3 ways to run MASS COMBAT in D&D
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- Опубликовано: 20 авг 2024
- There are 3 basic ways to run mass combat in Dungeons & Dragons.
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As a GM, I did almost exactly this in a recent game. And my players HATED it. Special strike force (even the missions were nearly identical), use of narrative, success of the missions influencing the main battle, lightweight mass rules. BUT my players expected to play the whole thing out in real time, controlling all their forces mini by mini, in short they expected a wargame. So don't forget to manage expectations in advance, so you get everyone on the same page!
That's super unfortunate. Sounds like you did everything right... for the wrong group of players.
Yeah, If you're expecting to set up a Table-set and Play Warhammer, then D&D's just about a guaranteed let-down...
Some people really get into the whole mass combat slog and tactical evolution of a full-on wargame marathon... Some don't... and SOME, it depends on the mood and context.
It comes with the seasoning and experience to "read the room" as it were. ;o)
Great tip. Sorry the session didn't go well. IMO DM's learn more than players each game. We gotta watch, survey, and remember everything like eagles.
This is why you should take 10 minutes after every session to talk with your players, ask them their favorite part of that session, ask them what they are most excited for in the coming sessions, and lastly ask them if they had fun and if they didn't take that feedback and figure out how to fix it for the next week because ultimately, dnd is a storytelling have that trys to make everyone have a good time and it's ok if sometimes a session misses the mark as long as you have good communication with your players.
@@thekingofnido Yep, good communication is really important. My players were really open about what they liked and disliked. So we were able to get past that session and move on with the game. It helped we played again the next day, and that time, a more traditional mini-dungeon exploration, was much more to their tastes.
RUclips had a stupid icon floating over the M in MASS combat of the video when I kept pausing. The 13 year old buried deep in my soul was giggling.
There was a 3rd edition campaign called Red Hand of Doom that did this basically the same way. The party being used as a strike force in a giant battle.
That's what I was picturing when he described it
Low Fantasy Gaming has great narrative Mass battle system, it turns it into singular events that must be completed to resolve the combat and ends in a battle with the enemy army's leader. (Works on both field and siege battles, too)
Kind of like a movie following the heroes in a war movie, honestly.
"Single" events? Or remarkable events that made them stand out as singular?
I made almost the exact same comment then scrolled down and found yours XD. Cool to see more LFG enjoyers.
I think the approach of using minion rules or swarm rules still works pretty well for mass combat. Having the players advance through multiple encounters using those rules on a large battle field using the adventuring day mechanic, with the final battle being them cornering the general or some other high officer.
Im currently making a similar idea, swarms of units treated as regiments. Heavy, ranged, and infantry. Gotta play test it so i hope it translates well
I've ran a total of 3 siege combat in my campaign
1st one was 2nd session where they were part of a mock siege trial to join an adventurers guild. They loved playing a special op team breaking through enemy lines so I figured it would become a staple.
2nd time was the team running Lost Mine of Phandelver. Had it to where they got the gang leader, but he managed to escape. So he gathered a force of goblins and tried to attack the town to make up for his failure so Black Spider wouldnt kill him.
This one the party started fortifying the town and gathering guards to fight. I let them each control the actions of a squad of soldiers, make a few rolls, and allow them to still take turns to use their skills and to have impact on the forces.
3rd time was recently where they defended Port Nyanzaru from an army of aarocockra and pirates (long story). They decided once again to create a plan, with a couple of the martials getting mariner armor and taking the ports naval forces to meet the pirates, and the rest standing their ground at the port. That battle took almost 3 sessions because of them splitting up but it was worth it as the party loved being able to lead a small army into battle.
One thing I like is a morale system. If your soldiers see the party failing or struggling against a big enemy on the battlefield, they will start to fail against the enemy army.
The morale system is a great idea. I was already thinking of Jedi/Sith battle meditation inspiring or demoralizing troops, but the idea of other battlefield events shaping the will to fight of the combatants is something to consider as well.
That's actually something we built into our mass combat rules. Once a unit is in combat and starts losing members, they have a chance of routing and being forced to flee the battlefield. There's also a chance that they could rally after being routed and return but it all boils down to their morale.
So, basically, a skill challenge that leads up to a small boss battle. The skill challenge will effect how challenging the final battle is.
Rules Encyclopedia is available for free on line and already has rules for mass combat for old D&D. Can be adapted. I've used them for years in the past.
Professor Dungeon Master had a great method that dove-tails nicely into your method. I'll sum up.
1. During the initial siege, each player rolls vs the gamemaster, using the conflict resolution for your chosen game. In d20 games, it would be a d20 vs d20. If the player wins, move on to the next step. If lost, the player loses some HP as a result of the crush of combat. That PC will roll again, until success.
2. Specific goals. Like you mentioned in the video, the party has a specific goal or concentration that must be done to secure victory. Players success or failure in these tasks will give bonuses to step 3.
3. Determine which army wins with another single conflict resolution throw, modified by the successes or failures of step 2. In a d20 game, that might mean giving a +1 for every success. So if there are 3 tasks, that could be a +3 total, or -3 total if the players fail each task.
Warfare is chaotic and random. This system reflects that pretty well. That even if the player succeed at the tasks, the war might still be lost. That does not mean the characters die, etc. It just means that the larger army that the players were serving has been routed, crushed, defeated, or is in retreat.
I have thought about this and the +1 is realistic but unfun. If they have three objectives (under the five room dungeon concept, three makes sense, after being thrust into battle in room one then the reward being the final room) then each success should be plus 3 or 4, perhaps 5 for the critical BB climax. Each failure doesn’t have to be fatal either but they don’t want to lose their castle!! If they win them all and get plus 10, and the castle still falls, they can walk away knowing the dice weren’t with them that day.
