So in my group last night we had a large scale battle that had simple rules. Players could join up into squads with NPCs to attack a horde of enemies who also had squads. How they outfitted their squad in the prior session effected that squads armor, attack, and unit numbers (HP/Attack/Defense). We made it to where units had low defense scores and slightly higher attack scores with higher health scores to try and make combat more stream lined. The problem was, everyone was rolling for crap under the armor scores ranging from 10-13 with attack modifiers to their squads at +5 minimum when lead by a player.
This made for a slog of an experiment with army combat and by the end of it we just dumped that system and went back to standard one player action combat. My Question is, how should large scale combat be implemented in a fun manner? I have a homebrew I'm working on where army warfare is a large part of combat rather than just a group of adventurers, now your a squad in a bigger army earning rank. Should I just narrate events of the war outside of their group(s) and treat it like a standard adventuring party? I feel if I do this, battles would be more or less won on their actions and I don't feel a whole army should win from essentially a vanguard unit.
I recommend focussing the dice rolls on the player actions.
By all means, have the players involved in working out strategy, defences, any special tactics etc, especially for the bit of a battle they will be involved in.
They can affect the battle around them by being effective, maybe directing soldiers.
You have the information though on the composition of both sides and should be able to figure out the likely outcome, if the players don't do anything. Use that as your basis.
Suitable skill rolls:
Intelligence (possibly Investigation) when trying to determine what opposing forces are up to.
Wisdom (insight) working out the meaning behind what they've spotted, "Oh, this push here is likely a diversion, to pull troops from the side gate....."
Charisma (Persuasion/Deception/Intimidate) to convince people to follow orders.
There isn't an overall tactics skill in D&D 5e, so compare the stats and experience of the battle leaders on each side and make some decisions based on that.
I recommend focussing the dice rolls on the player actions.
By all means, have the players involved in working out strategy, defences, any special tactics etc, especially for the bit of a battle they will be involved in.
They can affect the battle around them by being effective, maybe directing soldiers.
You have the information though on the composition of both sides and should be able to figure out the likely outcome, if the players don't do anything. Use that as your basis.
Suitable skill rolls:
Intelligence (possibly Investigation) when trying to determine what opposing forces are up to.
Wisdom (insight) working out the meaning behind what they've spotted, "Oh, this push here is likely a diversion, to pull troops from the side gate....."
Charisma (Persuasion/Deception/Intimidate) to convince people to follow orders.
There isn't an overall tactics skill in D&D 5e, so compare the stats and experience of the battle leaders on each side and make some decisions based on that.
These are great ideas. I'm going to yoink them for use in an uupcoming mass battle in my campaign.
Thanks for the advice Stormknight, that makes a lot more sense than what I had. Because I was in squads I made everyone just roll flat D20s for the most part and the one investigation they opted to do they failed and then fell into a trap which they as players knew might be there. We ended up having to cut the game short because of how bad it was getting and I didnt want to get a wipe on something that would be my fault for experimentation like that. I guess the lesson is if I want to play a tabletop army game I should just do that instead.
Csheets yeah I think I will have to go along that route, scale a wall to secure a gate, disrupt enemy leaders, spread false information just really specific task for them to do. But at that point I feel it's a bit of a railroad unless described otherwise. Just trying to keep the game fun but not having huge battles decided on one factor i.e. Securing the gate wins the battle.
Have you played any AL? At conventions they have what they call an Epic. You could look into those to base your battle on. Long story short: your group has at least 3 challenges (or encounters) that depending if they pass or fail will influence the over all battle/ the end.
To avoid the rail road feel have an NPC officers ranting about all the various issues with the battle and let the party choose what to do, then they feel important and you keep control of the battle.
Rather than make it one long grind with the players rolling attacks over and over, have smaller objectives that change how the battle is going. For example, you could have the party try and push some point in a battle line. If they manage to kill ___ monsters within a certain amount of time, then they push the front line and their side advances, and the opposing forces retreat and the players then get to do something else. If it fails, the players are pushed back and need to regroup or do something else.
You can do this with squads as well by just altering what the objective is, how players are influencing it (controlling their own character vs. a squad), and the outcome.
My advice would be to re-think what kind of role you want the players to have. Or find a different gaming system that suits your needs.
