How to stage a LOTR-scale epic battle in Pathfinder

[Captain Marsh]

So here's the dope:

My campaign has reached a stage where the plot dictates that the kingdom would come in full-force to aid the party of adventurers.

I want to stage a fairly epic battle between a mostly human army, supported by heroes, magical artillery, and skyships, and a horde of giant-kin.

I'd like to have at least some crunch behind this.

In other words, I don't want to just have the characters fight their own fight, while I narrate the rest of the battle.

I want their abilities to shape what happens on the wider battlefield. (They're powerful enough, 11th level, that their impact should be pretty big.)

Does anyone have house rules or any other suggestions for how to integrate the RPG and wargame scale conflict like this?

--Marsh

[VooDoo]

Capt' Marsh,

Try this website: http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/Fields_of_Blood/

They have ideas and information on several rule sets and resources to use to help successfully run a war "encounter" or campaign within D&D - and similar.

You can make a login/join the group and post questions. They are a helpful bunch.

Good luck.

- V

[Urizen]

Also, keep an eye on the upcoming Kingmaker AP as they are going to focus on mass combat rules for Pathfinder.

[R_Chance]

I know you want crunch, but unless you have a bunch of tabletop miniature gamers that can be difficult. Make the players the linchpin of the battle. Design a series of encounters for them that will effect the tide of battle (a la Heroes of Battle). Narate the events around them, but based on their own wins / losses / actions on the battlefield. Putting the players in the middle of what is effectively a minature game can be boring for them -- unless they are in command of significant units in the battle and like that type of stuff. I've seen 3 sets of rules for battles in 3.0+ D&D. Two, including Fields of Blood, were miniature games in essence iirc. The other was WotCs Heroes of Battle. I've done the miniature bit a number of times (going back to the original Chainmail rules that predated D&D) and it's fun, but the PCs are rarely the center of it. The HoB approach makes it into another adventure with the PCs at the center. Set up a flow chart with encounters, results, and possible actions and let the players have their day. My 2 cp, your coinage may vary :)

*edit* My favorite D&Desque miniature rules btw was the 1E AD&D BattleSystem rules (not the 2E version). D&D Swords and Spells, iirc the name correctly, was second. A cross between regular miniature battle rules and AD&D / D&D. Still, I had a crew of veteran miniature gamers in those days. Not so much now...

*edit 2* As an aside few miniature rules really get to the scale for huge (tens of thousands plus) troops on a side. The old Legion of the Petal Throne rules (1 miniature = 100 "men") was perhaps the closest. But in a battle at that scale individual heroues just aren't that important. The 10 or 20:1 ratio of most medieval / fantasy rules allows the heroes to have more impact. Even then, a number of past rule systems suggested doing the combats involving the PCs as a 1:1 scale skirmish. Again, your coinage may vary...

[SirUrza]

I'd say steal a page from 4e and use the minion idea. Full stated monsters with only 1 hitpoint. This way characters with cleave, spellcasters with AoEs, etc. can nuke monsters in one blast.

Honestly, unless your characters are squadron commanders.. then I'm really against battlefield rules. You don't need to have rules for what all the npcs not interacting directly with the PCs, they're just background.

You, the DM, either want them to succeed or fail for the progression of plot. It shouldn't be random, I don't think that leads to good story telling. Yes, sometimes it can be fun, but this is one of those things I'm against. If success or failure isn't important, just that they survive then here's what I suggest.

------------------

First create 10 events/encounters. Examples: Orcs breach the wall, fliers attack the civilians, orcs attack with ladders on the west wall (they've been attacking form the north this whole time.)

For each event/encounter, determine the "victory condition" of the encounter. Examples: Helds the Orcs off for X rounds until the NPCs seal the breach, killed X fliers (or saved X civilians), knocked down X ladders in X rounds.

For each event/encounter, determine the consequences of failure. Examples: Orcs beach the outer wall and everyone is forced to fall back into tighter areas, the fliers killed someone important like the princess or someone meaningful, the pcs loss the wall and are forced to fall back.

Obvious some of these event/encounters have the save result if the PCs lose, but you expect them to lose some of them, so the other event/encounters you create should be event/encounters that can be used after a fail.

Now, all 10 of these encounters are going to happen, so you're not wasting your time making them. What you're now going to do is determine how many of these encounters your PCs need to win. Say 6 of them. If they get to 6 before you've done all 10, awesome. Win or lose, decide if you want to run the other encounters if they still make sense, then run the "boss" encounter.

