So. My campaign, which has been running for about a year and a half now, is coming to a close soon, and its going to be concluding with a giant battle that the PC's are apart of. Thing is, I think I may have bit off more than I can chew with four different factions taking place in this battle and... anyway. Let me break down the situation, and if anyone has any helpful hints on how to resolve things without just adjudicating that the PCs army wins or the bad guy's army wins, it would be appreciated.
The battle will be taking place in and around the capital city of Anvilfall, the city itself goes down into the earth, rather than up into the sky (think a reverse of Sharn) with the ground level being the military/industrial/palace area of the city. The nobles and city administration, financial and educational institutions occupy the first two lower levels, the middle class occupies the third, and the last two are lower class citizens. The city's forces are majority human, and are heavily entrenched with artillery, mechs, tanks, and airships (two of which are ironclad). Most of the infantry are level 1's, but they also have special forces teams that quite skilled (between level 5-10).
The PC's are on the side of a coalition lead by dragons (and for the most part, they have sworn fealty to specific dragons). They have a smattering of almost all races with them, humans, elves, dwarves, undead, orcs, drow. Pretty much everyone. They have a lot more highly skilled people than Anvilfall, but less basic infantry. Everyone is scattered and has to get to the battle separately, so, some might not make it, they also have far less tech than Anvilfall, although they do have some. The dragons are also prone to infighting (as in, in the very beginning of the battle one of them is going to attempt to assassinate the lead one.
There is also the Eversoul Legion. The original enemies of the campaign, back before the pcs found out about the conspiracy controlling Anvilfall. They are an army of mechanized undead, basically Cryx from Warmachine. Some of their forces left and joined the draconic coalition, so numbers wise they are a bit depleted, but I think they will likely hold back until about half way through the battle, then start raising the fallen and move in.
Then there is the Hydra Strain. Failed science experiments/aberrations. They are essentially the zerg/xenomorphs/tyranids. They are currently hived in the sewers of Anvilfall, taking and converting small amounts of vagrants from the lower sections of the city, when all hell starts breaking loose though, they are going to move out and defend.
...so... yeah. Thats the sitrep. Help? Any clarifications needed I can give.
So. My campaign, which has been running for about a year and a half now, is coming to a close soon, and its going to be concluding with a giant battle that the PC's are apart of. Thing is, I think I may have bit off more than I can chew with four different factions taking place in this battle and... anyway. Let me break down the situation, and if anyone has any helpful hints on how to resolve things without just adjudicating that the PCs army wins or the bad guy's army wins, it would be appreciated.
The battle will be taking place in and around the capital city of Anvilfall, the city itself goes down into the earth, rather than up into the sky (think a reverse of Sharn) with the ground level being the military/industrial/palace area of the city. The nobles and city administration, financial and educational institutions occupy the first two lower levels, the middle class occupies the third, and the last two are lower class citizens. The city's forces are majority human, and are heavily entrenched with artillery, mechs, tanks, and airships (two of which are ironclad). Most of the infantry are level 1's, but they also have special forces teams that quite skilled (between level 5-10).
The PC's are on the side of a coalition lead by dragons (and for the most part, they have sworn fealty to specific dragons). They have a smattering of almost all races with them, humans, elves, dwarves, undead, orcs, drow. Pretty much everyone. They have a lot more highly skilled people than Anvilfall, but less basic infantry. Everyone is scattered and has to get to the battle separately, so, some might not make it, they also have far less tech than Anvilfall, although they do have some. The dragons are also prone to infighting (as in, in the very beginning of the battle one of them is going to attempt to assassinate the lead one.
There is also the Eversoul Legion. The original enemies of the campaign, back before the pcs found out about the conspiracy controlling Anvilfall. They are an army of mechanized undead, basically...
My first question is, are you looking for a way to adjudicate the results of different factions even when they're not "on screen"; or are you asking for tips for speeding up and handling combats with large quantities of creatures, or are you asking for something else?
You gave us a bit of backstory as to who the PCs and the factions are, and some plot info, but I'm a bit confused as to what you're actually looking for help with.
Mostly looking for a simple way of deciding the results of the fights while they are off screen. All of the mass combat rules I've ever seen require full stat blocks of creatures. I apologize for the lack of clarity in the question,
I'd say the best way to handle the mass combats is to have the pc's identify the challenges that will screw over thier force, and make them confront those issues. Then the results of the combat against the npc's from thier point of view at least will be determined by how well and how quickly they negate or circumvent those threats.
As to how the combat goes between the groups of npc's you could either do it by telling a story about what happens based off of how they have been interacting sofar, or look up the mass combat rules from kingmaker. Basically the force or pieces of it get attack and defense stats and do some back and forth rolling.