You state that the PCs are part of a larger unit yet you don't want a single 'vanguard' group determining the battle...what are your players for? Do they players know that their characters will be just rank-and-file soldiers in a large army? The post from Stormknight above is so true: keep the action focused on the players. What fun is it for them to *not* have an impact on the larger battle?
I think any way you slice it, it comes down to making the PCs the central focus of the game. Their actions on the battlefield should influence, if not determine, the outcome of the battle. Think of the PCs like the 'special ops' forces of a military- a group of specialized warriors with diverse skills and tools at their disposal. They should be the ones taking out the commander's forces, sneaking behind enemy lines to free captive allies, or setting up an ambush to disrupt the enemy supply train. Or maybe they accompany an emissary on a diplomatic mission as advisers and protection. Their successes and failures in these areas have a direct impact on the broader war without the PCs being infantry grunts in a sea of soldiers.
The 3.5 supplement book Heroes of Battle has a great Victory Point system for running a game this way.
At times in my game, I've used a quick n' dirty mechanic I like to call 'vs the Horde' rules. Here's the explanation and rules. It's a very abstract representation of combat; it treats a horde (of goblins, say) as a collection of Swarms (as in the MM). The DM can adjust the horde's attack bonus and damage for an appropriate challenge. Treat the swarm as a single CR monster so it's easier to gauge how much to throw at them. And maybe after the PCs do a few hundred points of damage, the remaining enemy units retreat or scatter or whatever. Make the PCs feel heroic! And heck, players love rolling lots of damage dice. I use it when I want the PCs to have to mow their way across a battlefield or to spice up a session with a large-scale battle.
A final note: It's not tactical at all- it's all about damage- but damage is the focus when chopping your way through a horde, right?
Melee and ranged attacks AND damage-dealing spells that require an attack roll
Natural 1
0 damage
Miss
Half damage
Hit
Regular damage
Hit by 6 or more
Total damage x 2
Critical Hit
Max damage x 2
For an attack that produces an effect (such as a fighter’s maneuver) add 1d12 to the damage roll. This represents the advantage that those conditions grant.
*Damage-dealing spells that require an attack roll (ranged or melee) work like melee/ranged attacks as above. Ex- the cantrip Fire Bolt would do half damage on a miss, full damage on a hit, double-damage on a roll that beats the AC by 6+ and automatically do 20 damage (max x2) on a crit.
Area of effect spells that do damage
Successful save
Half damage
Failed save by 5 or less
Full damage
Fail saving throw by 6 or more
Double damage
Natural 1
Max damage x 2
*Damage is applied to the horde (not an individual creature).
Spells that produce a condition, such as Tasha’s Hideous Laughter, Sleep, or Hypnotic Pattern (any spell that causes the target to become prone, incapacitated, charmed, etc) the spell does 2d12+ your spellcasting modifier in damage (represents the additional damage your melee combatants do to the incapacitated foes). This is in addition to any of the spell’s damage (essentially the 2d12+ replaces the benefits of the condition you put on the enemy). The saving throw chart above applies to these spells.
Not sure if someone’s already stated this, but Matt Colville has a great video called “Warfare” all about good rules to run large scale encounters with.
Hi i read this thread and found it really helpfull since im a noobie. Though i developed a little program to handle medium-large battles. The idea is to have it spread all around and to let so the users to create and share libraries of pngs to be loaded so on you wont need anymore to put the stats manually. If it can interest you thisi is the link to the mini website i created for the program. https://greatbattles.bss.design/ . If you scroll down to the bottom you will find the libraries that if downloaded (not the aaDefault) and imported will let you see some characters from dnd. They are in my mother lengauge ITA since i haven't the english monsters manual
A normal initiative Battle on large scale can quickly becom a slog!
Instead try thinking in scenes (like a movie) Describe what is happening around the group, describe the scene with a conflict. Maybe the players spot an ambush on a ballista, describe it and say to the group "what do you do". Don't feel the constraints of movement, and instead run it like an action sequence (or a quicktime event from a video game), where they do something, roll a dice, an there is an outcome, there can be several of these sequences in a short amount of time. Then depending on the outcome, it affects the flow of the battle in one way or the other. The battle rages on around them, and though they may have a large impact on the battle, i see it more as, them having sway over key points in the battle, that can changes the flow of the fight.
