The Battlefield as Hostile Terrain

[S'mon]

I posted this in a thread in General, but I think it belongs here.

Using armies of low-level creatures as an environment hazard for high-level characters.

1. Wading into the Enemy

Say the PC is on an open plain, surrounded by low level enemy minions who hit him on a 20 for 6 damage.

With moving and shifting, every square around the PC could have 2 foes in it each round. That's 8 x2 = 16 attacks/round. Add in some thrown missiles, call it 20 attacks/round. Or, an average 1 hit/round.

So, the battlefield becomes an environmental hazard doing 6 damage/round.

And you don't need to put any minis down for the mooks; just treat the whole area as difficult terrain. Do put down minis for enemy leaders and champions.

2. Free-fire Zones

This is assuming that being amongst the enemy is giving the PC cover against enemy missile troops - per the RAW, allies don't give cover to the enemy, but I think it's better to stick to realism here. If the PC is caught in the open by enemy archers, you can have say 100 archers fire at him each round, 5 hits at 6 damage each or 30/round. I'd suggest (a) capping the number of archers - not everyone target the hero, some auto-miss and (b) applying any damage reduction only once. If the player insists on DR applying vs each shot, apply the RAW - say a battalion of 600 archers all fire at him for 1d10+3 each, on average that's 30 crits each for 13 damage, so unless he has 13+ DR he's in a world of hurt.

3. Setting Up the Battlefield

You can use your battlemat to quickly mark out eg enemy-occupied zones (6 damage/round environmental hazard), friendly-occupied zones (no damage, as your troops are giving you cover) and free-fire zones empty areas where enemy archers target your PCs for 30 damage/round).

 

[eriktheguy]

There are 2 major problems with your idea:

1: It is far to awesome
2: see 1

I could definitely see using this in my campaign, if only to see the look on my players faces. "This terrain is a hill, this is a river, and this is army!"
"But DM, don't you mean an army?"
"No, I mean army, as in a mass quantity of substance like water or forest"
"Can I attack it?"
"Sure, but you will just disperse some of them for awhile making the terrain clear in one square with a melee attack, or more with a burst. The squares will fill back in quickly though. You could move through it at full speed too, but would probably get hit a few times."
"Okay, I charge through and attack the nobleman we were hired to kill"
"Alright, take 6 damage"
"But you didn't roll!"
"I know, its hostile terrain, don't worry"
"Aww, well can I make an opportunity attack?"
"What!? No!"
"Oh fine, I attack the noble..."

Wading into the enemy: 6 damage at the beginning of each turn and on any turn you move into such a square of terrain (but only once each turn).

100 archers per round seems a little unrealistic for targeting a PC. In most armies I don't think the archers fired every round with accuracy, and I don't think they really 'picked targets' (correct me if I'm wrong). If armies are fighting and PCs are simply on the battleground (this is the scenario I think you had in mind) then the players are just going to be hit by a few stray arrows, I would assume they take about the same amount of damage per round as above.
If you want to differentiate 'wading in' from 'free-fire', make one deal more damage and one hindering terrain.

 

[Mentat55]

I could imagine volleys of arrows being modeled by a trap / hazard that makes a once per round area attack.

And I agree with eriktheguy, this idea is very nice. An elegant way to handle clashing armies in 4e, without using monsters or even minions.

 

[S'mon]

There are 2 major problems with your idea:

1: It is far to awesome
2: see 1

Gonna sig that.

 

[S'mon]

100 archers per round seems a little unrealistic for targeting a PC. In most armies I don't think the archers fired every round with accuracy, and I don't think they really 'picked targets' (correct me if I'm wrong).

I'm assuming a high level PC who's a known threat, being targetted by the commanders of the enemy force: "Bring him down!" - ie they're ordering their archers to fire at the PC. If the PC is a 1st level schlub he'll likely be ignored; if he's hacking through dozens of enemy troops he'll be targetted.

 

[Garthanos]

Just wanted to say this is kind of slick,
I envision my lucky halfling innexoriably running lower on luck and nearly getting confronted constantly as he crosses the battle field while sweating and stressing out over the process. And my barbarian hacking his way through impenetrable lines with minor cuts and scrapes mowing down some as he goes.