Help with large groups of NPCs?

[Bloodhawk16]

I've recently started GMing a campaign with a setting where the gods are at war. Can anyone give advice on how to roll for large groups of NPCs all at once (as in an army situation)?
As interesting(?) as rolling for each NPC separately could be, in the interest of saving time, it would be more efficient if I could roll for groups all at once.
This is not for interaction with the player characters themselves, just skirmishes in the background so I have a way of determining how the battle is going in areas where the PCs are not immediately influencing.

[Glacier87]

Even though it isn't the best solution, take the mean stats of the NPC's and roll on that.

Ex. +10 ATT and +20 ATT = +15 ATT

[IejirIsk]

or set up a script to do it and feed you results from that. depends on how many npc's is a few....

[strayshift]

I remember running a pendragon campaign (The Boy King supplement) and there are a number of key battles within that as the pcs support Arthur's rise to power. There is a narrative of the overall pattern of the battle (just google any historical battle and imagine it from the perspective of the pcs at a single point within the battle, say the left flank). The pcs had a certain rank and status (they were knights) and I gave them decisions which affected the local aspects of the battle (e.g. rallying a routed unit, leading a charge, holding a defensive position). I then built their actions into the larger narrative of the battle.

The interesting battle was the Battle of Badon in which the GM is given instruction to kill a significant number of pcs off in order to make the battle a memorable one (bear in mind you can play your characters children as they develop into Knights in Pendragon). This had a brilliant last stand aspect to it (the pcs small forces versus 10,000 Saxons and having to buy time for Arthur to raise/rally more men to make a stand at Badon).

There was a d&d suppliment also looking at running military campaigns(3.5?) which would be a good starting point for you.

[Kimera757]

If you're using an army like that, you might want to consider the mob rules instead.

[Anonymous Visitor 163 576]

THe warpath rules are excellent, piles of weak units basically convert into larger monsters.

And it's for sale in the paizo store, iirc.