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The sweep of huge armies clashing is part of the fantasy Genre. Has anyone found a system for mass combat that works for D&D? Has anyone come across an elegantly simple system that can incorporates a hoard of first level hobgoblins, fire giant or two, and maybe even an adventuring party of 4 10 level characters ( figher mage, cleric, thief?)
How did the book of miniatures pan out? How about Skip Williams “cry Havoc” book?
I am sure I have missed lots of “rule sets” which tackle mass combat that I have missed.
Are there any plans to do a mass combat system for Pathfinder?
Do you think applying the swarm template to a mass of low level monsters, say 100 hobgoblins a good idea for running mass combat?
Thanks. What do you all think?
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Has anyone come across an elegantly simple system that can incorporates a hoard of first level hobgoblins, fire giant or two, and maybe even an adventuring party of 4 10 level characters ( figher mage, cleric, thief?)
Good question! And if I had a dime for each time I recommended this... :-)
It won't be easy to find, but here it is: Back in 2002 AEG published a hardcover book called Swashbuckling Adventures which was their move to mix 7th Sea with d20. For whatever reason, the best little elegant set of mass combat rules were in that book. Took up 4-5 pages I think. And I've been using them ever since.
I don't care for using a large book just on Mass Combat because I find the bother is not a good trade-off for the result.
The sweep of huge armies clashing is part of the fantasy Genre. Has anyone found a system for mass combat that works for D&D? Has anyone come across an elegantly simple system that can incorporates a hoard of first level hobgoblins, fire giant or two, and maybe even an adventuring party of 4 10 level characters ( figher mage, cleric, thief?)
How did the book of miniatures pan out? How about Skip Williams “cry Havoc” book?
I am sure I have missed lots of “rule sets” which tackle mass combat that I have missed.
Are there any plans to do a mass combat system for Pathfinder?
Do you think applying the swarm template to a mass of low level monsters, say 100 hobgoblins a good idea for running mass combat?
Thanks. What do you all think?
I've read through some of Cry Havoc but have not tried it out. I know there are also mass combat rules in the Drow War series published by Mongoose. Again, I have not tried them, but they looked playable and interesting. From memory, I believe they consisted of roughly 10 pages of text in the appendix of book one (Gathering Storm). Maybe someone else can chime in and relate their experience with them.
There's also Cry Havoc.
For the record, I have find that playing clashing armies as a wargame in D&D really sounds cool but rarely ends well. I have tried several times, but it usually just serves to dreail the action around the PCs.
You're usually better off handling war as an environmental thing, unless the players have the ability to engage the entire opposition on their own.
Even when the players are directly involved, it should be a background element not unlike a plague or a famine... few DMs ever think about simulating the spread of a plague with dice rolls, so why simulate every sword swing in the battle instead of focusing on what happens to the PCs.
OF COURSE, this doesn't hold true in a style of play that makes a sandbox of the world, and where the GM actually wants a battle that could go either way. That's what you need to consider before putting in the work for such a game. If your outcome is fixed (or preferred), large scale battles should be treated as a scripted plot event.
The Advanced Gamesmaster's Guide from Green Ronin had a nice mass combat system in it.
Thanks Hank!
You bet! I'm also going to be posting up rules for A Game of Thrones Strategy that my friends and I play, updated to be used with MapTools and Warpath.
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Thank you everyone. I’ll check out the advance game masters guide Lillith.
Evil Lincoln you bring up a good point about the war best being back ground. Unless the PC’s can take on the army themselves.
Hank woon, thanks for pointing my nose towards Warpath. Ill check it out.
Thanks everyone for your thoughts.