Topic: How do you deal with mass combat of 50-200 combatants?

[Druss_the_Legend]

How do you deal with mass combat of 50-200 combatants?

I have War Law but would like to use a more streamlined set of rules for my online gaming group.
We have a possible large battle happening in the story in which the party will be involved. Expected numbers could exceed 200 combatants.

Have you previously used a system of mass combat resolution that was:
1) fast
2) included battle tactics
3) allowed for leadership/soldier experience/level of training
4) considers special abilities (eg. flying creatures) and magic capabilities
5) allows for various troop types such as archers/mounted troops

Campaign Rulebook from original D&D has a neat system to generate a Battle Rating for each force, a little scope of battle tactics and you essentially make a single d100 roll + your sides battle rating, consult a casualty table and apply the results. This is my fallback play but was wondering what other people use far larger battles that involve the PCs.

Id like to allow for some tactical objectives within the larger battle where the PC's either individually or as part of a unit of troops are assigned a specific role in the battle eg. defend the rear, capture enemy captain, protect their own captain, capture the enemy banner, flank the enemy etc. This might be an opportunity for PCs to devise some tactics and make a roll or two which could add a modifier to the final battle roll at the end.

Thoughts?

[Jengada]

What I've done is very different from making the entire battle a mechanical exercise. I know what the overall outcome of the battle will be, for story arc purposes. The party is a vignette in the bigger painting, and while they will presumably prevail in their area, their ability to change the overall course of things was nil.
So I would describe the lead-up to the battle, the approach to the field, and the onslaught/onset. Then I would have a prepared melee for the party. Maybe they were directed to a particular point on the field, maybe they chose a particular group of enemies. But that's the fight they have, and the rest of the world will go on.
When they finish their fight, you can either have a "next fight" if they were too quick, or you can say "as you watch your last enemy drop, you realize the melee is subsiding over the whole of the battlefield..."
It really boils down to your last comment, about the tactical objectives. The party is tactical, within the bigger strategic scope of the world. There are some good examples of this sort of thing in the early Conan books, or in the Jhereg series (Vlad Taltos) by Steven Brust.

[Druss_the_Legend]

How do you deal with mass combat of 50-200 combatants?

I have War Law but would like to use a more streamlined set of rules for my online gaming group.
We have a possible large battle happening in the story in which the party will be involved. Expected numbers could exceed 200 combatants.

Have you previously used a system of mass combat resolution that was:
1) fast
2) included battle tactics
3) allowed for leadership/soldier experience/level of training
4) considers special abilities (eg. flying creatures) and magic capabilities
5) allows for various troop types such as archers/mounted troops

Campaign Rulebook from original D&D has a neat system to generate a Battle Rating for each force, a little scope of battle tactics and you essentially make a single d100 roll + your sides battle rating, consult a casualty table and apply the results. This is my fallback play but was wondering what other people use far larger battles that involve the PCs.

Id like to allow for some tactical objectives within the larger battle where the PC's either individually or as part of a unit of troops are assigned a specific role in the battle eg. defend the rear, capture enemy captain, protect their own captain, capture the enemy banner, flank the enemy etc. This might be an opportunity for PCs to devise some tactics and make a roll or two which could add a modifier to the final battle roll at the end.

Thoughts?

6) Troop numbers/Troop Ratio eg 1:1, 2:1, 3:1 etc

[Druss_the_Legend]

What I've done is very different from making the entire battle a mechanical exercise. I know what the overall outcome of the battle will be, for story arc purposes. The party is a vignette in the bigger painting, and while they will presumably prevail in their area, their ability to change the overall course of things was nil.
So I would describe the lead-up to the battle, the approach to the field, and the onslaught/onset. Then I would have a prepared melee for the party. Maybe they were directed to a particular point on the field, maybe they chose a particular group of enemies. But that's the fight they have, and the rest of the world will go on.
When they finish their fight, you can either have a "next fight" if they were too quick, or you can say "as you watch your last enemy drop, you realize the melee is subsiding over the whole of the battlefield..."
It really boils down to your last comment, about the tactical objectives. The party is tactical, within the bigger strategic scope of the world. There are some good examples of this sort of thing in the early Conan books, or in the Jhereg series (Vlad Taltos) by Steven Brust.

Very interesting Narrative First approach. Its got me thinking... def will be battles where the party will have zero impact on the outcome and the result is already decided due to various factors out of the parties control. This is actually a good lesson in 'your characters are insignificant in the larger picture' and would be quite humbling for some players to realise this.
Dice should really only be used if the result of the battle is in doubt.

Of course without them knowing the result of the battle is already decided they would still do their best to influence the result... really depends how much you want to narrate and how much you want to play out.
I like the 'party battle' setup. This makes sense. Even if they dont effect the final outcome themselves, they played a part in the battle.

Possible narration of the battle.
GM: You all fought bravely (well most of you) but the enemy, with their weight of numbers and superior troops make short work of your army. Forced to retreat and leave your dead for the crows the remaining survivors form a defensive circle around your leader who stands defiant ready to face an inevitable death.
[role-play some rallying speeches, give the players an opportunity to say their farewells or come up with some miracle plan to get out of the mess they are in then allow them to escape, either with help or using their own ingenuity]. Fast fwd to a location where they retreat to and take acoount of whats taken place.

[EltonJ]

How do you deal with mass combat of 50-200 combatants?

I have War Law but would like to use a more streamlined set of rules for my online gaming group.
We have a possible large battle happening in the story in which the party will be involved. Expected numbers could exceed 200 combatants.

