Opposing factions, one led by a high level vampire sorcer, and another led by a lich undead lord cleric. The party is going to find themselves in the midst of this very shortly. They have previously had an amiable encounter with the vampire in the mana wastes. How would you handle it.
Ummm.....well I expect that they would do no such thing, and instead there would be assassination attempts. Especially since fighting on a battlefield will not extremely unlikely to kill a vampire or a lich.
Seems mostly like a waste of good minions.
At this point assassination attempts have failed. The vampire is defending his castle. The lich is part of a rebel faction that wants again to start a war with Neb. The vampire happens to be a major player in the hierarchy of Geb. Eventually the vampire will send the party on the quest to destroy the lich's Phylactery. Or the Lich will send them on a quest to kill the wife of the vampire, which supposedly send the vampire off the deep end.
The lich has utterly failed once already, but his base of operations up to this point was unknown. So it was impossible for the vampire to destroy phylactery.
If the Vampire's wife is mortal, she's going to die eventually anyway, Lich has nothing but time.
If the Vampire's wife is also a Vampire, why does the Lich think an assassin will work this time?
She is a vampire, and one not nearly as high level. The lich learns of the PC's connection to the vampire and will use that against him.
I still can't see a reason why the vampire would want to engage in open warfare. Assuming the vampire has levels which allow for spell casting, an army will not be able to pin him down. A few spells, teleport object and teleport, will protect him.
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A vampire's spells could potentially protect himself, but not all of his property, holdings and connections to the nation of Geb.
While he could possibly make his own personal demi-plane to be his fortress, he'd be giving up most of the intangibles of being an aristocrat of Geb.
Nobles are, after all, incredibly vain once they get something like eternal youth under their belt.
It's a simple matter that the vampire is fighting to protect his toys... By launching a number of his expendable toys at the problem. Nobody ever said
This also raises the issue that Geb has a government that probably has something to say about these two fighting. Esepcially if the vampire is an important person to the government. What do the blood lords have to say? Aranzi the Harlot Queen? What about Geb himself? He rarely manifests, so he might not know or care. But certainly the others would have an opinion. Do you think they would allow open warfare in such a case?
It sounds like the lich in this instance would be committing treason, if the vampire is favored by the government.
well i don't care for the reason and logic.
it seems that the best way to deal with one of the sides is getting a very good melee(maybe a monk .the grappler archtype can also dimantion ancher at high levels). with death wards.
but this is the con
the real threat would be the casters from behind pulling out antimagic shell on the target. really should level most if not all of their defnces.
one of my most beloved casters dual sences was two arch mages dualing at dawn for the high-head-of-school-state. when one confess to have been trained as a monk at youth,pull out the antimagic field and choke his rival to death.
Geb seems like the sort of country where reports of internal power struggles might be occasions for the higher-ups to break out the popcorn.
This angle could be played up to avoid Claxon's issues, if the players like fridge logic.
Anyway. Mass combat is usually a bad idea. If the plot demands it and cannot be diverted, make sure they have clear objectives, so it doesn't devolve into an hourlong slugfest of meaningless encounters.
Aranzi is aware, Geb is not. The bloodlords are waiting to see the outcome. The rest of Geb aristocracy are dealing with their own problems as well.
Well, getting back on course...you're asking on how to proceed. You keep trying to say you think it demands mass combat. But pathfinder does that pretty poorly. At best, it leaves the with little to do. At worst it completely removes their agency to affect things. The system that do exist for it in game just aren't very good.
I still think the best way to handle this would be something to the effect of...
The vampire "prepares" to fight the lich as a ruse. But the vampire and the party are friends. The vampire raises an army to hold off the lich..while the party actually goes into the lich's castle/stronghold/whatever and attempts to assinate/destroy him/his phylactery. It's the perfect time. The battle happens off stage. And honestly, I'm assuming it's mostly mindless undead in the battle so I wouldn't even bother describing the aftermath further than a lot of undead lay scattered on the battle field. After the lich was destroyed the vampire and his minions controlled the released mindless undead and turned/commanded the other. The lich's lieutenants ran.
I wasnt sure if I wanted to run mass combat or not. I have zero experience with mass combat. I also can not dictate the course of the pc's actions. They can choose a side, or they can ignore it altogether. However with these guys, its possible they may be interested in the large scale battle. As it stands, the vampire has the more defensible position and the stronger magics, yet the lich has more minions.
How would you handle it is a pretty vague question.
How would you handle undead armies fighting? How would you handle PCs in the middle of a battle? How would you handle PCs in a faction struggle between a lich and a vampire?
If you explain better, you might get a better answer.