Whenever I do any mass combat things now, I either use a simple mass combat game (like one page rules or pf1's mass combat rules) or something like your suggestion. A third option was one I saw in an old adventure is a variant on the idea you suggested: basically the players determine how close to the front they want to be before each encounter. The closer they are, the more they can effect the battle. The DM uses tables to decide what the party runs into based on where they decide to be.
Most of the encounters will be fights, especially closer to the front, but you might also have stuff like finding yourselves without enemies around next to an abandoned store which you can loot or just rest up at. Also, the enemies are in the same position as you; there is a randomization factor before you run into anyone to determine which spells/abilities/hit points have been depleted.
I play OPR, and was thinking of incorporating it for a PF2e campaign. Did it work well for your group?
I have ran mass combat with some compression.
If there is 5 of more of a being in a side, I make them a group of such being.
A group has special handling rules.
A) a group's HP is the sum of member HP. But as HP drops, members die. The group's AC is 3 less than the AC of any single member.
B) a group is resistant to any single-target effect, but vulnerable to AOE. Effects that target a set number of distinct creatures can target a single group multiple times, having normal effectivness. (This stacks with any resistances and vulnerabilities members have)
C) a group's attack is resolved by a single D20 roll. The damage is Member_max_damage*Member_count*(D20-Target_AC)/20. A group can not critically hit, nor can it critically miss.
D) if a group attacks another group, B does not apply and the target group can immediately react with an attack of their own before it takes it's losses.
After a situation with over 200 entities on 21 initiatives, I think I may need a better system.
D&D has not moved past individual combat. War games don’t care about individuals. It’s worthwhile considering that damage makes them retreat rather than die, and that fighting to the death is pretty unusual (and I think why world war 1 was so bad - it was unusual to see that much lethality when the generals remembered muskets).
I don’t think we can truly replicate war with D&D rules, unless you allow units to retreat without exterminating them.
My players actually love mass combat so in our games I make a note to have 1 combat encounter set with 20+ enemies vs the players and some weaker npc allies. I usually use minion and swarm mechanics for the majority of enemies except for boss units. They enjoy how it goes even if things take a while. Of I always make sure the players influence on the battle and/or quests surrounding a war scenario influences the overall outcome.
Well 20+ iv Run as well and its more changing, but 300+ is too much for My DIY grid and dice as minis
I partition giant armies into units, of which its parts count as hit points. Easily reduces the forces from millions to effectively 5v20 or something.
The strike team idea is a good one for mid level characters, but an army isn't going to waste high level characters on something this risky---high level characters would be leading units. There are several really good ideas here for running large combats on the whole.
There are a few I'd add to this list, and one point of disagreement. There are instances where a loss for the party isn't a terrible thing, and sometimes it's a matter of what are the objectives. The party taking up a rear guard action against an overwhelming force might be a great role playing scenario. Think of the Alamo or the Song of Roland. Or perhaps they are facing an honorable opponent---can the party negotiate an honorable surrender that spares the civilian population? Think of Henry V's speech before Harfleur---if the objective is to hold out as long as they can, buying time for their allies--that can be one hell of an adventure. Helm's deep was just this kind of battle. Let say they have orders to hold this fortress until the last arrow has been loosed or the food stores are spent.
The power of narration is really something that needs to be utilized as the spotlight needs to remain on the characters. For example, lets take a party of six characters who are all roughly 7th level. I'd see those characters divided up in to two maybe three different groups. Lets say your army commander decides that there's a hill that needs to be defended on the extreme flank of the party--think the 20th Maine on Little Round Top. Then there is a bridge that the enemy is in control of that needs to be taken. Third, characters have to assault or defend some fortified position--like storming a gatehouse or scaling the walls where they are taking fire from every angle and having boiling water and rocks, beehives, wasp nests, etc, raining down on them.
The biggest problem is in high level play where everything is down to who has the biggest and most powerful magic users. At that point, armies are pointless and only there for the high level magic users to kill.
Fantastic warfare is the same as modern warfare. Wizards are F18s… but not everyone has F18s and you still need boots on the ground to actually seize the territory… super high level characters aren’t even involved with armies, they are taking the fight to the outer and inner planes, that’s the impression I get from world level effects.
Honestly, I think you get good value from sending your 5th level characters to the front as lieutenants and captains. Enough power to survive but low enough to be forced into missions.
Something I learned from my old DM is to roll a D100 for any combat going on at the same time as the players actions (the lower the worse, the higher the better), as the battle swing in the enemies favor the players might face a new challenge (some new enemies, artillery bombardment, etc.) and as the battler swings in their favor they would get some new advantage (reinforcements, a messenger with key battle intel, act) with the scale of the effect determined by the severity of the roll.
Thanks for this video. My group is very near a mass siege and though I had similar concepts in mind, it's good to hear every thought. I was planning of giving them options with different goals:
1. Drive of a group of lesser demons that are attacking civilians trying to flee.
2. Help town defenders that are under threat from a couple of greater demons.
3. Stealth behind enemy lines to determine where the boss's lieutenant is and try to take him out before his full force assembles.
4. Take out a partially operational portal to the Abyss before it's construction is complete.
5. Confront the Demon boss head-on.
Probably not all missions are available simultaneously. All have effect on the world, as well as some of the other missions.
Thank you so much! I am running a siege that my player characters instigated, and wanted to make sure that it runs satisfactorily for them and this helps a lot!
I think a “general check” technique works sooo well. Introductory fights. Wrapping up a one shot. It’s amazing. You (knowing your players) ask for a check based on there best modifier. Wizard (spell attack), Druid (survival/wisdom check). And so on and so forth. Then you RP and narratively describe how they either kick ass, succeed moderately, screw up, or utterly fail
I ran an encounter where the players came up against some soldiers fighting some fiends. The PCs had the option of helping the soldiers or walking away and they chose to help the soldiers. Below is how I ran the soldiers
I created a stat block called "Swarm of soldiers" which was large in size.