I often do this in chase scenes as well. Pretty much in all those places, where you could imagine movie sceenes. :D
If the player actions can potentially have significant impact on the battle (e.g. they had opportunities to recruit mercenaries, bring in a high powered wizard, slay the dragon before the battle etc) then it's going to be rewarding to the players if those impacts help decide the outcome. If your battle involves a large number of creatures (hundreds or thousands) then roll for them before the game takes place if you want to randomise it. But it's probably best to create them as Swarm monsters (e.g. Human Spearman Regiment Swarm, Goblin Archer Swarm), have them fight, and then work out how many survivors are left based on proportionate remaining hp.
If they didn't have any impact (e.g. you just plonk them down in the middle of it), then just decide what the outcome is ahead of time.
A halfway house is that you set certain key battle objectives that the players have to achieve during the battle, set up as a series of small encounters. If they kill the orc warlord, destroy a siege tower and prevent the goblins tunnelling under the walls, then they win the battle, if not they lose.
While running Dragon of Icespire Peak, I had to run a battle where the players and townfolk of Phandalin had to defend the town against invading orcs. It was like two dozen able-bodied townfolk and the players vs 3 dozen orcs and half-orc shapeshifters in multiple varieties (melee, ranged, casters... we were fairly off-book). Not a "large scale" battle in the sense of clashing armies and cavalry and more of a "raid," but large scale in comparison to what D&D usually is. It worked out pretty well by keeping to the following:
1. I kept things cinematic and ran the session as though the battle was just as much roleplay as it was combat. The events within the battle were more important than the actual fighting (in my game, the dragon Cryovain and Gorthok the boar-god engaged in battle in the same location, so players also had to make environmental checks and saves as the rampaging monsters destroyed much of Phandalin and killed many enemies and friendlies alike as they fought; you could easily apply this to warfare). You don't have to treat the battle like a straight tactical numbers game; you can instead portray it as an obstacle to be surmounted via a combination of combat, checks, and roleplay.
2. I "mooked down" most of the enemies and friendly NPCs by reducing their HP. (In a truly large-scale battle you could have a standard enemy represent a cluster, and each hit point they lose could be a single soldier that died.) A lot of them went down in one shot, but the commanders did not.
3. Players rolled initiative for each small encounter (i.e. only for enemies in their vicinity; it was assumed that there was fighting going on elsewhere in the town and they could join those if they wished to or stumbled into them, but I limited the scope to the enemies they could actually see in their immediate vicinity). You'd think this would have slowed things down, but surprisingly it didn't due to the aforementioned mooking.
If you think about war in terms of what it would feel like for your players to be a single footsoldier or commander of a small squad, you'll see that running bigger battles isn't so much different than running any other encounter. You can use existing concepts like cover, environmental hazards, etc. to mimic tactical warfare.
Just some thoughts/options I thought I'd share. I find that simple is better most of the time with D&D.
Many great ideas and good suggestions. Give them tasks, either combat or skilled. I get the overall DnD and big battle scenes are needed sometimes in the campaign. LOTR and Hobbit movies for example. Talk to your group, ask them how they want to handle it, do they want to be involved. Do you want some control of this war. They maybe interested and then ask well how can we do it? You guys will come up with great ways to accomplish it. Or if it is not their cup of tea, you will know how to proceed. Good luck.
1) the PCs should be the squad, not them leading 4 different ones
2) the cleaving through creatures and handling mobs rules in the DMG might be helpful
3) take these and turn them into times eg. if the 5 archers attack a ogre, it takes three rounds to kill it
4) if the PCs are fighting a mob by themselves, only so many creatures can attack them at once. Have more monsters rush in to fill the gaps.
hope this helps!
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Pronouns: he/him/his.
My posting scheduled is irregular: sometimes I can post twice a week, sometimes twice a day. I may also respond to quick questions, but ignore harder responses in favor of time.
My location is where my character for my home game is (we're doing the wild beyond the witchlight).
"The Doomvault... Probably full of unicorns and rainbows." -An imaginary quote
Legend of the 5 rings 1st edition had an interesting mechanic for large scale battles. It would be split into 2 aspects.
1) The players taking the role of a small raiding party with a specific task in the middle of the battle, take out the trebuchet, attack the fortification, defend a portion of the wall. How the players performed would be key to the ultimate outcome of the battle.
2) The characters acted as generals or key commanders making a series of tactical rolls determining the overall battle. This was very dry and relied on a number of rolls against I think Battle Mastery agains the enemy commander to determine who had the best tactics.