Have you previously used a system of mass combat resolution that was:
1) fast
2) included battle tactics
3) allowed for leadership/soldier experience/level of training
4) considers special abilities (eg. flying creatures) and magic capabilities
5) allows for various troop types such as archers/mounted troops

Campaign Rulebook from original D&D has a neat system to generate a Battle Rating for each force, a little scope of battle tactics and you essentially make a single d100 roll + your sides battle rating, consult a casualty table and apply the results. This is my fallback play but was wondering what other people use far larger battles that involve the PCs.

Id like to allow for some tactical objectives within the larger battle where the PC's either individually or as part of a unit of troops are assigned a specific role in the battle eg. defend the rear, capture enemy captain, protect their own captain, capture the enemy banner, flank the enemy etc. This might be an opportunity for PCs to devise some tactics and make a roll or two which could add a modifier to the final battle roll at the end.

Thoughts?

Actually, I'm waiting on War Law to be released on DriveThru.   Otherwise, I would have to invest in Warhammer.

[Hurin]

Have you previously used a system of mass combat resolution that was:
1) fast
2) included battle tactics
3) allowed for leadership/soldier experience/level of training
4) considers special abilities (eg. flying creatures) and magic capabilities
5) allows for various troop types such as archers/mounted troops

I've always felt that points 1) and 2) conflict, or at least are often antagonistic.

I loved War Law but have to admit I did not use it much in real campaigns. I might do a Black Company kind of campaign in the future though.

One possibility would be to strip down War Law to the essentials. Use the attack charts and basic unit stats. These can account for points 4) and 5), and also take into account experience and training.

For leadership, War Law has a useful system that allows you to use skills such as Leadership to recruit and rally troops, so that means that characters with higher leadership will have larger units with higher morale. War Law also gives other uses for a host of other martial skills, so it can be a good guide even if you're not going to use all its delicious crunchiness.

[jdale]

I might have reached the low end of that range, with the players defending a keep (with its own defenders) against an incoming force. Any melee the players were actually involved in, I handled normally. Any other melee, I made a quick roll "has either of these combatants died yet? yes/no". Rooms that the players did not have any line of sight into, no rolls whatsoever, handle narratively. At the end, I made some random rolls for the number of casualties but the key events (e.g. assassinations against major NPCs, bombs being placed in the foundations) were things the PCs were immediately present for.

Anything larger than that, I would want to assign the players to a smaller discrete objective that I could separate from the main battle.

[Jengada]

Possible narration of the battle.
GM: You all fought bravely (well most of you) but the enemy, with their weight of numbers and superior troops make short work of your army. Forced to retreat and leave your dead for the crows the remaining survivors form a defensive circle around your leader who stands defiant ready to face an inevitable death.
[role-play some rallying speeches, give the players an opportunity to say their farewells or come up with some miracle plan to get out of the mess they are in then allow them to escape, either with help or using their own ingenuity]. Fast fwd to a location where they retreat to and take acoount of whats taken place.

If you think about it, this is very much the way a book or movie would play it out. And when the party is in town, do we try to track every merchant and citizen doing everything they do? If not, why do that for every soldier? Put your energy into the party, and maybe some key combatants the party could see/will hear about. If you want, pretend to roll other stuff behind the screen. They'll be amazed you ran a whole battle that smoothly 

[Dax]

Use the (normal) combat system.

But arrange the combatants into groups of (nearly) identical armed men.
(An army of 20 spearmen, three battleaxe fighter and 12 swordsmen become to one spearman, one battleaxe fighter and one swordsman.)
Now use the normal attack table for just one (regrouped) combatant (normal OB/DB adjustments for offensive or defensive fighting possible, flank, rear and surprise attack).
(For tactical combat it is possible to have more than one swordman or spearman at different places, with individual number of fighter (e.g. one with 4 and one with 8 swordsmen)
But imagine if in the ongoing battle the one spearman group is replaced by two and heading in different directions; a surprise: "What are they doing? What do they try to archive?" "No, we forgot to protect the bridge ...")

(I use only the critical results:)
The regrouped combatant gets 10% for each critical level (A=10%; B=20% ... E=50%) casualities at the opponent.
Imagine the spearman got a B-Crit, the axeman an E-Crit and the swordman an A-Crit.
This mean the spearman kills 20%, the axeman 50% and the swordman 10%.

But percent of what?
% of the own person-count (for open area fights):
Spearman = 20 Spearman; so 20% of 20: In this attack 4 opponents of the spear formation were killed.
Axeman = 3 axeman; so 50 % of the 3 is 1.5
Swordman = 12 swordmen; so 10% is 1.2 persons.

It is up to you to interpret the parts of person killed (maybe % chance of another opponent killed, make victim stunned for some rounds (person-count reduced) or uncouscious) or just remember them for the next roll.

Of course you can also use the hits delivered to disable more opponents.

Missle attacks are the same.
And think of special attacks before hand-to-hand combat like thrown weapons,
the person-counts equals the number persons who use one ...
(The romans use pili to render opponent's shields useless.)

As I stated above I only use the Crit-results.
(But not every "killed" person is dead:
In the past many fighters were only unconscious and regained consciousness after battle. But with a good chance of gangrene ...)

I make counter to resemble the area the fighter group needs.
And terrain obstacles might decreased the effective number of person who can fight (like battles at Thermopylae).


One thought on rear attack:
A unit of many fighter would split into two to face both opponents (after the possible surprise).
__

I hope you got the picture (and this is not too confusedly written)

For player characters in those formation roll for them the casuality chance* and if hit they might use skills, magic or fate points to survive.
(* This is straight out of Spacemaster. I let PCs fight on their own, mine love to roll ...)

[Spectre771]

I bring the focus down just to the PCs and what their impact is on the battle.  Maybe they need to target an officer, or make it through enemy lines, or around enemy lines.  You're the GM, so you can decide how the war ends to suit the story line based on the results the PCs attain in their efforts.  If the PCs can get some officers, the tide will turn to their favor, or can intercept their scouts, etc.