-The Swarm did 2 attacks(4d8+4 dmg each) which went down in damage as the Swarm took damage(by 1d8 + 1 per 25% HP).
-Any aoe damage that needed saves(like fireball) were made with disadvantage.
- Single target saves against damage spells(like toll the dead) and multi target effects(like stench) were rolled without advantage or disadvantage.
- single target effects(like suggestion) would be rolled with advantage but if the check failed, the entire Swarm would fail.
It worked pretty well. The NPC turns went very quickly and I will continue to use it in the future.
Terrific points. I ran a mass combat that put the PCs in the middle of a massive battlefield with allies and enemies. I rolled one die each turn to determine how well each faction did, and over five turns or so the ranks of both armies dwindled. The enemy general charged in, scared the snot out of the PCs, and when they thought they'd won, enemy monstrosities joined. The party could have won but chose to retreat, ceding the territory to the enemy. Now the enemy nation has an allied one fully besieged, and it looks unlikely that the heroes can deal a decisive blow on the field of battle, forcing them to pursue other objectives.
I’m running a rogue trader campaign right now, my last session had a large scale battle between the rouge trader and his house guard versus a bunch of cultists. Ended up being the players with 100 troop’s versus 200 cultists. They had to use trains to get their soldiers to the front so they had an opportunity to armor up the trains before sending their troops in. Players sent 50 on the first train and accompanied the last 50 on the second train, which left about 30 mins after the first. I would simulate the combat with apposed dice rolls until the players arrived, the first group had secured a beachhead on the station and were about evenly matched with the baddies, when the players took out a group of cultist orgrayns, sci-fi ogres, the cultist broke ranks and ran from combat.
Something I did with my players was a modified version of the game Risk. They were helping the town guard fend zombies pouring up from the catacombs in part of the city. That part of the city was broken into zones that had to be fought for. Risk battles are 2d6 vs 3d6 where you pair each side's largest and second largest dice. The defenders get the extra die in their pool.
Both players were set up at different main entrances to the catacombs. They got a moment where we zoomed in to see their characters taking out multiple zombies. It was a lot of fun, and I might trying something like again at some point.
Best mass combat rules are those involved with Low Fantasy Gaming. Does the "small task force" with the occasional random roll to mimic the chaos of battle. Then uses a system (how successful were the players in their mini-missions) to see how well your players have done to help the final battle roll. It's the best i've seen for sure!
One point I’d make is that you absolutely can still play out a siege where the bad guys must win. You can narratively describe the overwhelming odds or maybe the moment the battle breaks and hope is lost for the defenders. Then you pick up with the players leading an evacuation while holding off the first waves to pour over the walls, or racing to a temple to save holy artifacts from being desecrated. There can be a lot of tension and good story in a loss. Personally I recently ran a Dunkirk-style evacuation that used all the advice in the video, just don’t limit yourself to only playing it out when the heroes can “win”
Did something similar to this for a medium sized combat.
Due to the epic 'training montage' one of my players chose to give a group of npc's during their downtime before the battle.
I allowed the trained npcs to seperstely handle a larger % of the mobs that were intended for the battle.
Perfect timing. I have a session coming up where this video came in clutch
Yaaaaaaay I needed a few more tips for this situation
Getting close to the end of a multi-year run of Phandelver --> Hoard of the Dragon Queen --> Rise of Tiamat campaign. This gives me some ideas for planning this final showdown with Tiamat.
I ran a one shot where the players were fighting a kind of pide piper in a cheotic city environment. The piper hid and played their flute, commanding hoards of giant rats to swarm in great waves at the players. Every time they killed one, I just moved that rat model to the back of the line of rats to reprisent that there was no end to them. The players had to play smart. Follow the sound of the flute, use narrow alleys to limit the flow of rats. Colapse buildings onto the rats to block off passages and buy time. Lead them the wrong way then dimention door to the next alley... Etc. It was very successful despite the vast number of enemies. The trick was that not all the rats could get at the players at a time, and I kept their attacks faily simple and uniform. No fancy attacks or complicated damages. Roll to see if they hit. Add a flat damage. Plus any crits or crit misses.
I just made opposing rolls of a d6. If the creature won he deals damage to the player, if the player wins the creature dies.
It simulates how some creatures may be more or less wounded on the battlefield, and the quick pace as well.
I made a mistake once thinking my group would stealth through a building which I told them was likely full of a lot of enemies.... instead of taking people out in side room by side room, they screamed and charged into the main hall, then wedged them selves into 2 choke points and took out all 18 enemies (Some ran away at the end because oh god that wasn't fun). I had to shorthand that the giant super strong barbarian could just smash heads near the end in 1 hit ko's
I'm going to be running a mass-siege quite soon, for a one-shot. Its all about making the character feel powerfull and impactfull in this massive chaotic struggle. I landed on a squad-based targeting system. Where a regular enemy (say 50hp) is translated to a blob of 10 soldiers for example. This way the martials are also able to make their way through a mass of enemies, instead of doing high damage to 1 or 2. Yes a fireball will be more destructive, but casting in the middle of two clashing forces will cause many casualties on your own side as well. Any attack requiring an attack roll instead of a save can be used more as a precision strike.
Additionally I will also introduce enemy heroes to the battlefield, who function similar to the player-characters.
I ran two in the same campaign much like this:
Dragons took over a city with overwhelming power forcing the PCs to flee before a big battle could begin, though they had to fight their way out against tough opponents (mainly to scare them a bit and show them what they're up against). The PCs quest then became to make an alliance with other races and retake the city.