I have run both systems in DnD, the second is the easiest but the less satisfactory for players, the 1st allows for some great cinematic moments but requires some really good planning and organisation to keep them focussed. I have used a combination, so a targetted action the players complete as an encounter, then some more general description with rolls for the 2 sides to determine the swing of combat (with advantages given id the players achieved the task) then move the story back to the players as they deal with the next challenge.
I am facing this same challenge. Here is my (tentative) solution.
The players will be running into the fray, late to battle due to having been on adventure. As they approach they will see the local sheriff trying to organize the town's defense against a major orc raid. They are warriors, so they will be able to assess the situation and see three points of battle that will be critical. First, the left flank must hold in order to drive the orcs to the center. Once the left flank is secure, the next danger point is the Armory, coming under attack before the town folk can fully arm themselves. Finally, the players can see the right flank tower, which also must hold in order to keep the orcs in the center kill zone, where archers and Molotov cocktails can shape the battle in favor of the town.
So, the PC battle will be is three sections. At the left flank, the players will use the defensive materials (wooden spikes, a single fire strip, and a few scared town folk) to defeat two waves of orcs. If the orcs are prevented from gettng through the defenses, a victory will be had. At the armory, players will need athletic and/or acrobatic checks to gain access to the roofs of local buildings to set up a local kill zone in front of the armory. Buildings shape the battlefield, and one towns person per round will emerge from the armory ready to join the fight. If orcs are prevented from reahcing the armory, victory will be had. Again, two orc waves. With the armory secured, the players will move toward the right flank tower. There, they will face an initial wave of orcs, and then the boss fight as orc commanders come forward to settle things. This battle field has the tower with a 150HP defensive door. As long as orcs do not gain access to the tower, the tower will contribute two heavy crossbow bolts per round. If the door gives way, the crossbows will be disabled and the right flank will fall. If it holds, a victory will be had. So, three microcosms that reflects the greater battle, each microcosm giving the players a pivotal role in the battle.
When the battle is over, the conclusion depends upon the characters' level of success at the three stages. Three victories means a strategic victory. The town is miraculously saved by the heroes. All good things proceed from their victory. Two victories means a tactical victory. The town is thankful, but there will be a cost. Perhaps an NPC the players have a relationship with will die, and some specific benefit of the town will temporarily be cut off. A single victory means a draw. The town survives, but has received so much damage and carnage that a few NPCs are lost and much of the benefit of the town (inn, safe rest, market, etc.) will be out of commission for an extended time. No victories means, well, you can imagine.
So in my group last night we had a large scale battle that had simple rules. Players could join up into squads with NPCs to attack a horde of enemies who also had squads. How they outfitted their squad in the prior session effected that squads armor, attack, and unit numbers (HP/Attack/Defense). We made it to where units had low defense scores and slightly higher attack scores with higher health scores to try and make combat more stream lined. The problem was, everyone was rolling for crap under the armor scores ranging from 10-13 with attack modifiers to their squads at +5 minimum when lead by a player.
This made for a slog of an experiment with army combat and by the end of it we just dumped that system and went back to standard one player action combat. My Question is, how should large scale combat be implemented in a fun manner? I have a homebrew I'm working on where army warfare is a large part of combat rather than just a group of adventurers, now your a squad in a bigger army earning rank. Should I just narrate events of the war outside of their group(s) and treat it like a standard adventuring party? I feel if I do this, battles would be more or less won on their actions and I don't feel a whole army should win from essentially a vanguard unit.
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D&D Beyond FoundersI recommend focussing the dice rolls on the player actions.
By all means, have the players involved in working out strategy, defences, any special tactics etc, especially for the bit of a battle they will be involved in.
They can affect the battle around them by being effective, maybe directing soldiers.
You have the information though on the composition of both sides and should be able to figure out the likely outcome, if the players don't do anything. Use that as your basis.
Suitable skill rolls:
There isn't an overall tactics skill in D&D 5e, so compare the stats and experience of the battle leaders on each side and make some decisions based on that.
Pun-loving nerd | Faith Elisabeth Lilley | She/Her/Hers | Profile art by Becca Golins
If you need help with homebrew, please post on the homebrew forums, where multiple staff and moderators can read your post and help you!
"We got this, no problem! I'll take the twenty on the left - you guys handle the one on the right!"🔊
These are great ideas. I'm going to yoink them for use in an uupcoming mass battle in my campaign.
Dungeonmastering since 1992!
