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Cbad285
Learned Scribe
160 Posts |
 Posted - 11 Apr 2014 : 15:16:39
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Lets be honest. Battle System wasn't what we were expecting. I'm not delving into anarchy with Gurps. and it's very plain to see that every fighter gets a following of some ilk and before you know it the board is swarmed with 1st to 6th lv fighters outfitted to the nines and then what...I'm supposed to roll individual attacks for 40 specialized ftrs along side dealing with my monsters?
I've tried single rolls for units, but that leaves no survivors and lacks realism. I've tried simplified turn outs, but again, this sullies the abilities of those men.
So i beg the question, how do you deal with large scale combat?
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"Beware the Dream Fever!" |
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Gary Dallison
Great Reader
United Kingdom
6353 Posts |
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Kentinal
Great Reader
4685 Posts |
Posted - 11 Apr 2014 : 15:57:58
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BD&D War Machine might work for you. It is not as complex as Battle System. Casualties run from 10 percent to 100 percent depending on how even matched the armies are. It does not use units in an army it is based on nature of army, how effective they are in training, equipment, weapons and mounts. It still involves some calculations and depending on the war the army might need to be split into smaller parts.
Example 100 elves vs. 200 orcs is simple after knowing Battle Rating all you need to do is roll d100 and refer to results table.
If 50 humans decide to join the war, some orcs would fight to humans the rest would fight the elves.
50 vs. 75 orcs and 100 elves vs. 125 elves. By a split in forces the BR becomes adjusted and a total of 4 d100 would need to be rolled. |
"Small beings can have small wisdom," the dragon said. "And small wise beings are better than small fools. Listen: Wisdom is caring for afterwards."
"Caring for afterwards ...? Ker repeated this without understanding.
"After action, afterwards," the dragon said. "Choose the afterwards first, then the action. Fools choose action first."
"Judgement" copyright 2003 by Elizabeth Moon |
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Kyrel
Learned Scribe
151 Posts |
Posted - 11 Apr 2014 : 17:12:05
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TBH the d20 system really isn't very well suited for serious battle level encounters with dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of creatures involved. Rolling dice for every single thing involved just isn't possible outside of of a dreamworld. I've been pondering the question myself too, but without requiring the re-statting of creatures and invention of entirely new rules (unless you want to raid a battle style game like i.e. Warhammer Fantasy for rules you can use), you really do need to either dumb things down to a ridiculous level, where you are not doing justice to the skills and abilities of the individual, or you just have to storytell it.
I just had a stray thought though. Couldn't a larger host of creatures be treated as essentially a Swarm? Two regiments engage in the field, and each cause a somewhat random amount of damage to each other every round? Modify HP and damage output for creature type, armaments, special powers etc. Still requires that you make up the specs for a regiment of creatures, but other than that you still get random amounts of damage, and you can still pay some level of homage to the creatures power levels and various abilities. You just need to determine how they impact the damage output/defence abilities on the regimental level... |
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Kentinal
Great Reader
4685 Posts |
Posted - 11 Apr 2014 : 18:53:51
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quote:
Originally posted by Cbad285
Lets be honest. Battle System wasn't what we were expecting. I'm not delving into anarchy with Gurps. and it's very plain to see that every fighter gets a following of some ilk and before you know it the board is swarmed with 1st to 6th lv fighters outfitted to the nines and then what...I'm supposed to roll individual attacks for 40 specialized ftrs along side dealing with my monsters?
I've tried single rolls for units, but that leaves no survivors and lacks realism. I've tried simplified turn outs, but again, this sullies the abilities of those men.
So i beg the question, how do you deal with large scale combat?
I will repeat the War Machine might work for you if you can find it. Not quite sure of what type of battle you are however see you discussing 40 specialized fighters. They if all NPCs clearly could be formed into an army. It might be hard to find War Machine, Rules Cyclopedia is I believe the last time printed. TSR copyright 1991, ISBN 1-56075-085-0. Now if you want to treat the NPCs as individuals instead of an army you clearly will need to roll for each. As to War Machine causalities loses are considered 1/2 killed and 1/2 wounded and out of a next battle. You if you can find the War Machine and decide to use it you clearly would need to roll or decide which if any NPCs die or are wounded.
Clearly as also offered by another, you could dice roll in advance for the NPCs, these days you can set up many ways to resolve a combat of armies to occur by computer calculations. |
"Small beings can have small wisdom," the dragon said. "And small wise beings are better than small fools. Listen: Wisdom is caring for afterwards."
"Caring for afterwards ...? Ker repeated this without understanding.
"After action, afterwards," the dragon said. "Choose the afterwards first, then the action. Fools choose action first."
"Judgement" copyright 2003 by Elizabeth Moon |
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Thrasymachus
Learned Scribe
195 Posts |
Posted - 11 Apr 2014 : 22:22:58
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Warhammer Fantasy Battle: For conversion purposes I kept the players on the low end of the power scale to allow elbow room for bigger and nastier types to be on the other end of the board.
The plus is that since this would supplement your D&D game, you can use an older version of WHFB that is both already completely released and ready to implement, and can be gotten on the cheap via ebay.
The magic part has the potential to be the longest phase, and I just gave the player spellcasters a lot of elbow room. Inevitably there’s that player that wants to cast Legend Lore in the middle of a pitched battle. We all know the type.
Warmaster/Mighty Empires: The last benefit is that if you land up with a general at your game table who has ambitions to rule the world, that you can consider Warmaster (also by Games Workshop) which is an even larger scale. No playing out individual sword strokes there. Serious minus is that it’s a defunct game that is no longer supported, but can still be gotten on the cheap.
A word on implementing this - If there is a pitched battle on the periphery of your campaign that has only minor impact on your campaign, you may consider having the players take each side. I did this with my players as an intro, and it was a good way to get their feet wet, before I has Szass Tam marching on their cruddy little stronghold.
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Former Forgotten Realms brand manager Jim Butler: "Everything that bears the Forgotten Realms logo is considered canon". |
Edited by - Thrasymachus on 11 Apr 2014 22:24:45 |
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Kyrel
Learned Scribe
151 Posts |
Posted - 11 Apr 2014 : 23:09:04
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| As Thrasymachus just mentioned, Warmaster might actually be possible to base army level fights on. I've no idea where you might be able to get a hold of it today since Games Workshop no longer supports it, but I'd imagine that you can find the rules online somewhere. You'd still need to stat out the individual regiments, and the individual hero have pretty much zero impact on the game, but the core rules for the game are pretty good as I recall them. |
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Cbad285
Learned Scribe
160 Posts |
Posted - 12 Apr 2014 : 16:45:27
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As to my situation....
2.5 edition. Concerning combat with ftr gained followers vs dm bad guys.
We also have full scale war in the heartlands of which the pcs want to be involved with their retired character and the armies they control.
For instance, the pcs and a tymorian priest with 200 pitch fork waving followers, 100 freedom riders and gathered militia vs around 300 enemy forces including calvary and foot soldiers from hillsfar.
....im looking for the warhammer stuff now |
"Beware the Dream Fever!" |
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Mass combat...