They met named NPC and recruited enough soldiers to get an army. The number of soldiers they had would affect the difficulty of the last mission where they take back the city. I had like three thresholds for easy, medium and hard. So when the PCs needed to take back the city, they first lead the assault and then dispersed from their army to take out the BBEG (like a strike force) while the army acts like a distraction. They could take any number of named NPCs with them for the BBEG but then the army would last shorter time. On their way to the BBEG the PCs had a couple of encounters on the narrow city streets and could get help from their allies if they recruited enough.
I was quite happy with this. It was fun to DM, it was a challenge and really felt like a final mission with very grandiose ending
8:02 it’s not always about making your players actions effect the world, sometimes to emphasize the power and strength of an enemy, having them valiantly fight through all their objectives only for the battle to be lost anyways leaves a sense of despair to be overcome later. Let them triumph over their final objective before looking back to the castle only to see that the gates have already been overrun, and their cheers of victory are overpowered by the enemies as it dawns on them that the city is lost.
I find that often times a lot of GM’s will base every victory or loss purely on how well the players do, and for the most part that is the way to go, however I find that if every victory or loss can be directly attributed to their actions, it sort of makes everything else feel inconsequential.
That’s not to say that their successes shouldn’t have benefits though, in this lost siege I’ve described, if the party won all their encounters and beat all their objectives, I might have to play out as like perhaps a group of civilians were able to escape due to their efforts, or perhaps they managed to deal enough damage to enemy forces that a counter attack would be significantly easier. Point is, make your players actions consequential, but don’t make their successes lead to automatic best case scenarios
OMG thank you for this video, I’ve struggled with this for so long!! It normally was so awkward I’ll be sure to try it this way🙏🙏🙏
I will fortify this comment section
I’m planning to run a battle vs an undead army they’ll fight through to the bbeg lair. They should be level 18 at that point so if we’re not in initiative, I’ll probably just let them describe their zombie/ skeleton kills without rolling. We’ll just go into initiative when they fail elements of the skill challenge to make their way through the battlefield and stronger units notice them.
Give the players a secondary modified character sheet that represents a battalion they are commanding?
(Constitution=overall health/(slight boost) size,
Strength=size and melee power,
Dex=ranged power and organization (such as swapping formations, and generic movement) speed,
Char=Morale boost,
Int=Complex orders,
Wis=boost Terrain modifiers such as traveling in woods or defending high ground.)
And have stuff like Morale saving throws and stuff when commanding? Plus the Pc can do a special bonus action unique to the Pc themselves?
10/10, you saved my season 4 finale for my campaign! Air hug🎉
Usually in a mass combat situation, I'll keep giving the players things to do and narratively describe other fighting going on around them. This also works to explain why powerful NPCs who might be around aren't helping. They're fighting, too, just against a seperate group of enemies.
I did a half-siege, half-strike-force bit for freeing a town that had been invaded by enemies whose mission was a mystery.
First, my heroes rallied the townsfolk while remaining under the enemy's psychic radar (skill checks which they actually passed), then they did a strike against the leader.
While their battle was going on, I was also rolling dice against a large pool of points for each of the sides outside, and narrating things as they heard them. I only rolled d20s, and whoever had the lower number lost the difference in points. But based on their actions leading up to the battle, their allies in the streets were greatly bolstered when they finished their boss fight and came out to help.
So it was a little of everything, things they couldn't help and things they could help and things they could influence but not directly help with at the time. If the rolls had gone better for their allies, they would have emerged to a greater victory. As it was, their allies were hurting, and so going out to help was a followup battle. And even though the enemies got away in what my players perceived as a feint, they still were the heroes of the day.
I so could have used this information and ruleset back 5 months ago when I was trying to work everything out solo. We began the assault in late January. I'm still trying to clean up the mess so to speak and it seems that any little slip-up I make as the DM is immediately pounced on and brought to the attention of all. I've been playing since 1983, minus some military time off, and I'm a bit rusty as a DM, but 3 of my players are new DMs in the other campaigns we are playing. (2 games a week, DM'ing 1 time every other week) These kids are deep in the minutiae of everything 5e which I've been playing just over a year now, but I'm in my 50s. I will say I love your channel and the newsletter. I lean on them big time, because I can't but help plan big.
Also kingdoms and warfare by mcdm is a good resource for mass combat too
I think it's fine to have a large scale battle with, well, not with a pre decided outcome, but one where the players have to make their own definition of victory. "Congratulations, you rescued the bystanders. Now the 173 people you saved get to live as the city is overrun."
The Special Strike force that the video mentions, would be group within an army historically called skirmishers. They would go behind any lines, and sabotage crops, mines, bridges and ect. They were arguably the most important component in a military at the time.
My 1st seige warfare as a dm was the same ruff, my second just like urs there was a decent size scermish with a lg amount of goblins towards the end that had no chance but were thrown in for craps and giggles ( role play ) the seiging army consisted of ogers orcs , goblins and a few dragons vs a human king and his army and near by wood elves ( the orcs were destroying the Forrest to build there seize weapons) it was a tun of fun the castle almost fell because of the dragons but it ended in a victory..
Original D&D Companion set has mass combat rules. It also has a section that goes over how the pcs can adjust the combat with heroics.