In some of my large scale battles I give the party things to do that support the battle as well as smaller clashes within the bigger battle
Thanks for the advice Stormknight, that makes a lot more sense than what I had. Because I was in squads I made everyone just roll flat D20s for the most part and the one investigation they opted to do they failed and then fell into a trap which they as players knew might be there. We ended up having to cut the game short because of how bad it was getting and I didnt want to get a wipe on something that would be my fault for experimentation like that. I guess the lesson is if I want to play a tabletop army game I should just do that instead.
Csheets yeah I think I will have to go along that route, scale a wall to secure a gate, disrupt enemy leaders, spread false information just really specific task for them to do. But at that point I feel it's a bit of a railroad unless described otherwise. Just trying to keep the game fun but not having huge battles decided on one factor i.e. Securing the gate wins the battle.
Have you played any AL? At conventions they have what they call an Epic. You could look into those to base your battle on. Long story short: your group has at least 3 challenges (or encounters) that depending if they pass or fail will influence the over all battle/ the end.
To avoid the rail road feel have an NPC officers ranting about all the various issues with the battle and let the party choose what to do, then they feel important and you keep control of the battle.
Rather than make it one long grind with the players rolling attacks over and over, have smaller objectives that change how the battle is going. For example, you could have the party try and push some point in a battle line. If they manage to kill ___ monsters within a certain amount of time, then they push the front line and their side advances, and the opposing forces retreat and the players then get to do something else. If it fails, the players are pushed back and need to regroup or do something else.
You can do this with squads as well by just altering what the objective is, how players are influencing it (controlling their own character vs. a squad), and the outcome.
My advice would be to re-think what kind of role you want the players to have. Or find a different gaming system that suits your needs.
You state that the PCs are part of a larger unit yet you don't want a single 'vanguard' group determining the battle...what are your players for? Do they players know that their characters will be just rank-and-file soldiers in a large army? The post from Stormknight above is so true: keep the action focused on the players. What fun is it for them to *not* have an impact on the larger battle?
I think any way you slice it, it comes down to making the PCs the central focus of the game. Their actions on the battlefield should influence, if not determine, the outcome of the battle. Think of the PCs like the 'special ops' forces of a military- a group of specialized warriors with diverse skills and tools at their disposal. They should be the ones taking out the commander's forces, sneaking behind enemy lines to free captive allies, or setting up an ambush to disrupt the enemy supply train. Or maybe they accompany an emissary on a diplomatic mission as advisers and protection. Their successes and failures in these areas have a direct impact on the broader war without the PCs being infantry grunts in a sea of soldiers.
The 3.5 supplement book Heroes of Battle has a great Victory Point system for running a game this way.
At times in my game, I've used a quick n' dirty mechanic I like to call 'vs the Horde' rules. Here's the explanation and rules. It's a very abstract representation of combat; it treats a horde (of goblins, say) as a collection of Swarms (as in the MM). The DM can adjust the horde's attack bonus and damage for an appropriate challenge. Treat the swarm as a single CR monster so it's easier to gauge how much to throw at them. And maybe after the PCs do a few hundred points of damage, the remaining enemy units retreat or scatter or whatever. Make the PCs feel heroic! And heck, players love rolling lots of damage dice. I use it when I want the PCs to have to mow their way across a battlefield or to spice up a session with a large-scale battle.
A final note: It's not tactical at all- it's all about damage- but damage is the focus when chopping your way through a horde, right?
Melee and ranged attacks AND damage-dealing spells that require an attack roll
Natural 1
0 damage
Miss
Half damage
Hit
Regular damage
Hit by 6 or more
Total damage x 2
Critical Hit
Max damage x 2
For an attack that produces an effect (such as a fighter’s maneuver) add 1d12 to the damage roll. This represents the advantage that those conditions grant.
*Damage-dealing spells that require an attack roll (ranged or melee) work like melee/ranged attacks as above. Ex- the cantrip Fire Bolt would do half damage on a miss, full damage on a hit, double-damage on a roll that beats the AC by 6+ and automatically do 20 damage (max x2) on a crit.
Area of effect spells that do damage
Successful save
Half damage
Failed save by 5 or less
Full damage
Fail saving throw by 6 or more
Double damage
Natural 1
Max damage x 2
*Damage is applied to the horde (not an individual creature).
