Hey all, Ooka here!
So the big question that made me think of this was: "What would I do if the PCs were involved in a war, and actually tried to fight a platoon, company, or battalion of enemies?"
The obvious question is the PCs get overwhelmed and stomped by the sheer number, but that is no fun. As I have calculated a group of 128 CR 1 enemies would be a standard challenge for a level 15 party.
I suppose you could say the Cleave 2-handed warrior would be fangirling at the possibility for him to essentially kill 8 people a round, or 24 people if he is large or has reach.
So I was thinking about how to build a war setting and the CRs involved.
To make it so the DM doesn't have to roll 100s of dice there would be a probability scale (There is a 5% chance to roll each dice number) so in the greater scheme of battle it would boil down to who has superior units, and how many units are there.
Lets use CR1 monsters (400 xp) and see where this puts us.
CR+2 (2 monsters) (duo)
CR+3 (3 monsters) (trio)
CR+4 (4 monsters) (fireteam)
CR+5 (6 monsters) (large fireteam, small squad)
CR+6 (8 monsters) (squad)
CR+7 (12 monsters) (squad)
CR+8 (16 monsters) (large squad)
CR+9 (24 monsters) (small platoon)
CR+10 (32 monsters) (platoon)
CR+11 (48 monsters) (platoon)
CR+12 (64 monsters) (platoon)
CR+13 (96 monsters) (company)
CR+14 (128 monsters) (company)
CR+15 (192 monsters) (company)
CR+16 (256 monsters) (large company)
CR+17 (384 monsters) (battalion)
CR+18 (512 monsters) (battalion)
CR+19 (768 monsters) (battalion)
CR+20 (1024 monsters) (battalion)
CR+21 (1536 monsters) (brigade)
CR+22 (2048 monsters) (brigade)
CR+23 (3072 monsters) (brigade)
CR+24 (4096 monsters) (brigade)
So, how this would play out is a D20 roll would set the standard for how good the military unit does, something like +/-2 for every 10%, so this becomes
D20 roll, -10. -8. -6. -4. -2. +2, +4, +6, +8, +10, apply this for each of the 10% groups of an army.
So, a company of 100 units attacks something, the DM rolls a 12 on the D20.
10% of the company gets an effective attack roll of: 2
10% of the company gets an effective attack roll of: 4
10% of the company gets an effective attack roll of: 6
10% of the company gets an effective attack roll of: 8
10% of the company gets an effective attack roll of: 10
10% of the company gets an effective attack roll of: 14
10% of the company gets an effective attack roll of: 16
10% of the company gets an effective attack roll of: 18
10% of the company gets an effective attack roll of: 20
10% of the company gets an effective attack roll of: 22
If any units have an effective attack roll of 20 or higher roll another D20 to see if they crit and redo this process for the units that crit. On average 10-15% of them will confirm crit outright depending on weapon being used.
Now the entire company's attacks are split up between all of their targets, is lets say the company is attacking a party of 5 characters.
20% of each 10% targets each party member in this case. meaning everyone is likely to take a little damage, some, if fighting in an open field, a lot of damage.
start from lowest attacks to highest attacks, and asking if the attack hits the character's AC, once the answer becomes yes all higher attacks obviously hit.
Damage dice are rolled normally, and are not standardized since a smaller number of damage dice should be hit. However, if you feel you wish to standard then take half the number of sides and go up and down in increments so that you could, on average roll rounded down, still get max damage and minimum damage.
Once a group gets below 16 or 24 it might be much better to just roll them normally.
Just some thoughts.
What are your thoughts on this. Obviously this would end with some members of the party being stabbed and shot to death with arrows/bolts/bullets, so it would not be particularly good for the adventurers if they are out in the open. To rectify this just have a seemingly unlimited number of tokens that move and reinforce from off screen so the PCs can use tactics to their advantage like if they use the "Wall of" spells, AoE spells, or just cleave.
My recommendation is to have enemies who have the same attack for melee and ranged attacks for simplicity sake. One thing is for sure, PCs with 1 attack a round who cannot damage more than one enemy at a time will have a long time defeating such an encounter.
Few: 1-4
Several: 5-9
Band: 10-19
Dozens: 20-49
Scores: 50-99
Company: 100-249
Hundreds: 250-500
Host: 500-999
Legion: 1000-2499
Thousands: 2500+
;)
I'd suggest one of two things:
1) Hand wave it, because rolling 128 d20s each round will SUCK.