Whenever I run a mass combat situation, I give each side a set amount of health (100 HP for enemy/friendly army for example) and if the players want to attack the army head on, any attack that hits said army is considered 1 health OR more depending on if they use a certain spell or attack that can hit multiple targets. I also roll a D20(sometimes a D10 for small armies) to simulate damage that each side is inflicting on eachother. This way the battle is completely random and there’s no victory I have planned. I take into consideration if a player wants to attack an important target like a commander or a high valued piece of equipment that’ll inflict a lot of damage to the other armies health. To me this makes mass combat more chaotic and not so one sided
I did something similar for my icewind dale game. Basically the players started out by taking out the duergar seige tanks and clearing a way for them to get into Bryn Shander. When the chardalyn dragon came I had the batte happen in the background because the players were focused on killing the dragon
My guys I made an original campaign similar to the Lords Alliance plot but in Damara (Names of locations and map are fictional, couldn't find all I wanted in Damara)😊
I use Swarm tactics for each commander as GM and Players as Commanders instruct their men when in their Turn. In my campaign the distrust between Lords (same as the Swords Coast) is the players and the anthagonist objectives of conquering the North 😅😅
EDIT** The attackers and the defenders play tuck of war. If an attacker passes through their adversary lines, they invade. If the defender manages to pass through their adversary line, it fails the invasion and are forced to rout.
This is some good stuff! Thank you.
I'm running the 1st edition "Desert of Desolation" campaign and there's an opportunity for mass combat in one part, which has one group of NPCs (The Maddogs, 52 in number) against another group (The Guilders, 88 in number). Unfortunately, there's not a great way to avoid having to play this out, based on the location of the fight, Our session started at 6:30 pm and ended at 2:00 am. It was a slog.
i’ll try this
One of my favorite TTRPGs, Exalted 3e, has a Mass Combat system which treats larger groups or armies of fighters as single combat characters with a special set of modifiers on them to symbolize that they are instead an army. This has helped me greatly in running larger scale combat scenarios without bogging down the action or excitement (any more than Exalted's combat system already does for GMs and players who don't know now to keep that system moving quickly). Breaking larger scale battles down to special strike force as suggested in this video would certainly help too. There could also be negative consequences for when the players fail to stop a particular target within X number of combat rounds. (eg, stop those hill giants with that battering ram before they take out the main gate, otherwise the enemy will have easy access to tear down our battle lines)
One thing I like doing whenever an abnormally large encounter occurs is double the time each round is in game time. So instead of 6 seconds per round, it's 12 seconds per round. I do the same thing if the party is larger than 6 players.
However, the rules in Kingdoms and Warfare by MCDM have pretty good rules for army combat if players would like to take the roles of generals on a battlefield. But i like the looks of these ones too!
The system i ended up making was very simple, Most units could only get a number of hit-points up to 12 with a minimum of 4 (D2-D12 unit size), the damage dealt by units in combat began at 1. Army units began with basic methods of movement, 1 proficiency and stats based on what they were, their armament and a single racial ability. And gained additional abilities based off their rank:
Greenhorn, Adept, Veteran, Elite, Mythic.(Which mirror rarity, common - legendary). These abilities could be things like, a charge attack that dealt more damage, flyby, magic resistance, the parry ability. so on and so on.
And finally, giving the unit powerful lieutenants could afford an additional ability which the lieutenant could give them. These Lieutenants had to be acquired in character, the NPCs the players gained on their side to help them. Anything from the ability to give inspiration to others, giving the unit the ability to heal with the potions the Lts had painstakingly brewed or maybe even the arcane training they've given the unit to give them a spell or spell-like ability. (These worked akin to attunement)
From there, combat on a war battle-map was easy. The Army units are simple, combat is fast, tactical and BRUTAL. And seeing that the system mirrored the core rules in intuitive ways, the rules were almost never forgotten.
We had some additional rules like if a unit was reduced to 0hp, only half its number was lost if they were recovered. Taking damage while they were down reduced their remaining Max HP until they hit 'true 0' and they were done for. We allowed flanking rules, because, it made sense mostly. And we had a rule that spells with less than a 100ft radius, could not effect combat in any meaningful way.
We had a system called war magic where mage units could cast from wizard towers over great distances like a siege weapon and they were big threats.
was a lot of fun~
Something to consider. In real life an actual modern Battle or skirmish, can last multiple hours. But any combat vet will tell you those battles are not one continuous fight, they are more like 1 minute brawls spread out over an area, with often 30 to 40 minutes between each brawl that is essentially a tense rest period.
While some might think that modern combat is a not a good example for D&D, there is contemporary writings from the classical and medieval eras to suggest that troops at the fore front of a battle were rotated often to keep them fresh, and would be pulled back after even small wounds to bandage them, which could take quite a bit of time. And in those days Battles could also last several hours or several days, and single units could cover several miles, suggesting that the biggest difference in todays mass battles and yesteryears mass battles is simply the weapons.
So rather then having the players fight out a line formation or an entire field of have them deal with smaller units and have other units roll d6s to see who loses troops. and after a certain number of troops are lost, or a certain number of rounds have passed, you can have the enemies or friendly units fall back and let the players get a breather and asses if they can go into another initiative. After all its been historically a bad idea to chase a fleeing enemy. And make clear, pressing an enemy falling back is not a good idea. Ambushes and such.
amazing advice thankyou, im deffo gonna incoperate these kinds of tactics
This is pretty much how I have handled War, but I do make some rolls for the actual other fights. Normally I will give them a favored/underdog mod and make a single die roll. So like if there are 5 human warriors and 10 orcs id do it like 1d20+5 vs 1d20+10 the do like a best out of 3 roll off. Then narrate it out. I also give the players the options of playing a side mini game if they want too.
edit: lol I typed my comment before the lightweight ruleset, but thats basically what I do. Let the players make some rolls for their side.
If you just want the FEEL of fighting a large number of weaker enemies, but don't want to deal with the action economy of doing that honestly, I like to just reskin high CR monsters like Giants as a squad of low CR monsters.
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Its honestly a bit rough that I can do this, and speaks to how uninspired a lot of dnd 5e monster design is, but there are ALOT of high CR creatures that primarily just use multiattack every turn and they have 2-3 attacks that deal bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing. I homebrew additional features onto most of the really boring monsters that I run out of the monster manual, so it works out that I can use the RAW monsters as squads without it being obvious haha. Just ignore any damage resistances or immunities you find.
