I'm GMing a session soon in which the PCs will run into a small hostile army (about 50 soldiers), and a horde of undead (about 100) crash the party in a 3 way fight.
The current plan is to have a few small encounters within the battle, and have the rest be more scenery than anything, but does anyone have advice or examples I could refer to for running something like this? I'm worried one of the players will recklessly charge the commander.
Look into the Skull and Shackles adventure path. During many ship battles it gave rules and guides for handling mass battles in the way you describe (namely, have the PCs focus on a few big bads and their lieutenants in the crowd--and vice versa--then have all the mooks doing a whole lot of descriptive background fighting). When the PCs won, their forces won. If they lost, then their forces lost.
If you want the PCs to have a more direct contribution, you may want to consider using the Mass Combat rules found in Ultimate Campaign.
Look into the Skull and Shackles adventure path. During many ship battles it gave rules and guides for handling mass battles in the way you describe (namely, have the PCs focus on a few big bads and their lieutenants in the crowd--and vice versa--then have all the mooks doing a whole lot of descriptive background fighting). When the PCs won, their forces won. If they lost, then their forces lost.
If you want the PCs to have a more direct contribution, you may want to consider using the Mass Combat rules found in Ultimate Campaign.
Awesome - thanks!