Asta
PSY
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Mostly looking for a simple way of deciding the results of the fights while they are off screen. All of the mass combat rules I've ever seen require full stat blocks of creatures. I apologize for the lack of clarity in the question,
Depends on how detailed you want to get. You might want to check out Fields of Blood: Book of War (a pdf I think you can get on RPGNow; try google); but that's if you want to make a nice wargame out of it.
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Alternatively, if you want a really simplistic method, simply determine the CR of each faction participating (for example, 100 1st level warriors are worth 13,500 XP or roughly a CR 12 encounter, while 300 soldiers + 10 8th level characters would be 88,500 XP or a little under a CR 17 encounter) and then count the total CR as the faction's modifier to a d20 roll.
So if you have four factions, each has a modifier of 1d20+CR. If two factions clash against one another, you can roll for each, and the higher one wins. You could apply circumstantial benefits in the form of +2 adjustments (+2 for higher ground, +2 due to tactical advantage such as hitting them by surprise, +2 for flanking, etc). If you want to represent the loss to each side, you can have them roll off and suffer the difference in losses.
Example: Faction A has a force worth a CR 17 encounter. Faction B has a force worth a CR 15 encounter, but has a tactical advantage, resulting in a +17 for both factions. During the initial encounter, the two forces clash against one another. Both sides roll 1d20 (or take 10) and faction A gets a 33, and faction B only rolls a 19. Faction B loses and takes the difference in diminished CR (representing casualties on its side) equal to 14. Faction A nearly wipes out faction B, and only CR 1 worth of forces remain fighting fit. Faction B basically must surrender of flee, because it will almost assuredly be destroyed on the next "round" as faction A mops them up at 1d20+17 vs 1d20+3.
A "round" in this case can be an amount of time as decided by you. Maybe a round in this sort of warfare is actually 1 hour of battle, or even a day worth of battling, depending on how you want the story to progress. You could use this method to determine the overall strength of the force before and after combat. So if the PCs deal a devastating blow to a force but don't kill it (but reducing the force's overall CR) then the force may be overrun by another faction later. Alternatively, if the PCs arrive to find the factions diminished through fighting one another; they may be able to mop of the remains of them without much trouble.
This method also, I feel, helps to simulate the awesomeness of higher level enemies. A single balor is worth about 2,275 1st level soldiers, and that's about true. Most cannot penetrate the balor's defenses, and the balor can literally carve through huge swaths of humans in short order, but they might - just might - be able to overcome the Balor out of sheer numbers (critical hits, grenade-like weapons, etc).
EDIT: If you want a slightly varied system that doesn't result in such clear victories, consider making several checks to represent the battle. Say best 2 out of 3. Mark victories on each side, then remove the largest remainders from each force.
Example: Say in the battles above, each force is rolling 1d20+17. So we roll 3 times, resulting in the following:
1d20+17 results in 33 vs 19 = Faction A wins by 14.
1d20+17 results in 24 vs 27 = Faction B wins by 3.
1d20+17 results in 20 vs 27 = Faction B wins by 7.
Total loss for each factions at the end of the round:
Faction A = loses 7 points of CR. Faction B loses 14 points of CR. Faction B clearly has lost in this encounter, but dealt heavy loses to Faction A before the end.
If you (or your pcs) want a bit crunchier of a battle, Warpath is pretty easy to scale up to encounters between armies of thousands.
It can pretty easy to quickly generate armies, as well. Typical units of the level range you've mentioned can be generated easily using stock npc's, and anything more specific can be quickly written up using Herolab (or, if you're cheap like me, Pcgen is free and will take care of 90% of what you'll need).
We had an epic end (hiatus, really) to a campaign with a mass battle. Two of the party members had leadership, and the fight that leveled us to 21 was a massive battle between our armies and an undead army. Half of the table time was spent at "character scale", with every few rounds going back to the larger scale army vs army battle on a scaled up map. It was intense, and the rules were a little wonky, but Warpath fixes alot of the issues and makes everything take place at the same speed. This allows for a much more fluid switch between the two scales, even allowing you to run both on the same initiative tracker.
I know, personally, if I had spent a good chunk of a campaign equipping and training an army I would want a bit more of a hand in their performance during the final set piece encounter than a few rolls, but YMMV.
I'd say the best way to handle the mass combats is to have the pc's identify the challenges that will screw over thier force, and make them confront those issues. Then the results of the combat against the npc's from thier point of view at least will be determined by how well and how quickly they negate or circumvent those threats.
As to how the combat goes between the groups of npc's you could either do it by telling a story about what happens based off of how they have been interacting sofar, or look up the mass combat rules from kingmaker. Basically the force or pieces of it get attack and defense stats and do some back and forth rolling.
Asta
PSY
I agree with the objective-based combat. This seems like the easiest way to handle the situation without significantly investing your time into stat blocks.