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you can also just shift the size of the token up or down depending on how powerful the base unit is. If you want a frost giant to represent a squad of orcs, maybe make it gargantuan rather than huge (4x4 vs 3x3), but if it was a squad of knights or other medium sized badasses, then make it large (2x2). Just remember that 4x4 is 16 squares, so you could reasonably say it was 15-20 medium creatures. but conveniently, you could easily say it was like 20-25 goblins cuz they're small. Depends on the table how much you even care about this kinda stuff. and if you are using theatre of the mind (which imo is the best way to run dnd 5e) then none of that size stuff even matters.
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The only thing that sometimes comes up is if the players want to use AOE abilities and feel that they should be more effective against squads of weak enemies. or if they decide they want to cast something like "command" because its a single creature. To be clear, there are definitely tables out there where people have no problem describing a single target spell like "hold person" targeting an entire squad. After all, you are running combat this way because the individual monsters are trivial to the party, so the epic scale of the party's powers definitely jives with using "hold person" on an entire squad and paralyzing the lot of them. and similarly, AOE abilities could be described as having their effectiveness reduced because the mass of bodies are literally serving as cover for each other from the effects of the spell. The fireball goes off, and the bodies immediately around it take the brunt of it...and maybe on a successful save one of the soldier is able to heroically jump on top of the fireball like a soldier jumping on a grenade.
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That might not bother everyone, but my table is definitely one where it bothers us that targeting a squad of creatures that could all get one shot by fireball is actually inefficient to use if it only hits one squad (you wouldn't want to fireball a single giant, after all). Therefore, I've homebrewed some mechanics for it. These mechanics will destroy the CR of the stat blocks, but honestly, I don't know anyone who actually uses CR in any formulaic way for encounter building, so just realize that it will make dealing with squads much easier if the party uses AOE for them.
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Basically, the rule is that if you can target half or more of the squares of a squad, then you can apply any effects on the whole squad and any damage you deal is multiplied by the number of squares you had to target.
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So a large token (2x2) you have to target 2 squares and damage is doubled. huge token (3x3) you have to target 5 squares and the damage is quintupled. Gargantuan (4x4) you have to target 8 squares, and the damage is octupled.
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So if you drop a fireball on a huge squad that you are using a frost giant stat block for, if the "frost giant" fails the save its gonna get one shot from full on average (138 hp. Fireball does an average of 28 on a failed save. multiplied by 5 is 140 damage). but I mean...if its represented a group of 10 hobgoblins or 15 goblins, isn't that realistic? So basically, these "Squads" will now be obvious targets for the aoe spell casters, but again, that's incredibly reasonable. It also means that you can target squads with spells lockdown spells that target multiple creatures. So you couldn't cast command on a 2x2 squad (let's say, a minotaur stat block) but you could upcast command to second level to affect it...and you'd have to upcast to 6th level to target a 3x3 token.
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anyone who has read this far is probably insane, but I'm kinda typing this out for myself more than anything else, so I'll mention an "in between" rule if you want AOE is be effective against squads but maybe not THAT effective. After all, if you were actually running 9 hobgoblins, you wouldn't stack them up into a 3x3 square, so letting them get 1 shot by a fireball might not make sense because they would normally be somewhat spread out depending on the space in the grid.
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So you could just scale back the multipliers on the damage. So we could say 2x2 is double damage. 3x3 is triple damage. 4x4 is quadruple damage. So going back to the frost giant stat block (3x3) representing 10 hobgoblins, it would take, on average, 2 failed fireball saves to kill the squad...which feels a bit more in line with 10 hobgoblins all intending to attack the same target but staying reasonable spread out while doing so.
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If you wanted single target spells being upcast to be more able to target squads, you can keep those same implied ratios for the purposes of targeting. So 2x2 requires that you can target 2 creatures, but 3x3 requires you to target 3 creatures, and 4x4 requires you to target 4 creatures. You can either flavor this as the powerful party spellcasters able to affect more targets due to how individually weak the targets are compared to the party, or you could flavor it as the spellcaster targeting the leaders or the most well positioned fighters within the squad to effectively lock down the whole squad.
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anyone, I'm done my idea vomit now. I don't really expect anyone to read to the end, but if you do, I'm curious what you think of these ideas. I know they work at my table, and my players love them, but we created these ideas together, so of course they have buy in to the rules. I'm curious how they present to people who weren't in on the creation process. and all tables are different, I'm curious if these rules work uniquely with our table, or if many other tables can use them.
My old dm loved mass combat... each character gets his own units that he leads.
I'm actually reshoot8ng my own mass combat video (old one had a really bad mic).
I use a battle point system similar to one I found in an old 7th level 3rd edition adventure 20 years ago from some one and done publisher.
It's how you determine your players impact on the battle and can be used adventure scale or campaign scske. Basically the battle is broken up into three phases: Gathering Clouds (Preparation), Calm before the Storm (eve of battle), and Thunder Rolls (the battle itself).
In the Clouds Gather you have scouting missions, RP events where you try to convince others to help with troops or resources or services, and "unrelated" side events that pay off in unexpected ways later.
In the Calm Before the Storm you have those special forces type missions assassinating a key lieutenant, carrying gold to an enemy ally to pay them off to abandon the main army, holding a pass against skimishers, and last second rides through the night to call for aid.
In the Thunder Rolls, the battle is broken into several small events with difficultly influences by earlier events.
All the events in the first two sections have "Battle Points" awarded based on level of success or failure. The total determines the difficulty in the battle itself. Finally, add up all the BP from both the previous events and the main battle to determine Disastrous Defeat, Narrow Defeat, Draw/Phyrric Victory, Narrow Victory, or Legendary Victory.
