Wrapping up the Tides of Dread

[NPC Dave]

My campaign is about to start the Battle of Farshore, and I wanted to share how I handled a few things which I haven't seen covered in these forums or in Dungeon Magazine.

With respect to the Vanderboren/Meravanchi election, the text assumes that there will be enough campaigning going on between the PCs and Avner and enough successes and failures that one of the candidates will have 41 votes out of the undecided. In my case, however, Avner failed his first two rolls and gave up without winning anyone over to his uncle. (There is a 1/4 chance of that happening in your campaign.) The text assumes that Meravanchi wins if no one campaigns, but how does the undecided break down exactly? If you assume that Meravanchi has a 51% majority of the undecided than Avner just decided the election for Lavinia without the PCs doing anything.

I wanted the PCs efforts to matter so I came up with the following. 75%- d20% of the undecided who have not been swayed to either candidate will vote for Meravanchi in the election. Thus before Avner and the PCs do anything, the undecided will go 60 to Meravanchi and 20 to Lavinia as an upper bound and 44 to Meravanchi and 36 to Lavinia as a lower bound. Technically this makes Avner more effective if he just stays home but he doesn't know that.

In any case, between Avner's failures and my PCs successes there were 30 undecided swayed to Lavinia and 50 still undecided when the election took place. I let the PCs roll the d20 and they got a 15. So 60% of the 50 remaining undecided went to Manthalay and the final result was Lavinia 130 votes and Manthalay 110 votes. The players were a bit disturbed the election was that close because they considered the plan to press gang the Olmans crazy, but it is not like the upcoming US presidential election is any less crazy.

I will update this thread in another week with my efforts for making the Battle of Farshore a miniature wargame in the spirit of Battlesystem and mass combat. As both myself and one of the players are wargamers, we decided we will run this whole thing as a tabletop wargame interspersed with the major PC fights.

[TBA]

I'd be interested to see how the wargame for Farshore pans out.

I thought about doing similar, but the only war rules I had at the time seemed to take ages to play out so I ditched it.

[Hagor]

I let most of the mass combat (between the main force of the attacking pirates and defending Farshorians, Olmans & Phanatons) happen in the background & I just described the tide of the battle, allowing the PCs to focus on the main opponents. (Because my PCs were somewhat overpowered, I included additional officers on the ships & generally upped the attacking force)

I did make a miniature version of the central dock area of Farshore (centered around the last coconot) (using some paper model templates I printed out):

to give you an idea:
link to some foto's/blog (in Dutch)

link to some foto's/blog (in Dutch)(part 2)

Hagor

[Luna eladrin]

If you still want to do something with the election, let Meravanchi win and let the PCs subsequently discover that he has bought a number of votes.

[NPC Dave]

For awhile I was planning to use the Conan Mass Combat rules Mongoose Publishing released for free, but ultimately I decided I liked Eden Odyssey's d20 Fields of Blood : The Book of War rules as it better addresses more of the mid level magic that can get thrown around in 3.5 games.

I made a few modifications to the Eden Odyssey rules to account for the smaller size of the Farshore forces and for personal taste.

The basic stat sheet for units includes

MAB/RAB - Melee/Ranged Attack Bonus, The modifier to the d20 hit roll.
Melee/Ranged Power - When you hit, you roll a d20 and add the power number to get your damage number.
Toughness - To wound a unit, your damage number has to equal or exceed their toughness.
Wounds - A unit is out when it takes its total value in wounds. Most units have 2 wounds.
Shock - A unit with a shock value inflicts a morale penalty against units it is fighting.
Morale - A unit facing a morale check rolls a d20 and adds their morale number.
Command - A unit attempting to implement certain maneuvers has to make a command check to successfully complete the maneuver.

Move, AC, Fort, Ref, and Will save values work just like they do in 3.5.

So when in combat, roll to hit against AC, if you hit, roll for damage against toughness, and if you would the unit takes a single wound. If your damage roll is 10 or more the minimum needed to wound the unit, you do two wounds.

I will post some stats of units soon.

[NPC Dave]

Hagor wrote:

I did make a miniature version of the central dock area of Farshore (centered around the last coconot) (using some paper model templates I printed out):

to give you an idea:
link to some foto's/blog (in Dutch)

link to some foto's/blog (in Dutch)(part 2)

Impressive layout! For now I am only planning a 2D top down view, mostly using counters.