2) Treat the soldiers as a modified version of a swarm
mplindustries this really boils down to this:
Rolls 2d20, this will tell you the effective dice-rolls--just have entire groups of enemies be the exact same, no veterans--the second D20 is to confirm crits for the crits since it is possible to roll a 20 and a 1.
Now divide up the number of enemies by the number of foes they have, the enemies around the PCs are attacking in melee, the enemies at range are attacking with ranged weapons. For implicity sake just have them all do the same damage, give them all composite bows and longsword + shields.
Now either roll the damage individually or do a roll like above.
1d8 for all damage against a PC, so on an average roll it should hit 8 and 1, so (1d8 (-3, -1, +1, +4)
so on a roll of 4 . . .
25% are d8 rolls of 1.
25% are d8 rolls of 3.
25% are d8 rolls of 5.
25% are d8 rolls of 8.
so on a roll of 2 . . .
25% are d8 rolls of 1.
25% are d8 rolls of 1.
25% are d8 rolls of 3.
25% are d8 rolls of 6.
BiosTheo maybe a routing mechanism could be implemented as a percentile. I was looking up the Punic Wars which inspired me to create this hypothetical chart.
Perhaps after each round the large group has to make will saves each time it fails a percentile with it going up by 10% increments. Their will save being their CR with a doubling penalty for each 10% lost that starts at -1, then -2, then -4, -8, -16--which means that at 50-60% of them killed they simply cannot make the will save with at natural 20--and the will save the "fear aura" of the PC (APL+highest charisma bonus).
City Defenders would fight to the bitter end since they are fighting for their families.
This is all really theoretical. I was really trying to think about the individual companies and brigades of the planar armies as they fight against each other.
What would millions of archons charging into millions of demons look like? What kind of CRs would be involved with 1024 Hound Archons (CR 24 if you wonder) as they charge the breach.
If the PCs were involved in the siege of a major city and found themselves trapped between two battalions what would the effective CRs be, and how would such a battle go down.
If two battalions of two opposing factions clashed blades how would it play out if they were different levels? This is an attempt to simulate this.
The biggest problem with open field conscripts warfare in the Pathfinder universe is magic.
It is great and all that 1024 CR1 warriors are CR21, but considering Fireball has a range of 400+40/CL this poses a problem since it means a handful of wizards can flat out massacre large armies before they can get close, therefore we have the skirmish of the casters before the war of the martials.
Then again, as pointed out earlier, the most devastating attacks came during ambushes, and those casters would be prime targets.
This is precisely the reason why "heroes" exist, since they can weather the attacks of these casters while sending them their own retort. One of the grim realities of the Baster Caster is that his realm of power comes not from the burst damage, but from the fact that he heavily out-ranges his foes. At level 10 a wizard can hit enemies from 800 feet away, at 20 it is 1200 feet away, and yes I have used this as an approximation for an enemy wizard who is aware of the players attacking them from extremely far away from a tower.
Ranged weapons are also much stronger here. 1024 swordmen are crap, since only 8 can stand next to a single PC(if those don't stand next to each other than it's even less). 1024 guys with bows can all focus one PC with a huge barrage of arrows(maybe they'd need precise shot).
If a huge number of low level NPCs attack i'd likely just go with the probabilities instead of rolling. If 1024 arrows fly at a character with an attack bonus of +2(average high attack for CR 1 foes) and said character has an AC of lets say 33, they hit only on a natural 20. 5% of 1024 is roughly 51. Therefore the guy would get around 51 arrows to the face. One could also use a normal distribution and roll for it's probabilities to modify this number randomly.
51 arrows for 4,5 or even 7 if we go with the average damage of CR 1 monsters should really be considered quite deadly(230 or even 357), though the right spells(Wind Wall)or clever use of cover would trivialize such an encounter.
A fireball hits 50 squares and could wipe out that many soldiers, if they are cramped. That's really good, but not against such a number of enemies overpowered IMO.
Now the entire company's attacks are split up between all of their targets, is lets say the company is attacking a party of 5 characters.
20% of each 10%
So, a company of 100 units attacks something, the DM rolls a 12 on the D20.
10% of the company gets an effective attack roll of: 2
10% of the company gets an effective attack roll of: 4
10% of the company gets an effective attack roll of: 6
10% of the company gets an effective attack roll of: 8
10% of the company gets an effective attack roll of: 10
10% of the company gets an effective attack roll of: 14
10% of the company gets an effective attack roll of: 16
10% of the company gets an effective attack roll of: 18
10% of the company gets an effective attack roll of: 20
10% of the company gets an effective attack roll of: 22
targets each party member in this case. meaning everyone is likely to take a little damage, some, if fighting in an open field, a lot of damage.
start from lowest attacks to highest attacks, and asking if the attack hits the character's AC, once the answer becomes yes all higher attacks obviously hit.
