Help requested: 3.5 large-scale battles

[Chris Mortika]

Hello. I need your smarts.

I've run Red Hand of Doom twice before, and this time, I'm going to try not addressing the battle of Brindol with just hand-waving.

There have been a lot of miniatures rules that are supposed to be compatable with Dungeons & Gragons, from (2nd Edition) BattleSystem and Battlesystem Skirmisher to (2nd Edition Birthright) Battle cards to the new edition of Chainmail to the rules in the D&D Miniatures book to simply using the DDM game.

I'm looking to lead my D&D 3.5 campaign towards both skirmish combats (a dozen or two figures on each side) and then an eventual army conflict (a few hundred or so figures on each side).

Which rules systems have y'all experienced? What advice do you have?

[seekerofshadowlight]

I havent used them but mob or swarm templets would work also.

[varianor]

I used Cry Havoc (Malhavoc Press), and found it decent, although in retrospect I would use a 1:8 ratio not 1:10 due to sizing for creatures operating in multiples of four. I also heard decent things about Fields of Blood (Mongoose) but don't own it.

[Digitalelf]

Green Ronin's Advanced Player's Manual had a mass combat system in it...

-That One Digitalelf Fellow-

[Tiger Tim]

This is something that I have tried many times in the past. The key problem is that as the scale of the battle increases the abilities and skills of individuals becomes more abstract. My biggest success was in trying to (for a Star Wars game) recreate a battle similar to the battle of Britain. The players were pilots and commanders for a single squadron.

My solution was to use a game that worked for the large scale battle as my ruleset for the overall battle and to use the role-playing rules for battles the players got into. For the overall battle, I used a game called RAF (an old west end games title). In that game, each squadron is a single counter (so the players and their squadron represented a single counter in the game). I started the players counter with the base value of a squadron of their type, but modified it based on role-playing challenges that players resolved in game (new NPC pilots that needed to be trained, aggressive NPC pilots who needed to be controlled or they would get them selves killed doing something foolish).

I had a friend (who was not part of the player group) play the RAF game. To him the players were just a single counter of dozens. He wanted to win the battle and saw the players and their counter as an expendable resource. This was ideal, as part of the role-play situation that I wanted the players to feel was that they were part of a large battle with commanders indifferent to the soldiers who fought and died for them.

The results of any battle in the RAF game were used to determine what kind of battle the players had to fight. For example, if in the RAF game the players were part of a battle where their squadron was eliminated, then I would set up a battle where they would be fighting just to survive, If in the RAF game they soundly beat their opponents, then their (RPG) battle was a turkey shoot. In a lot of ways this was one of my best series of games I ever ran. The players really felt like they had been through the battle of Britain when they finished.

While I don’t see an air battle setup working for you, the general idea is still sound. In that, you find a game that works well for overall battle (I have some suggestions here, but to be honest there are so many that I can think of, and for the most part, it comes down to what gives you the correct feel that you are looking for). Once you have the system, assign your players as units in that game system (and the group of them could just be one unit). If the commander of the battle is an NPC, you may want to have a friend who is not in your game represent this commander and ‘play’ the overall battle. Setup standard D&D battles based on what happens to the players in the bigger game. If you want the players to be a part of a large battle that they are not important enough to change the outcome, roll the out come using your large battle rules and set up a battle appropriate to that result. If you want the players to affect the battle in a large way, set up the battle encounter using the odds that are in play at the start of the fight of the big battle. Based on the success of the players, determine the outcome to apply in the overall battle system.

This probably all sounds a little vague and I admit it is. Like I said at the start of my post, I have tried this many times, using my different rules as the base. Usually, it gets bogged down somewhere. Even if the rules you use to run the system work flawlessly, if the battle ends up with the players being bashed, they will be let down. At the same time, if the enemy is easily crushed, the victory feels hollow to the players.

At any rate, I wish you luck; pull this off and the game will be talked about for years to come. :)

[Tharen the Damned]

Digitalelf wrote:

Green Ronin's Advanced Player's Manual had a mass combat system in it...

-That One Digitalelf Fellow-

That is the aforementioned Cry Havoc by Skip Williams. You can get it as a single book "Cry Havoc" from Malhavoc Press or as part of the "Advanced Player's Manual" from Green Ronin.

[DM Jeff]

Been asked this many times over the past 8 years or so, and I have to admit I still can't beat my old stand-by: the 4 or so pages of mass combat rules from AEG's "d20 Swashbuckling Adventures" hardcover. Quick, yet elegant, yet reflects special abilities of troop types well.

Of course, scouring the web for a $40 out of print hardcover isn't the best answer. Oh how I wish they'd reprint those 4 pages as a free download from their site. Alas.

-DM Jeff

[Lilith]

Digitalelf wrote:

Green Ronin's Advanced Player's Manual had a mass combat system in it...

-That One Digitalelf Fellow-

It's not too shabby either.