Warfare in 4e

[Evilhalfling]

we have had lots of interesting discussions on mass combat in 3.x. How would it be different in 4e?
Mostly im interested in a simulationist view of it, although the books seem to favor the small unit objectives determine the battle paragrim.

1) Warlord class sucks at leading in warfare. Most powers are short range and only effect a few targets. Powers that effect more than 10 people, are mostly close burst 5 powers with nothing below level 10 except +2 initiative.
Defensive rally (daily-10) close burst (CB) 5
Renew the Troops (daily-15) allies in LOS
Warlords banner (enc-15) CB 5
White Raven Formation (enc-15) CB 5
Victory surge (daily-19) all allies 10 squares
and Own the battlefield (daily 22) CB 10 actually targets foes.

The paragon feature Cry Havoc (11) is only good for the first round of combat (allies within 10 squares)

2) With many wizards using scorching burst as a at-will this will be the spell that determines line spacing. Even an apprentice will massacre tight formations.

3) The next threat is shock sphere, a burst 2 (encounter-3) Wizards still have a number of long range burst spells (fireball, web, stinking cloud) at level 5 but they are all dailies.
Gone is the flying/invisible/fireballer which was the bane of troops everywhere. Apprentices with fireball wands are also history (yay)

4) I am not sure how the minion concept affects mass battles, since minion seems a relative term, based on game needs and comparison to PCs.

5) Clerics?

Any other thoughts?

 

[CountPopeula]

I think minions make mass combat a lot simpler and more realistic, honestly. Fixed damage and one hit kills. Still, there's no good mechanic for quickly resolving hundreds of attack rolls.

Warlords, I think, are more like sergeants/lieutenants than generals. And at high levels, their powers can only effect units within earshot, there's no comm in D&D.

Wizards are still the artillery of the D&D war, though, they can cut through a lot of units pretty quickly.

But in the end, I think warfare will be tons of minions and far fewer special characters that have classes. probably the easiest way to do it, and maybe roll a die (size based on number of units) to determine how many hits each side gets to speed up combat.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

I think actually a nice way to handle mass-warfare in 4e be a Skill Challenge, have the Player side and the DM wage Skill Challenges against eachother.

Each Player has his own Skill Challenge which is pooled into the total Skill Challenge to win the conflict, and their class gives bonuses to certain things. So a Wizard for instance would give bonuses to distant attacks.

You would set it up where you have a battlemat and tokens for each large group of enemies (perhaps each one controlled by a Player) which manevour around the battlemat. Each has their own HP and a successful Skill Challenge attack deals out a certain number of damage (it can have a gradient for how much damage is done depending on how well you succeed).

So you can defeat them either through wiping them out, or winning the Skill Challenges enough for them to surrender/run away.

 

[frankthedm]

1) Warlord class sucks at leading in warfare. Most powers are short range and only effect a few targets. Powers that effect more than 10 people, are mostly close burst 5 powers with nothing below level 10 except +2 initiative.
Defensive rally (daily-10) close burst (CB) 5
Renew the Troops (daily-15) allies in LOS
Warlords banner (enc-15) CB 5
White Raven Formation (enc-15) CB 5
Victory surge (daily-19) all allies 10 squares
and Own the battlefield (daily 22) CB 10 actually targets foes.

The paragon feature Cry Havoc (11) is only good for the first round of combat (allies within 10 squares)

Oh, a big kick to the teeth for Warlord is in the DMG "a power’s effect should be limited to a squad-sized group—the size of your player character group plus perhaps one or two friendly NPCs."

 

[CountPopeula]

I think actually a nice way to handle mass-warfare in 4e be a Skill Challenge, have the Player side and the DM wage Skill Challenges against each other.

You know, I never would have thought of that, but it is pretty brilliant. I like anything that includes a skill challenge in combat that isn't disarming a trap, though, I think that little mechanic is going to be a defining feature of the game in the years to come.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

It depends on how many classed NPCs you want to have.

But if you take units of, say 16 Minions, each accompanied by a member of the 4 roles, you should have a very decent and dangerous war bands. The Warlords power should be able to cover the Minions and his classed allies.

If you want a single Warlord to control hundreds of Minions, that won't work.

This setup has the big advantage that a single spellcaster will probably not be able to take down entire armies, though he's still quite deadly.

 

[fiddlerjones]

Kudos on the skill challenge idea. It's a brilliant thought and probably the way I'll adjudicate mass battles in my campaigns should they arise. I also agree that the Skill Challenge mechanic will be the defining trait of this edition.

 

[Intense_Interest]

Assuming that Class Levels aren't incredibly rare achievements within your campaign:

Racial powers and abilities define an armies make-up more than class levels, but you could still see combined-arms situations with any of the "civilized" races.

Troops with Feather-fall by 8th level, launched from a catapult or dropped from the air is a huge boost to mobility and striking range. Paratroops by any other name.

Healing in general means that "power" troops stay alive longer, meaning that having high-level troops after anything but a meat-grinder is tenable without hand waving.

Throw in Mass, scaleable, repeatable healing:
Consecrated Ground 5 (sustain close-burst 1 move 3)
Healing Sun 12 (close burst 2 sustain)
Spirit of Health 22 (1 free heal per round)

And we've got reason to believe that PC-level characters could actually survive a campaign.

Oh, a big kick to the teeth for Warlord is in the DMG "a power’s effect should be limited to a squad-sized group—the size of your player character group plus perhaps one or two friendly NPCs."

Define "player character group" as anything less than 50 or 100 members (the stated incredulous example of Archers in the Dungeon) and you've still got yourself the regular block-movement tactics of Achilles to Napoleon.

 

[Meloncov]

I'm thinking of having mass battles as skill challenges, with the completion of a tactical mission counting as a successful check.

Also, next time I run a campaign with allot of mass combat, I think I'll write up a General paragon path, that will allow the warlord to effect an entire army.

 

[Byronic]

You could easily make some rules for mass combat (perhaps borrowing some stuff from Warhammer) but there's one little problem with that. Player Involvement

Although a funny game was if you allowed each of the players their own battalion to command. You could use skills for boosting your units success. And Bless would get some serious action.