Direct your narrative as needed.
The final sequel of DoIP, Divine Contention, has the chapter Leilon Besieged that works more or less along these lines. There's a simple mechanic of victory points based on how successful the PC's are in the special tasks they choose.
Thanks, very helpful information!
3.5 never had a great way to run mass combat/sieges without houseruling a bunch of stuff (other than the "the heroes are a strike team." I mean helping the DM figure out the larger backdrop of the war/large battle). Heroes of Battle gave plenty of help for the strike team route. But for what's happening in the larger battle/war, or what happens when the strike team runs into a big squad (or column) of the enemy? Modify the mob/swarm rules (mobs came from at least Cityscape, but I think it was used in one of the Monster Manuals, too, as a way to control big crowds, I just can't remember which one. Three? Four?) so the DM can run a group of infantry, cavalry, or other massed groups if the PCs run into them on the battlefield (though it's better to treat them as threats, rather than actual "monsters" that the PCs have to maneuver around, sneak past, or trick. As for the winds of battle in the larger war campaign, the Dungeon Master's Guide II had pretty simple rules for running guilds (more in an intrigue capacity, but it can work as the backdrop of war, as well). A few rolls behind the DM's Screen, with bonuses or penalties based on how the PCs are doing, and it can even shape the entirety of the "war plot."
Anyway, that's how I've been doing it. No mass combat rules needed, unless the players actually want to run commanding companies or legions of soldiers in battle--but that's what actual war game rules are for, and can sometimes be a break from the roleplaying.
I just reread "Goblins" webcomic (This was pretty much for me what Critical Role has been many for other Internet users to make them insterested in D&D and you can find it with google if you're interested) and I'd like to ask, can you think good way to make Paladin/Cleric/other religious figure BBEG, like Kore the Dwarf Paladin in Goblins or Judge Frollo in Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame?
I watch your videos almost daily and just noticed I wasn’t even subscribed. My apologies; I will make this right.
Don't forget to factor in morale. Morale is a really big deal in mass combat, seiges especially.
In 1453 when Constantinople fell it was very likely that the seiges would have been lifted if the city would have held out a little while longer due to the invaders suffering from pretty bad morale.
Can’t wait to talk about it on THE ULTIMATE TABLETOP RPG PODCAST SHOW.
But how does our special operations crew get from the defensive point to where they need to be? There is either a warzone in between, or a standing army ready to lay siege. They're not just gonna let anyone pass to for example their important catapults.
Stealth over the walls during the night? Postern gates and Sally ports? Catacombs? Possibilities are numerous.
That's up to the players to work out.
King Pryam made it thru the Greek camps to plead with Achilles. Various other similar examples exist in history and fiction.
That's the least of the problems running a siege. The main problems are with the siege itself - which I think Luke gives good advice on the matter
For lightweight war rules, a simple solution is to literally just rip the combat rules out of a wargame (preferably a simpler one).
For example: the opposing armies are comprised of "units" (large groups of combatants). For each unit in an army, roll a d6. Look at the highest roll on each side. The side that rolled highest gets to eliminate one unit from the enemy army. On a tie, both armies loose a unit. Make this roll once per day, and describe the results narratively. You might allow special armies to roll 2d6, or if one of the armies is massive but comprised of low value fighters, cap their dice to 5 or 4 (an army of undead for example might only roll a d4 per unit). If you so wish, you may also make the distinction between melee and ranged units - only the melee units that are at the front lines and actively fighting participate in the roll-off. Ranged units each roll a d6, and for every 6 rolled eliminate any one unit from the enemy army.
A note about there being no point if they do everything right but still fail.
You can do this, just set the right expectations, heroic last stands are awesome after all. But let's assume you want your players to live XD
Have some comander type say outright, that there is no hope of winning the battle. And then give the players options, run away, last stand (maybe there captured. He warned of someone is SET on a last stand, them surviving may upset them, make sure there sacrifice is atleast glorious, and has meaking. Maybe there display is why the others are captured) aid in a fighting retreat.
Do whatever you can to sway the battle anyway knowing it won't change the outcome (but it might affect other things) Excort important personal/items out of there.
Or be the speck ops being enough of a pain in the ass the enemy can't ignore them, distract and damage while your forces do something, retreat, withdraw personal etc.
It I'd possible to loose despite doing everything right. The key is to make sure the players understand there going to loose, but how badly depends on there actions.
Maybe there's hope for a counter attack later. Or maybe the campaign was a tragedy in the making cose the players simply made the wrong choices throught. Abd the next is about setting things right.
i agree with these. unless you intend to run a wargame, this works for an character / hero rpg.
from my reading, historically, strategy was to not attack in an open battle unless you outnumber the enemy 2 to 1. don't attack a fortification unless you outnumber 10 to 1. the point is, don't start a battle you don't know you can win. this should be true unless your enemies are incompetent or desperate.
the players are spoilers in this dynamic. if the players are on the defensive end of one of a battle against an overwhelming force their objective should be to escape. if they are crazy and successful maybe they can turn the tide. most of the battle and aftermath should be described narratively.
if they are part of an overwhelming force attack, run a single combat for the players' performance in the battle, to see if any are injured or killed, but the force wins narratively.
It comes down to a couple of details about the Group (of Players) you're working with...
First, if there was NO room for mass combat in RPG's, Games like Warhammer 20K, 40K, 120K, and the accompanying collections of mini's wouldn't be a thing... AND I can promise you, they are most DEFINITELY a thing. I've helped curate, paint, repair, and model up whole Armies, myself...
Then it's a question of Time Available, and Scope for your Players and Party to handle... Many "casual" Players will prefer to keep the Game and Campaign more focused on the Party, itself... at least, up to a point. For these, smallish skirmishes are about the limit, and past "Swarm Tactics" and "Minions" rules, where a couple dozen NPC's and Monsters get involved all at once, you're driving the interest down...