Spells that produce a condition, such as Tasha’s Hideous Laughter, Sleep, or Hypnotic Pattern (any spell that causes the target to become prone, incapacitated, charmed, etc) the spell does 2d12+ your spellcasting modifier in damage (represents the additional damage your melee combatants do to the incapacitated foes). This is in addition to any of the spell’s damage (essentially the 2d12+ replaces the benefits of the condition you put on the enemy). The saving throw chart above applies to these spells.
Not sure if someone’s already stated this, but Matt Colville has a great video called “Warfare” all about good rules to run large scale encounters with.
Has anyone ever played risk?
Hi i read this thread and found it really helpfull since im a noobie. Though i developed a little program to handle medium-large battles. The idea is to have it spread all around and to let so the users to create and share libraries of pngs to be loaded so on you wont need anymore to put the stats manually. If it can interest you thisi is the link to the mini website i created for the program. https://greatbattles.bss.design/ . If you scroll down to the bottom you will find the libraries that if downloaded (not the aaDefault) and imported will let you see some characters from dnd. They are in my mother lengauge ITA since i haven't the english monsters manual
A normal initiative Battle on large scale can quickly becom a slog!
Instead try thinking in scenes (like a movie) Describe what is happening around the group, describe the scene with a conflict. Maybe the players spot an ambush on a ballista, describe it and say to the group "what do you do". Don't feel the constraints of movement, and instead run it like an action sequence (or a quicktime event from a video game), where they do something, roll a dice, an there is an outcome, there can be several of these sequences in a short amount of time. Then depending on the outcome, it affects the flow of the battle in one way or the other. The battle rages on around them, and though they may have a large impact on the battle, i see it more as, them having sway over key points in the battle, that can changes the flow of the fight.
I often do this in chase scenes as well. Pretty much in all those places, where you could imagine movie sceenes. :D
If the player actions can potentially have significant impact on the battle (e.g. they had opportunities to recruit mercenaries, bring in a high powered wizard, slay the dragon before the battle etc) then it's going to be rewarding to the players if those impacts help decide the outcome. If your battle involves a large number of creatures (hundreds or thousands) then roll for them before the game takes place if you want to randomise it. But it's probably best to create them as Swarm monsters (e.g. Human Spearman Regiment Swarm, Goblin Archer Swarm), have them fight, and then work out how many survivors are left based on proportionate remaining hp.
If they didn't have any impact (e.g. you just plonk them down in the middle of it), then just decide what the outcome is ahead of time.
A halfway house is that you set certain key battle objectives that the players have to achieve during the battle, set up as a series of small encounters. If they kill the orc warlord, destroy a siege tower and prevent the goblins tunnelling under the walls, then they win the battle, if not they lose.
While running Dragon of Icespire Peak, I had to run a battle where the players and townfolk of Phandalin had to defend the town against invading orcs. It was like two dozen able-bodied townfolk and the players vs 3 dozen orcs and half-orc shapeshifters in multiple varieties (melee, ranged, casters... we were fairly off-book). Not a "large scale" battle in the sense of clashing armies and cavalry and more of a "raid," but large scale in comparison to what D&D usually is. It worked out pretty well by keeping to the following:
1. I kept things cinematic and ran the session as though the battle was just as much roleplay as it was combat. The events within the battle were more important than the actual fighting (in my game, the dragon Cryovain and Gorthok the boar-god engaged in battle in the same location, so players also had to make environmental checks and saves as the rampaging monsters destroyed much of Phandalin and killed many enemies and friendlies alike as they fought; you could easily apply this to warfare). You don't have to treat the battle like a straight tactical numbers game; you can instead portray it as an obstacle to be surmounted via a combination of combat, checks, and roleplay.
2. I "mooked down" most of the enemies and friendly NPCs by reducing their HP. (In a truly large-scale battle you could have a standard enemy represent a cluster, and each hit point they lose could be a single soldier that died.) A lot of them went down in one shot, but the commanders did not.
3. Players rolled initiative for each small encounter (i.e. only for enemies in their vicinity; it was assumed that there was fighting going on elsewhere in the town and they could join those if they wished to or stumbled into them, but I limited the scope to the enemies they could actually see in their immediate vicinity). You'd think this would have slowed things down, but surprisingly it didn't due to the aforementioned mooking.
If you think about war in terms of what it would feel like for your players to be a single footsoldier or commander of a small squad, you'll see that running bigger battles isn't so much different than running any other encounter. You can use existing concepts like cover, environmental hazards, etc. to mimic tactical warfare.
