Hey all. Been playing for around eight years, DMing for slightly less than that though with large breaks (no players!) in between. I'd like to join if you'll have me
RE: Large scale battles.
Though I was playing in this last example, it turned out to be an awesome session. We play via ORPG (it goes very well, we've known eachother for going on 6 years now and are all heavy role players(in regards to style of play I mean)) because our group is scattered all around Europe with me the only one in the US. I also DM a game with them too, but we have scheduling issues so we usually only play once every couple of weeks, and every week at best.
Anyway, this battle happened two or three sessions ago. The three of us PCs were headed North of Waterdeep to bring supplies to the Helmites' army. They'd had their supply lines cut off while we were in Sembia trying to clear one of the character's names. So it's late Winter and we're going through the hills with 40 wagons and we're attacked by around 300 orcs and a troll (which are part of the enemy army, which is headed by a black dragon that the Helmites are besieging). Two of the characters are fighters (including mine, the other is now a fighter/cleric (sort of like a Paladin, but he's LN)) and the other is a wizard. So naturally the two fighters go after the troll. My fighter has slightly above average VP (we use VP/WP system) and the other one has way above average VP. So my fighter gets the crap kicked out of him by this troll, and retreats off to try and recover. He did some decent damage to the troll, but the wounds closed up fairly quickly, minus the burn marks because our swords are both Flaming (which is good, otherwise we would have been toast since our characters don't know anything about trolls hehe). So the other fighter is going toe to toe with this troll and eventually kills it, and my fighter is off on the sidelines trying to recover. He notices the Captain of the Tyrrans they are with getting his arse handed to him by what appears to be the leader of the orcs. My fighter of course goes over and attacks this orc (my char has 12 VP at this point hehe) to stop him from killing the Captain. Our mage his slaughtering orcs left and right, racking up the kill count and generally wreaking havoc in the orc army. Eventually the orc general is chased away (we're slow, couldn't catch him, though now I think he dimension doored away or something).
So, with that done we assume that the orc general has reinforcements. We are right, so we set an ambush, including fire pits, trip wires, fake tents and buried soldiers (in the snow). The orcs come on, there are over two thousand of them. The mage is holding a firewall in an arc on the rear of the wagon encampment and the other fighter jumps up out of the snow and starts killing orcs in the charge. My fighter starts downing orcs with his longbow. The Captain goes into melee to help the other fighter, who's in one on one with two of the general's lieutenants. After seeing the other fighter get carried off, my fighter wades into the fray, surprises the general, misses completely. Then the general attempts to trip my fighter. My fighter wins the Str check, then successfully trips the general. My fighter is next in init (hehe) and attacks with his greatsword. Crit threat. Crit. He does 2d6+1d6(fire)+9 to the orc general in crit damage. We're using the VP/WP rules, so the crit damage goes straight to WP and kills the orc general. Now, keep in mind I had just told the orc general that he would die, then I stabbed him in the chest. I ripped my sword from his chest and started screaming bloody murder at the other orcs. They ran, and our mage opened a firewall right on them.
I will from now on play any large scale battles in descriptive style. It was quite cinematic at the time.
), so it's no big loss.