Now divide up the number of enemies by the number of foes they have, the enemies around the PCs are attacking in melee, the enemies at range are attacking with ranged weapons. For implicity sake just have them all do the same damage, give them all composite bows and longsword + shields.
1024 guys with bows can all focus one PC with a huge barrage of arrows(maybe they'd need precise shot).
The army focusing a single character down, as stipulated above, would be an "act of god" since the basic rules for doing this would stipulate that everyone pretty much gets attacked equally.
Just pointing that out.
Not quite on topic, but I kinda disagree with your CR assessment. It's correct on paper, but in practice I don't think it holds up.
Your average 1st level Warrior/Fighter is generally only going to hit even a mildly optimized 10th level character on a high roll.
They have something like +5 to-hit, MAYBE +6 (if they all have Masterwork Weaponry and 18 Str, which is very in their favor since the standard for Str NPCs is 16 I believe). So your average loadout of, say, 14 Dex, +2 Breastplate, Amulet of Natural Armor/Ring of Protection +2 already puts them at 24 AC. So these guys can hit on a 19 or 20 most likely (since outfitting the whole army with Masterwork weaponry seems mighty expensive for fodder).
Going up in levels to about 3rd they still need like a 17 to hit.
So basically your non defensively minded PCs are already walking through these guys while they frantically hope for a crit threat (which they'll likely never confirm).
Assuming 1 in 10 guys hits them, for 1d10+4 damage (average 9, it's a longsword) apiece, that's still only eating into your Fighter's average (14 Con, no toughness, FCB HP) HP of ~85 at a hilariously slow rate. It'd take about 800 soldiers to damage him enough, on average, to bring him down, assuming no healing or anything in between any of that. They Power Attack him for +2 damage at the cost of -1 to hit, which'd bring that total down...slightly.
Meanwhile, between Strength (22 sounds reasonable for a level 10), Weapon Training, and BaB he's already up to +18 to-hit, missing the average "Guard" (Warrior 3, 18 AC) only on a 1, and dealing enough damage to each to kill him in 1 hit, (we'll say Greatsword, 22 Str+Power Attack+Weapon Training with Gloves of Dueling = 2d6+20, average 27 damage vs their 19 HP).
So the Fighter can MOW through an army of CR 1 warriors like they're not even there, shrugging off the nicks and scrapes for the better part of 1000 troops before finally eating it, assuming he has no team support or healing.
128 enemies is tedious, and takes a long time, but disregarding massive flukes (constant critting, and so forth) your Fighter should mow through them in 128 rounds + however many it takes him to get there in the first place with barely a scratch on him (compared to his HP total anyway).
To kinda tie this back into your OP somewhat, if you want to do an army battle, it's best to handwave it. Handwave it in the party's favor most likely, if they're above level 7 or 8.
Treat the party as if they've automatically decimated the enemy fodder, and the enemy PC classed NPCs as having done the same if they're not killed by the PCs first.
That might be what makes it fun, turning it into a sort of race against time, trying to take out the enemy heavy hitters before they can deplete the total army resources (at a rate of 1 person per round per each heavy hitter) below a certain threshold, with the enemy army basically being a hindrance only because they take up space.
Take it down to a whole abstract with no rolls (assume they get hit once for every 10 enemies they blow past for average damage, do the same for the heavy hitters), with say every pack of 8 enemies (enough to surround their square) delaying them for one round, and make the challenge be about getting from Point A to Point B in the fastest, safest way possible to stop the enemy engines of destruction from completing some important goal.
I think a variant of the swarm rules could be interesting if done right. Something along the lines of a normal swarm, but it takes full weapon damage and the like. Basically scale up swarms from tiny to medium critters, making the basic swarm gargantuan sized, this would count as your smallest unit, you could then combine multiples to make bigger units, add in different weapons, etc. this would make units between 16 and 32 men (16 squares, max of 32 if they count as squeezing)
Maybe it could work. I'd end to look closer at the swarm rules, since this is off the top of my head really.
EDIT: Just read about the Troop subtype...that's exactly what I was trying to describe!
Armies were covered in Ultimate Campaign, right?
I would suggest using the swarm-like platoon presented in the Reign of Winter AP, specifically in Rasputin Must Die.
Personally I don't like the swarm template. I never liked the idea of a group of medium sized monsters getting free auto hits regardless of armor class.