The "boss" encounter can be the "11" encounter, the one that breaks the attack and allows the PCs to stop fighting while the NPCs clean up. Or the encounter that allows the PCs to flee in the confusion.

------

Hope this helps some.

[Rezdave]

R_Chance wrote:

Narate the events around them, but based on their own wins / losses / actions on the battlefield.

I will second this as a general approach.

Some years ago I ran my campaign into a wartime story arch. I used a combination of methods to involve the PCs at different levels.

Unexpected Heroes

A nation of giants assembled their pets (dire animals) minions (humanoids) and allies (dragons), then launched an invasion of "civilized" lands. The PCs happened to be stopping over at a border fort on their way into the wilds on another errand when the giants' vanguard attacked. The unanticipated abilities of the PCs allowed them to hold the fort against a force of 3 giants and about 50 minions, but the curtain wall was breached and a defensive tower came down. The PCs scouted up a mountain pass and realized that an entire army was on the way. The party realized their prior destination was overrun, and besides they needed to return and warn the capital of the invasion.

Except for the fort garrison, this was a pretty typical gaming session. The guards really didn't have much to offer when there were PCs of 8th-10th level around.

Lynch-pin of the Battle Plan

The PCs were welcomed back as heroes and the Army marched off to defeat the giants. Little did they realize the PCs had only encountered one of three advancing columns, the other two having rolled in through other passes and completely overrun their forces. The Army met a force over 3x what they had anticipated and was routed. A decision was made to endure a siege through the winter (fortunately the harvest was already in) and await rescue in the spring. Then word came from neighbors that a second entire army was moving down the river to cut off their retreat, reinforcement or rescue.

With no hope, a daring plan was hatched to evacuate the city, but the giants already held a key ferry-crossing. The PC heroes were called upon to lead a daring strike against the giantish garrison at the crossing. The Army would acts as a screening force to hold off reinforcements while civilians crossed a makeshift boat-bridge and then then entire ferry-head village would be burned as the townsfolk retreated to safety.

In this case, the PCs were the key to the battle. They were not part of the larger engagement, which was narrated, but the success of their operation was a make-or-break for everything else. They crossed with the first wave to secure the far shore, then had to hold off a dragon trying to strafe the civilians while the Army held off the minions. The self-sacrifice of an entire Order of knights to secure the ferry-head while the bridge burned so that no giantish minions could cross was narrated.

Architects of the War Plan

Now knighted by the court-in-exile, the PCs were placed upon the Council of War for the reclaiming of the lands. We went OOC for a session as the Players basically took on the role of the entire War Council, drawing up the strategic battle plans for the entire war to reclaim the realm.

Special Operations Team

One of the opening gambits of the war was to sneak a SpecOps team behind the lines and assassinate a dragon in its lair, thus allowing a second force to breach a defensive line into the enemy "rear area" while the main army engaged the giants head-on (and hopefully kept them distracted). The PCs teleported behind the lines, marched an entire night to a border fortress taken by the dragon as a lair, then sneaked in and killed the dragon as well as the giantish and humanoid garrison.

This was a pretty typical dungeon-crawl type of adventure. One side-quest was the liberation, rescue and protection of a small village turned into farm-slaves by the giants lest they be murdered in retribution.

A Piece of the Puzzle

Behind the curtain, the overall war effort and set-piece battles of the story arc were designed, modeled and outcomes determined using military Force Depletion Models to access casualty rates and so forth. If the PCs participated, then they were factored in just like any other troops. In essence, the outcome of the larger battle was pre-determined, but in a few cases the balance was close enough that the scales could be tipped by either a great victory or significant defeat involving the PCs.

Generally, the PCs were the "lynchpin" only of their small section of the battle. They occasionally commanded a company or two of soldiers or oversaw a section of the battlefield. Generally, they were detailed to take out enemy "champions" such as actual giants and dragons, leaving the business of killing humanoids to the main army.

Scenes were a combination of narration as well as Player-determined "interruptions" to either give orders, rally troops, or enter "Initiative Combat" which turned into round-by-round fighting. Sometimes the Players would control their PC and a few nearby troops. Things were kept loose and I had to fly by the seat of my pants a bit, but it was a lot of fun.

Rezdave's Suggestions

I don't know if you want to go so far as to run a War, but you can take some of the ideas above and adapt them to your situation:

1) Planning the Rescue - If the PCs are able to communicate with the kingdom (or vice versa) via sending or other methods, then allow the Players to step OOC and plan their own rescue/support. Of course, they may have limited information about the disposition of the enemy forces. Either way, they will probably plan for themselves to play a major role in their own rescue/assistance. Note that IC is may not be the PCs doing all the planning, but offering information and intelligence that allows the General Staff to plan the battle, but either way the Players might enjoy the change from a "normal" session.