Just some thoughts/options I thought I'd share. I find that simple is better most of the time with D&D.
Many great ideas and good suggestions. Give them tasks, either combat or skilled. I get the overall DnD and big battle scenes are needed sometimes in the campaign. LOTR and Hobbit movies for example. Talk to your group, ask them how they want to handle it, do they want to be involved. Do you want some control of this war. They maybe interested and then ask well how can we do it? You guys will come up with great ways to accomplish it. Or if it is not their cup of tea, you will know how to proceed. Good luck.
1) the PCs should be the squad, not them leading 4 different ones
2) the cleaving through creatures and handling mobs rules in the DMG might be helpful
3) take these and turn them into times eg. if the 5 archers attack a ogre, it takes three rounds to kill it
4) if the PCs are fighting a mob by themselves, only so many creatures can attack them at once. Have more monsters rush in to fill the gaps.
hope this helps!
Pronouns: he/him/his.
My posting scheduled is irregular: sometimes I can post twice a week, sometimes twice a day. I may also respond to quick questions, but ignore harder responses in favor of time.
My location is where my character for my home game is (we're doing the wild beyond the witchlight).
"The Doomvault... Probably full of unicorns and rainbows." -An imaginary quote
Legend of the 5 rings 1st edition had an interesting mechanic for large scale battles. It would be split into 2 aspects.
1) The players taking the role of a small raiding party with a specific task in the middle of the battle, take out the trebuchet, attack the fortification, defend a portion of the wall. How the players performed would be key to the ultimate outcome of the battle.
2) The characters acted as generals or key commanders making a series of tactical rolls determining the overall battle. This was very dry and relied on a number of rolls against I think Battle Mastery agains the enemy commander to determine who had the best tactics.
I have run both systems in DnD, the second is the easiest but the less satisfactory for players, the 1st allows for some great cinematic moments but requires some really good planning and organisation to keep them focussed. I have used a combination, so a targetted action the players complete as an encounter, then some more general description with rolls for the 2 sides to determine the swing of combat (with advantages given id the players achieved the task) then move the story back to the players as they deal with the next challenge.
I am facing this same challenge. Here is my (tentative) solution.
The players will be running into the fray, late to battle due to having been on adventure. As they approach they will see the local sheriff trying to organize the town's defense against a major orc raid. They are warriors, so they will be able to assess the situation and see three points of battle that will be critical. First, the left flank must hold in order to drive the orcs to the center. Once the left flank is secure, the next danger point is the Armory, coming under attack before the town folk can fully arm themselves. Finally, the players can see the right flank tower, which also must hold in order to keep the orcs in the center kill zone, where archers and Molotov cocktails can shape the battle in favor of the town.
So, the PC battle will be is three sections. At the left flank, the players will use the defensive materials (wooden spikes, a single fire strip, and a few scared town folk) to defeat two waves of orcs. If the orcs are prevented from gettng through the defenses, a victory will be had. At the armory, players will need athletic and/or acrobatic checks to gain access to the roofs of local buildings to set up a local kill zone in front of the armory. Buildings shape the battlefield, and one towns person per round will emerge from the armory ready to join the fight. If orcs are prevented from reahcing the armory, victory will be had. Again, two orc waves. With the armory secured, the players will move toward the right flank tower. There, they will face an initial wave of orcs, and then the boss fight as orc commanders come forward to settle things. This battle field has the tower with a 150HP defensive door. As long as orcs do not gain access to the tower, the tower will contribute two heavy crossbow bolts per round. If the door gives way, the crossbows will be disabled and the right flank will fall. If it holds, a victory will be had. So, three microcosms that reflects the greater battle, each microcosm giving the players a pivotal role in the battle.
When the battle is over, the conclusion depends upon the characters' level of success at the three stages. Three victories means a strategic victory. The town is miraculously saved by the heroes. All good things proceed from their victory. Two victories means a tactical victory. The town is thankful, but there will be a cost. Perhaps an NPC the players have a relationship with will die, and some specific benefit of the town will temporarily be cut off. A single victory means a draw. The town survives, but has received so much damage and carnage that a few NPCs are lost and much of the benefit of the town (inn, safe rest, market, etc.) will be out of commission for an extended time. No victories means, well, you can imagine.
This is absolute genius just tried it with my party and they loved it. Thanks for all the tips