I prefer the heroic scenes to be the focus, not the mass combat, from a player perspective. Like the dragon coup-attempt would be a cool scene.
Something to give the players a sense of how well the battle is going is have tokens/miniatures that represent the overall strength of the forces in the field. As time goes by, roll a couple dice behind your screen and remove some tokens. You could come use something simple like Ashiel's idea.
The players can look at the diminishing forces and decide where to go for their next fight.
Something to remember, armies tend to break/flee/collapse when they suffer significant losses. So if the PC's army loses a section of their line, that means nearby forces might flee and the PC's need to get in there and help turn the tide. Or vice-versa, the enemy line breaks, but the PC's only have limited time to push their advantage.
In encounters like this I like to use the PC's fight as a microcosm for the entire battle.
i.e. if the PCs are winning, so is their Army, if they are struggling, so are their allies.
I would council against trying to run a statistical combat of one side against the other, and instead suggest you focus on the story-telling aspect.
- 'Zoom' the focus of the combat on are or location that the PCs intend to attack/defend.
- If they one side or the other needs reinforcements, have them arrive as needed to keep the encounter and the battle as entertaining as possible.
- If the PCs wipe the floor with the challenge presented to them directly, give them the option to expand the battlefield and come to the relief of an ally or group of allies in need, have this success spawn a strategically useful occurrence that turns the tide of battle in their collective favor
- If the PCs need to be bailed out by allies (which should be an option) allow it to happen, but make the fact that resources were committed to support them, mean their allies lose ground somewhere valuable.
- A 'warfare' scene is a vast tapestry that should provide a dynamic setting and background for what the PCs are doing, but if it completely overshadows them, and renders them moot, then it won't be a fun gaming experience.
- You're not looking for realism here. Don't try to tell the story of militia man number 2, marching to death in the front lines of the infantry assault, focus on the heroics and pull from scenes in Lord of the Rings, where regardless what was raging around the heroes, the accomplishment of the heroes was the foreground of the story.
/soapbox
Mostly looking for a simple way of deciding the results of the fights while they are off screen. All of the mass combat rules I've ever seen require full stat blocks of creatures. I apologize for the lack of clarity in the question,Depends on how detailed you want to get. You might want to check out Fields of Blood: Book of War (a pdf I think you can get on RPGNow; try google); but that's if you want to make a nice wargame out of it.
=================================================
Alternatively, if you want a really simplistic method, simply determine the CR of each faction participating (for example, 100 1st level warriors are worth 13,500 XP or roughly a CR 12 encounter, while 300 soldiers + 10 8th level characters would be 88,500 XP or a little under a CR 17 encounter) and then count the total CR as the faction's modifier to a d20 roll.So if you have four factions, each has a modifier of 1d20+CR. If two factions clash against one another, you can roll for each, and the higher one wins. You could apply circumstantial benefits in the form of +2 adjustments (+2 for higher ground, +2 due to tactical advantage such as hitting them by surprise, +2 for flanking, etc). If you want to represent the loss to each side, you can have them roll off and suffer the difference in losses.
Example: Faction A has a force worth a CR 17 encounter. Faction B has a force worth a CR 15 encounter, but has a tactical advantage, resulting in a +17 for both factions. During the initial encounter, the two forces clash against one another. Both sides roll 1d20 (or take 10) and faction A gets a 33, and faction B only rolls a 19. Faction B loses and takes the difference in diminished CR (representing casualties on its side) equal to 14. Faction A nearly wipes out faction B, and only CR 1 worth of forces remain fighting fit. Faction B basically must surrender of flee, because it will almost assuredly be destroyed on the next "round" as faction A mops them up at 1d20+17 vs 1d20+3.
A...
You could also diminish the CR of the losing faction by 1 for every loss or tie.
E.g. A has CR 17, B has CR 14Roll 1d20 +CR for both (or better 1d10: I believe 1d20 is too wild and a disparity of more than 9 CR should not be defeated by luck anyway).
Battle 1, A rolls 6, B rolls 9. A=23, B=23. Both lose 1 point of CR from casualties.
Battle 2, A rolls 1, B rolls 8. A=17, B=21. A loses 1 CR, now A has CR 15, B has CR 3.
Make this go one until a clear winner emerges (You can make the loss of CR higher if a battle is spectacularly in favor of one of the parties). You can also increase the CR loss for both to make the process faster (especially if you have very high total CRs).
To make the PCs matters, have them complete missions which will either reduce permanently the CR of the enemy (kill a potent foe so that the CR is calculated accordingly), acquire a temporary advantage such as a temporary support third party (up their CR accordingly), stop the enemy from increasing its CR (for example by stopping a carriage loaded with magical weapons) and so on.
I'm thinking about it as I write so this need refining, but I believe this could make interesting plays.