I am currently asking about mass combat. I have every other potential outcome covered. I just dont know a thing about mass combat.
The mass combat rules from ultimate campaign are really focused around PCs raising and leading armies, so they wouldn't be too appropriate here.
I would suggest using the troop subtype to create 'squads' of undead soldiers. That can make them a threat to even higher level PCs, and keeps the number of combatants down.
It would be difficult for even high level PCs to directly effect a battle if the numbers are high enough, even if they can slay anyone who gets near them, or level areas with fireballs, they probably can't be in enough places at once to make a huge difference in mass combat. If you think they can/should then presumably the opposing force has 'special units' designed to deal with high threat individuals like the PCs. Basically, send another party to deal with the problem. This could be an interesting encounter.
A lot of it depends on the flavor you want.
As far as the 'which army wins' question, I don't think you need any mass combat rules for that. It is determined by plot.
I run mass battles in all fantasy RPG's using side games on big player boards. I've made a few customs and also used the rules and pieces from Heroscape, Battle Masters and a couple of Avalon Hill hex games simplified.
Heroscape map pieces can make a perfect tactical hex map on which you can place cardboard army squads. Dice types like Heroscape really speed up combats.
I usually give each player a unit that is their personal character, allowing them to go toe to toe with a small number of minion squads while the bigger battle resolves. I give them good stats and a special ability that reflects their character (fighter deals auto damage on base contact, ranger shoots a couple of hexes, etc.).
Usually they have special missions on the board while the battle rages (don't let any badguys onto x square, get from point A to B without getting wrecked by the two sides, explore l,m,n squares during the battle).
This kind of stuff gives a great break in normal table play and as long as you simplify combat rules, it flows really fast.
Back in 2E, there were mass combat rules, but they were clunky. I ran standard rule mass combats with a couple hundred NPC's in 3.5, and they were massive and difficult.
You can do this all with d6's and a standard square maps, just draw the battlefield waaaay zoomed out and use squares as hexes big enough to hold full legions of NPC's.
I run mass battles in all fantasy RPG's using side games on big player boards. I've made a few customs and also used the rules and pieces from Heroscape, Battle Masters and a couple of Avalon Hill hex games simplified.
Heroscape map pieces can make a perfect tactical hex map on which you can place cardboard army squads. Dice types like Heroscape really speed up combats.
I usually give each player a unit that is their personal character, allowing them to go toe to toe with a small number of minion squads while the bigger battle resolves. I give them good stats and a special ability that reflects their character (fighter deals auto damage on base contact, ranger shoots a couple of hexes, etc.).
Usually they have special missions on the board while the battle rages (don't let any badguys onto x square, get from point A to B without getting wrecked by the two sides, explore l,m,n squares during the battle).
This kind of stuff gives a great break in normal table play and as long as you simplify combat rules, it flows really fast.
Back in 2E, there were mass combat rules, but they were clunky. I ran standard rule mass combats with a couple hundred NPC's in 3.5, and they were massive and difficult.
You can do this all with d6's and a standard square maps, just draw the battlefield waaaay zoomed out and use squares as hexes big enough to hold full legions of NPC's.
This helps.
As to who wins. It is dependent upon the side the pcs align themselves with.
Several years ago (this was a 3.5 game), I ran a game in which the players had the chance to affect an outcome on a large-scale siege - the attacking army was a ton of undead and the PCs had a fortifiable position with access to various defenses and some soldiers on their side.
However, rather than slog through a long combat, the outcome of the battle was determined by 'battle points' which was metagame currency I was tracking behind the scenes in order to keep track of their preparations for battle, their actions during the battle, etc. It was sort of an ad hoc system where I had a few ideas for things they could do at the outset and then they came up with ideas of their own, for which I awarded points. The siege/battle itself was largely a cinematic piece as their preparations and actions were taken into account and I determined the outcome.
I recall it working pretty well, and allowed us to skip actual combat encounters - though it wasn't very tactical and you might have players with different preferences (ie, those who want to get into the tactical details of the battles).
The Pc's could easily be deployed as their own "legions" and just pick off units on the side they want to lose. This would of course mean you ran both NPC sides.
I usually offer the NPC roles to players so they can play evil to win, etc. Conversely, you could have them all play the one side they choose vs. you and your other side. The PC's could even fight "poorly" opening up the option of a double betrayal.
This group so far has CG CN & LE members. The LE member is an Undead Lord of Urgathoa and has been doing her truly evil in areas that do not have much in the ways of laws.
Both sides of the conflict are evil, lawful evil and chaotic evil. So if they choose a side, it will most likely be with their prior contact.