[NPC Dave]

Name: Phanaton Rangers
# of counters: 7
Commander: Warchieftain Purucui
Deputy Commander: Sub-chieftain Axaua

Description
Race: Phanaton
Unit Type: Martial
Training Level: Regular
Training Type: Light Infantry
Subtype: Gliders

Weapons and Armor:
Leather Armor, Dagger, Kukri, Spear

Attributes
MAB: +5 (+4 spear)
RAB: +8
AC: 17
Melee Power: 5 (8 spear)
Ranged Power: 5 (8 spear)
Toughness: 21
Wounds: 2

Fort Save: +4
Reflex Save: +8
Will Save: +2
Shock: 0
Move: 4 (Glide 4)
Morale: +1
Command: +2

Feats:

Special Abilities:
1) When gliding a phanaton unit may move up to 20 feet of forward travel for every 5 feet of descent.
2) +1 bonus to all saves when phanaton unit is in forest terrain
3) Counter containing Commander has +1 MAB, +1 RAB

[NPC Dave]

Name: Oltec Zombie Retinue
# of counters: 10
Commander: Zombie Master Mvembi of Tanaroa
Deputy Commander: None

Description
Race: Human
Unit Type: Martial
Training Level: Irregular
Training Type: Light Infantry
Subtype: Undead

Attributes
MAB: +3
RAB: NA
AC: 11
Melee Power: 9
Ranged Power: NA
Toughness: 31(26/slashing)
Wounds: 2

Fort Save: +0
Reflex Save: +1
Will Save: +3
Shock: 1
Move: 6
Morale: NA
Command: +0

Special Abilities:
1) Counter containing Commander has +1 MAB
2) Zombie units may only take partial actions
3) Unit has full undead immunities

[NPC Dave]

Name: Oltec War Party Coalition
# of counters: 12
Commander: Warchieftain Kuro of Dawa
Deputy Commander: Warchieftain Bakor of Kirikuka
Formation:

Description
Race: Human(Oltec)
Unit Type: Martial
Training Level: Regular
Training Type: Light Infantry

Weapons and Armor:
Leather Armor, Light Wooden Shield, Mwk Longspear/Shimalo'koa, Mwk Javelin(x2)

Attributes
MAB: +8
RAB: +7
AC: 14
Melee Power: 14
Ranged Power: 12
Toughness: 25
Wounds: 2

Fort Save: +6
Reflex Save: +3
Will Save: +4
Shock: 0
Move: 6
Morale: +4
Command: +3

Special Abilities:
1) Counter containing Commander has +1 MAB, +1 RAB
2) Counter containing Deputy Commander had +1 MAB, +1 RAB

[NPC Dave]

Name: Farshore Militia
# of counters: 5 (expandable up to 8)
Commander: Militia Captain Ulvar Kabbanja
Deputy Commander: Jade Raven Tolin Kientai

Description
Race: Human
Unit Type: Martial
Training Level: Regular
Training Type: Medium Infantry

Weapons and Armor:
Chain Shirt, Buckler, Mwk Shortspear/Longspear, Mwk Javelin(x1)

Attributes
MAB: +6
RAB: +5
AC: 16
Melee Power: 10
Ranged Power: 9
Toughness: 23
Wounds: 2

Fort Save: +5
Reflex Save: +3
Will Save: +1
Shock: 0
Move: 5
Morale: +3
Command: +3

Special Abilities:
1) Counter containing Commander has +1 MAB, +1 RAB
2) Counter containing Deputy Commander had +3 MAB, +1 RAB, +2 Melee Power and +1 Wounds

[NPC Dave]

Name: Meravanchi’s Irregulars
# of counters: 8
Commander: Aristocrat Manthalay Meravanchi
Deputy Commander: Avner Meravanchi

Description
Race: Human
Unit Type: Martial
Training Level: Irregular
Training Type: Light Infantry

Weapons and Armor:
Leather Armor, Masterwork Rakasta warclaws

Attributes
MAB: +4
RAB: NA
AC: 12
Melee Power: 6
Ranged Power: 0
Toughness: 17
Wounds: 2

Fort Save: +0
Reflex Save: +2
Will Save: +0
Shock: 0
Move: 6
Morale: +5
Command: +4

Special Abilities:
1) Counter containing Commander has +2 MAB, +4 Melee Power, +2 Toughness and +2 Wounds
2) Counter containing Deputy Commander had +1 MAB, +2 Melee Power, +1 Toughness and +1 Wounds