96 pages) on the board anyway.

 

[Kevin O'Reilly]

I like the Move rules and some of the mechanics you used. I think combat is unnecessarily complicated.

sorry it seems that way. It actually addresses modifiers by logical groups - Strength, Feats, Magic items for the Unit; Elevation, Terrain, Weather for the Battlefield; Charging, Flanking, Surprise - for Strategy

What about Armor = Target Number
Roll D20 per unit and add BAB and other modifiers.

The amount the Target Number is exceeded by is the Combat Score.

Nice idea, I'll take a look at it. However, still need to preserve the non unit based modifiers. It's easier to apply them when you can see where they are coming from.

Roll a damage die (modified by weapon, size, and other factors) and multiply this by the Combat Score. This is the number of wounds inflicted.

I don't want to roll damage. Lets face it, 32 rolls of a longsword is going to average 4.5 98.7% of the time (I think that's the Chi Sq), and the less dice i can throw around minis the better

This maintains the D&D sequence of rolling to hit and then rolling for damage.

Again, its implied, but I conceed that people might not like not rolling the 10 d6 for their fireball.

One more question: Do units get saves against spells?

Units keep all their saves, but again the mass combat mechanic avoids every model rolling, but lokks at the strategic effect of the damage on the unit as a whole

 

[CCamfield]

Hey, Kevin - you asked why it seemed people didn't like it. I explained my first-glance reactions to it, that's all.

I know that units have facing, flanks, and rears - the question in my mind is whether that is suitable for a system in which one figure represents 5-25 people. Are figures organized into larger formations? Turning restrictions make more sense when people don't have the room to turn, or the issue is getting several hundred people to turn. Do the same turning restrictions apply to a single isolated figure?

Doing so also might reduce initiative issues, for instance - there are lots of ways of dealing with initiative other than "you move everyone, then I move everyone", like alternating moves for one larger-scale formation at a time, or activation rules for leaders with varying amounts of command.

I don't have much of a problem with retaliatory strikes except as regards to PC interaction with the system. Not rolling for damage for unit attacks makes perfect sense to me, except that I can see players wanting to roll for large single important events, like a fireball going off. If a squad of 5 wizards all cast fireballs at the same location, though, the average would make sense.

 

[CRGreathouse]

I don't want to roll damage. Lets face it, 32 rolls of a longsword is going to average 4.5 98.7% of the time (I think that's the Chi Sq), and the less dice i can throw around minis the better

The chance of rolling 144 on 32d8 is a lot less than 98.7%. (I agree with your point, but not your numbers.)

 

[Kevin O'Reilly]

Cam

My responses where a little aggressive, rather than communicative. Sorry.

Regarding turn sequence: I think that d20 mass combat has to recognise the mechanic "readied action". Once this is done, the true "turn" mechanic vanishes. Now that everyone is used to initiative being rolled once I think it needs to stay like that, and I think that using initiative as it is used in Warhammer doesn't fit either.

On a personal level, I haven't enjoyed systems that use command tokens. However, I'm a big beliver in commanders effecting a zone of command that bolsters morale. Hence, heroes haave an area of command.

Regarding units: Individual heroes are treated just like in 3e, no facing. Heores can "band" together and maintain the same "no facing rules". Units that Skirmish (rougues, rangers, druids, assassins...) also have no facing. Skirmish, btw, is actually a feat units can take.

Tight and Loose formations do have facing, hence flank etc, Depending on the formation there is a cost to chance face, but there are benefits from working as a unit that skirmish units do not get.

I agree that the really big thing is when PCs interact as heroes on the battlefield. Here the danger is that using a different mechanic leads to a different outcome. In this case, I'd pull an old trick from Battlesystem and say resolve such conflicts in the 3e roleplay mechanic if it is an issue for players.

 

[-Eä-]

I like your system, Kevin! I would like to see more of it. Its functionality seem to do what needs to be done in most cases, at least for me. I would appreciate it if you could give more details. Are you planning on posting the complete rules on a website? I think that would be a good idea.



One suggestion for giving randomness to large scale battles, as for damage and so on, is to use the inverse cumulative normal distribution for dice. As the number of dice increase, the distribution approaches the gaussian normal distribution.

Here is the function

(1/6)*(3*n+3*n*s+sqrt(6*n*(s^2-1))*z)

z=inverseerf(-1+2*random)

Where n is number of dice, s is number of sides per die, random is a random number so that 0<random<1

Inverseerf is the inverse error function.

 

[ErichDragon]

I would really like to see the whole system posted too. I have been looking for a simple mass combat system for an upcoming campaign.

 

[Drawmack]

I seems a bit complex. I personally like rules reduced to tables and forumlas. Give me the flavor and explainations later.

This might be easier to incorporate if it more closely modled the d20 rules.

For example

A troop is always armed, classed and armored the same. This means that a troop has a single AC and BaB. Then when one troop attacks another troop you can do a standard attack and damage roll. Each individual gets a troop size/100 % chance of not taking the damage.

It is a good system but I feel the mechanics are a bit too divergent from the d20 system to be a simple fit.

Just mo 2 coppers.