2) Divide the Battle-Space - Subdivide the battle in terms of both time and space. Define the Order of Battle and then basically script the larger fight as a series of smaller engagement in different places simultaneously, or at different times throughout the larger battle. Large battles, whether the Siege of Minas Tirith or the Battle of Gettysburg are actually just a series of smaller engagements. Once you have these smaller engagements determined, you can script their outcomes without the involvement of the PCs, then go back and re-evaluate how the presence of the PCs might alter the outcome. Note that not every engagement should be able to be "tipped" by the PCs ... sometimes they will need to "cover the retreat" and their involvement does not lead to victory, but rather avoids a rout (as in Unexpected Heroes above).

Let the Players choose in which portions of the Battle-Space they wish to participate. If they designed the Battle Plan the previous session, you should already have a good idea of what's going on and where their interests lie, so you don't need stats for every combatant on the field.

3) Give them Troops - Hand off "friendly forces" to the Players to run. They can deal with the hordes of foot-soldiers while you deal with the hordes of enemies. Sometimes it's enough for them to deploy the forces, and you can judge the balance and narrate the battle. Other times, each Player might be rolling attacks for a dozen War1s with a handful of dice at one (color-coded, of course, for attack and damage simultaneously.

4) Use Tokens - Forget the miniatures. For mass-combat like this using "normal" rules you will want a bunch of cheap tokens you can write on to notate damage, unit groupings or whatever.

5) Be Fluid - You will need to ebb & flow in and out of "Initiative Time". During parts of the battle you will be clocking rounds, and other times you will be narrating or the PCs will be directing the battle in non-initiative time. You will need to be fluid in your handling of the battle and give them the opportunity to interact at various levels.

6) Imagine it's a Video Game - Take cues from Simulation, Turn-Based Strategy and RTS video games. By balancing aspects of all three in addition to the usual "Third-Person RPG" you can make the battle a lot of fun for your Players.

7) Don't Fear the Clock - Take more than a single session to game this out. It's supposed to be a great, epic battle ... let it be one then. Give it time to evolve over several sessions, if need be. Don't forget that real battle are often fought over a period of days, despite the fact that D&D combat usually only lasts less than 30 seconds (5 rounds).

I think there were one or two other initial suggestions that have since slipped out of my head.

HTH,

Rez

P.S. As I preview my post I'm reading Urza's (it went up while I was typing). He's basically advocating my "Divide the Battle-Space" suggestion. If you have access to the STAP adventure that involved the pirate attack on Farshore then you can get some excellent ideas of what he's suggesting and how to run a "large-scale" combat with a "small-scale" focus.

[B_Wiklund]

I'd also suggest checking out Tides of Dread from STAP. I ran it and I still think it was the highpoint of the AP for my group. The party was able to create defenses that added to their 'victory points' and then carrying out specific tasks/encounters during the battle wrack up further points indicating the result of the greater battle.

[carborundum]

WARPATH from Adamant Entertainment is coming out next month I believe. It is written by Hank Woon and covers large battles for PFRPG.

[Laurefindel]

I once made a simple sub-system to make large-scale battle in D&D. That was in 2nd ed mind you but the basic principle would still apply to Pathfinder RPG; treat a squad of 10 men (or 15 or whatever) as a single character/NPC.

From memory, it was something along the line of...

• A squad id formed of 10 men; 9 soldiers and 1 captain.
  
• A squad attacks in unison. Add +1 to hit and +1 to damage for each member of the squad. Every member of the squad is dedicated to the same task (i.e. all are attacking in melee, all are loosing arrows etc).
  
• Individual talents are lost in the fray of the battle and the strongest make-up for the weakest; Make a 'character' for the whole unit taking the most representative stats, AC, saves, feats and skills of its members.
  
• Add the HPs of all members. Divide this number in 10. For each increments 1/10th, 'remove' a soldier.
  

I had slightly different rules for units which were led by a PC or important NPC captain, as such:

• The captain keeps his own HPs and are not calculated in the unit's HPs. Remove a soldier for each increments of 1/9th instead. The captain looses HPs if the hit beats is own AC (which may be different from the unit's). Damage to the captain does not gain the +X members bonus to damage.
  
• The captain could attack and act independently in which case he does not provide his +1 to hit and damage the opponent but may use his own attack bonus, feats etc...
  