BUT there are the "Tacticians" and "War Gamers" Hardcore Types. On the Gator-Freighter, there were several Seals who LOVED the idea of Marshaling and Army of their very own, and so out would come the mini's and I'd tape the butcher-paper down to tables in the Mess and draw out the battle mat... AND we could go at it for a full on battle simulation... It was... erm... Educational.
I'm normally a "casual D&D'er", myself... BUT for sake of the Players involved, I can step up... Intro'd the guys to Warhammer (back when 60K(? I think?) was the thing... haha...) AND they LOVED that business...
BUT when the battle is just so large (talking a full on town-sized siege or legitimate armies marching to face-off) then it's a back-drop with the outcome around 80 - 90% based on Players/Party successes and choices... There's always a hint of the dubious vagueness involved, the outside forces you simply can't control... BUT to the greater degree, I prefer running Mass Combats as a gestaltic back and forth kind of "atmospheric effect" on the Game/Adventure at hand... If there's action through the Battlefield, itself, then certain checks and methods need used for getting around... Things like skirting the worst of "no-man's land" and "staying low" along with regular Dexterity checks and the like... AND the Party is largely seeking out methods to disrupt "The Enemy" forces by breaking special weapons and positions, cutting off supply lines, creating chaos in communications, and attacking targets of opportunity... the kinds of things a task force DOES...
AND occasionally, just to keep them on their toes, dipping into diplomacy for a new alliance, or letting a strategic climax land at their feet can reward unusually clever or intelligent decisions with the surprise tactical advantages they can manage...
As a GM, while I'm not about to tell you that you should do anything that you don't expressly find fun and engaging, sometimes it also comes to "reading the room" and finding a way to be flexible about it. The only such thing as "THE right way" to GM is that the Players are excited and engaged, and they WANT to come back to Play again. I can manage through an engaging Seminar on war-games and strategy when a passionate Seal Team leader is having the time of his life in a world free of "IRL Consequences" to show off his Mil-spec education... AND I got to learn something to boot. ;o)
I was thinking of running a mass game system that coincides with the actions the players doing taking effect during the battle meaning if the party kills this leader or destroy this machine or poison the enemies food or water or anything like that; it would be reflected in the mass battle where if the players wish for their party to be involved, then I will oblige their wishes and micro focus the battle on this tiny area where they can still slay large numbers of troops but with NPC extras to help them or if they don't, then on the macro, this unit that they are attached to get boosts to their stats.
My go-to for light weight mass combat is Ral Parhta's/ Iron Wind Miniatures Chaos Wars or Dragon's Rampant or Feudal Patrol which is more skirmish than mass as War of Orcs and Dwarves is unknown to me as I am still reading through that.
I like it. I just allowed command actions or player actions PC choose on turn. If leadership, hi charisma, or very renowned both . However my players tend to build themselves in commander positions or champions local heroes ect
Well personnaly i like to play those kind of battle like a dynasty warriors game like players can wipe a massive number of adversary cause i played the enemy force like a small number of enemy with a lot of hp with correspond to a lot of enemies
I use blades in the dark type doom clocks tied to my players rolls to simulate this myself
Has anyone tried the UA Battlesystem from 2015? I'm curious how that worked out.
"Catapult Cruise" would make a great prog-rock album title.
Very useful information. Thanks.
Thx! 👍🏾
Interesting concept
I may have to check it out
I love wargames but I know that not everyone does. Your way of handling things is better for most players who do not want to lead armies and learn other game mechanics. And it's also great fun.
Ps.: Indeed, bacon is delicious.
The only people I have met that read the books are optimizers and rules lawyers that conveniently forget rule 0. Not trying to say it's bad to read the books, just pointing out my luck XD.
I like the strike force approach.
However - if your players *do* want a meat grinder battle against dozens of minions, and also don't want combat to take hours, what are homebrew options for the DM?
What about simply making combat real time, as in everyone moves minis on the grid & rolls dice without turns or initiative? Minions have a few hps at most, everyone knows the numbers they have to roll to hit. Should be fun, tense, and go very quickly.
I always try to set out 3 condition.
Success
Draw
Failure
What happens if the players win? What if they lose? And what if they don't win but don't lose either?
Mass combat - Simple rules?? Sign me up!
Red Hand of Doom does a good job of this very thing. For sure peeps check it out.
Here is my pinch of incense to Dominus Algorithmus.
Like does not suck. Bacon is great.
Have you guys ever played banner saga? That’s how mass combat should go.
this appears a re-hash of BECMI and ops missions.
Love it
Cool ideas
At 5:01, did you say "calvary"?
Calvary = ✞
Cavalry = 🐎
I normally pick people up on that kind of thing, but I know luke struggles with some pronunciations and I didn't want to be "that person"
Mistaken use of words and phrases? I certainly do try to point folk in the right direction
Silly typos, dyslexia, or other impediments? I know what they mean so I'm not going to be pedantic
Awesome ideas, I know I personally used Iliad/Odyssey style storytelling, in which all tokens represented entire regiments. The only adjustment I made was for spells that had AoE, spells could only target 1 regiment, the spell would Auto-hit if the regiment was above 75% strength, roll as normal for 74-50%, and sub 50% the unit had damage resistance. This accounted for the the widening of the lines.
You can also use rules for the mass combat while having the PCs be an elite force. If only there was a system that had support for both...
Yes, I'm once again shilling for pathfinder second edition.
very good
There's an army of orcs and giants coming to besiege our city! What will we do?
Our party of adventurers will fight them!
By yourself?
Of course, why not?
The Dungeon Master... Er gods, won't allow it!