What combat system for D20 is the best without getting too abstract? I'm looking for suggestions and opinions. D20 is clunky after a certain amount of pieces on the board, so to speak, but I know that there are ways around that problem.
what are you talking about when you say mass combat?
Whole armies with 1000's of troops, or small bands of like 40-50 on each side?
40 or 50 sounds good.
40 or 50 sounds good.
so, I really liked how Skulls & Shackles handled it. As a Pirate Lord, you and your party, along with your crew, fight against another pirate lord, his henchmen, and his crew.
The actual in game part is purely your party and maybe 4-5 crewmen, against the pirate lord and his small entourage. All the other crew are simply fighting in the background. whoever wins the small battle between the parties, wins the overall battle. while your crew takes some losses, enough of the other crew are willing to swear loyalty that the net effect is you still have a full crew (maybe a few extras).
As for other methods, breaking then 40-50 per side up into small 5-10 person encounters on the battle field, while the rest rages on in the background seems workable.
I also like how Reign of Winter handles large armies. Basically they cam up with a new type of Swarm, the "Troop unit". 20-40 men act as a single large swarm. So your party or 4 can go against 4 or 5 "troops" which in reality is 100 men.
I recall reading a Warhammer 40k rulebook that handled squad combat efficiently. The troop rule is pretty cool, but I don't like the No roll hit. I wished there was a squad rule comprised of 4 to 8 characters. Somewhat similar to those large Heroclix bases with multiple characters. Squad rules would be great for representing an adventuring party with different abilities.