• The captain could 'single out' the opponent's captain and engage him personally (in which case the fight was resolved normally between the two and neither captain was participating to the unit's bonus).
  

My rules were rather simplistic and I'm sure that other companies have made something much better than that, but its an easy 'quick fix'.

'findel

[Spacelard]

I use the rules found in an old C&S supplement.
Its really quite good and takes into account player actions, magic, wierd monsters, seasons...
If you really want it I could sort out my scanner and send it.

[Kolokotroni]

I really like the star wars saga edition rules for large scale battles.

Basically units become akin to vehicles, controlled via various actions by the commander, each PC becomes the commander of the unit. For all but a few their abilities take a back seat to their basic leadership skills. But this happens in alot of encounters. Basically Area effect spells, and mass buffs become the most important element.

Recomendations:
Use units.
Each unit has an abstract number of troups in it. All must be a similar base type (units should all be made up of like troops in equipment and class/level). Most armies outfit and train units similarly so this makes sense.

To get the statistics of a unit. Increase it's size 2fold. So a unit becomes huge for instance. Then adjust AC to match. Multiply the base unit's HP by 4. When the unit drops to half hitpoints apply the shaken condition. When it is at 0 hitpoints most of it has been slain and it breaks up. This can be averted by the leader, who can make a DC 25 diplomacy or Intimidate check. If successful the unit remains in place untill it reaches -[its con score] The unit is no longer a factor in the battle.

Double all damage dice/modifiers(weapon damage, strength etc) for the unit's attacks and make them all area attacks. The unit still threatens based on it's normal reach/weapon range but it's melee attack hits every square it threatens. It's ranged attack is an area effect that covers an area the same size and shape as the unit.

For the purposes of Movement, take the base speed of the unit as if it was carrying a medium load. No unit can march at the same speed it's individual units can run. (save dwarves).

Unit's take 1/4 damage from non-area attacks. Units take full damage from area effects.

All units have a leader. This is either an NPC or one of the PC's.
All units can have in addition a single NPC/PC specialist within them that is not part of the rank and file. This can be a caster, or perhaps someone to bolster the ranks (like a bard).
Leaders and specialists count as having a 50% miss chance from conceilment when targeted specifically.

Units take no actions on their own. They only act when commanded to.

Actions a Leader can take.
Move: Move action for unit to move to it's speed.
March: Full Round action for unit to move double it's speed.
Attack: Move action to order the unit to make a single attack.
Standard Action: Any standard action the leader could normally take. He counts as threatening any area the unit threatens (and can move freely within it without an action required). This includes the 'aid another' action for the whole of the unit.
Charge: Full Round action for the unit to make a charge. The unit may charge normally, but must only attack target's in its front facing.(the direction of the charge). Unit's deal double damage on a charge.

Specialist actions:
Specialists may only take a single standard action each turn. This includes the aid another action for the unit. If the unit moves, they move with it without requiring an action.

Special: Creatures Huge or Larger cannot be used to form units.
Units are not affected by spells and abilities that affect a fixed number of targets.

Thats pretty much the jist of what my homebrew rules are for large scale battles. Put each PC in command of a friendly unit and let them lead it. Fighters can order attacks and still get in an attack of their own, casters can either lead or simply ride shotgun as specialists and hurl spells (with area effect spells being the most useful).

[Mirror, Mirror]

I have an old write-up for when some PC's got involved in a "pike and shot" style battle:

Design for massed combat rules:

Assumptions:
· Units are broken into teams of 20 soldiers
· Soldiers have on average the same HP
· Soldiers have on average the same AC
· Soldiers do on average the same damage
· Soldiers have on average the same chance to hit (BAB)

Mechanics:

HP - Assume a unit (20 men here) of 1st level warriors. Regardless of their individual differences, they have on average 8 hp. Sum the hp’s and divide by 10. 8*20=160. 160/10=16. The unit has 16 hp.

AC – Assume the unit is equipped with banded mail and large shields. AC for the unit is 10 (base) + 4 (banded mail) + 2 (large shield) = 16.

Dmg – Assume the unit is equipped with longswords. The unit deals longsword damage (1d8) to any other unit it hits. Unlike other stats, damage is reduced the more injury the unit takes. For every 25% damage the unit takes, it deals 25% less damage.

BAB – Warriors at level 1 have a BAB of +1

Basically, you can inflate or deflate as you like. Like a swarm, units should take +50% dmg from AoE spells. I threw out all stat bonuses unless ALL men in the unit have the same stat (more likely for regimented army or monsters).